Sadie

Sadie stared at him in astonishment, and then glanced at her mum for some sort of support.

‘Do what Allen asks, love,’ was all she said.

Sadie blinked. She handed the cuddly toy back to Allen, and then turned and walked to her satchel as calmly as her turmoil would allow. She picked it up and hung it on the creaky stair banister where she always kept it; then she ran up the stairs, her feet thumping the floorboards, and slammed her bedroom door behind her. She threw herself on to her bed, hugged her pillow and burst into tears.

After some time – Sadie was not sure how long – she heard the stairs creak as they always did when someone walked up them. There was a knock on the door and, without waiting to be asked, Jackie walked in. She was holding the cuddly toy. ‘Come on, love,’ she said, sitting on the bed beside Sadie and gently stroking her hair.

Sadie continued to whimper into her pillow.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Jackie continued. ‘To have a man in the house, I mean.’

‘What about Dad?’ Sadie asked accusingly through her tears.

‘Oh, love. No one’s forgetting about your dad. It’s just …’ Her voice trailed away, and she continued to stroke Sadie’s hair as she waited for the crying to subside. Eventually Sadie sat up and put her head against her mum’s shoulder. Jackie handed her the cuddly toy. ‘You should say thank you to Allen for this,’ she told her daughter.

Sadie looked at it in distaste. She could hardly explain to herself why she found it such an unpleasant thing, let alone to her mum. ‘I’m too old for things like that,’ she said finally. ‘It’s babyish.’

‘I know love, but Allen … He doesn’t have any children, and he just wanted to do something nice for you.’

As she spoke, Sadie felt a hot wave of guilt passing over her, and she knew she had behaved badly. She stared hard at the frayed carpet on the floor in a gesture of apology, but she prayed her mum wouldn’t make her go down and say sorry. ‘Is that where you’ve been going? In the evenings, I mean. To see him?’

Jackie nodded, and brushed a strand of Sadie’s long hair off her face. ‘Allen’s going to look after us, love,’ she said in a half-whisper. ‘He’s going to make sure we’re not lonely, you and me.’

Sadie continued to stare at the floor. ‘Is he going to live here?’ she asked.

‘Yes. If that’s all right with you. Is it?’

For a moment Sadie thought about telling the truth – that she didn’t want anyone else in their house, that she didn’t want anyone else in their life. But then she looked up at her mum and saw the anxiety in her eyes. ‘All right,’ she muttered.

Jackie squeezed her hand. ‘Shall we go down?’ she asked.

Sadie nodded mutely.

Allen was sitting on the sofa downstairs, his hands behind his head and his legs stretched out in front of him. When he saw the two of them in the door he sat up straight. Sadie felt her mum give her an encouraging little push, and stepped forward. ‘Thank you for my present,’ she said, without fully catching his eye.

Allen stood up, walked over to her and slid the palm of his hand momentarily down the back of her head. When it reached her neck, she felt him stroke her gently on the shoulder and then squeeze slightly. He stepped over to Jackie. ‘You ready?’ he asked her.

Jackie shot a guilty look at her daughter. ‘Um, me and Allen are nipping out tonight. You’ll be all right, won’t you, love?’

The corkscrew in Sadie’s heart twisted a little further. ‘Yeah,’ she said sullenly. ‘I’ll be all right.’

She pushed past them and hurried back up to her bedroom.

By six o’clock she was alone in the house. It was a light, sunny evening, and from her room looking out over the front of the house she could hear the sounds of other children playing in the street. There was nothing to stop her from going out and joining them, or phoning Carly or Anna, but somehow she didn’t have the enthusiasm. Her mind was saturated with the confusion of her mother’s bombshell; it was like a piece of blotting paper that had soaked up so much ink that you couldn’t see its original colour. She could concentrate on nothing else. At times she found herself crying; then she would find herself unable to cry, even though she felt as though she ought to. She made herself a sandwich, but two mouthfuls in she realized she wasn’t hungry, so she left it half-eaten on a plate by the sink. She ran herself a deep bubble bath – that always made her feel better – but it did no good. She put on her nightdress, which was a bit too small for her, and climbed under her duvet in an attempt to shut out the persistent evening light. Clutching her teddy bear, she bit her lip as the words her mother had spoken echoed in the chamber of her mind.

