by Trisha Merry
12
The Milkman’s Tale
Late one morning I was doing some ironing in the kitchen, when the doorbell rang. I assumed it must be Edie or Frank, but no. When I opened the door, it was the milkman standing there.
‘Hello, Mrs Merry.’
‘Hello. I left a note out for you,’ I said.
‘Yes, I found it.’ He waved it at me.
‘You’re running later than usual aren’t you? I hope nothing’s wrong?’
‘Not with me, no. But there was quite a palaver at one of the old terraced houses in Fisher Street this morning. I wondered if you’d heard anything, you being a foster carer and all?’
‘No . . . why? What happened?’
‘You’re not putting the kettle on, are you?’ he asked me, taking his cap off to wipe his brow. I could tell that behind his smile he was feeling distressed and wanted somebody to talk to.
I nodded. ‘Come on in. You can tell me all about it.’
We sat down at the table with our mugs of coffee and he took a few sips before telling me his tale.
‘Well, I deliver to most of the houses in Fisher Street, so I was doing my round and stopped my float outside number nineteen, trying to decide whether to leave any milk there. It’s a single woman with three small children who lives there, and she hasn’t paid her bill for three weeks now. It’s supposed to be weekly, like everyone else. I would have missed her out till she paid up . . . but I knew the little ones would need their milk.’ He paused and I nodded.
‘So, I went and knocked on the door to ask for my payment, but there was no answer, as usual. I was just turning to go and get a couple of pints to leave on the doorstep to tide them over when I heard a baby crying loudly inside. Then I noticed the old net curtain in the front window twitching, and a little face appearing. Very pale and thin.’
‘Oh,’ I gasped. ‘One of the children?’
‘Yes, the eldest – a girl. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. She tapped the window and said something, but I couldn’t hear. So she pressed her face to the window and shouted, “Can we have some milk for the baby?” I said, “No,” in a loud voice. “Not until I talk to your mummy. Can you please go and get her for me? I need to speak to her.” She shook her head. “Mummy’s not here,” she shouted. “Well, she’s got to be there with you.” She shook her head sadly. “No, she’s not.” I felt sorry for her.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘That sounds bad. What did you do?’
‘I asked her if she could open the front door and she said “No.” So I said “What about the back door?” and she said “I’ll try.” So I went down to the end of the terrace and round to the passage along the backs. I counted down to the right house and opened the gate. It was a glazed door, so I could see the little girl standing on a chair, fiddling with the key in the lock. Finally she managed to turn it.’
‘Thank goodness. Were the children all right?’
‘Just about,’ he said. ‘But the baby was desperately hungry. I could see that his sisters had been trying to feed him with a bottle of water, but obviously that didn’t stop him crying with hunger. So I went out the front way to the float and brought in a couple of pints. We boiled a small panful up on the stove. Then I let it cool for a bit.’
‘Where was their mother? Why wasn’t she there?’ I was imagining all sorts of things. Perhaps she’d fallen ill, or had collapsed and died upstairs . . .
‘I asked the girl and she frowned, as if she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to say anything. “I think you’d better tell me,” I said. “So that I can help you.” Then she told me her mummy had gone out to a party. Apparently, she often did that, and she usually came back in the morning. I asked her “Was it last night that she went out?” “No. I don’t think so. I can’t remember,” she said. I could see she was worried. I asked if it was the day before, and she said she didn’t know.’
‘So, what did you do?’ I asked him.
‘Well, first of all I wanted to make sure the baby could have some milk. She told me he was nearly a year old, although he looked smaller. So I knew he’d be OK with ordinary milk. I chatted with her a bit, sitting with her sister on the mismatched kitchen chairs. Then, when the milk was just right, I poured some into the bottle and started to feed the baby.
‘ “I can feed him if you like,” she said, so I passed him over to her and went to phone the police. They were there in five minutes. They spoke to one of the neighbours, who didn’t seem very happy about the situation.’
‘I should think not! So what happened to them? Did they track down the mother?’
‘No. They said they would sort her out later. First they had to take the children into care. So they put them into the squad car and off they went.’
‘What a morning!’ I sighed. ‘No wonder you’re so late finishing your round.’
‘Yes, I left you till last, because I thought you might know something.’
‘Not yet,’ I smiled. ‘There are other foster carers in Ashbridge too, I’m sure. So I might never find out.’
‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed.
‘Give me your phone number,’ I told him. ‘And I’ll let you know if anything happens.’
‘Thanks. I’d like to know they’re all right.’
An hour later, as I watched my kids tucking into their lunch, I couldn’t help but think back to what the poor worried milkman had told me.
During the past week we’d had two departures. A short-stay toddler had gone back to his mother, and our longest-stay child, nine-year-old Chrissy, had to leave as well. After so many years with us, it was a real wrench to see her go. Her parents had finally got divorced and Social Services decided she should go and live with her mother. We had to break the news to her and when we told her she burst into tears.
‘I don’t want to go,’ she wailed. ‘I want to stay here. This is my home.’
‘I know, sweetheart.’ I put my arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘We don’t want you to go either. But it’s not our decision.’
