Page 52 of Demon
She shook her head, her teeth still raking at her bottom lip like she might actually bite it off.
“It’s…it’s…” she sighed, looking defeated now. “I don’t know what it is, Demon. No one has ever loved me before. I don’t know whether to be insanely happy or suspicious that you might want something. Or worried that you want something I’m not able to give back.”
“What about your parents?”
“What about them?”
“They not love you, Ciara?”
She stared at me, her expression dark, and I knew right then there was so much more about her that I didn’t know. Just like there was much more about me that she didn’t know.
The sigh came first, the long-resigned breath.
“No. There were five of us. I’m the oldest. Dad was a druggie. A down and out. Mam wasn’t much better. When he left, she re-married. I didn’t think she could have chosen a worse person than my dad, but I was so fucking wrong. I was an early developer,” she paused, waiting for me to catch up.
And suddenly I realised she wasn’t talking about property development.
“So, when I started to get boobs, I also started to get his attention,” she continued. I knew now where this was going, and that hole of dread that had opened in my stomach a few moments before, when I was merely scared she would reject me, was now gaping.
“It started just with a look. He would watch me, loiter outside of the bathroom when I was having a shower, look too closely down the towel I’d wrapped around myself, or too long on my legs if I was wearing a skirt.
“And then if we were sitting on the sofa, he made sure he’d sit next to me. It was just uncomfortable at first, just the thought of him always being there, watching. But then it became more, a hand on a leg, on my lower back. Again, the touches weren’t sinister, not of itself.”
Ciara stopped, picking at the hem of the hoodie, pulling it down her bare legs self-consciously, as if she was hiding herself from me, not her stepfather.
“And then gradually it became more until one night he climbed into my bed. I’d been asleep, but just the little bob of the mattress woke me. He gave me some spiel about how he could sleep better if he could lie next to me. And although I knew this wasn’t right, I didn’t kick him out. So, he came back a few nights later with the same old excuse, only this time, his hands wandered.
“The next day he bought me a gift. Nothing much, but when you weren’t used to getting things, it was nice. I was elated. Then a few days later, another gift. Make-up, perfume, clothes, small pieces of jewellery. But after each gift he would creep into bed with me, helping himself to me more and more.
“I started to wear more and more clothes to bed. Knickers, full length pyjamas. But it didn’t stop him, and I knew where it was headed. I wasn’t that naïve myself. I’d stayed up later and later. If I didn’t go to bed, he couldn’t touch me. But I was getting tired at school. Then this one day I fell asleep in class. The teacher woke me, told me to stay behind. I thought I was getting detention, but instead she started asking me questions. I could have said nothing. And some days I think that’s what I should have done, said nothing. Because if I had, I might never have been so alone.”
Ciara’s voice wavered, just a fraction of a second, before she caught it and recovered. But I had a lump in my throat. An angry, thick lump that was burning at the back.
“Social Services became involved, and they took me into care. I was the one that was removed, not him. I never saw my mam again. She refused to cooperate with the social. I saw my brothers and sisters for a little while longer. We had contact. In a bare room in council offices. I don’t blame them for not wanting to come back. It was boring. We spent more time sat staring at each other or the bare walls than anything else. And so, I never saw them again either.”
“Jesus, Ciara. I had no idea.”
“Why would you, Demon? It’s not something I tell people. It’s not something I’ve ever told anyone, apart from the social workers.”
And despite the horror I’d just listened to, and the anger that was simmering underneath the sadness that weighed it down right at this moment, I felt honoured that she’d told me. That she’d opened up to me about something so private. Carefully, I reached forward, gently pulling her into me, wrapping my arms around as if that alone would make her feel safe. For a moment, she stood frozen to the spot. Another time I would have let her go, read it as rejection. Not now, though. Now I knew it was her defence mechanism, on so many levels. And eventually as we stood there, she relaxed into my arms, her arms moving, snaking around my body, pulling herself into me and twisting her head to the side, to rest on my chest, against my heart.
And this, this felt real. And all kinds of right. Kinobi whined from the side of me. A gentle little whimper. I let one arm move from around the girl I was falling madly for and scratched the top of the dog’s head.
“So why do you want to be a social worker, then? If that was me, that would be the last thing I wanted to be after they let me down.”
“They didn’t really though,” Ciara said, still huddled against my chest. “They got me out. They took my brothers and sisters too, eventually, before he could get to them. We might not be together, but she stopped the abuse, for me at least. Now if I can help one child, or keep a family together, or get a mother to see what was in front of their very nose, then I’d be proud of the job that I’d be doing.”
I kissed the top of her head, squeezing my arms tight around her again, as if I could protect her from her memories. Kinobi whined at my feet again, then, moving away from me, she scratched at the door.
“OK darl’. Get back to bed. I’m letting the dog out, then I’ll be right back.”
“I need to be up for work soon,” she said, stifling a yawn.
“Not today, you’re not. You’re sick. We’re spending the day in bed.”
“What about your shop?” she half complained, but I could hear there was no fight left in her voice.
“I don’t open Mondays. Weekends are normally heavy. Ya’ know, with drink and bikes. So, Mondays are stay-in-bed days.”
