‘You don’t think much of women, do you, Justin?’ he parroted. ‘Nag nag bloody nag.’ Upon which he turned on his heel and left the room.
The boys still seemed largely oblivious to what was going on here, but Riley and I weren’t. Quite the opposite. We were seeing a pattern. And also a symptom, I thought – of a child trying hard to provoke a reaction.
‘I definitely think he’s trying to make you pay for what his mum said to him,’ Mike suggested, confirming my own thoughts, when we had a few moments alone together later.
‘Me and Riley,’ I said, nodding. ‘It’s that whole black-haired woman thing, I’m guessing.’ I sighed. ‘I wish he’d actually sit down and talk to me, instead.’
But that wasn’t happening. And there was more to come, too. It was obvious that we were really only scratching the surface of how much pain Justin was really suffering. The following morning I came down to find him sitting at the table, his empty breakfast dishes beside him, reading a magazine.
‘You’re up early, love,’ I said. ‘Mike make you breakfast, then, did he?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. He went to work ages ago. I made it myself.’
He seemed proud of having down that. Good, I thought. Good. That would give him some much needed points for his chart. And so much for his ideas about women’s work …
I ruffled his mop of blond curls and he seemed happy to let me do so. ‘What you reading?’ I asked him.
‘The magazine out of Mike’s paper,’ he said brightly. ‘The one with all the telly stuff in it.’
As he would be, I guessed. He was mad about TV – the soaps, in particular. He was always flicking through the TV mags, or checking on the internet to see what his favourite characters were getting up to. He liked to know in advance what was going to happen and, if he was feeling particularly mischievous, he would often try to spoil the plot if an episode ended on a cliff-hanger, by telling us what would happen next.
I made myself a coffee and went upstairs to get showered, conscious of the positive mood I could sense. Perhaps today would see some positive developments between us, too. Perhaps he’d finally feel able to talk through what had happened. Cry, even. Let it all come out.
When I came back down though, he wasn’t there any more – he’d gone into the living room to watch the telly. I picked up his plate and mug and got the cloth to wipe the kitchen table. It was then, as I picked up the magazine to wipe beneath it, that I noticed two holes in the page it was open at. Looking more closely, I realised that the holes weren’t random, either – they’d been punched out through the eyes of a female celebrity.
I sat down, then, and went through the rest of the magazine, to find that exactly the same had been done on lots of pages; indeed, every dark-haired female celeb in the magazine had had her eyes carefully and precisely removed. I shuddered. It was creepy. It was also a worry. I must call John and tell him about this. It must be, I felt certain, part of a bigger picture, and would need adding to my log right away.
And that evening saw yet more disturbing behaviour. After cleaning away our dinner plates and checking tomorrow’s menu, so that I could answer Justin’s inevitable question about it, I flicked off the kitchen light and prepared to relax in the living room for the evening, beginning with watching EastEnders, as we habitually did.
It was only a short way into the programme, when Mike and I became aware that Justin was muttering to himself. He was sitting opposite the pair of us, on the other sofa, on his own, and seemed completely unaware that he was speaking out loud.
‘Fucking slag,’ he was muttering. ‘Fucking dirty whore. You’re gonna get what’s coming. Die, you fucking bitch!’
We stared in shock at this, though he didn’t even see us doing so. He seemed to be doing it to every female dark-haired character he saw. And as the main storyline at that time featured the black-haired Slater sisters, there were lots of dark-haired women on the screen throughout the show. He really didn’t seem to know that he was doing it, either. It was if he was in some sort of trance.
Mike and I continued to watch him, both of us completely baffled, as he carried on throughout the whole episode. I was positive by now that he was unaware of his actions, and I wondered too, how this was going to pan out.
It was confirmed when it ended and the credits started rolling. The now familiar dark-eyed and menacing-looking grimace disappeared, almost in an instant. It was as if he mentally shook himself out of a trance, and came back into the room. He turned to me and grinned. ‘I love EastEnders!’ he said cheerfully. We could only nod and smile as he trotted out.
‘What the hell?’ Mike asked when he was sure the coast was clear.
‘Love,’ I said, shaking my head in disbelief, ‘I can’t even begin to give you a logical answer.’
‘How many points has Justin got at the moment?’ Riley asked me. She was on the phone a few days later, with a plan. ‘It’s David’s last day off,’ she explained. ‘So we thought we’d go to the pictures. See a matinee. And we thought Justin might like to come along too.’
Bless her; I loved how she was so supportive of what we were doing. Especially since Justin often made it so hard for her to like him. I felt so proud of her. And David, as well.
‘Great!’ I said, mentally cheering at the prospect of a couple of hours to myself as much as anything. I had a call to make that needed Justin not to be around. ‘It’s also his last day before school starts, so your timing is absolutely perfect,’ I told her. ‘And, yes, I’m sure he has enough points on his chart to do something like that.’ He had, too. Despite my continuing – and growing – concerns about his emotional state since the home visit, he was doing well in all practical respects. He was helping in the kitchen, fretting less volubly about mealtimes, helping tidy the garden, showering without having to be nagged and, I was pleased to note, even getting out a few of the things he’d so pointedly stashed away in his room. A trip out with Riley and David would be just the thing for him. ‘He’ll be thrilled,’ I told her. ‘I’ll go and tell him the good news right away.’
Justin wasn’t in his room when I went up to tell him, however, and I then realised I could hear the sound of the shower going. What was in residence, however, was a very strange smell. A sort of mixture of body odour and wet dog. And as soon as I smelt it, I was reminded that Kieron had already mentioned this to me. Kieron had said, just a couple of days ago, actually, that Justin’s room smelt a bit like a hamster cage. At the time I hadn’t given it much thought, but now I knew exactly what he meant. I wrinkled my nose as I poked my head in a bit further.
One of Justin’s rules – and one of the ways he earned points – was that he was responsible for keeping his own room tidy. Not such a big deal, since he still had so little in it. I only went in there myself to collect things like empty mugs and laundry, and since he’d arrived with us, had only spent any time in there to strip and change his bedding for him. Even so, I decided, as I went to call to him in the bathroom, I’d say he’d been with us for coming up to four weeks, so his room could probably do with a bit of dusting and polishing – not to mention de-fumigating now, apparently. So once they’d gone out I decided I’d go in and give it a proper once-over, with the help of some elbow grease and bleach.
But that could wait till after I’d spoken to John, which I did straight after Riley and David had come to pick Justin up. There was such a lot to tell him that I spent a good ten minutes updating him on the events of the previous few days. ‘I need information,’ I told him, once I’d filled him in on what had happened between Justin and his mum. ‘Surely you can find some files on him somewhere. His behaviour is really giving us cause for concern, and, now we’ve seen how bad things are with his mother, we know there’s so much we aren’t privy to. There must be. He has huge emotional issues.’ I filled John in on the hole-punching business. ‘And my instinct is that they are pretty long-standing. But what’s the root of