have it off,’ I told her, loosening my grip on her slightly. ‘See?’ I said, dealing one handed with the buttons down the back. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Hop down and step out of it. That’s the way.’
She did so, and stamped on it a couple of times for good measure. I let her. ‘Better?’ I said finally. ‘Pyjamas again? What?’
‘I want my jeans on,’ she said pointedly. ‘I don’t want your dress-up princess dress!’
‘That’s fine,’ I said, getting up and going to the chest of drawers. She stood and pouted, scowling, in her vest and pants and woolly tights. ‘But Darcy, can you explain why you’re so cross with me?’ I asked her gently. ‘Because I honestly don’t understand.’
‘I told you,’ she said, crossing her arms across her chest and pushing her lower lip out. ‘Because you said I didn’t have to work. And you told a lie!’
‘You don’t have to work.’
‘But you got a man with a camera!’
The penny dropped. What had distressed her had clearly been Kieron’s bag of tricks. Being a bit of a techie – not to mention a new dad with a baby – he was keen to record every precious moment of this particular Christmas, and had accordingly brought his super-high-tech camera.
And, with the benefit of hindsight, I could have kicked myself, truly, for being every bit as clueless as Darby herself had already pointed out.
‘Kieron? But he’s my son, Darby. Levi and Jackson’s uncle – you already know that.’
The ridiculousness of what I’d just said struck me. My son. Somebody’s uncle. A succession of men coming round. I cringed inside. Coming round with one thing in mind. To provide material for the delectation of their sick friends, for money. Coming round, to see Darby, to film her playing dress up – then undress – as their little princess.
Which meant she must be thinking that we had … It didn’t even bear thinking about. ‘Sweetheart,’ I said, dropping to my knees in front of her and taking her hands. ‘You do not have to work. You will never have to work again – not in that way. That’s a promise. No one will ever make you dress up, or take your clothes off, or work here, you understand that? Never. The dress is for you. It’s for you to wear because you want to. Not because anyone wants you to get dressed up to work. It’s …’
I floundered. How the hell did you discuss such vile things? How did you begin to explain something so horrible? What words did you use to explain to a six-year-old that she was not going to have to spend any part of Christmas Day being photographed and filmed simulating sex acts with toys for God knows how many men, pay-per-view?
I handed Darcy her jeans, suddenly remembering a headline I’d seen calling for paedophiles to be castrated. It wasn’t that simple. It would never be that simple. But right at that minute, I couldn’t have agreed more.
In the end, after another bout of tears, and many assurances, Darby decided she did want to put the dress back on. So I re-dressed her, did her hair again, and listened to her talking about how work could be so boring sometimes, and how sometimes she got a very sore twinkle, and how at other times men came round who didn’t smell nice and shouted at her when she didn’t play properly.
She had really begun to open up now – which was distressing in itself, as I realised her former reticence about telling of her experiences was simply because she’d been told that if she said anything to anyone, the consequences would be dire. And that was up to and including her mum saying if she wasn’t good, she’d not be allowed out of the ‘pink fluffy handcuffs’ and miss her tea.
She talked of ‘only ever being allowed to wear pretty clothes for the pictures’. Of not ‘minding it so much most of the time, only sometimes’, but of being lonely. And of wanting to ‘have friends round to play’, and not ever being allowed to. Out it all came – all of a chitter-chatter, as I tied her second ponytail. All so much everyday girl talk.
And down we went then, me hoping Mike would have explained just enough that her peculiar outburst would be put into some sort of box, so that we could gloss over it now, ready to welcome Riley and everyone when they arrived, and get on with enjoying our Christmas Day.
And it appeared he had. ‘Well, look at you,’ said my mum when Darby returned and did a twirl for her. ‘You know what?’ she said, pointing upwards. ‘You look just as pretty as a princess!’
Our little princess. As advertised by devils. I could have wept.
Chapter 8
Had that been the end of it, I imagine we would have carried on over Christmas, doing what foster carers everywhere do – trying to minimise a child’s distress by keeping them distracted and as happy as possible under their invariably traumatic circumstances, while at the same time staying mindful of the root of their vulnerability without fixating on the evils of the world and the bleakness of such a damaged child’s probable fate.
As it was, though, there was more upset to come.
Once she’d got over her anger about the lies she thought she’d been told, Darby soon returned to doing what any six-year-old would on Christmas morning, playing with her – and Tyler’s – Christmas presents, eating too much chocolate, and generally running around in an over-excited fashion.
I was still on edge, even though now she knew she wasn’t going to have to ‘go to work’, Darby was becoming more relaxed and playful by the minute, her initial shyness around Kieron and Lauren having vanished.
‘Do you think it’s reasonable for me to ask Kieron not to film any of today?’ I asked Mike when I managed to engineer for us to snatch a couple of minutes to ourselves, ostensibly while taking bin bags of rubbish and wrappings out.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how. On what grounds? He’ll think you’ve gone mad.’
‘I was thinking, you know, on the grounds of Darby’s privacy, something like that. I don’t know … I just keep having this sense that she wants him to film her … Like she’s playing to the cameras, and, after what happened with Marley Mae the other day …’
‘Love, you know you can’t. And calm down. We’re all with her, aren’t we? What d’you think is going to happen when we’re all sitting around the living room?’
‘Yes, but no one but us knows what’s been done to her, do they? What she thinks is normal.’
‘Nor will they,’ Mike said grimly. ‘So before you suggest it, no quiet words with Kieron, either.’
‘That was the last thing I was about to suggest, believe me, love.’
‘Good. Look, try to keep calm. We’ve both got our eyes on her and I’m sure we can keep her occupied till Levi and Jackson get here – at which point I’m sure she’ll want to play with them instead. Besides, Dee Dee’ll be down for her nap soon, so Kieron will take a break from it anyway … Seriously, Casey,’ he said, finally plonking all the wrappings in the right bin. ‘It’s only –’
But I never got to hear what further pearl of wisdom he was about to impart, because the back door suddenly opened, revealing a rather frazzled-looking
