Sam and Chester

by Jo Bailey

  I watched as Jaime settled himself on the stand, as confident as ever. He had such presence, it was like the courtroom was the silver screen and he the charismatic matinée idol. I steeled myself to watch him give a stellar performance that would blow the judge away. Though I didn’t know what Jaime was going to come out with, I thought he couldn’t do much worse than the hole I’d dug for myself and would undoubtedly do better.

  But, for whatever reason, though he put his case across well, it didn’t seem to go his way on the day.

  I felt bad for him, but I won’t deny that I wasn’t unhappy that it might have helped me claw back some ground. The rest of the hearing passed in a blur.

  ‘Court adjourned.’ The usher’s voice sliced through the tension in the room.

  It was over – for now, anyway.

  I let out a huge sigh of relief; I hadn’t realised how long I’d been holding my breath. I turned to Juana. ‘Have we won?’ I mouthed.

  ‘You just won that all by yourself,’ she whispered encouragingly, praising my efforts on the stand.

  It was what I needed to hear after what I saw as my mistake regarding the joint custody question. I walked out of court feeling slightly more confident but only time would tell if she was right.

  The boys continued to see Jaime every other weekend while we waited for the judgement to come in. I thought it would take hardly any time at all for the judge to reach a decision, but as the days and then the weeks passed, I started to feel increasingly nervous.

  To make matters worse, Sam’s wellbeing had gone rapidly downhill. The frequency of his meltdowns, in and out of school, had doubled. The poor thing was regularly soiling himself in class by now, his stress was so bad, which meant I was driving up and down the mountain to clean him up as the school policy was that the parents had to come and sort out their children if they had an accident.

  On top of all this, I was nervous about Darren coming back. Before I knew it, October had arrived and with it the first weekend that Darren and I would be spending together after months of emailing. He’d be meeting the boys for the first time too. What if the chemistry isn’t there? I worried. What if the boys don’t like him? What if it’s the sort of relationship that works long distance but not in reality?

  But all my worries vanished as soon as Darren stepped off the plane in Málaga; I had gone to meet him alone. I’d forgotten how good-looking he was – but it was his personality that really shone. He grinned at me as he strolled through the arrivals lounge.

  ‘Hiya.’ He kissed me confidently. I had butterflies, but at the same time I was filled with this wonderful sense of things just being right.

  That feeling set the tone for the rest of the weekend. I felt so comfortable around him, mostly because, thanks to our Messenger chats, we already knew everything there was to know about each other. We picked the boys up from my sister’s on the way back from the airport and Darren was a natural with them from the moment we stepped through the door.

  He unzipped his bag and pulled out two presents – one for Sam and one for Will.

  ‘What do you say?’ I prompted the boys.

  ‘Thank youuuu,’ Will screeched, shuffling to Darren’s side. He was such an inquisitive child.

  Sam was struggling to find the words.

  ‘You,’ he managed, repeating the last word he had heard, as he sometimes did. He was trying his best.

  Darren sat on the floor with Will and encouraged Sam to come over.

  ‘Hello, mate, come and have a look at this.’ He held out the present.

  Sam was like a snail cautiously coming out of his shell. He slowly lifted his gaze from the floor, curious to see what Darren was holding. He couldn’t look Darren in the eye, but he wanted to get closer, that much was obvious. He gingerly made his way across the room and sat cross-legged next to his brother.

  Will was having a whale of a time tearing at the wrapping paper and throwing it over his shoulder. Sam carefully dismantled his surprise, peeling each strip of Sellotape off with microscopic precision, doing his best not to spoil the paper.

  As soon as Sam saw what it was, he started flapping his arms like a bird – which I now knew meant he was very excited. The gift was a model aeroplane. How thoughtful. I’d told Darren that Sam liked planes so it was really sweet of him to buy him one. Sam lined up the wing of the plane with his eye and made a whooshing noise as he flew it backwards and forwards.

  Darren didn’t even blink at Sam’s unusual behaviour. Of course, he knew what to expect because I’d spent endless phone calls describing Sam, but it was more than that – he was clearly just a really kind man who was great with children.

  He was keen to do something fun with the boys that weekend so I suggested the zoo in Fuengirola. The children and I hadn’t done anything like that in a very long time because of the court case and because of everything that had happened. It would be a break for me just as much as it would be a fun day out for Sam and Will.

  Fuengirola is the next biggest tourist destination along the Costa del Sol after Benalmádena Costa. Lots of high-rise buildings tower along the water’s edge, while hundreds of holiday-makers turn lobster pink on sunloungers or shelter under thatched umbrellas. The long concrete promenade is always lined with palm trees and bars and ice-cream sellers.

  It was unusually hot for October. We wound down the windows and sang nursery rhymes the whole way to the zoo; Sam didn’t join in but he seemed happy enough. When we arrived, Darren was concerned the boys might get burnt in the blazing sunshine and thoughtfully smeared sun cream across their little noses.

  The zoo was a ten-minute walk from the beach, right in the heart of Fuengirola. It housed over a hundred species of animal, which were all kept in enclosures where you could look at them through glass or peer at them over the walls or from viewing points. There were monkeys, tapirs, lemurs, gibbons, pygmy hippos and even Komodo dragons.

