A Last Kiss for Mummy (15 page)

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – definitely couldn’t believe the tone in which I was hearing it. Couldn’t believe that that innocent-looking, charming-looking, lovely-looking boy – that boy who I’d
completely
changed my mind about, damn him – had just done the ugliest thing imaginable to this girl.

‘Tarim did this to you?’ I said again. ‘Punched you? Tarim hit you?’

‘I told you,’ she said, lowering her head and returning to the splashing. ‘We had a fight –’

‘Oh, so he has an eye that looks like that too, does he?’

‘I
wish
,’ she said, with a degree of vehemence from behind her curtain of hair. Then she lifted her head again and sighed. ‘What?’ she said, meeting my eye and presumably shocked by my horrified expression. ‘You’re not telling me you’ve never come across a bit of domestic violence, are you? Christ, it’s not like he’s the only bloke to have ever given his bird a smack, is it? Just leave it, Casey, okay. I’ll be fine.’

I was stunned. She was fourteen and she was talking like she was forty. The sort of forty-year-old often attached to a big glass of mother’s ruin down the pub, having spent the best years of her life being smacked around by men. A prostitute, a drug user – more often than not, both. So while I was set on finding out all the whats and whys and wherefores, I was more concerned, in the short term, about Emma’s attitude towards it – that this sort of thing was perfectly normal. It took my breath away.

‘I’m sorry, Emma,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level, ‘I won’t be leaving it.’ The last thing I wanted was to have the volume ballooning the way the skin around her eye seemed to be doing.

‘Please?’ she said wearily. ‘
Please
? It will all be okay if you just
leave
it.’

‘No it won’t. How do you work that out? In what sense well it “be okay” exactly? Okay for who? You? I’m afraid I don’t get that. Who the hell does he think he is, anyway? Is he mad? You realise he could go straight back to prison if you report what he’s done to you? Do you?’

She stopped filling her hand again and shook the drips from it angrily. ‘Grass him up?’ she spluttered. ‘Grass on my own boyfriend? Are you for
real
? It was just a little argument that got a bit heated. That was
all
. I’ve told you, I’ll be
fine
. Christ, it’s like, nothing! Are you for real?’ she said again. ‘Look,’ she added, ‘I really need to pee, okay. Can I, like, do
that
at least? Please?’

‘Should we call someone?’ Mike asked once I trooped back downstairs. He was in the hallway, presumably having heard much of our exchange, Roman grizzling and fretful in his arms now. ‘John?’ he went on. ‘Maggie? The police? We can’t just leave this.’

I shook my head. ‘Not just yet,’ I said. ‘Not till we get a few answers. Once anyone else is involved she’ll just clam right up, I know it. Let’s just see what we can get out of her first.’

Emma came down, moments later, looking guarded and slightly sullen, as if it were I who’d offended her most in this equation by having the temerity to speak ill of Tarim. She immediately set about sorting Roman’s tea out, pulling a jar of baby food from the cupboard and opening the microwave, then pulling his high chair close to the kitchen table, ready.

That done, she took Roman from Mike without a word or gesture, sat him in the chair and, while he began wellying in to his jar of chicken dinner, started chopping bits of banana for his pudding.

‘Look,’ she said to both of us, in the same world-weary air, ‘it’s not what you think, okay? It’s not.’

Since neither of us answered – we were too gobsmacked – she sighed and tried again. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know it seems weird if you’ve never seen it before, but Tarim loves me, okay. He really didn’t mean to do this. Look, he’s sorry, okay? And if it’s any consolation, he feels
terrible
. Look, I can handle it –’ she looked at me. ‘Honestly. I can handle it, and I can handle him. God, this is
nothing
–’

Mike rolled his eyes. I could see he knew exactly how he’d handle Tarim, given half a chance. ‘Nothing compared to what?’ he asked her pointedly.

‘Nothing compared to the sort of shit my mother had to put up with. Take anything from anyone,
she
would. That’s not
me
! This is just relationship stuff, okay. It
happens
. Look,’ Emma said again, while I tried to stop my eyes bulging out of their sockets, ‘I’m not trying to defend him, okay? I wouldn’t do that. But sometimes these things, well – they just happen. You can’t go off on one just because of one fight –’

‘It wasn’t a fight,’ I said. ‘He
hit
you.’

