Scarlett's Secret (3 page)

I was right. We were back mid-afternoon – a little later than scheduled – and as the kids were in high spirits, Katie and I made the decision that rather than have them start on their folders, we’d let them go for the day. It felt too mean to drag them indoors after their exciting week – time enough to do that on the Monday.

One by one they dispersed, including Jade, and also Katie, and eventually it was only me left. Me and Scarlett, who seemed curiously reluctant to leave.

‘Is there anything I can do, Casey’ she asked me, ‘before I go? To help, like?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I have to clean out the minibus before it goes back. You could help me do that if you like.’

She nodded, so I threw a roll of bin liners at her, and she immediately tore one off and jumped into the bus to gather up the stray crisp packets and bits of rubbish that still lurked here. I soon joined her, now armed with a bucket of soapy water and a couple of cloths, and we both set about the task in hand.

We’d been at it about ten minutes, one at either end, idly chatting, when she suddenly said, ‘Casey, you know our dad is in prison, don’t you?’

I shook my head. Then mentally recalibrated. She probably just assumed that I’d know that. Social services were part of the council;
I
worked for the council … ‘I didn’t,’ I told her. ‘What for?’

‘For what he did,’ she said. ‘For raping and abusing me and Jade.’ I stopped what I was doing so I could look at her. She was wiping a window furiously. ‘He abused us right from us being little girls to just a few years ago. My mum used to go out for a couple of hours an’ he’d make us watch dirty videos with him, then he’d mess with us.’

She stopped wiping then, and stared out of the minibus window for a few seconds. ‘Both of us, together. In the same room. It was
disgusting
,’ she finished quietly.

I didn’t know what to say to her, so I just did what felt right. I stopped what I was doing and went down to the back of the bus, where she was, urged her to sit down and put my arm around her. She began to cry then, and I realised this thing she’d just told me must have been a
huge
weight she had to carry around.

‘It’s okay, love,’ I soothed. ‘It’s okay. I’m here for you to talk to. I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been.’

‘I don’t think you could imagine,’ she said. ‘How could you? And you know what’s worse?’ I shook my head. ‘What’s worse is that we think our mum knew. We think she must have, because she used to put us in our pyjamas – stupidly early – and then she’d be, like, asking our dad what time she should come back.’ The tears were streaming down her face now, so much so that I wondered just who she had shared this with before. My hunch was hardly anybody. Her voice was just too full of horror – as if she was revisiting a place she hardly dared to go.

‘So how did it end?’ I asked. She gave a little shudder, almost a physical embodiment of what she’d been through. ‘It was me,’ she whispered. ‘
I
stopped it. In the end, I just
had
to.’

‘Of course you did …’ I began.

‘Yes, in the end,’ she said, ‘but you don’t realise. For a long time we thought it was normal. He was our dad, and he’d do stuff, and we didn’t like it –
’course
we didn’t – but we didn’t know any different, did we? And then, when we got a bit older – old enough to know we didn’t like it, and didn’t want it happening – we’d ask Mum not to leave us with him and sometimes, if we cried enough, she’d stay at home. But this would just get him mad and he’d be really horrible and pull her hair and punch her about and really frighten us …’ she sighed. ‘We tried
everything
. We tried saying we were ill, we’d pretend to be asleep. But he’d just do it anyway. And then one day, I don’t know why, but something just seemed to snap in me. And there was this lady who lived next door and she would always be asking if everything was okay all the time, you know? I think she was worried about all the beatings my mum got – maybe she could hear it. Anyway, one day I was at home alone, just sat in the garden. I think Mum was out somewhere with Jade and Dad had gone into town, and I was just sitting in the garden and I must have been crying or something, because suddenly she came out and asked me what was wrong and I just told her.’

Scarlett looked at me as if she still couldn’t quite believe she’d taken such action. ‘I just told her everything. Just like that. And it all went from there, really. She took me into her house, and she called the police, and then the next thing you know, there was our dad going off to be locked up and me and Jade were put in care.’

I noticed Scarlett had stopped crying now and that her voice had grown hard and bitter. I put both arms around her and just held her for a bit. The silence lengthened. Which was fine, because I didn’t trust myself to speak. Not for a while anyway. Some things are just beyond words.

