by Trisha Merry
We had a goodbye party for them, and invited their mum.
‘I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for the boys and me,’ she said, as she left.
‘We shall miss them,’ I said. ‘They’re such good boys and we’ve had a lot of fun, especially the day Brian saw a dalek!’ We had a laugh about that, as we had done when I’d first told her about it.
Finally, one day, about a year after Daisy and Paul had come to us, their dad turned up out of the blue, with no prior notice. But when I opened the door, Rocky was beyond tipsy – so unsteady on his feet that he had to hold on to the wooden upright of the porch. I could smell the alcohol, and I could see his eyes were not quite focussed.
‘I’ve come to see Daisy and Paul,’ he said, his voice slurred. ‘I want . . .’ he stumbled over the words. ‘. . . to take them out.’
‘I’m sure they’d love to see you, Rocky, but you’re not in any fit state. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you come into the house like that. And I can’t let you take the children out if you’ve been drinking.’
He looked surprised, and forlorn, but he didn’t try to deny it. His head lolled and I suddenly felt sorry for him.
‘Not without checking with Social Services anyway. Just stay there and I’ll ring them. Let’s see what they say.’
He made no fuss, just nodded.
I shut the front door, so that he wouldn’t be able to hear me on the phone, and I explained to the woman on the other end. ‘He’s turned up smelling strongly of alcohol; a bit staggery and slurring his words,’ I told her. ‘He wants to take them out, but I don’t think he’s sober enough. What should I do?’
‘No, don’t let him take them out,’ she agreed. ‘Let me just see . . .’ She paused, presumably looking up the case-notes. ‘He has the right to see them when he wants, so it’s up to you, Mrs Merry. How does he seem? Do you think he’s drunk enough to be violent?’
‘No-o-o, he still knows what he’s doing, just about. And, from what I’ve seen of him, I don’t think he would have the strength to be violent with anybody.’
‘Is he too drunk to be with the children, for them to see him like that?’
‘No, he’s not that bad – a bit wobbly, but not quite falling-over drunk.’
‘Well, you can let him in if you think he would behave himself, but it would probably be best if you have another adult in the house with you as well. Could you do that?’
‘Yes, my husband is here, and my helper as well.’
So I went back to Rocky, still standing on our doorstep, leaning against the wooden upright. ‘It’s OK. They said you can come in, as long as you behave yourself.’
He nodded his head and lumbered through the front door. I took him along to the kitchen and made him a cup of coffee, thinking that might sober him up a bit.
‘What’s the matter, Rocky?’ I asked.
‘Nothing.’ He sat there, with his head down, looking morose. He sipped some of his coffee and let the rest go cold. He obviously didn’t feel like speaking, so I just sat with him for a while, watching him as I sewed on a button, waiting for him to recover a bit.
‘Can I see the kids?’ he suddenly asked.
‘Yes, as long as you try to pay them some attention.’ I paused. ‘They haven’t seen you for a long time.’
So we went to the playroom, where I could hear Paul’s voice, rising above the rest. Mike was reading his paper as usual, almost oblivious to the children playing around his feet. Lizzie was cuddling baby Laurel, while keeping a watch on Katie, now a toddler pulling herself up, walking along the furniture and trying at the same time to join in the silly card game that Chrissy and Sheena were playing. Meanwhile, Daisy was concentrating hard on threading some wooden beads and Paul was aiming cars to try and knock over Ronnie’s precarious tower. We had a couple of settees in there, so we sat down. As soon as Daisy saw him, her face lit up. ‘Daddy!’ She came and climbed onto the sofa next to him. He nodded his head but said nothing
‘Hello, Daddy. Do you like my dress?’ As it happened she did have a summer dress on, but it wasn’t anything special, as we hadn’t known he was coming.
‘Yeah, very nice,’ he mumbled, giving her a lop-sided smile. When Paul heard what Daisy said, he turned round to see his father. He ran across and pulled Rocky’s hand to come down on the floor and play with the building bricks. He didn’t so much get down, as slid onto the floor. ‘Make a garage, Daddy,’ Paul said, passing his dad a large rectangular piece. Rocky hesitated. He turned the brick over in his hand, then balanced it skew-wiff on top of another one, but he seemed a bit unsteady with nothing to lean on, so Mike had to help him get up to sit on the sofa again.
I went back to the kitchen to make sandwiches and cut vegetables into pieces for us all, then called the children to the kitchen table, with Rocky trailing behind. The kids all tucked in with their usual enthusiasm.
‘Go on, Rocky. Help yourself. They’re for you as well.’
He gave me a nod and put a couple of sandwiches on a plate, eating the middles and leaving the crusts.
‘The crusts are the best bits,’ I said, making sure the children all heard me. ‘Nobody leaves their crusts in this house.’
He paused, then nodded again and ate the crusts.
I tried to encourage him to talk. ‘Are you still working as a chef, Rocky?’
‘Yes.’ At least his slurred speech had worn off.
‘Where are you working now?’
‘In a pub.’
‘In Swindon?’
‘No.’
‘Near here?’
‘Just around and about.’ He waved his hand in a vague semi-circle.
