Wednesday's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

all. I was aghast at her physical condition, and was struck by a deep sense of anger that she had been neglected to the point that she was like this. I was also drawn to her eyes. There was a deep inner strength and a real humanity in those eyes. And a well of pain. She was hurting. It seeped from her like pus. I could feel it as an electrical pulse, this child’s hurting.
     
    Assumpta moved around the chair and out the door, which she left open. I heard a chair scraping the floorboards as it was pulled up outside. I stood, hearing my knees pop and slowly walked over to a chair by the wall, which I moved over to within a safe distance of Gillian. I nodded at Andi, who took a chair and moved to within a similar distance. At this proximity, I could see that Gillian had a fine growth of hair over her face and arms. This was a clear sign of advanced anorexia – it meant that she had lost her natural layer of body fat. The bodycompensated by producing the coating of hair, to keep in warmth. I had only seen this once before, and that child had not survived. People often forget that anorexia, if left untreated, can be fatal.
     
    ‘So, Gillian,’ I said, trying to sound as upbeat as possible, ‘how can I help?’
     
    She looked away from both of us for a moment, suddenly embarrassed by the attention and putting on the precocious huff of adolescence. I smiled to see it. At least it was normal behaviour.
     
    ‘I don’t want a worker,’ she said finally, her face flushing so much through the pallor, I was again worried she might pass out.
     
    ‘Is it because I’m a guy?’
     
    Again she looked away, gripping her sides tightly. Eventually she nodded, still not meeting my gaze.
     
    ‘Well, I can understand that. If I were a girl, I probably wouldn’t want me for a worker either. But you know, we’ll get used to each other. And we don’t have to rush into anything either. I mean, if you’re worried I might be weird or something, we can meet outside the school and go for coffee or something, where there’s lots of people around. You’d be completely safe. I’m not gonna try and get you to talk about anything deep or really personal or anything like that. Whatever you want to talk about is okay by me. It’ll be your time. But there is one thing that I
do
have to ask you to do for me first. I’m gonna have to ask your mam to take you to see the doctor.’
     
    She shot a glance at me that held a fair degree of venom.
     
    ‘I’m
asking
you as your new worker, but I think you know that I can
make
you go if I wanted to. You look like you haven’t eaten in a really long time, Gill, and you may need to take some medicine to help you to build up your strength again. You know, a tonic or something.’
     
    She looked at her knees, her lower lip stuck out in a ferocious sulk.
     
    ‘You seem pretty mad at me for saying that.’
     
    ‘You people always lie!’ she hissed.
     
    ‘Why do you say that?’
     
    ‘You tell me that we don’t have to rush into anythin’ and then you tell me that I have to go and see the doctor! And you tell me that Mammy will have to come and you don’t know my mammy. She’ll be mad and there’ll be trouble. And she’ll go mad when she knows that they have a man seein’ me and you’ll get it. She’ll do you good!’
     
    I tried not to look too bemused by this outburst.
     
    ‘Gillian, I’m afraid that your health can’t wait for us to get better acquainted. I wouldn’t be a very good worker to you if I let you go on right now without a doctor having a look at you. I’m not going to ask you to eat today – I said I wouldn’t – but you are very close to making yourself really sick. I don’t mind you being mad at me. And I expect that your mum will be cross about me seeing you at first, even though I think that letters have been sent out to tell herthat I’ll be working with you, so she should know.’
     
    ‘We don’t always get letters because of the