  But only one animal caught Sam’s attention: the Sumatran tiger.

  The tiger was roaming around his lush green enclosure as we approached. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Sam so alert. He was watching the tiger intently as it paced back and forth through the long grass, every now and then disappearing from view as the grass closed over his feline shape. I glanced at Darren, who had also noticed my son’s fascination.

  Suddenly, the grass parted and the tiger emerged only a foot from where we were standing. Just a piece of glass separated us from the ferocious carnivore.

  Will hid behind my leg, but Sam was mesmerised.

  The tiger slowly approached the glass and pressed his nose up against it. Sam gently placed his little hand on the glass, as if to place it on the tiger’s huge nose.

  My heart was in my mouth. I could have sworn there was a crack in the glass, but maybe I imagined it. In my head, I saw the glass giving way and the tiger pouncing on my boy. Part of me wanted to snatch him away to safety, but it was such a touching, tranquil moment that I forced myself to let go and savour what was unfolding in front of me: Sam had come alive.

  ‘Darren, look,’ I whispered, trying not to scare the tiger away.

  ‘I know,’ he mouthed.

  And then, as quickly as the moment arrived, it disappeared, like a butterfly into the breeze.

  When Sam eventually turned away from the tiger, he was smiling. This was incredibly rare: Sam did not smile very often at all. As we carried on to the next enclosure I couldn’t help but think that there was something more to the encounter I’d just witnessed. Had that majestic animal unlocked something in Sam?

  My thoughts were broken by Darren making hilarious chimpanzee noises as he entertained the children. I wasn’t sure if I was with two kids or three! The boys loved his impressions; Will was in fits of giggles. Darren was wonderful with both the boys. He lifted them on to his shoulders in turn and ran between the enclosures, pointing out interesting things about each animal.

  We had hot dogs, burgers and juice in the zoo restaurant before continuing to look at
the animals, until the boys were so tired that we decided to head home to relax by the pool.

  I left Darren in the shade on the veranda while I nipped into the kitchen to prepare some snacks. When I returned, Darren had Sam on one knee and Will on the other, as he read them stories. The tone of his voice was so mellow that Will was minutes away from being lulled to sleep.

  I stood there, quietly observing them, soaking up the magical moment. It sounds cheesy, but the sight of Darren acting like a dad to my boys made my heart melt.

  That evening, after the children had gone to bed, Darren and I sat in the wicker chairs on the veranda, our toes touching as we rested our tired feet on the coffee table. I twisted the stem of my glass between my fingers, contemplating whether to say something or just enjoy the comfortable silence. We’d said so much to each other over the past few weeks and months that I felt I’d run out of words. And, in the end, we didn’t need to say anything. From then on, I was Darren’s and Darren was mine. It was just the way it was.

  Our wonderful weekend together came and went too quickly and, still, yet more weeks passed without a judgement. I was on tenterhooks, jumping every time the phone rang.

  I started to envisage what it was going to be like if I couldn’t go home to England. How on earth could I help Sam, then?

  It was 7 December 2007, almost three months after we had been to court, when my lawyer Juana finally had some news for me. I was at work that day, getting ready to take a wealthy businessman out on a site visit, when the receptionist called out to me.

  ‘Jo, phone for you!’ She tapped in my extension number and transferred the call.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, my heart pounding as it did every time I received a call these days.

  And, this time, it was Juana. I braced myself for the worst.

  ‘Jo, I’ve got some good news!’ she announced cheerily.

  A smile spread across my face.

  ‘You can go home!’ she squealed.

  Oh my God!

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ I shouted in joy. I was jumping up and down and screaming in the middle of the office.

  Juana told me to wait by the fax machine and, slowly, the paper stating the terms of my divorce rolled out, revealing each line of the judgement in turn. I was granted full custody of the boys. Jaime could visit the children in England for one week each month and spend half the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays with them in Spain. The rest of it – maintenance payments and so on – were just details. I didn’t care about any of that. I cared about only one thing.

  We were going home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  New Beginnings

  I’D FORGOTTEN HOW beautiful England could be in the spring. It had been thirteen years since I’d seen the lush green fields, the hedgerows, the daffodils and crocuses, and the blossom on the trees. Even walking through the airport had a completely different feel to it than doing the same in Spain. The arrivals lounge was covered with carpet rather than cold marble; the smells were different: the coffee, the reheated sausage rolls and pasties and the waft of newsprint as you passed WH Smith. There was a cosiness about England that Spain didn’t have. There was something so inviting about coming home and being back on British soil.

  As I stepped through the sliding doors of Bristol airport in April 2008 and inhaled the fresh air outside, the Spanish scents of bougainvillea vines and citrus fruits had been replaced by dewy grass and green trees. I sucked that air deep into my lungs and then released it slowly, savouring every breath.

  I turned to Darren, grinning from ear to ear: ‘We’re home.’

