A Baby’s Cry

by Cathy Glass

  I knew I should write up my log notes covering what Ellie had told me while it was still fresh in my mind, so a little while later when Ellie was still playing in the sandpit, I carried Harrison indoors for his afternoon nap and at the same time took my fostering folder and a pen from the front room. Returning to the garden I sat on the blanket beneath the tree and wrote in detail what Ellie had told me, using her words as much as possible. This verbatim report was important so that I could accurately tell Jill what Ellie had told me, when I phoned her on Monday, and also for the social services, who would put a copy of my record on their file and use it accordingly – possibly in court. I would also update Ava when she returned.

  I finished writing and returned the folder to the front room. As Harrison was still asleep I took the opportunity to play with Ellie in the garden: first we played bat and ball, and then we took turns on the mini trampoline, Ellie finding my efforts on it quite amusing.

  Adrian and Paula returned from seeing their father at five o’clock and both gave me a big hug. They waved goodbye to their father at the door and then Paula gave me another hug and said: ‘I’ve missed you. What did you do today?’

  I told her Ellie and I had pushed Harrison in his pram to the corner shop for a newspaper and then we’d spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing in the garden. Satisfied, Paula ran off with Adrian to join Ellie in the garden, while I gave Harrison a bottle and then began preparing dinner. Our kitchen was at the rear of the house and I had a clear view of the garden from the kitchen window. As I worked I kept glancing out to make sure the children were all right. Adrian was practising his goal-keeping skills and had positioned himself in front of the mini goal posts at the bottom of the garden, and the girls were taking it in turns to kick the ball and try to score a goal. So far they hadn’t succeeded.

  As I watched my thoughts went again to the atrocity Ellie had witnessed. The image of that poor cat being tortured and Ellie having to watch was fresh in my mind. Not only was the act depraved and carried out by someone with a depraved and warped mind, but I knew from my training that research had shown that adults who are cruel to animals are often cruel to children too. Ellie had already admitted that Shane had burnt her with a cigarette, hit her with a belt, locked her in a cupboard and tortured her cat. What else had that evil man done to that poor child? I was soon to find out.

  That night when Ellie said she didn’t want a bath I wasn’t concerned. She hadn’t had a bath the night before either, but as that had been her first night with us I hadn’t thought much of it. She would have had a bath or shower before she left Ava’s so it wouldn’t matter for another night. She’d already mentioned our bathroom was very different to Ava’s, so I thought she might have been feeling a bit insecure, or possibly uncomfortable about taking off her clothes, although I’d said I’d run the bath and then leave her to undress and wash. It was only when Ellie was in bed and I’d read her a story and was about to say goodnight that she said something that made me think there could be more to it.

  ‘You won’t make me have a bath, will you, Cathy?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘No, not if you really don’t want one,’ I said, perching on her bed. ‘But I think you should. A week is a long time to go without a bath. Don’t you like having a bath?’

  There was a small silence, which Ava had said usually preceded a disclosure and I’d seen that afternoon before she’d told me about Mog. Then Ellie said: ‘Shane made me have baths but the water was cold, so I don’t like baths.’ She said it so matter-of-factly that I could have missed the point had I not now been alert.

  ‘Do you mean the water was warm and then went cold while you were sitting in the bath?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ Ellie said. ‘It came from the cold tap and was freezing. I had to sit in it for a long time. I shivered and my skin went blue and wrinkly, then Mummy got me out. Every Friday I had to have a cold bath. Ava knows I don’t like baths so I have a shower there.’

  ‘You can have a shower here too,’ I quickly reassured her, as I again struggled with the cruelty of this man. ‘Adrian has a shower but Paula prefers a bath so she can play in the water. That’s why I thought you would want a bath. Does Ava know why you don’t like baths?’

  Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you told her the reason?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘All right, don’t worry.’ I guessed Ellie hadn’t told Ava; otherwise Ava would have made a point of telling me. There seemed to be much undisclosed abuse in this poor child’s life but now she’d started remembering and telling (a process begun at Ava’s) it was as though a damn had burst and all the horrors she’d witnessed and had been subjected to were pouring out.

