The Little Princess Read online

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Tyler said, picking up his last half-slice of toast. ‘But you know, Mum, I am old enough to know this stuff, you know.’

  ‘So you are,’ I said. ‘And ugly enough, too,’ I teased. ‘Seriously, I know that. Not just right now, though, eh, Ty? We barely know anything ourselves.’

  Which seemed to satisfy him. And would give me time to decide on the edited version. You were never old enough – or ugly enough – to need to know this particular kind of ugliness.

  Once Mike and Tyler had left, I kept popping upstairs and listening stealthily at the bedroom door. I could see only the shape of Darby’s lower half from my vantage point, and didn’t want to disturb her because I was keen that she wake up naturally. Which she did eventually, having slept a solid thirteen hours.

  While I was waiting I used the time productively, going through the piles of children’s clothes I kept in the wardrobe in the other spare bedroom – the one I didn’t use for foster kids on account of the wardrobe being the kind that, in a happy kid, would conjure dreams of trips through a forest of coats to Narnia and, in an unhappy one, just your bog standard nightmares. It was a family heirloom, however, so there was no question of getting rid of it, and it did sterling service as a repository for all my fostering essentials – clothing and bedding, plus all kinds of toys and games that I’d picked up from various charity shops down the years.

  I pulled out a selection of items to which clung familiar memories – of Olivia, one of the siblings who’d been in such similar straits. I wondered how she was now and tried to calculate her precise age. Tried to picture the beautiful young woman she’d soon become. Physically perfect, yes, but how badly scarred? Would she ever be able to form normal relationships? I tried to console myself that her youth when she’d been abused was always on her side. More so, I remembered grimly, than her elder brother, Ashton. What scars – and proclivities – would he carry through his adult life? The saying the abused often becomes the abuser came to mind, and I shook it away as I shook out the little outfits.

  I didn’t want to think such things. There was no benefit in doing so. What I had to do with Darby was live entirely in the moment. Take care of her needs to the best of my ability, and leave the professionals to chew over The Bigger Picture.

  I picked up my selection and made my way back across the landing, and seeing the shape in the bed had moved, pushed the door gently open with the pile of clothes in my arms.

  Darby was sitting up in bed, knees to chest, the butterfly duvet cover pulled up to her chin, and she visibly flinched when she saw me.

  She’d been crying again, and continued to as I put the clothing down on the chest of drawers and went to her.

  ‘I want my mummy,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to go home to my mummy and daddy.’

  I sat on the edge of the bed and stretched out a hand to comfort her. She pulled her hand away. ‘Darby, I’m sorry, baby, but, like I said last night, you need to stay with me and Mike for a little while. Do you remember?’

  ‘But I want to go home!’ she sobbed. ‘Why can’t I go home?’

  ‘Because you can’t, sweetie, not right now. And I’m very, very sorry. I know how scared you must be. And how strange this will all seem. But nothing bad is going to happen here, I promise you. Come on, sweetie,’ I said, taking hold of her hand more firmly. ‘Let’s go downstairs to watch some cartoons and have some breakfast. How about that? I have banana or chocolate milk. Do you like either of those?’

  She didn’t answer the question, but at least she didn’t try to fight me as I gently pulled the duvet back so she could get out of bed.

  Her T-shirt had ridden up and I noticed that her tiny, elasticated-waist jeans had left a deep red weal around her waist. I really needed to get her into the bath as soon as I could and into some fresh clothes. But not until I’d fed her. She’d eaten hardly anything the previous evening, and I knew a full belly would be at least a little of the battle won.

  And she clearly was hungry, especially when I told her she could have anything she wanted. ‘Well, as long as it’s not toenails of toast,’ I had quipped, ‘because I’m all out of those,’ which at least elicited a wan smile.

  So, chocolate milk and jam sandwiches it was – apparently her favourite – and while she got stuck in I chattered on about the family – about my own children and their partners and my gaggle of lovely grandchildren, all of whom I promised her she’d get to meet and play with over the coming days. Being an only child, and given the depravities that went on in her own home, I had a hunch she’d be sorely lacking in normal play dates.

