Runaway Girl Page 4

  ‘No, no. You did the right thing,’ Dr Joe said as he rolled his sleeves down and pulled his jacket back on. ‘I’m inclined to think it’s a viral infection, so I won’t prescribe anything just yet – not without taking a proper look at her – but I agree with you; it might be worth you looking into some sort of counselling service – preferably one with a translator. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking but I wonder if her reaction to me could be a sign of some kind of abuse?’ He frowned. ‘I mean, if she’s a runaway and has been sleeping rough … Well, it’s not exactly unlikely, after all.’

  I told him I’d been thinking exactly the same thing and that I was going to speak to John Fulshaw as soon as I’d logged his visit. ‘And in the meantime,’ I asked, ‘should I give her anything at all? You know, for her temperature or anything?’

  ‘Just paracetamol if she appears to need it, and obviously keep her well hydrated, but, seriously, if she’s no better by Monday, do give me another call and we’ll see what we can conjure. And, as I say, call the out-of-hours service over the weekend if you’re concerned. It’s always better to be over-cautious when there’s a language barrier. She might not know the words to tell us what’s wrong, mightn’t she?’

  And more to the point, I thought – but didn’t say, since the doctor had a busy afternoon ahead of him – didn’t seem to want to find the words to do so either, which struck me as the oddest thing of all.

  I went straight back upstairs as soon as the doctor had left, to find Adrianna where we’d left her, curled up under the duvet, seemingly unwilling to ever relinquish it again. Was that her plan? To just stay there till someone commanded her to go elsewhere? What was going on in this enigmatic teenage girl’s head?

  ‘Przepraszam,’ she said quietly. ‘Casey, I am sorry.’

  I didn’t need the translation. I knew what przepraszam meant because Tyler had already told me (though it sounded like a spell off Harry Potter). It was one of the words on the list he had painstakingly written out for me. A list of words and phrases, I noted, that he had also copied for Adrianna in reverse, but which, these few instances of courtesy aside, she seemed to have little interest in studying. She had little interest in improving her English at all, it seemed. Why? Since she didn’t seem to want to go home, why wouldn’t she?

  I experienced a moment of frustration. This was surely one of the ways in which she (and immigrants generally) could only strengthen her position. I knew what people could be like. You saw it everywhere. It genuinely irritated people when immigrants appeared not to want to integrate; a point of view with which I had sympathy.

  But this poor child – for child she was – obviously had a great deal more going on in that head of hers than we knew, and now was probably not the moment to start grilling her about her lack of vocabulary. She’d been with us less than a week. She was scared and traumatised, and also suffering from a probable virus. So what harm was there in her sleeping the days away till she was well enough to see past that? At least the doctor had been, and his reassurance had done its job and reassured me.

  ‘It’s okay, love,’ I told her, patting her. ‘I just don’t understand, that’s all.’ I smiled. ‘But you don’t understand me either, do you? So there’s not much point in me rattling on at you, is there? You get some sleep now.’ I mimicked the praying movement the doctor had made earlier, then pointed floorwards. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’

  And, in the meantime, I would go down and log the doctor’s visit. And perhaps call John Fulshaw to see how he felt we should best proceed. Because, for all that this was seemingly a clear, temporary brief (and to which my usual ‘Yes I can’ response still felt like the right one), something was beginning to make me think there’d be complications down the line. In short, my fostering antennae were now twitching.

  And they continued to do so as I sat at the dining table typing on my laptop, coffee at my side, pondering the question of quite what to do next. I could hardly get online and teach myself Polish in a couple of hours, just as surely as I couldn’t teach Adrianna English – even should she express any enthusiasm for learning it. Not that I should get ahead of myself; the answer to the question might equally be ‘nothing’, as John might call any day to announce she was leaving, having found a suitable foster family for her long-term. Or, less likely, but still one of a range of possibilities, a friendly relative who’d popped out of the woodwork and come to take her home.

  In the meantime we could only keep on doing what we were doing, and – in my case, because it was my antennae that were twitching – be alert to anything that might shed more light on our secretive girl’s situation.

