Cheap White Meat Page 6

  So then, how does getting justice make you feel in modern Britain? Guilty.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’ve been left in my room, all alone unfortunately. I don’t even know if Jack’s still here. I left my room to try to go and look for him but my pass wouldn’t let me off the landing my room is on. They haven’t blocked my pass like that for ages. Of course I could kick-off, and that would get me some attention, but that will never be my style.

  I’m the strong silent type, like Jack. What they’ve revealed about him in the Interrogation Zone hasn’t changed my opinion on him. A lot of people don’t like foreigners. They don’t like them for no reason. But I’ve got a reason. One of them took my virginity. Another eight of them took my dignity. Maybe they didn’t do it purely because I was white, but maybe they took advantage of the fact that I am white. They took advantage of the fact that I’ve constantly been let down my whole life and that no one has ever treated me as an individual, and actually tried to solve my problems rather than just keep passing me on.

  I probably got it all wrong. I thought they were out to get Adam, but they’re not. They’re going to try to protect him in any way they can. And that way is to get Jack out of the picture. But it’s too late. I now know the truth and I’m going to make sure that everyone else does. I’m going to speak up. For myself. For Jack. For everyone else who knows the truth and feels the same way as us.

  But why are they sticking up for Adam? He’s committed a crime. If it were Jack who’d done that then he’d be thrown in jail, and even when he was let out he wouldn’t be able to go back to living a “normal” life.

  Are they even trying to find Adam and his “friends”? Do they even want to find them? Just because I wasn’t dragged from the street against my own will doesn’t mean that Adam wasn’t as calculating and as cunning as any other rapist. Because that’s what he is: a rapist.

  Maybe I am my own worst enemy. Because I never speak, no one knows what I’m thinking. Knows what it is I’m going through. All because I mask it with silence. If I’d have been more vocal, shed some crocodile tears during interviews, would they have been more interested in helping me?

  No.

  Of course they wouldn’t. They wanted me to stay quiet. They need me to stay quiet. The least number of people who find out that’s there is a group of men who go round targeting “Cheap White Meat” the better. That way they don’t have to do anything about it.

  I need to speak to Jack. I need to find out more about what Adam and his “friends” are really like. I never felt like I got to know any of them. Not even Adam. Well, certainly not much about him as a person. They were happy to ask me questions about myself, about what it was like to be “Rosie Red Cheeks”, but they were very secretive about themselves.

  I bet that’s why I’ve been sent to my room. As soon as I said, “Who’s side are you on?” they knew that I’d started to work out what was going on. Now they need to keep me and Jack apart so that we can’t force them to do their job properly.

  But who knows what they’d find if they started looking into Adam and his “friends” affairs. Nibbling on a “chicken nugget” could be just the start of it. And I’ve still got Gillian to deal with. I think for now that should be my main priority: making sure than she can’t ruin my life and hold me back any more.

  Of course doing that is easier said than done. How exactly do you tell someone they’ve failed at their job? Especially someone like Gillian. Every time I’ve seen her having a conversation with another person she constantly talks over them. No matter what the other person says she can’t be listening to them because she’s constantly speaking.

  So I need another option. I need to put my writing skills to the test. My writing is still quite juvenile, but it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s the words that count. And I know just the person who I want to read it out to Gillian.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Three Mongamigoes are smirking at each other in the Interrogation Zone. There’s no sign of Jack. He’s not been mentioned. Maybe this is part two of them wiping any evidence of his existence in the case, after wiping his recordings.

  Dan’s subordinate looked so fake when I handed her my letter. Like a teacher who knows they’ve got to tell a primary school kid that they like their drawing, even though they couldn’t care less, simply because it’s part of their “job”. But Gillian still looks calm; like she knows that her shift is almost over and she’ll be free from even thinking about me for three days.

  But I’ll be on her mind. Oh, I’ll certainly be on her mind.

  The subordinate has to refocus her eyes when she unfolds my letter and tries to make sense of my scribble.

  ‘Is this for me to read out?’ she asks.

  I fix my stare at her and nod.

  ‘Very well,’ she says, as if she can’t see that I’d ever have a thought that was worth sharing with them, let alone committing it down to paper, as she begins reading.

  ‘I would like to bring to attention the neglect which my Key Worker Gillian Blackstock has subjected me to.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  Predictably, it’s Gillian who’s started speaking.

  ‘When have I ever neglected you? I’ve always been here for you. Trusted you. I’ve treated you more like a daughter than a patient.’

  I have to laugh at that one. The big guns are out. The clichés. But it’s three against one. And my ammunition doesn’t work properly.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?’ Dan asks me. ‘“Neglect” is a very serious allegation.’

  ‘I mean every word of it. Most of it is on the tapes.’

  My voice sounds weird inside my head. Childlike. I need someone here in support of me, but the person who is supposed to be here to help me is the one I’m complaining about. Why can’t Jack be here? What have they done with him? I don’t mean “I hope they haven’t hurt him”, but I bet that they’ve made it impossible for him to see me again.