‘Yeah, but I started it.’

‘Emma, love,’ Mike started, ‘I’m sorry, but that’s a load of crap. Like Casey says, it wasn’t a fight – not a fair fight. He’s a fully grown man, Emma, and he
hit
you. He’s bigger than you and stronger than you and any way you choose to describe it, it’s abuse, plain and simple. Like I heard you say, it’s domestic violence, but the emphasis is very much on the “violence” bit, and no matter how you dress it up, or try to tone it down, he deserves to be punished.’

I could see the tears welling in Emma’s eyes – well, the one eye that wasn’t swollen anyway. ‘Don’t you think he
knows
that?’ she railed at Mike, as if she was the counsel for the defence in court. ‘Don’t you think he’s suffering now, cos of this? He’s devastated, he is,
devastated
. And it’s not even his fault!’

I could tell from the way Mike was clenching and unclenching his fingers that he was getting angry, and I didn’t want him to lose his cool. I needed to intervene. ‘Okay, love,’ I said gently, ‘if that’s how you feel then you must explain why you say that. Make us understand. Why was this not really Tarim’s fault?’

But Emma shook her head. ‘What’s the point?’ she said, obviously seeing Mike’s set expression. She wasn’t stupid. ‘You want to blame him. How can you understand, living the sort of lives you live? Your perfect lives, your perfect kids, your perfect
everything
. You have no idea about
real
life at all!’

‘This
is
real life,’ I corrected her. ‘And trust me, we have seen some. And we’re not perfect – never were – and neither are our kids. So I don’t know where you get the idea that we can’t understand this. I know all about violence and “domestic violence”, as you call it – and it’s still violence. What I can’t understand is how you can sit there and be so loyal to someone who has punched you in the face.
That’s
what I don’t get.’ I waited just a heartbeat.

‘Because I love him! And he loves me, and he never meant to hurt me. Can’t you get that? It was his mate!’

Mike scoffed. ‘His
mate
that hit you? Come on, Emma, don’t pull –’

‘No, not hit me!’ she barked back at him. ‘He told him shit about me! He told him I slept with his other mate while he was inside! I don’t know why. Don’t have a clue what the fuck he has against me. Probably jealous that Tarim’s got a decent life in front of him. Probably jealous of me cos Tarim doesn’t wanna get stoned with him all the time now – I don’t know! But it was him.
Now
d’you see?’

‘And did you?’ I asked her.

‘Did I what?’

‘Did you sleep with this boy?’

She looked dumbfounded. ‘Of course I didn’t! Why the hell would I ever do that?’ She exhaled heavily. ‘But how could Tarim
know
that? He wasn’t there, was he? And he trusts Kel – he’s, like, his best mate – so he’s bound to believe him, isn’t he?’

‘Over you?’ asked Mike.

‘No!’ she said. Then seemed to think. ‘But, yeah. Yeah, a bit. Of
course
he doubted me. He was bound to. Stuck inside. Me on the outside. Us not seeing each other. I totally get that! Why can’t
you
?’

By now Roman was grizzling quietly, clearly as sick of the situation as we were. Emma snatched him up from his high chair, knocking the spoon onto the carpet, where it spread a small slick of curry-coloured puree.

‘Look, you have no
idea
, okay?’ she said, bending automatically to retrieve it. She seemed so small and frail, so innocent, so fragile – especially with the now hefty Roman parked on her hip. How dare he. How bloody
dare
he. I was quietly seething.

‘Go upstairs,’ Mike said, his voice thankfully controlled and measured now. ‘Sort out Roman, get him ready for bed. We can talk about this later on.’

I reached an arm out and squeezed Emma’s. This time she didn’t pull away from me. ‘Go on, love,’ I said. ‘Like Mike said, we’ll talk later.’

‘There’s nothing to talk
about
,’ she insisted, loyal to the very last, as she left the room.

I shook my head sadly. She was so wrong. There
was
.

I woke the next morning with a splitting headache. I hadn’t had one in a long while and I didn’t doubt this one was due mostly to tension. The memories of the previous evening came rushing in to join it. We’d got no further with Emma even though we’d tried the softly-softly tactic. She was adamant; it was completely understandable that Tarim had lost it, and even if she was cross with him – which she did concede she still was – she was resolutely forgiving and loyal.

