Let Me Go

Harley nodded and said, ‘Oh, I see’, then went to look out of the bedroom window, where she remained while I stripped and re-made the bed, her question about the former residents clearly all she had to say. I didn’t press her. She was obviously tired – both physically and mentally.

‘There,’ I said eventually, ‘all done and ready. I’ll sort the trundle bed out in the morning. Get it out of your way. But for now I’ll say goodnight and let you get some sleep.’

‘Thank you, I really am so tired,’ she said and I could tell that she meant it. ‘It was horrible trying to sleep in that hospital,’ she added with a shudder. ‘What with all the screaming and howling every night.’

I tried to imagine it. Screaming and howling in ‘asylums’ was the stock in trade of movies. But what was life on a long-term mental health ward really like? Just like that, I imagined, at least some of the time, anyway. It wasn’t as if they could soundproof every wall. It might have looked serene to us, or any other passing visitor, but we’d only seen the grounds and reception area, hadn’t we? Perhaps she was better off out of that place after all. But if she’d been keen to leave, then why risk being returned to them? It made no sense.

‘Of course, sweetie,’ I said. ‘We’ll sort everything out tomorrow. And in the meantime you get your head down and get some rest. What about something to eat though? Are you hungry at all? Or shall I bring you up a drink?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘I’m not eating at the moment. And I’d just like to be on my own now.’

And with that, and a glance towards the door, I was dismissed. I just hoped she wasn’t going to do anything like jump out of the window. Instinct told me, however, that today’s bolt was shot; and perhaps Mrs Raine was right about Harley only ‘trying’ to kill herself, in any case. I had to hope so. Short of locking her in a padded cell, there was little else I could do. And what did she mean about ‘not eating at the moment’? Did she mean as in now? Or today? Or for the foreseeable future? Had she put herself on hunger strike? So many unanswered questions. What a situation to suddenly find ourselves in.

Which was why, coffee on board, and Mike in front of the telly, I wasted no time in calling Christine Bolton. She had already texted on our way home to tell me to call her when I could. Even if it’s late, she’d added. I’ll leave my mobile switched on.

I guess she thought it was the least she could do. Though I knew she’d be unprepared for what I told her.

‘Oh my God, Casey!’ was her first reaction, echoing Tyler’s earlier. ‘I just can’t believe it! I genuinely do not know what to say to you.’

‘Well, you couldn’t have known,’ I said. ‘Any more than we could. I mean, it’s not something you really prepare for, is it? A kid leaping from the back of a moving car. So, there’s nothing you or anyone could have done about it.’

There were a few moments of what I assumed was a guilty silence. ‘But if I’d known the girl was still like this, I would have absolutely point-blank refused to take responsibility for her. I feel I’ve been sold down the swanny, frankly. God, I’m so sorry, Casey. Looks like this Harley has fooled us all – the professionals, too.’

‘Not according to the manager,’ I told her. ‘She talked about Harley’s threats to kill herself – and attempts to – as if it were all just, I don’t know, business as usual. And according to the psychologist, there isn’t anything diagnosable wrong with her. It’s all just “environmental”, whatever that means.’

Christine huffed just as I had. ‘I presume what it means is that they’ve washed their hands of her.’

‘Quite. But the fact remains, ill or not, this girl clearly intends to harm herself and I don’t know how we manage that. It certainly doesn’t seem the ideal starting point for trying to work with her to be able to get back home to her mother, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Christine said, but then, more firmly, ‘Look, we were told that there was no longer any significant risk with Harley. That’s obviously wrong – she’s already proved that – but all you and Mike can do is your job. Do the obvious, like locking away medicines, keeping an eye on your knives, razors, etc., but if she leaves the house, you can’t forcibly stop her, as you know. Just do as you would with any other child, okay? Always give her a coming-home time and if she isn’t back by then, phone the emergency duty team and the police, and report her as missing and vulnerable. She has a mobile, I’m assuming?’

‘Oh yes. And it’s her best friend by the looks of it. So no worries there.’

‘Good. Make sure she gives you the number as soon as possible.’

‘Oh, you can be sure I shall be doing that.’ I grimaced at the thought of what we might have to deal with, but at the same time I knew it was absolutely my job. ‘And what if she leaves the house having first told us she intends to do herself harm?’ I asked.

