Broken: Part 2 of 3: A traumatised girl. Her troubled brother. Their shocking secret.. Rosie Lewis
hands clenched into tight fists. I cleared my throat. ‘Archie, this is Des.’ I paused. ‘A friend of mine.’
‘Hi, mate,’ Des said softly, a cheery though slightly puzzled smile on his face. Archie blinked and stared. There was a look of fear in his eyes, as if Des’s presence was somehow a threat.
I cleared my throat. ‘Archie’s a whizz at Rummy, Des. Do you fancy joining us for a game?’
‘Fantastic,’ Des said with a smile. Archie continued to stare at him wordlessly, his eyes finally straying to the bottle of wine and glasses on the coffee table. Something about the angle of his shoulders made the hairs on the back of my forearms stand on end. Mungo began to bark.
‘What’s wrong, Arch,’ I said gently. ‘Has something upset you?’
He turned his eyes on me, his lips twisted in disgust. ‘You slag,’ he said slowly. His words were cool and measured but his cheeks were crimson. ‘You horrible, dirty slag.’ Taken aback, all I could do was stare at him. Wisely, Des stayed where he was, his face angled away.
‘Archie,’ I said, at a loss as to where all this had sprung from. I glanced at Des. He raised one eyebrow and then looked away again. ‘What’s this about, honey?’
Archie’s chest began to heave. Without warning he kicked out at Mungo, catching his soft underbelly. Mungo yelped in pain and hid behind my leg. ‘Archie!’ I shouted, crouching down and wrapping my arms around the trembling pup. Archie glared at me then turned on his heel and disappeared.
‘You sure you donnae want me to stay?’ Des said quietly in the hall a minute or so later. ‘Just as back-up if you need it.’
‘I’ll be fine, really,’ I whispered. ‘Outbursts are my bread and butter. It’s the phoniness I find hard to cope with.’
‘If you’re sure.’ He touched the pad of his thumb to my cheek. ‘Text me if you need a wee hand and I’ll come straight back.’
I rested my forehead against his, patted his hand. ‘Thanks, Des.’
When he left I leaned back against the front door and glanced up at the banisters, my legs trembling. There was no sound coming from upstairs but, despite the confidence I had expressed to Des, for a second I regretted asking him to leave. I took a breath, trying to compose myself. I knew that any sign of stress on my part would only escalate Archie’s own.
Sometimes being a foster carer is a bit like being a detective. Archie was suffering, but the reasons for his distress were, for now, closed off from me. I had sensed that something was wrong when I first met him, and now it was becoming clearer that Archie’s inner world was broken. I pushed myself away from the door and rolled my shoulders back. No matter how distressing a place it might be, I had a feeling that if I wanted to understand him, I was going to have to join him there.
I found him sitting on his pillow, his legs dangling over the ladder of his bunk. After a soft tap on the open door, I walked into the room and stood a few feet from his bunk. ‘Archie?’ I ventured carefully, turning his name into a question.
Archie kept his head hung low, though he kicked out with his bare foot, warning me to stay away. ‘Do you want to talk about what’s upsetting you, Archie?’ I said, working hard against my racing pulse to keep my voice low.
‘No!’ he snarled. ‘Leave me alone!’
I waited, listening to the even tone of Bobbi’s breathing. It seemed strange that she was able to sleep through such loud disturbances when she woke so often through the night. I wondered whether selective deafness was another protective mechanism at work, one that had allowed her to sleep through some of the chaos of home. ‘I can hear how upset you are. I want to help you if I can.’
He leapt from the bunk and landed a foot from me. I stood my ground, returning his furious glare with a neutral one. ‘You’re nothing but a dirty slag,’ he breathed, a nasty twisting sneer on his face. ‘I don’t even want to look at you.’
I gave him a long, steady look. His words were not those of a nine-year-old from a loving or even barely functional home. ‘I’m guessing that you’ve heard and seen some difficult things in the past, Archie, but those sort of names don’t belong here, in this house.’
He leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from mine. ‘I could cut you up in your sleep, you know,’ he blasted, louder now. ‘I could take a knife and slit your throat.’
My chest fluttered. It was so hard to reconcile the furious boy in front of me with the one who had chatted so easily in the kitchen as he’d helped me wash the dishes just a couple of hours ago. I was so knocked off balance that I just stood there, staring at him in disbelief. Over his shoulder I could see that Bobbi was beginning to stir. From the bathroom came the tell-tale groan in the pipes as the water was turned off. I felt my pulse racing again. Jamie would be out of the shower soon. I didn’t want him to get involved.
‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ I said calmly, though my heart was beating fast. I turned and walked across the room.
‘You ugly, stinking slag!’ Archie shouted. I could sense him following, his shadow looming up behind me. ‘I don’t want to stay with you. Tell Danny I wanna go somewhere else. You make me sick.’
‘What’s going on?’ came Jamie’s voice from the hall.
My chest tightened. ‘Nothing, Jamie, everything’s okay.’ I swivelled around to face Archie again, ushering him back with my hand. ‘Go to bed now, Archie. I’ll talk to you in the morning when you’ve calmed down.’
‘Doesn’t sound like nothing,’ Jamie persisted, his voice closer now. I turned and saw him standing in the doorway, his hair dripping wet, dark patches appearing on his T-shirt where he hadn’t dried himself properly. He dragged the towel he was holding over his forehead, draped it round his neck and glared at Archie.
Archie’s cheeks flushed a deep red. ‘Tell him to get out!’ he screamed. ‘Get out of my room!’
‘Take it easy, you loon,’ Jamie said disgustedly.
I turned to Jamie, taking pains to look unshaken. ‘Go downstairs, Jamie, will you?’
‘Yeah, and you get out too, bitch!’ Archie bellowed. Jamie’s eyes widened. He started forward, the tendons in his neck straining with fury.
I held my hand out, pressing it against his damp chest. ‘Jamie, please. I’m fine. Go downstairs. I’ll join you in a minute or two.’ It was a struggle to keep my expression unruffled.
Jamie gave a sigh of exasperation and made a move to leave, his gaze lingering for just a second on the furious boy behind him. ‘What a fruit loop,’ I heard him mutter as he went downstairs. I felt a prick of guilt, knowing how hard it must have been for him to hear someone shouting abuse at me like that. The fact that aggression was something Archie had perhaps had to witness himself many times in the past wasn’t lost on me.
I closed the door and took a few steps back into the room. I stopped about two feet away from Archie and looked at him. He met my gaze. ‘Archie, we don’t know each other very well yet,’ I said, ‘but hopefully you’ll come to trust me and realise that I’m here to help you.’ He lowered his eyes and stared at the floor. ‘I understand that you’re feeling very angry about lots of things, and I want to help you figure it all out, but for that to happen you need to understand that my house is a place of safety, for you and for Bobbi, but for all of us as well, and that includes Mungo. That means there are rules that must never be broken. Calling me names like the ones you just used is not allowed, ever. And what happened downstairs with Mungo must never happen again either.’
He flushed still deeper and looked quickly away. ‘That’s all I want to say for tonight. We’re all tired. I think we should