A Boy Without Hope

by Casey Watson

  I remember reading something about surfing once (definitely not a sport for me) and how a single second of success riding a wave was all it took. You were walking on water – flying, even – and there was no feeling like it. Which is why though surfing, dangerous at the best of times, was apparently one of the slowest skills to master, it was also so uniquely addictive.

  Was that my core problem with Miller? That I just wasn’t getting any fixes? Because I wasn’t. I was just banging my head against a brick wall, and failing to dislodge a single brick. Yes, I’d learned a few things now. Got some sort of handle on his many demons. But with the child himself – the flesh and blood little human who was in my care – there wasn’t so much as a flicker of connection, of warmth. Of the little signals – accepting a hug, a hand held, leaning into a goodnight kiss – that showed a child, however closed down, still needed affection. I had long sympathised with parents of severely autistic children, who so often couldn’t bear to be touched, and how painful it must be for them to have such physicality rebuffed. I had also cared for children for whom normal physical gestures of affection were so alien as to be initially repelled. But I had always got fixes. Maybe tiny ones, to start with, but always just enough to keep me going.

  And that just wasn’t happening here. Miller, it seemed, could take me or leave me. But he didn’t want me, and – Libby’s words now had resonance – he didn’t like me. Which shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t my job to be liked. It was to care. But could I care for him effectively if he didn’t?

  I must have sat there in my armchair for an hour, all told – something I almost never do, and when I realised the time, I also realised something else. That I had obviously chilled out, as the kids might have had it – that, apart from that first revelation, I’d sunk into a kind of fugue; I couldn’t even remember the passing of the time. It unnerved me slightly – how do you lose a whole hour? But what unnerved me even more was the thought that suddenly jumped into my head then, which was only eleven hours left now.

  Christine Bolton was due to arrive for our catch-up at 11.00 a.m., so I still had a couple of hours left to make myself presentable, and to make the house respectable, so that’s what I did. I lost myself again, then, but in a good way – doing what I loved best – cleaning, disinfecting, bleaching, hoovering and polishing. I also stripped all the beds, and got the laundry done and out on the line, loving the fact that the sunshine had already warmed up the back garden so much that I could sit out and enjoy my mid-morning coffee. Even the different birds had joined forces to sing me a chorus of celebration!

  I’d just finished it when Christine Bolton arrived, bang on the dot of eleven. And looking as sharp as I remembered, in a charcoal skirt suit. ‘You’re looking a lot better than you sounded on the phone,’ she observed, as I led her straight out into the garden. .

  ‘I feel it,’ I told her. ‘He’s in school, and I’m free! And it’s such a lovely sunny morning that I thought we’d have our meeting out here, if it’s okay with you?’

  ‘Bring. It. On.’ she agreed, turning her face up to the sun. ‘Best drug bar none.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Grab a seat and I’ll head in to make drinks. Tea for ma’am, yes?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  I headed inside to make the devil’s drink, and as I filled the kettle I could see Christine shrugging off her jacket, drinking the sun in as she did so. And, not for the first time, was enormously grateful that I no longer had the sort of job that required jackets, tights, laptop bags and suits – and all the other hateful trappings of a professional career.

  I also saw her delve into her bag and pluck her phone out. Then take a call that, from her pained expression, definitely wasn’t a welcome one. Another trapping of a job like Christine’s – and John’s, of course – was that you’re on call for fire-fighting pretty much twenty-four seven. I felt for her. Wondered how she was settling in to her new role.

  By the time I returned to the garden, the phone was face down on the table, and her own face didn’t look quite as relaxed as before. In fact, despite the fact that she was wearing sunglasses, I could see she looked rattled.

  ‘Can never get away from stuff with those things, can you?’ I commented, nodding towards her mobile as I set down the tray. She scowled at it. ‘You okay?’ I asked. ‘I saw you on the phone just then. Everything alright?’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ she said, though it was obvious that it wasn’t. ‘Just a bit of a domestic, that’s all. Elderly parent stuff – sure you know how it goes.’