  ‘You won’t have a bath here unless you want one,’ I said. ‘You can have a shower tomorrow. But in our house and in Ava’s house and most other houses, we put nice warm water in the bath, not cold. It was very wrong of Shane to make you sit in a cold bath. I’ll tell Ava and your social worker this as well.’

  Ellie threw me a little smile from beneath the duvet. She was such a sweet and gentle-natured child it seemed to make the cruelty inflicted on her all the worse. ‘You’re going to be telling Ava and my social worker lots of things,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said sadly. ‘It’s good that you are able to tell me, like you told Ava, but I’m so sorry you have suffered.’

  ‘I’m safe now,’ she said, repeating what I (and Ava) had told her.

  ‘Yes, love, thankfully you are.’

  I kissed her cheek, said goodnight and came out, my heart aching for all little Ellie had suffered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shane

  Monday was the first day of the school holidays and I settled Adrian, Paula and Ellie with paints and paper at the table in the kitchen before I collected my log notes from the front room and phoned Jill. I used the phone in the hall – on the hall table – where the children couldn’t hear me but I could keep an eye on Harrison, who was asleep in his pram. It was nearly 10.30 and Jill was in the Homefinders’ office. She answered with a bright ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Hello, Jill,’ I said. ‘I hate to start your week badly but Ellie told us some awful things over the weekend. Some of the disclosures were new.’ Jill then listened carefully as I began with Ellie’s visit on Friday, when she’d asked Paula if I ever shut her in a cupboard for being naughty, and then continued with Ellie’s fear of cupboards, Shane’s shocking cruelty to their cat and, finally, his forcing her to have a cold bath every Friday. I read from my log notes the words Ellie had used, my questions and replies, and included where and when Ellie had made the disclosures.

  ‘Monster,’ Jill said as I finished. ‘Evil bastard.’ Which, while lacking professional detachment, summed up exactly what she and I felt. ‘I’ll pass all this on to Ellie’s social worker,’ Jill said, ‘together with a copy of your notes, please. How is Ellie now?’

  ‘Not too bad, considering,’ I said. ‘She’s painting pictures with Adrian and Paula. We’re going out for the day tomorrow and then she has contact on Wednesday.’

  ‘Are you able to take and collect Ellie from contact?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know Ellie’s mother?’ I asked with some trepidation. I thought that she might, as Jill was Ava’s support social worker too.

  ‘I’ve met her once,’ Jill said. ‘She’s young – twenty-two, I think. She was very angry when Ellie was first taken into care and used to shout at Ava. She’s calmed down a bit now, but the staff at the family centre will be watchful. She wants Ellie back but I can’t see that happening.’

  ‘Does she still see Shane?’ I asked.

  ‘The last I heard they were still living together.’

  ‘No!’ I gasped, horrified.

  ‘So I believe. Anyway, how’s Harrison?’ Jill asked, changing the subject.

  ‘A real treasure,’ I said, glancing in the pram. ‘He’s fitted into our family so well it’s like he’s always been here. Can I kee
p him?’ It was said as a joke, sort of.

  ‘In your dreams,’ Jill said. ‘He’s very popular. They’ – she meant the social services – ‘already have a shortlist of ten possible adopters for him. Speaking of which, Cheryl has asked if you can attend a planning meeting a week on Tuesday to discuss Harrison’s adoption. There’s a letter in the post to you with the details. I know it’s the summer holidays, so can you find someone to look after Adrian and Paula?’

  ‘Yes, I should think so. I might have to bring Harrison with me.’

  ‘Not a problem. We can all have a cuddle, then.’

