Runaway Girl Page 6

  ‘To where it’s warmer,’ I heard Adrianna explain to Marley Mae as they threw bits of bread to the greedy web-footed hordes that ringed the boating lake. ‘This is why they come to Britain.’

  ‘Like you!’ Marley Mae enthused.

  ‘Like me. From far, far away. From the cold.’

  ‘Cold,’ Marley Mae parroted, stamping her feet in her little welly boots and going ‘brrrr’.

  Adrianna looked across the boating lake. Wistfully, I wondered? ‘Very cold where I come from,’ she said. ‘Much more cold than here. Freeze end of your nose,’ she added, touching the tip of Marley Mae’s.

  But where? Where in the north? I filed the exchange away.

  And it was through Marley Mae that we had another small breakthrough.

  An enthusiastic if not entirely graceful young dancer, Marley Mae enjoyed the privilege of being able to start early in Lauren’s once-a-week pre-schoolers dance class. It was for three- to five-year-olds really, and she wasn’t three till April, but in a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ sisterly kind of arrangement, Lauren said she’d take her – she was desperate to go – and, in return, Riley was happy to take Dee Dee off Lauren’s hands for a couple of hours a week so she could go shopping.

  Marley Mae couldn’t have been more excited. And, with her leotard and tutu having arrived when we got back to Lauren’s after our latest park visit, she naturally had to try it on then and there. She looked like a real little ballerina after Adrianna scooped up her curls and fashioned them into a perfect bun on top of her head.

  ‘Now you dance, Ad-i-annie!’ she commanded, once she’d helped her wriggle into her outfit. ‘We’ll do twirling and splits,’ she added helpfully. So it was that when Lauren returned from the kitchen, where she’d made us all drinks, it was to find the four of us – me and Dee Dee having been very much included – being taught a few basic ballet steps.

  Lauren clocked this immediately. ‘You can dance,’ she said to Adrianna as she put the tray down in a sensible, out-of-the-way-of-dancing-toddlers place.

  Adrianna blushed. ‘I know ballet,’ she said shyly.

  ‘So I see,’ Lauren said. ‘You’ve danced a lot?’

  A shadow seemed to cross Adrianna’s face. And, remembering my first impressions about her bearing, I made a mental note of that, too.

  She nodded. ‘I did dance classes. Long time,’ she admitted.

  ‘Well, there’s a turn-up,’ Lauren said. ‘And you know what,’ she added, glancing at me, ‘if Casey’s okay with it, I could always use an extra pair of hands in the studio. If you fancy it, that is.’

  Adrianna beamed. ‘I fancy,’ she said, nodding. Then she smiled down at Marley Mae, who was looking up to her adoringly. ‘I love to teach the baby ballerinas.’

  ‘Well, not so much baby ballerinas as baby elephants in tutus at the moment,’ Lauren laughingly corrected. ‘But I’m sure you’d enjoy it.’ She glanced at me again. ‘You could come along to tomorrow’s class, if you’d like.’

  Adrianna understood ‘tomorrow’. She was beginning to get a grasp of the basics.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. That would be sick.’

  ‘Flipping Tyler!’ Lauren and I said, together.

  If I was chuffed that Lauren had made the suggestion that Adrianna go down and help her out with the little ones that Friday afternoon, Adrianna herself was euphoric.

  Correction: appeared so. I didn’t know her in any way well enough to be completely sure of that, but when Lauren came to pick her up, having dropped Dee Dee off at her other grandmother’s (who usually looked after her while Lauren ran her classes), the spring in her step was unmistakable. And when she returned home she was like a bottle of pop.

  ‘Oh, Casey,’ she enthused, once she was back inside and shrugging off her leather jacket, ‘the tiny dancers were so beautiful. So graceful. Not like elephants. Like baby swans.’

  She looked almost radiant, and it really warmed my heart. I was beginning to see these glimmers of happiness more and more now and, wherever she had come from, and whatever she’d endured, I felt this real surge of hope that, unlike so many kids I came across, there might well be a bright future in front of her; a light at the end of her mysterious, dark tunnel.

