CHAPTER 64
We walked down to tea hand in hand, to a knowing smile from Naomi.
“Darren, dear, the special biscuits?”
He grinned, and disappeared into the kitchen. There was indeed a cuppa with my name on it, and I settled onto the sofa next to Eric with a sigh and a slurp. Darren was soon back in with a rather posh-looking tin that proved to have come from Fortnum and Mason. We were being honoured indeed.
“Annie, is he like your fella, yeah?”
I couldn’t help it. “No, love, he isn’t like my fella, he actually IS my fella”
The lad just shook his head and concentrated on getting the tin open, and then passing it round while he waited to pick his own. That was impressive, and I realised exactly how hard he was working to keep his place with the Woods. Steph and Geoff were over about an hour later, just as Albert arrived, and to groans from Naomi her husband and Darren sprawled out in front of the television with a couple of game controllers while they shot some poor aliens to pixels. I ran the idea of the wake past Steph as they saved the planet, and she was nodding before I was halfway through.
“They are a good crowd in there, a little intimidating perhaps if you aren’t confident, but talented. Timmy or Saburo?”
“Oh, wood is the way for that sort of night. Will you warn them about Eric?”
“Oh, they have a couple of Satan’s spawn there most nights. Ginny and Kate?”
“If they can, and I would really like Darren along. Give him the chance to see what we do for fun”
Geoff was chuckling. “And get frightened half to death by you two. Are you sure you weren’t separated at birth? Steph, love, what about doing something with mine, or maybe the octave mando, keep you a bit calmer. It gets crowded in there”
“Yeah…that could be fun, especially if I have some ale. Frets are more forgiving than fretless. What say we dig out the Bewick, or maybe even the Pipers’ Association books?”
I left them to their folky plotting, and with a hand on Eric’s thigh I looked over to the two boys and their game. It was a delight. Darren’s face matched Albert’s in its animation, and the way they kept looking up and grinning at each other as they scored points was so open, so natural, that I wondered how I had ever imagined the Woods to be in any sense elderly. It was dad and lad, it was mates, it was natural and wonderful. The doorbell rang, just as Darren whooped at shooting some item or other, and Naomi came back in with Polly in tow. Both motioned for silence, and Polly simply stood for a while watching two boys at play.
Darren won, apparently, and high-fived Albert with a grin to lighten the darkest heart, and Polly coughed for attention. Darren looked round, and his elation crashed and burned. That was the moment I saw exactly how far he had come. He didn’t run, he didn’t yell, he just asked, with a tremor in his voice, “Have I got to go back?”
Naomi very clearly blinked away a tear, while Albert put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Polly squatted down to where they lay.
“That is not why I am here, Darren. This is all routine. I come out, all secretly lahk, to see how you are getting on. You are what we call at risk, so I have to be sneaky. It is done so we can catch all those foster parents who waste time playing computer games, or serving the wrong sort of chocolate biscuits. Naomi, any white choc ones? Ta. Tea? Pretty please?”
Albert switched off the game after saving it, and Polly took Darren into the kitchen for a chat in private. Ten minutes later she was back, the two of them grinning at each other with shared secrets, and just then Polly’s gaze fell on me. There was a soft “shit” and then she gathered herself.
“Adam, that explains an awful lot, especially how you could have so much insight into his pain”
Darren interrupted her. “It’s Annie, to her friends. She don’t go by Adam no more”
Polly laughed. “Aren’t you the protective one, Darren?”
“Well, Sarnt Price here, yeah, she got me out of all that shit, lahk, so you be good to her, yeah?”
Polly’s smile was softer now. “Darren, Annie, all of you, I think my work here was done before I even came in the door.”
Naomi smiled back. “That means you have more time to be here as a friend. Tea to go with the white stuff will be provided as soon as one of my servants here can be bothered to move. Darren. Albert, shall we toss a coin?”
They both grinned, and Darren stuck out a hand to help his foster father to his feet and off they went for cup and milk. Polly’s smile was still there.
“Sometimes, just sometimes, I am reminded why I do this job. Thank you all. Annie, would you be OK for a quiet chat?”
