A Boy Without Hope

by Casey Watson

  Because he was now ‘taking’ the placebo anyway, there seemed little point in confronting him immediately. Our current priority – and everyone involved was agreed on that point – was to get Miller back to Mavis’s for his next respite visit. If there was any prospect of things working long term, getting Miller into the routine of those fortnightly visits was key. I still wasn’t sure things were going to work long term, and I was now more loath to commit to it than ever, but I had to give it my best shot over the school summer holidays, as once he was back in school I knew things would improve, even if only in that I got my days back once again.

  But just as I was daring to make plans for our next respite weekend, Miller threw me another curve ball. Despite having told Tyler – if not me – how much he was looking forward to ‘escaping prison’ for the weekend, when I looked in on him to say goodnight on the Thursday evening – the night before he was due at Mavis’s – he clearly had other ideas.

  He was sitting on his bed, scribbling numbers on his pad, and he didn’t even look up at me when I wished him a good night and dared to mention his upcoming mini-break.

  ‘You think you’ve got a little holiday coming up, don’t you?’ he said, as he continued to write down numbers. ‘Well, you haven’t. Just so you know.’

  ‘Miller, chop-chop. Time for bed,’ I said, deciding to ignore it. He was just trying to wind me up – to punish me – and it was important not to react.

  ‘I need three more minutes,’ he said.

  ‘That’s fine, love,’ I replied. ‘Then into bed and off to sleep, okay?’

  Now he did look up, presumably because he was surprised I hadn’t taken the bait. I smiled at him. ‘Sleep tight. Hope the bed bugs don’t bite.’

  ‘God. I’m not five,’ came the muttered response.

  ***

  And now it was Friday morning, and despite my spending the entire night with fingers, arms and legs crossed that that was all it had been, a wind-up, he was, it seemed, keeping his word. ‘I’m not going! I am. Not. Fucking. Going!’ he yelled, as I called upstairs that the driver had arrived.

  And this despite him having dressed and had his breakfast. So was this part of an all-morning strategy to lead me to hope, or a spur of-the-moment reversal? I had absolutely no idea.

  ‘Miller,’ I called back up, ‘if I have to ring Mike up and get him to come home from work, I will. And Tyler will be back any minute, so please don’t cause a scene. Just come on down and get in the car, please.’

  Although I knew Miller would perceive these bits of information as a warning, it was much more a cry for help – from me. Testing as it had been for Tyler to look after his little niece, I knew coming back home to a row – he’d only popped into town to pick up his weekly music magazine – would be the last thing we needed. Especially if he walked back in to see Miller screaming abuse at me.

  Miller had by now come out onto the landing. ‘Ignoring you! Ignoring you!’ he yelled down from the top of the stairs. ‘Just tell him to go. Because I’m NOT GETTING IN!’

  Chris – now our regular driver – had by now come to the door. ‘Don’t worry. I can wait half an hour,’ he reassured me. ‘But no more than that, I’m afraid, because I have an airport run scheduled next.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, with a great deal more confidence than I felt. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure we can get this straightened out before then. I’ll go see if I can talk him round again. Fingers crossed.’

  Chris went back to his car, and now I had a decision to make. Did I try to talk him round, knowing that was exactly what he wanted? Knowing he wanted it so he could score that precious point off me?

  Because instinct told me he was happy to spend another weekend having fun with Mavis. It just sat at odds with his fury at me for being the one to instigate the respite, and that whole ‘loss of control’ thing he struggled to get past. I was certain that, ultimately, he would get in the car. He would just first take it to the absolute limit. Yet more depressing evidence that I’d made not a jot of difference since the day he’d come to us. Just become another person for him to refuse to cede control to.

  So how to play it? Did I take more decisive action, and call Mike? Given that the taxi clock was ticking I decided I’d better opt for the latter plan. I felt bad dragging Mike home from work, but I also felt powerless – and the last thing I wanted was to have Tyler get involved.

  Mike told me he’d be home in ten minutes – thankfully, he’d just gone on lunch break anyway – and I spent the first five of them trying to convince myself I still had a vestige of control. Even if I didn’t have much of a strategy.

