The Girl Who Couldn't Smile

‘You made a mistake,’ I said. ‘It’s not too late to fix it.’

He looked out of the window at the village street. Spring was coming in. It was still bright. ‘You should not leave Little Scamps,’ he said.

‘I have another job,’ I said. ‘I was on loan.’

He stood. ‘I am going to try and persuade my wife to have me back,’ he said.

I held out my hand, and he shook it this time. ‘Good luck,’ I said.

‘What will you do?’ he asked.

‘I think I might have another cup of coffee,’ I said.

I watched him walk across the road to where his car was parked, then pull out into the narrow road and drive away. I knew I should go home, but it was warm and friendly in Kate’s. The cook laughed behind the long counter, and a waitress smiled and winked at me as she went past. I suddenly felt very alone. Lonnie and Tush would be sitting around the little table in his kitchen, by then, probably having an early-evening drink. I didn’t feel like going home to sit in an empty house.

I finished my second cup of coffee and went to my old Austin, got in and drove until the dull reverberations of the road numbed me, and I went home to my dog.

You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get to me.’

He didn’t say anything for what seemed like an age. Then: ‘Milandra seems happy.’

Kate brought my cake. Despite Milandra and Arga’s reviews, it was very good.

‘Your daughter is happy,’ I said. ‘She’s clever, sensitive, warm and content. She is a valued member of the crèche, and of this village. You should be very proud of her.’

‘I am,’ he said.

I had some more cake. It had cinnamon in it. I like cinnamon. ‘It took me and my friends quite a long time to get her to a place where she could function alongside other people,’ I said. ‘I think some good work was done at home with her, too. I don’t know how much of that success is down to you. I suspect not too much. I think your lovely wife was instrumental, though.’

‘I want to explain something to you,’ Tony said, leaning in close.

He had bags under his eyes, the look of a man who had lost a lot of weight quickly, weight he could not afford to lose.

‘I’m listening,’ I said.

‘You do not understand what it is like to grow up in poverty.’

I thought I might be able to mount a pretty good argument to that statement, but decided to keep my mouth shut for a bit.

‘Where I come from a child has to fight,’ Tony said, ‘fight for every single morsel of food, every article of clothing. Every accomplishment is hard won. When I was six years old, I saw a friend of mine, a boy who was only ten, killed for his shoes. His murderer was barely twelve.’

There was other chatter going on in the café, but I couldn’t hear it any more. It was just me and Tony.

‘I am here, talking to you, because my parents taught me to be fierce. To never give in, to trust nobody but myself. Those skills have stood me in good stead my whole life. If I did not have them, I would be dead.’

I nodded. Felicity had explained as much that evening back at the crèche.

‘I swore to myself long ago that, if I ever had a child, I would teach him or her those skills too, so that if they ever found themselves in such dire need, they would be able to fight, as I did.’

‘But did you not also swear that your children would never be in those circumstances?’ I asked. ‘You worked hard to rise above the awful place you grew up. You educated yourself, got a job and clawed your way to the top. You were lucky enough to marry an Irish girl whose family is well off, and you are now a man of means. Even if you lost your job in the morning, if by some ill fortune you had to sell your house and get a smaller one, if you ended up on social welfare – if all of that happened, Tony, and it would be terrible, you will never be destitute again. Milandra will never have to live rough or fight for scraps with other street children.’

His eyes were huge. ‘I love my daughter,’ he said.

‘I know you do.’

‘I have wronged her.’

Tony came to see me shortly before I left Little Scamps to return to work at Drumlin. He was waiting outside the building as I locked up, looking remarkably unkempt for a man who was usually so dapper.

‘Tony, if you’re here to have another shouting match, I’m not interested,’ I said.

‘I would just like to talk,’ he said. ‘I do not want to fight with you.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s go get a cup of coffee.’

Kate’s café was a short walk away, and we sat by the window.

‘What can I do for you, Tony?’ I asked.