I got up, feeling sluggish as I turned on the shower, weighed down by the prospect of a difficult day. As well as the couple of painkillers I threw down, I knew I would need plenty of caffeine to get through the morning.

‘So,’ said Mike, once I was downstairs and dressed, ‘you’re going to make some calls this morning, are you? Report this?’ He was heading off to work for the morning before returning at lunchtime, ready for his Saturday afternoon football with Kieron. I wished I could go with him. Just throw a coat on and go. And I never felt like that about my work.

He passed me coffee. ‘Give me a moment, love,’ I chided as I took it from him. ‘Of course I am. I must. But I’m not going to do it just yet. I really don’t want to till I’m sure Emma understands why we
have
to.’

‘Good luck with that,’ he observed, managing a smile to go with it. Albeit a grim one. We both knew the potential implications of reporting Tarim’s violence. And neither of us felt up to facing them.

‘I know,’ I said, sighing. ‘But I at least want to try first. If I can just get her to see that he needs to address this sort of behaviour – God, even if just because she needs to think about protecting Roman – then I’ll feel much happier about doing it, that’s all.’

I sat down at the kitchen table and Mike sat down with me. ‘Casey, love,’ he said gently, ‘look, I know it’s going to be hard, but truth be told, it really shouldn’t be. We should be clear what our roles are. If we let it go this time –’ he raised a hand. ‘No, I know you’re not
saying
that, but part of you is thinking that, I know it is – then it’s absolutely as if we’re condoning this. It would send exactly the wrong message to Emma, you know that. Thanks to that mother of hers, she already thinks it’s okay to get the odd slap off a man, God help that woman. She clearly never fought back, never told her daughter it was unacceptable – just sucked it up, took it on the chin, literally. And it’s a cycle that will just keep repeating in perpetuity if we – you and me – don’t nip it straight in the bud.’

I knew Mike was right. Of course he was. That was our job. But I also knew myself, and while he’d been talking I’d been thinking, and it was becoming clearer by the moment what was really rattling me. It was this endless need to play bad cop – having to be the person who ‘ruined everything’ – as Emma had pointed out I would most definitely be if I made a phone call and grassed Tarim up.

I knew Mike understood because I could see it in his face, but actually this wasn’t about hurting my feelings, was it? It was just so much more important than that.

Emma didn’t come down till about ten, and when she did – Roman balanced on her hip, his usual sunny self – she was subdued and looked tired. Perhaps, with the benefit of some time having passed now, we’d be able to discuss things more calmly.

‘Say hi to Casey,’ she said to Roman as they came into the kitchen. He was smiling and holding his arms out towards me. I didn’t take him from her; instead I held up the coffee pot. She shook her head.

‘I’ll just have milk, thanks,’ she said. She was lisping.

I put the jug down and came closer. Her face looked terrible. Worse than last night, even, her left eye fully closed now, and her lip, also swollen, competing with the eye socket for which would create the most colourful bruising.

‘Oh, Emma,’ I said. ‘Just look at your face, love. You know,’ I said, peering closer, anxious about the bits I couldn’t see, ‘I think we might need to see the doctor with that eye.’

Now I did take Roman from her, because he was struggling to get to me, and popped him in his high chair so I could get her a glass of milk.

‘Don’t fuss, Casey,’ she said to me. ‘I told you, I’m fine. I’ve had a black eye before and I’ll probably have one again. Few days, it’ll be gone.’

Given what had happened the previous evening, what she said didn’t shock me. But I clearly needed to try a different tack.

‘That’s the thing, though, you see, love. I’m paid to fuss, aren’t I? Paid to care – paid to look after you and Roman. Do you really think for an instant that I can leave this thing? Do you? Love, why can’t you see that this is wrong?’

And so it began. Another full-scale row, just as we’d had the previous evening, with me telling Emma I’d be reporting Tarim’s violence and her telling me that I had no right to do that and that I might as well just kill her as I was going to ruin her life.

