A happy family. That's the dream, isn't it?
Certainly for the losers in the Dumping Ground. It's not called that for no reason – we are the dumped. The unloved. Those who didn't deserve our happy family the first time round. We are what's left when you strip a child of its parents' love – the remnants, the husk. We are case files in cabinets, annual wellbeing reports, council-funded enrichment activities. In hushed reverence, to ourselves if nobody else will listen, we speak about families – ours, others', the ones we lost and the ones we wish for. Mothers, and fathers, and lives, and loves – all closed off to us.
Eventually, if one day the sun melts the iceberg so we're perched above the waterline, we'll get our chance at being a happy family. Not-mums and not-dads will drip through the door, give us that up-and-down glance no true parent would, and complete the transaction. As callous and inhuman as starting a family could be.
But we beg for it. We settle for being paraded around like cattle, advertised in catalogues, objects slapping ourselves with fake smiles. All because we crave that hallowed, happy family. That perfect life that so rarely exists, that one beam of light in the all-pervading dark. Sometimes that light leads to the life we crave.
Sometimes the light's so bright it blinds us.
All in the name of happy families.
THE DUMPING GROUND: RENAISSANCE
Chapter 12: "Happy Families"
(Tailspin, Part 1)
Mike loosely held the knife, chopping up a carrot with a quitter's nonchalance. His tired red eyes flicked to the wall clock. 12:35. Still cutting, he focused on the second hand as it ached towards the minute. Commanding his attention like a hypnotist's watch, slowly… slowly… slowly…
"AAH!" cried Mike, taking a sharp breath in, his face creasing into a wince.
"KIDS?" he shouted over the kitchen's tumult, keeping his eyes defiantly to the ceiling. "ANYONE? SOME HELP, PLEASE!"
All around him, the kids were causing havoc. He really shouldn't have let them have the day off school – one of them playing truant by themselves was chaos enough, let alone eleven. But what could he have done? They'd been frightened half to death by that vicious woman – and they couldn't have gone to school straight after a night in the garden. No, it wasn't right.
But now he was regretting it, as Rafiq screamed at Floss and Sasha yelled at Chloe and Aisha yelled at him and it was all noise and pandemonium and confusion.
His eye fixed on Ryan, who stood on a chair shouting at Jody: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DON'T-"
"-RYAN!" Mike bellowed, stopping him in a heartbeat. Guiltily, Ryan got down from the chair, whilst Jody receded into the background. "Come here, would you? Take a look at this."
Ryan forged a path through the squabbling, and then peered at Mike's outstretched finger. "It's just a little graze – don't be such a big baby!" There was the tiniest amount of blood trickling from a small cut.
From out of nowhere, the greying, suited man assaulted Mike's personal space, hovering around him like a wasp.
"Mr Milligan," he began nasally, eyeing his finger, "I hope that's nothing serious."
"Ah, Keith, no, it's fine – just a little graze."
"Mr Matthews, if you don't mind – and I hope you're going to fill in an accident form."
"It's just a graze."
They all heard the front door slam; it shook the house, and reverberated around Mike's head like a warning.
"And now you're letting anybody in and out," remarked Mr Matthews, scribbling furiously on a clipboard. "To say I'm amazed…" He addressed the dishevelled boy in black. "Young man, do you have permission to just wander in like this?"
Demon dismissively looked him up and down. "Excuse you, I live here."
Mr Matthews gave a short, disapproving chuckle. In unison, Mike, Ryan and Demon turned to him with disgust on their faces.
"We're a little busy here," said Mike, almost protectively.
"Yes, I can see that," retorted his boss. "Busy flouting regulations, busy mistreating-"
Demon snapped, "He said we're busy." At the same time, from Ryan: "Come back another time!"
Sensing the tone of the room, Mr Matthews 'hmm'ed under his breath, turned and left.
"Mike. We're talking," urged Demon.
Mike turned to Ryan, requested "Keep an eye on lunch, will you?", smiled apologetically and left the room with Demon.
They veered into the quiet room; Demon looked straight into Mike's eyes, checking for his complete comprehension.
"Mike, I'm leaving for a few days. That means I'm not going to be staying here for the next couple of nights, okay? Do you understand?" Mike nodded gormlessly. "So you won't have to make any veggie meals for me and you don't need to worry about my medication, okay?" Mike nodded again, like a dumbstruck child listening to a parent laying down the law. "There's no point arguing, because I'm going to do this, whatever you say. I'll be back before you know it."
Mike nodded a final time. "Don't do anything stupid."
Demon smiled back. "I promise. One last thing:" he fixed Mike with a steely stare. "I know it makes you feel better, and I know you think you can't manage without it, but please have a day off from the alcohol."