‘Felicity has left me,’ he said. ‘Or, more accurately, she threw me out.’

I sipped my coffee – Kate, as well as giving nice hugs, made a mean cup. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.

‘You didn’t know?’

‘I did not. Felicity doesn’t exactly volunteer information, and Milandra has made no reference to it. She seems as happy and relaxed as she has been of late.’

Kate bustled over to see if we were okay. ‘Can I get you anything else, gentlemen?’

‘I’d love a slice of carrot cake,’ I said.

‘And you, sir?’

Tony shook his head and Kate went to get my cake.

‘What is it with you people and vegetables in cakes?’

I just smiled. I’d had the reaction I was after. ‘You still haven’t told me what you want,’ I said.

‘I want you to make sure Milandra starts school in September.’

‘You know I’m leaving Little Scamps,’ I said.

‘Yes. But you can see to it before you go.’

I nodded. ‘I can do that. Why the change of heart?’

Tony looked utterly dejected. It was hard for me to feel sorry for him. I could see no reason why he had behaved so badly towards me. As far as I was concerned, he was in a situation of his own making.

When he didn’t answer, I said, ‘I looked up the meaning of ôkùnrin ábökùnrinlò.’

Tony gazed at me dolefully.

‘Who would have thought Tammy would be such a chatterbox?’ Lonnie said. ‘It’s been kind of hard to get a word in around Little Scamps the past few weeks.’

‘She’s making up for lost time, I suppose.’ I laughed.

‘That’s for sure.’ Lonnie leaned his back on a stone pillar. ‘Do you think her dad’s going to step up to the mark, now?’ he asked. ‘Be the kind of father she needs?’

I put my hands into my pockets against the cold. ‘I hope so. They both had a terrible fright when they realized how close they’d come to losing one another. It brought each of them out of their shells. Tammy started talking, Dale started caring. It won’t be easy for either of them – they’ve learned not to trust, not to value, one another. They have a hell of a lot of unlearning to do. But I think they might make it.’

Then we were beside her, and she was on safe, solid ground and we were all sobbing, lying in the dirt on a stormy night, far from anywhere.

‘I don’ wanna leave L’il Scamps,’ Tammy sobbed. ‘Don’ make me go, Shane.’

‘Honey, you’re too little to go anywhere,’ I said, laughing and crying all at the same time. ‘You have a lot of time ahead of you in Little Scamps, and you’ll be more than ready before you have to leave us. You got all confused.’

‘I don’t have to go?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You don’t.’

‘I can stay in the crèche, Daddy?’

‘You sure can,’ Dale said. ‘When you’re big enough, we’ll talk about a school for you. Shane here says you’re real smart, and we gotta get the right place for you.’

‘’Kay,’ Tammy said.

Dale carried her home. He was exhausted, but I knew better than to offer to take a turn with her.

We’d been walking for around a quarter of an hour and I could no longer see the lights of the houses in the little estate. I tugged at Dale’s sleeve. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ I shouted over the gale.

‘There!’ he said, pointing at what looked like a smudge of grey on the horizon.

It was some kind of subterranean storage shed, built low to the ground with the actual room dug into the earth.

‘She hides out in there, sometimes,’ Dale said.

I got down on my knees, feeling the damp seeping through the legs of my jeans, and shone the torch into the cellar, illuminating a wide space lined with moss-speckled breeze blocks. I was just in time to see two little legs disappear through a space in the opposite wall.

‘She’s gone out the other side,’ I shouted, and we both took off after the child, whose shape I could just pick up in the torchlight as she headed even deeper into the marsh, desperate in her attempt to get away from us.

It was like being trapped in some kind of waking nightmare from which there was no escape. The ground was rough and unstable – on one occasion I went up to my knee in a hole and Dale had to haul me out. I tried to keep Tammy in our sights, but she seemed to know the area far better than we did, and hopped from tussock to tussock with amazing agility. I seemed to lose her for long minutes at a time, then catch sight of her again.

