***chapter 35***

***The Orphan***

But somehow Steve didn't cry for the mother who left him at the orphanage and returned. He heard them say he was a strange little boy and very stoic and he thought stoic meant stick and he must be growing up into a stickman so he practised walking like one, arms outstretched, taking giant strides, bumping into Miss Pat, who scooped him up laughing. He smiled shyly back. Miss Pat was nice. Maybe she wouldn't disappear for a long time. But he hoped the horse hadn't disappeared!

Now if you believe, and some of you may, that a toy has always been a toy and nothing more, then you have never been four years old.

The small boy bottom-shuffles down the high sweeping stairs, butterflies of excitement fluttering in his stomach. The bottom step, the beat of his heart, the gap of the half-open door! His head barely reaches the brass knob as he pushes it open. By day the playroom is a hive of activity, but now all is deserted, paint easels, games, boxes and chairs stashed against the walls, only the smell of chalks, paints and pine disinfectant giving any clue that it has ever been used at all.

He giggles breathlessly at the strange whiteness of the moonlight filtering through the slats of the closed blinds, hears the patter of his bare feet on the uncarpeted floor. An uneasy draught filters through the unpeopled room, an uneasy silence touches every corner of the night, a thrill of daring carries him in its spell.

He slows his step, holding out his empty palm.

"Hey, Freddie," he says gently. "Hey, boy!" And in his imagination the rocking horse neighs and rears.

"Easy. Easy, boy. Nobody's gonna hurt you. Carrots, see? I bringed you carrots."

Biting his lip in concentration, he comes closer to the snorting horse that digs the ground with its hoof - a field now, dark and moonlit and deep in the breath of winter, silhouettes on a pure white landscape of snow.

"Easy, boy," he whispers again, and in his mind's eye, the rocking horse lowers its dappled grey head for him to climb on to its back. He giggles again.

"Good boy, Freddie."

He stands on tiptoe to catch hold of the reins, clinging grimly on, one foot aground, one foot flailing to reach the stirrup, hopping, skipping, jumping in vain, tears of frustration springing to his eyes when he bangs his heel on the rocking horse's side and tumbles noisily down.

A flood of light bursts into the room. Voices raised in subdued alarm.

"Steven, this is very naughty, sweetheart. How the

hell did he get down here without anyone noticing?"

"Jesus, anything could have happened to the poor mite! Who's Night Duty tonight?"

Steve couldn't understand why they made so much fuss. Lots of times when he lived with Mam he would creep downstairs in the middle of the night after she put him to bed and play while she was drunk. He was too young to realise they made the fuss because they cared about him.

The orphanage was a small, cosily run place, with trained, dedicated staff, and it was a happy but all too brief time for the little boy. Children were moved on when they were five, to the Children's Home, and his fifth birthday was fast approaching…

XXXXX

Governments come, governments go, and governments, with a cynical eye to forthcoming elections, bribe voters. And if the electorate can be bought with promises of more pounds in pockets, a bigger house, and a bigger car, then somebody must pay for it all. And so, inevitably, those at the very bottom of the heap become the easiest target and have what few pennies they own snatched away by the most wealthy.

Election fever swept Britain and the voters were bought for thirty pieces of silver. It was an outright victory for the ruling party. Scenes of jubilation were splashed across TV screens; supporters of the victors danced and sang far into the night; toasts were raised in joyous celebration. And funds were slashed from social care.

Nobody bothered to count the human cost.

The Children's Home, already a pauper, spread out its palm and gazed in dismay at its meagre allowance. Cutting back was the only solution. No more holidays to the seaside for the kids, no more musical instruments, no more fortnightly trips to the cinema. Wages being the biggest outlay, there was no choice but to hobble by with the bare minimum of staff on the bare minimum of pay. Consequently, most employees were untrained and viewed their employment as nothing more than a stop-gap until something better came along. Oh, one or two, despite the pittance of a wage, despite the long hours, despite the emotional exhaustion, genuinely loved their charges and did their very best for them, often working unpaid overtime or bringing in treats paid for out of their own money.

