Risk of Harm Read online

  ‘Edith?’ Flora couldn’t remember an Edith.

  ‘When I spoke to her, Edith at first refused to admit there was a problem but then broke down and revealed that Beckie has been bullying her for some time. Physically, and in other ways. Beckie has told the other girls not to play with Edith. She makes fun of her and encourages the others to do so too. She has instigated a particularly cruel ruse which involves getting two or three other girls to pretend to Edith that they now want to be her friends, not Beckie’s, and are going to play with her, and then, at a signal from Beckie, they run away at top speed. Poor Edith falls for it every time. She tries to run after them, and then they all turn and shout insults at her and laugh. Some of the name calling has been disablist, although Edith isn’t technically disabled, just... a bit uncoordinated. Spastic, mong, et cetera.’ She said the awful words in a brisk, businesslike tone that somehow made them all the worse.

  Flora felt the room recede and fade.

  Mrs Jenner’s voice was very faint, and then suddenly very loud.

  ‘Mrs Parry?’

  There were grey spots in front of her eyes.

  And then Mrs Jenner was round the desk and pushing Flora’s head down past her knees, pushing a plastic cup of water into her hand.

  Flora found herself repeating weakly: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  She brought the cup to her lips and gulped at the lukewarm, synthetic-tasting water.

  ‘Now Mrs Parry,’ Mrs Jenner said briskly, like a nurse would speak to a difficult patient. ‘There’s no need to work yourself up.’ How pathetic, she was probably thinking. No wonder Beckie’s out of control. ‘It’s really nothing to worry about – children can be very cruel to each other, you know, and this sort of thing will happen from time to time. I’ve known far worse, believe me. I’m sure we can nip it in the bud.’ And Flora felt a quick pat on her back. A little rub between her shoulder blades.

  ‘But…’ She sat up and looked into the other woman’s bright blue, heavily mascara-ed eyes. There was a big clump of mascara sticking together several of the upper lashes of her right eye, like the lashes were melting, like this was a face in some surreal dream, melting away as soon as you got up close. ‘Are you sure?’

  This wasn’t Beckie. It just wasn’t.

  Beckie was so good with children with problems; so kind. At break and lunch time, she and her friends always passed by the Buddy Bench, where children could sit to indicate they needed a ‘buddy’, and asked whoever was there if they wanted to join them.

  Mrs Jenner nodded, and retreated once more behind the desk.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Beckie, of course, myself. She’s unrepentant. She denies that she’s been bullying Edith – says it’s Edith who’s the problem and “everyone hates her”. A common justification, I’m afraid. She maintains that people run away from Edith because they hate her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m just –‘ Flora gulped down more water. ‘I’m having a really hard time believing that Beckie would do that.’

  ‘I realise it’s a shock. We’re all very surprised. Beckie has always been a pleasure to have in the school. There hasn’t been anything… Any problems at home…?’ And the bright blue eyes scanned Flora up and down.

  Flora could only shake her head as all the statistics gleaned from furtive late-night Googling flashed through her mind, about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and their age of onset and possible triggers. Was that what this was? Was this her nightmare coming to pass? Was this the monster Beckie carried inside her, in her genes, awakening, stretching and yawning and flexing its muscles, because of something Flora had done? Something she’d done to trigger it?

  Of course not.

  As bullying went, this was pretty mild, really. Every child went through phases of being naughty, difficult, acting out. As Mrs Jenner had said, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. And it could be nipped in the bud in this ‘mediation discussion’ she was talking about, asking Flora if Monday after school would be convenient.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Flora had said. ‘Of course. Monday would be fine. Obviously, we’ll make sure – we’ll make sure Beckie stops it. That she stops bullying this poor girl. Poor Edith.’

  When they’d got home, Flora had chosen her moment to broach the subject with Beckie. They’d got out Beckie’s favourite jigsaw, featuring a litter of Labrador puppies, and knelt opposite each other at the coffee table in the family room to work on it.

  When she’d gently told Beckie what Mrs Jenner had said about her being unkind to Edith, Beckie had looked from the piece of puzzle she was holding to Flora’s face in indignation. ‘It’s not my fault Edith’s horrible.’