  Jill finished the conversation as she usually did by thanking me for all I was doing and telling me to phone her if I needed any help or advice. We said goodbye and I went through to the kitchen, where the children were still happily painting. It may seem strange that Ellie was able to enjoy herself, given what she had suffered, but children who have been abused often compartmentalize their experiences, hiving off the abuse, which allows them to function in everyday life. Therapy encourages the young person to bring out and deal with their memories of abuse, so that they can move on with life. If the abuse isn’t dealt with it can resurface in adulthood, triggering all sorts of problems, including eating disorders, self-harming, depression and mental health problems. Fortunately most children brought into care in the UK now receive some therapeutic help.

  After lunch on Monday we went to a local park, where we stayed for the afternoon, and that evening on returning Ellie happily had a shower. On Tuesday I put together a picnic and, packing Harrison’s bottles and nappies in a bag, we went out for the day. I’d asked Ellie which local attractions Ava had taken her to so that I could take her to something different. Ava and her family had taken Ellie to quite a few local places of interest but eventually I discovered she hadn’t been to the castle ruins that were about a forty-five-minute drive away. When we arrived I bought a guidebook and, leaving Harrison’s pram in the car, I strapped him to me in a baby sling, and we had a lovely time exploring the ruins and imagining life in medieval times. We ate our picnic at a picnic table where the moat used to be, and the ham sandwiches, salad, crisps, biscuits and fruit were so much tastier in the country than they would have been at home. It was a nice day, enjoyed by us all. The only downside was that later, when we were home, Ellie decided to share some more bad memories from her past with Paula, which upset her dreadfully.

  The two of them were in the sitting room, stroking Toscha, while I was in the kitchen, making a late supper. The first I knew there was anything wrong was when Paula came into the kitchen, close to tears, and said, ‘Ellie’s saying horrid things again. She said Shane pulled her cat’s claws out with pliers.’

  My heart sank and I stopped what I was doing. Paula stared at me, horrified, wanting me to tell her it wasn’t true, which I couldn’t. I tried to lessen the impact by avoiding the details and telling Paula that Shane did some very wicked things that had hurt Ellie, her mum and their cat, but that Ellie was safe now and would be kept safe in the future which helped a little.

  Then later, as I was bathing Harrison, Paula came to me again and said Ellie had told her that Shane had pulled out a clump of her hair and her mum had seen him do it but couldn’t stop him. This was a new disclosure as far as I knew, so I quickly finished bathing Harrison and, settling him in his cot, I went downstairs to the dining-room table, where the girls were doing a large puzzle. It was bedtime, so I asked Paula to go to the bathroom and start her wash while I spoke to Ellie.

  I sat in the chair Paula had vacated, next to Ellie, as she put another piece of the puzzle into place. She continued doing the puzzle as I spoke to her. I said calmly and gently that I was worried because of what she’d just told Paula about Shane pulling out her hair. Ellie nodded without looking up and, still doing the puzzle, repeated what she’d told Paula, adding some more details. It seemed that Shane had drunk a lot of beer and had then got angry – she didn’t know why – and had shouted at her to get out of the room. But before she’d had a chance to get out he’d grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards the door, when a clump of her hair had come away in his hand. Ellie said her mother was in the room, but she couldn’t help her because Shane had hit her and she was bleeding.

  It was sickening but, as with Ellie’s previous disclosures, all I could do was reassure her that she was safe now, tell her it was a very bad thing for Shane to do and cuddle her; then later when she was in bed I wrote up my log notes, detailing what she had told me. I obviously couldn’t tell Ellie not to talk to Paula (or Adrian) about the abuse she’d suffered, and I didn’t blame Ellie for telling Paula, but I tried to protect them as much as possible and I wished she’d just tell me.

  That night, despite Ellie’s disclosures, and tired from our day out exploring the castle ruins, we all slept well, including Harrison, who had a bottle at eleven o’clock and then didn’t wake again for a feed until four o’clock. Once Ellie was awake she immediately remembered it was Wednesday and she would be seeing her mother at the family centre that afternoon. She told me as soon as I opened her bedroom curtains and then she told Adrian and Paula at breakfast.

  Paula, acutely aware that Ellie’s mother hadn’t protected her from Shane’s cruelty, found Ellie’s excitement at seeing her mother confusing, which was understandable.