It was hard work trying to make conversation with him in this state. I strongly suspected he might have been drinking quite a bit lately. He seemed depressed as well as drunk.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, I hope you are looking after yourself.’
‘I’m OK,’ he said, then added: ‘Thanks.’
He didn’t seem the brash young man from a year ago. But that was probably what the drinking did to him. I just hoped it wasn’t too much of a habit. The children looked up at him every now and then, but they didn’t seem bothered that he paid them little attention. I suppose they were just glad that he had come at last, after all those months of not turning up and letting them down so often.
Rocky made no attempt to leave, and I didn’t think he was in a fit state to go until the drink had worn off properly, so he had a couple of cups of tea through the afternoon. Mostly, he just sat silently, in a daze. Gradually he became more aware of the children, but he didn’t interact with them, so they stopped trying to gain his attention. They were very forgiving of him. Daisy was a quiet, long-suffering sort of child, so she was just content to have him there, giving him the occasional smile, which he rarely returned. Paul, who hardly knew his dad, ignored him for most of the time.
At one point he came over and handed his dad a shiny model police-car. ‘You can play with that, Daddy,’ he said, and went back to his toys.
‘Thank you,’ said Rocky, when Paul was nearly out of earshot, turning it over and over in his hands.
It wasn’t till the evening, after the children had gone to bed and he sat watching a television programme with us, that Rocky decided it might be time to go. He seemed more or less sober by then, so we thought he should be all right.
I don’t think we saw Rocky again for a long time after that. And the children stopped asking about him. But I’m sure that Daisy in particular was disappointed in him, and must have felt abandoned . . . yet again.
5
Skip-Boy
Babies and toddlers were often short-term placements, during a mother’s hospital stay for example. Very occasionally, there was a rejection of the baby by the birth parents due to what they considered to be an ‘unacceptable’ medical condition.
‘Can you take a baby with hydrocephalus?’ asked the social wo
rker over the phone one morning. ‘She was born a few weeks ago and has been in hospital ever since, but now she’s ready to be discharged and the parents have chosen to give her up for adoption. Can we bring her to you this afternoon?’
I’d never heard of hydrocephalus, but since she was a baby in need of loving, I didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course,’ I agreed . . . and then, as an afterthought, I asked: ‘What is hydrocephalus?’
‘Another name for it is water on the brain. She’s been having treatment and she’s stable now and as well as she can be. She has a shunt which will need to be checked regularly. When the hospital rang first thing this morning, wanting to discharge her, we immediately thought of you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I mean that in a good way, of course. I know we don’t usually discuss medical matters with foster parents, but in this case, you’ll have full support, I can assure you, including instructions and advice for looking after her, and a direct line for medical help.’
‘Oh good. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m rather squeamish.’ That was an understatement. I even had to ask Mike to take a plaster off a grazed knee! ‘I won’t have to change dressings or tubes or anything like that, will I?’
‘Er, well . . . do you have anybody else in the house who could do that if necessary?’
I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Yes, I have an amazing helper called Lizzie, and my husband too. Would there be any training for them, to know what to do?’
‘Yes, I’m sure we can arrange that for them at the hospital. And you’ll have a health visitor coming almost daily to make sure all is well.’
‘Oh good,’ I said again. Then I had a sudden thought: ‘Just one thing . . .’
‘Yes, I know what you’re going to ask. There will be an additional allowance for this baby’s medical needs.’
‘No, that wasn’t what I was going to say.’ I was shocked that she would think that. ‘Will the parents want to keep in contact?’
‘Ah. No, apparently they’ve not been in to see her since she was taken into the baby care unit, straight after her birth. The only thing they’ve given her is a name – Gail. We’ll be putting her up for adoption, so you may have her for some time, until that happens.’
Baby Gail arrived that afternoon, her head swollen and misshapen, but otherwise a beautiful baby with big blue eyes, fine blond hair and an adorable smile. Despite her serious condition, she was one of the most contented babies I have ever had. Even when she was hungry, she cried softly. All the other children took to her immediately and she soaked up the attention.
Despite being so young, Lizzie was accepted for training at the hospital, along with Mike, and they quickly learnt to deal with the shunt and anything else that might happen. Lizzie did it most days. She was such a treasure. She took it all in her stride, coming in every morning before school to tend to Gail, and every evening to check her over, before helping with the tea, bath and bed routines.
Soon, Gail was trying to sit up, but we couldn’t risk her sitting where she might fall and bang her swollen head, or damage her shunt, so I painted the wickerwork of an old Victorian bassinette we had, like a Moses basket on a stand, and padded it out with lots of cushions tied to the wickerwork all round. With her reins on, she could now sit up safely and watch the other children, while playing with her toys.
A few weeks after baby Gail arrived, I had a call to say that little Katie would soon be leaving us. She was now nearly two years old and into everything, leaving havoc in her wake, but we all loved her. Her father had now been convicted of assault and grievous bodily harm, pouring boiling water onto his own newborn daughter and scarring her for life. Katie’s mother had testified against him, under police protection, and he would not be out of prison for a number of years.
