CHAPTER 47
I waited until his car was out of sight, before approaching Alicia and Heidi, who was on her phone.

“Yes… yes… Thanks. Hang on a second”

She raised her eyes to mine.

“Paul is following him to see where he goes. So far, it looks as if he’s heading out of the city. Now, would you be happy if Anita and him come back to yours in a bit? Council of war, if you take my meaning?”

I nodded, and she brought the phone back to her ear.

“Nita? Yes. Once you’re sure. Yes, I’ll ask! No, we had some already, ta”

She ended the call, slipping the phone into her handbag.

“They’ll be round in a while, and she says that she knows she’s being cheeky, but could she beg a hot chocolate? She suggested a stop at this place to get some cakes, and when I told her we’d already had ours, she called me something very rude”

We made our way to my back door, where I worked through the locks. As soon as it was open, Alicia went directly to the kettle. I left her to set out the mugs and makings and led Heidi into the sitting room. She slumped into an armchair with a deep sigh.

“I hate those, Debbie. All you want to do is see people sort their lives out, and you have to remind yourself all the time: professional, dispassionate, let the dog see the rabbit but don’t kick its backside. Sorry, just, you get it wrong, you are always the one who gets blamed. How much did you manage to hear?”

“All of it, I think”

“Yeah, well. I am not completely sure he was sincere, but if not, he was a bloody good actor. I am just so grateful the mother wasn’t there, from what I have heard and read, especially from the shrink she referred our charge to”

She barked out a sudden laugh.

“I can only imagine he felt like I do! All of his report was stuff like ‘some reluctance to engage with modern mores’, and I am sure he really wanted to say something like ‘What a psycho nutter bitch’! Oh. That kitchen door is shut, isn’t it?”

I had to laugh at that one, and she just grinned.

“I am actually hopeful, Debbie, for the first time in what seems like centuries, that I can see a positive outcome for a kid. Please don’t take this the wrong, way, but I really don’t like sending them to you, because it means things are already broken”

The kitchen door rattled open, and Alicia came in with a tray, followed by Paul and Nita.

“I let them in, Debbie. I hope that’s OK?”

“That’s fine, love. What you made us?”

There was a shy smile.

“Everyone’s got chocolate except Mrs Milton, cause she’s already had too much”

She paused, just for an instant.

“Done you tea, but there’s a mug ready to go if you want”

There was laughter, some of it nervous, but still laughter. Nita nodded to Heidi, and she waited for the giggles to subside.

“What did you think, Alicia? About what your Dad told us? Sit down first, please”

Alicia found an unoccupied chair, settling into the cushions with a sigh and using her own mug as a shield from answering too quickly. A sip, a smile to us all.

“Have I got a choccie moustache?”

Heidi chuckled.

“We can wait, girl. I get paid for being here, after all”

“Ah. Not used to this, talking about Dad. I think he was trying. I hope he is”

She took another sip.

“I just wish I knew how long he can keep it up. I mean, if Mam’s gone…”

She looked up again, and she was clearly hit hard by a wave of emotion.

“Is it right, Debbie? Right to not want to see your own mother again?”

I had another flashback, standing at the door of the old family home as the woman who had given birth to me effectively threatened to call the police if I didn’t leave. I shook my head.

“No, not wrong, love. Just a bit unusual, and something it would be good to think hard about. And you are thinking. Watch and wait, Alicia. She may come round, in the end. When “It’s a hard one, Alicia. When you see you really are losing something, someone, when it’s really there, in your face, you usually think again. If your Mam can’t do that, well, you take my point. Watch and wait, wait and see, whatever sounds best. Hope for that best, that’s what I think, but make plans for the not-so-good. How do you want to deal with your Dad?”

“Dunno, really. Got school and stuff, and if I get settled there, I don’t want… I got bullied at my old school. If I go back as Alicia, as ME, it would be loads worse. And it’s more than that, Debbie. It’s here, yeah? This is the first… Look. I know what I said that day we met, how I had heard things about homes and shit---sorry. About bullying and that. It isn’t like that here, not like I was scared of. First time ever”

She trailed off for a few slow breaths, then gave us a smile that struggled to be honest.

“First time I have ever really had friends, and these are friends who understand me. Friends I can really talk to, friends I can share stuff with. If I go home, I lose them. If I stay here, I might lose Dad. I just don’t have anu idea what to do! I mean, Dad’s all the way over to Briton Ferry, and school the girls go to is here in the city, so if I go home it’s impossible”

Nita raised a hand.