  I made her hot chocolate. And as she seemed so light of heart and chatty, decided that this might be a good day to gently probe her. So I made myself one as well and sat down with her to drink it. Tyler was at his friend Denver’s and we were going to eat late. So there was no hurry to start preparing tea.

  I was particularly keen to know how and when she became the orphan she’d purported to be. She’d told both John and the interpreter that, and had refused to say more – something John assured me was actually quite a common lie they spun. That children, sent over by desperate parents, were told to deny the very existence of their mothers and fathers, in order that they wouldn’t be sent straight back home.

  I found this hard to fathom. Was anyone in Poland that desperate? It wasn’t as if it was a third-world country, full of starving refugees.

  It wasn’t as if Adrianna fitted the profile of a starving refugee, either. ‘So you have enjoyed helping with the dancing, then?’ I said, as we both blew steam from our mugs.

  She nodded. ‘I love to dance,’ she said. ‘Always.’

  Looking hard at my mug, I asked, ‘Was your mother a dancer, Adrianna?’

  I’d asked it as casually as I could. But perhaps not casually enough. Or too casually. She immediately looked wary.

  ‘My dead mother,’ she said slowly. ‘She was a dancer as child.’

  ‘And a good one?’

  She nodded. ‘She won compe – what is the word? Yes, competitions.’

  ‘And did she teach you to dance?’

  She glanced at me, assessing me. ‘A little,’ she said, nodding. ‘But mostly classes.’

  ‘Before she died?’ Another nod. ‘And afterwards?’

  There was a pause, which soon became an uncomfortable silence.

  In for a penny, I thought. ‘It must have been so terrible for you,’ I ventured. ‘How old were you when your parents died, sweetheart?’

  I had clearly overstepped the mark. ‘I hate to talk about this,’ she said, and her expression was apologetic. ‘I am sad to, and –’

  ‘Oh, sweetie, then I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘And we won’t. I just wonder if, well, it might help you to talk. That’s all.’

  ‘It makes me so sad,’ she said again.

  Nothing for it then. Not for the moment. ‘Enough then,’ I said firmly. ‘Now, tell me, d’you think we should see about getting you a leotard of your own?’

  She immediately brightened. And then shook her head, grinning. ‘No leotard for me. No. Only jogging pants. Definitely.’

  ‘No leotard for me, either,’ I said. ‘As in for the rest of my natural life.’

  Her brow creased and, to clarify, I grabbed the roll of flesh round my middle. ‘As in no way do I plan on exhibiting this to all and sundry! Though, with your figure …’ I stopped and smiled at her, aware that I was gabbling on pointlessly. ‘Anyway, enough of that, eh? So. When are you going next? To dance class,’ I added, aware she might not understand me.

  But she did. ‘Monday,’ she answered, draining her mug and getting up. ‘So can I go do laundry now, please?’

  I nodded, feeling stymied in my quest for more answers. She really did seem determined to keep her secrets locked away.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘But, really, as I keep telling you, there is no need. I do Tyler’s, don’t I? And it’s no problem at all to do yours.’

  She smiled at me. ‘I like to. I am independent Polish girl!’

  And, no question, that was exactly what she was. In fact, had it not been for the obvious barriers, I would have said that she was one of the most ‘together’ foster children we had ever cared for. Yes, it was still early days, but when you considered the circumstances of her coming into care, Adrianna did
n’t appear to have any obvious problems at all. Not behavioural, not emotional, not anything. Apart from when she’d been ill, not to mention scared in the beginning, she had been nothing but respectful and polite, as well as extremely helpful. Practically a model child, all told.

  And yet, and yet … my fostering radar was still bleeping at me. There was something. Some big thing. I just wished I knew what.

  ‘You and your flipping radar!’ Mike chided later that night, when my tossing and turning were keeping him awake too. ‘Can’t you just let things be? Just be happy that life is simple, for a change. Why waste your energy now looking for problems in the future? Odds-on one’ll be along soon enough.’

  ‘Exactly!’ I told him, as I grudgingly turned the light off.

  ‘Exactly what?’ he asked irritably.