But one or two could never be enough to cater for the needs of every child, when the Home housed sixty to eighty or ninety children, ranging in age from five to fifteen, and those children came from a wide variety of backgrounds. Ann survived a fire that killed the rest of her family. Peter saw his father murder his mother. Jenny had tried in vain to lock her bedroom door from her Uncle every night. Rachel's parents were alcoholics. Brian's widowed mother was in hospital and there was nobody else to look after him. A handful of the kids were later adopted; several were fostered; a few, like Brian, returned home. The majority however found it impossible to settle anywhere and boomeranged back.

New and old faces constantly came and went and the Home was beset by problems that the newspapers thrived on reporting: older kids regularly sneaking out to get drunk or do drugs; pregnancies; runaways; a suicide; a fourteen-year-old girl found barely alive after her botched attempt at an abortion…

It was almost inevitable that a small, shy, sensitive boy, traumatized by his past, would be swallowed up and overlooked in this crowded, confusing environment. Of course, he was fed, of course he had a bed to sleep in, of course he went to school. But a child needs more than food, education and shelter.

Steven Ross's reputation grew with each passing day.

And yet, to begin with, his future seemed golden. At five years old, he was a healthy, intelligent and beautiful boy. His hair was dark and glossy, his lashes long and curly, his soulful eyes, as a young girl once remarked to her boyfriend, when they sat smoking cigarettes on the steps of a rundown house in The Shakies, "a dreamer's full of stories" .

The staff joked he would break hearts and the little girls giggled and argued over him, vying with each other for his attention. A smile from Stevie could set their hearts a-flutter and seal their happiness for a week.

But the little boy, with his quiet air of self-sufficiency, rarely smiled and carried the worries of the world on his small shoulders. Even at that tender age, there was too a flash of smouldering danger about him that erupted like a volcano into a red hot temper where defenceless creatures were concerned. Danny Todd never again whiled away his boredom by throwing stones at cats; Kevin Renshaw thought twice about picking on the smallest kids after being on the receiving end of his anger - even though he was twice as tall and Stevie lost the fight, for at least it shamed a couple of bigger boys into taking action.

The only thing that seemed to calm Stevie - or Steve as he preferred to be called nowadays, emphasising his point by flying at a kid (who insisted on calling him otherwise to provoke a reaction) with the force of a tornado was spending time with animals. But lack of funds curtailed the children's once regular days out to farms, as it did the authorities' pre-election plans to allow them to keep small pets like guinea pigs and rabbits.

And so the Children's Home, once so bright and full of eager promise, rattled on by like a truck running out of fuel. Apart from philanthropic donations from the general public, which provided occasional treats, only basic care could be given. The same old toys, the same old books, the same old draughty "summer house", a large, dated extension much in need of renovation, where the younger kids played indoors on bad weather days and which the older age group used in the evenings as a common room. It was here in the summer house, when the winter snows came and it was too early or late or too cold to play outside, that little Steve first would pull a chair up to the window and watch the white flakes for hours, oblivious to everything around him. It was a habit he never outgrew.

And so the lonely years passed by.

People said he was strange. A lone wolf; too quick to use his fists; too silent; too wild; too talkative; too calm. Long ago, the man his mother brought home shortly after Uncle Ted died, as they woke him with their drunken laughter and slurred voices, thudding and falling up the stairs, the creaking of Uncle Ted's bed, and his mother's strange throaty gurgles which made him anxiously go to investigate, had called him the spawn of the devil.

And somehow, in all the confusion, it was an easy mistake, everybody forgot he was a child.

XXXXX

"That bloody brat will end up in jail!"

At eighteen, Jenny Dillon was not much older than some of her charges and sometimes behaved as though she were actually much younger. She sighed in exasperation, churlishly throwing down the newspaper she'd been perusing, and hauled herself up out of her comfortable arm-chair.

Her friend Sharon Ferguson, a year older, nodded agreement and got up with equal reluctance. Both girls were rostered on Play Duty. It was meant to be a time of organised activates for the younger kids even when, as now, hailstones rattled on the tin roof of the "summer house" and Play Duty was being held indoors. Instead they had sat with arms folded and enjoyed a leisurely chat about make-up, chocolate, how to shake off a persistent ex who wouldn't take no for an answer, then checked what was on at the pictures. Until eight-year-old Steven Ross, with a furious roar, crashed his fist down on the table and then swung it dangerously towards another boy, who immediately fled towards the protection of the two nurses - as the staff were called, and whether or not they held any qualifications, though the latter was more usually the case.