‘Allen’s going to look after us.’

But they didn’t need looking after.

‘He’s going to make sure we’re not lonely.’

But they weren’t lonely, as long as there was the two of them.

‘Allen’s going to be your new dad.’

But she didn’t want a new dad. She just wanted her old one.

The following morning was a Saturday, and Sadie woke early. The ugly feeling that had been with her until she had finally fallen asleep the previous night had not gone away, and she didn’t feel as if she would ever want to get out of bed. But she was thirsty, so, still wearing her nightdress, she crept downstairs, doing her best not to wake anyone.

Allen was already up, leaning with his back to the sink, a mug of tea in his hand. As Sadie walked into the kitchen, she saw his eyes look her up and down and she felt a sudden prickle of discomfort. He looked at her in an enquiring way, and Sadie found herself almost apologizing for her presence.

‘I just wanted a glass of water,’ she told him.

He acted as though he had not heard her and, instead of moving to allow her access to the sink, he looked meaningfully at the kitchen table.

Sadie followed his gaze. There, on the table, was her beloved satchel. It was lying on its side, the sturdy leather straps unbuckled and the contents spilling out. On top of her few school books, neatly arranged in a precise line from smallest to largest, were the sweets from yesterday.

‘Who said you could look in my satchel?’ Sadie whispered, horrified that anyone would do such a thing and moving swiftly to pack her things up. But again Allen seemed to ignore her.

When he finally did speak, it was slowly and smoothly. ‘That’s a lot of sweets for a little girl whose mam only gives her two pound a week,’ he observed. He sniffed, his nose wrinkling as he did so, and then took a sip of his tea. The blue eyes continued to look at her over the rim of the mug.

Sadie looked at him with what defiance she could muster, but she couldn’t help glancing guiltily back at the table. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been saving up,’ she retorted.

Allen smiled humourlessly. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell your mam.’ And then, almost as an afterthought, ‘I don’t think she’d be very happy, do you?’

He turned and poured the dregs of his tea into the sink. Sadie started to pack her things back into the bag, but stopped when Allen spoke again.

‘You didn’t clear your dinner things away last night.’

‘I’ll do it this morning.’

Allen breathed out heavily through his nose, a contemptuous sound. ‘It’s no good doing it this morning,’ he said in a suddenly irritated voice. ‘You made the mess last night. No one likes messy children.’

A thousand different retorts popped into Sadie’s head. ‘I don’t care what you like or don’t like.’ ‘This is my house, not yours.’ ‘What makes you think you can talk to me like that?’ But suddenly she was tongue-tied. She gazed at his back for a few moments before continuing to pack up her satchel. When she had finished, she looked back at him to see that he had turned and was moving towards her; but he stopped in his tracks as soon as she noticed him.

‘You should go and get dressed,’ he told her, his voice quiet again now. ‘Nice girls don’t walk around the house wearing next to nothing.’ He smiled, and the expression seemed out of place to Sadie. ‘Go and get dressed. Then come back down and we can have breakfast together.’

Sadie gathered her satchel in her arms and, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the shortness of her nightdress, ran back up the stairs. She threw her stuff carelessly into her room, and then she shut herself in the bathroom and slid the lock closed. Half of her wanted to run into her mum’s room and slip into the bed next to her, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to face seeing the ruffled sheets on the side where Allen had been sleeping, or lying on the linen where his skin had been. She could hear him moving about in the kitchen, but she vowed that she would not leave the bathroom until she heard her mum getting up.

She didn’t have to wait long before Jackie walked down the stairs. Sadie knew what she would be doing – going to find her cigarettes. She listened to the creaking of the floorboards before unlocking the bathroom door and slipping back into her room. She removed her nightie and dressed in a tracksuit – quickly, though she wasn’t sure why. Then she took a deep breath and went back downstairs.

As soon as she walked into the kitchen she could tell that something was wrong. Allen sat at the head of the table, stony-faced, and Jackie seemed unwilling to look her daughter in the eye. A third place was set, with a side plate containing a slice of toast and jam. As Sadie walked in, Allen stood up, picked up the piece of toast, took it to the other side of the kitchen and dropped it in the bin.