‘Where the hell is she leading us?’ I shouted.

‘Fucked if I know,’ he said. ‘Never been this far in.’

‘Tammy,’ I called. ‘Come on back, baby. Your dad and I are friends now!’

I glimpsed her blond tresses and then she was gone again. I ran onwards.

This time we couldn’t find her again. It felt as if we were very near the coast. I was certain I could hear the regular smash of waves, like a heartbeat, and the taste of salt on my tongue was very strong. I was running across sand, now, and I could see shells among the detritus and reeds.

‘Tammy!’ I called again.

‘Tammy!’ Dale called, too. There was panic in his voice, and I knew it was real.

In her terror, the child had led us far, far from home, and this was not a safe place.

We were standing on the edge of an inlet now. The water washed in in freezing sheets, rimmed with yellow foam. I ran the beam of the torch around the edge, and thought I saw a patch of something a different shade from the rest. I flicked the light back and, lo and behold, there was Tammy. She was holding on to some reeds on the shore for dear life – the rest of her was stuck in the mud – only her chest and shoulders could be seen above it.

‘Hold still, Tam,’ I shouted. ‘We’re coming!’

Tammy saw us and waved one hand. ‘Help me!’ she called. ‘Help me!’

Her voice was hoarse from lack of use – and fear.

‘Did she just talk?’ Dale panted.

‘She did,’ I said.

I decided I had better be sensible and jogged back to the car, where I took a small torch from the glove compartment – I keep it there in case of a puncture on a dark night – then climbed into the wilderness. I was about to set off when I heard a call.

‘Hey – wait up there.’

It was Dale, dressed in a ludicrously flimsy jacket.

‘Not havin’ you sayin’ I don’t look after me own.’

‘Glad to have you along,’ I said truthfully. I took a step.

‘Better warn you – watch your step. This place is full of sink holes.’

‘Full of what?’

‘The ground gets soft all sudden like. You’re walkin’ along grand and then you’re up to your neck in muck – just like that. It’s like … um … quicksand.’

‘And you let Tammy play here?’

‘Let ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with it,’ Dale said, and set off into the swamp.

I switched on the torch and concentrated its beam ahead of us. Out on the flats the wind was so high that talking was futile. Seeing wasn’t easy, either. With every strong gust of wind we were slapped with a ferocious squall of rain and hail. Within moments Dale was soaked to the skin and shivering. My coat held out a little better, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was in the same condition.

I was deeply concerned about navigation. I thought I could hear the sea to my right, b

Dale considered that one. He didn’t know whether or not I was making fun of him. He decided it didn’t matter. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘You’re only a babysitter anyway. Paid to wipe kids’ arses and keep ’em out o’ trouble. And you can’t even do that!’

‘I am proud of what I do,’ I said. ‘Your daughter is an amazing little girl. It just sickens me that you don’t see it. You spend so much of your time getting wasted you haven’t even taken the time to get to know her.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do, you uppity fucker,’ Dale snarled. ‘You aren’t a social worker. You have no power over me or my kid.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not today.’

I stood. This was going nowhere. It was possibly even making things worse in the long run. ‘Would you at least think about this?’ I said, trying one last time. ‘Tammy is going to have to leave Little Scamps eventually. When she does, she is going to need a placement that will nurture her abilities. Lonnie, Su, Tush or I can work with you on finding somewhere suitable, and we can help you to raise the money – most schools that cater for gifted children have a scholarship programme. What do you think, Tam?’

I suddenly realized she was gone. Turning, I saw that the front door was ajar. ‘I think she’s run off,’ I said.

‘She’ll be back,’ Dale drawled.

‘Where would she have gone?’ I asked. ‘It’s freezing out.’

‘She has hidin’ places out on the marsh,’ Kylie said. ‘You’ll never find her.’

‘She wouldn’t go out there at this time of night, would she?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’s miserable.’