  I did – well, only to a point, thankfully. I also remembered that Christine’s elderly father-in-law had dementia. That it had been the reason she’d taken John’s old job in the first place.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘it must be so hard for you. How’s your father-in-law doing?’

  A grimace. Which she turned into a grim smile as she looked at me. ‘Doing everything he shouldn’t be, pretty much, at the moment. Everything he wouldn’t be – wouldn’t be able to if my sainted husband would simply accept that we need to put him into residential care, basically. Sorry. Enough of my moaning. So, how are things going with Miller?’

  I got the sense that if given sufficient rein, she’d have much more to say. And I felt so sorry for her. Whole new area, out on a limb, no support … ‘No, it’s fine,’ I began, but then her mobile buzzed again. Deprived of its ringer – obviously set to ‘off’ – it was skittering its way over the glass top of the garden table.

  Another scowl. She made no move to pick it up. Then thought better of it, looked at the display, then swiped across the screen. The ‘not available’ option, no doubt.

  ‘Seriously, don’t worry about me if you want to take that,’ I told her, as I poured out her tea. ‘I have all the time in the world today, remember?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Really, it’s fine. It’s only my husband again. Always has to have the last word.’ Her shoulders slumped now. ‘Thanks for this,’ she said, lifting the cup. ‘Just what I needed. ‘Oh, Casey. It’s just so … so frustrating. I mean, it’s not as if I’m not supportive – God, I couldn’t be more supportive – but he just doesn’t seem to accept that I have a full-time job, too. That having to deal these daily crises with his father just isn’t possible. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve been interrupted in the middle of meetings – either a neighbour, of one of his home carers, or the police …’

  I remembered something else she’d said. ‘But your husband works from home, doesn’t he? Can’t he deal with most of them?’

  ‘Oh, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But for all that he feels terrible about putting his dad in a home, he’s also got that male thing of compartmentalising down to a T.’ Another grim smile as she picked up her treacherous mobile. ‘And of course, unlike me, he can switch his phone off.’

  I tried to put myself in her shoes and could visualise myself there all too easily. Though it was a reminder of just how lucky I was; both my parents, so far, were healthy and mentally sound, and I knew that if either of them became ill in that way, I’d want to give up work immediately, so I could deal with it. Which was in itself a privilege. As was the knowledge that I’d have the support and help of both Mike and the kids. I felt for her. No children. And how much family were close by to support her? I suspected few or none. ‘Things are that bad then?’ I ventured. ‘What about his wife – your husband’s mother?’

  ‘Oh, bad for definite. They’re bad to awful. And sadly, she really can’t cope with him. She’s not quite … well, let’s say I suspect she might be heading down the same road. And, of course, she calls Charles endlessly. Day and night.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I mean we always knew it was going to get worse – that’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it? But the time is fast approaching when something really bad is going to happen. He’ll wander off somewhere where no one can find him. Or have an accident. Or set the house on fire … Does he want that to happen? Just because he feels too guilty to do what nee
ds to be done?’ She sipped her tea. ‘But enough. More importantly, speaking of people who might burn down their houses, I’ve read the fire officer’s report on Miller, and your emails about the knives and lighters. This is obviously a major red flag, Casey, isn’t it?’

  The subject duly changed, the conversation moved on to Miller and seeing her concern, it struck me just how ‘normal’ our abnormal lives with him had become. The sheer fact that Christine was taking the whole fire thing so seriously, when, to me, at least, it was just another item on the list of Miller-related anxieties. And I thought of Mike’s words – ‘he could have burned the house down, with us in it!’ – and wondered if being cooped up with Miller for so long had dulled my sense, my appreciation, of the danger we might be in.

