A Child In Need

she had subsided into a silence that Nick found almost disconcerting.

Not that he didn’t welcome it. He needed time to get his breath back.

So he ate the fillets of fish that must surely have only been caught that morning, and he crunched on the golden chips and he absorbed the silence. It was peaceful. It was right, but it was…strange.

As were the sensations. The sand was sun-warmed and soft, and the wind was blowing gently in across the rolling waves. The beach was pristine. There were no footsteps for miles-no one had been on this beach since high tide. The town was clustered round a horseshoe bay-the Bay Beach the town was named after-but Shanni had led them down the track to the back beach, which was the beach the tourists didn’t use. Miles wide, with golden sand stretching away into the distance, there were ancient Norfolk pines at its higher reaches casting sentinels of shade across the sand-hills. There was nothing else.

They might as well be the first man and first woman and first child ever to sit on this beach, and, with the silence, it was weird.

When had he last sat on a deserted beach like this?

Never, he thought, and the knowledge was suddenly bleak. He was a child of the city, who’d never had parents to take him anywhere.

He was like Harry.

No!

He wasn’t going to think like that, he decided harshly, because that was the way of attachment. That was what this girl wanted, he knew. This outing was planned with one thing in mind-to establish a link between Nick and the little boy she was holding.

‘Finished your chips?’ She was smiling at him, still with that strange look in her eyes that said she was searching for something deeper than an answer about the chips. What was she seeing? He didn’t want to know.

‘Yes. Thank you.’ They’d bought far too many.

Shall I feed them to the seagulls?’ Harry asked, and Shanni nodded her agreement.

‘That’s a fine idea. Go right ahead.’

Okay, but he wasn’t feeding them where he sat. This was a serious business. Carefully Harry wrapped up his pile of cooling chips, pushed himself awkwardly to his feet and stumped down to the water’s edge. Then he laid the parcel on the wet sand, just as carefully unwrapped it and started tossing chips one at a time skyward but back toward the adults.

The gulls screamed in from everywhere, forming a cacophony of sound and movement between adults and child. A barrier… It was as if that was what Harry had meant to happen.

And for a long moment Nick watched, his heart doing all sorts of strange wrenching. Remembering just how hard his lessons of solitude had been to learn…

‘They’re planning on doing psychological assessment on him,’ Shanni said conversationally, and Nick somehow hauled himself back to the present.

Psychological assessment… ‘Because of the hostage thing?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Because of before. And how he is now.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘This is as good as it gets,’ she said sadly. ‘He’s as happy as he can be right now. I’m trying so hard, and so is Wendy, the head of his children’s home. But he’s so withdrawn. Around most people he dives for cover, or, if they come close, he screams blue murder. Screams and screams and screams. Wendy says he has night terrors and he’s keeping every child in the home awake half the night.’

‘So?’

‘So if we don’t get through to him then he’ll be placed in a psychiatric institution. Wendy can’t cope-and who can blame her? She’s running a group home for children at risk and she has more than Harry to care for. They’ve tried foster homes but he doesn’t last more than a night. Adoption’s out of the question like he is now. We must get through to him.’

We…

‘You mean…’ Nick stirred a whirl of sand under his fingers. ‘You mean you. And Wendy.’

She flicked a glance at him. ‘Of course.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean me and Wendy.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying this,’ he said softly, ‘I don’t see any professional detachment in this.’

‘Professional detachment?’

‘Surely your role of kindergarten teacher doesn’t include mental health therapy for your students.’

Silence.

‘He’s not your responsibility,’ Nick went on. There was no easy way to say this but it must be said. ‘If Harry needs professional help, then surely a psychiatric institution is the place where he’ll get it.’

‘He needs to be loved.’

‘Then he needs to be cured and then adopted.’

‘Oh, sure,’ she said, jeering. ‘Cured and then adopted. But it’s a Catch 22 situation, isn’t it, Mr Daniels? He can’t be adopted until he’s cured and he can’t be cured until he’s adopted.’

‘That sounds clever.’

‘It’s not.’ She got up, her colour heightened so her cheeks were turning to rose, and there was anger building. Her eyes flashed fire and…contempt? ‘Of course it’s not simple, either,’ she flashed at him. ‘But I’ve no intention of talking smart or simple theories. I’m talking about a little boy’s life. If I could, then I’d take him home with me. Maybe I’d have a chance to make a difference, but he doesn’t want a woman. He needs a man to attach to. Everyone says that.’

‘This is ridiculous. It’s not your job to worry about it.’

‘Of course it’s not my job. It’s no one’s job, but at least I try. At least I care. Not like some people who say they live on stupid mountains!’

‘I might as well do,’ he snapped, stung. He rose to face her, fire meeting fire. Her anger was palpable-and so was his. How dared she throw this at him!

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, no, of course I don’t want to get involved,’ he threw back at her. ‘Because what good would it do? You think I should try to form an attachment and then move away? You know as well as I do that it’d make everything worse.’

‘Nick, you could do a lot of good in two years,’ she said, softening as if there really was a chance she could persuade him.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, you could,’ she said urgently. ‘Mary says you’re bored with work already. The orphanage system runs a big-brother scheme. Just picking a child up from individual homes, taking him out, doing this sort of thing. Mucking around in the sun. Being a friend.’

‘I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a friend to a three-year-old.’

‘I’ll teach you,’ she said. ‘Wendy and I both think he’s desperate for male contact. He and his dad were so close, and any female contact he had was appalling. He needs to bond with a male.’

‘You have to be kidding!’ He was facing her square on, and he couldn’t believe this was happening. She was almost pleading-but not quite. Her eyes defied him to do this thing. They told him that this was his duty as another human-or the sort of human with any decency at all.

The sort with any love…

But any love had been kicked out of Nick Daniels a long time ago. He stared down into her blazing eyes and the feeling that grew in his heart was leaden and grey. What she was asking was impossible.

‘No,’ he said flatly, and took a step back. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

She opened her mouth to retort-and then shut it again. Once again there was that look-the look that said she saw further than words. And something changed. In that instant, anger moved to concern.

‘What’s happened to you, Nick?’ she said softly, almost whispering into the soft wind. ‘What’s put you on top of that mountain?’

‘I don’t…’

‘You don’t want to talk about it. I can see that.’ She smiled suddenly, tension dissolving as if it had never been.