‘But so can we. Please, meet him and you’ll see he isn’t a bad kid. There’s just a dark side of him that he needs help to control. He’s ... he’s here. Outside. In the car.’
Her face fell.
‘I’m sorry, but there’s nowhere else for him to go,’ Ralf continued. ‘My mum won’t have him under our roof. And until I find enough money to put a deposit on a place of my own, you’re my only hope. It won’t be for long.’
Helena’s love for Ralf influenced her to agree to meet his son. The moment the shy, withdrawn boy nervously stepped into her home holding his dad’s hand, she was struck by how he was every bit as broken as many of the other children who were brought to her. Damon was small and slight for his age, his eyes a rich, soulful brown. He was barely able to function. She saw elementsof Ralf in his appearance and body language, and despite Damon’s horrendous behaviours, she found herself torn between her love for his father and her sympathy for his victims and their families. Eventually she followed her heart and agreed to let him stay.
Strings were pulled by friends of hers at social services to allow her to care for him temporarily – the son of a family friend, she claimed – until his father was able to look after him permanently.
Helena didn’t know it then, but she can see it now. Accepting the boy into her life marked the beginning of the end for her and Ralf.
Chapter 89
Damon
It takes a moment for my grandmother’s most recent revelation to sink in.
‘Helena, my foster mother? She was Dad’s girlfriend?’
The old woman gives another condescending nod. ‘Your dad talked her into letting you stay with her until they got you help.’
‘Why hasn’t she told me this?’ My grandmother shrugs as if she doesn’t care. ‘And why would she take me in if she knew what I was capable of?’
‘She was one of those women who can’t resist a bird with a broken wing. Can’t accept that not everyone can be saved. Not like me. If you can’t fly, stay out of the fucking sky. Anyway, I only met her a few times, but I sensed she could handle herself. They tried to get you counselling to begin with, but that didn’t work when you tried to smash a paperweight in the shrink’s face. So as a last resort, he told her about a doctor he knew, one who used machines and electricity to fry parts of the brains of people like you. Put you on the straight and narrow. Reckoned he could help you start over.’
‘I went to see him. He told me that.’
‘Good for you,’ she says wryly. If this surprises her, she doesn’t let it show. I wait for her to continue but she doesn’t.
‘What did Dad tell you about the treatment?’
‘I’m getting bored of this,’ she yawns.
‘It’s my life we’re talking about here!’ I snap. ‘I have a right to know.’
‘And my Ralf and those kids and your mum had rights to their lives too,’ she lashes out. And I can’t argue with that. ‘Your dad reckoned the treatment worked,’ she says after a time, her gaze returning to the buildings we pass as the car continues to make its way through unfamiliar streets. ‘But you lost more than only the memories of what you did. He tried to convince me to see you, ’cos you were a completely different kid. But I wasn’t having any of it. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, no matter how many volts you blast it with. Ralf was naive and had this stupid idea that, one day, you two could build a relationship and you’d live with him. I kept telling him life ain’t no Disney film but he wouldn’t listen. And soon after they started treating you, he was arrested for the girl you killed. He knew the only way you might ever live a normal life was if he took the blame for what you did.’
My racing mind is filled with images of what I recall and what I’m imagining as my grandmother speaks.
‘So much of this I didn’t know,’ I say.
‘Do you wish you’d kept it that way?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Yeah, well, this is what it’s been like for me, carrying your shit like a fucking packhorse for all these years.’
I ask her about his aggressive behaviour towards me and his threat as he threw me out of the flat, the last time I saw him alive. She looks to my phone instead.
‘That detective called you back yet?’ she asks.
‘It would’ve rung if he had,’ I say.
‘You could’ve turned the sound off. Call him again.’
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’m giving you what you want.’
‘Do it again.’