  ‘All this fascination with death and destruction,’ Christine was going on, reading from a report on her now open laptop. ‘D’you think he intends to act on any of it? What’s your take on his mental state currently? And these disclosures he’s been making – d’you think there’s an escalation in his need to vocalise things? If so that’s progress, isn’t it?’ (I’d talked a lot about my lack of progress.) ‘Though I worry that he might be unleashing something that might precipitate a crisis …’

  I nodded. ‘The fascination with death is definitely becoming more and more of a thing with him. As is the twin obsession with babies. Dead babies – as I wrote in my email. There is definitely a theme, one I presume has been indoctrinated in his early childhood, not least by his grandmother, that there are too many babies in the world, and that when they die it’s a good thing. And that he’s definitely one too many …’

  But then I stopped, transfixed. Because, from under Christine’s sunglasses there had appeared a tear. She was still looking down at her laptop. Apparently reading one of my recent emails, but that line of saline, tracking down her cheek, to plop onto her keyboard, told a very different tale.

  Or might it be hay fever? No. If it had been she would have said so. Would have sniffled, would have started a discussion about the misery of allergies. I might have offered to go and fetch her an anti-histamine.

  None of this happened. So I did nothing. Perhaps she was hoping I hadn’t seen it? But the silence lengthened, and I was at a loss to know what to put in it. Should I pretend I hadn’t seen it? Let her regain her composure? Yes, probably. But it was then joined by a second tear, rolling down her other cheek.

  ‘Christine,’ I said gently. ‘Are you okay?’

  In response she reached into her bag for a travel pack of tissues. Then she took off the sunglasses and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I will be, just give me a minute.’

  So I did that as well, sipping my glass of squash, while she delicately blew her nose. And, once again, I felt so sorry for her. Here was I, droning on, when she was clearly still struggling with the angry exchange she’d had with her husband. Still worrying about troubles she thought she’d left at home today. ‘Look,’ I said, eventually, because I could see she was still struggling, ‘we can catch up another time, if you like. I know you have a lot on your mind. Let’s just have another cuppa, hey? We don’t have to do this today.’

  She shook her head and straightened her back, ‘No, Casey, it’s okay. I’m so sorry,’ she added. ‘This is so unprofessional of me. It’s just a culmination of things, to be honest. And reading about Miller’s thing with dead babies …’ A grimace. A wan smile. ‘Just set me off again, that’s all. Forgive me.’

  ‘Of course it would,’ I said. But her words confused me slightly. Surely, in her job, like mine, she’d heard worse. A lot worse. ‘Like I say, you obviously have a lot on your plate.’

  She nodded. And I realised she was nodding because she couldn’t speak again. Had the proverbial lump still very much in her throat. And when she did speak, she said, ‘God, Christine, get a bloody grip!’ Then started furiously dabbing at her eyes again.

  ‘Christine, really,’ I said, ‘if you need to leave and sort something out with your father-in-law, it’s fine. This can wait. It’s –’

  She shook her head. ‘It isn’t that. It’s just the whole thing with babies. Just today of all days … Forgive me,’ she said again. ‘It’s just touched a nerve, that’s all. It’s just my daughter …’

  ‘Your daughter?’ But didn’t she say she didn’t have any children? Oh, lord.

  Now she nodded. ‘She died as a baby. Cot death.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Christine. I had no idea.’

  She flapped a hand, almost dismissively. An action I recognised. As if to say ‘no, please let’s not go there’. Self-preservation. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. It’s just –’ Unshed tears spilled from her eyes again. ‘That today would have been her eighteenth birthday. Today, of all days, eh? And he’s banging on about his bloody father, and, you know, sometimes it’s just … just …

  ‘Just that he didn’t even say anything, not a word. Not a single word. I mean, I know people deal with grief in different ways, and I know it was a long time ago, but it’s what it says, isn’t it? Not that he’s forgotten. I accept that. He moved on. It’s fine. It’s just that he knows how much it means to me. Just to think of her. To remember her. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Just a hug. Just …’ She drew in an enormous breath, then exhaled. ‘God, what am I like? Casey I really am so sorry …’

  I reached a hand across the table and gripped one of hers. ‘Christine, stop saying that! Of course you’re upset. You’ve every right to be upset.’

