Chapter Text
She’s five and she’s one of the fosters.
(She isn’t sure what a foster is, except that it’s a noun- like girl or cat or person.)
She knows it links her to some of the other children in the house- Jessie who likes to tear strips of paper- out of storybooks, from newspapers- and chew them up, and Asef who likes to tell people about all the dinosaurs he can name- and separates her (them) from the others- Amanda and Jody and Max, who are much older, almost grown ups.
(Amanda and Jody go off to school every day on a bus by themselves, with proper bags- not bookbags and they like reading books that are all words and no pictures at all except on the cover.
Max likes Pokemon cards and turning off her light and holding her door shut.)
She thinks a lot about what it is that links her to the other fosters: is it something good or bad? Is it like saying that she has blonde hair and two freckles on the back of her left hand? Is it like saying she’s stupid because she can’t tie her laces or tell the time?
She tries to ask Aunty Meg what makes her a foster one morning but before she can properly ask, Jessie knocks her arm with accidentally-on-purpose precision as she’s pouring milk on her Weetabix and makes it spill- over the table and over the edge and into her lap, and questions come second place to sighs and cross mopping up in which the sponge in thrown into the sink and an exasperated ‘Why can’t you be more careful Joan, for goodness sake?’ said between pursed lips.
She eats her too-soggy Weetabix in her milk-damp dress, forcing mouthfuls of cardboard-tasting mush past the tightness in her throat, and she doesn’t ask again.
**
She’s seven and they’re playing Hide and Seek- it’s the tail end of Max’s birthday party, and everyone is getting tired and irritable with each other and keeping an eye out for the appearance of the cake and party bags that will signal The End.
(Joan has to share her birthday with Jessie and every year, he steps on her toe when they’re blowing out the candles on their shared cake and every year, she misses her wish. Every year, she peels back the hard, thick icing from around her slice and every year, Aunt Meg shakes her head at her for being picky and tells her to stop playing with her food.)
The hiding places she would have picked- behind the sofa, behind the curtains- are taken by the time she gets to them and impatient hands push at her as she’s hissed at to find her own place Joan, just go away!, so she goes back out into the hall and wonders if she’ll be in trouble for spoiling things if she isn’t hidden by the time Jessie finishes counting to 100.
(She knows already that she Spoils Things, that it Spoils Things when having to swallow scratchy dry burnt toast makes her gag and cry, that it Spoils Things when she tears off a new dress because makes her skin prickle and burn, that it really Spoils Things when a hundred voices clamour in her ears at once and bright lights sear into her brain and she has to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears because it’s tooloudtooloudtooloudtooloud-)
The hall cupboard catches her eye and it’s actually empty: wedging herself between everyone’s old welly boots and winter coats is uncomfortable but it’s worth it, she thinks, to not Spoil Things as usual.
It’s quite dark in the cupboard.
She hadn’t quite realised when getting in how dark it would be but she’s inside now and if she comes out and tries to find a new place, perhaps Jessie will have finished counting…. And so she stays.
And it’s a funny thing- as she stays, the longer she stays, it’s as if the cupboard is becoming darker.
Darker and smaller- she can lean forward and stretch out her hand and only just about touch the wall in front of her with the lightest brush of her fingertips…. But even though she knows this, can feel this, there's a part of her that keeps telling her that really, the wall is just in front of her face, that the cupboard is barely big enough for her, that she can’t breathe-
She can’t breathe and she’s cold (even though she isn’t, even though the cupboard is actually quite warm because it’s right next to the airing cupboard where the clean towels and fresh pajamas live) and she’s hungry too (except she isn’t hungry, she wasn’t hungry before…. But now it’s as if she can feel an ache in her tummy, except it’s a hungry ache and not a feeling-sick ache) and although she only just climbed into the cupboard, it also feels as if really, secretly, she’s been inside for a long, long time- just her inside in the dark and in the cold for hours and hours and hours and-
When they pull open the cupboard door, her stomach turns over with a fear that she can taste- a familiar fear, somehow, though she isn’t sure exactly what she’s afraid of- and she’s shamefully sick down her for-best-only-and-no-exceptions dress.
It isn’t Jessie who finds her and opens the door so the game isn’t over- but everyone stops playing anyhow.
Aunt Meg tells everyone it was too much birthday cake- and no one says anything, even though the cake is still uncut in the kitchen and remains uncut for quite a long time.
After that, she dreams about the cupboard a lot. She supposes it’s the hall cupboard because she can’t remember ever hiding in one before, but in her dreams, it doesn’t look anything like it.
Sometimes, the dreams creep into the day too and she remembers hitting hands and voices loud enough to make her cover her ears.
The first, second and third times she has the dream, Aunt Meg comes into the bedroom to pick her duvet off of the floor and tells her to go back to sleep.
After time number four, she sounds cross, and doesn’t seem to notice when Max pinches her for keeping him awake all night; after a while, Joan stops counting and Aunt Meg stops coming in.
The dreams don’t stop.
