I’m transfixed, my mouth dry. The terror of the past is unleashed like a genie from a bottle, I’m reeling inside.
‘I saw past all of that,’ he continues. ‘I saw the real girl. The strength. The potential. I saw the child who wanted to throw her head back and laugh. No matter how many times they took something sharp to her head. Tried to cut her down. Keep her in her place.’
I want to cry tears of gratitude for this man, and tears of hate for what was done to me. Sugar is right. When we met I felt like I was dying when I didn’t yet properly understand what death was. He took me from nothing and built me up. That’s why I find what I’m doing now, questioning his integrity, so painful.
His tone is soft. ‘You remember that ragged, traumatised girl I collected from the children’s home? Do you want her haunting your dreams at night? She will if you continue to question me. Promise me you will leave this alone.’
All I can see is the pitiful image of my past he weaves around us. The terror of it seeping into my skin.
I’m so horrified of going back there I whisper, ‘I promise. I’ll drop it.’
CHAPTER 12
2001
‘Mrs Williams is dead,’ Mrs Warden, the care-home manager informed seven-year-old Little Eva.
Her delivery was deliberately emotionless, matter-of-fact. Not hiding the facts of life from the ‘unfortunates’ in her care had always been her policy. They are the Unwanted, the Discarded, the Unnamed. And it was the care manager’s opinion that this particular little creature was an example of all of that put together. She was their only little brown girl. The child was becoming a burden because no one wanted to foster or adopt her. Mrs Warden predicted a rotten future awaiting this one.
Little Eva stood on the other side of the large desk in Mrs Warden’s office. The big room was located near the ladder that led to the attic. The children dreaded being summoned here. Little Eva had never been in here before. Glancing around she couldn’t understand why the other children said bad things about the room. It was big and airy, the walls painted a startling yellow. Enough room to play hide-and-seek. She frowned at the purple flowers in the vase on the side table. They made her think of what a real home must be like, full of colour and pretty things.
Little Eva stared back wide-eyed and uncertain. Mrs Williams is dead. Dead? She was not sure what that meant. The only time she’d ever heard the word ‘dead’ was when one of the girls had said she was here because her dad had fallen from the top of a building. Is that what the manager of the care home meant? Mizz Williams had fallen off the top of a building? Eva dared not ask; Mizz Warden was a very scary lady. The care-home manager was a very pretty lady too, who wore a red lipstick that reminded Little Eva of the boiled sweets she was occasionally gifted, which turned her tongue a ruby red. But it was what was behind that lipstick that terrified the children. ‘The tongue of a swamp monster’， one of the other kids had said, before lights out in their shared bedroom.
‘Does that mean Mizz Williams won’t be coming back?’ Eva replied hesitantly, not sure if she was saying the right thing.
The pinched numbness at the tops of her small toes in her scuffed shoes eased a bit in the warmth emanating from the electric blow heater in the corner. This was another thing about the room; it was plenty warmer than the rest of the building.
Mrs Warden arched a brow and cupped her hands together. ‘That’s right, she won’t be back. This means we will have to find alternative arrangements for your hair.’
Little Eva’s heart nosedived at the mention of her hair. Not that long ago she’d loved her curls. Thick and lush with a bounce that reached her shoulders. None of the other children had hair like hers. Mizz Williams had told Eva that her hair was special. Mizz Williams was the only one who had a similar skin colour to Little Eva’s. Mizz Williams’ was darker, and always shone with such a happy glow. Eva’s heart pinched tight when she thought of the woman who took care of her.
Mizz Williams, who came to England as a child from Jamaica in the 1950s, made it her business to do Little Eva’s hair most days. She would instruct Little Eva to sit on the floor in the well between the older woman’s thighs where she would rub coconut oil into the child’s hair. Mizz Williams had taught her the song ‘Brown Girl in The Ring’， and Little Eva would love it when they hummed it together as the older woman vigorously massaged Little Eva’s scalp with the pads of her fingers. After, Mizz Williams would tell her to ‘shake-it-out’ and the girl would shake her hair with a giggling delight. Sometimes Mizz Williams would braid it into two, other times she would attach a ribbon. And when she knew she had a day off Mizz Williams could braid it into smaller plaits to keep it neat until she came back to work.