‘Sadie, love,’ her mum said, breaking the tense silence. ‘Allen told you he was making you your breakfast, and you let it get cold.’

Sadie was silent, too stunned to speak.

‘What do you say?’ her mum insisted.

The little girl’s eyes flickered between the two of them. ‘I didn’t know,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll get my own toast.’

Jackie glanced at Allen, who almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘No, Sadie, love. It’s too late now.’ Jackie’s voice was subdued. ‘Try and be quicker next time, all right?’

Sadie opened her mouth to object, but as she did so she caught Allen’s eye. There was something about the stern look he gave her that made her feel suddenly frightened of this man in their kitchen. Too angry and upset to say anything, she turned and left the flat, slamming the front door behind her.

As she made her way to the estate playground, she felt hot tears of indignation welling up in her eyes. Someone called her name in a friendly way, but she didn’t want to speak to anyone and picked up her pace; by the time she reached the playground she was running, and the tracks of her tears were horizontal along the side of her face. It was still quite early, so the playground was deserted as she took her usual seat at the swings.

Sadie just couldn’t understand why her mum was taking his side against her. She hadn’t been out of order, had she? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Then she thought guiltily about the chocolates. It was true that she shouldn’t have stolen them, but they hadn’t done anyone much harm, had they? Not that she thought her mum would see it that way. Sadie really didn’t want Allen to tell Jackie his suspicions, and she hated the fact that this man suddenly had a hold over her.

As the morning wore on, the playground began to fill up – mums mostly, with their kids, but also a few older teenagers, loitering and sharing cigarettes there because there was nowhere else to go. Sadie was used to these people – she recognized most of them and certainly never felt threatened by them – but she didn’t want company this morning; and as the nearby tower block started casting a shadow over the playground, she left with a vague shiver and wandered round the concrete jungle of the estate. By lunchtime, though, she knew she would have to go back: she was getting hungry, and had no money to buy food. And even though she knew she could knock on the door of a neighbour, somehow she didn’t feel like sharing what was bottling up inside her. She headed home.

Allen was still in the kitchen when Sadie walked in. She looked around to see if her mum was there but, as though reading her mind, Allen said, ‘She’s gone to the shops.’

Sadie kept her lips tightly closed.

Allen walked towards her, and suddenly his frowning face lightened up and he smiled down at Sadie. ‘I’ve been out and got you something,’ he told her. He smiled a little more broadly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small chocolate bar. He bent down and gave it to the reluctant Sadie. ‘If you want sweets,’ he told her in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you only have to ask.’

Sadie winced slightly under his piercing stare, but Allen ignored it. He held her chin gently between his thumb and first finger and lifted her face slightly. Sadie couldn’t help but notice that his hand was shaking slightly. Once more she smelled his aftershave, and she suppressed a wave of nausea.

‘Just keep it a secret from your mum, eh? She doesn’t have to know everything, does she?’

Suddenly a key could be heard in the door. Allen quickly stood up, turned his back on Sadie and walked swiftly into the sitting room. By the time Jackie was in the house, Sadie was alone in the kitchen.

Last night Sadie had been shocked and upset that Mum and Allen had gone out; tonight she wished they would. But they stayed in, and on Sunday they didn’t leave the house at all. Sadie spent most of the time in her bedroom, only coming down for food which her mum – uncharacteristically – prepared for them. They would sit round the table in silence, eating ready meals and drinking water. Occasionally Jackie would try to goad them into conversation, but never with success. It was the longest weekend of Sadie’s life, and she couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday morning.

She met up with Carly and Anna as she always did, but they could tell instantly that Sadie was subdued and not her usual self.

‘What’s up with you?’ Anna asked when Sadie appeared not to hear something she had said.

Sadie blinked. ‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t look like nothing. You look like you’re sucking a lemon.’

‘I’m fine, OK?’ she snapped.

Anna and Carly looked at each other, their eyes mock-wide. ‘All right, all right!’

They walked in silence for a bit.

‘What d’you reckon?’ Carly asked finally. ‘We going to help ourselves to some chocolate this morning? There’s that minimart on the side of the main road – we haven’t tried that yet, and I reckon we could get our hands on the ciggie counter if someone distracted the girl there.’

Anna sucked her teeth. ‘What d’you reckon, Sadie? I’m up for it if everyone else is.’

