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Betrayed: The heartbreaking true story of a struggle to escape a cruel life defined by family honour
Rosie Lewis
In the much-anticipated follow-up to Sunday Times bestseller Trapped, foster carer Rosie Lewis tells the heartbreaking true story of 13-year-old Zadie.When the young teenage girl runs away from home and is discovered hiding on the city streets by the police, it is clear that all is not as it should be.Taught to believe that Westerners should not be trusted, when Zadie is initially delivered into the experienced hands of foster carer Rosie she is polite and well-behaved, but understandably suspicious of the family around her. Through Rosie’s support and understanding, gradually Zadie begins to settle into her new surroundings, but loyalty to her relatives, and fear of bringing shame on those around her, prevents her from confessing the horrifying truth about her troubled past.When the shocking truth finally emerges, Rosie and her family can hardly believe that Zadie had managed to keep the shocking secrets to herself for so long.
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Copyright (#uc9790101-6853-5bf5-9560-56ef66dd35bc)
Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
HarperElement
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First published by HarperElement 2015
FIRST EDITION
© Rosie Lewis 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover photograph © Kate Gaughran 2015 (posed by model)
Rosie Lewis asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007541805
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780007541812
Version: 2015-01-07
Contents
Cover (#ubb423b4f-e099-5ec7-9c72-8067dd6b87f2)
Title Page (#ulink_e1ea532d-a0bc-5618-9dea-6a621677ae32)
Copyright (#ulink_4655b6ab-bb0e-5759-8dd6-1c7fce7bdaf4)
By the same author (#ulink_69de4ee2-9e8c-56fb-9b85-21e5119687e3)
Prologue (#ulink_5679e5b6-df8b-5361-b97e-e0f98a4ead58)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_6988c0e8-eaf2-5c3d-9fd1-1d2c8b27d130)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_ad0e795b-4af2-567e-8e9b-386eb421048c)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_b9482514-be8b-5bc7-8eea-be9b4a7bced0)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_f7c4eae0-a47d-57e1-86e4-284b3e765ea0)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_f9da293e-e19c-5c92-af33-dea0b7ffa5a7)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_58a9ae0f-62d1-5dfb-985d-1187dc1672de)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_7f0a0ba5-6ba5-51f8-ade2-aecb3cb0e2c5)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_ca484ea9-2c15-5275-9927-51b756313253)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_cccb7cee-1f6d-58a4-a9d9-daecaa3f97f9)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_27979615-69f8-58f6-abdd-bd790445875c)
Chapter 11 (#ulink_e49ba6df-527f-5e44-8c3a-94a3bae78445)
Chapter 12 (#ulink_e7fb6176-7014-5516-9e2d-e8cda8221d66)
Chapter 13 (#ulink_6ef6af53-3cb7-5bd8-8160-625f38e1aba2)
Chapter 14 (#ulink_a92fbe3c-19a0-5803-affa-d16aa747ae3b)
Chapter 15 (#ulink_f153e76a-256c-54ab-b271-1b277e6dee64)
Chapter 16 (#ulink_e5cff150-cfaa-55da-9675-a9e91f3146fe)
Chapter 17 (#ulink_cae52df8-31b8-52d2-a362-fa7baa028196)
Chapter 18 (#ulink_5876dce0-0871-5c0d-8234-c79080c0be94)
Chapter 19 (#ulink_ca4643af-76a4-5e55-b885-42d310a85b22)
Chapter 20 (#ulink_9cbe4edb-86be-5eda-b1eb-4a2c5475764a)
Chapter 21 (#ulink_015cc7c1-9017-5fa4-af85-b9fd32b91c1e)
Epilogue (#ulink_b7dfda41-2337-5fc3-baae-e5bb389a3c1a)
Exclusive sample chapter (#u61451ff7-9ec9-539d-9984-9e36d74e2e7a)
Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#u9eb45a78-bcb7-5b69-9266-9cf763dcfb59)
Write for Us (#ud1a41555-6fe9-5c33-b8b6-1635d01478e9)
About the Publisher (#u9fee4d80-0d81-5fba-9ea1-b4a3396cb328)
By the same author (#uc9790101-6853-5bf5-9560-56ef66dd35bc)
Helpless: A True Short Story
Trapped: The Terrifying True Story of a Secret World of Abuse
A Small Boy’s Cry
Two More Sleeps
Prologue (#uc9790101-6853-5bf5-9560-56ef66dd35bc)
Moonlight shrouded a robed figure as he entered the unlit hallway, his silhouette fading with a gentle clunk as the double lock was secured behind him. Nine-year-old Zadie watched the stranger’s arrival through a narrow gap in the banisters, a chill prickling across the top of her scalp at the sight of the black leather bag clutched in his hand. The realisation of what was inside made her heart pound so hard that she imagined it might squeeze through her ribs and escape from her chest.
Shivering as she crouched on her haunches, her eyes ferreted the shadows for Nadeen. There was no sign of her sister but she could just make out her father as he crossed the hall beneath her, his sandalled feet echoing on the bare floorboards. The late-night visitor followed; a thin, upright sort of man with a thick beard and greying, straggly hair; nothing like the monster who had stalked her dreams. Sensing nervousness in the way her father moved, Zadie felt another hammering inside her chest. Ripples pulsed upwards, teasing her throat into a cough.
