Damaged, A Baby’s Cry and The Night the Angels Came 3-in-1 Collection. Cathy Glass
of other things, but meanwhile I was thinking about what she’d said. Her grandfather? I wasn’t even aware she had grandparents; there was no reference to them in the records. I wondered if she was confusing Dad and Granddad, or if there really was a grandfather involved? Did this mean there was yet another abuser present in Jodie’s life? Was there anyone who hadn’t had a part in destroying her? I glanced at my father, who was still subdued after Jodie’s bombshell, and wondered again at the great divide between healthy and abusive families. Could her perception ever be changed? Perhaps one day she’d be able to accept that what happened to her was abnormal and wrong, and that most families functioned very differently. But at times it seemed a forlorn hope.
I kept a close eye on Jodie for the rest of the afternoon, and Mum helped her with some colouring and cutting out. We were never able to leave my parents without a final cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, and we didn’t say our goodbyes until just after six. There was an accident on the motorway, so it was well past Jodie’s bedtime by the time we finally arrived home. I decided to leave asking her about her granddad until the following day, but as I tucked her into bed and dimmed the lights she suddenly asked, ‘Why didn’t Granddaddy do naughty things to Adrian and Paula? Doesn’t he love them?’
I looked at her in the half-light. She was snuggled deep beneath her duvet, with only her blonde hair visible, falling in strands across the pillow. How could I begin to unravel the confusion between normal affection and the warped gratification that she had known?
‘It’s a different kind of love, Jodie. Completely different from the one between two grown-ups. And what was done to you wasn’t love of any kind. It was cruel, and very, very wrong. You’ll understand more when you’re older.’
I wanted to leave it at that, to go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, then maybe sit in the lounge and read the paper. But if I didn’t follow this up now, Jodie might have forgotten it in the morning, sucking the awful memory back into the black abyss of denial.
With a now familiar surge of anxiety at what I was about to hear, I turned up the light a little, and sat on the chair beside her bed. Her eyes peered over the duvet, and I stroked her forehead.
‘Jodie, pet, did your granddad hurt you in the same way your daddy and uncle did?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Cathy. They was nicer.’
‘They? How many granddads did you have?’
‘Granddad Wilson and Granddad Price.’
‘So there were two then. And how were they nicer, Jodie?’
She thought for a moment, as the lines on her forehead creased, and I hoped she was about to tell me that they’d taken her to the zoo, or bought her an Easter egg, the kind of things normal grandparents do.
‘They lay on top of me, but they didn’t hurt. They just peed in the bed. It was because they loved me, Cathy.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, she might as well have been recounting a trip to the zoo.
‘No it wasn’t. It was wrong, Jodie. Adults don’t show love like that. What they did was cruel. It’s got nothing to do with love.’ But I could see how ejaculation without penetration might have seemed kinder to her, when compared with the other abuse.
‘Were Mummy and Daddy in the room when this happened?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘And Uncle Mike, and someone I didn’t know.’
I held her hand and stroked her forehead. ‘Is there anything else? Can you remember any more?’
She shook her head. ‘Can I have a story now, Cathy? Topsy and Tim’s New Shoes?’
She wasn’t upset, and I found that I wasn’t either. I was becoming as desensitized as her. I read her the Topsy and Tim story, then said goodnight and went downstairs. I made a note of the conversation in my log, then stepped outside for a cigarette. As I stood there in the freezing night air, I wondered if there was a course I could take in basic psychotherapy. I decided not. If I made an amateur attempt to help Jodie, it would probably do more harm than good. All I could do was continue along the same lines as I had been, using a common-sense approach which restated normality, but did little or nothing for the profound psychological damage that had already been done. Not for the first time since Jodie’s arrival, I felt completely inadequate.
On Sunday morning Jodie was buzzing with energy, and I had to deal with a barrage of questions about school. Would she have homework? Was there playtime? Did the teacher have a husband? A daddy? Would it rain? Adopting my usual policy of trying to burn off some of her nervous energy, I took her out on her bike.
‘It’s so cold,’ I remarked, pulling up my collar. ‘I think it could snow again.’
‘What’s snow?’ she asked, as we climbed the hill. I tried to remind her as best I could, telling how much she had loved it earlier in the month when it had snowed over three days, but Jodie suddenly decided that she wanted snow immediately, and became angry when I couldn’t or, according to her, wouldn’t produce it. A full-scale tantrum ensued, and she lay prostrate on the pavement, banging her fists and demanding snow for a good fifteen minutes. It would have been comical if I hadn’t been so cold. When we got back to the house, I sat her in front of a video until dinner was ready. She was just as hyperactive after dinner, and had another tantrum when I wouldn’t go out to buy her some ice cream. I managed to persuade her to take a bath, and this calmed her down enough for bed at seven. Tomorrow would be her first day at school for more than a year, and I was praying that it would be a good one.
Jodie was up and down all night, but in the morning she was bright and excited, whereas I was just exhausted. She changed into her school uniform, and we only had one small hiccup when she demanded to wear her lacy tights, but I eventually managed to dissuade her.
We arrived at school early, so we sat in the car for a while, listening to the radio. Although Jodie was excited, I could tell she was also a little nervous, and I was nervous too, on her behalf.
I held Jodie’s hand as we walked up to the school gates. I gave it a squeeze, and we entered the school building. Mrs Rice came and met us in reception. Because of Jodie’s learning difficulties, it had been arranged that I would hand her over to Mrs Rice every morning, and she would hand her back at the end of the day. I gave Jodie a hug, and watched anxiously as Mrs Rice led her down the corridor.
As soon as I arrived home, the phone rang. It was Jill; she’d received the notes I’d emailed on Sunday about Jodie’s granddads, and she’d already spoken to Eileen. They had checked the records, and confirmed that there were definitely no grandparents on the scene; it was done with such speed that I wondered if Eileen’s manager had spoken to her. Jodie’s maternal grandmother was alive, but had fallen out with her daughter years ago, and there was no contact between them. Jodie had never known her grandfathers on either side. There was a pause, as Jill waited for me to come to the obvious conclusion.
‘They’re in the same category as the so-called uncles, paedophiles in the guise of family members?’ I said. Jodie had previously described some of her other abusers as uncles and aunts, but it appeared that these were not actual relatives; rather, they were friends of Jodie’s parents, who had been described as family members as an easy way of introducing strangers into the home environment.
‘We think so. It looks as though Jodie’s parents must have been part of a network. The police are running a check now for registered offenders,’ Jill replied. ‘If the names Wilson or Price come up on their list for the area they’ll take them in for questioning. But I have to be honest, Cathy, I’m not optimistic. If these people haven’t been convicted before, they won’t be on the list. There’s another thing too. Eileen’s had the results of the forensic medical back.’
‘Yes?’
Jill lowered her voice. ‘It confirms that Jodie’s been