  ‘Oh Beckie. I’m sure she isn’t “horrible”. And even if she was, that’s no excuse for bullying.’

  ‘But I didn’t bully her! She’s twisting it all round, Mum. I’ve never hit her.’

  ‘Beckie, Mrs Jenner saw you.’

  ‘But I was just pushing her away after she tried to hit me!’

  Oh God.

  ‘So you’re saying Edith is bullying you?’

  ‘No! No one’s bullying anyone, Mum. Edith is just so stupid and horrible that she spoils everything.’

  ‘That’s a really silly thing to say.’

  Beckie shrugged.

  ‘Darling... Is there something wrong at school? Is there anything... Maybe some other girl or boy is bullying you, or... getting you to do things you don’t want to do?’

  Beckie shook her head in what seemed like genuine puzzlement.

  ‘Did another girl or boy make you be unkind to Edith?’

  ‘No. Edith made me be “unkind” to Edith.’

  Flora sighed. ‘Darling... Nobody wants people to be unkind to them, do they? Just try to imagine for a second what it must be like to be Edith... Yes, I know, but just try to imagine. The bell goes and you run out to the playground and everyone’s having fun, and you see some girls from your class that you’d really like to chat to and play with, but then they start calling you cruel names and laughing at you and telling you you’re horrible. How do you think you would feel then?’

  Beckie shrugged. ‘Edith’s not like that. Edith doesn’t care what we say.’

  ‘How do you know that? If it was you, how would you feel?’

  Beckie, looking at her sideways, muttered reluctantly: ‘Lonely?’

  ‘Yes, you would feel really lonely, wouldn’t you. And upset? Maybe even scared, when the girls all start ganging up on you?’

  Beckie had nodded, and her lip had trembled. ‘Can you not tell Dad?’

  ‘Dad will have to know, Beckie – it’s too serious not to tell him about it. And we have to go to a meeting with Edith and her parents after school on Monday, and you’re going to tell Edith you’re sorry and you won’t be unkind to her any more.’

  And just when Flora had thought she was getting through to her, Beckie had wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  And Beckie had sighed, in that way she had, as if to say: another adult stupidity I have to go along with to humour the poor deluded souls.

  She’d got that sigh from Mia.

  Mia, Mia, Mia.

  Flora shut the front door behind her, eased her feet out of her shoes, and stood leaning back against the door. Sometimes she wished she could shut out the whole world. Keep Beckie from it. Like the Wanderers in their own little boat, adrift. Apart.

  Safe.

  But Beckie had been looking forward to this damn barbeque for weeks.

  Beckie was wearing her favourite leggings with tiny daisies all over them, and a furry blue fleece on top of her T-shirt. In one hand she swung the little silver gift bag with the present for Mia in it – a fart machine, which Ailish was really going to be thrilled about – even though, as Flora had reminded her, it wasn’t a birthday party and a present wasn’t necessary. Beckie would have spent all her pocket money on presents if Flora had let her.

  She’d always been a kind litt
le girl.

  She ran ahead down the path to the gate, but then stopped and waited for them.

  A good little girl.

  ‘Okay, Beckie,’ said Flora.

  Beckie opened their gate, skipped along the pavement ten metres, and opened next door’s, which was identical to their own, right down to the twists in the Victorian wrought iron.

  ‘Can I ring the bell?’

  ‘Of course you can, darling.’

  Beckie skipped to the door and reached for the pebble-like pottery bell-push with ‘PRESS’ on it, set in a metal disk – identical to their own bell.

  Neil said, ‘How long do we have to stay?’

  ‘Two hours minimum.’

  The door opened on a blast of noise: ABBA, overlaid by the shrieks and howls of what sounded like women in pain. Dozens of them. Flora had a sudden image of Ailish’s head flung back, mouth open, cackling in glee as she skipped about the kitchen from one instrument of torture to the next – coordinating thumbscrews, maybe in Cath Kidston prints, for all her guests, and more elaborate offerings for her special friends: a cage fashioned from shabby chic wirework swinging above the hob for Katie, who’d be pretending to be enjoying it and doing her utmost not to drip sweat on the Rayburn; a rack rigged up on the kitchen table for Marianne, spread-eagled, her bouncy curls full of bits of scone and cake and broken pastel crockery, gasping an apology to Ailish for the mess…

  Flora smiled at Jasmine, who was standing at the door looking up at them through her hair.