  Another wan smile crossed her lips. ‘But I’m supposed to be here for you. Not the other way around.’

  My heart went out to her. To the human beneath the polished, sometimes brusque-seeming professional. Who clearly had her own heavy crosses to bear.

  ‘Don’t be so flipping daft,’ I said. ‘You just sit there for as long as you need. If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. If you don’t want to talk we won’t. If you want to sit there and cry for a bit, I’ll go get some bigger tissues.’

  To my surprise, Christine then burst out laughing, even through her tears. ‘Oh, Casey, bless you. You’ve cheered me up already. You really have. And I promise, no more tears now. Another cuppa and a couple of biscuits, and I’ll be right as rain, honestly. Enough, enough, enough, now. Seriously. I’m fine. So, back to business.’ She turned once again to her laptop. ‘To Miller. I have some extremely good news for you.’

  Chapter 20

  Christine Bolton might not have realised it at the time, but even before she’d imparted her good news, she had cheered me up a good deal as well. Though it feels wrong to say that one person’s traumas can lift another person’s spirits, in this case there was an element of unexpected truth. Because I knew that one of the key issues I was wrestling with as I navigated Miller’s placement with us was that constant feeling that I was going it alone. And that made me realise just what a big factor John Fulshaw’s support had been – bigger even than I’d consciously known.

  It’s an often-used word, ‘bonding’, and a bit of a modern cliché, but in this case it felt like the right one. Just as Christine had bared her soul to me, showing me the woman behind the job title, so I suddenly felt I’d leapt the gap between our respective and different roles. And I’d seen that I’d made assumptions about her that were inaccurate, and slightly damning – seen a lickety-spit professional with lots of tick-boxes and targets but no understanding of the human challenges the job I did involved.

  But I was wrong. I’d judged her harshly without knowing the whole picture, probably because I’d been too engrossed in my own woes. And now I did know it, not only did my heart go out to her, obviously, but I also felt we’d made an important personal connection.

  And her ‘extremely good news’ sounded extremely good as well.

  ‘It’s quite a new initiative,’ she explained, once things returned to more of an even keel and another pot of tea had been administered
. ‘But we have at our disposal, throughout the county, one or two older carers who are nearing retirement – in some cases retired, even – and who no longer wish to take on children for set lengths of time, but don’t want to step out completely. In fact, in most cases, these carers haven’t had a full-time placement for a few years. The kind who’ve been bobbing along, doing respite, and so on, but who’d prefer to channel their energies into a single child, for the long term. Sort of mentoring more than fostering, if you like.’

  She went on to explain that this specific group of potential carers they were recruiting tended to come from a work background that favoured rather strict regimes, such as the military, the police or the prison service. They had then undergone further training within the fostering service to hone particular skills; those that would enable them to work with the most challenging children that came into care, to help support beleaguered full-time foster carers. ‘So rather than doing respite as and when, as is the norm,’ Christine explained, ‘they are being partnered up with full-time carers who are in situations such as yours, where, without such continuity of regular respite, a long-term placement would probably prove unmanageable.’

  ‘So kind of sharing the responsibility?’ I suggested.

  ‘Exactly. But more than that – this isn’t just “holding the reins”, like, say, a supply teacher or baby sitter might do – or playing gran, holding the fort, while mum and dad are away. Their role is also to work intensively with the children on their behaviour.’

  ‘So no slipping them sweeties while mum’s back is turned, kind of thing.’

  ‘Precisely. It will be sort of on the same lines as the school Miller’s started at today. With a strict “good behaviour means rewards” regime. They will have lots of fun – that’s a given, and part and parcel of the set-up – but they have to earn it, and if they don’t, then they will learn that they’ll get nothing other than routine and a safe place to be for a couple of days. And, just as in school, the onus will be completely on Miller to have good or not so good days when he goes there.’