“No problem, Polly, I wanted to talk to you about taking him to a pub.”
“Oh dear…I withdraw my previous comment!”
We took a few minutes together in the garden, where I had first been caught by Eric. Polly was direct.
“Do tell, Annie”
I gave her a condensed version, and she nodded throughout, as I realised that the nod was her equivalent of Sally’s flat stare and pointed one word questions.
“So this Monday’s pub trip, this is goodbye Sergeant Price, hello Sergeant Price, yeah?”
“About right”
“Music, singing, food?”
“Essentially. We are even working on a strategy to keep Stephanie calmer”
“The tall ginge?”
“That’s her. Talented as all hell, but a bit sort of wild with her playing”
“Perhaps I am a bit dense, but I sort of imagined Darren being more into three fat ugly black men shouting at the audience”
I grinned at her. “Bloom County?”
She grinned back, with real warmth. “Oh yes! But why the folk stuff?”
“Naomi says he has a real feel for how things work, probably why he was able to lift cars so easily. He understands instruments, acoustic ones, and it’s that difference between seeing, say, a violin as a machine of wood and wire, and how it is used by someone like Steph. That’s what has really caught his imagination. I worry a little, because at some point he will try one out, and if he hasn’t got the talent, well…”
Polly was doing the nod again. “Annie…would you mind if I came along? On Monday? Not as a social worker, just as someone who fancies a drink, and some time with friends, and to see a boy happy? He is, isn’t he? Happy?”
I took the risk, and then the hug, and whispered in her ear. “I really, really think so. There is also something you are not telling me, and if it involves removing him from here you can trust me, we will fight”
She slumped in my arms. “No, Annie, anyone who would ever believe such a thing to be in his best interests would need shooting. No, it’s Chantelle.”
Shit. I had almost forgotten her in the stress of current events, and there she remained, the real victim, sold by her own family to a group of bottom-feeders.
“How is she, Polly?”
“Almost catatonic. Won’t talk, hardly eats, and we still have the trial to go through. Defence are wanting to get the inquest over first, obviously, but all that time she gets no closure. I know I am hardly unbiased, but she is not even thirteen yet, for god’s sake.”
She looked up at me, and I saw the same pain, the same weariness that Andy had given me, the day of the shootings.
“It is a shitty world, Miss Price”
I looked back, giving a smile to her pain. “No it isn’t. Miss Armitage. One look at Darren should tell you that, aye? Now, we can’t work miracles with Chantelle, but you know if there is anything, you have a whole station of coppers who are there for you. We are a bit protective when it comes to children”
“I may well take you up on that. Inquest first, and trial, but then again would you mind terribly if I had one too many on Monday?”
“We would expect nothing less. You know the way?”
“Oh yes. And by the way, that was one sneaky visit I wish was more typical of what I get. Monday, then.”
She was off, and I stood for a while trying to think of ways to help one little girl among so many victims. Eric came out to me as I stood in the cool of the garden, and slipped his arms around me.
“A long way since that chat out here, Annie, a long way.”
I kissed his cheek. “A lot less of me for a start”
“How much gone so far?”
“Believe it or not, five and a half stones since Ginny changed my habits and you got me riding again. Even those visits to chip and cake shops haven’t done too much damage. If I keep it up, I’ll be able to get into some nice stuff.”
He laughed, and my mind balanced what I was feeling with what had happened to that little girl, was still happening, and I knew that what I had said to Polly was absolutely true. This was no shitty world, not with such people in it. Eric squeezed me before tugging me back into the house.
“You get into the nice stuff, love, as long as I can get you out of it afterwards”
Comments
Thank you,
ALISON
'once again for a great post.I guess that poor little Chantelle is going to be the next worry.
There really are some proper bastards in this world-----about time they dug a hole for them.
ALISON
simple
Yet not at all, there's beauty and there's shit. Hopefully you step in the latter not too often. I was feeling really good and a little teary at this one... then Chantelle, damn. Yeah well even a rough nut like me needs to get away from reality now and then, shit messes up your shoes and stains the carpets.
Okay then, wild night down the pub and then a mob of hard arsed coppers and some others can do what they can do for a lost girl. Shoe shine for the soul maybe. Then maybe Eric can do his getting out of thing as an encore.