  Jasmine, Ailish’s fifteen-year-old daughter, was an androgynously skinny little thing, looking utterly ridiculous in a black boob tube, tiny red shorts and high clumpy black shoes. Her fake-tanned, stick-thin legs with their bony little knees were those of a child, but her blonde hair fell in shiny sheets on either side of her face, which was plastered in foundation and dominated by huge black caterpillar-like eyebrows she must have spent forever pencilling on.

  Without looking at him, Flora knew Neil was staring at the eyebrows.

  Jasmine didn’t respond to Flora’s smile.

  ‘Hello Jasmine!’ she persevered. ‘You look nice!’

  ‘Your hair’s amazing,’ said Beckie.

  Jasmine, ignoring them both as usual, muttered to Neil: ‘Mum’s in the kitchen?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Neil, deadpan. ‘Is she? I, like, really don’t know, Jasmine? I’ve only just, like, got here?’

  ‘Dad!’ said Beckie, rolling her eyes at Jasmine, whose mouth might have twitched at the edges before she turned away.

  The noise was even worse inside. Leaving them to shut the door behind them, Jasmine clumped her way through the hall ahead of them. The house was a mirror image of their own, with the stairs on the right of the hallway rather than the left. It always unsettled Flora, being here in this skewed, out-of-kilter version of their own home. Ailish had painted the oak panelling a soft dove-grey, and in place of Flora’s beloved scruffy antiques were the ‘pieces’, as Ailish called them, sourced from interiors shops: a too-chunky, clumsily carved cabinet finished in pale pink chalk paint and inexpertly ‘distressed’, which had none of the charm of the genuine antique it was trying to emulate and probably cost five times as much; a tub chair in pink and yellow tweed; a huge mirror with fairy lights strung around it.

  The whole house looked like a boutique interiors shop.

  In the kitchen, Marianne was standing at the sink shrieking and flicking her hair, and dabbing at her cleavage with a cloth. Katie and Ailish each had one of Mia’s hands and were bopping to the beat, swinging the child’s arms encouragingly, while Mia, standing stock still, had a ‘this too shall pass’ expression on her face. The two other women in the room Flora didn’t recognise. They were fussing with the candles on the table.

  ‘Beckie!’ Mia yanked her hands free and came rushing across the room to them.

  Flora made herself smile down at her.

  It was hard to believe that Mia was related to Ailish. She was a little tomboy with no interest in how she looked, her hair cut in a strange mullet, short at the sides and long at the back. The child cruelty aspect of this haircut featured regularly in Ailish’s Facebook posts. Mia herself was presumably not meant to be aware of this, but ‘Auntie Ailish hates my hair,’ Mia had told Flora with satisfaction the other day. ‘She wants me to grow out the sides. But I like it. No long bits falling in my face, but long at the back to show I’m a girl.’

  How frustrating for Ailish, although possibly it suited her not to press too hard to make Mia over. Mia was naturally pretty, and, particularly as she grew up, would be in danger of putting Jasmine well and truly in the shade.

  There were studies showing that pretty girls got away with bad behaviour more easily than their more ordinary-looking peers. Flora had read that on the internet, and had immediately thought of sparkling green eyes and an oval face and long raven hair.

  ‘Floraaaaa!’ Ailish came tottering round the table and gave her a hug. ‘Hiii-yiiii! How are you?’

  Ailish always wore heels. In her bare feet she’d have been about five foot nothing. Her hair was streaked blonde and cut in a feathered crop, her eyes carefully made up in purples and greys as if to match the kitchen. In fact, this was possible. She had a small mouth and nose and slightly upward-slanting eyes all close together in the middle of her face. Neil called her The Toxic Chipmunk.

  ‘How about this weather?!’

  This was a dig at Flora’s suggestion, when Ailish had first mooted the idea of a May barbeque, that it was a bit risky.

  ‘I know!’ Flora beamed back at her. ‘Perfect! We haven’t even brought the umbrellas I had lined up!’