Mike gasped; he was visibly shocked. "How do you know about that?"
"Because you're not hiding it anywhere near as well as you think you are. See you soon."
"Joseph?" He could hear the voice, coming from somewhere, flitting around in the periphery of his consciousness. "Joseph?" Slowly, he let his eyes begin to flutter open, casting off his sleep. Warm October sunlight streamed onto his face, gently welcoming him back into the world, and all he could smell was an almost sickly antibacterial scent.
"Joseph." The voice came louder and sharper this time; Joseph's eyes snapped open and he did his best to sit up on the thin mattress. He looked around at the clinical white ward, floored with vinyl and lined with beds, and felt assaulted by the memory of what had happened. Tripping all the way down those stairs; Carmen ringing an ambulance; the blackout; the pain. He winced, rubbed the back of his neck where it screamed out its pain.
"Oh, thank God, I thought you were in a coma or something," came the voice again. Joseph looked to his left, and saw Elektra sat up in her adjacent bed, clad in an identical blue tunic and looking relieved to see he was okay.
"Just a nap," he assured her. "It's all fine, I'm okay."
"I don't know about that – you took quite a tumble."
Joseph smirked. "I can't believe we were both so clumsy."
"No, didn't someone tell you? There was a tripwire, or something like that. Somebody set us up."
The boy processed this. "Oh… what did we do to deserve that?"
"Not sure. Sorry for falling onto you, by the way."
"It's all right – you couldn't really help it."
Elektra smiled; her back was burning, all down her spine, but she didn't want to show the weakness. "Anyway, look lively; Carmen's coming."
They waited a minute or two until the double-doors swung open and Carmen breezed in, brandishing a bottle of water and a to-go coffee.
"Hi, guys," she said, passing the water to Joseph and pulling up a chair between the two beds. "This is gonna have to be a quick one, because Mike's… being Mike, but I wanted to come and see how you both were, check everything's alright, so… Joseph?"
"I'm not too bad, thank you."
"That's good to hear," Carmen smiled. "Have the doctors said anything about when you'll be out?"
"They're keeping us overnight and they'll probably let us go tomorrow morning," Elektra declared.
Her chair still angled towards Joseph, so she could barely see her colleague, Carmen retorted, in a voice brimming with put-on sweetness, "I was asking Joseph."
"Well he's been asleep," snapped Elektra.
"Elektra, we need to talk."
"Well look at me, then!"
Joseph looked awkwardly away, desperate to be somewhere else from this drama. With a sense of unease, Carmen turned to face Elektra; her chair scraped along the floor.
"Elektra, you know what I need to ask you. We're both professionals, I mean I know you didn't do it; you know you didn't do it – but we have to stick to the policy. So yes, there will be an investigation, and you'll have to stay off work for a few weeks, but we'll get it all sorted out and you'll be back in no time, okay? I promise. But it's also in the policy that I have to interview you, so…"
"You're going to do it now?" spluttered Elektra. "Bit odd circumstances, isn't it?"
"At this stage, it's as simple as getting a 'yes' or a 'no' from you. So, for the purposes of the investigation… is it true? What Chloe's alleged, about you being in a relationship with Ryan?"
Elektra was ready to give a quick 'no'. Well, she had to, hadn't she? There was so much riding on this – her job, her reputation. But somehow she couldn't make that word come out. "I…"
"Elektra?" Carmen leaned forward.
And suddenly, Elektra felt it: this was the moment. Weeks of tension and paranoia; of monitoring Chloe like a hawk to make sure she didn't squeal; of crying herself to sleep; of bemoaning her own stupidity whilst selfishly trying to cling onto her job: and it had all come to this moment, here, now, with her spine screaming like someone was carving it up, her brain aching with the monumental effort of just being. Elektra hadn't even realised she was crying, but when the first salty tears trickled down to her lips (those lips, the ones that had started this whole fucking chain), she knew they were a sign. A damning indictment, if nothing else – her guilt made visible to the world. She sighed. The game was up.
"Yes. It's true."
Carmen's mouth dropped open. Oh my God, thought Elektra, she really hadn't been expecting this. Her friend took a little while to understand what she was hearing, and then let out a stunned, "Elektra-"
"I didn't think it was anything bad at the time, honestly, I swear. And it was fully consensual – Ryan was completely up for it-"
"'Up for it'? Do you have any idea how you sound?"
Elektra could sense the disgust in Carmen's every word. "But-"
"NO!" shrieked Carmen, and it was almost like an animal's howl. "There are no buts here, Elektra: were you in a relationship with Ryan?" Elektra gave a tiny nod of affirmation; Carmen leant forward, unsatisfied. "Were you in a relationship with Ryan?"