**
Jane doesn’t come into her room without her permission.
That’s what she says at least, has said right from the first day- but Joan is thirteen and she’s been told this often, knows that ‘never’ often means ‘never when she’s in the house’, or ‘never that they’ll admit to’, or ‘never until they become concerned’. She’s never had a room that locked from the inside- sometimes the outside but never the inside- and she isn’t stupid, she knows how to hide the things that she doesn’t want found.
When Kitty bursts into her bedroom with an armful of laundry though, she’s taken by surprise and jumps so badly that her old walkman headphones are popped from her ears- lying in her lap, she can still just about hear the tinny strains of the song she’d been listening to reverberating from them. She’d let her guard down, turned the music up too loud to be keeping her usual one-ear-open (stupid stupid stupid) and now Kitty is standing awkwardly on the threshold, hugging the clothes self consciously to her chest.
‘Sorry. I knocked. I thought-’
She trails off uncertainly- without looking, Joan knows what she’s staring at and fights down the urge to cover the pathetic pile of crumbled stale biscuits with her hands.
There’s no point- Kitty has already seen them, and now it’s just a toss up between what reaction she’ll get first. She knows she’ll get them all eventually- she always does- but the order tends of variate: the It’s Unsanitary hysteria, the It’s Just Greediness contempt, the Acting As If We Don’t Feed You Enough guilt-tripping, the Aren’t You Too Old For This Silliness headshaking, and sometimes- if she’s very, very unlucky- the You Obviously Won’t Be Hungry For Dinner- or breakfast or lunch or supper- Now.
She wonders if Kitty will fetch Jane immediately or tease her by making her wait and beg and plead first: she doesn’t know the girl well enough yet really to be able to tell. She seems nice enough- just as Jane seems nice enough…. But still…..
The limbo of not knowing is unbearable- it makes her throat tight and her eyes hot (pathetic pathetic pathetic)- and so when Kitty takes a couple of steps into the room, it’s almost a relief.
She doesn’t say anything though, just keeps holding onto the clothes and biting her lip so Joan makes an effort to talk. It’s a slim chance, slim to non existent, but she has to try.
(Clearing her throat hurts.)
‘Please don’t-’
It’s as if this shakes Kitty out of whatever reverie she’s in- she gives a little twitch as if she’s waking up and talks at the same time.
‘It’s alright-’
‘Please don’t tell-’
(Of course Kitty will tell eventually but extracting a promise of silence will buy her enough time to throw everything away before she can get into worse trouble.)
‘It’s alright.’
Kitty’s right next to her now and Joan is tensed up with the proximity- she wants to flinch away, knows she can’t without offending, she’s frozen-
‘I won’t tell Mum, I promise.’
What is she saying?
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t- I just- I-’ She wants to explain, she can’t explain, it’s too hard. She’s shaking, it’s making the words come out wrong.
‘Hey. It’s ok.’
Kitty’s voice is very soft and very gentle- she doesn’t move, she doesn’t try to touch Joan, but she digs in her pocket and offers a crumpled tissue.
‘Here. It’s clean, I promise.’
It’s embarrassing that she needs it, it’s embarrassing that Kitty is seeing her like this, the whole thing is horrible and embarrassing and uncomfortable ...but at least Kitty doesn’t look impatient.
‘I’m really sorry, I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to be-’ She falters. ‘Please don’t tell-’
‘I promise I won’t tell Mum, ok? I won’t tell anyone. You don’t need to be sorry. It’s ok.’
The things she’s saying just don’t make sense and perhaps the incomprehension is in Joan’s face because Kitty gives her a sad half-smile.
‘I did the same thing when I first came. Hid food and things so that if I ever got- if I ever needed it, if things ever got bad, I’d have a supply. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’
Joan nods slowly- there’s no point in lying, and it’s a relief that Kitty doesn’t think she’s being greedy, or that she’s being unhygienic or ungrateful or weird.
Still….
It’s hard to square the Kitty in front of her with what she’s saying: the Kitty-from-before sounds scared and young and not unlike Joan herself. She doesn’t sound a thing like the cool, grown up Kitty that she’s shared a house with for nearly two weeks now.
Kitty with her private singing lessons and pink tipped hair and her irrepressible giggle and her cool friends that swoop in and out like graceful, colourful birds- Cathy with her arms full of Honours-level textbooks and Anne with her bright red lipstick that she wears even with her school uniform and Anna with her long athletes legs and exotic hint of a German accent. She can’t believe this Kitty was ever reduced to hiding food like an animal making a hoard, that she was ever frightened enough to need to.
The two Kitty’s don’t seem at all comparable but she can’t see why Kitty would lie- not about something like this- and she feels, behind her fear and her confusion- the very tiniest frizzle of something else, the tiniest of possibilities, the faintest flicker of hope that survives the cold douse of common sense that comes almost immediately after: Perhaps I could be like that one day.
Kitty is still talking; Joan has to make herself listen again.
‘-Of course, you’re much cleverer than I was- you made a much better choice of things-’
There’s a new tone to her voice now, a lightness, like she’s sharing a secret.