  ‘In fact,’ I told her, ‘I thought I’d have Riley bring the children over today. So you can have someone to play with. Would you like that?’

  She nodded, seeming ever so slightly cheered up by the news. A temporary respite from the fear and bewilderment, at least. Which would still be there – how could it not? – but at least she’d be distracted. ‘So,’ I said, ‘after breakfast, we’ll run a nice bath for you, shall we? With lots of bubbles and ducks and mermaids, and then we’ll get you dried and dressed. I’ve found some lovely outfits for you to choose from –’

  ‘But not high heels and lipstick,’ she said, pouting now a little.

  ‘No, sweetie, of course not. Not high heels and lipstick. Just nice little girls’ clothes. I think I have a princess jumper – would you like to wear that? It has Rapunzel on the front, and someone else on the back, and I’ve got some lovely pink leggings to go with it. They’ll just fit you.’

  ‘But not high heels and lipstick,’ she said again. It wasn’t a question. ‘I don’t want no high heels and lipstick today.’

  Since Riley was climbing the metaphorical walls just as much as I was plumbing the metaphorical depths, she was only too happy to bring the kids over to play, seeing it as something of an unexpected bonus.

  ‘How’s she been anyway?’ she asked, when she arrived and had disgorged her small three-person wrecking crew into my festive front room.

  ‘Up and down,’ I said, ‘as you’d expect, but mostly up for the moment. Forgetting everything else – which I am trying extremely hard to do – I think she must have led a pretty lonely life. So this is a blessing for both of us, even if it does mean my to-do list will have to go hang.’

  And, as I so often did, having adult sensibilities, I watched them all shouting and laughing and pulling out the dressing-up clothes, and found myself marvelling at just how quickly Darby was assimilated into the crew; not to mention happily taking Leo’s orders. ‘You’d never even know, would you?’ I mused to Riley, as Darby, in her turn, began organising Marley Mae’s toy buggy for her. And you really wouldn’t. She seemed a world away from the distress of having been dumped with strangers. Children, particularly young ones, really were astonishingly adaptable, their ability to shut off parts of their brain and compartmentalise never failing to impress me.

  Perhaps the placement wouldn’t turn out to be as traumatic as I’d predicted. Perhaps Darby would be resigned, in the short term, distracted by the children, and we’d manage to do all we could under the circumstances – give her a peaceful and as-happy-as-it-could-be kind of Christmas, and see what was what in the New Year. We were due to return to full-time fostering then, after all.

  Which just goes to show that, when the situation seems to need it, adults are good at compartmentalising as well.

  Chapter 5

  The next day, to my undying gratitude, Riley brought the grandchildren over again and babysat Darby for a couple of hours, so that Mike and I could dash into town and get the poor girl some presents.

  Darby had come with nothing, of course, but that wasn’t to say that some familiar things couldn’t be collected for her. So I’d called Katy and double-checked, and she’d even managed to get a message through to Darby’s parents on remand. And it turned out that they’d not done their Christmas shopping yet (no surprise there), so, no, there were no presents to be collected. And no, we couldn’t have access
to the house, because it was a crime scene – so that was pretty much that.

  It felt weird, that; discussing such normal family matters with Katy, about a pair of parents who’d used their own child as a tiny porn star – the toast of the most depraved websites.

  I pushed the thought away. My focus was on Darby and Christmas and the business of making sure she had a sackful of presents to open on Christmas morning – an emergency payment was now winging its way into my bank account, and I intended to use most of it on the purchase of things she could unwrap and play with and be distracted by.

  This was no wanton extravagance on my part. The grandchildren invariably spent Christmas Day at ours, which was wonderful, and our tradition was for them to open most of their presents once the whole family were assembled. To bring Darby into that mix, with just a very modest number of presents, would only add to her sense of abandonment and distress.

