Kennedy
I don’t let go of Anna’s wrist as I head across the High Street towards my apartment building’s car parking area. I curse under my breath as I check for bystanders. This town is full of eyes and ears and there’s every chance the fake news that I dragged Anna back to mine will hit my office before I do in the morning. I could do without that, not least because I’ll have questions to answer that won’t look great on my employment file. I don’t give a fuck what they say about me, but if stupid rumours were to impact the kids on my caseload… It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I’m crazy for getting involved, but I can’t stop. My feet take it upon themselves to keep on walking, my heart hammering while my mind spins with justifications for my actions, even though I know there are other ways to handle this.
I could’ve looked up Rosie and Bill’s number and called them out to collect her. I could’ve opened up the office and made her wait in reception with me until they arrived.
I pull my car keys from my pocket the moment my car is in sight and switch off the central locking. Anna tugs at my arm and I turn to realise she’s staring up at my apartment block. It’s nothing fancy, just a regular brick building. Mine is the top floor, and Pam Clowes, who works with me, has the ground. I really fucking hope she’s not at her kitchen window.
She’s not. Thank God for small mercies.
“Neat place,” Anna says, and I’d think she was being sarcastic if I didn’t know her tone better.
“It’s alright,” I tell her, tugging her along the remaining distance.
“Which one’s yours?” she asks, and I definitely shouldn’t tell her that, but I do anyway.
I point out my living room window as I slip into the driver’s seat. I’m relieved when she drops into the passenger side and buckles herself in without argument.
“Are you feeling sick? Queasy?” I’m already scouting the backseat for a paper bag or something but she laughs at me.
“I can handle my drink.”
“Sure you can.”
“I can,” she insists, “I only had one or two, no big deal.”
“Don’t take me for a fucking idiot,” I say as I turn the key in the ignition. “Good job I was there or who knows what state you’d have ended up in. You don’t want to be associating with Eddie Stevens, he’ll lead you nowhere good.”
I pull the car out onto the main road, fighting the urge to stare at her and not at where I’m going. I know Bill and Rosie’s place. It’s a pretty white house set back from the lane into Lydbrook, the chocolate-box picture of tranquillity – which has no doubt been shattered since this bundle of trouble arrived on the scene.
“Do you want to call ahead?” I ask her, “maybe you should let them know you’re on your way home?”
“They won’t care.”
It doesn’t matter how many times she says it, I don’t believe that’s the case. I tell her so and she spins in her seat to glare at me.
“Why do you always have to see the best in people all the time? The world isn’t like that, Kennedy. It’s mean and shitty and nobody gives two fucking craps about a nasty little gypsy like me. You’re a fool. A fucking idiot.”
“Well, this fucking idiot gives two fucking craps about getting you back home safe, Anna, so I guess the whole entire universe can’t be entirely mean and shitty now, can it?”
She sighs. “Maybe the whole entire universe except you.”
“I’m flattered you think I’m that exceptional a member of the human race, but I’m simply one of many trying to do their best. The world is full of us, maybe you could try letting us help sometime.”
“I’ll let you help,” she whispers and I’m so surprised I do a double take. The evening light through the windscreen dances across her features, and her eyes look big and sad. She pulls her knees up and rests her dirty boots on the dashboard, oblivious to the mess she’ll be making.
But I don’t even care.
“How can I help?” I say, eyes firmly back on the road. “Just tell me, Anna. Because I’ll do whatever I can.”
“You can take me away from this shitty place.” Her voice is quiet and breathy.
I remind myself she’s a drunk young woman who probably doesn’t mean half of this.
“I mean it,” she says, as though she can read my mind. “You and me. It could be an adventure.”
“You’ll have plenty of adventures with plenty of people,” I tell her. “But right now you need to be settled and safe. I can speak to the right agencies, we can get you set up somewhere, even if it’s not Bill and Rosie’s. I’m sure I can speak to the college, too.”
The thump of her fist on the window takes me aback. “I don’t want any of that. I want you.”
“And I’m your caseworker,” I tell her. “I have a duty of care to your wellbeing.”