‘Same answer,’ Christine said. ‘You must let her leave if she insists. Remember that case a few years ago when a foster carer dragged a child back from an upstairs window they intended to jump from?’

I did. The child reported it and the foster carers, ridiculously, in my book, had to fight an assault charge. ‘I do indeed,’ I said. ‘But I understand, I get it. Follow protocol with the police, EDT (the Emergency Duty Team) and my own reporting procedures to you, and then just keep my fingers and toes crossed that nothing awful happens.’

‘Exactly. As will I,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’d better leave you to it. I’m not sure of her name, but I imagine you’ll hear from Harley’s social worker sometime tomorrow. Let’s ride this out and see what we can do to help, yes? And in the meantime, please just try to see this for what it is, Casey. And remember, you and Mike can only do what you can do. Keep that uppermost in your minds at all times.’

Christine was right. I had no choice in the matter, did I? We’d do our best to keep her safe – at least make things as safe as we could for her – and once I was off the phone to Christine, Mike and I discussed how we’d do that.

‘Like we said before though, Case,’ Mike pointed out, ‘this is very short-term, and at the end of it we have Kieron and Lauren and the baby to think about, so let’s just get together with the social worker, knock up a risk assessment, or whatever it is they call them these days, and get on with it.’

I laughed at that. Mike wasn’t one for paperwork, at least not my kind of paperwork. He was a whizz at stocktaking and numbers, but the pen and paper stayed at work as far as he was concerned. I glanced up towards the bedroom above us and sighed. ‘For all the hiding of knives, sharps, and pills, the way things are going the poor thing might die of bloody starvation or dehydration if she doesn’t accept any food or drink,’ I said. ‘If she wasn’t hungry, she would surely have just said she wasn’t hungry. Not eating “at the moment” sounds more like she’s deliberately starving herself. Or she feels she doesn’t need to because she knows she’s not long for this world. Seriously, Mike,’ I added. ‘This isn’t funny!’

For he was smiling. ‘Oh, love, you’re so dramatic!’ he said. ‘It’s been what? Three hours or so since we met her? I hardly think she’ll be wasting away already. If you’re that worried, go take her something up. Leave it outside her door for her.’

I did exactly that. A glass of fruit squash and a plateful of snacks. I then knocked. ‘Harley, love,’ I whispered, ‘I know you weren’t hungry, but I’ve left you a few bits out here for you to take in, in case you get peckish or thirsty through the night.’

There was no reply so I knocked again. ‘Harley, did you hear me, love?’

‘Thank you,’ she said finally, ‘I’ll get them in a minute.’

And when I checked, an hour later, she’d duly taken them in. Which at least gave me some cause for relief. Perhaps I was being overly dramatic. Perhaps the psychologist was right. Perhaps she had absolutely no intention of killing herself. Perhaps it was all about being separated from her mother – ‘care-seeking’ as they put it – and perhaps, after the rejection of being forcibly discharged, her leap from the car was just her way of letting us know that she still needed care, that she needed our help. Like putting down a marker. Or a line in the sand. If so, I thought gamely, bring it on.

Chapter 4

‘Mum, where’s the pickle gone?’

It was late morning on Wednesday – day three of Harley’s placement – and while I was busy knocking up a cheese sandwich for her, Tyler was speed-assembling a packed lunch for himself. ‘Seriously,’ he added, shunting bottles and jars around the bottom of the fridge. ‘I need it. I have to be out the door by twelve or I’m going to be late!’

‘You need it?’ I asked, grinning at him. ‘Why don’t you just grab some ketchup instead? Time was when a glug of that would have been fine with anything. We don’t have any pickle, love. Dad finished up the last of it and I haven’t been able to do my shop yet, have I?’ Something I was hoping to be able to do later on – at least if Mike managed to get away from work on time, like he’d promised.

Tyler sighed dramatically as he pulled out some mustard. ‘Hello – there are computers? And time was, Mummy dear, when you’d have made my packed lunch for me.’ He sighed again. ‘Where, oh where, have those golden days gone?’

I laughed as I grabbed another couple of slices of bread and began buttering them for him. ‘Those days, my darling boy, have suffered the same fate as the jar of pickle. They no longer exist, they have ceased to be.’