‘-Choosing biscuits is much more sensible-’
She can’t believe Kitty is talking about this- something that has always been a shameful secret- so casually: moreso, she’s actually praising Joan for it. A clever choice? The biscuits were all she could think to hide without drawing attention to what she was doing. But Kitty is making it sound like Joan was doing something good.
‘What did I decide to hide? I was such an idiot- the social worker had stopped on the way to Joan’s, right, at this like bakery place? And she said I could have a cake- and they were these-’ Kitty gestures expansively ‘-these HUGE creamy cakes, and I was like, really pleased, because I thought it would last me for ages, it was so big… God knows how she AND Jane managed to miss me sneaking it in…..Actually-’ She stops, raises her hand. ‘No, I DO know, because we came in and suddenly it started raining and Jane asked the social worker to wait and SPRINTED to bring the washing in, and so they didn’t really notice me….’
As Kitty tells the story, Joan notices two things. She’s stopped shaking. That’s one thing. The other is… that she’s actually listening, despite herself. She’s still anxious but she’s interested too, she wants to hear how it turns out.
‘- and so I put it under my bed- I know, it’s a rubbish hiding place but I was only nine, remember- and just sort of thought it would be fine there. Big mistake.’ Kitty rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘I went off to school the next day and when I came home…. Just….’ She takes a moment, as if to let the horror unfold. ‘Ants. Like, so many ants. I didn’t actually know they could climb stairs so that was a shock and….oh my goodness, Jane had such a shock! I think she thought I was being murdered when I started screaming!’
Kitty’s laughing as she tells it and Joan actually finds she’s smiling too- it’s not just the story, it’s how Kitty is telling it, like it’s a secret she’s choosing to share, something she and Joan are in on together because both of them understand.
‘I was just crying my eyes out- it took me SO long until I could even be near an ants nest without just completely freaking out. Jane was so lovely about it, though.’
Kitty’s stopped laughing now, she has a soft, far-away look in her eyes.
‘She didn’t say a word- not as far as telling me off or anything. She looked at the mess, and just took me right back downstairs and sat me down in the living room and told me not to worry, that I wasn't in any trouble at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit cross and that she’d sort it all out… eventually I stopped crying and apologising and she gave me a hug and went and cleaned everything up…. And then later on, she told me straight out that I never had to worry about not having enough to eat with her, that even if I couldn’t always have exactly the food I might want, I could always be sure I’d have enough to be full and that I never had to be afraid to ask for more. And that things like being warm and clean and having enough to eat were things she absolutely promised I wouldn’t have to worry about ever again.’
Kitty sounds so heartfelt as she talks, it makes Joan want to cry again- for the scared baby Kitty in the story…..and for herself, too, although she can’t quite articulate why.
‘Did you- believe her?’ She can’t quite believe she’s asking it but it’s out before she can reconsider.
‘Oh no, of course not!’ Kitty smiles as if it’s obvious. ‘Of course I didn’t- I was relieved she wasn’t cross and I was glad she said it… but you know how it is- people say things and it’s so easy, it’s easily said and easily broken.’
Joan nods- she understands that all too well.
‘But after a while, I did.’
‘How?’
Kitty shrugs. ‘She proved that I could. No matter what I did, she always made sure I still had enough to eat, that I was ok. She never shouted, she never lost her temper… even when I- no, I’ll tell you another time, it might give you ideas! No matter what happened, she made me see I didn't have to be scared of her. And she was never cross that I didn’t trust her right away either. She said that too- that she hoped I’d trust her but that she knew it would be hard and that she didn’t expect me to right away but that she hoped I’d let her prove that I could.’
‘She said the same thing to me.’ Joan doesn’t add that it’s only now she’s contemplating that they were anything other than empty words: she’s had The Talk about trust from too many people who quickly grew irritated at her skittshness.
Kitty nods. ‘Of course. And she did prove it. Like, she said that I’d always be fed but she also gave me this tupperware with energy bars and things that would last and wouldn’t go bad in it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if she stopped. She didn’t stop me from preparing for the worst, she just….showed me that the worst would never happen with her. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes….’ Joan is more confused than before, she doesn’t know how to respond to all of this… but the knot of anxiety in her stomach is loser than it was before. And she isn’t shaking or crying or apologising.
(That’s something.)
Later, Kitty brings the tupperware- empty for many years, apparently, but now filled again from the kitchen cupboard- from her own room and puts it on Joan’s bed with a smile and a couple of books.
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s ok. You can keep it. I don’t need it anymore.’ A pause, and then her head pops around the doorway again.
‘The books I DEFINITELY want back eventually though, ok? They’re Cathy’s. Tell me if you like them so I can tell her- she’ll be thrilled if I’ve managed to get another person into them!’
Joan stammers another thank you, and when Kitty is gone, she looks at the box for a long time before hiding it away.
She wonders if one day, she won’t need it anymore either.
For the first time ever, it feels like a possibility.