They waited for Sadie to answer, but she seemed to be in a world of her own. Suddenly she realized what they had been saying and snapped out of it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not this morning. I don’t feel like it.’

‘Why not?’ Anna asked, her voice rising several notches.

‘Yeah, come on, Sadie. I’m starving. I haven’t had any breakfast.’

Sadie snapped, ‘I don’t want to, OK?’

Sadie never usually raised her voice, and the sound of it was enough to silence Anna and Carly into submission. But Sadie felt suddenly guilty that she had lashed out at her two friends, so she put her hand into her satchel and rifled around. After a few moments she pulled out a chocolate bar. With an unpleasant pang she realized it was the one Allen had given her – she didn’t remember having put it in her schoolbag – and as though dropping a hot coal she handed it to Carly, before rummaging around and finding another one for Anna. Like hungry kittens being given a plate of food, they fell silent and ate their treats as they continued their journey to school, although Sadie could sense them glancing warily at her from time to time.

In class Sadie was more unwilling than usual to concentrate, and when the bell rang for morning break she found herself in the unfamiliar position of being by herself in the playground – clearly Carly and Anna were giving her a wide berth after this morning’s little outburst. On this occasion, she didn’t really mind. She kicked her heels around for a few minutes before she became aware of someone following her. Looking round, she saw little Jamie Brown. He was pretending not to notice Sadie, but she could tell that he knew she was there. ‘All right, Jamie?’ she called.

Jamie looked up and nodded at her; then he walked a little more quickly in her direction. As he approached, the unmistakable odour he carried with him assaulted Sadie’s senses.

It was hot. Most of the other children in the playground – Sadie included – were wearing T-shirts, but not Jamie. He had on his usual tatty corduroy trousers and thick, stained sweatshirt that was several sizes too small, and he looked stifled. As he fell in beside Sadie, he said nothing, and the two of them carried on walking in silence. As they walked, however, Sadie threw the occasional glance down at the younger boy.

‘Aren’t you hot in that top?’ she asked him finally.

Jamie shook his head, and clumsily pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt down further towards his wrists. As he did so, Sadie noticed something: just below where the cuff of his sweatshirt finished was what looked like a purple stain. For a moment she couldn’t work out what it was; then it struck her that it was a bruise. She stopped, and turned to take hold of his hand, but the sudden movement made her companion flinch and draw away.

‘Let us see your hand,’ she urged gently.

Jamie shook his head, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment; but when Sadie made a second attempt to look at his wrist, he relented. She peeled back the dirty sleeve of his sweatshirt and he winced as she did so. She was horrified by what it concealed. The bruising continued all the way up his arm, and it was mottled and ugly. In places it was a deep almost-black; elsewhere it was yellow and faded. Sadie had no idea if it continued beneath the rest of his sweatshirt, and she couldn’t bear to ask. But she had to say something.

‘Who did it?’ she asked.

Jamie said nothing: his lips were pursed and he was shaking his head stiffly.

Sadie looked around her. She could see little groups of people looking in her direction and talking, so she put her hand round Jamie’s shoulders and moved him to a further corner of the playground.

‘Was it your mum?’ she asked the boy.

Jamie looked away. He hadn’t said yes, but it was acknowledgement enough for Sadie.

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’

Jamie shook his head.

‘I can tell someone for you, if you like. There’s that social worker who comes in sometimes. Or what about Miss Venables? She’s nice – ’

‘No!’ Jamie spoke forcefully. ‘I wish I never showed you now.’

He stomped off, but Sadie followed him. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell no one.’

Jamie stopped and looked at her with an anger that seemed almost comical on his tiny frame. But he couldn’t keep it up for long, and soon his gaze dropped back down to the ground again. ‘She’d only say it weren’t her,’ he muttered. ‘Any case,’ – his eyes flickered up to Sadie then back down again – ‘I don’t want her to get into trouble. And they’d only get me kicked out, wouldn’t they?’

Sadie felt a sudden pang of pity. The little boy’s plight made her own problems seem inconsequential; and without knowing quite how, she understood his desire to keep things to himself. Ever so gently, more out of a wish not to frighten him than not to hurt him, she rolled his sleeve back down so that the bruise was covered once more.