  ‘One’ll be along soon enough. You know what they say,’ I added. ‘If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And so exactly. That’s exactly what I’m worried about!’

  His answer was unprintable.

  Chapter 6

  I was having one of my periodic big cleans when I heard my mobile tootling at me. A full-on ‘Casey-athon’, prompted by the bright late-February sunshine, the prettily nodding daffodils in the pots on my back patio and the fact that the stars had aligned in such a way that I had the house all to myself for a change. Not to mention no grandmotherly duties to perform. I had the CD player blaring too, and was adding to my workout by attempting to twerk as I scrubbed the conservatory floor, there being no risk of anyone seeing me.

  And it was a happy twerk, as it had proved to be a positive couple of weeks, during which Adrianna had really seemed to blossom. There was no doubt that Lauren’s interest in her had made a massive difference. And, though I definitely had no intention of going into politics, had you given me a soap box I’d have clambered upon it instantly to point out to the likes of some of my sister Donna’s former customers that humans are good in the vast majority of cases – good, and responsive to positive interventions, such as being given the chance to make some sort of contribution, and having their skills and propensity for work appreciated.

  I wasn’t a naïve, fanciful idiot and I knew politics were complex, but I really wanted to hold Adrianna up as a kind of poster girl, almost, to prove the power of trying to always see the best, rather than the worst, in our fellow Homo sapiens. Luckily for the world there were no soap boxes within reach.

  I was also tickled, and very touched, by Adrianna’s relationship with Tyler, whom I feared (because Adrianna was still likely to be but a temporary fixture) was as besotted by her as was Marley Mae.

  And to an extent that even Mike and I possibly hadn’t quite appreciated, evidenced by the fact that, only a couple of days previously, he’d returned from an after-school sortie to the shops and presented Adrianna with a gift.

  She’d looked stunned, slightly embarrassed and, very soon, extremely tearful, as she opened the bag, which contained a paperback book.

  ‘It’s Lord of the Flies,’ he’d explained as she ran her hand over the cover. ‘I know it’s not your birthday or anything,’ he clarified. ‘Well, not as far as we know, anyway. I just thought I’d give it to you as a way of saying sorry. For having made you learn all my silly words.’

  ‘Oh, Tyler,’ I couldn’t help but say, clapping my hands together happily. ‘What an incredibly thoughtful boy you are.’

  His blush, always threatening, now deepened perceptibly. ‘It’s one of the first proper books I ever read,’ he said to Adrianna, glancing briefly at me and Mike. ‘Casey gave it me,’ he explained. ‘D’you remember?’ he said to me. ‘Remember you trying to get me to read it when I first came? And I was, like, sorry, but I don’t read books? It’s still up in my bedroom,’ he added to Adrianna. ‘But I thought you’d want to have your own copy. To keep. It’s brilliant. You’ll like it. And it’ll help with your English, too.’

  Adrianna had been speechless. Had sobbed her thanks rather than said them. And had started reading the book right away.

  It was a while before the sound of my phone filtered through to me past the warbling of my disco classics compilation – ‘Rock the Boat’, currently – and it had stopped and restarted by the time I’d downed tools, stripped my Marigolds and remembered where the phone was. Which turned out not to be in my handbag over the banister, as I’d thought, but on its charger in the kitchen, having been forgotten in my handbag the previous evening and run out of juice. No wonder that my children so often despaired of me.

  ‘Ah, so you are there,’ came Lauren’s voice – for it was her name on the phone display. ‘It’s me.’ She sounded stressed. ‘Are you driving?’

  ‘No,’ I told her, immediately thinking of Dee Dee round at her other gran’s. ‘I’m at home. What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Adrianna. She’s collapsed. The paramedics are examining her now, and –’

  ‘Adrianna? Paramedics?’ I switched immediately into stressed mode myself. ‘God, what’s happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. They’re not sure. She just – well – she just keeled over. She’d been looking a bit green, saying she was feeling a little hot and couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and, well, she just kind of folded up while she was showing the girls some bar stuff. Honestly, she was lucky she was right by the pile of floor mats. It was just, like, “whump” – she went down like a ton of bricks.’

