CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Ok," Belle said as Rachel heaved a sigh of relief, "on one condition."
Rachel's brow furrowed. "And what's that?"
"You get me out of there before you do anything."
"Out of- your home?" Rachel clarified.
"Yeah. I'm not stupid, the questions you've all been asking- I know what you suspect. But I'm not saying anything until you promise me I won't have to go back to it."
"Belle-"
"Promise! Or I'm walking out of here and never coming back." Belle stuck her chin out stubbornly, and the look in her eyes told Rachel she absolutely was not bluffing.
"Belle, I can't just take you away from him, it doesn't work like that." Rachel said sadly.
"Rachel, you're my mum, you're the only person who can."
"Come and sit down." She guided a reluctant Belle back to the sofas and sat next to her, still gripping her hands tightly. "Listen, I want to do that more than anything. If I could, I would take you home with me tonight and you'd never have to go back there ever again, but there are laws in place. Your father is your legal guardian and whilst I'm your mother, I gave up my rights to you all those years ago."
Belle looked like she was about to go off again, but Rachel cut her off.
"Now, what I can do is petition the court for full custody."
"So do it!"
"I am! I've already been speaking to a lawyer about it, the application is on it's way-"
"You have?" For the first time, Belle looked taken aback, less combative.
"Yes!" Rachel gave her a small smile. "You didn't think I'd been doing nothing these past few weeks, did you?"
Belle shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "I dunno, yeah? I told you I didn't want you and well, you have sort of got a history…"
It stung, but Rachel couldn't exactly deny it. "Well, that changes now. But what with my absence for most of your life, and your father fighting me for you, it's looking to be a long, drawn-out process."
Belle slumped, looking close to tears.
"If the courts were given cause to remove you from his care, however-"
"They'd let me go?"
"Belle, they'd have no choice. If you talk to us, tell us what's been happening, then social services would have to get involved."
"And I'd go to you?"
"If that's ok with you."
Belle pulled her hands out of her mother's and paused for a long while, and Rachel let her think: the girl had been pushed enough today.
Keeping her eyes locked on the ground and her arms wrapped around herself, Belle finally spoke; "D'you mean it? When you say you want me?"
"I do."
"And you're not just gonna leave again?"
"I promise you, Isabelle. I am never leaving you again."
Belle nodded slowly, cautiously. "What'll happen today?"
Rachel let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Mr Clarkson will need to be there as head of pastoral care, and as an unbiased third party. You'll make a statement to the school, and we'll then ring social services."
"Will they make me go home tonight?"
"No. They'll send someone over to your house to inform your father, and send you to your closest relative while the investigation is underway."
"And that's you?" Belle looked up, meeting Rachel's eyes.
"That's me."
Belle heaved a few deep breaths and nodded. "Ok...ok. I'll do it- or, I'll try."
And so it was that Belle came to be sat in the pastoral care office, on the small couch with both her mother and Tom Clarkson sat in chairs opposite her. It felt like a police interview, and the formality of it all had her on edge. It had been easy enough to agree to talk when she was sitting next to Rachel in her office, but now she'd had longer to think it over and the more thinking she did, the bigger the pit in her stomach got.
The dread must have shown on her face, because Tom sat forward with his best attempt at a comforting smile on his face. "Take your time, Belle, whenever you're ready."
She remained silent with her eyes closed, her hands twitching in odd movements that took the adults a long while to work out were the shapes of piano chords. Eventually she spoke: "Where do you want me to start?"
"Wherever you're comfortable starting from. The beginning, today- whatever you find easiest."
"I-" her eyes darted to her mother then slammed shut again. "I can't do this with you looking at me like that, Rachel, so either stop it or, or turn around, or leave." She said bluntly.
Rachel's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Like what?"
"Like you're sorry for me; like you're gonna blame yourself for everything that comes out of my mouth. I don't want your sympathy, just your help, if you can manage that." She snapped, her face scrunching up as she rocked back and forth in her seat, anxiety written all over her face.
"Ok. I'll stop, I didn't mean to-"
"I know."
Trying to break the tense atmosphere, Tom took the lead in the conversation. "Belle, would you rather try something else? Like writing it down?"
"No…" she considered, "no, I'm no good at that. The words never sit right on the page- I'm better with music."
"When did you start playing?" Tom said, trying to coax her into relaxing.
"When I was six- just the piano. We had one at home and Dad got me lessons every Saturday morning. He'd listen to me practice every night, said he wanted me to be perfect." Her eyes were still closed, head tilted as she recalled the memory.
"I remember hearing you over the phone," Rachel said absently, as though the words had stirred her own distant memories, "'Yesterday' by The Beatles."