  We’d had the odd child, of course, for whom Christmas had to be a non-day, so raw were the memories and the pain, but in Darby we had a child who would appear to gain a great deal emotionally from being in the bosom of a family – of being wrapped in the security blanket of family rituals and love.

  I therefore shopped speedily and well. And by the time Mike and I returned we were weighed down with riches; a baby doll, a little pram (she had been very covetous of Marley Mae’s buggy the previous day), a selection of doll’s clothes, a couple of new outfits for Darby herself, some books, a big jigsaw and, of course, the obligatory chocolate selection box. I was quite sure we’d spent a lot more than would be going into my account the following week, but it would be worth it, I knew, to see her face.

  We opted to leave it all in the car, planning to bring it in and wrap it once she was in bed, and headed up the path, gasping for coffee.

  ‘That’s odd,’ Mike observed as he singled out his door key on the car fob. ‘Very quiet in there, don’t you think?’

  I listened. It was. And the quiet was even more obvious when Mike slipped the key in the door and swung it open. ‘That’s some magic touch,’ he observed as he slung the keys down and shrugged his coat off.

  ‘Either that,’ I said, ‘or she’s got them playing sleeping logs.’

  It was neither. They were quiet because they were stuffing their faces with popcorn, watching another Christmas movie (Elf this time – just a glance and I could identify them all).

  Riley herself was sitting at the dining table flicking through a Christmas gift guide. She looked up then, and I noticed a strange expression on her face.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I asked her, as Mike and I went through the living room and into the dining room. ‘I see you’ve got them all settled down. And if that’s not a Christmas miracle, I don’t know what is!’

  Taking off my cardigan, I then noticed Levi glancing strangely at his mother. Riley gestured to the folding doors that we hardly ever used, but which could divide the dining and living areas into two proper rooms.

  ‘Come in here,’ she said quietly. ‘And close the doors for a minute.’

  I did so, a sinking feeling appearing from somewhere in the pit of my stomach. We both sat down. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, half not wanting to know.

  Riley glanced at both of us in turn. ‘I don’t even know where to start,’ she said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘What’s happened, love?’ Mike asked her. ‘Just spit it out. Bloody hell, we’ve only been gone an hour. How bad can it be?’

  Nearer two, I thought distractedly. But that was of no consequence. Riley shook her head. ‘Bad, Dad, believe me.’

  I’m not usually one for regrets in life generally, and, by and large, the same applies to fostering. But sometimes, and thankfully these times have been few, I get this big whump of guilt about the choices Mike and I make, and how it might impact on our children and grandchildren. This was one such time. A moment when I wished I’d chosen differently. Said no. Because the last thing I wanted – in line with every parent everywhere – was to have my cherished grandchildren’s Christmas memories tainted. I wanted a Christmas without drama, or trauma, or sadness. I wanted not to have that evil eddying around in my house.

  But it seemed it was.

  ‘Levi and Jackson wanted to play in the garden,’ Riley told us. ‘So I made them put their coats on, gave them the football and let them out the back. And I am so glad I did. Which left Darby and Marley, with the toy box emptied out, and as they had no interest in playing out, I was happy to leave them to it while I went and rustled up some hot dogs for lunch.

  ‘Next thing I know, Darby’s come into the kitchen, asking if they could have some chocolate spread. Course, I thought nothing of it – I just said no, and that they’d be having their lunch soon, so, after a bit of a pout, off she trotted. And that was that. Or so I thought.’

  I felt the sinking feeling resolve itself into a cold, solid lump. We had elected to tell Riley so much, but only so much. Much less that we knew or ever wished to know.

  ‘And?’ Mike said.

  ‘Go on, love,’ I added. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, it was awful,’ Riley went on. ‘It was vile. I didn’t hear anything for a bit, but then I heard Marley raising her voice – and sounding a bit weird, you know? So I went in to investigate. And there she was, standing in the middle of the living room with her leggings round her ankles and her hands in her pants.’ She lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. ‘And she’s thrusting her pelvis forward and there’s Darby, showing her how to do it, saying, “That’s it, pretend you’re licking chocolate spread off your twinkle and go ‘mmm’,” and all kinds of disgusting shit like that. Christ only knows what I’d have found if I’d given her the bloody Cadbury’s jar.’