Tyler grinned and nodded towards the pile of cheese I’d grated. ‘So I noticed,’ he said. ‘My loving mother has now been replaced by a chambermaid, slash waitress, slash carer – of an invisible child. Have you Harry Pottered her into a cupboard under the stairs or something? Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder if she even exists.’

He had a point. Over the last sixty-odd hours, I’d taken food upstairs at least half a dozen times, depositing it outside Harley’s bedroom door every time as if an offering for a vengeful god. Yet of Harley herself, I had seen very little. She had twice opened the door enough for me to see her, if little more, and such visits as she’d made to the bathroom had been mostly conducted when no one else was around. It really was as if she was treating our home like she were in some fancy hotel, a feeling that – worryingly – I was struggling to shake off, because middle-aged women moaning about kids treating their homes ‘like hotels’ was a look I really didn’t want to be accused of liking. I kept having to remind myself that she was a vulnerable, suicidal teen and not simply a ‘problem’ that had been ‘dumped’ on us.

Tyler, who had yet to clap eyes on her, obviously, clearly had no such internal wrangles.

‘Well, what else am I meant to do, Ty?’ I asked, frustrated with myself. ‘I need to make sure she eats, even if she does refuse to leave her room.’

Tyler shrugged as he wrapped his lunch in a square of foil. ‘I dunno, Mum, but you aren’t really making sure she eats, are you? You’re making sure you provide food, but how do you know she’s eating it? She could be flinging it out of the window into next door’s garden, for all you know. Anyway, I’m out of here. Don’t forget the pickle!’

I was still staring at the tray full of food after Tyler had kissed my cheek and left. He was right. I had no idea if Harley had eaten any of the stuff I’d left for her. I had simply relied on the information available to me: the empty plates being put back outside her bedroom door. In fact, I’d only seen her once outside her room since she’d come to us, scurrying across the landing to the bathroom, in satin pyjamas, at 5 a.m. this morning, with her mobile phone clutched in her hand. Not entirely out of the ordinary – teenagers never seemed to go anywhere without their phones these days, the loo included – but it was clear this situation needed nipping in the bud; it would be impossible to help her if I never actually interacted with her, and two days seemed more than enough for her to re-orient herself and engage with us. Tyler was right: I needed to get in there and start making some ground rules.

‘Harley!’ I called, as I knocked at her door, the tray balanced carefully on my free hand. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, I know you’re still feeling a bit rubbish, but I have to come in, love, okay?’

‘Hang on!’ I heard back, followed by a scramble and then the door opening. ‘What is it?’ she asked, her face squeezing through around four inches of opening.

I smiled at the absurdity. It was as if I were a pestering cold caller, turning up on her doorstep unannounced to try and sell her something, and who she was absolutely not going to let in. Well, I wasn’t a cold caller. This was my house, I had been asked to take care of her, and she wasn’t going to stop me, ill or not.

‘I don’t want to push my way in, sweetheart, but I do need to come in,’ I told her. ‘Only for a moment or two. I need to just have a quick look at your scratches and to make sure everything is alright in here. And get your mobile phone number.’

Those cold blue eyes looked at me with new suspicion. ‘Why do you need to have my number? That’s private.’

‘I’m not suggesting I invade your privacy, love,’ I said nicely. ‘But we need to exchange mobile numbers because that’s one of the rules.’

‘Why?’

‘So if you go out we can keep in touch with one another. I’m not asking for your phone, or even to see it, just your number so I can text you if you’re out and I need to. It’s not the Spanish Inquisition. Just part of my job, I’m afraid, so can you open the door, please? Then we can get it over with.’

Harley scowled, then pulled the door open and turned away from me in one single movement, marching across to the bed and standing in front of it, arms folded across her chest. ‘Oh my God,’ she said dramatically, ‘it’s as bad as being back at the hospital, this is. Why can’t I simply be left alone?’

I placed the tray on the bedside table as my eyes scanned the room. ‘You know why,’ I said as I made a point of checking out the side of her face. ‘Did you clean your grazes and put more of the antiseptic cream on?’

‘Yes, of course I did,’ she said petulantly. ‘And why? Why can’t you leave me alone? What difference does it make? Do you seriously think you can stop me from killing myself if I wanted to?’