‘Do I have to go?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘Why?’ She looked from Mike to me with her beautiful, big blue eyes, silently pleading with us. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘I wish we could keep you with us . . .’ I soothed her. ‘But we’re not allowed.’
‘You’re part of our family,’ added Mike. ‘And we’ll always think of you that way.’
The tears coursed down Chrissy’s forlorn face. ‘But I can’t go. How will I manage? Mum’s always at the pub.’
‘Well, she probably won’t be if you’re living with her.’ I didn’t really believe that, but I hoped it all the same.
She was desperate to stay with us, but as her foster-parents we were powerless. It was very difficult for her, and for us and the other children too, especially Sheena and Daisy, who were the closest to her in age.
The hardest thing was that I felt strongly it was the wrong decision, but they didn’t consult us. As always, Social Services were a law unto themselves. It would be cheaper for them to send Chrissy back to live with her mother, so that was it. As we watched her go, I knew we might never see her again.
It was mid-afternoon when the phone rang. ‘Can you take an emergency placement – a family of three children?’
I thought, here goes . . . the children the milkman told me about; it must be. But they included a baby so I just wanted to check, as I was sticking to my rule of no babies under six months. ‘How old are they?’
‘Two girls of five and three, plus a nearly one-year-old boy.’
Yes, I thought, definitely the same family. It had to be. ‘When do you want them to come?’
‘Now?’
I sighed. I’d have a job to get everything ready in half a day, let alone less than an hour. And it would be a squash with eleven children, but I knew we could cope. ‘OK,’ I agreed.
Well, what a sight they were when they arrived! I had the door open and watched the social
worker walk the two girls up the drive, while carrying the little one. The girls were dressed in what I can only describe as drab, jumble-sale clothes, that didn’t fit them properly, and plastic sandals on their feet. The toddler had just a nappy and an open cardigan on, so big it was down to his knees, with no vest or anything else, plus a pair of black wellington boots, at least two sizes too large for him. The social worker put him down and, after two or three wobbly steps in those boots, he clearly decided he’d had enough for one day. So he did his own little sit-down protest on our gravel, bawling his head off and refusing to stand up. The social worker had to pick him up again, boots and all, to bring him to our door.
The two girls looked pale, their skin almost grey, and their bodies far too thin. They looked as if they hadn’t been out in the sunlight for weeks, nor been anywhere near a bath. They were probably malnourished too, judging by their dull hair and slow movements. The boy, on the other hand, had a lusty cry, but I wouldn’t have put him at more than seven or eight months old, to look at.
‘Hi kids!’ Mike grinned. He always said the same when he came in from work, no matter whether any were missing or new ones had come.
‘What are their names?’ he asked me quietly, against the noisy background, as we sat down with a cup of tea at one end of the table.
‘Noreen, Linda and . . . Oh no!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve forgotten his name already. I’ll have to look it up on the social worker’s form. Apparently, they left the family home in such a hurry that nobody noticed he hadn’t got anything on his feet, so they picked up a pair of wellingtons for him to wear. You should have seen him in them – they were far too big. The kids are all calling him Baby Boots.’
After their baths and bedtime stories for the younger ones, I settled the new family down to sleep that evening, all in the same room to start with. Later on, if they were still with us, they’d join the others.
We spent the next few days feeding the three of them up and sending them out to play in the garden. They hung back the first morning, but Daisy and Sheena encouraged the two girls to join in their games with Mandy and Laurel. Meanwhile, Paul took charge of Baby Boots and put him in a cardboard box with a rope round it and hauled him round the garden; just like when Ronnie had pulled him around in a similar box himself on his first day, I remembered with a smile.
Because of these three’s emergency placement, we now had two more than a full house. In order of age, we had AJ, Ronnie, Sheena, Daisy, Paul, Gilroy, Noreen, Alfie, Mandy, Linda, Laurel and Baby Boots. We had a spare cot, but the bed space for Noreen and Linda could have been a problem, so we made it into a game.
Every night I tied a sheet to the bunk-beds to make a ‘tent’ down to the floor, and put a sleeping bag in it. Then I’d get all the children together and say, ‘Now, who’s been the very, very best-behaved child today?’
They would all be pushing themselves forward.
‘I have.’
‘Me.’
‘No, ME!’
Each night I picked a different one. ‘Yes, you have been brilliant today, so you can sleep in the tent tonight.’
The girl or boy I chose always looked so proud and their excitement was infectious. They all tried their hardest to be good, and they all had to have a turn. It worked a treat. You’d think I’d given them a trip to Disneyland, with a hundred gold coins to spend!
So that was the beds sorted out. However, the only trouble was getting them all into our old estate car, which was now impossible, so we sold it and bought a large van, which was like a minibus, except without the windows; and it only had the three front seats. So we put lots of carpet offcuts and cushions into the back, along with some soft plastic toys for the kids to play with on long journeys. They were fairly good at making up their own games, too.
Baby Boots was a lot of fun. He had such a contagious giggle and was always excited about something or other. We all loved him, but we never called him his real name. I can’t even remember what it was.