I tried. I tried to make her see that the ‘rules’ she’d grown up with – that women annoyed men, which meant men couldn’t help but hit them – were wrong on every single level imaginable. ‘Don’t you see, Emma?’ I pleaded. ‘It’s a pattern – a terrible pattern. You watched it happen to your mother; watched her let men abuse her and hurt her, and because she let them you now think it’s normal. But think back. Think back to when you were a little girl and you saw that violence happen. And to your mum, your own mum, who you loved. How did it make you feel then? Terrified, I’m guessing. You must have hated it. Hated it. Is that what you want for Roman? To watch as his father gives his mum a black eye?’

But it was pointless, as it had been for some women in perpetuity, and would be again in the future. Because her argument was the same that was used by women everywhere – most frequently the broken women holed up in battered women’s refuges, having used it, to their detriment, for years.

‘But it’s not like that!’ she persisted. ‘Tarim’s not like those dickheads! They were just scumbags – one-night stands, wasters – they didn’t love her. They couldn’t give a toss, but Tarim’s different. Tarim loves me! Why can’t you get that through your head?’

‘Okay,’ I said, feeling my temper taking hold of me. ‘Here’s Roman. Who you love. And he does something to annoy you. At what point do you think it’s going to be a valid course of action to raise your fist – given that he’s smaller than you, younger than you, weaker than you – to raise that fist and slam it into
his
face? Emma, we don’t hurt the people we love! And for that matter, according to your “can’t help it” logic, what’s to stop Tarim punching Roman in the face?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Casey!’ she spat back at me. ‘He’d never do that! And he’d never have hit me in front of the baby. I’d
never
allow that!’

‘Allow?’ Now I was incredulous. ‘You think you could stop him? If you could stop him doing anything you wouldn’t be sitting here right now with a fat lip and an eye you can’t open!’

Emma stood then. ‘You’re wrong, Casey. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Tarim would never hurt Roman, not in a million zillion years. And the only reason he hit me was because he loves me so much. No, he shouldn’t have done, but you only do stuff like that if you really, really,
really
love a person!’

She stormed out then, slamming the door, leaving poor Roman staring after her and leaving me reeling, hot and shaking, in her wake.

Perhaps because he sensed it was a shrewd move under the circumstances, Mike called an hour or so later. Given the time, he said, he’d go straight from the warehouse to meet with Kieron, and would be back at teatime, to get the ‘next episode of the soap opera on catch-up’. It was an attempt to lighten my mood and, to some extent, it was a good one. There were deep issues to address here, and –
make no mistake
, I thought – I would bloody well address them, but there was also the issue of having a fourteen-year-old girl in the house. Shouting and slamming doors were par for the course. I mustn’t lose my sense of perspective.

By this time I had already decided I would telephone John Fulshaw, just as soon as Roman went down for his nap. I went through what I’d say while sitting on a patio chair in the garden, collecting my thoughts while Roman played happily in his playpen, which I’d taken out and set up on the grass. Of Emma herself, there hadn’t a peek since she’d stormed out of the kitchen, just the low thunks and lunks of her CD player going, playing whatever tunes were proving balm to her troubled mind. And, for the moment, I was happy that she stay in her room.

But apparently there was someone else who wasn’t.

Roman had just fallen asleep, right there, in the sun, on his play mat on the lawn, when I heard shouting from out in the street. It was being carried in on the breeze, over the side fence that led to the front garden, and at first I thought I must have imagined it. It was a sleepy sunny Saturday afternoon in a residential neighbourhood, but, no, there it was again, somebody yelling. And being very free with their language, too, which made me stop in my tracks. I’d been just about to go and call John, so was putting a blanket over Roman, and though he didn’t wake – he was the sort of baby who could readily sleep through anything – I imagined half the street coming out.

I shot inside and went straight to the living-room window, where I was horrified to see Tarim, leaning on our wall. He had a bottle of what looked like cider, which he was swinging from one hand, and was shouting up towards our bedroom windows. ‘Get down here, you fucking slag!’ he roared. ‘Come on, what’s the fucking matter? Nothing to say, eh?’

Two things were clear. One that he was very, very drunk and, two, that the ‘fucking slag’ in question was Emma. I rushed out into the hall and shouted up at her to come downstairs immediately. She appeared on the landing, looking sheepish.

