Groomed: Part 2 of 3: Danger lies closer than you think

‘Yes, of course,’ Danny said, seemingly surprised that I even felt the need to bring it up. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘EDT didn’t have all this, did they? That’s why I’ve been so keen to get my hands on Keeley’s full records. Seriously, Danny, she has absolutely no idea why she was separated from her brothers and sisters. Did you know that?’

There was a pause. Possibly pregnant. ‘Of course,’ he said again.

‘But you’ve never discussed it with her?’

‘No, of course not …’ He paused again, possibly weighing up what kind of woman he was dealing with. ‘There was no question of my doing so,’ he went on.

‘But why?’ I said, still not understanding.

‘Because what was the point?’ he said. ‘It’s not as if it was ever going to change anything, was it?’ Another pause. I waited. He eventually spoke again. ‘I think the feeling was – still is – that we should let sleeping dogs in that department lie. After all, as I say – and I think the feeling has always been this, to be honest – that it’s not as if we can help Keeley by going back over any of this, is it? And to lay it bare to her that she herself was the reason … well, that’s only going to make her feel even worse about herself, isn’t it? Assuming that’s even possible …’

He let it hang. And I stood there and weighed things up too. And thought back to two children we’d fostered before – the elder of which (in fact, both of which) had been similarly abused over several years. They too had been separated. To break the abuse cycle. To put it behind them. And, in that case, hand on heart, I realised I couldn’t argue. It had been the right decision. Perhaps it had been the right decision for Keeley too.

So I finally had my answer. And it settled things in my mind a bit more. Depressingly, it also put the phone sex into perspective. For a teen who, as a little girl, had been systematically abused by strange men, what she did on the phone for money must feel like water off a duck’s back. As if she was calling the shots. A kind of payback.

And Danny was right. I couldn’t change her past. Only help her with her future. It made me even more determined to see beyond the stroppy fifteen-year-old I was currently dealing with, and remember the frightened, abused ten-year-old beneath.

If sympathetic, Mike was also pragmatic. I’d droned on at him about it all as soon as I’d had the opportunity, but though he understood what I was saying he took the same view as Danny. How could it help Keeley psychologically to have chapter and verse on the reasons why she’d been separated from her siblings? It was all so much water under the bridge now, after all.

And I put it behind me, because they were both right. Did Keeley need any more reasons to feel bad about herself? No. She had enough of those already. But it galvanised me to the extent that I felt even more compelled to try and help her. To the extent that within the week I’d moved mountains for her. Well, various small heaps of educational red tape (challenging enough). And I eventually managed to sweet-talk my old colleague and friend Gary Clarke to offer Keeley a place on the Reach for Success programme that, as behaviour manager at the local comprehensive in my former life, I had helped set up.

Gary was the child protection officer there, and with Danny’s grateful sanction and help had enough clout to push it through. So it was that, anxious to seize the initiative, I drove Keeley up for an interview with him as soon as the following Wednesday, where he did an impressive bit of sweet-talking too – and putting not only two days of hair and beauty on the educational table, but also having her agree to a further two half-days – one to brush up on her English and the other to work on her maths. It would be unlikely to get her remotely close to GCSE-sitting level, but that wasn’t the point. It was something to put on a CV, to show that despite difficult circumstances she had at least been trying to better herself – a point he was able to get across to her so much better than I could. I could have kissed him. I definitely hugged him.

The key thing was that this wasn’t anything like school, being much more like the sort of college course she’d be able to access this time next year. The Reach for Success programme was delivered off-site, free of uniforms, to pacify the most hardy school refuseniks. And it was very much centred around adult-style learning, and focused on learning job-centred skills. And when I drove Keeley up there for her first induction half-day, before she began proper, I was pleased to see it wasn’t just surviving; it was thriving – it was bigger and better attended than it had ever been.

I know some people might see that as a failing by society. Quite apart from the fact that it might seem that – with their freedoms to dress as they chose, and the informal approach there – they were being rewarded for not toeing the school line. Wouldn’t it be better if all school-aged children were in school? Wasn’t this evidence of greater numbers failing to thrive in education?