  Dan’s subordinate asks him if she should carry on. Gillian’s still chuntering away, claiming that what I’ve written is lies, but Dan gets her to be quiet. A rare skill he’s got there. A very rare skill indeed.

  ‘It’s four months since Gillian became my Key Worker. In that time she made no effort to find out what I got up to when I would leave the house for sometimes up to 12 hours at a time.’

  ‘That’s a lie. I always asked you but you wouldn’t speak. You never speak. That’s why I can’t get through to you.’

  This isn’t going to work. For some reason I thought Gillian would be stunned into silence by what my letter had to say. Just goes to show how stupid I really am. But Gillian won’t shut up. No matter what Dan tells her. She’s saying everything she can to make herself look like the good guy.

  Apparently I’m “vindictive”. I’ll have to look up what that means because I’ve never needed to know before. Dan’s subordinate is trying to continue to read my letter so Gillian’s started to get personal towards her. Claiming that she thought that the pair was “true friends”, but she says it so that it sounds like a dig a me because she knows that I’ve never had any “true friends”.

  This is why I don’t like getting involved with the police and social workers. No one ever just accepts what I say. It’s as if they don’t believe that I can have a single thought inside my head that can be significant.

  I suppose I have been naïve by writing the letter but I needed something to happen. I’ve been let down my whole life and always by the people who’ve supposed to have been looking out for me. But these same people have also got something out of it themselves. People make good money by attempting to look after me.

  And then came along Jack. A volunteer on work experience. Someone who wants to make a difference. But he’s been taken away from me because they believe he’s a bad influence.

  I’ve been neglected to the point we�
��re I’ve been under psychiatric observation for two years. I’ve been neglected to the point where I’ve been free to roam the streets and fall into the hands of a paedophile group. I’ve been neglected to the point where when I try and stick up for myself no one will listen. So I’ve got nowhere to go because the ones who are in charge of me don’t want to accept that there’s a problem. A problem with them.

  I can’t take this anymore. I need to get away. When I stand up, Gillian tries to follow me, but I’m too quick for her and manage to get out of the Interrogation Zone before she can stop me.

  Gillian follows me down the corridor and she can certainly shift when she wants to. The other Key Workers are quickly on the scene so there’s nowhere for me to go. When they ask what’s going on, Gillian’s quick to give her side of the story, making it look like I’m the one in the wrong again.

  ‘Liar’, I scream.

  ‘Just go to your room and calm down for a bit. You don’t know what you’re saying.’

  I’ve got no choice about going to my room by the way. There’s four Key Workers, one for each limb, so I’m being taken there whether I like it or not. As I’m slowly dragged to my room, Gillian lets the other Key Workers know what a mistake she’s made by letting Jack work with me. She says that my head is now filled with such rubbish that I’ve become delusional.

  But I’ve not. I know exactly what I’m saying. I might not be able to get Gillian sacked today, but I’ll do it. There’ll be someone who’ll listen to me. If I tell enough people then surely one of them will listen and want to help me. I know that there’s no one who works here who’ll help me, so I need to get out. I need to find Jack even though I’ve got no idea of where to begin looking.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They’ve left me to calm down for what seems like hours. I’ve not even tried my door to see how far I can get. I don’t want to see them, any of them. I’m listening to the radio station that Jack likes, trying to get an understanding of how his mind works. Of where he’s likely to spend his time. He didn’t tell me much about his personal life. We didn’t exactly speak like normal people do so I don’t even know which area he lives in, or if there’s any place he goes every week.

  I suppose I could see if I can get the internet on my laptop, but I know they’ll be monitoring my access. That’s why they put me under 24 hour supervision the last time. It was after I went down to Megabites one afternoon for my “shift” only to find that it was shut. In fact, the whole area was suspiciously quiet, as if a whole community didn’t want to be seen.

  So I panicked. I suppose deep down I knew that what I was doing was wrong and that if I got caught then I’d have some serious questions to answer. But I panicked because I thought I was the who’d get the blame. Of course, I’ve learnt since then that shouldn’t be the case. It’s just that a few other people don’t seem to understand that.

  I’d got rid of my mobile long before then so I didn’t have any way of contacting Adam. And we didn’t have any official agreement in place. If I happened to be there eating my chicken nuggets, and Adam saw me, then more often than not I’d be asked if I wanted to wait upstairs. After a while one of his “friends” would turn up. Because he’d known me for a few weeks before he introduced me to his “friends”, he knew that I’d turn up for three days in a row and then I wouldn’t be seen for three days.

  My days out coincided with Gillian’s shift pattern. When she was on duty then I’d be out all day. When Kate was on duty then I’d spend as much time in my room as possible.

  Kate started two weeks before Gillian. Thinking about it now, the pair of them have been “caring” for me longer than anyone else. However, since they’ve taken over, my mental state has done nothing but deteriorate. Not only do I stay silent whenever Kate comes into my room, I do something else:

  I masturbate.