Kris
Ride On 64
Now that Annie has worked her magic on Darren, can she help Chantelle?
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
There should be
a lot more of the people you write around in the world. If there was it'd be a whole lot better place. Polly's a great character and I was feeling for her and how tired she was. I love this series honestly it's one of my favorites.
Bailey Summers
one of my favorites too
I hope they can find a way to help Chantelle. Maybe Darren could be a help. He's her age, and been through his own pain, so who better to give her some hope?
Dorothycolleen
It's a shit job trying to help kids like Chantelle.
To begin with, whoever is trying to help her has to first determine what (if any,) coping strategies the kid might have already developed in their own shattered world. If the kid is catatonic and unresponsive it will take ages, (sometimes years,) to determine a strategy that can first run parrallel with the kid's current survival devices, then the healer has to work out what if any of those devices are constructive and which ones are destructive and finally the healer has to root out the hurtful stuff whilst applying the genuine cure.
A humongously hellish job. Much love (unconditional,) even more patience and finally an inexaustible supply of compassion are essential tools to fix it.
Good luck Annie, you're going to need a hell of a lot of a hell of a lot to get through this one. Prepare yoursel for a lot of hurt but if you're successful there are infinite rewards.
Hugs.
Bev
Growing old disgracefully.
Great observations, Bev!
...and I couldn't agree more...infinite rewards for sure. It looks like Annie has what it takes. Great story, yes?
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Aye
But there's a fair patch of hell between her and recovery, and no choice but to slog through it.
Ummm..........................
I'm always reminded of the film 'The Wall'. We all erect walls of defense around ourselves and only open a crack when we find the right person to reveal ourselves to. It's the little ones who cannot recognize kindness, or even love because that's the one thing they've never experienced that are the toughest. Indeed, some of them cannot even be approached. Unfortunately a bit of psychological triage is often used to save the ones that can be saved. A deceased aquaintance once told me that "when you're born in hell and raised by the devil, love and kindness are sins".
Hugs,
Triona
The Trouble With Shit
Is that it tends to be selective. Most of us go through our daily lives seeing mostly the good bits.
There are a couple of cases in Australia hitting the news right now about young girls in State care who have been "failed by the system". One is twelve and pregnant and another is thirteen and a prostitute. Shades of one of your stories, Steph.
In other little gems about the society we have created, a teenage female armed forces cadet who had sex with a fellow (male) cadet and had the act broadcast to all his mates by Skype. What a good giggle, eh?
A young lad who survived the Queensland floods but lost his mum and brother was half beaten to death by a gang of lads who recognised him from pictures in the newsmedia and thought it was great fun to post and boast about it on Facebook.
This is the world of the TV Reality shows and the promotion of devil-take-the-hindmost and shit-on-all-those-pathetic-losers that we have fostered or condoned in our pursuit of pleasure and entertainment; the world of "Survivor" and "Big Brother" .
Sorry if I sound a little bitter. Actually Steph, your stories are a pleasure to read because even when they deal with rotten subjects there IS some goodness around,
Joanne
Life
Joanne, thst is the way the world is heading, but then there have always been people like that. I offer, as evidence, everything from gladiators to the tourist visits to Bedlam. Look at those loonies!
I have no faith in any 'innate' humanity; people are shits when they are left to form their own mores. Give them a hint, a little education, and they come out fine, mostly. Give them someone to love, a parent or other focus, and they become so much better.
That's what I write, lpve stories. Not ashamed to say that.
I like that!
I mean I like that you write love stories. Its just that when you do, you create people we can identify with and weep over and just everything. You build real people and set them in harsh lives, but with love and support and its just so touching....
Thanks!
One thing I know.
PTSD sucks. Transition is challenging to say the least. Put the two of them together and the combination is exponentially more difficult. And in the midst of all this, your heroine is giving immensely of herself. Her beau has a real gem of a woman there, no doubt about it, and those kids are better off because of her as well. Magic? No. Good old compassion, like Bev says. Rewarding as hell if you can manage it. Oh yeah...she has a nice name, too!