‘Don’t let him in,’ she warned. ‘Not in that state. He’ll kill us.’

I could still hear him – clearly – still entreating so delightfully, and, in between, shouting at what presumably were neighbours, asking them what they ‘thought they were fucking looking at’. I was mortified. We’d already had to move once because of our fostering activities, and these neighbours, like most of the last, were all such lovely, decent people. They really didn’t deserve this. And shouldn’t have to.

‘I can’t wait all day!’ Tarim roared again. ‘Get out here and fucking face me!’ Then, obviously to someone who’d dared to face up to him. ‘Get in, you fucking nosey old bag,’ he railed. ‘So ring the fucking police – see if I care!’

Emma came halfway down the stairs, then sat down abruptly, as, fed up with things now, I reached for the door handle. ‘You’re not going to let him in, are you?’ she squeaked at me. ‘Don’t let him in, Casey – please don’t!’

‘Oh, don’t you worry,’ I reassured her, wondering where her bravado about Tarim had suddenly disappeared to. ‘I’ve taken on far worse than him in my time, Emma. If he tries to cross me he’ll know about it.’

It was all bravado, but, fired up with mortification, I pulled the door open and stepped out onto the front path. ‘Tarim?’ He blinked at me, clearly struggling even to focus. ‘She isn’t coming out to talk to you. I’m not letting her. Not with you in that state. Go home, sober up, and when you think you can be civil you can come back again for a chat, if that’s what you want. And do it
now
. I’m not having this, Tarim. You hear me? I am not having it.’

‘Fuck off!’ was his considered response. ‘Just get that slut out here. I’m not shutting up and I’m not going away. I’m not doing neither,’ he added, swaying against the front wall, ‘till she comes out and tells me if it’s true!’

‘Just go,’ I said, but now he was talking to another neighbour.

‘You know what she said, mate?’ he slurred at the poor man. ‘She’s a slag, she is. She said he’s not even fucking mine! I’ll do the DNA, you know.’ He swung around again. ‘I’ll do the fucking DNA, you SLAG!’

I turned around. Emma was now sitting at the bottom of the stairs, crying.

‘You told him that?’ I hissed. ‘That the baby wasn’t his? That was clever.’

‘He made me!’ she said, sobbing. ‘He was winding me up so much – I just wanted to say something to hurt him! I didn’t mean it. I’ve never been with anyone – not ever …’ She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed some more.

This was shaping up really well. ‘Tarim!’ I said, turning back to him. ‘Look, last time of asking. Go home, sober up and we’ll talk about this later. If you don’t, you give me no choice but to call the police and –’

I had to stop speaking then and duck back inside, pretty sharpish, to avoid the cider bottle that was winging towards me and which had been thrown with such force and accuracy that it missed me by inches, smashing loudly against the front door.

‘That’s it,’ I said, to an equally startled Emma. ‘I’ve given him more than enough chances. I’m phoning the police.’

Emma leapt to her feet then. ‘Oh, please don’t, Casey.
Please
don’t do that. He’ll be so sorry when he sobers up. He’ll be just horrified. He’ll buy you flowers and everything, I know he will. I promise, Casey, he doesn’t know what he’s on about just now. You can see that, can’t you?’

She was actually gripping my arm now. I felt sick. She was completely taken in by this lad, it was clear. Hook, line and sinker. She really did believe the rubbish that was currently spewing from her mouth. Flowers?
Flowers
? It beggared belief.

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ I said, ‘but not a chance, I’m afraid. You might be happy to, but I’m not taking this sort of crap from anyone. No, I’m sorry but I’m going to go and do what I should have done first thing this morning. Because maybe if I had, then he wouldn’t be here now shouting the odds at us both, would he? Now go and check on Roman, will you? It’ll be a miracle if he managed to sleep through that. He’s out in the garden. Go on. Scoot.’

She duly did.

They didn’t take long. Within a matter of minutes we were back stationed by the window, watching a burly police officer and policewoman escorting Tarim to their patrol car. Once he was inside, the policewoman came indoors to take a statement, while such neighbours as had stayed out to watch the closing scenes of this short and sorry drama went back inside, presumably to gossip about quite who the drunken thug was.