"Yeah, that was one of my first full songs."
"And you picked it up quickly?" Tom asked.
"Yeah, I was playing Beethoven before I was seven. Then Dad got me a flute on my seventh birthday, and when I picked that up quickly, a guitar and violin. My ukulele is the only one I chose myself."
"You seem to like that best?" He pushed.
"It's the only one Dad didn't care about. The only thing that I had all to myself," she took a deep breath, "it's the only thing I'm allowed to get wrong."
Rachel tried her best to school her face into a calm expression, but some of the heartbreak she was feeling must have shown, if the sympathetic glance Tom shot her was anything to go by. She allowed him to continue leading the conversation, not trusting her voice not to crack if she spoke.
"What do you mean by that, Belle?"
"Everything about me has to be perfect. Perfect grades, perfect music, perfect daughter. It's as if he thinks that forcing his high expectations onto me will make us the perfect family." Her voice was lower now, little more than a whisper. "But when I'm anything less than perfect..."
Tom knew that this was it, so he allowed her a few more seconds before pressing on. "What happens?"
She didn't reply, instead reaching into her backpack that had been left in the office that morning and pulling out her phone, opening the photos up and handing it to him.
In a separate folder to the rest of her pictures was a horrifying timeline of the last few months of Belle's life. Every bruise, every cut, every scrape had been catalogued and documented.
"He loses it," Belle whispered as Tom passed the phone over to Rachel and ran a hand down his face. "Sometimes it doesn't even have to have a trigger, he just needs someone to take his frustration out on, and well… I'm there."
Rachel had gone sheet-white as she flicked through the photographic evidence of the atrocities committed against her daughter. Tom looked mildly nauseous: suspecting it had been happening was one thing, but seeing the evidence of it was another. The pair looked at the fifteen year old sitting in front of them and both silently wondered how she'd been keeping it all to herself for so long- it was no wonder she'd lashed out every now and then.
Seeing that Rachel was in no condition to join the conversation, Tom continued, knowing it had to be done. "How- how long has this been going on for, Belle?" His voice was slightly hoarse. All he was thinking about was how she was younger than Chlo and Mika.
"Since I was ten, maybe younger? The earliest I remember was on my tenth birthday. I'd come out of school twenty minutes late because my friends had thrown me a small party at school, and I'd left him waiting. It might have started before then, though." Belle had kept her face and voice carefully neutral throughout, afraid that if she put too much thought or emotion into what she was saying, she'd end up breaking down. She had also been studiously avoiding the eyes of her mother, and only occasionally flicking her gaze up to Tom's. Mostly she'd just stared at the floor.
"Will you be ok to explain all of this again in a statement to a social worker, Belle? We can be there too."
"Yeah." Her voice was raspy now, her throat dry. Her eyes were unfocussed as she visibly shut herself down in a last ditch attempt to not feel the weight of what she was saying. It was her first time saying any of it out loud, and it was more difficult than she'd imagined.
"Would you be able to provide context for any or all of these photos?" Tom himself was having to force himself into a business-like headspace, seeing as Rachel was no backup whatsoever, being too lost in her own terrible thoughts to help him out.
"Yeah, I think so. Yeah."
"And Belle, I'm sorry but I need to ask this-" he inhaled deeply, "has your father ever sexually abused you?"
Rachel looked up at him, aghast. Her eyes then travelled across to her daughter, who held a similar taken aback look in her wide eyes.
"What?" She gasped out.
"I have to ask you, Belle, I'm sorry." And for what it was worth, he truly was.
"I- no." Her voice was now below a whisper, barely audible if it weren't for the dead silence in the room. "No, he hasn't." She kept her eyes down and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "Is that all?"
He sighed, unable to help feeling sorry for the girl who had clearly been through so much already, but he knew had more still to come. "Yeah, it is for now. Are you alright to stay here while we go and call social services?"
It was at that point that the bell signalling the end of the school day rang, making all three of them jump out of their skins.
Belle was the first to recover. "Yeah, I am. But- you need to hurry. My Dad's expecting me back in half an hour and he'll come straight here when I don't show."
Sensing the fear in her daughter's words, Rachel moved to sit next to her. "He won't get near you, ok? I promise. I won't let him touch you ever again." She drew her into a rather one-sided hug.
Belle merely nodded, unable to bring herself to speak at that moment.
Rachel reluctantly left her daughter's side, following Tom out into the corridor, neither speaking to the other as they made their way to the office to place the all-important call.
Social services had already arrived and been debriefed and shown Belle's phone as evidence by the time Jonathan showed up.
"Where's my daughter, Rachel?" He thundered, the door to the head's office banging open violently as he entered to find Rachel, Tom, Eddie, a police officer and a social worker.