  All I had was an analysis. That he was willing to cut his nose off to spite his face just to punish me. Forget the new computer game we’d bought him, forget that we’d let him choose last night’s takeaway, forget that we’d tried so hard not to rise to his goading. This was a power play, and he knew he was the one with all the power. Such was the excruciating nature of this kind of respite arrangement, and always had been. Perhaps always would be.

  And I got that. This wasn’t ‘time-out’ for a beloved toddler who’s temporarily pushed all the buttons. This wasn’t a parent saying to a cherished child, ‘I love you dearly, but you need time alone, to reflect.’ This was us, as a foster family, sending our foster child away. Yes, only for a weekend. But it might as well have been a month. The best option for us currently. And the least worst for Miller. But how did you build self-love, self-respect and self-esteem in a child if you are confirming their self-loathing by sending them away? No matter how sensitively handled, or how pressing the need, that was always going to be the elephant in the room – the thing that set foster children apart from flesh and blood or adoptive children.

  Of course, often it wasn’t like that. Respite might be needed and accepted by a child without distress. Say, if a family member fell sick, or foster parents were unexpectedly called away, or for a multitude of other, less damning reasons. But sometimes – and we often took on this kind of respite ourselves – it was because a carer couldn’t cope with a child they’d been given. And there was no way of sugaring that bitter pill for them.

  And in this case it was compounded by previous experience. Miller had been long enough in the system to understand that ours was a professional relationship. That, in fact, we held all the cards. We could choose who to foster. And, similarly, we could choose who to stop fostering as well. It was just wretched. For both of us. That was the painful, painful truth. I still had five minutes. I at least had to try.

  ‘Please come down, love,’ I said, walking up the stairs towards him. He turned around and walked back into his room. ‘I know you’re cross with me, but we really can’t have all this fuss, love,’ I said. ‘And it’s not fair on Chris. And Mike’s missing his lunch break now, too.’

  He was sitting on his bed, cross-legged and cross-armed, like a small angry Buddha. ‘Oh, so big bad Mike is coming to get me now, is he?’ he snapped. ‘Well, good luck with that!’

  ‘Love, I just don’t understand what’s going on,’ I said, sitting beside him. ‘I thought you enjoyed going to see Mavis. You loved it there last time. What’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he huffed. ‘I just don’t want to go! She only lets me play on my PlayStation for how long she decides, and she hates takeaway food. I’m not going because I’m teaching her a lesson.’

  This confused me momentarily. I’d been so wrapped up in the idea of Miller punishing me that I’d quite forgotten that he needed to control her as well. Was all of this actually about her?

  ‘Well if all this is to hurt Mavis in some way, love, then it won’t work,’ I said. ‘It just means that she will have a weekend without having to fight with you, won’t she? And you will be the only one who suffers for it. She had plans to take you places, too – fun places – but, well, now …’ – I added all this gently, as if explaining a maths equation to a struggling pupil – ‘… because of your behaviour today, here, with me, and causin
g Chris all this hassle, if you stay here, you will, of course, have to lose your PlayStation for the whole weekend, so …’

  ‘Except he won’t be staying here, Casey.’

  Mike had come up the steps and was now in the bedroom doorway. ‘He’s going to stay with Mavis, as per the plan, as will be the plan every two weeks from now on, and that’s that.’

  Miller scrabbled up to his feet, on the bed. ‘I won’t get in that car!’ he told Mike.’ ‘I hate Chris as well! He drives like a lunatic!’

  ‘Just as well I’ve sent him on his way then, hey?’ Mike said. ‘Poor guy has better things to do than hanging around while you play silly beggars. I’m taking you to Mavis’s myself. Now off that bed, grab your hoodie, and move!’

  Miller did move. He darted off the bed, dodged past both Mike and I and was off down the stairs like a lightning bolt. Mike followed. ‘I’ll get him, Case,’ he shouted back up as he went. ‘You put his bag or whatever in the back of the car – he’s getting in it one way or another!’