She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, hardly able to believe that the rumours she had feared since she was a little girl were about to merge with reality. Her stomach lurched, bile fizzing at the back of her throat. Tempted to run directly back to her bedroom, she straightened and was about to turn when muffled sobs from the back room rooted her feet to the floor.
‘Please, Papa. I don’t need an injection, please.’
Zadie squeezed her hands flat against her ears to try and block out her sister’s pleading. Closing her eyes, she was gripped by the sudden image of a woman drifting through the air in front of her. As always, as soon as she tried to reach out for the comfort she knew she’d find there, the grainy presence vanished, sounds of a struggle from downstairs chasing it away.
Zadie whimpered and ran back to her bedroom, slumping down onto her mattress and pulling her pillow over her head. An hour before first light she fell into a troubled sleep but was soon woken by a shuffling noise outside the door. Nadeen walked slowly into the room, tears rolling down her cheeks. As the 12-year-old rolled tentatively into the bed opposite her own, her legs bound tightly together with bandages, Zadie could see tell-tale spots of red on the back of her sister’s linen nightdress. Silently she crossed the room, reaching out to stroke Nadeen’s back.
Zadie sighed with relief as dawn approached and the male members of the household left for morning prayers.
Chapter 1 (#uc9790101-6853-5bf5-9560-56ef66dd35bc)
‘Do you think she’ll be like Phoebe was when she first came?’ my son Jamie called out from his bedroom.
I couldn’t help but smile at the hesitancy in his tone as I swept from room to room, checking there were fresh towels in the bathroom and grabbing a floral duvet set from the airing cupboard. Nine-year-old Phoebe had stayed with us for almost a year before moving on to a long-term carer. The friendly, kind and bubbly girl we said goodbye to was unrecognisable from the angry whirlwind we had first met. Our house seemed so much emptier without her presence and, despite her leaving months earlier and other children staying with us meanwhile, we still missed her. But the first few weeks of Phoebe’s stay had been challenging for all of us, especially so for Jamie.
From the moment she arrived Phoebe had fixated on him so that, whenever she was confused or upset, Jamie would be the one who got a wet finger shoved into his ear or a plate thrown at him. As she settled and learnt to trust us we witnessed some dramatic changes in her behaviour, so much so that our motivation to foster had grown even stronger, but the traumatic start had left Jamie chary of new arrivals.
‘No, I doubt it,’ I said, though my words sounded hollow. I actually had no idea what Zadie Hassan would be like. In a hurried telephone conversation with her social worker late that afternoon, I had been told that the 13-year-old was from a Muslim family who had never come to the attention of social services before, and so information was sketchy. Of Asian heritage, Zadie had been found by two patrolling police officers early that morning, sheltering in a shop doorway in a central northern shopping centre. Apparently she had pleaded with officers not to take her home, begging as if her life depended on it. She had seemed so genuinely terrified that the officers took her straight to the police station and alerted social services.
At 13, Zadie was outside of our approved age range, but she had spent most of the day waiting at the local authority offices, listening as social workers phoned agency after agency, trying to match her with Muslim foster carers. By the time the decision was reached to settle her with a white British family it was almost 5 p.m. and the poor girl was exhausted. Strictly speaking, our family was only approved to take children from 0 to 11, leaving a gap of at least two years between any child coming into our home and my own youngest, Jamie, who was just 13. But when an ideal match isn’t possible and a child urgently needs a warm bed to sleep in, social workers are usually prepared to bend the rules.
A gap of two years is recommended between looked-after and birth children so that the family dynamics are roughly unchanged. If disrupted, resentment against the foster child can build to a point where the placement breaks down. Some fostered children have been so badly abused in their own homes that they find it difficult to witness the positive environment when they arrive in a foster home and seek to sabotage the relationships between family members, so it’s important to maintain the original pecking order.
Preparing children for family life when they have had little experience of boundaries or parental discipline takes time and patience. Even getting them to sit at the table at meal times can seem like an insurmountable task, in the beginning. I wondered whether we would experience any behavioural issues with Zadie. If so, we would have to brace ourselves to get through the first few weeks while she adjusted to our house rules and boundaries.
I had cared for teenagers before and emerged unscathed so I wasn’t too worried about Zadie’s age. What concerned me more was her culture. Would she feel comfortable living with people who didn’t share her faith? I wondered. My own parents were Christian and, having grown up in a house where one adult was more devout than the other, I had witnessed first-hand the problems that differing religious views can cause. My father was so determined to prevent any of his children drifting away from the Church that he would only allow us to mix with families who shared his faith. Such a sheltered existence left me wary of outsiders when I was Zadie’s age. It took years for me to realise that people didn’t necessarily need to be religious to have a good heart. I wondered whether Zadie might feel as guarded as I had. If so, she might well feel awkward around us, frightened even.