Now that her ex-partner was out of circulation, Katie’s mother was allowed to have her daughter back. She had visited as regularly as she could afford to, and was overjoyed to have Katie at home with her again, without further threat of harm. The local authority had even re-housed her and helped her change her name by deed poll to make sure.
We did miss Katie when she left, but we were very happy for her and her mother to be safely together at last.
A fortnight later, I had a phone call from my friend, who did a lot of the admin and reception work. She told me about a local school who had called the police to report their concerns about cruelty to a little boy, and they’d also called Social Services as they felt his home circumstances were unsafe.
‘I can’t tell you his name, of course, but when his teacher asked him why he was so tired and hungry, he told her his dad had thrown him into a skip and he had to stay there all night.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I gasped, knowing how cold it had been. ‘How old is this boy?’
‘I think he’s five.’
‘So where is he now?’
‘With Social Services I think. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.’
Poor lad, I thought as I put the phone down. Just then, Lizzie arrived and I forgot about it till later, when I told Mike what little I knew.
‘He could have died,’ I said, as an afterthought.
‘Yes, it was cold enough, poor mite. Maybe they’ll put him into care,’ he suggested with a smile. ‘We’ve got room for another, haven’t we?’
Sure enough, first thing next morning, the phone rang. We had finally got another phone installed in the kitchen, so that I could keep an eye on the kids while I was talking.
‘Good morning, Mrs Merry,’ a male voice said. ‘I’m Mark, a case-worker, calling from Social Services. I see from our records that you may have a space available for a neglected little boy we’re trying to place on a temporary order. Would you be able to take him?’
‘Yes,’ I decided straight away, knowing who this probably was, but I couldn’t let on. ‘When do you want us to have him?’
‘Today,’ he said. ‘The sooner the better. We had to put him in a home with teenagers last night, but that wasn’t suitable for him. I could go and collect him and bring him to you within the next couple of hours. Shall we say eleven o’clock this morning?’
‘That’ll be fine.’ As soon as I put the receiver down, I realised I hadn’t asked his name, but I’d soon find out.
Luckily, it was a Saturday and Mike was home, so he took all the kids for a chaotic walk, while I cleared away the breakfast things and dashed upstairs to prepare a bed for this boy. I decided to put him in with three-and-a-half-year-old Paul and Ronnie, who was now nearly five, so the closest in age. I wondered whether the new boy would think it beneath him to have a cuddly by his pillow, but I guessed he would bring nothing of his own with him, so I chose him a stocky dog with a black patch around one eye.
As I stood on the front doorstep to welcome our new arrival, I was shocked to see how pale and thin he was. His eyes looked dull in their hollow sockets and his hair looked matted.
‘This is AJ,’ said the friendly looking social worker. ‘He’s five years old.’
‘Hello AJ,’ I said in my warmest voice. ‘Come in and I’ll find our special biscuit-tin. Do you like chocolate biscuits?’
‘Yes,’ said AJ with a nod and a wary expression, like a hurt animal. I noticed that somebody had found him a warm jumper, though it was a couple of sizes too big for him and the cuffs had been rolled over at least twice.
I took them into the kitchen first, to let the boy acclimatise, and made him a drink to have with his biscuit. ‘Is AJ actually his name?’ I asked.
‘Sort of,’ said Mark, the social worker. ‘It’s what he answers to. I checked and his full name is Anthony John, but he says nobody calls him Anthony – only AJ.’
‘Would you like to go down to the playroom, AJ, and meet some of the other children?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, OK,’ he said with a shrug of his bony shoulders. Even with his clothes on I could see how thin and puny he was. I hoped his carers last night had given him a good hot meal and a long night’s sleep.
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‘I’m afraid we don’t have any of his things, any clothes or anything,’ explained Mark as we followed the hubbub coming from the children in the playroom.
‘That’s all right,’ I assured him. ‘We’ve got plenty of spares in AJ’s size.’
Mark left us once he’d watched AJ settle down to playing with Ronnie and given us the rudimentary paperwork – mostly empty spaces.
The day seemed to pass well for AJ, who ate ravenously at lunchtime before Ronnie and Paul roped him into building a garage and lining up the cars. Then it was teatime and he demolished a big portion of sausages, mash and baked beans.
After tea, while the others ‘helped’ Mike and Lizzie to clear up the tea-things, I took AJ up to see his room.
‘This is your bed,’ I showed him.
He immediately picked up the dog. ‘Is this mine?’ he asked, with his first proper smile of the day, then threw the dog in the air and it landed in the middle of his eiderdown.
‘Yes, you can give him a name if you like.’
‘Buster,’ he said. ‘I always wanted a dog called Buster.’
‘I’m going to get you some clothes of your own, too,’ I said, as I showed him his side of the wardrobe and the two bottom drawers that would be his.
‘Thank you.’ He looked at me with a solemn gaze. ‘Will I be staying here?’
‘Yes, sweetheart. I hope you can stay here for quite a while.’
‘Good,’ he said, trying to hold back the tears. ‘I like this bed.’
After bathtime I tucked him up in his cosy bed, clutching Buster. ‘Sleep well.’ I gave him a peck on the forehead, dimmed the nightlight and half-closed the door, so that I could listen.