Both parents shrugged.

‘I’m going to bring her back,’ I said.

I went to the door, pulling my collar up and wrapping my scarf closer about me. I was more than a little angry with Kylie and Dale. No, I thought. I am not a social worker – but I know plenty, and a visit could so easily be arranged. I put such thoughts out of my mind and trotted across the road to the low wall

‘Hi, Dale,’ I said. ‘How are you, Tammy?’

Dale nodded, but didn’t look pleased to see me. Neither did Tammy, for that matter. Kylie sat on the couch opposite, the arm of which I settled my behind on.

‘Did you receive a letter from the Health Board about those tests we ran on Tammy?’ I asked.

It was as if I was speaking to three non-verbal individuals. The only sound that met my question came from the television.

‘It’s kind of important that you read it,’ I said, keeping my voice level and my tone friendly. ‘It tells us a lot of things we didn’t know – or at least weren’t sure of – about Tammy.’

Dale swore explosively and aggressively, then muted the television using an ancient remote control that had been taped up to stop it falling apart. ‘Would you make your fucking point, buddy?’ he barked. ‘I’m tryin’ to watch this, and you are gettin’ on me nerves, right?’

Tammy was sitting very still and blinked at the outburst, but otherwise seemed unmoved by it.

‘Did you know your daughter could read?’ I asked.

‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid,’ Dale said scornfully. ‘She’s only a baby.’

‘She reads very well, at a level far above what would usually be expected for her age,’ I said. ‘She also has an excellent grasp of numbers and can understand abstract concepts kids far older than her would struggle with. She’s not just bright, Dale, she’s gifted.’

Dale looked at his daughter, who was staring at us with an unreadable expression, then back at me. ‘I think you’re pullin’ my leg,’ he said. ‘That young one’s a dope. Anyone could tell you that. She’s been strange since she was a baby. She’s never done nothin’ kids’re meant to. Shit, she don’t even talk. Now you’re comin’ in here all high and fuckin’ mighty and tellin’ me she’s some sort of genius? Get the fuck outta here, man. Not my kid.’

‘Why does it scare you to have a gifted child?’ I asked. ‘You should be proud.’

‘Maybe we should listen to him,’ Kylie said. ‘I always thought Tamarra was smart.’

‘Shut up, you,’ Dale snapped. ‘You’re stoned out of your tree. You don’t even know what he’s talkin’ about.’

‘I always thought you were brainy, Tamster,’ Kylie said. ‘I knew you were special.’

‘She’s special all right,’ Dale said. ‘Special in the head.’

‘Don’t insult her, please,’ I said. I’d about had enough. I had delivered good news to two sets of parents, and received nothing in return but grief. I knew childcare could be a thankless task, but this was ridiculous. And I was not going to sit there while he made fun of Tammy.

‘It’s none o’ your business what I do with me own,’ Dale said.

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.’

Except they were running the wrong way around. Instead of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on, these went Sunday, Saturday, Friday.’

‘So you showed her a series of words?’ I said.

‘The trick to solving series problems is working out the rule,’ Helena said. ‘But with this one, she had to be able to read the words to be able to work it out. But she did. Paused for all of ten seconds before arranging them into the correct order.’

I wanted to leap about like Tom Cruise on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but held back.

‘The days of the week are on every calendar in every room in the world,’ I said. ‘Look, we have them on the timetable over there. Isn’t it possible she saw them as shapes, symbols she recognized, and had memorized the order?’

Helena grinned. ‘I gather you’ve studied child psychology.’

‘Little bit. But, really, isn’t that possible?’

‘It is, but I’m a little more thorough than that. I then showed her the words “red”, “blue”, “yellow”, “black” and “sweet”, and asked her which was the odd one out. She chose “sweet” without hesitation.’

I sat back, suddenly a little light headed. ‘Shit,’ I said.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Helena said. ‘You have a gifted child on your hands.’