  It wasn’t often that my daughter swore – it wasn’t her style. And not often that my husband’s face turned so pale. ‘You have got to be joking,’ Mike said, knowing she was doing no such thing. ‘No way, Riley!’ He turned to me. ‘Casey, we can’t have this, we can’t. Not with the kids.’

  I was still taking it in. ‘What did you do?’ I asked Riley.

  ‘I just picked Marley up, and told Darby that she wasn’t to play games like that. Which, of course, made no sense to her at all. She was just playing “growd ups” – no, sorry – playing for the “growd ups”.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Just what kind of terrible things did her parents do to her? I’m in shock, Mum. No, really. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Licking chocolate spread off her crotch? Jesus! Thank God the boys weren’t there, that’s all. I don’t know how I’d have even begun to explain it to them.’

  I felt awful. ‘Is Marley okay?’ I asked. ‘Did she say anything?’

  Riley shook her head, almost irritably. ‘No, she’s fine, Mum. Of course she is. She was fine right away. I just told her it was a stupid game and that little girls shouldn’t play it. And to be honest she seems to have forgotten all about it. As does your little mada –’ She checked herself. ‘As does Darby. But, Christ, Mum. What were they thinking, sending a child like that into a family?’

  And I knew Riley had a point. And I could see Mike agreed, which didn’t surprise me one bit. ‘You need to phone John,’ he said, his jaw set.

  ‘I will,’ I said, ‘but, you know, Darby won’t even know she’s done anything wrong, will she? It’s not like it’s her fault. She’s only acting out what she knows.’

  ‘I’m already aware of that,’ Mike snapped. And I understood his annoyance, too. We had been here before, sadly. More than once. No, there was no harm done. But there were limits to how much we should expect to have to deal with. Again, that sense of evil visiting us was strong in me. ‘Sorry, love,’ Mike said immediately. ‘But I’m afraid we’re not guinea pigs. Casey, abused children can’t just come here and carry on with our kids and grandchildren. It’s not right!’

  Mike had a very good point. As did Riley. None of this was Darby’s fault – she’d been abused so horrendously. She’d suffered so much, and not least because she didn’t
even appear to see it as suffering. An inconvenience sometimes, yes – her comment about not wanting to put on high heels and lipstick made that obvious. But she obviously did what she was told on that sleazy ‘film set’ – perhaps even derived some weird, non-sexual pleasure from her parents’ doubtless lavish attention and stage direction. And the worst of it was that she had no idea that what she did, and what they did to her, was depraved. That her parents, whom she loved, were so abusing her. For money. The term ‘ill-gotten gains’ never seemed so apt.

  So she was an innocent victim, clearly. But Mike was right, too. Perhaps we weren’t the best people for her to be around. In a situation like this, did we have the luxury of putting her needs first? I doubted it. We had to think of the well-being of our own family.

  You’re right,’ I said, my mind made up. ‘I will go and phone John and see if there is somewhere else she can go. Perhaps someone who doesn’t have any children.’

  But Riley surprised me, as she does sometimes. She immediately shook her head. ‘You can’t do that, Mum,’ she said. ‘Dad, she can’t. That would be too cruel. There was no harm done,’ she added, as my eyes widened in shock. ‘Marley is too young to have understood what was going on, and Darby didn’t know any different, did she? No, it would be too cruel to abandon her – especially so close to Christmas. We’ll just have to make sure we don’t leave any of the kids alone, won’t we?’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ Mike said, pushing his chair back and standing up. ‘Not for a moment,’ he said, going to unfold the partition doors. ‘It’s all right us knowing that she can’t help it,’ he added before he opened them. ‘But there’s no way our family should suffer for it. No way. And, Casey, you make sure you report it.’