‘Are you seeing anyone, Scarlett?’ I asked her eventually. ‘Having any counselling or anything?’

I felt her nod. ‘Yeah, I have been. But not Jade. She won’t talk to anyone. She just refuses. She blames me, I know she does. For splitting up the family. Which is true, and it was horrible – specially having to move out of home. So Jade wouldn’t tell, wouldn’t admit to the police what had happened. She told them it was all me – that it might have happened to me, but it didn’t happen to her. She said if she didn’t then Mum would end up in the nut house ’cos of what I’d told them, and that she couldn’t cope without Dad and that I had ruined everything. She did tell in the end, like, a good bit later, so he was charged with what he did to her, too, and they increased his sentence. But it’s like it never happened now – not for Jade. She just wants to forget it – completely block it out. But I know she still blames me, and I just don’t know what to do.’

‘Scarlett,’ I told her, ‘you know you have done nothing wrong, don’t you? You are not responsible for
any
of this and you don’t have to feel guilty that your sister can’t face up to her past. It’s not your fault, okay? None of it. Yes, Jade probably does need help to come to terms with it, I’m sure she does, and when she’s ready to accept that, it will be there for her, but in the meantime all you can do is support her however you can.’

‘That’s just it,’ Scarlett said. ‘I don’t know how to. I know – I just
know
,’ she said, her voice gaining strength, ‘that if she could just deal with it – talk about it with me – it would help her to get better. But you’ve seen what she’s like. Yeah, I can nag her about her clothes and stuff, but if I so much as mention Dad’s name, it’s like – whoosh! She’s off like a rocket. Like she’s got this switch. Trust me, I have tried and tried and tried.’

‘So are you saying you’d like me to try to speak to her for you?’ I asked gently.

‘Could you?’ she said. ‘Oh, God, Casey,
could
you? I don’t know where she’s going to end up otherwise, I really don’t.’

I had never been so grateful to return to the bosom of my family than I was that afternoon. After the high of the week’s adventures, the thrill of doing a job I so enjoyed doing, the pleasure in seeing this raggle-taggle bunch of largely disaffected kids blossoming, what Scarlett had told me had made it feel like someone had stomped up and ripped the sun out of the sky. I wasn’t naïve; I knew such families, such horrors, such evil characters existed, but at the same time the thought of walking a mile in Scarlett or Jade’s shoes filled me with so many emotions – anger, disgust, compassion, hopelessness, and more anger. Too much emotion to take home to my none-the-wiser husband and children, who were looking forward to their usual smiley wife and mum. So I sat for a good while before heading home to them, just so I could regain some of my earlier
joie de vivre
.

And I was glad I did, because a bit of
joie de vivre
was clearly needed. ‘It’s been the week from hell,’ Mike announced dramatically, once Kieron was out of earshot. He was so pleased to have me home that he talked with his feet – trotted immediately back to his bedroom, the world now being back on its proper axis.

I resisted the urge to make comparisons; after all, Kieron’s immediate disappearance was evidence of his relief. I was back, so now life could go on as it was supposed to. Mum downstairs doing Mum things, Dad at work as per usual, big sister Riley, being big sisterish (i.e. mostly annoying him), leaving him to do what he liked to. Alone. Back on track.

‘It really has,’ said Mike. ‘The food issue, the “staying in” issue, the “Where are you going, Dad?” issue. Let me tell you, if I have to so much as glance at the trailer for any movie with the words “fantasy” or “dragons” or “Superman” in it, I think my head might explode.’

‘How
did
the food thing go?’ I ventured, remembering how alarmingly quickly Kieron went off eating the last time I’d been away. ‘And what do you mean, “staying in” issue? You didn’t make him stay in all week, did you?’

Mike pulled a face. ‘I meant as in I couldn’t get him to go out! Here was me, thinking he’d be off with his friends playing football after school every night, but no chance. No, love, I think we have to accept that if you’re not around, everything is definitely not right in Kieron’s world.’

‘Oh, bless him,’ I said. I suddenly felt tearful. So much so that it must have shown on my face, because Mike put his arms around me and gave me a reassuring squeeze.

‘We all feel a bit like that when you’re not here, love,’ he said, chuckling. ‘I say it’s Kieron, but it’s mostly just a ruse to keep you here …’

‘What, even Riley?’ I joked. Mike could always make me feel better.