  ‘I think May often is the best month in Scotland, isn’t it?’

  Mia grabbed Beckie’s hand and they ran to the door and out into the sun.

  Flora wanted to run after them, to pull Beckie back inside.

  Neil thought her reservations about Mia were ridiculous. And they probably were. Mia was no doubt just what she seemed – a funny, rather naughty little girl who had no real malice in her. A girl who loved playing outside and using her imagination, who loved creating all sorts of worlds to run around and get grubby in.

  It was ridiculous, to jump to conclusions about Mia being a bad influence on their daughter and being responsible for what Beckie had done to Edith, when Mia didn’t even go to the same school; and neither one of them, as Neil had pointed out, had ever witnessed Mia being unkind to another child. To ban Beckie from seeing her best friend, for no good reason, would probably just make things worse.

  Neil was right.

  Annoyingly, he usually was.

  But Flora couldn’t help worrying about what Mia might do, unsupervised, when there were no adults watching. She was Ailish’s niece, after all – and, let’s face it, she was basically feral.

  She set the Tupperware container with her mini-quiches on the worktop. The table was shabby-chic-ed to within an inch of its life, all vintage china and pastel plates and scented candles in moulded green glass holders.

  Neil was standing staring around him as if he’d just landed on another planet.

  ‘Iain and the boys are out there’ – Ailish waved a hand at the open door – ‘burning a range of meats he hunted down last night in Tesco.’ She had a high, little-girl voice. ‘They could probably do with another of the tribe to stand looking at it while it burns to a crisp.’ Giggle.

  Men Are So Funny And Hopeless was one of the themes of The Chipmunk Show, as Neil called Ailish’s Facebook posts, and no doubt there’d be some photos up there tonight of Iain grinning hopelessly at a charred burger.

  Neil scuttled outside. Not that he’d relish the prospect of two hours with ‘Iain and the boys’, but anything was presumably preferable to this.

  And he’d be able to keep an eye on Beckie out there.

  ‘Take a pew,’ said Ailish.

  At least the coffee was always good. Flora glugged it and shovelled up macarons amidst the giggles and shrieks as Ailish
held court, relating the latest outrage perpetrated by her ex-sister-in-law, Mia’s mother, who had an important role as the villain ‘She’ on The Chipmunk Show. It seemed She had thrown away the tap shoes and unitard Ailish had bought Mia a fortnight ago, last time Mia had been staying. Mia usually stayed with Ailish and family rather than with her father, Ailish’s hopeless brother, on the weekends on which he was supposed to have her.

  And now She was refusing to take Mia to tap dancing classes.

  Marianne: ‘Why do people like Her even have children, if they can’t be bothered with them?’

  The faces round the table were flushed, bright-eyed, eager. A pack turning on their prey. A mob at a witch’s trial.

  It was what Ailish did. What women like her had always done. She’s strange, She’s weird, She’s a freak. Compare and contrast Her with amazing Me.

  It was at times like this that she most missed Pam. Her old life. Ruth’s life.

  ‘I could sort of understand it if Mia was running around going to a load of other activities, if taking her to tap once a week was going to be a problem because She couldn’t fit it into their packed schedule. But the only organised activity She can be bothered taking Mia to is blooming rock climbing!’

  Intakes of breath and pained faces.

  ‘It’s like She really is trying to turn her into Arya Stark. Next Christmas it’ll be a sword called Needle! Stick ’em with the pointy end!’

  Flora felt a shiver go right down her body, from shoulders to thighs.

  No.

  No.

  This was just Ailish being Ailish.

  She had to try and keep a sense of perspective here. What would Pam have said?

  Pam would no doubt have agreed with Neil that Mia’s mum was doing a great job, giving Mia a free-range, old-fashioned childhood, letting her play outside with her friends most days after school in their village, not caring if she got muddy or ripped her clothes, and resisting all the pressure there was these days to do so many organised activities that there was no room left for kids to do their own thing and use their imaginations.

  And Pam would probably also have agreed that Mia was good for Beckie, who might come back from playing with her with a graze on her hand or a cut on her chin, but bubbling with excitement as she related their latest adventure.