  I was just committing that thought to the keyboard when I heard the front door, closely followed by a shouted ‘Cooooeee! Get the kettle on, sis!’

  I smiled and lowered the screen on the laptop. We’d had one of those huge budget supermarkets open at the end of our road the previous year – a circumstance that had caused quite a lot of disgruntlement among the neighbours, for fear of parking issues, littering and a general ‘lowering of the tone’, as if we were some posh middle-class suburb, which we weren’t. Even so, there was the usual snobbish annoyance at the council for letting them do it, something which, not being as perfect as we liked to believe, myself and Mike – ahem – were a part.

  It didn’t take long, though, to realise how silly we’d been. For starters, we soon realised we were saving a fortune, and, better still, it meant I saw more of my sister.

  Donna ran a café in town – had done for a few years now. And a very good café it was too. She’d called it Truly Scrumptious, and the fare she served obviously was, because it was heaving pretty much every day of the week. And with the new branch of the budget supermarket being so close to us, she could grab a cab there – she didn’t drive – and stock up on super-cheap tea, coffee and sugar, and then drop in for a coffee and a natter with me and, sometimes, a lift back as well.

  I got up to find her in the hall, plonking down a load of straining carrier bags. ‘Only a quick one,’ she clarified. ‘I’ve just got half an hour. Carol’s in on her own, and I’ve dragged Chloe in to help, so I’d better be quick.’

  Carol was the stalwart who’d worked for Donna almost since the outset, and Chloe was my 18-year-old niece. She was in the sixth form, and, in theory, was only supposed to work on Saturdays, but if it was a day when she didn’t have any lessons, and the café was busy, Donna would often let her come in and earn a bit of extra pocket money.

  ‘So. Where is she?’ Donna asked without preamble. My sister didn’t foster, but she always took an interest. So much so that I hadn’t ruled out the possibility that, if the café ever became too much or too samey, that at some point she too might take the plunge.

  I indicated with my eyes as I poured us both a coffee. ‘Upstairs in bed. She’s not well. So there’s not much to report. She’s barely been downstairs since she came here.’

  ‘But she’s a teenager, isn’t she?’ Donna said. ‘So that’s just typical. Teenagers like hiding away in their bedrooms. I wouldn’t worry – you hardly ever see them at that age.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s it in this instance,’ I said. ‘She’s not right. She’s not right and she’s ill too.’

  I told Donna about the doctor’s visit and Adrianna’s extreme, and unexpected, reaction to it. She laughed. She used the same surgery that we did. ‘Dr Joe? Well, he’d get quite the opposite reaction from me. Though, to be fair, she is 14. You know what girls are like at that age. Some strange man comes in, starts wanting to prod her around – and a foreigner, to boot … Seriously, what’s the story with her? I’m completely intrigued. I didn’t realise you could even foster foreign nationals. Stuff you hear about them being taken to detention centres and all that.’

  I laughed. ‘Hardly – she’s from Poland. So she’s allowed to be here anyway. Well, would be, if she was here legally. Which we’re not sure she is. She says she doesn’t even have a passport. But, to b
e honest, we know almost nothing else about her. We’ve barely exchanged half a dozen sentences the entire time she’s been with us, and, as I say, her English is almost non-existent. And not likely to improve, either – she seems frightened of everybody and everything, wouldn’t answer any of the interpreter’s questions, wouldn’t let Tyler bring his Polish friend home for tea, and, well, as I say, just seems to want to stay in bed, pretty much. Right now I don’t know whether she’s properly sick, or homesick, or just plain exhausted. And there doesn’t seem a lot I can do about any of it at present either. Which is a pretty odd place for me to be.’ I glanced across at my fridge freezer. ‘Sounds mad, but I’m missing my chart!’

  Donna grinned. Then said thoughtfully, ‘It’s probably a combination of all of those things, isn’t it? And it’s only been a few days, after all. You can’t expect to know everything about everything after such a short time. Even you.’