"… Yes."
"You're fired."
"What? You can't do that – only Mike can do that!"
"Elektra! Be quiet, and listen to me for once in your life," yelled Carmen, standing over the bed. "You're a lovely person, and you're doing well at this job – but if you're in a relationship with a child in your care, not only is that disgusting, but it's illegal. And there's no way you can come back to work. I'll be talking to Ryan and together we'll decide whether to launch an investigation."
Elektra was glad she'd already been crying before this, as a fresh onslaught of tears coursed down her cheeks. The game was over, she supposed – she'd made everything fall apart.
Carmen entered Waterland House and locked the door behind her. The extra lock that she'd found was lying on the carpet, still not fitted.
Aisha and Floss rushed up to her. "Can you make lunch?" Aisha pleaded. "Yeah, we're starving," added Floss.
"Wha- lunch? Why haven't you had lunch yet? Girls, it's four o'clock."
"Yeah, we know," Floss vented in an exasperated way. "And Mike hasn't made it."
"Is he okay?" Carmen asked, throwing her coat onto the stand and marching across the entrance hall with the girls in tow. "Where is he? And why's it so warm in here? It's like a sauna."
"Watch out for broken glass!" shouted Floss as Carmen reached the doorway to the kitchen.
The careworker sighed. "What do you mean?"
"Mike smashed a glass," Aisha explained. "He was all shakey, so we thought that meant he was cold, so Jody turned all the radiators on. Then he said he needed some rest."
"Is that where he is now? In bed?" Carmen asked, disbelievingly. "And he's not arranged any cover or anything?" This was chaos.
The girls nodded, Carmen thought a little sadly. "Right," she instructed. "I'll talk to Mike, and we'll have some food ready in fifteen minutes or so, okay?"
Aisha and Floss dissipated into the living room, whilst Carmen turned the other way and stormed up the stairs, carried by her bubbling rage all the way to the staff room door. Not pausing to knock, she burst in.
The first thing she noticed was the mess. There were clothes, books, an upturned drawer, empty blister packs of pills, assorted bus tickets and all kinds of other bits and pieces strewn around the floor. A bomb had gone off in the room – and it smelt, too, of air-freshener masking squalor. Lying in the middle of the chaos was Mike – dripping with sweat, his T-shirt wet, sitting bolt-upright in the bed with bags under his eyes like hammocks.
"Fiona?" he asked in a cracked whisper, squinting to see Carmen.
In that moment, her rage evaporated into the air. What she was seeing in front of her wasn't a troublemaker, not an off-the-rails alcoholic either – it was her confused, upset friend who didn't know how best to process the loss of the love of his life.
"Mike, it's me, Carmen." She sat on the end of the bed. "You really should have arranged cover if you knew you were ill."
"I know, I know," said Mike, beads of sweat dripping from his nose onto the sheets. "I haven't been thinking straight lately. Oh Carmen… I can't sleep. Every night, I try so, so hard, but it's like there's this block, and I'm up all night, and every little sound is keeping me awake."
"It's alcohol withdrawal, isn't it?" Carmen asked sadly.
"Who says it's that?" Mike snapped, then immediately recoiled from himself. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Yes… yes, I've given up drinking. I don't know how much you know about this, but I was actually… quite liberal with alcohol these past few weeks. Got a bit of a taste for it, I suppose."
"Was today a wake-up call, at all?"
"Yeah, yeah exactly. I thought I'd be able to manage the situation better if I was sober. I haven't touched a drop all day, but I'm… not exactly feeling the better for it."
Carmen leant towards him. "Okay, Mike, I want you to understand me. You aren't handling your emotions very well at the moment, and it's setting a terrible example to the kids, if nothing else. So… I'm ordering you off work. You need to get off the alcohol, have a good cry about Fiona, and come back when you're ready."
"I'm ready now," he asserted, puffing up his chest slightly, sitting up a little more.
"No you're not. Look at you. We can all tell what you're going through."
"I've kept it very well-hidden!"
"No, you haven't."
"The kids need me!"
"No, they don't."
"I'm not going! You can't make me go. You're not in charge."
"Well who is?" Carmen retorted. "It's certainly not you."
Mike pushed the covers away. "HOW DARE YOU?" he shouted.
Instinctively, in the blink of an eye, Carmen slapped him across the cheek. She felt her palm smack into his face, felt the instant regret as he clutched the quickly reddening welt. She felt like she could cry. What the hell had she just done?
"Go home, Mike," she whispered softly.