‘And anyway,’ Jamie continued with a weak smile, ‘I have told someone, ain’t I?’

Sadie looked at him in confusion. ‘Who?’

‘You,’ the little boy said, and he wandered away into the heart of the playground, ignoring the unkind comments from the children he passed.

Chapter Four

‘Why?’ Sadie watched her mum wiping down the kitchen surfaces, and wondered why she wouldn’t catch her eye.

‘Because we need the money, Sadie,’ Jackie replied irritably. ‘Stop asking so many stupid questions.’

It was three weeks since Allen had moved in, and apart from that first night he appeared barely to have left the house. The sitting room had become his domain, where he would sit on the settee, his legs stretched out in front of him, the TV remote never far away. And since his arrival, the room had become immaculate – not just the room, in fact, but the whole house. Sadie found it weird: for as long as she could remember she had lived in a chaotic house, and her mother was not one for tidying up and cleaning. But one look from Allen seemed to be enough for her to clear up a dirty coffee cup or wipe crumbs from the now perpetually empty kitchen table. Sadie herself had always kept her room tidy, but since Allen’s reprimand about the dirty plate on his first morning, she had been extra fastidious. There was no way she was going to give him an excuse to tell her off again.

‘But you’re always saying there’s no point you getting a job. What about your benefits?’

Sadie heard her mum start to swear under her breath. ‘For fuck’s—’ But then she checked herself, and turned to her daughter. ‘It’s more complicated than that, Sadie. Grown-up stuff, OK? I’ve got a job in a pub up the road, and that’s that.’

At the word ‘pub’, Sadie’s stomach gave a little lurch. Whatever else she thought of Allen, she had to be thankful that he seemed to have got her mum off the booze. The ciggies too, although she knew from the smell on her mum’s clothes and skin that she still had the occasional crafty fag outside, despite Allen’s ban on smoking in the house. The idea of Mum working in a pub filled Sadie with a sudden fear that she would slide back into her old ways.

‘But he doesn’t do anything,’ Sadie complained, ‘apart from watch the telly.’ She kept her voice low so that Allen wouldn’t hear her in the next room. ‘Why can’t he be the one to go out to work? Why does it have to be you?’

Still Jackie refused to look directly at her daughter, and she avoided her questions. ‘You’ll just have to get used to it, Sadie. Lots of mums go out to work.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, Sadie.’ Allen spoke quietly from the doorway to the sitting room. Sadie and Jackie both turned their heads to look at him at the same time, and waited for him to speak again. ‘Have you thought that your mam might actually want to go out to work, Sadie? You shouldn’t be so selfish.’

Sadie jutted her chin out forcefully, but she didn’t reply.

‘Tell her, Jackie,’ Allen instructed.

Jackie hesitated, but kept her eyes on him. ‘It’ll be nice for me,’ she said in a slightly monotone voice, ‘to get out of the house and all.’

‘Just as long as you keep off the sauce,’ Allen said rather contemptuously. ‘Putting you in a boozer is like putting a cat in a mousehole.’ As he went back into the sitting room, Jackie’s face flushed with embarrassment and she turned back to her cleaning.

‘So when do you start, Mum?’ Sadie asked in a small voice.

‘This afternoon. Late shift. Three till twelve. You can get your own dinner, can’t you?’

Sadie nodded, but her mum didn’t see her, so she slung her satchel sullenly over her head and left.

School was uneventful and passed quickly. It always did when she didn’t want to get home. As she sat daydreaming in her lessons, she thought about what had happened that morning. It made no sense. She loved her mum, but she knew her well enough to doubt that she really wanted to go out to work. And yet she had heard her say so herself. Maybe her mum wanted to go to work so that she could get away from Sadie. She wouldn’t have thought that before Allen had arrived, but in the last few weeks she had been different. Distant. Not the mum she knew or wanted to remember.

What was more, Sadie didn’t relish the idea of being in the house alone with Allen. She couldn’t work him out – sometimes he was nice to her, sometimes mean, and she almost didn’t know which Allen she liked the least. He was always walking up quietly behind her, appearing out of nowhere, getting in the way. Even when she hid herself away in the bedroom, he was always coming in to check on her, knocking gently – three measured raps that she had grown to dread – and entering without waiting for a reply.