  It doesn’t do anything for me and I certainly don’t find Kate attractive. I don’t know why I first started doing it, but it annoys Kate. She says that I’m a disgusting girl and I’m going to harm myself. I don’t know if Kate’s told anyone else that as soon as she walks into my room that I put my hand inside my knickers and start myself frigging myself stupid. Gillian’s certainly never mentioned it and neither have any other members of staff or The Others.

  If Kate tries to ignore what I’m doing to myself, I take my clothes off and start moaning, licking my fingers when I’ve got all whet, but it’s just for show. But Kate can’t stand to watch me “harm” myself. So she leaves my room eventually. However, whilst Kate’s on duty I don’t dare leave my room. I don’t know why but for some reason I’m more scared of Kate when she talks to me than Gillian. I’m sure that if I tried to go out when Kate’s on duty then she’d follow me and find out where I’m going. And I’m not that daft that I’m going to start getting myself off in public.

  It was on Gillian’s final day of her shift pattern that Megabites suddenly shut down so I’d been there the previous two days. I don’t know if it was shut down by the police. They haven’t told me too much about their investigation. But of course, that could be because they don’t want an investigation to be taking place in the first place. If it was shut down by the police then they’d have been watching the place beforehand. They’d have seen me entering the two days before. Seen me sat in the window for a while and disappearing for a few hours before returning for another potion of chicken nuggets; all without ever leaving the building.

  Because I’d been there the previous two days, I thought that I’d get the blame if the police were involved. I thought that Adam might think that I’d been the one who’d told the police. So that’s why I panicked. Adam knew where I lived. He could have been after me. So I needed a way out.

  I did consider just gathering up my £380 and going on the run. But I knew I needed a better solution. A more final solution. However, I didn’t get long to research my “final solution”. Within twenty minutes of me searching for hints on how to commit suicide I lost my internet connection. Of course, that happens from time to time, but I could still again access for other websites so that’s when I knew they were hacking my laptop and blocking certain sites.

  I don’t think I wanted to die but at the time it didn’t seem like I had any other option. Going to Megabites was the only release I had and at the time I couldn’t see anything good ever happening in my life.

  I’m pretty certain that before I went into care there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Well, certainly not with my mind. Maybe my psychotic side was lying dormant in me all that time and was triggered by the incident that led to Mum being sent down. I haven’t seen Mum for four years and I haven’t had any contact with her whatsoever for about eighteen months. Although on a day like today it might be nice to have a mum to turn to.

  Chapter Sixteen

 

  Kate’s just walked into my room so you know where my fingers have gone. Not all of them, I don’t actually want to cause myself any harm. Normally when Kate walks into my room after her three days off she doesn’t have much to say but today she has to recap what happened over the weekend.

  Gillian didn’t come back into my room before she finished her shift last night but I hope that I never see her again. Although I certainly don’t want another person like Kate, who’s got me into such a state that I taste my whet fingers before sliding them back inside me.

  Jack.

  Jack’s just been mentioned. I honestly thought last night that I’d never hear his name mentioned again.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Kate takes a step back when she hears my voice. My hot sweaty voice. I never knew I could do sultry. She tries to trick me by saying that if I stop abusing myself then she will see what she can do, but I know she’s lying. I want Jack. I need Jack. Maybe I can start some new kind of protest movement: I’ll wank myself stupid until they’ll let me see him.

  However, I’m not that much of a weir
do. Although I’ve got no intention of behaving normally in front of Kate. Normally she just walks out of the room but today she strides over to me and grabs my offending arm.

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘It’s about time you started behaving yourself young lady. I think it’s time we became tough on you.’ I try to smear my whet hand all over her face but she’s too strong for me, and pushes me away. And I know you probably think that it should be spelt “wet”, but please take a moment to listen to my reasoning. You “whet your appetite”, which apparently means to moisten. My fingers are now moist, i.e. “whet”. The revolution starts here.

  Anyway, back to Kate. She’s the type of Key Worker who believes there is some kind of drug that will sort my head out. Like the good old days when patients used to be locked up in lunatic asylums and force-fed drugs that rendered them virtually brain dead.

  So do I think I’m lucky to be alive in this day and age? An age when everyone has the right to live a happy and full life no matter what aliments they have. To be honest, I don’t know. On the one hand, I’ve got just enough of a glimmer of hope of becoming a relatively normal adult. However, on the other, how am I going to get over the childhood I’ve had? In that respect, maybe being so brain dead that I didn’t know what was happening to me wouldn’t have been such a bad option after all. And I’ve heard stories of people in care who’ve had it far worse than me. Inside this care home its only myself who abuses me. I’ve never been sexually assaulted by any of the carers, just neglected.

  A nurse has been called for so I start to try to act relatively normal. Passive aggressive I think it’s called. Or maybe that’s what The Biter’s behaviour is called. I’ve never seen this nurse before and from behind he’s got a hint of a look of Jack about him. For about a 10th of a second I let myself think that he’s come back to save me but it soon becomes obvious that it’s not anyone I like or I’m going to get along with.