  ‘You mean fainted?’

  ‘That’s what we thought. But then we couldn’t bring her round. Which was frightening, to say the least.’

  ‘God, I’ll bet –’

  ‘Which was why I called the ambulance. They’ve just arrived.’

  ‘Oh, lord,’ I said, my mind whirring. Had she seemed ill earlier? No, she hadn’t. Pale, of course, but she seemed always to be, and we were used to that now. ‘So is she still out for the –’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Lauren reassured me quickly. ‘She’s conscious again now. But they want to take her to hospital to examine her properly. She’s not quite with it,’ Lauren explained. ‘I’m not sure she’s herself. She’s struggling to make herself understood by the paramedics, which makes it hard for them to assess her, and, what with the girls all going mental, and everything else –’

  ‘Oh, lord,’ I said again. ‘Poor you. So shall I come straight down there?’

  ‘No, I was thinking that probably wouldn’t work. I’m going to go in the ambulance with her, so … could you maybe drive down and meet us at the hospital?’

  ‘You sure? It won’t take me long to get to you. What about the girls?’ Some 15 of them – eight- to ten-year-olds, if I remembered rightly. A bit of a handful.

  ‘It’s okay. There’s no problem there. Debbie’s here today as well. She’ll stay here till all the girls are collected so I can go with Adrianna. Which I have to. Honestly, she’s in such a state, Casey … I can’t let her go in the ambulance on her own. Mind you, I’ve got to get back to collect Dee from my mum’s, because – oh, yes … hang on a tick, Casey …’

  Debbie was Lauren’s friend, who came sometimes and played the elderly piano. Thank goodness for that, at least, I thought. I wondered what on earth could be wrong with Adrianna. Since her initial virus she’d seemed fine, by and large. No, not perfect, but I’d begun to put that down to a general long-term lack of nourishment. If she’d been sleeping rough it was odds-on she’d been eating appallingly, and it would take time for her body to build itself back up. But you never knew, did you? She might be anaemic, for example. Girls could be, at her age, if they suffered heavy periods. That fitted with her paleness, and the way she’d romped through my ‘girl’ supplies soon after arriving. And anaemia could definitely cause her to pass out … And the timing was right. She’d been with us a month …

  But I knew it was pointless to speculate. The most important thing was to get there, so I tugged at the strings on my cleaning apron while Lauren finished speaking to whoever she was
talking to. I heard the rumble of a male voice, presumably one of the paramedics. And was that Adrianna’s voice I could hear in the background? Wailing? ‘Okay,’ Lauren said again. ‘Casey, I’ve got to go. Meet you there? In A&E, I imagine … I’m so sorry …’

  ‘No, no. Of course, love,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m on my way.’

  I pressed the end button with an unexpected feeling. Not of foreboding – even though I couldn’t quite say why I didn’t feel that. No, it was more one of expectation finally fulfilled – of having been waiting for this day to dawn all along. Now perhaps we’d finally get some answers.

  I was in the car minutes later, but only making ten-mile-an-hour progress, having been caught up in the traffic bulge on the road out to the hospital. It was the last of the school run mingling with the beginnings of the rush hour, the sun dipping down now and winking off the rows of cars.

  And, as I expected, it was a full 40 minutes before I turned into the hospital grounds, now mostly in shadow, as the watery late-winter sun was almost gone. Happily, though, the visitor car park was beginning to empty, and, having rummaged for the requisite king’s ransom for the privilege, I was soon parked up and hurrying across to Accident and Emergency.

  My sense of inevitability was by now even stronger. I had no idea what had happened, but wasn’t remotely surprised that something had. It could be nothing, of course – and I sincerely hoped so, obviously – but, on the other hand, for all that we’d all commented on the improvement since that first week, Adrianna had never really seemed completely well since she’d come to us – not well in the accepted ‘rude health’ kind of way. I wondered again if she was seriously anaemic. Or – another thought I’d had simmering on a back burner – perhaps anorexic, or bulimic, and just extremely good at hiding it. She was still painfully thin, despite the huge appetite we’d all remarked upon, and so private in her habits that it was impossible to know.