She was disarmingly articulate – a very different prospect from most of the children we took care of. And also poised, very beautiful and seemingly in control – all very much at odds with the question she’d just asked me, which made it difficult to know how best to respond to it.

‘No, love, I don’t suppose I could,’ I plumped for finally. ‘I don’t suppose anyone could, but I’m really hoping that you don’t decide to do that. I can’t pretend to know how you’re feeling, but what I do know is that no matter how bad things seem, they can always get better.’

She rolled her eyes at this. ‘You really don’t understand, do you?’ she answered, stepping across to the chest of drawers and calmly opening the top one. ‘And here, before you search my room, here’s the food you’ve been leaving me. I don’t want to eat, because I don’t want to live. So, since you’re here, you might as well have it back.’

She started lobbing bits of fruit, packets of crisps and empty side plates onto the bed. Of the sandwiches I’d previously made her there was no sign, but, as if reading my mind, just as I began asking, ‘Where’s all the—’ she nodded towards the window. ‘It’s important to feed the birds at this time of year,’ she said archly.

It wasn’t, actually, I thought. There were berries ripening absolutely everywhere. But blow me, Tyler had been right. ‘I did drink the juice,’ she continued, ‘and I got water from the bathroom so don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you just yet.’

She was mocking me, and the temptation to become irritable was immense, but I reminded myself that she was a deeply damaged soul and that deeply damaged youngsters often did their level best to inspire everyone around them to dislike them. I also looked at the food now laid out for my inspection and decided it could stay just where it was.

‘I’m so sorry that you’re feeling like this, I really am,’ I told her. ‘And I know you don’t know me, but I’m here for you, okay? Here to talk. Here to listen. Here in any way you need me to be here for you, okay? Oh, and one other thing, love,’ I added, as she thumped the drawer shut again. ‘Your social worker is going to be here later on today. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to her at least, won’t you?’

‘Tessa?’ she said, eyes wide with disbelief. ‘Why on earth would I want to talk to her?’

I had no answer to that. ‘I don’t know, Harley, do I? I know nothing about you. So tell me. Why don’t you want to talk to her? I’m guessing from your reaction that you have a pretty good reason.’

‘Because she doesn’t listen,’ she said. ‘She just thinks I’m “playing games”.’ She lifted her arms and put the words into two-finger quote marks. ‘Would you want to speak to someone who said that about you? And to your face? So, no, I don’t want to speak to her, thank you.’

‘Well, that’s your choice, love,’ I told her. ‘I can’t make you see her, but, you know, at some point you are going to have to come out and join the real world. Now,’ I said, pulling my own phone from my pocket, ‘can I take your number down, love?’

Harley shook her head, but this time it seemed to be in sadness rather than defiance. And I knew what she was thinking as she grumpily ran through all the digits – that I really didn’t get it. That the real world was exactly what she was trying to escape.

And who was I to argue with her reasoning, either? I really didn’t know the first thing about her, let alone the complexity of the situation that had brought her to my door. But at least I’d know more on the arrival of her social worker, who, according to the brief call she’d made to me yesterday, would be arriving, and hopefully filling me in a bit, at two, even if the girl in her charge didn’t want to see her.

Tessa Halliday, in fact, arrived at more like twenty past, and as I watched her walk down the path, glasses bouncing off her chest from a glinting silver chain, instinct told me that the stressed-out expression on her face was not so much related to the fact that she was running late as a more or less permanent state – something I saw a lot more these days than I used to. She looked hot, too, three-quarter-length trousers clinging to her shins, and had the air of someone who regularly found herself thinking that she’d probably made the wrong career choice. Perhaps she had – the enormous neon-striped raffia tote bag on her shoulder looked as if it would be more at home on a Spanish beach. Perhaps it had been until only recently. Perhaps she carried it as a talisman, a reminder of happier times.

I opened the door before she got to it and beamed brightly at her – negative vibes could be horribly contagious. ‘I’m Casey,’ I chirruped. ‘Come on in, kettle’s on.’

‘Thanks,’ she puffed, as if she’d jogged rather than driven. ‘So muggy today, isn’t it? I’m roasting! So I’ll just have a glass of water, if that’s okay.’