Armed with clean linen and towels, I went through to make up Zadie’s bed. It was almost 6 p.m. but the bright, early May sunshine was still streaming through the window, giving the magnolia walls a cheery glow. I was pleased Zadie would have the room in our house that got the most sun during the day; she needed to recover from the nights spent sleeping outside.
I wondered whether there was anything about the place that Zadie’s parents might disapprove of, certain that they would have concerns about her staying in an environment so far removed from her own. The last thing I wanted was for Zadie to feel uncomfortable in what was to be her home.
My 16-year-old daughter Emily, still dressed in her school uniform, was already bustling around the room with accessories she thought Zadie might like. As if reading my thoughts, she plucked a book from the shelf beside the bed and handed it to me. It was a children’s illustrated Bible. ‘I don’t think she’ll be needing that, Mum,’ she said.
‘No, you’re right,’ I said, grimacing. ‘Help me scout around and see if there’s anything else we should move, would you, Ems?’
Emily nodded, kneeling in front of the bookshelf and running her index finger along the spines. ‘There’s a Muslim girl in my class, Mum. Aisha. She has, like, a special room to go and pray in. She’s never allowed to skip prayers and she sometimes has to miss lessons to do it. Muslims have to wash their feet and everything before they pray.’
‘And they’re not allowed to fart,’ Jamie piped up from his bedroom. ‘Or they have to start all over again.’
Emily rolled her eyes. ‘He’s so gross, Mum.’
I could hear Jamie snickering to himself. Leaning out of the bedroom door, I called down the hall, ‘How did you discover that then, Jamie?’
‘Rohan told me. But I’m not sure if he was lying or not.’
Typical of my son to retain that particular nugget of information, I thought, although, to be fair, it was the sort of thing that captured the imagination of 13-year-old boys. There were actually quite a few Muslim pupils at Jamie’s school so he shouldn’t have been too ignorant about the faith. In fact, one of his friends from primary school had been Muslim. I remembered Jamie going to Tariq’s house for tea one day after school. He must have been about six or seven at the time and the little rascal had cleared his plate, yet at home he had been such a picky eater. When I asked Tariq’s mother how she managed such a feat she volunteered to show me how to cook chicken shorba with keema naans. I had taken her up on the offer, so at least I was confident about cooking a traditional meal for Zadie, although it was probably gross stereotyping to assume that she even liked spicy food.
Emily broke my chain of thought, handing me another pile of books – the Harry Potter series. ‘Goodness, all of these have to go as well?’
‘Honestly, Mum. Muslims are so strict. There’s no way Zadie would be allowed to read these. Aisha is the only one in our class who hasn’t seen the films. I feel really sorry for her.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said, my mind racing again. Emily had sparked a memory of myself as a child, coming home from school in an excited state and telling my parents about our assembly that morning. It had been close to the end of term and teachers had arranged for a magician to come into our school to perform a show for the children. My father was furious and complained to the school; to him, magic meant sorcery – a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. He feared that through magic there was a risk of me being seduced by the occult. After that, whenever a story or topic involving magic came up, my teacher would ask me to leave the room. I think my classmates felt sorry for me at the time. I bit my lip. ‘Strict isn’t necessarily bad, Ems,’ I said, bending to rest the heavy pile of books on the carpet in the hall. ‘Look at your grandfather and how devout he is, but we weren’t unhappy growing up.’ I fanned my fingers and swept my hands through the air in front of me. ‘And see how I’ve turned out?’
Emily curled her upper lip. ‘Exactly. See what I mean?’
I gave her a mock stern look.
She grinned. ‘I’m just so glad we’re not that religious, Mum. It’d be awful.’
‘I think you’re generalising, Em. Faith can be a positive thing. And Muslims are no different to anyone else. All religions have their extremists but on the whole people just want get on with their lives and do the best they can, don’t they?’
She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t see how anyone can be happy with all those rules. I bet that’s why Zadie ran away. Her parents were wa-a-ay too strict.’
‘We don’t know that at all,’ I said, shaking the pillows and moving the duvet so I could get on with making up the bed. ‘We hardly know anything about them.’ But what Emily had said really got me thinking. So many questions ran through my mind. Had Zadie rebelled against her faith, or would she still need a special area for prayers? And what about visiting the mosque? I wondered as I manoeuvred the pillows into freshly washed cases. If Zadie wanted to worship in a particular way, then, as a foster carer, I had to honour her beliefs and provide her with whatever she needed to maintain her faith.
Still, whatever hurdles we had to get over, a feeling of excitement ran through me. It wasn’t unusual for me to feel apprehensive before meeting a new, temporary member of the family. If I was to take the best care I could of Zadie then there was certainly a lot I had to learn. I got the sense that this placement would open my eyes to a way of life very different to my own but I was looking forward to the challenge. I resolved to do a bit of research on Google if I had time before Zadie arrived. But preparing the room had to be a priority.
Both Emily and I loved the build-up of getting everything ready, and making the child’s own special place look welcoming was a practical way of doing something positive for them before they’d even arrived. Usually I would make an effort to find out what interested the child, tailoring the room so that it was unique to them, although often that wasn’t possible.
