Read Four Waifs on Our Doorstep for Free Online Page B

each of them. Anita beamed with pleasure at having such a large, clean towel, all to herself, against her skin.
She was in heaven.
    ‘What’s this, Hamish?’ I asked as he dried himself. ‘This big mark on your hand?’ It was quite an extensive scar across the back of his hand and wrist.
    ‘That’s where I got burnt by a kettle when I was a baby. They used to put me up on the worktops and I played with the wires.’
    ‘Was it just the kettle? It looks as if it was quite a nasty burn.’
    ‘I think there might have been some boiling water as well.’
    ‘It must have hurt a lot.’
    ‘I was too young to remember. But I know somebody took me to the hospital to get it treated.’
    When they were all dried and clean and sweet-smelling, perhaps for the first time since they were born, I got them into their new pyjamas and said, ‘Come on. Let’s go and have a
story.’ They looked puzzled. I realise now they didn’t know what I was talking about.
    We all went through to their big bedroom opposite ours, where I thought it best to let them sleep together again, until they had properly settled in.
    ‘Would you like
Goldilocks
or
Cinderella
?’
    They all looked at me with blank faces, unable to answer.
    At that moment I felt enormous sadness as I realised that nobody had ever read them a bedtime story, and they were unfamiliar with even these popular childhood tales. Perhaps the younger ones
had never seen or handled a book. So I explained what reading a story meant and they seemed quite interested in the idea.
    ‘Let’s start with
Cinderella
,’ I said. ‘Now we all need to sit together on the bed.’
    I sat down and the older three clambered around me, competing fiercely to climb onto my lap – another rule broken. Meanwhile, Simon sat where I’d put him, on one side of me, but not
touching, as I realised that was uncomfortable for him. It was something to work on, but it would take time. He made no eye contact, and did not show any interest in the book at first, though he
did begin to look at it as I did the voices and turned the pages.
    Finally the house went quiet and the children were all asleep.
    ‘Why do you think Caroline was like that at bath time?’ asked Mike as we put the plates away. ‘The others were all fine.’
    ‘Yes, something must have happened to her in a bathroom . . . something that frightened her.’
    As we finished clearing up, I looked at the clock – half-past nine. I remember thinking: My God, I’ve got to go to bed. This whole day was a mad jungle. I know I’m not a
drinker, but I could drink tonight. It has to get better than this!

5
Revelations
    Mrs Merry reports that the children have begun talking to her about events at their mother’s home, indicating some worrying child-care practices.’
    Social work notes, mid-March 1997
    ‘W here are the cornflakes?’ wailed Hamish. He had looked in one cupboard, then another, and was staring into a third, trembling with
anxiety.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, opening the pantry door to show him all the boxes he had put into the supermarket trolley the previous afternoon.
    Breakfast passed in a mad blur, spreading food everywhere, and the children were now creating World War Three in the playroom.
    ‘Shall I take the troops across to the park?’ asked Mike with a smile. ‘That way you can get on with cooking Sunday lunch.’ Mike always enjoyed his Sunday roast.
    ‘Yes please! But watch how you get them across the road.’
    The park was opposite our house, so there was just our road to cross. It’s a busy road now, but it wasn’t so bad then.
    ‘Right, kids,’ I said to them as they were clamouring to be first out of the front door. ‘You all have to hold hands to cross the road.’
    ‘I’m good at that,’ boasted Hamish. ‘I taught myself.’ I dreaded to think how.
    ‘Good, you can help Mike look after the younger ones if you all hold hands.’
    ‘We’re back,’ the two older ones yelled as they ran into the