Wednesday's Child Read Online Free PDF Page A

large, circular room that offered a view of the entire village and much of the land that lay around it. We waited while the nun went to get Gillian from class. She was gone a few minutes, and I was putting a book by Hemingway,
Islands in the Stream
, back on its shelf, marvelling that any nun could be a fan of the hard-drinking, sexually voracious adventurer (and then wondering why the hell not) when the door opened and Sister Assumpta came in, followed by a child. I had to do a double-take, because this child did not look fifteen. At first glance I would have taken her for ten. Then I realised what I was seeing. Andi was standing by the window. Her mouth hung open, but she had the sense to say nothing.
     
    Sister Assumpta pulled out a chair for the child and looked over the back of it at us, the pain evident in her eyes. Gillian was in what must have been close to the final stages of anorexia nervosa before it became terminal. She weighed around 56 pounds and I wondered how much of that was oversized clothes and attitude. Her hair was thin and stringy. Her skin had achieved an almost transparent state such was its pallor. Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in her head, twin pinpoints of anger, fear and paranoia. Her cheekbones jutted out of her face like blades and her shoulders were obvious precipices through her shirt and jumper. I could see all the bones of her knees clearly, and her shoes and socks had long since become too big for her.
     
    ‘This is Gillian, Mr Dunphy,’ Sister Assumpta said.
     
    I looked down at the emaciated creature who also had me locked in a vice-like gaze. I realised as I looked more closely that the girl was shaking. I didn’t know if it was from weakness or nerves. I glanced over at Andi for a moment, but saw that there were tears welling in her eyes. She turned back to face the window, and I was left momentarily the sole focus of my new client.
     
    There are times when you have no time to think, when you just have to rely on training and instinct. I have long since realised that thinking by and large just gets me into trouble, so I’ve developed a kind of trip-switch in my head. It goes when I reach a point of over-load or when what I’m faced with is so dire that reason is just useless. The switch trips, power gets re-routed and I’m on pure auto-pilot. I let intuition take over and just trust that somewhere in my memory bank is an answer, a course of action that won’t cause me to fuck up entirely.
     
    This was – obviously – one of those occasions.
     
    A number of stray thoughts flitted across my consciousness. Gillian was obviously scared. She couldn’t have been more than five foot two, and was a frighteningly undernourished weight. She was an adolescent faced with a big, adult male with long hair and a beard whom she had just been told was to be her new childcare worker. I was also aware that anorexia, at this advanced stage, causes an effect in the individual similar to that of a sedative. It releases endorphins intothe system that create a natural high. Endorphins are a bit like morphine. Gillian was probably in an altered state, and liable to respond to me in any number of ways – outright panic, unfettered joy or utter apathy. I also noted that she was seated while I was standing. The first thing I did was to adjust that. I squatted down on my haunches and stayed at the distance I was at.
     
    ‘Hey, Gillian,’ I said as gently as possible while trying desperately not to sound patronising. ‘I’m Shane. I’ve been asked to work with you.’
     
    She was sucking breath in and out rapidly. I was worried about hyperventilation. In her weakened state, I thought it was very likely. I needed to keep her calm and focused on me. I edged a microscopic bit closer and smiled at her gently.
     
    ‘I’m here because the Sister was getting worried about you. Andi brought me out.’ I nodded in the direction of Andi, who was turned back around to face us, her eyes red but