I’d heard all the arguments, but those of us who worked in the social sector knew all too well that to see it like this was to miss the point. There were far too many kids who, like Keeley, were persistent non-attenders, and who, once they reached an age where they were deemed not worth hounding (or their parents worth prosecuting, more pragmatically), simply slipped out of sight and, as a consequence, out of the range of help and support, which meant they were much more likely to be problem adults down the line.

No, the more we could identify and mop up, and actually teach something, the better for everyone, as far as I could see.

And Keeley was apparently as enthused about it as I was. I was still pinching myself that she’d acquiesced to my ideas so readily – it was such a turnaround from her ‘leave me alone, I’m going my own way’ stance, after all, and I was still ready for it to all go ‘tits up’ – as Tyler might put it if out of earshot. But, for now, at least, Keeley seemed totally on board with it.

‘It’s not a bit like school, Casey,’ she had enthused when I picked her up again. ‘I can’t believe no one ever suggested me doing something like this before. Everyone’s, like, so cool.’

I privately wondered about how much her and my interpretation of the word ‘cool’ differed in this context. After all, in my day, most of the ‘students’ were the ones the school mostly despaired of – the trouble-makers, the bullies, the self-proclaimed no-hopers (even if I refused to believe that of them), and the angry and chronically disenchanted.

But be that as it may, the fact that she liked the look of them made it so much more likely she’d give it a good go. ‘Oh, and Gary says hi,’ she added. Gary had been one of the ones doing the induction. ‘Can you believe that? We’re actually allowed to call the teachers by their first names? And they’re just so nice. So totally not in your face.’

Since people ‘not being in her face’ was such a big deal to Keeley I did a little mental fist pump at this news. And the rest of the family, having already sensed a touch of battle fatigue in me and Mike over the previous couple of weeks, were equally enthused.

Well, to a point. Keeley was due to attend her first hair and beauty session the following Monday, and though Lauren and Riley had agreed to come over to be hair models over the weekend in order to allow her to practise, Tyler was a little more reticent.

‘You seriously think I’m going to let you loose on my gorgeous mop? You’re having a laugh, you are, trust me,’ he assured her, as the salon party gathered on the Saturday morning. ‘You’ve not even had a single lesson yet!’

Keeley snorted at this, and, ever the quick thinker, countered with typical acuity. ‘Well, that’s debatable,’ she said. ‘It’s not like that gorgeous mop of yours seems to have girls falling all over you, does it?’

Tyler narrowed his eyes, and looked decidedly piqued, but, refusing to be beaten, he soon rallied again. ‘Like you’d know,’ he quipped sharply. ‘For your information, plenty of girls like my hair just the way it is, thanks – something you’d have spotted if you actually went to school.’

I exchanged a glance with Lauren and Riley, who were struggling to hide their grins. There was no malice to be seen. It was just the sort of pretend-tetchy banter Ty and Keeley had begun to exchange on a daily basis. ‘Like cat and dog sometimes,’ I observed, as Keeley chased him out of the kitchen brandishing a tail comb.

The girls were all ready for action (Mike, David and Kieron having been assembled for the occasion and detailed to take the grandkids to football) and were both at the dining table, with hair washed and towels wrapped round their heads. I tapped Riley on the shoulder. ‘It’s like you and flipping Kieron all over again.’

The girls now exchanged a look between themselves. Which I saw. ‘What?’ I said.

‘Er, not quite like that, mother,’ Riley said, grinning at her sister-in-law.

‘Like what, then?’ I said, fearing I knew what might be coming, even as I was in dogged denial.

Riley tutted. ‘Mum, surely you can see it? Me and Lauren have only been here half an hour, and, seriously? You honestly can’t see it?’

I knew exactly what she meant, and my heart sank. ‘Oh, stop it, Riley,’ I said (still feeling dogged). ‘You’re imagining things. I mean, I know Tyler was a bit in awe of her initially – God help us – and she’s a pretty girl, so that’s understandable. But not any more. He’s well over that now. But her sweet on him? No way. Yes, I have to admit, a couple of weeks ago I thought that maybe he was a bit drawn to her, but no, that was just him being a boy, being around a pretty teenage girl. It’s fine, he’s over all that now.’

Lauren shook her head. ‘He’s really not, Casey,’ she said. ‘Riley’s right. Just watch them. And it’s not just Tyler, either. Keeley’s just the same, whatever you say. Proper flirting. Listen to her giggling in there!’