Had either teenager bothered to watch the children, they'd have been aware that Steve had been quietly working on a jigsaw until Derek deliberately knocked it over. It was the same jigsaw, of a mare and her foal in a field on a bright summer's day, that Steve had worked on dozens of times before, but today, for reasons known only to himself, Derek took exception to seeing it being completed yet again. But it was Derek who was consoled by Nurse Sharon (if a vague "Are you okay?" delivered in a tone that warned "you better say yes" can be considered such) and Steve who had three points marked against his name in the Bad Behaviour Book by Nurse Jenny. Which meant he wouldn't be allowed the Sunday supper treats of cake and watching the kids' movie screened by a temperamental, loudly whirring projector on the large wall of the main hall.

And which didn't really matter anyway because, stung by the injustice, he stole a chocolate éclair, broke several plates while reaching for it, and caused a near riot. The Sunday movie was cancelled and everyone sent to bed early. And the little boy had yet more points added against his name in the Bad Behaviour Book.

XXXXX

By the age of fourteen, Steve owned a somewhat impressive police record. Housebreaking, stealing cars, drunk and disorderly, vandalism, fights, the list, though he was unaware of it, nearly rivalled that of a certain Ron Stryker of Whistledown, and in just two more years would run neck and neck with it.

Almost eight years to the day of her idle forecast, and just as Jenny Walker nee Dillon learnt she was expecting her second child, not having given the Children's Home a second thought since she'd handed in her notice over seven-and-a-half years previously, for a better paid job in the local soap factory, her prediction was fulfilled. So perhaps Jenny was blessed with the gift of second sight. Or perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. So many people keen to help him down his spiralling path to self destruction, so many people pushing him on his way. Dangerous. Corrupt. Useless. Hostile. Surly. Indifferent. Give a dog a bad name and hang him.

On the same snowy February morning, at the very same moment that Jenny was walking carefully down the sand-dusted steps of her doctor's surgery and mulling over the confirmation of her pregnancy, Steven Ross stood in the dock, being sentenced to twelve months Borstal training.

XXXXX

The governors of the Children's Home held a meeting to discuss the latest scandal. It was agreed that, if only there had been the funds to pay for Ross to attend college he might have pursued a career working with animals, his only ever interest. But it was also agreed that Ross had, of his own accord, more or less given up on formal education around the age of eleven when he consistently played truant, that there were more deserving children who wanted to make good, and that it was irrelevant in any case, there being no funds for anyone.

Miss Jean Stockham was unanimously nominated to be spokesperson to the Press, who were clamouring for the Borstal story, and the motion was passed that, as the boy was now sixteen and therefore no longer the Home's responsibility, all information pertaining to him should be filed away. There being no other business, the meeting was declared closed.

But some good came of all the penny-pinching from those who could least afford it. Joe and Jane Bloggs had their bigger house, their bigger car, more money in their pockets; the Government had their votes in the bag. So what did it matter that a life was wasted?

XXXXX

Steve Ross never lost his childhood fascination for watching the snow fall. Often he would lean against the barred window, oblivious to all around him, watching something only he could see.

After a while, the misty whiteness became another world. He could remember when he was very small pressing his face against the cold glass of a window pane as the flakes fell ever faster, waiting in eager anticipation, but for who or what he never could recall. Perhaps somewhere in that gentle silence there were people who loved. Perhaps the mythical white horses of the foamy waves rose into reality and blended unseen into the snow. Perhaps in the distance, fires burned brightly in the homes of strangers to welcome the weary traveller. Anything was possible in this enchanted new land.

There was a magic about the way footprints appeared and disappeared, about the way the crisp whiteness glittered like precious jewels when the pale sun caught prisms of light, about the pure joy in kids' rosy faces when they built their snowmen and tended their every need with winter clothes and pipe. No two snowflakes ever alike, gathering speed, taking different shapes and patterns, carried on the wings of fate, tossed and turned in all directions, a feather for each wind that blows, yet every breath of ice cold air bringing each and every one together to blanket the earth with the warmth of hope.