"I'm assuming this is him?" the DI, a broadly built woman with a thick newcastle accent in her late thirties, asked with a raise of her brow.
At the affirmations of the three teachers, she seized him, bodily pulling his wrists behind his back. "Jonathan Munroe, you're under arrest for repeated parental assault, child cruelty, and domestic abuse against a minor. You don't have to say anything but anything you do say may be held against you in court."
Before she'd even finished her sentence he was thrashing (she did not seem to be struggling to keep him contained, though) and shouting:
"She's lying! This woman has no rights to my daughter, she's making it up!"
"How dare you!" Rachel burst out, finally giving in to the rage she felt when she looked at him. "How dare you do that to our daughter!"
Eddie stepped up to her, placing calming hands on her shoulders if only to give himself something to do other than punch the man himself.
"It's not her making the claim," the unassuming young man from the social services office said quietly. He was one of the pair sent to the school after their call; the other was currently taking a formal statement from Belle.
At this, Jonathan seemed to sag, allowing the DI to escort him more easily from the room, still spitting the occasional curse at Rachel for turning his daughter against him.
Everyone left in the room seemed to let out a breath after he was gone, and while the two male teachers resumed discussing how Belle's case would be handled going forward, Rachel could only force herself to half-listen, more intent upon watching her ex get manhandled into the back of a police car and driven away, only allowing herself to feel relief once he was gone. She was so focussed that she hadn't realised that the room was more full once again.
"He's gone then?" Her daughter said quietly from beside her.
Rachel startled but nodded, wrapping an arm around her as they stared out the window even after the police car couldn't be seen. "He's gone."
A throat being cleared from behind them caused them both to turn (and Eddie to mentally remark for what felt like the hundredth time how he'd never noticed before how alike they looked).
"Your phone is also gone, I'm afraid," Tom said in an attempt to lighten the mood, "had to be taken in as evidence. So I don't know how you're going to cope!"
Belle looked genuinely worried, though. "How soon will I get it back?!"
"Not long," the female social worker, the one who had taken the statement, replied, "they're just extracting files, the phone itself isn't part of the investigation."
Belle looked slightly abated. "So what happens now?" She asked, looking between the adults.
The social workers glanced at each other before back to her. The woman walked up to her and crouched slightly to be on eye level. "Now, if it's what you want, we're ok to sign off on you staying with your mum. We'll still have to monitor the situation, at first, to make sure it's what's right for you, but with no case for a custody battle, you can go home with your mum right now."
Rachel watched Belle chew the words over and glance her way, before nodding blankly and simply saying "yes". She didn't know what she was expecting from her daughter. Not fireworks and the film-style throwing herself into her arms, but a little bit more than just "yes".
Belle went with Tom to get her bags from his office, and the two workers busied themselves signing off on paperwork.
Eddie made his way over to her. "She's been through a lot today, Rach."
She just nodded numbly, still staring at the door she'd just walked out of.
"Things weren't going to change with her completely over the course of a few hours."
"I know, Eddie."
"She wasn't going to get a personality transplant just because she finally opened up."
"Yes, I know-"
"Rachel!"
She jumped and finally gave him her full attention.
"She's shutting down again."
As soon as he said the words they hit her like a train and she scolded herself for focussing on how it had made her feel rather than actually paying attention to her daughter. Blank stare, no eye contact, short sentences, clenched fists, defensive posture. Belle was shutting down again. After an exhausting day of having to force herself to open up and finally letting herself feel the things she'd been avoiding feeling for so long, her psyche was shutting down to protect her.
"Oh god, she is, isn't she?"
He just nodded with those warm eyes of his.
"Thank you, Eddie."
"None of that. Today's been rough on you too, don't go piling yourself high with blame."
It was like he knew what was going on inside her head before she did.
"Miss Mason?" The social worker was calling her over for her signature, interrupting them.
Eddie watched her walk over, knowing she'd blame herself no matter what he said, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't try.
So sorry for the slight abandonment of this story! Moving house, new friends, and the inability to put what I want to write into actual words have hindered my progress somewhat; the amount of times I opened this document, typed a few lines, then deleted them because they just weren't what I wanted to say or to happen... Anyway, I make no promises for frequent updates, all I'm saying is that this story is very close to my heart, and I have ideas for where I want it to go. It WILL get finished eventually, but it may even take years. I writethis story for me, as a way to comfort myself when nobody else will. So take it as a positive when it goes forever with no updates: it means I'm generally doing well and don't need to comfort myself!
Thanks to anyone who sticks with this, and as always, PLEASE message me or comment with your ideas and opinions, I take constructive criticism well! Much love x