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

But it was a different matter when I brought her back home. The journey itself was certainly positive, in that she couldn’t seem to stop enthusing about it, but we’d not been in ten minutes – Tyler had narrowly beaten us to it – when she announced that she was planning on going out straight after tea.

‘To the skate park,’ she explained (which was a plus, at least, I thought – in that she was supplying that information without being asked). ‘If that’s okay? With Gemma and Kate. They’re on the same course as me.’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ I said, even though she wasn’t exactly asking permission, nor, strictly speaking, did she need to. Hadn’t I been told that often enough? ‘But you’ve got college again tomorrow,’ I pointed out. ‘So I’d like you in by 8 p.m. latest, okay?’

She was about to pull a face but I watched her think better of it. ‘Okay,’ she said, slipping off the coat she’d be donning again an hour later. ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve invited them to our birthday party. If that’s okay, of course,’ she added sweetly.

‘She did what?’ Mike asked, once he was home. Keeley had, by now, already left. ‘I hope you said something, Case. We don’t know anything about them! They can’t just show up here. Not with all the little ones coming. I don’t like this at all.’

Since he’d not liked the idea of hosting a joint birthday party in the first place – ‘asking for trouble, at her age’ being his not unreasonable opinion – I didn’t want to push it.

‘I tell you what, I’ll see if I can get them round after college one day,’ I reassured him. ‘See if they have any horns hidden under their hair … Seriously, though, love, I’m sure they’re perfectly nice girls. Got to be better than the wasters she mooches around town with. At least they’re doing something.’

Mike’s look didn’t need to be accompanied by any words. How many times had I come home with hair-raising tales about some of the little ‘angels’ we had at the centre down the years? Way too many. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

But further discussion about the desirability of holding a party in the first place was soon superseded by more pressing concerns about the here and now. Eight o’clock came and went, and all too soon became eight thirty, swiftly followed by nine and nine thirty as well. I had texted Keeley twice and received no replies, either – and this despite this being one of the house rules we’d discussed more than once. Her phone went straight to voicemail as well.

‘This is just too much!’ Mike seethed, his mood now hovering between dark and black. ‘Her first bloody day at college and she goes out and does this to us. She’d better have a damn good excuse … Scrub that. I’m not accepting any excuse. This is not carrying on again. Not a chance.’

‘I could run to the skate park,’ Tyler offered, and I could see he was as anxious about Keeley’s fall from grace back to disgrace as much as I was. Could leopards ever change their spots when they were grown? Perhaps not. ‘Shall I do that?’ he persisted, while Mike stared out of the window, up the road. ‘She might just have lost track of time again.’

‘No you won’t, son,’ Mike said, lowering the curtain he’d been holding up. ‘I shall drive there. And when I find her she’ll be getting a piece of my mind. This is it, love, I mean it,’ he added to me, reaching for his car keys. ‘You know what we said.’

I saw Tyler looking anxiously across at me. ‘I know,’ I said glumly. ‘But please don’t go off on one, Mike. Let’s deal with it calmly, yes? We don’t want her running off and everything just going from bad to worse.’

‘Bad to worse?’ Mike’s look was stony, his feelings about Keeley clear. ‘You honestly think I care that much? You honestly think that’s not a risk I’m prepared to take?’

And when he shut the door behind him he did it too quietly.

Too precisely. As if in danger of slamming it otherwise.

He meant what he said, I knew.

‘Dad doesn’t like Keeley, does he?’ Tyler said.

Chapter 10 (#u51a27b98-50ee-53c3-b188-e65d9145c380)

As it turned out, the whole débâcle had, thankfully, been something of an anti-climax.

Mike had intercepted Keeley not ten minutes into his drive to the skate park, already weaving her unsteady way home.

Neither of us had the appetite for an interrogation then, either. For one thing it was a school night and way past Tyler’s bedtime. And for another, with Keeley squiffy, if not paralytic (thankfully), there was no point in trying to get any sense out of her anyway. It was sufficient that she was glum-faced and contrite rather than defiant, and only too happy to be sent straight to bed.

And – well, well, well – here she was this morning, up at the crack of dawn, all ready for college, and chock-full of heartfelt apologies. She was clearly anxious to break down the wall of distrust Mike had now assembled – as he’d already made clear to me, very grumpily, the night before.

And, give her credit, she was doing her level best to make a highly dubious-sounding story work, all about some supposed-alcohol-free-but-wasn’t cider.