His black leather jacket slung over his shoulder, Demon breezed into the park. Cyclists whooshed past, and he hastily sidestepped to let them through. Birds chirped mellifluously in every tree, and the sun beat down encouragingly warmly for the time of year. The morning was full of bustle and life; but to Demon, it was full of anticipation.
For the first time in a good many years, he had no idea how this was going to play out. Normally, he held all the cards, but when such a volatile new player joined the game, he didn't even know if he was playing with the right deck.
No, not cards, he thought as he powered through the park like a vicious black twister. Chess. That was an analogy much more befitting the woman he'd come to meet – a game built on strategy, and cunning, and traps, and sending the pawns out first to protect what mattered.
Because she was clever, despite what everybody said – Mike, Roxy, the doctors from the institution. Before she'd gone to hospital, she'd been so, so bright (or at least, those were his remembrances of her – he used to think she knew everything there was to know). But then, as life so often does, it threw a spanner in the works. A spanner in her brain.
Dad's work had gone up in smoke, and Dad with it. That had been the beginning of the end, as far as her mind was concerned – from then, she'd been on the direct line to mental supernova. Evenings upon evenings of unbroken weeping, of no dinner, of invented bedtime stories fuelled by anger and filled with arson. The denial, then the complete inability to be consoled, then the rage. Oh god, the rage. That was a time that he didn't even want to think about.
She'd dragged the family along with her. Siren had borne the brunt of the rage, being the eldest, and he'd been powerless to stop it, unable to be the protective brother he knew he should be, because he was so scared of being next on her list of targets.
It looked like he'd reached the number one spot now.
He slithered along a serpentine path, and there she was, standing underneath a willow, greeting him with a trademark malicious smile. Her blonde hair fell, scraggly and unkempt, in tangles from her scalp, and she still wore her disgusting brown fur coat. Demon noticed she now had a cocaine septum, but her eyes were the same as ever: emerald as his, bright with evil.
"You're not meant to be out of the asylum," he said bluntly, striding up to her and defiantly planting his Doc Marten heels in the grass.
"What, that's it? Straight to business?" asked the woman, in a psychotic simper that had always unnerved him. "No pleasantries? Not even a 'hello again'? It's been so long, Demon."
"You're insane, April. I mean, you're literally insane. So no, I don't have a 'hello again' for you. Be honoured I've made the time to see you."
"Oooh, I'm 'April' now, am I? Whatever happened to 'Mum'?"
"Well, exactly." He raised an eyebrow. "So come on then, how did you get out?"
"I put on my best show," April pouted, striking some mock showgirl poses. "Got all dressed up all nicely, and…" Now she dropped to a whisper. "pretended everything was okay in my head. It isn't really, though. No, it's all an act, aaaallllll an act."
"Why are you here?"
She paused for a moment, as if sensing something, then leapt into the air and smacked her hands together, catching and killing a fly between them. Then she turned back to Demon, looked confused by why he was staring at her. "Oh, you want an answer? I'm not telling you that just yet, no, no, no! Right now, I'm here to find something for lunch. A field mouse, something like that."
"I knew it. You're insane. You're a danger to society, you're a danger to me, and I don't want you to come looking for me again, okay? I've got a pretty decent life at the moment – you are not coming in and ruining that."
She patronisingly simpered, "Yes, dear." But then, before he could even register it, she'd grabbed him – twisted his arm – got him into a headlock with a small dagger to his throat. Now her voice was grating – almost electronic in its monotone harshness. "Yes, I am insane, but I'm not mad. We'll meet again, and if I want to ruin your life, I can and I will. Okay?"
"I'm not scared of you anymore," Demon spat at her, the dagger on his voicebox compressing his speech into a gargle.
"Good boy," she whispered, her mouth hovering directly above his ear. She stuck her tongue out, licked the inside of his ear, then let him go, spinning him like a boomerang.
Demon picked up his jacket, pulled it on and walked back down the winding path.
"Demon?" his mum called.
"Yeah?" He didn't turn around.
"You look so grown up."
It was 12pm but it felt like 5 at least, undoubtedly the single longest day of Carmen's life. Bills, queries, playing, tidying, cleaning – constantly to a soundtrack of "Where's Mike?"s. Now she was perched above Mike's desk, scanning the diary to make sure all the appointments were in there, comparing it to a printed list that she'd already lost twice and had to re-print.
Chloe came in. "Hi, Carmen. Uh, where's Mike?" she smiled.
Carmen wasn't in the mood for this. "Not here," was all she replied.
"Okay, well, um… can you take me to the dentist, then? It's in about 45 minutes."
"What? No, no, no, no, no – you don't have the dentist today, Chloe."
"…Yeah, I do."