  ‘That’s what Mike thinks,’ I said. ‘But you know when you just have that inkling about someone? Well, I’ve got that. Increasingly, that’s what I’ve got.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as despite what she told John, I reckon there’s something bad, as in possibly actionable, that she’s run away from. And not back in Poland, either. I reckon there’s more. Something criminal. Something serious.’ I tapped the table top. ‘Something that’s happened here. Maybe she’s witnessed something. Some crime or something. You know?’

  Donna drained her mug. ‘You watch too many bloody Scandinavian murder mysteries, you do. Anyway, speaking of criminal, can you whistle up one of those over-priced taxis for me? I’m assuming a lift home’s probably not on the cards.’

  ‘Poland’s not in Scandinavia,’ I pointed out. ‘And, no, sorry, sis – you know I would but I don’t like to leave her. I just have this suspicion –’

  ‘Go on, tell me. That there might be bogeymen lurking behind Lidl, and that things are not entirely az zey seeeem?’

  At which I laughed, because I knew my imagination could get the better of me. But that, or a version of it – that Adrianna was running scared – was almost exactly what I did think.

  Chapter 4

  Thankfully, over the weekend Adrianna’s temperature went down and by Sunday she had ventured downstairs to join the family, clad in a hoodie and old trackie bottoms of Riley’s. She’d also asked – with much gesturing and helpful bits of mime – if she could borrow some washing powder so she could launder her clothes.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘Let me have them and I’ll put them through the machine for you.’ But several visits to Google Translate and gentle argument later, I had to concede that she was not going to let me do that under any circumstances – that we had already done enough for her and she did not wish to be a burden. I didn’t push it. Perhaps, I decided, thinking back to when I was 14, I would have baulked at a complete stranger washing my clothes as well.

  There was also the business of her being independent. Having travelled so far, and taken care of herself for so long, she probably had a great deal of adjusting to do before she could truly settle into family life. I’d seen similar scenarios in children as young as seven or eight, particularly if they’d spent time in the care system. To strip them of their independence and privacy was to disable them even further – at least in the short term, when everything in their lives felt so out of their control. These were things that at least they could control.

  Softly, softly then. I relinquished the washing gel and fabric conditioner. She did her clothes washing on Sunday morning, in the bath.

  Happily, Adrianna’s reticence didn’t seem to extend to food, extreme hunger being a very powerful human state. And, boy, once she felt better and had a bit of colour in her cheeks, did she have an appetite. She sat down to Sunday lunch with an expression for which ‘ravenous’ was the only description.

  ‘More potatoes?’ I asked, grinning, having watching her devour all of hers within seconds.

  She nodded, smiling at Tyler, who seemed mesmerised by the transformation. ‘This good,’ she said, accepting another scoopful. ‘Your mammy make good food.’

  Tyler blushed. And I knew it wasn’t just because he was at the sharp end of her smile. He’d started calling us mum and dad a long time ago now, but there were still these little moments, when someone else referred to us as ‘his mum and dad’ when I knew it still had the power to bring him up short. Hard to explain, but entirely in a good way. It was almost as if he’d have to check with us – he glanced at me now – to be sure we didn’t feel the need to explain that, actually, we weren’t his real mum and dad. It was almost, though I didn’t think it was even a conscious thing, as if he was testing us. That in all situations and with all people from here on in, mum and dad was what we were going to be. No qualifications. It truly mattered – it was a way of reconfirming his sense of security. It mattered to him – and in a whole host of different situations now – that we’d never felt the need to point it out. I could have hugged him.

  ‘Well, I’m glad someone appreciates my cooking,’ I said, laughing as I followed up with the dish of other vegetables. ‘Thank you, Adrianna, I’m happy you like it.’

  ‘I like it,’ Adrianna repeated, nodding. ‘Dziekuje di bardzo.’

  ‘That means thank you very much,’ Tyler added, beaming.

  Amazing how the small things so often are the big things, isn’t it? A quiet family Sunday. Clean clothes. A good meal. Conversation. Laughter. All the basic needs met. And the change in Adrianna was profound.

