Casey Watson - The Silent Witness

‘I think it’s because she can’t ask her anything she doesn’t want to answer,’ I told Lauren, my Kieron’s other half, while we stacked and put away the dishes the men had washed up. ‘That’s my take on it, anyway.’ Lauren and Kieron’s Dee Dee was also monopolising this young stranger, though she was currently spark out, having her nap on Kieron’s chest. At only two, she still needed to take such power naps when in the company of her boisterous older cousins. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, I know the older children don’t know what’s happened, but they’ll be curious, won’t they? And, in Levi’s case, particularly, doing the whole twenty questions thing. Give him a fair wind, and he’d have everything out of her, from what her favourite colour is to which character she’d be in Minecraft.’

Lauren nodded. ‘I think you’re right. Whereas Marley Mae is more like an adoring puppy. Correction – more accurately, adoring limpet mine.’

And it wasn’t just that, truth be known. With her admirable sleuthing skills, Marley Mae had sniffed out the bag of unopened presents in the corner almost as soon as she’d finished opening hers. And, working on the basis that an unopened present on Christmas night was a crime against all humanity, had badgered and badgered till Tyler had told her they were Bella’s and none of her business.

Which, of course, meant it became Marley Mae’s urgent business to harangue Bella mercilessly till she could prise out a promise that when she did open them Marley Mae could help her.

And it seemed that time was now. When Lauren and I returned to the living room, now inhabited mostly by quietly playing kids and noisier slumbering men (Mike’s snores alone could wake the dead), it was to meet Bella and Marley Mae coming out.

‘We’re going upstairs to open the presents,’ Marley Mae informed us both before I even had a chance to ask. She was looking very pleased with herself.

‘Oh, I see,’ I said, clocking the way she had Bella’s hand clamped in her own as if she were a prisoner who might abscond if left untethered. I looked at Bella. ‘You doing okay, love?’ I asked her.

She nodded, albeit wanly.

‘She might have an iPodge!’ Marley Mae added breathlessly, with the sort of awe a child of her age could feel for such wonders. ‘Or even a tablet !’ She was clearly very excited.

I wondered if I should gently prise her away and let Bella have some down time on her own. But when I suggested Bella might like five minutes’ peace, it was Bella herself who responded. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said, and I could tell she meant it. Upon which, they both trotted off up the stairs.

‘Don’t you sometimes wonder,’ Lauren reflected, as they disappeared out of sight across the landing, ‘how little ones have no idea how much of a part they play in all this? Just think of all the foster children Marley Mae has befriended since she was born. Do you sometimes wonder if they ever think about her? You know, have memories of her, still? It’s a nice thing to think that, don’t you think? How, in all those children, there’s a little permanent space in their brains where she lives? I love that as a concept, don’t you?’

It was something I’d never thought about before, and I said so. ‘Oh, but I love that,’ I said. Because I really did.

They were up there a good while, and I resisted the urge to check on them, as did Riley. Even though both of us were ever conscious that the children who came to us began as strangers, we were of a mind, as was Lauren, that Bella posed no threat to anyone. Except, perhaps, to herself. Besides, the door had been left ajar and both Tyler and Mike had been upstairs since they’d gone up – and both had reported hearing Marley Mae giggling.

Still, once bitten, ever vigilant – and we’d certainly had our scares down the years. None of us would ever forget the day when Flip, a young girl we’d had with foetal alcohol syndrome, had taken it upon herself to give us a post-lunch break and take Marley Mae off for a walk in the local woods. So when over an hour had passed and neither had reappeared, Riley and I exchanged a ‘Let’s one of us just go and check what they’re up to’ expression. I was just rising from my chair – being the closest to the door – when my granddaughter marched in and made a beeline for the tree, below which her own sack of presents still sat.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said, glancing behind her to see no sign of Bella. ‘So, what was the outcome? What did Bella get?’

I was rewarded by Marley Mae putting a finger to her lips and emitting the sort of self-defeating high-decibel ‘Shhhh!’ that was her trademark. ‘She’s going to sleep ,’ she whispered, falling to her chubby little knees to dig around among her haul.

‘And she’s sad about her mummy,’ she added, turning around, having produced a cuddly toy; the cuddly snowman, from the film Frozen , that she’d been hoping for so much. ‘So I’m going to let her borrow Olaf.’

Riley and I rose as one to go up with her, both first agreeing to the ‘You must be quiet!’ order she issued before agreeing to lead the way.

We trooped up, a little battalion, led by our diminutive general, and followed Marely Mae into Bella’s bedroom through the now wide-open door.

And it was to find a room totally transformed. Everywhere – all over the carpet, the bed, and on any and every horizontal surface – was what looked like confetti, but made out of wrapping paper. Which I immediately recognised as the paper Bella’s presents had been wrapped in. Only it had now been transformed into a million tiny pieces.

Bella herself appeared to be asleep. She was curled in an S shape, a tiny form on the bed, with both the rabbit we’d bought for her and her Dobby close beside her, while further down the bed was the ‘iPodge’ Marley Mae had been alluding to, together with other presents: some sort of nature annual, what looked like a folded hoodie, a pair of jeans and a jewellery-making kit.

‘We torded it,’ Bella whispered proudly, before tip-toeing theatrically across the carpet and gently placing her precious Olaf close by Bella’s blonde curls. A holy trinity of stuffed animals to chase the nightmares away. ‘There,’ she mouthed silently, with admirable restraint, before turning back to us, placing a finger to her lips again and shooing us outside.

I pulled the door to, while Riley picked Marley Mae up, and as she now announced that she needed a wee we all trooped into the bathroom.

‘You made all that confetti yourselves, did you?’ I asked her, as Riley helped her with her pants.

‘It’s not confetti,’ she told us. ‘It’s snowflakes . Bella liked making snow and she let me help her. I was good at it.’ Then she frowned. ‘But then she was sad,’ she said. ‘She cry-ded a lot when we were doing it. I tolded her you wouldn’t be cross about the snow, Nanny, but she still cry-ded.’

‘But I bet it looked pretty when you threw it everywhere,’ Riley observed. ‘And, oh, the joy of Hoovers,’ she added to me drily.

I pictured the scene. Bella’s distress. The emotional meltdown of seeing it laid bare. Of seeing it laid bare with an over-excited Marley Mae, who’d known no such devastation in her happy young life. Seeing the presents from parents who weren’t with her – or each other – opened the gaping hole where the spirit of Christmas should be.

‘Whose idea was it to make the snow?’ I asked Marley Mae. ‘Was it yours?’

She shook her head. ‘Bella liked it.’ She mimed a ripping motion. ‘She likes making snow. And then she throwed it, like this –’ She thrust her arms up and outwards. ‘But she’s sad now. She said. So I said I’d get Olaf for her to cuddle.’ All done, she held her arms up for Riley to scoop her up again. ‘You shouldn’t cry on Christmas Day, should you, Mummy?’