"But it's – it's not in the diary. What-"
"Oh yeah, it's just for a filling – Mike said he was gonna put it in the diary."
"Okay, well…" Carmen mentally juggled seventeen different priorities. "Yeah, go on, I'll take you. But be ready on time."
"Great – thanks." Chloe left the office.
Carmen could definitely feel a migraine coming on, as well as pins and needles. She stood up from her hunched position, stretched a leg out to prevent the pain… and immediately kicked over the bin.
She got down into a kneeling position next to the bin, enduring the pain in her back and her knees and her head and her everything, and started picking up the crumpled-up sheets of paper and collecting the discarded staples and bits of eraser into neat piles.
The next complaint came. She could almost sense it in the air beforehand. Jay skulked in and moaned, "Toilet's blocked. Can you sort it out?"
Carmen ran a hand through her hair, making it unintentionally frizzy. "Uh… oh god, Jay, I don't even know how to unblock a toilet. Mike normally does it. Use the spare if you need to; I'll sort it out after lunch. Actually, that reminds me – can you cut some bread for lunch? Thanks."
She turned back to the bin, furiously and fastidiously picking tiny specks of dirt off the carpet. Carmen glanced into the bin; her eye was caught by some paperwork printed on very official-looking Talbot Ward Council-headed notepaper. Well, that clearly wasn't meant to be in the bin! Quickly, she filtered through the various pieces of paper, fishing out the ones that seemed important and placing them on the desk.
As soon as she'd done that, she saw the Post-It note in the corner of the desk – in Mike's handwriting, next to a tick-box that had already been ticked, was the instruction: 'Bin document photocopies from Council'.
Urrrrrgggghhhh!
She chucked the sheets back into the bin, just as Jay stomped in. "There's no bread."
"There is! I only bought it yesterday."
"Oh yeah… uh, we used it all for toast yesterday because Mike didn't make lunch."
"Brilliant, Jay. Just… brilliant."
She breathed out, trying to reassert some calm. Then she took Jay by the shoulders and pushed him out of the office and across the entrance hall. "Right, come on, let's go, you can help me sort out lunch, come on!"
She was ushering him across the carpet – but suddenly he was on the floor, smacking his skull on the carpet, clutching his head.
"AAAAHH!" he winced, as tears sprang into his eyes.
"What happened?!" asked Carmen in alarm. She hadn't pushed him, had she?
"Tripped on that wire," Jay said, gesturing to the cable of the hoover that had just been left unattended in the hallway.
"Uh… right…" She panicked, tried to cope with this extra ball that she had to juggle. "Right, if you're okay to walk, or limp or whatever, there's a First Aid kit in the quiet room."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Get a plaster? I don't know. DON'T BE A BABY, JAY."
Feeling the seething, red-hot rage that formed a blanket all around her, she stepped over Jay and jogged into the kitchen – where a disaster awaited her. She'd put the soup on before she moved into the office, but everything had just got on top of much, crises piling up one after another, adding to her impossible juggling act… and now the soup was boiling over, trickling in a sticky orange river down to the floor.
Carmen rushed to the hob and turned the heat off. Turning back to face the way she'd come, she could see the trail of devastation she'd left. She looked at the clock. Not even five past twelve.
There was no way she could deal with all of this on her own. No, it was time to call in some backup – and she knew exactly who'd be perfect for the job.
Her blue leather jacket slung over her shoulder, Elektra skulked home. The trees that lined the street were suffocating her. The paving slabs were waiting to open up and trap her in the fiery pit beneath. The birds were circling, ready for the signal to swoop down and pick at her like carrion.
How quickly Carmen had turned on her, she thought. A single word had ripped apart an entire friendship. Would she ever see Carmen again? The past eight or so months had been so special to her, and the chance to rebuild a friendship with Carmen (and to discover so many new facets to her) was one that she loved grasping every day. Now – nothing. She meant nothing to her.
Not to say she didn't deserve it. This, and everything else that was coming to her. Let them sit her in front of a tribunal, let them pick her apart limb from limb and send her out into the wilderness. It was the least she deserved.
Ryan. That was a name she didn't even want to hear again. Poor boy.
Elektra's only hope now was that he could get over this. That he could move on.
She opened the door, kicked off her shoes, had only one thing on her mind: a mission. Something she knew she had to do. Rounding into the living room, there she was, sitting on the sofa writing a uni essay on her old laptop: Sula.
Beautiful, wonderful Sula. Sula with her luscious skin and delectable lips and quirky Afro, her cheeky smiles and philosophy and drive. Sula with her passions and desires and dislikes and memories. Sula who brightened every morning and enlivened every night. Sula who made the whole world mean something.