  Just as I’d rattled down the stairs into the hall, I saw Tyler coming in through the front door. ‘Mum! What the heck’s going on?’

  I hurriedly explained. ‘Grab his bag, love,’ I said, ‘and shove it in the back of the car. Your dad’s chasing him down the street.’

  ‘So I noticed! Should I go and help? What is wrong with this kid?’

  I shook my head. ‘No love, Dad’s got this. Ah,’ I pointed, ‘and him. But that’s certainly the million-dollar question.’

  The commotion was the full audio-visual.

  ‘Get the fuck off me!’ Miller was screaming, as Mike frogmarched him to his car. ‘I’m getting you done! You can’t put your hands on me! I’m calling the fucking police!’

  I could only imagine the twitching curtains in the neighbouring houses. And there was no let-up as they marched up the street. And worse still was that Tyler, unable to stop himself, scooted past me to join in the fray. ‘Stop screaming right now!’ he shouted. ‘And get into that car before I personally drag you into it! I’m not your foster carer, Miller – got that? – so I’m not bothered who you tell!’

  I could see Mike grip his arm, to try and calm him down.

  Again. I thought, a-bloody-gain. The poor lad had only just come back home and now he was witnessing his parents being shown up on the street. But it had the desired effect. I watched Miller relax into Mike’s grip. He even reached out to open the car door, then calmly got into it.

  Well, apparently calmly. Hard to say at a distance. I wondered what kind of journey Mike had ahead of him. What state Miller would be in for poor Mavis.

  And something else. What sort of state Tyler was in now.

  All of these. Before worrying about poor Miller. But even as my brain clicked into normal fostering-thinking gear, I knew that, increasingly, it wasn’t happening automatically. That I was having to remind myself to remember ‘it’s the behaviour, not the child’.

  ‘I think I’m done,’ I said to Tyler, as the car disappeared round the corner. ‘I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want you involved in all this, love. Seriously. I think I mean it. I think we’re getting too old for all this stress, love.’

  ‘Mum, don’t be daft,’ Tyler said. ‘You’re just stressed. Come on, come in, and let me make you a coffee. The weekend starts here, remember? And it’s not even the weekend yet! And it’s not you, Mum,’ he added, as we went back indoors. ‘It’s not all kids. It’s just him. I really don’t think he wants to be liked by anyone. I swear. He really doesn’t.’

  ‘All the more reason to try and change that.’

  ‘Mum, get real. There’s only so much you can do.’

  ‘Blimey, love. Quite the philosopher.’

  ‘Yeah, well I have a lot of thinking time. Mum, the nicer you try to be to him, the worse he seems to treat you. Perhaps, I don’t know, he just doesn’t fit well in a family. Perhaps he needs not to be in one. Have you ever thought of that? Anyway, he’s gone now,’ he said, as he set about making coffee. ‘And I’m off to meet Denver, so you can have some of your precious “me time”. So will you go and grab your rubber gloves and cleaning bucket or shall I?’

  I wasn’t in swiping range, so I couldn’t, but I shook my head anyway. ‘No, you know what? I won’t clean. I’m just going to sit down and relax. I’m just going to – what is it you young ones say these days? – watch Netflix and chill.’

  Tyler’s face was a picture. I didn’t know why, quite, but it was. ‘Please don’t ever say that again, Mum,’ he said firmly.

  Chapter 24

  I spent a lot of time thinking about what Tyler said, particularly about Miller perhaps not fitting well inside a family. Which, despite my wishing otherwise – family was all, wasn’t it? Family, a loving family, was the gold standard, wasn’t it? – did seem to hold a kernel of possible truth. But I had no idea that things would be taken so explosively out of my hands.

  ‘Casey, Casey, wake up, love!’ It was early on Sunday morning. And Mike was jiggling my shoulder, trying to drag me out of my lie-in.

  ‘What? What is it?’ I asked, turning over, and hoping for coffee. ‘What time is it?’ I asked as I propped myself up.

  ‘Not quite eight,’ Mike said, ‘but you need to come downstairs and speak to the police. They’re on the phone and want to speak to you. Seems that Miller is in some kind of trouble.’

