LITMIR.BIZ

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inside we presented Mum with the biscuits and then I went with her into the kitchen to help make coffee for the adults and pour juice for the children, while everyone else went into the sitting room. We set the drinks and a plate of the biscuits on a tray and I carried it into the sitting room. Mum told everyone to help themselves. Paula had already found a place on Grandpa’s lap and was looking very comfortable. Beth and Adrian sat in easy chairs to have their drinks and biscuits, and when they’d finished Adrian showed Beth the toy box, which had been Mum’s idea so that I didn’t have to keep packing bags of toys to bring with us to keep the children amused. She’d added to it over the years, so there were toys for boys and girls of most ages. The two of them began doing a jigsaw puzzle together, while Paula stayed snuggled on her grandpa’s lap. Mum and I sat together on the sofa and chatted as delicious smells drifted in from the kitchen.

      ‘Dinner won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Grandpa and I thought you might like to go for a walk after we’ve eaten.’

      ‘Can we go to the dark woods?’ Adrian asked eagerly, glancing up from the puzzle.

      ‘Yes, if you’d like to,’ Mum said.

      ‘I would!’ my father put in.

      Adrian grinned. ‘The woods are very spooky,’ he told Beth. ‘And they’re very dark – that’s why I call them the dark woods. You can hide and jump out at people. They are full of scary monsters.’

      ‘I don’t like the woods,’ Paula said, snuggling closer to Grandpa.

      ‘We’ll stay together,’ my father reassured her. ‘You can hold my hand, like you did last time. There aren’t any monsters.’

      Once we’d eaten – a full roast with all the trimmings – my father suggested we went for our walk while the sun was out and then return for pudding later. We all helped clear away the dirty dishes, and then put on our coats and shoes.

      The Great Woods, as they are really called, are about three miles from my parents’ house and too far for the children to walk, so we took both cars. We parked in the small visitors’ car park; there were only two other cars. The Great Woods are more popular in summer and some visitors take picnics. My father opened the wooden gate that led to the track that ran through and around the woods. The woods are very atmospheric or, as Adrian said, ‘spooky’, because of the hundreds of very tall pine trees growing close together. Not much light comes through the branches, even in summer, and now in winter it was very dark in places. The density of the trees also magnifies the slightest sound in an otherwise eerily quiet wood, so that a twig crunching or bracken snapping makes you jump. It was easy to see how some of the locals believed The Great Woods were haunted.

      ‘Remember, you must be able to see us at all times,’ I called as Adrian and Beth ran ahead. This was a rule I’d started after one of our visits when Adrian had become too adventurous and had got lost for a couple of minutes. I think it had scared him as much as it had us, so I knew he would do as I’d asked, and Beth was keeping very close to him.

      The rest of us followed in the direction Adrian and Beth had gone – along the single track flanked by trees and bracken. Every so often they’d disappear from view and then spring out from their hiding place, making grizzly noises to scare us. Dad always warned Paula when we were about to be scared, so that when they did spring out she wasn’t too frightened; indeed, she often laughed. It was great fun. The track took about forty-five minutes to walk and then we returned to my parents’ house and enjoyed Mum’s wonderful homemade apple crumble with lashings of custard. As Beth had to telephone her father at seven, we left at six. My parents stood on the doorstep, waving and blowing kisses until we were out of sight.

      ‘They’re very nice people,’ Beth said. ‘I’ve had a lovely day.’

      ‘Good, love. I’m pleased,’ I said. ‘We’ve all enjoyed ourselves.’

      The children were quiet on the way home, exhausted from their day out. That evening when Beth spoke to her father I heard her telling him all about the great time she’d had at Nana and Grandpa’s, including a description of our walk in the scary woods. Beth then asked her father why she didn’t have a Nana and Grandpa. I couldn’t hear Derek’s reply as I was in the bathroom helping Paula, but I knew from Jessie that Derek’s father was in a care home and that he had no contact with his ex-wife’s family.

      That evening, once all the children were tucked up in bed and asleep, I sat in the living room with a cup of tea feeling a lot more positive than I had the evening before. Although John hadn’t been able to come home for the weekend, we’d made the best of it. The children had enjoyed themselves and hadn’t missed their fathers too much, and I’d enjoyed the time I’d spent with them and the day at my parents’. In the weeks that followed, I came to view that weekend as a small oasis of calm before the storm hit and life changed irrevocably for us all, forever.

      Chapter Eleven

       Ignorance

      On Monday morning I was standing in the playground with Paula waiting for school to start when Jenni’s mother approached me. I hadn’t got back to her about Beth going to her house for tea and I was rather hoping that the invitation had been forgotten. Beth hadn’t been asking to go – indeed, she hadn’t mentioned it at all – and given the upset I’d already caused Derek I was reluctant to ask him for permission and risk upsetting him further.

      ‘Hi. You remember me?’ Jenni’s mother asked with a smile.

      ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, returning her smile. ‘Beth often talks about Jenni and the games they’ve played during their lunch break.’ However, Beth also talked of other children, so I’d formed the impression that perhaps Jenni wasn’t the special friend her mother thought her to be, but more one of a group of friends. I was now anticipating another invitation for Beth to go to tea, but instead Jenni’s mother asked quite brusquely, ‘Is he still in hospital, then?’

      ‘Derek? Yes, he is at present. But he should be home soon.’

      ‘Aren’t they keeping him in?’ she now asked. I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the bluntness of her questions. Thankfully Beth and Jenni were standing to one side and talking to Paula, so I doubted they could hear.

      ‘He should be discharged soon,’ I confirmed, not wanting to get drawn into a discussion about Derek.

      She raised her eyes upwards in exasperation. ‘It’s not right, is it?’ she said. ‘I mean, a man like him bringing up a girl alone. Bad enough before he went loopy, but now! Don’t you think something should be done about it? I do!’

      As a foster carer I was used to deflecting personal questions about the children I fostered. I was also used to hearing derogatory comments, but never before had I heard something so blatantly prejudiced and cruel.

      ‘Done about it?’ I queried, trying to kerb the hostility in my tone. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

      ‘Well, he’s not all there, is he?’ Jenni’s mother said. ‘That’s why he’s been locked up. He shouldn’t be in charge of a child. It’s not right.’

      I was quietly seething. ‘Derek certainly is “all there”,’ I said. ‘And by all accounts he’s done a very good job of raising his daughter alone. I doubt I would have coped as well.’

      ‘So why is he in the funny farm, then?’ Jenni’s mother persisted.

      I thought there was nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation with someone expressing such bigoted views, and it wouldn’t be long before Beth and Jenni overheard. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said tightly. ‘I really can’t discuss Derek with you, but I think some sympathy wouldn’t go amiss. The poor man is in hospital.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Jenni’s mother said. ‘A mental hospital!’

      I turned away and pretended to adjust

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