A clumsy kiss, a quick catchup; then, it was time.
"Sula… I've… been fired."
Her girlfriend's eyes bulged. "No! Why? I thought you said you were starting to really crack it."
Oh god. Here goes nothing. She took her hand. "Sula… I have something awful to admit. You're… you're within your rights to just leave me, straightaway, after I've told you this, or if you're willing to listen a bit more, then we'll try to sort something out for the future. Okay?"
Sula nodded. And Elektra told her tale.
"Someone's at the door!" shouted Jody the next morning.
Carmen's face appeared at the top of the stairs. "It's the relief careworkers!" she smiled, ready for the glorious prospect of a day where she wouldn't be on her own. "Go on, let them in!"
She bounded down the stairs, as Jody opened the door and smiled at the new arrivals as they came in.
"Hi, Mo!" Jody smiled, wrapping him up in a brief hug. Mo had come dressed as the 1940s – white shirt with pink stripes, scratchy brown jumper, slicked-back hair and thick-rimmed glasses.
"Thank you so much for coming, guys," said Carmen, as Johnny followed Mo into the entrance hall of Waterland House.
"It's so cool to see this whole careworker thing coming true," smiled Johnny, looking around. "This was just a dream back at the start of the year, and now look."
"Yeah, well, it's been a bit of a bumpy ride lately, but I'm so glad to have you all here. Valentina, thank you so much – I know you must be busy, but it's only for a few days until I can organise something more long-term."
"Oh, it's my pleasure, darling," enthused Valentina Lovejoy (off the telly), all flowing locks and floral print, who'd stepped in as Waterland's temporary chef.
"Right, well, if you want to take your coats off and everything, we'll get the coffees on and discuss… well, everything. There's a lot to get you up to speed on." Carmen laughed slightly at how much she had understated the past few days' events.
But here was a solution, and that was what mattered.
Carmen checked her watch again. 11:36. He was late, but she'd come to expect that of him.
Eventually, the knock came, and she sprung up from the battered entrance hall sofa to let him in.
She swung the door open and looked him up and down: he'd clearly made the effort, clad in a formal Paul Smith shirt and posh trousers, but they were crumpled and scruffy, and the noisome alcohol on his breath reminded Carmen that she had made the right decision.
"You know the rules, Mike. An hour, maximum, to pack your things. Try not to talk too much to the kids… I'm really sorry it has to be like this."
"It's okay," Mike smiled apologetically, following her into the uncharacteristically quiet and tidy entrance hall. "Well, you seem like you're coping marvellously, Carmen. I'm proud of you."
They shared a friendly smile, and Mike began the walk to the staff room.
Half an hour or so later, Mike stood in that staff room, looking around at its walls plastered with photographs and souvenirs and drawings from the kids and memories, and realised he was terrified for the future.
Because, after all, what was he without these kids, without this job, without the Dumping Ground? He was its permanent resident, doing his best to care for the kids who passed through its doors but never leaving himself. No, he could never leave this job voluntarily – it had been all he'd known for the past three decades. Without his work, he was… well, very little, he had to confess. He had no idea what was going to happen to him. Would Carmen report him? Would Mr Matthews' investigation incriminate him? Would Waterland even be able to continue? Carmen certainly couldn't run it herself, not with her level of experience.
Argh, how could this happen to him? He was one of the good guys – one of the very few good guys. The kids needed him – no, the kids deserved him – and he couldn't let them down because of his own troubles getting in the way. He hadn't signed up for a Social Work qualification because he wanted to put himself first. And now he knew that he wouldn't be leaving Waterland House behind until the four walls of that staff room were covered with memories. And if that meant taking this little break, some time to rest and regroup, then so be it. He would come out of it a better man.
His mind made up, his bag packed, he opened the door of the staff room.
And found an empty wine bottle just outside the room.
Immediately alarmed, then curious, he picked the bottle up and examined the label – it was one he remembered from the other night, when he'd lost his nerve and had to retreat into the staff room for support.
He looked along the corridor and saw two more wine bottles, laid out a metre or two apart like a treasure trail.
"OI!" he shouted, getting the attention of several of the kids, who popped their heads out of their rooms and moved out onto the corridor to see what was up. "What's the meaning of this?" Mike asked, holding the bottle up. "Who's been leaving these around?"
"It's like a treasure trail," Tyler noted. "Go on, follow it, then!"
Mike looked confused, but did as Tyler asked, and moved along the corridor, following the trail down the stairs, passing empty wine bottles and old beer cans and discarded cider bottles. All the while, five or six kids followed him, down the stairs, across the entrance hall, round a corner and to…
Aisha beat Mike to the door of the office. She enthusiastically pushed it open, and the ultimate spectacle was revealed.
