When She Was Bad(13)

The house where the foster family lived was situated in a cul-de-sac of detached homes maybe thirty or forty years old. The neighbourhood was pleasant, but not ostentatious. Some of the lawns were overgrown, others had brown patches where garden furniture had been recently moved. The cars in the driveways were solid without being flash. As we approached the front door, we could hear a dog barking insistently in one of the neighbouring backyards.

‘Hello, hello, hello!’

Jana Green was not what I had been expecting. I’d imagined a buxom, matronly figure with warm folds a troubled child could tuck herself inside of, and an apron tied around a soft, yielding middle. But Jana was all angles and straight lines. Her long toffee-coloured hair was tied in a loose braid that hung down her back, revealing cheekbones that jutted from her face, sharp as flint. She was wearing a white tank-top and denim cut-off shorts that showed slim legs with surprisingly long shinbones. She exuded that kind of calm which is an energy in itself, like a force field around her.

‘Lisa, that’s my eldest, has taken the little ones off for an ice, to give us a bit of time to chat. They won’t be long. I hope that’s good with you guys?’

‘Oh gosh. Excellent plan, Mrs Green.’

‘Please. Call me Jana.’

‘Jana.’

Ed Kowalsky rolled the word around in his mouth like a tasty snack and I could see he too was having to recalibrate his mental image of Laurie’s home life in the light of this new, unexpected reality. In the light of Jana and her cut-offs.

We sat around a table in the dining part of the kitchen.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Jana asked us. ‘I hate to be formal.’

Ed produced a tape recorder from the briefcase he’d brought in, saying, ‘Just pretend it’s not there, Jana. It’s simply for our own reference, that’s all. So how would you say it’s going so far with Laurie? I know it’s early days.’

Jana picked up her coffee mug and started tapping one of her long thin fingers against the handle. Tap, tap, tap.

‘She’s great. Amazing, when you consider . . . I mean, obviously there have been moments. Well, she’s only four and a half years old. How could there not be?’

‘Moments?’ I asked the question more to hear my own voice than because it needed to be asked. Jana was clearly going to tell us anyway.

‘She gets angry sometimes. The odd tantrum that maybe you’d expect her to have grown out of by now. But then given the circumstances . . .’

‘Quite,’ said Ed. ‘And has she talked about home at all? About her parents? About her brother?’

‘She’s asked where they are. But she doesn’t really seem that interested in finding out. It’s almost like it’s something that flits across her mind every now and then. Do you know what I mean? Oh, let me show you something.’

Jana put the mug down and dashed out of the room in a blur of tanned limbs. Without her, the atmosphere seemed flat. Ed and I exchanged strained smiles and immediately looked away again.

‘Here it is.’ She was carrying a sheet of A3 paper which she laid carefully down on the table between us. It was a child’s painting, all primary colours. There was a red square house with a triangle roof and three lollipop people, two big, one small. There was a black fence to the side and a long sausage dog next to it.

‘She said that was her with her mom and dad,’ said Jana, pointing at the trio of people with their stick bodies and round, smiling heads.

‘Interesting. So she didn’t draw her brother at all,’ said Ed.

‘Oh, but she did.’ Jana moved her finger across the paper to the shape I’d assumed was a dog.

‘He’s lying down,’ she explained.

‘Ah,’ said Ed in a small voice.

‘So that,’ I pointed to the black railings, ‘isn’t a fence.’

‘No,’ Jana agreed. ‘That’s a cage.’





10

Amira



‘Working lunch? What does that even mean?’

Amira couldn’t stop thinking about it. And every time she thought about it, her nerve-endings started tingling uncomfortably like the beginnings of pins and needles all over her chest and arms.

‘It’ll be fine.’ Tom didn’t even look up from his laptop. ‘She just wants to get you all into a more informal setting. It always happens that way. New boss. Feels she has to lay down the law in the office. Now she wants to show you all a more relaxed side. Bit of team bonding. It’s straight out of The New Boss Handbook.’

Without moving from where she was lying prone on the sofa, Amira reached out her hand and picked up her empty glass from the coffee table.