  As soon as the judgement had come through, I’d put my Spanish house on the market and started looking for schools in the UK – and this visit home, an adults-only affair while Jaime looked after the boys for the weekend, was to select the school that would best suit Sam. I’d decided on Devon as the location for our new home because it was a part of the country that offered great facilities for children with autism. It was also where I’d spent many a happy holiday as a child and I could just see us living contentedly amid the rolling hills.

  In advance, I’d cherry-picked the schools in the area that had a specialist teaching unit for children with Asperger’s and autism – what is known as a CAIRB (Communication and Interaction Resource Base). There were four such schools in the vicinity. Darren had offered to come with me while I visited each of them in turn and I was grateful to have him by my side as we picked up the hire car and started the drive to Devon.

  I was determined to make the best possible choice for my son. As far as I was concerned, sending Sam to a school solely for children with special needs was never an option. The wonderful thing about CAIRBs is that, over time, the teachers introduce the autistic children into mainstream classes. I strongly believed that Sam stood a better chance of successfully integrating into society if he grew up around neurotypical children. That way, he wouldn’t get a rude shock if someone was mean to him, bullied him or looked at him strangely once he was an adult, because he would have already learnt the skills to cope with it. Though I was already worrying about whether he would be bullied – what mum wouldn’t? – I wouldn’t always be there to protect him, so I knew I needed Sam to learn how to become resilient. Life in a special-needs school would be much more sheltered, and I was concerned that Sam wouldn’t cope well when he left that secure environment.

  Darren and I had a lot to get done. Timings had worked out in such a way that we had to visit all four schools in a single day – and, of course, the schools were scattered all over the county. Our schedule looked like this: Barnstaple at 9 a.m., Tiverton at 12 p.m., Ivybridge at 3 p.m. and Tavistock at 5.30 p.m. Time would be tight.

  Yet despite the pressing schedule, I couldn’t help but feel like a child on holiday as we swooped along the country lanes that carved through the Devonshire hillside. I stared eagerly out of the window, pointing out every landmark to Darren and recalling my beach holidays in Woolacombe, where I’d learned how to surf. It all served to cement my certainty that Devon was the place for us.

  The first school was in a village on the outskirts of Barnstaple, a farming town. The school was fabulous – I was blown away by the look and feel of the modern design and architecture. It was not your typical primary: it was futuristic-looking, kind of like a spaceship with lots of ‘pods’ where the children sat around in circles having stories read to them.

  ‘I want Sam to come here,’ I mouthed to Darren as the headmaster led us to the CAIRB, where we watched the children painting and doodling. My heart lifted as I imagined Sam joining in with all these students, making friends – finally being looked after.

  But the headmaster explained that, as much as he would like to have Sam and understood my desperate situation, we had a wait on our hands. There were only seven CAIRB places available in the entire school – and they were all taken. Even if a space was to become available, there were more than a dozen children with autism on the waiting list before Sam. I felt so deflated.

  The headmaster went on to explain some of the statistics behind such a long waiting list: one in every one hundred children was being diagnosed with autism each year and boys were five times more likely to have it than girls. Worryingly for me, he added that all schools with CAIRBs faced the same challenge – they only had the funds to offer help to seven children.

  ‘Sadly there is no fast-track system, you will be at the end of the waiting list,’ he said, frowning.

  And I frowned too, feeling slightly sick. I knew early intervention was the key to my son leading a normal life so I couldn’t waste another second, nor hang about waiting for our names to reach the top of that very long list. I was so disappointed that this amazing school seemed out of our reach and could only hope that the other schools on our list would be able to help us. We thanked the head for his time and then it was back in the car and on to the next school.

  On the way, Darren and I had an intense conversation. I’d already come so far on my quest to
save Sam, but everything felt like a battle and it was hard to stay positive. What were we going to do if we couldn’t find a school place for Sam?

  As usual, Darren helped me see things rationally.

  ‘It’s like going to view a house that you fall in love with but finding out someone else has already put an offer in,’ he reasoned. ‘You have to be clinical, not emotional about these things – accept it’s gone and move on to the next one.’

  I was glad Darren had come along; I would have struggled alone. By now, he was very much my partner and whatever new life I was going to make for my family, he would be part of it.

  We snaked our way through more country lanes, over cattle grids and through picturesque villages with medieval churches. As the countryside flew by, I regained my positive outlook and rejoiced once more in visiting this little corner of England that I would soon call home.

  ‘Look, there’s a little cafe selling cream teas!’ I exclaimed as we whizzed by it.

  Oh my, I thought, it’s been an eternity since I’ve tasted clotted cream and jam on scones. My mouth almost watered. I couldn’t wait to introduce my boys to all the treats I’d grown up on – British institutions like fish and chips and pasties. The more I saw of Devon, the more I wanted it for our new life.

  Tiverton was the next location on our list. The school was also fantastic but couldn’t have been more different from the one we’d just seen: it was an old Victorian building in the centre of town with a high ceiling and a grand sweeping staircase.

  The experience couldn’t have been further from what we’d just had either. We were shown into a reception area and asked to take a seat on miniature plastic stools that looked like they were meant for the children’s classroom. How could I keep a straight face watching Darren contort his legs like a pretzel? I burst out laughing.

  Suddenly, the door flew open and a man wearing a snorkel, flippers and a wetsuit charged in.