Mike's desk had been turned into a museum. A shrine of sorts, or possibly a junkheap. Beer can upon beer can upon beer can, rubbing shoulders with wine bottle after wine bottle, all empty, all fighting for space on the crammed desktop. A veritable catalogue of woes – and, propped up against the front row of bottles, glossy printed Polaroids that Mike instantly recognised: it was him, drinking when he should have been working, drinking in the staff room (the picture taken through a crack in the door), drinking out of Coke cans, drinking anything he could get his hands on. This wasn't a museum, this was a case file. One that the kids were seeing. Oh god, the kids!
"Alright, let's get out now!" shouted Mike, shooing the kids away, knowing full well that it was too late, that the game was up and the secret blown out into the open. As he pushed them back, Carmen surged into the room, banging the door shut behind her.
She saw the alcohol. "What the hell is going on here?" she asked, rushing to the desk. "Do you think this is funny?"
"It wasn't me – I've been packing my stuff!" asserted Mike.
Carmen looked at him slightly disbelievingly. "And what does this mean?"
She was gesturing to a sheet of paper that Mike hadn't noticed it before; it was perched on top of a foundation of lager cans, emblazoned with a single typed word: "MINE".
"I have no idea."
"Acronym maybe? Or is it 'Mine' as in, 'it belongs to me'? Is somebody saying this stuff is theirs?"
"It's not, though; it's mine."
At that point, Mike's eye chanced upon the top drawer of the desk, which lay just slightly open. There was something in there, something flat and white. He opened the drawer, produced the item and laid it out on the table.
"A map," he remarked. "Is it yours?"
"No, I haven't… seen it before. Why's that bit been circled?"
"It's near here, isn't it?" Mike and Carmen, in sync, both leaned in and squinted at the intricate details of the cartography. Surrounding the red circled area were places they both knew well, but inside the circle there was only one landmark named.
"Bulingdon Mine," read Carmen.
"Mine," noticed Mike. "Something to do with the mine. Is there anything else in the drawer?"
Carmen fished about in the drawer and came out with a small piece of paper; something was handwritten on it, in the same red pen as the one that had encircled the mine. "Oh my god, Mike… oh god. 'I'm going to the mine. Keep me alive'. You don't think that means…"
"Give me that," demanded Mike. He scanned the note. "That's Demon's handwriting," he realised. "And yes, I'm thinking exactly what you're thinking."
"You think he's going to…"
"Possibly. Stay here, keep guarding the fort. Don't open the door unless you've checked through the spyhole first. I'll text you."
He grabbed his coat, ran out of the office with his bag, and vanished from view. There was a life at stake.
Text from Elektra: Meet me outside. Now.
Text from Carmen: Out in 5.
Carmen walked round to the side of the house. "Okay, why are you here? Because if you want to pack your things, we have to arrange a date beforehand. You know that's how it works."
"I think you know why I'm here," said Elektra, skipping all formalities and pleasantries. "Where is he?"
"Elektra, you are not seeing Ryan," Carmen retorted defensively.
"Not Ryan – Demon. He's sent some texts and I'm worried. He said you'd know where he was, so where is he?" She stepped menacingly towards Carmen, but the other woman stood her ground.
"I'm not telling you that."
"Yes you are, I'm his friend."
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Carmen replied defiantly. Elektra was struck by how cold her voice was.
She ramped up the aggression. "Tell me where he's gone, or I'll make you tell me."
"I'm not going to give in to aggression."
"You're not giving in to anything – you're just doing what's best for Demon."
"Do you really see it like that? Do you really think that anything you do is 'doing what's best' for the kids?"
"Get off my case, Carmen. You know, deep down, that I'm not that kind of person. You know it was one stupid, catastrophic mistake that I'd never make again. And you know that if anybody's going to sort out this situation with Demon, it's me."
Carmen wasn't so sure about that last part, but Elektra's rhetoric did make some valid points…
She sighed and looked Elektra in the eye. "Bulingdon Mine. Mike's there already."
"Thank you so much," Elektra smiled appreciatively.
Just as she turned and walked down the driveway, Carmen called "Good luck!"
Johnny looked around the spacious, homely living room of Waterland House and knew that everything was going to be alright.
A group of lively older kids were watching the beginnings of a football match on the telly, enthusiastically cheering on their team. Mo had been co-opted into joining Rafiq's table football team, and they were happily playing against Aisha and Floss. Sasha was nestled like a contented cat in a comfy scarlet armchair, knitting away at the speed of light and enjoying the repetitive clicking of the needles. Bird had his headphones in, transported to another world by the music. Valentina sashayed around, handing out cups of orange squash. It was the perfect Saturday afternoon scene.