‘Isn’t he bootiful?’ said Ronnie soon after he arrived, and we all laughed.
Daisy was usually the quiet one, often rather detached. But she really took to Baby Boots and wheeled him around the garden in our old pram. She used to cut toast into fingers for him at breakfast time and she often came and watched me change his nappies, amusing him with a mobile or some other toy while he was lying there. We’d had a lot of babies to stay but, apart from baby Gail, the one with hydrocephalus, and abandoned newborn Laurel, I don’t remember Daisy paying any of them as much attention as she gave to Baby Boots.
It was quite a shock when the family’s social worker, Ray, rang me a few weeks later to say they would be leaving us.
‘Why?’
‘Because they’re going back to their mum.’
‘But I thought the police were taking her to court?’ I had learnt that from the milkman, whom I rang every now and then to update him on how they were doing. He even visited them one day at the end of his round. Noreen seemed pleased to see him, but the others didn’t really know who he was.
‘Surely the mother’s not fit to look after them?’ I asked.
‘Well, you know I can’t tell you much,’ said Ray. ‘They did take her to court, and there was such a good case against her from the police that everyone thought it would be an open and shut case. But . . .’ I could tell he was being careful with his words. ‘Let’s just say that she had an excellent barrister and he got her off, so the judge agreed the children can go back to her.’
‘Oh dear.’ I sighed. ‘I hope they’ll be all right.’
‘As you know, I can’t comment.’ His voice might have seemed calm to most people, but I’d known Ray a long time and I could sense the anger underneath his neutral tone. ‘But I’ll remain their social worker for a while at least.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s something.’
‘I’ll come and collect them at ten tomorrow morning.’
So, after two months, we said our sad goodbyes to Noreen, Linda and Baby Boots. We all missed them terribly – Daisy most of all. Nobody could replace Baby Boots.
We presumed that would be the end of it. But no . . .
A few weeks later I had a call from Social Services. A rule had recently been implemented that foster carers could not exceed their set number of children, no matter what the circumstances. ‘The three children who left you recently are coming back into care,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘According to our records, you have nine children now. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right. But it would be no more of a squash to have the three of them back again than it was last time, and we managed very well then.’
‘Yes, but as you know, we have new rules and your maximum is ten, so that means you can’t have more than ten at a time.’
‘But we have the space and we’d love to have them back,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m sure it would be less unsettling and better for them.’
‘I can’t comment on that, I’m afraid. We just have to follow the regulations. But you could have one of them. That would be a help.’
‘Who would it be a help to?’ I asked with indignation. ‘It wouldn’t help the children. They need to stay together, to support each other.’
‘That may not be possible, Mrs Merry. So which one could you take?’
I refused to say. How could I take only one of them? And how could I choose? If they had to come back into care, they should be able to come back to us. We would love to have them. But if they couldn’t all come, I didn’t want to be the person who split them up.
‘I can’t have just one of them,’ I said, ‘and leave the others out in the cold.’
‘Oh, that’s going rather too far, Mrs Merry,’ said the snippy voice on the other end.
‘Well, it’s how I feel. And if I can’t have them all, I’d rather they’ve the chance of staying together somewhere else.’
So that was that. I felt sad for them, but there was nothing I cou
ld do.
‘Let it go, Trish,’ said Mike that evening, when I told him about it. ‘You know you have to let them go.’
‘Yes, but I can’t help wishing.’
‘I know, but rules are rules, so put it behind you. I’m sure they’ll be all right with a new foster-carer for a while. After all, if they can stay together, they’ve got each other, and Noreen is a real little mum herself.’
Only a week later I had another phone call about Noreen, Linda and Baby Boots. This time it was from their new foster-carer. They had been found a placement together, so I felt that, in a roundabout way, I had done my best to help them.
‘I hope you don’t mind my ringing you out of the blue, but another foster-mum friend of mine gave me your number.’
‘Yes?’ I said, feeling guarded. ‘What’s it about?’
‘You’ll never believe what’s happened,’ she began. ‘It’s the three you had with you a few months ago. Their mother got this top lawyer again . . . and she’s got the children back.’
‘Oh no! Those poor kids.’
‘Yes. It’s all wrong, isn’t it? They should never be going back to her. She’ll only neglect them again, like she’s always done.’
Not long after, I heard through the fostering grapevine that they’d gone back into care yet again; this time quite a long way away, and I never heard what happened to them after that.
‘Lost in the care system,’ I said to Mike. ‘It seems so wrong.’
13
Fetch the Police!
The bigger Gilroy grew the more difficult he became. He was so boisterous, putting it mildly, that he was always in hot water. He could often be quite hostile too if he felt like it, pushing the other children over as hard as he could, taking or deliberately breaking their things, making cruel comments that upset everyone, including adults, and generally looking for trouble.
Once, when a pregnant social worker came for a visit, he took one look at her bump and said, ‘I hope your baby dies.’ The poor woman went white, then burst into tears, as if it were a curse. I had to send Gilroy up to his bedroom and comfort her, but of course he kicked up and trashed his room completely.