  ‘What?’ I jumped out of bed and shoved my feet into my slippers. ‘Is he okay? Is he with Mavis?’

  ‘I think so,’ Mike said, following me downstairs. ‘I think the trouble is more of the criminal kind.’

  I was in quite a panic by the time I’d rattled down the stairs to the house phone. We very rarely got a call on the landline these days but, when we did, it almost always spelt trouble. Same old, same old, I thought as I picked it up.

  ‘Hello, this is Casey Watson,’ I said into the receiver. ‘Is Miller okay?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s just dandy,’ the officer on the other end said. ‘Which is more than can be said for Mrs Postlethwaite’s windows.’

  It sounded surreally like we were having a conversation in a Sunday-evening cosy crime drama. Except, of course, that it was much more serious than that. The sergeant explained that Miller was currently being detained for criminal damage, at the request of his respite foster carer. Apparently he had been taunting her for a number of hours the previous evening in order to get her to allow him to play on her computer. She had apparently refused and ignored his constant taunting by picking up a book and reading it while he continued to rant. When Miller hadn’t got the attention he wanted he had run out into the garden, picked up some large stones, and smashed in four of her downstairs windows. Luckily neither Mavis, nor any of her pets, were harmed in the ensuing chaos, but Miller had obviously caused a lot of expensive damage, so Mavis had called the police.

  ‘And due to his behaviour when our officers arrived,’ the officer continued, ‘we detained him for his own safety as much as anything. He was picking up broken glass and threatening to cut himself with it, as well as saying he would stab Mrs Postlethwaite. It was for that as much as anything that we also encouraged her to press charges. These kids often need a night in a cell to show them where they might end up one day, and we thought that was the best course of action.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, feeling my mood drop to my slippers. No more Mavis doing respite then, no doubt. ‘Thank you. So what’s going to happen now, then? Do I pick him up from you directly? If so, what time?’

  ‘Ah, well, you see, this is why I’m calling. Young Miller is apparently refusing to be released into your custody. Which, of course he can’t do, seeing as you are in loco parentis, but since he’s also insisting he will simply run away if we do so, I’m phoning for permission from you to hand him back into Mrs Postlethwaite’s care.’

  I tried to gather my wits. ‘What?’ I almost spluttered. Not at the fact that he was refusing to come back to us – that was an often trotted path for him historically,
after all. No, at the fact – could it be a fact? – that Mavis was willing to take him home again. ‘You mean she’s happy to have him back tonight?’

  ‘Indeed she is. At least she says she is. That’s right, Mrs Postlethwaite, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean she’s there?’

  ‘Indeed she is.’

  Wits half-gathered in, I then thought practicalities. ‘Okay, so in that case I need to get in touch with the emergency duty team and put them in the picture. I’ll –’

  ‘No need,’ the officer said. ‘We’ve already logged the incident, so that his social worker will be up to speed when she logs into the system tomorrow morning. So for the moment there’s nothing we need other than your agreement.’

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ I said, trying to imagine Libby’s reaction come Monday morning. ‘So does she want us to collect him from her tomorrow?’

  ‘She’s suggested you chat on the phone later tonight about that, Mrs Watson. If that’s okay with you?’

  It was, of course, very much okay. Too much okay, I realised as I put the phone down and debriefed Mike. That old ‘get out of jail free card’, and for another whole day and night – it was feeling so good that it made me feel terrible.

  There was also the small matter that, yet again, Miller had directed operations. He’d made something happen and all of us had agreed to it. Had caused maximum hassle (and a good deal of damage) for Mavis, and, having done so, had got to stay with her longer. To stay at a place he had categorically told me he didn’t want to go to in the first place. That term ‘head exploding from too much thinking’? I had that.

  ‘Oh it’s no problem at all,’ Mavis said when I phoned her that evening. ‘In fact he’s fine to stay with me for another few days, if that’ll suit you. It’s the summer holidays after all and, what with everything that’s happened, it sounds like you could do with a bit of a proper break, don’t you think?’