He'd just finished doing the dishes from lunchtime. At first it had been plain sailing – Valentina had made a delicious salad and some savoury pancakes that went down a treat – but things started to sour when the kids began asking where Mike, Demon and Elektra had all gone. Once one started, it was like an avalanche, getting angrier and angrier, question piling up upon question. They asked if Elektra had been sacked, if Mike had been sacked, if Demon was ever coming back…
And then their attentions turned to Joseph, who was due back tomorrow. What had actually happened to him? How injured was he? Who put that tripwire on the landing for him to trip over? Was it one of them? Was it homophobic? Then, instead of questions, it was accusations: a litany of "I bet you did it"s and "well you've never liked Joseph"s and "I bet he did it"s, until everyone was a suspect and the air was thick with enmity. In the end, Mo had stuck some pancake up his nose and distracted everyone.
But now, with the questions answered (as best as the careworkers could answer them), everything was calm. Everything was under control. Everything was, dare he say it, running like clockwork.
The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it!" he called, and wandered to the front door. Looking through the spyhole, he saw that a package had been left on the doorstep. He was immediately a little suspicious that the deliverer seemed to have disappeared, but it had the right address stamped on the top, so there was probably nothing to worry about.
He swung the door open and bent down to pick up the package.
At that moment, the attack began.
An arm hooked itself around his neck – brought his head up – he was in a choke-hold – he noticed the arm was in a shaggy brown coat – he had a horrible feeling that he knew who this was.
She let him go, spun him away, like the assault had just been a warning. Instinctively, Johnny raced to the door and slammed it shut; he stood between it and the blonde woman whose eyes glinted with evil in the sunlight.
"I know who you are," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady, despite all that he'd been through. "And you're not coming in."
"Oh, but… pleeeease!" whimpered April tremulously, in a pitch so childishly high that it amplified Johnny's fear. "I'm just a poor lonely mother, wanting to see her son!" She pulled an exaggerated sad face, looking like a mournful clown.
"You need to leave."
"Can't make me."
"I can and I will. Demon isn't here, anyway."
"Well, young man," – her voice was like molten glass – "perhaps you can direct me to where I might find Demon."
Johnny snorted. "Ha, there's no way I'm telling you that. He's in my care, and I'm not going to just let you get at him. I'm not afraid of you."
April paused; Johnny thought she looked genuinely disappointed. "Oh… aren't you?" Her eyes lost interest, started looking around the driveway and up and down the front of the house. "Can I get a name perhaps?"
"… Mine? Uh, Johnny."
"Hm. Well, Johnny, let's imagine that I'm… a home security expert, perhaps, and I've come round for a routine checkup. Now, what I'd say to you is… perhaps you might want to think about the security of the rear of the property."
"Oh, yeah?" said Johnny confidently, folding his hands to present a defiant outward stance. "And why's that?"
April leaned in very, very close, so her blonde hair tickled Johnny's chest and her breath was warm in his eye as she whispered gleefully, "Because it's not been locked. Ohhh Johnny boy, when I come in there, if I find Demon's there, I might just have to do something I very, very much regret."
In that instant, Johnny's mind was made up. He had to protect these kids, no matter what. He didn't know if the woman was making it up or not about the back door, but he had a duty, and he was going to damn well fulfil it. He'd do anything to keep those kids safe.
Acutely aware that April was still a mere few centimetres away from him, he turned his head slightly to face the house. Hoping beyond all hope that his voice, if he made it loud enough, would be audible to Carmen inside the house, he yelled, at the absolute top of his lungs, "LLLLOOOOCCCCKKK THE BAAAACCCCKKKKKK DOOOOOOOOORRRRRR!"
And that's when he felt the dagger in his gut.
Pain like lightning arced through his body, concentrated on the pin-prick of flesh where the blade had gone in. It was boiling and freezing at the same time; it was insignificant and it was the worst pain he'd ever felt. He felt it in his stomach, in his brain, in his eyes. He lifted up his top, and saw an immediate bloodbath, vibrant red paint decorating his lower torso. The pain. So this was what dying was like. He'd wondered for so long. It was so painful.
His vision blurred, his hearing fuzzy, he could just hear April say, "Goodbye, Johnny" and watch her shaking, amorphous form lumber away down the driveway, before he keeled over onto the tarmac and cracked his head on the harsh ground.
TO BE CONTINUED...
This chapter was outlined on 2 March and written from 15-28 March.
The story concludes next Friday (12 April - if I can finish it on time!).