  I’d called Riley – still on a clothes mission, because my own stuff wouldn’t fit our new visitor’s slim frame – and wondered, when she said she’d pop round with all the grandkids that afternoon, if it might just be a little too much, too soon, for Adrianna. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Though she was naturally a little shy with my extrovert daughter, she seemed to surf the wave of mayhem well. Almost painfully polite, and unfailingly well-mannered, she seemed perfectly at ease in a living room full of talkative people, where many 14-year-olds – it’s such a gauche, self-conscious age – would have immediately scuttled to their rooms. What an enigma she was proving to be.

  Particularly for Marley Mae, who, at almost three and, on home turf, was in her element. And wasted no time in monopolising Adrianna, either. Within 20 minutes of their arrival, she was already on her lap, completely mesmerised by her ‘pretty princess’ hair.

  ‘She has a lot of Disney Princess dolls,’ Riley told Adrianna, immediately taking my unspoken lead, and speaking in normal English, albeit slowly. ‘Not sure which one she thinks you look like, but you have clearly struck a chord with her …’

  ‘Disney,’ said Adrianna, nodding. ‘I know Disney.’

  ‘Princess!’ Marley Mae cooed. ‘Pretty, pretty princess!’

  Adrianna, in response, touched Marley Mae’s hair – which was the usual muddle of dark, unkempt curls. She took to having her hair brushed and combed like a cat does to a dunking, i.e. not at all well.

  ‘Princess too,’ she told my granddaughter, laughing and kissing her head. ‘You too. Disney Princess, named Mar-lee.’

  Call me soppy – and you’d be right – but watching this small exchange, I felt a rush of emotion. It might be daft and unscientific, but my instinct has always been that anyone who displays such natural affection for a young, unrelated child must have a core of goodness in them. Easy to mock – and, of course, tragically, there are unhealthy variants of this scenario – but whatever else was true, I trusted my instinct in this. Our young Polish visitor was being fleshed out as a person before our eyes, and I was increasingly confounded by what I was seeing; this lovely young girl, seemingly all alone in the world, and interacting with Marley Mae with such natural affection. It made me feel sad to think that she must be craving attention of her own and had no one familiar around to give it to her. Or perhaps I was wrong – perhaps attention was exactly what Adrianna didn’t need. Perhaps she was escaping something very bad and being
with us was a means of avoiding whatever that something was.

  ‘But you know what?’ I said to John Fulshaw, when I called him first thing Monday morning. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in the interpreter coming back just yet. Unless there’s some protocol that requires you to get chapter and verse as a matter of urgency, I think we’re better off letting her settle in a little more first.’

  This wasn’t just because my instinct was to first build on the success of our initial weekend together, and give Adrianna a chance to regain some equilibrium. It was also because she already had a keen interpreter in Tyler. And a much more amiable and pleasant one than had been provided by the council, for sure. Yes, this did mean she had learned his version of a number of words usually defined slightly differently, such as ‘bad’ and ‘wicked’, not to mention a couple of non-words, such as ‘reem’. But that was fine – as a teenager, she’d need to familiarise herself with ‘yoof’ speak, even if it did mean she pronounced her Sunday-night toasted sandwich ‘standard’, requiring our in-house interpreter to intervene.

  ‘I was thinking much the same,’ John said. ‘I’m not sure Adrianna and Mr Kanski really hit it off, did they?’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t the most likeable of men, was he? I got a strong sense that he was doing us some massive favour just by turning up. I don’t know … I just didn’t warm to him. Or his comment as he left, come to that. Of course she isn’t telling us the truth! She’s terrified of something, clearly, and grumpy old sods like him won’t help tease her story out, will they?’

  John laughed. ‘Really? I’d never have guessed,’ he said drolly. ‘But that’s fine. And actually, Casey, I’m inclined to agree with you about him. Oh, and I’m also going to hold off getting her a social worker for the moment, if it’s all the same to you. It seems pointless to allocate her someone who can’t understand a word she’s saying, and I’ve a hunch I can put some feelers out and see if I can “buy” someone in from another area. Someone who speaks Polish, of course. In the meantime, can you manage? It doesn’t sound like she’s proving too challenging, and you never know – by this time next week, we might be moving her along anyway, mightn’t we?’