No One Wants You by Celine Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

I did not cry, and neither did I say anything in response. I went to bed and lay there. As I tried to sleep, I was aware of Kit ironing my clothing and packing my few possessions. Eventually I fell asleep.
    The next morning, I got up and washed myself thoroughly. Shortly after we ate breakfast in silence, the cruelty officer from the ISPCC came and collected me. Despite tears all round, he took me away from the only people who had shown me any kindness in my life.
    Years later, I learned that Kit was the illegitimate daughter of my foster-mother’s sister. She was a kind woman who had her fair share of stress, from carrying the stigma of illegitimacy all through her life. On learning that Kit herself was illegitimate it dawned on me that she was either unwilling or unable to adopt me herself, because of her own birth status. She couldn’t have adopted a bastard because it would have raked up her own life history and all her neighbours would then know about it. She would not have been able to cope with someone like me bringing her whole world crashing down on top of her. I would have attracted too much attention.
    As we drove away from Kit’s house, I felt very fearful. I had only been told that I was going to a school. I asked the cruelty officer, ‘Where are you taking me?’
    ‘I am taking you to appear at the court in Kilmallock,’ he replied.
    I began to cry.
    The cruelty officer was a well-dressed man in a sports jacket and light-coloured trousers. He was a cold, serious type of a man. I felt that he did not like me. He did not try to reassure me in any way.
    I had never been to court before, but as far as I was concerned, nothing good ever came out of having to appear at court. I thought I was being sent to jail. Whenever I had heard the word ‘court’ before, it meant that somebody had to go to jail. My little knowledge of courts came from the many men who used to visit my foster-mother. Some of them were shady characters, who often talked about the world of judges and courts of law and being sentenced to jail.
    For the entire duration of the car journey I sobbed my heart out. I knew that if a person did something wrong, then they went to court. I knew that if you were sent to jail, you had to be sent by a judge of the court.
    I was in a panic that morning. I could not figure what I had done wrong. All sorts of bad things that I had done during my life flashed through my brain. But I thought that it must have been something terrible that I had done recently. If I was being taken to court for something bad that I had done a long time ago, why wasn’t I taken at the time it happened?
    ‘No,’ I thought, ‘it must be something bad that I did recently.’ But I hadn’t done anything.
    Kit had dressed me up in all my new clothes. I was wearing my new cream shoes and blue socks, which they had given to me before Christmas. So I knew that it could not be anything to do with my new clothes. I also had my new leather handbag, with my name embossed in gold on the outside, so that everybody could see that it belonged to me.
    Then it occurred to me. The only bad thing that I could possibly have done to merit being sent to jail was committing the crime of being too happy at Kit and Tony’s house. For the remainder of the car journey I prayed to God, between long racking sobs, to forgive me for what I had done. If he did not allow the court to send me to jail, I promised him that I would never be happy ever again.
    We finally reached Killmallock and the cruelty officer drove the car as close as possible to the front door of the courthouse. He got out from behind the steering wheel, slammed his door shut and rushed around to my side of the car. He opened the door and caught me firmly by the upper arm. His grip was so tight that it hurt me. He roughly pulled me from the seat. My sobbing became screams. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
    There were four or five small groups of people standing outside the courthouse and I can