‘We really didn’t realise, honestly!’ she entreated, for about the third time since she’d surprised us in the kitchen with a virtual dawn chorus of appeasement gestures, including busily clearing away the plates Mike and I had left on the table, like a supercharged Snow White.

I knew Mike was a great deal less inclined than me to even listen, but he at least gave her benefit of appearing to. Which he could afford to. He’d soon be off to work, and able to leave me to it, wouldn’t he?

‘Please say you believe me,’ she said, turning her eyes on him particularly. ‘Why wouldn’t we believe her?’ The ‘her’ in question being some new mate from the course she had ‘mistakenly’ trusted to tell the truth. ‘I mean, it looked completely legit. And it was fruit cider. You know the kind. With a picture of a bunch of cranberries on it and everything. Why wouldn’t we believe her?’

‘Because you didn’t come down in the last shower of rain, perhaps?’ I suggested.

‘But it was dark,’ she threw in, causing Mike to roll his eyes. ‘I couldn’t read the back of the can even if I wanted to.’

‘Even more reason not to drink it,’ I pointed out.

‘But she told us it was fine,’ she persisted. ‘So why wouldn’t we believe her? It was only when I’d drank two cans of the stuff that it dawned on me. So, I mean, it’s not like I was drinking booze on purpose, is it? I didn’t even know. It’s like … it’s like … it’s like I was almost violated!’

Quite apart from the ridiculous picture she was painting – of this random girl, running a mobile branch of the local booze shop, dispensing dubious cans of strong cider – her choice of word made me laugh out loud. Violated? Where had she dredged that one up? Violated, by fruity cider? She really was quite the drama queen. I had to give her that. Even if she was trying to take us for utter mugs.

‘Okay,’ I said, having already decided to keep a cool head and run with it. ‘So then what? How did you go from, um, being forced to consume alcohol, to wandering the streets at ten o’clock at night, when you were meant to be home?’

Keeley shook her head as if in disbelief. ‘Well, duh!’ she said, shaking her head in apparent astonishment. ‘We were drunk by then, weren’t we? We didn’t know what we were doing.’ She glanced at Mike, then looked at me. ‘Casey, honestly, you mean you’ve never been drunk?’

Thankfully, Tyler appeared in the kitchen just as the question had been asked. Which both saved me from having to engage further in such a silly discussion and provided a timely pause, before Mike left for work.

‘Well, Keeley,’ he said, adopting her own style. ‘As you might say, whatever. Whatever the reason, I told you last night that your actions have consequences, and, guess what – they’re here. You come straight home from college tonight. No hanging around with friends. You can have a night at home for once, about which I don’t expect you to argue. And if you do – either to me now, or to Casey later on, tonight’s night in will be extended to a week in. You understand.’

‘What?’ Keeley gasped. ‘You mean I’m grounded? But I apologised!’

Mike nodded. ‘Yes, you have. And we’ve accepted your apology.’ He reached for his coat and began putting it on. ‘And just as I and Casey have done that, so you should accept the result of your actions graciously. Think on it. Chalk it up to experience. If you then learn from your mistakes – that’s the point, here – and make a different choice next time, then you will have actually proved that you’re sorry, won’t you? It won’t just be empty words. So let’s see,’ he said sternly. ‘A night at home won’t kill you, anyway.’

Mike kissed me and Tyler goodbye and left, leaving Keeley with her mouth open and a bit of an atmosphere, which Tyler was quick to try and lighten. ‘Porridge and syrup, anyone?’ he asked, smiling as he held out a bunch of sachets. ‘Lots of syrup. Though I reckon it’s a bit late to try and sweeten Dad up.’

He then smiled, clearly pleased to see Keeley’s frown turn to a grin.

‘You should go on the stage, you,’ she said, batting him on the arm. ‘And go on, then, O King of the Microwave. I’ll join you. But don’t blame your dad. I know I’m pretty high maintenance.’

Hmm, I thought. Spoken like a woman of the world. ‘Glad you’ve noticed,’ I said, deciding there was no point in being off with her. As Mike had made clear, the ball was in her court now. To follow up her words with appropriate action. Which she either would or wouldn’t do. I hoped she would.

‘And like Mike said,’ I went on, ‘a night at home won’t kill you. So when you see your friends today make sure they know that, okay? In fact, it wouldn’t hurt if you showed willing by staying in a bit more anyway, love. If you want to do your best at college you are going to need your sleep.’