I glanced into the living room, were they were darting round the furniture in their mutual quest to mess up each other’s hair. ‘Hardly flirting,’ I suggested, but there was really no denying it; and I probably didn’t need Riley and Lauren’s ‘Come on, Mum!’ to hammer home the point. Our new ‘homebody-off-to-college’ version of a previously distant, shut-down Keeley was making her mark in more ways than one. Food for thought. And definitely cause for vigilance.

‘I reckon you should have a quiet word with Ty, Mum,’ suggested Riley. ‘Don’t you? Just to make it clear that she’s moving on. And that while she’s here she’s out of bounds. He’ll get that. He knows the score with her, doesn’t he?’

That she’s dabbled in paid-for phone sex, I thought grimly. Yes, he does. But not this morning of all mornings, please.

Riley grinned at Lauren. ‘Bless her, she’s so innocent,’ she said.

‘No I’m not,’ I huffed. ‘And stop trying to stress me out, okay? I’ll deal with it – if it even turns out to be an “it” – as and when. Meanwhile, let’s get this salon open for business. Keeley! You’re needed!’ I shouted. ‘And Tyler, if you’re adamant you’re not up for modelling, you can go and do some revision till Denver comes over. Right, come on,’ I said, waving a hand over the array of rollers, tongs, hairdryers and straighteners we’d laid out. ‘Oh, and even better news. Riley’s giving you free rein over her make-up bag, so you do the whole hog – have them looking proper belles of the ball. For a change,’ I added, before ducking, sharpish.

We spent the rest of that Saturday in welcome good spirits, and for the first time since Keeley had come to live with us. And in the end we made a day of it, as Mike, Tyler and Denver – who was equally resistant to having his hair interfered with – went off to help Kieron decorate his spare bedroom, heroically taking all the little ones along too.

So a fun girly day couldn’t help but ensue – one in which I finally learned how to turn around the camera on my phone and take ‘selfies’.

And, true to her promise (make that ‘threat’), after her induction the previous day, Keeley gave me the works. I’d never had so much different make-up on all at once, much to Riley’s amusement. ‘I dare you to go out like that for your birthday, Mum,’ she teased. ‘If Dad would be seen dead with you, that is!’

With everything that had been going on lately, my birthday had been the last thing on my mind. And wouldn’t have been the first thing on my mind in any year, these days, except the biggies – and as this wasn’t one of them, I wasn’t that bothered. After all, when you get to my age it’s increasingly a trade-off – between the fun of a party as set against the stark reminder that you are a whole year older than you were before.

‘It’s my birthday soon too,’ Keeley said, as she finished off Lauren’s manicure. And it struck me that she’d said it in a different spirit than before too. Less of the ‘I’m sixteen soon, so …’ and some stark pronouncement or other, but as any teenager might at the prospect of a special day.

Except this one wouldn’t be special, because it couldn’t help but involve a similar trade-off. Between cherished freedom (well, Keeley’s take on freedom, anyway) and the realisation that she didn’t have a family with whom to share it. Once again, the vulnerable abused child took precedence in my mind over the difficult teenager. ‘Then we should do something, shouldn’t we?’ I heard myself saying.

‘Yes, let’s, Mum,’ Riley said – she was a good-time girl through and through. Where I always joked I had fostering antennae, Riley’s were definitely more like deeley-bobbers. ‘How about a little parteeeeey maybe?’ she went on. ‘A joint one, perhaps? We need to do something.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised, already knowing we probably would. After all, we were trying to keep positive, weren’t we? And what better way to extend the hand of trust and hope to Keeley than to make her birthday part of my own special day?

‘Oh, go on then,’ I said. ‘Let’s. Well, once I’ve run it by Dad first, obviously.’ And Keeley’s answering smile was all the confirmation I needed to convince me it was the right thing to do.

There’s a fine line between positivity and naïvety, however, and if it’s one that’s worth teetering across so you don’t become negative and cynical, I should still have perhaps been more realistic about such progress as we’d made.

Monday morning sold me a dummy, because it went like clockwork, with Keeley fairly skipping off through the entrance to the Reach for Success centre; so keen to get in there that my words of reassurance – about not worrying about it seeming strange, and reminding her to make use of the student counsellors if she needed to – mostly fell in the swirl of air that she left in her wake.