“Not anymore,” she says, and I’m pleased to pass the sign for Lydbrook. My neck feels itchy under my collar, my palms sweaty on the wheel. She points out Bill and Rosie’s on the right, but I’m already turning. I pull onto their driveway and their Labrador starts barking from the porch. Anna is out of the car in a heartbeat. She gives me nothing but a cursory thanks before she slams the passenger door and heads to the house alone, but that’s not how this ends. I follow her, catching her on the doorstep just as she’s trying the handle. It’s locked. It surprises me, but it is. She hammers on the wood with her fist. “Do you not have a key?” I ask. She shakes her head. “They don’t want me to have one.” Don’t trust her with one, more likely. I shouldn’t blame them, knowing her, but I can’t help but feel hurt on her behalf. It’s Bill who comes to the front door. He looks drawn and grey as he answers, his face a grimace until he sees me standing alongside his ward. “Kennedy,” he say
AnnaBill doesn’t even care that I hear him. In the early days they would whisper or talk about me behind closed doors where they didn’t know I was listening. But not now.Now Bill and Rosie don’t give a shit that I know what they think of me.Bill’s words carry loud and clear. The little window in the room I sleep in is open, and his voice reaches me perfectly. So does Kennedy’s.The girl is a vicious little bitch. She’s a fucking nightmare. A disgusting, vindictive little shit.Bill, please…Of course the answer was no. I knew it would be. They hate me, both of them, and I don’t blame them.I didn’t spit in Rosie’s stew though, I just pretended to. She wouldn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t really. She threw the whole lot in the sink and told me I was a horrible girl. And then she cried.She flapped her arms about and called for Bill and told him she was done with me, that they were all done with me.And I shrugged and said I didn’t care, that I didn’t give a fuck about her shitty
hear Bill and Rosie in the kitchen downstairs loading up the dishwasher. My stomach rumbles, but they don’t offer me anything to eat, and I don’t expect them to.I missed dinnertime.I’ll have to sneak downstairs when they’re in bed and grab something from their pantry. They’ve started hiding stuff from me these past few weeks, but I know Rosie keeps some chocolate in her sewing tin.They’ve already got a kid lined up to replace me, I heard them on the phone to the agency talking about it. I think he’s called Leo.I hope he’s a better kid for them than I’ve been, and I hope he likes this place as much as I do.The thought of leaving here makes me feel more upset than it should. I ball my hands into fists and choke back stupid tears that I don’t deserve.I could’ve stayed if I was better.I could’ve stayed if they hadn’t seen the bruises on my arms and thought I was into drugs or self-harm, or a load of other things that made them look at me in those ways I hate.Pity and fear and dis
RivenI wait for a text from Kennedy letting me know he’s done dropping his drunk infatuation back home where she belongs, but it doesn’t come. I despair for the guy and his midlife crisis.This thing with Anna Josephine, it isn’t like him. Kennedy is responsible and considered. He plays by more rules than he should in life, certainly more than I do, and if there’s one he should choose to break it’s definitely not this one.I’m about to call the crazy sonofabitch when I hear his car pull up outside. He’s had the same car for over a decade, I’d recognise the sound anywhere.I’ve already opened the door when he reaches my doorstep. He brushes past me without a word, and I follow him on through to the kitchen to grab the beer we didn’t manage at Drury’s.I hand him a bottle and he slumps himself against my kitchen island.“They’re going to throw her onto the streets,” he says, and I sigh.“Not. Your. Problem.”“I’ve been working with her for over five months,” he tells me, like I don’t k
AnnaI walked for hours before I was too tired to keep going. I wake up feeling groggy, my neck stiff from using my backpack as a pillow. It takes me a second to remember where I am.Shit.I’m in one of the old bike sheds at the back of Lydney Primary School. My arms feel stiff as I stretch them and my feet are like blocks of ice in my crappy boots. I’m starving hungry, too. My belly rumbles the minute I sit up, and I have to fight back the panic as I realise I don’t have either food or money to help fill it back up again.Part of me wants to go back to Bill and Rosie’s and say sorry. Maybe if I asked kindly enough, maybe if I begged… but there’s no way I’m gonna beg those dicks. No way.They hate me and I hate them. I can take care of myself, just as my ancestors did.I get to my feet and shake them out a bit, trying to get back the feeling. I’m not scared of the outdoors, it’s in my blood to belong here. I’m not scared of being alone, either. I’m not scared of anything.It’s just… I
KennedyI have to use my lunch break to make agency calls on behalf of a girl who’s no longer on my books. I take a bite of my sandwich, cursing that I’m spending so much time on hold. I’ve a lot of people to speak with, and not a huge amount of time to do it in.The result: more of the same old shit.They’ll need her to register. They’ll need some form of ID. They’ll need to do an assessment.They’ll be able to do none of those things unless Anna actually agrees to toe the line.I’m exasperated by the time I look up Rosie and Bill’s number at the end of my shift. One last shot, that’s what I tell myself. One last attempt to reason with them and get them on side enough to keep her room open for her until we can get her into these appointments.It’s Rosie who answers. She sighs as she registers it’s me.I launch quickly into my monologue, telling her I know how hard they’ve worked with Anna, how much time they’ve put in, and how difficult this has been on all of them, but if she could
AnnaThe sleeping bag at Margaretha’s stinks of weed like the rest of the place. I know they say it’s nature’s herb and all that, but it’s always smelled like crap to me. It’s only ever made me sick and giggly. I don’t really do giggly, so I’m better off without the shitty stuff.Margaretha says it will chill me fucking out, but I do chilled even less than I do giggly. He stays up late with the TV on loud. The room is full of the stench, and when I hunker down under my grotty covers that’s when I come to realise everything smells of it here.I probably smell like it here.He has a couple of cats that he doesn’t let out. Their litter tray stinks even worse than the weed. Some random ex-girlfriend left them here, he told me once. He hardly feeds them, so I share my ham sandwich with them, loving the way they purr as they settle down under the covers with me.Maybe I can take them on the road with me, but they’ll probably run away.I wouldn’t blame them.I’d run away from here too if I d
KennedyThree days and three long nights.I’ve been calling every agency I can think of through my lunch breaks and driving around the streets looking for her every night, despite knowing full well that she’s probably long gone. I wonder how she celebrated becoming an official adult. I wonder if she celebrated at all.I found myself at Rosie and Bill’s front door last night, just to check in person that they hadn’t heard anything. Their eyes said it all. They told me she’s a lost cause and it’s sad I haven’t accepted that yet. But I haven’t.I can’t.We’ve never had Anna Well’s mobile number on her case file, simply because she refused to give it to anyone, me included. It was Rosie’s parting gift to me, followed up with the assurance that there’s no way the madam will answer, but it still felt like I’d been handed the Holy Grail as I left their doorstep and headed back to my car. I pulled over before I was even back in Lydney, my heart thumping as I keyed her number into my mobile.R