  ‘Why does Ellie want to see her mum?’ she asked me quietly, later, when Ellie couldn’t hear.

  ‘Because she still loves her,’ I said. ‘I know it’s difficult to understand with everything that’s happened to her. But Ellie has some happy memories of the time when there was just her and her mother.’

  ‘I see,’ Paula said, and went off to play, although I doubted she did ‘see’. I, as an adult, found it confusing and had mixed feelings towards Ellie’s mother, even though I’d never met her. While, on the one hand, I appreciated she was a victim too – young and terrorized by Shane – I also thought that as a mother she should have protected Ellie, and the fact that she was still living with Shane compounded my mixed feelings. But I also realized that my life experience was so different from Ellie’s mother’s that it was wrong of me to judge her, and there was no way of knowing how I would have reacted in her situation.

  Ava telephoned from Scotland just after lunch, and the first thing she asked was how was Ellie. I said she was playing really nicely with Adrian and Paula and we’d kept her busy, so she was fine. I thought Ava had enough to worry about with her brother’s illness, so I would leave updating her until she returned. I asked her how her brother was and she said he was staying positive and hadn’t been so sick with the second lot of chemotherapy, which was good. When I passed the phone to Ellie I was pleased she told Ava about all the nice things she’d been doing with us – especially our trip to the castle – and didn’t mention Shane, dark cupboards or any of the other horrors she had remembered. When Ellie had finished she handed the phone to me and Ava sounded relieved that Ellie was all right and enjoying herself. Ava reminded me that contact was four o’clock to six o’clock, that afternoon, and then said she would be home late on Friday, so she would collect Ellie on Saturday morning at ten o’clock if that was all right. She finished by thanking me again for looking after Ellie and we said goodbye.

  At 3.15 p.m. I began getting us all in the car, ready to make the trip to the family centre for Ellie’s contact. From previous visits I knew there was a small car park at the very front of the centre where I could leave Adrian, Paula and Harrison in the car for a minute while I took Ellie in. I wouldn’t be inside long and it was easier to take Adrian, Paula and Harrison with me to the centre rather than finding a sitter. The children sat in the rear of the car and Harrison was in his reverse-facing car seat on the passenger seat. During the journey the children chatted, and Adrian asked Ellie if she ever saw her real father. (Shane was her mother’s partner.) I was slightly surprised when Ellie replied, ‘Yes, sometimes. When he’s on leave.’ For I hadn’t heard Ellie’s father mentioned before.
/>   ‘What’s “on leave”?’ Paula asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Ellie said. ‘That’s what Mum used to say to me. She said my dad goes away on a big ship and then he comes home to this country. It’s called on leave and that’s when I see him.’

  ‘I think he could work on a cruise liner or be in the navy,’ I suggested, but Ellie didn’t know.

  ‘Did your dad live with you?’ Adrian asked. I glanced at Ellie in the rear-view mirror to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable with the questioning, but she seemed happy to answer. Adrian and Paula were only being curious.

  ‘Mummy told me Daddy lived with us when I was little,’ Ellie said, ‘but I don’t remember. When I see my daddy it’s at Nana’s house. That’s my daddy’s mummy,’ Ellie explained quaintly. ‘I like my daddy and my nana. I hope I see them again soon.’

  ‘When did you last see them?’ Paula asked.

  I glanced in the rear-view mirror again and saw Ellie shake her head. ‘A long time ago,’ she said. ‘Shane wouldn’t let me go.’

  I didn’t know what arrangements, if any, were being made for Ellie to see her father and paternal grandmother. As Ellie was only with me for a week and there was no contact scheduled for her to see her father during that week there was no reason why I would be told. Ellie’s social worker should be aware of Ellie’s father and if it was felt appropriate for Ellie to keep in touch with him and her paternal grandmother, then the social services would make the necessary contact arrangements, whether Shane liked it or not.

  ‘Has your social worker talked to you about seeing your dad?’ I asked, aware that sometimes these things were overlooked.