‘Water it is, then,’ I said. And, gesturing, I added, ‘Go on into the living room. Make yourself at home while I just go and fetch it. Though I’ve squash, if you’d prefer that? Or juice?’

‘No, really,’ she said. ‘Just water will be fine,’ and, rightly or wrongly, I got the impression that just being here was a pain for her, let alone being plied with exotic drink choices.

It was an impression that didn’t change when I returned to the living room to find her manhandling a buff folder out of the incongruous beach bag with a scowl on her face – it kept snagging on various frayed bits and refusing to come out.

‘So,’ she said, as she finally liberated what I presumed was Harley’s file, ‘I gather Madam isn’t gracing us with her presence?’

That ‘Madam’, I thought. It didn’t sit well with me – sounded loaded. But I reminded myself that I was in no position to judge just what kind of load Tessa Halliday carried. I shook my head, reserved judgement. ‘Not right now.’

She hooked up her glasses, took out some paperwork and placed it in front of her. ‘Not that I thought she would, to be honest,’ she said. ‘She hates me, the world and all who reside in it, at the moment.’

‘Sounds as if you know Harley quite well then,’ I proffered.

Tessa nodded. ‘Been about eighteen months since I got involved with the family,’ she explained. ‘Maybe a little longer. Harley had suffered at the hands of some quite nasty bullies. Both at school and online, this was. We got called in by the school one day after she’d refused to get changed for a sports lesson and it had come out that she’d been cutting herself. Seriously enough for them to report it to us – no doubt you’ll see for yourself soon enough – and all over, everywhere. Arms, legs and torso. I’d bet there’s not two inches of skin – of the skin she can get to – that hasn’t been mutilated in some way.’

Something about the matter-of-fact way she described this disturbed me. It was as if she were relating a news report to me, not speaking about the fragile young girl who was lying in her room only six feet above our heads. I had seen the results of self-harm many times before but it was always shocking enough to ensure that I’d never become desensitised to it; no less sad seeing perfect young skin being so scarred. Sadly, it sounded as though Tessa had. I wondered what else she’d seen during her own years at the coalface.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘well, as I said when we spoke, she changed into pyjamas when she got here – long sleeves and legs – so as yet I’ve seen nothing. In fact, I’ve seen very little of her at all. I know very little about her and what makes her tick, which is why I’m very keen to hear about her background. So, initially you were just working with the family then? What did that look like? Anything you can tell me will be really helpful.’

‘Well, as I said, the cutting was very serious – potentially life-threatening in some cases, so much so that her mother apparently had to call an ambulance quite a few times to get Harley rushed into hospital for urgent treatment. My remit was to try to work with them to get to the root cause and to help Harley find less invasive ways of dealing with her problems. However, things escalated when Millie left home. She—’

‘I’m sorry, who?’ I interrupted. ‘Millie, you say?’

‘Millie as in Harley’s older sister. There are just the two of them. Six-year age gap but they were apparently very close. Since the death of their father – Harley would have been around three when that happened—’

‘How did he die?’

‘In a motorcycle accident. He was a biker apparently. All very sad and so on,’ she added, not looking sad at all. ‘And it seems Millie was very much the glue that held this fractured family together, because the mother was, and still is, I suspect, addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol – it seems she never really recovered from the shock of her husband’s death – so it was Millie who dressed Harley each morning and took her to school, made sure she had something to take for her lunch and had a cooked meal when she got home. But, as would be expected, Millie fell in love and eventually moved out. You can’t blame the girl,’ she added, even though I wasn’t about to. ‘It was far too much responsibility for her at such a young age.’

I let out a big breath and leaned back in my seat. There was definitely a lot more going on here than just a child being bullied at school, bad enough though that was. ‘So the serious cutting – the hospital treatment – this happened after Millie left?’

‘Actually, no,’ Tessa replied, ‘she’d already been doing that, and it really upset her sister, obviously, but after she left, Harley upped her game. That’s when she was first rescued from a bridge over a motorway. Personally, I thought it was a ploy to get Millie to come home – the witness didn’t think she was actually going to jump – but—’ she spread her hands – ‘I just don’t know anymore. She seems dead set on harming herself – she’s proven that over and over – but whether or not she actually intends to kill herself, I’m not so sure.’