“I get what you’re saying, Alicia, but there is one thing you are missing, and that is the fact that you are now in care, our care that is. No simple decision, no legal way of him simply taking you back in, all slates wiped clean, nothing like that. He what he gets to see you only if that is what you want, AND if it makes sense to us, or rather Heidi’s lot. Mrs Milton’s. So we have time, and I want to use that in the best way. Let him show us he’s genuine in his remorse. Rehabilitated, that’s the posh term. You up for that, Alicia?”

“What do I do, we do, then?”

Heidi shrugged, and nodded to Nita.

“If Debbie is happy, you stay here for now, and we work through some meetings with your Dad. Supervised ones at first, then if they’re OK, we do some secret squirrel stuff, which will probably involve Nita here”

Nita grinned at that.

“Hasn’t seen me, has he? Anyway, I intend to do some snooping over that way. Where’s your grandparents at?”

“Neath”

“Thanks, my girl. Can you write their address down for me? I will want to see who’s going in and out of both addresses. Now, I know Debbie, and I will assume that she will be happy with you here. What we need from you is just your word that you will be happy here, for now. Can we assume that as well, Alicia?”

A sharp nod, and a much warmer smile.

“So I get to stay with the girls for now, but see my Dad?”

Another shrug from Heidi.

“That’s the plan. Shall we see if we can make it work? And did you say that you had a mug ready for me? Shit. Sorry; my phone’s on silent, just gone off. Borrow your kitchen, Debbie? I’ll make my own cocoa, if it’s OK”

She was back in a couple of minutes, shaking her head.

“Never stops. Never, ever, stops. Deb? How are you for room? Just had a call from the James Street nick, and they’ve got a kid in, found wandering round the Mermaid Quay shops. Gave their name as Andrea. One of the security guards said the kid was shoplifting, so when the police got there, they gave them a quick search, and there were extras in their knickers”

I did a quick mental reshuffle: move Maisie into the other student’s room, stick the new girl in with Patricia or Serena…

“Hang on, Heidi. Was this Andrea actually lifting?”

She shook her head.

“No. Nothing found, unless she had passed it on to someone else. Some of the wannabe plod there have a habit of seeing things before they happen, if you get me. I was watching your face, and you were moving girls around, weren’t you?”

I nodded, and she chuckled.

“Mother bloody hen, you are. Now, Alicia?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to go. We got a plan, or not?”

“I stay here for now, see Dad, see how it goes?”

“Yup”

“Okay then”

“Ta! Nita?”

They were off, Heidi’s mug abandoned in the kitchen. An hour later, the back door thumped shut after Kim’s return, which of course meant a giggle fest in the living room after a few tears from Alicia. I waited for them to settle, before asking Kim two of the three questions I had been holding back.

“Kim?”

“Debbie?”

“Ruth not in today?”

“Na, she had something to sort out at the doctor’s, with Max. Said I know how the place works, and not to eat all the chocolate cake”

“Ah. She do that regularly?”

“What. Eat all the chocolate cake?”

“No. Leave you in charge, on your own”

Kim nodded, looking a little worried.

“Who does all the tills and that, at the end of the day?”

“She does. It’s just that sometimes we need something in a hurry, or there’s something she needs to do with her boy. Never all day”

“Thanks, love. Oh, and well done, by the way. When you said ‘Which of you ladies?’ I thought he was going to wet himself. Now, I have another question, and that is one for Ruth. Would she be happy if he meets up with Alicia in the café?”

“I think so. I’ll ask her, yeah?”

“Thanks again, love. Now, on another subject, how is…?”

Her grin was absolutely radiant.

“Philip? He is fine! Better than fine. He wants me to go birdwatching with him”

“I didn’t know he was into that”

“He isn’t, but he knows you are, and he said if we go down to that bit on the waterfront, the reserve thing, the three of us, then if it gets cold he can take me for a coffee and you might want to stay watching the feathery things”

The devious little sod, but it would be daytime, so less risk of a ‘wandering hands’ situation.

“And what did you say, Kim my dear?”

“Well, duh! ‘Yes’, of course. Said I’d find out what shifts you’ve got, and we can go from there”

She laughed happily, before adding the comment, “Cathy and Nell are going to be SO jealous!”

A few seconds later, she spoke again, this time in a much softer voice.

“You know, Debbie? I hope they won’t be jealous. I hope they won’t need to be. Anyway… Anyway, brought over a big tray-bake thing of lasagne. That’ll do us all for tonight. Not doing the washing-up, though!”

It did indeed serve us all that evening, and two hours after Patricia, Serena and Emma had sorted the dishes, Heidi was back with our new charge, a rail-thin child of about fourteen, who called themself Andrea. I fitted her into a bunk with Serena, and spent a few days on leave as I tried to get the sort-of-girl to open up.

Three nights later, and she was gone, out through the emergency exit in the second house in the small hours, with our television.