‘Riley? Oh, you mean that pretty, black-haired seventeen-year-old who I’m told possibly lives here? That the one?’

‘That’s the one,’ I agreed.

Mike grinned. ‘I wouldn’t know. Made a couple of pithy announcements about not hanging around with her “freaky” brother, then spent most of the rest of the week in David-land. Far as I know.’

I wasn’t surprised to hear this. Riley had only recently started seeing this lovely boy called David, but had already dubbed him as being ‘the one’. We thought we’d wait and see, but, well, I also knew my daughter …

Which made me think of Jade and Scarlett, two seventeen-year-olds with very different life experiences. Not to mention very different concepts of ‘home’. I hugged Mike even tighter and counted my blessings. And I resolved that I would try to get those girls help.

After reassuring Kieron that I would be home at teatime, as per usual, I returned to work on Monday with renewed energy and enthusiasm for the rest of the course. Everyone was busy with their folder work, writing up their experiences, Jade and Scarlett included, so I had ample time to ponder what best to do. The last thing I’d asked Scarlett before the weekend was the name of her counsellor, which was Karen, and whether it would be okay if the two of us had a chat. And as Scarlett had agreed, I decided I’d call her, so, leaving Katie to keep everyone on task in our group room, I went along to the office to find myself a phone.

And I was in for my next surprise. It was easy enough to track down her number, because Scarlett had added her as a referee on her application to join the course, but when I did, it was to find that she wasn’t actually a counsellor at all – just a lady who worked for an agency which found employment for teenagers. ‘Though we do try to forge close relationships with clients,’ she explained, ‘and get involved in other services where possible, too, such as helping them to find accommodation and filling out benefit claims, that sort of thing.’

‘But you know Scarlett’s background?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes, certainly.’ She went on to explain that Scarlett had told her everything – had blurted it out, much as she had to me. This had been two years back, not long after their father had first gone to prison, and she told me that as far as she was aware anyway, there was no one else now involved in the girls’ care.

A sad but all too believable picture was emerging. It looked like, once the case was closed, they had pretty much dropped off the radar, Jade’s first pregnancy notwithstanding. By then she was living with the guy who’d made her pregnant, and was already on the depressing trajectory that would end in her having the baby removed from her care. And relations with the girls’ mum – what should have been a source of comfort and support – had continued to be difficult, too. Once the girls had been placed in care, Karen told me, she’d moved to a bedsit, taken up drinking as a hobby, and spent most of her time – according to Scarlett, anyway – out in bars, picking up random men. As far as Karen knew, Jade continued to visit her mum sporadically, but Scarlett had been adamant that she’d have nothing to do with her till she admitted that she had known what had been going on all along.

‘But, of course, she was never going to do that, was she? Or she’d possibly face charges, too. No, I think, sad to say, that the situation reached an impasse, of the not-terrifically-helpful-“least-said-soonest-mended” kind.’

Which had mended nothing, by the looks of things. Both girls clearly had issues –
big
issues: half-a-lifetime-of-sexual-abuse-type issues – but the resources of social services hadn’t managed to stretch to getting either of them professional help.

But perhaps I could try to help them exorcise their demons. I could certainly do as Scarlett asked and try to get Jade to open up to me, and I could suggest – to Scarlett at least, because Jade might be more wary – that proper professional counselling might be the next step for both of them, if they were going to move on from the horrific abuse they’d endured. I felt sure that support was out there – in fact, I knew it was. We just needed to go out and find it.

Pinning Jade down wasn’t going to be the easiest thing, I knew. I needed to speak to her without the rest of the group being around, but something told me that if I tried to get her to come and chat to me in my office, she might shy away. Even leave, given what Scarlett had told me. I was still mulling it over a couple of days later, in fact, when an opportunity seemed to present itself.

One of the team projects that had been decided upon as part of their four-month engagement was to repaint a local council community centre. Alongside this there was a plan to provide some new furniture, and to this end some serious fundraising needed to be done, such as packing bags in supermarkets, a couple of cake stalls and so on. One of the schemes – dreamt up by the kids themselves, which really impressed me and Katie – was to provide a car and van washing service for the local businesses. It was ideal for all, as with so many businesses packed into the estate, they had a ready and willing clientele on site.