Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

On a Monday after school she and Beckie always came this way rather than taking the quieter, more scenic walk through the leafy back streets, so that Beckie could get her treat. Compensation for it being a Monday. She usually chose jelly babies. They weren’t the usual kind, they were smaller and sharper and ‘more diverse’, as Beckie put it. They had counted nine different flavours in total. Beckie’s favourites were the purple ones, and Jennifer, the girl who usually served them, always tried to get as many of those on the little shovel as she could.

Flora was partial to the jelly babies herself – Atkins was ancient history. They always got a little bag each and ate them as they walked home.

But today, Flora had come this way on automatic pilot.

She had no intention of going in.

She turned and looked at her daughter, who’d been walking a couple of paces behind her all the way rather than bouncing and chattering at her side as usual.

‘Are we getting jelly babies?’ Beckie muttered.

‘No.’

‘Is it my punishment ?’

‘Well Beckie, don’t you think you should be punished?’

Beckie shrugged.

She’d done a lot of that in the mediation discussion. A lot of shrugging and sighing and saying ‘Yeah,’ while little Edith had sat so still on her chair next to her mum, and kept aiming pathetic little mini-smiles at Beckie, identical to the ones her mum, Shona, gave Flora. As if it were Edith and Shona who were at fault here.

Mother and daughter were both very petite, almost malnourished-looking, with pale, thin hair pulled back from their bony faces, pink scalps prominent along their partings. Like old photographs of Victorian slum-dwellers. Flora had wondered if maybe Shona was anorexic and Edith didn’t get enough to eat at home. Maybe she could give Beckie some nutritious snacks to take to school, with strict instructions to give them to Edith? Falafels or some of those mini-rolls with chicken salad, or houmous and avocado. And dried fruit and unsalted nuts. It could be part of Beckie’s reparations.

Beckie’s so-called apology had been just embarrassing. ‘I’m sorry I pushed you, Edith, I –’

‘Uh, Beckie, I don’t think it was just a push, was it?’ Mrs Jenner had interrupted.

Beckie had sighed. ‘I’m sorry I “hit” you, Edith.’

And Edith – little Edith had smiled and said, ‘That’s okay.’

Now Beckie was kicking at a crisp bag, not looking at her.

Flora said, ‘You’re not getting any jelly babies, and you won’t be until I see a big improvement in your behaviour generally, and in particular until I hear from the teachers and Mrs Jenner that you’ve stopped being so nasty to Edith. Now come on.’

Flora started walking.

At the end of the block she looked back to make sure Beckie was following. She was scuffing along with her head down, the picture of martyred dejection.

She fixed a smile to her face. ‘Come on, darling.’

Beckie looked up. She wasn’t crying – Beckie rarely cried. But she didn’t return Flora’s smile.

Flora walked back to her and pulled her against her side. ‘It’s okay. I’m not angry. I’m not happy about it, and yes, you do need to be punished when you do something so wrong, but I’m not angry, and neither is Dad. But you have to talk to us and tell us the truth, so we can sort it out and work out why you’ve been doing this.’

If there was a why .

There hadn’t been a why for Tricia and Rachel.

They hadn’t been acting out. Neither of them had had problems at home.

They’d done it because it had been fun.

It had been fun to scare little Adrian Drummond in Primary 3 so much he skittered in his shorts – she could still see the brown stream of it running down his leg; remember the feeling of amazement that she had such power over someone else’s bowel movements. It had been fun to chase poor Gail round the bike shelter, after they’d found out she’d been born on a Wednesday, and chant: ‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe! Wednesday’s child is full of woe!’ until Gail broke down crying: ‘I am not full of woe!’

Beckie was glaring up at her. ‘ I haven’t done anything . But you don’t believe me.’

‘We can sit down and you can tell us your side of it.’

‘And you still won’t believe me.’ Beckie wriggled out from under her arm and began to run away up the pavement, rucksack bouncing on the back of her maroon sweatshirt.

‘Beckie!’ Flora ran after her. ‘Beckie, stop right there!’

As it became obvious that Beckie wasn’t going to stop, and that Flora wasn’t going to catch up, she yelled: ‘Be careful of the traffic!’

God, Flora was unfit. She had to slow to a walk within two blocks, chest heaving.

Beckie was out of sight.

She was almost nine. She had good road sense. She’d be fine.

Flora had handled this so badly.

Okay, so, despite what Neil might think, it was pretty much cut and dried that Beckie was guilty as charged, given what Mrs Jenner had herself witnessed, but Flora should have heard Beckie out properly. When she’d first broached the subject of Edith on Friday over that jigsaw, she should have said something like, ‘Are you having a problem with a girl called Edith at school?’ and let Beckie talk, let her give her side, and then carefully bring up the hitting, and if Beckie denied it, gently point out why she knew Beckie wasn’t telling the truth – pulling Mrs Jenner out of the bag as star witness – and encourage her to own up to what had really happened.

At last she was crossing the road and turning into their street, breathing in the fresh green smells, relaxing a little, as she always did, at the sight of trees and hedges and grass and flowers. In the garden of the Tudor-effect house there was a carpet of bluebells on the raised grassy area in front of one of the mullioned windows.

Rather spoiling the ambience, though, was the man walking a hundred metres or so ahead of her. He was in dirty jeans and a football top which revealed tattooed arms, quite sinewy for a man in, what, his sixties? He looked like he might be drunk, walking with a sort of rolling swagger.

Further down the road she could see Beckie. She was standing by the privet hedge that belonged to one of the other semidetached houses a few down from theirs, plucking leaves off it. Flora waved, but Beckie didn’t respond.

Flora increased her pace.

The man had weaved across the pavement, putting himself on course for a collision with Beckie.

‘Beckie!’ she called, and started to run.

The man stopped a few paces from Beckie and said something to her.

Beckie shrugged.

‘Beckie, come here!’ Flora shouted.

The man turned.

He had protruding ears, a long, gaunt face with a stubbly chin and stubbly close-cropped hair.

It was the face that had stared out at her from the mugshot Saskia Mair had shown her, from the photographs in the press she’d dredged up about his convictions, from her own imagination in recurring, half-remembered nightmares.

It was Jed Johnson.

She was running full tilt now, her bag bouncing on her hip.

‘Beckie!’

But Beckie just stood there.

‘Get away from her!’

As she came running up he lurched towards Beckie, and Beckie whimpered and dodged past him to clutch at Flora.

‘I’m calling the police,’ she said, her arms tight round Beckie.

‘Aye, call the fucking polis!’ He staggered and half-fell against the hedge. ‘I need to report a fucking theft! Fucking theft of my fucking granddaughter !’

Flora edged round him, Beckie clinging to her.

‘There y’are hen! Wee Beckie!’ He pushed himself upright. ‘I’m your granda! I’m your granda, hen!’