The Cast-Off Kids

by Trisha Merry

  ‘You’ve fallen on your feet, then? Or has she knocked you off your feet?’ I teased him. He had always been easy to tease, and usually enjoyed it.

  ‘Yes to both,’ he agreed. ‘She lives in Chester, with her family. That’s why I’m here.’

  We carried on chatting. He told me about his latest escapades on his army base in Germany, and the exercises they’d been on. Then I told him what had happened to a few of the other foster children he remembered from his time with us.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll remember Ronnie?’

  ‘Of course. He was my mate.’

  ‘Well he did surprisingly well at school and went on to join the police.’

  ‘What about Gilroy?’

  ‘He absconded from the psychiatric unit and went off the rails I’m afraid, to a life of crime. I’ve often seen his name in the local papers, for a string of minor convictions, but he’s now in prison, serving quite a long sentence I believe, so he won’t be out for years.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘We lost touch with Sheena, I’m afraid, although I did meet someone who knew her father. Sheena went to her mother, but they moved away suddenly, so her father is desperate to find her. I hope he does, because I have some photos I’d like to pass on to her.’ I paused. ‘I’ve not been in touch with AJ. He left when he was sixteen and disappeared from the area. Do you remember Kevin, who loved aeroplanes?’

  ‘Yes, he was always looking at aeroplane magazines with Dad.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, when he was meant to leave us at sixteen, Dad got him an apprenticeship at a factory, making parts for military planes. He stayed on for another year with us. He never liked change or new people much. But he always got along OK with Luke.’

  ‘The boy in the porch?’

  ‘Yes. Well, Luke did so well with his reading and writing, and he did such talented drawings, that he got a place at the art-college in Birmingham. When he left there, he got a job designing the graphics for those new electronic, handheld games.’

  ‘Wow. I bet that was his dream job?’

  ‘He loves it, and Kevin has moved in with him. It’s great for them both.’

  ‘Sounds it.’ He paused and changed track. ‘Do you know what I wish?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘I wish you could have adopted us. Our lives could have been so different, so happy.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever told you this, but we did try to adopt you. We started the adoption process, but our local authority were against multiple adoptions when you were little, so they wouldn’t let us adopt you both, and we couldn’t choose one of you above the other. That wouldn’t have been fair. And anyway, your dad might not have agreed.’

  ‘No, he didn’t even agree to let Daisy go into hospital that time when she was ill. We had a miserable life with him.’

  ‘Really?’ I felt so sorry things hadn’t worked out for them.

  ‘I’ve got a lot more I can tell you when we meet,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’ Then I suddenly thought. ‘Are you in a phone box?’ I was aware that we’d been talking for quite a while.

  ‘No, it’s all right. My girlfriend’s parents invited me to come and stay when I came back on leave and they said I could call you. They’re lovely people – very kind. Will you be in tomorrow? I’ve got a free day. I could get a train down to Birmingham and then on to visit you. Would that be OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I agreed. ‘I’d love to see you. We could start on that new memory box for you if you like. I’ve found some things to put in it.’

  ‘Yes please. That would be cool. I’ll try and be with you by about midday, or possibly sooner. I’ll look up the trains and let you know.’

  The following day, I drove to Ashbridge station and picked him up from his train, then back to our house.

  I made us some coffee and we caught up on news.

  ‘So, tell me about your girlfriend.’

  ‘She’s a lovely girl, Mum – very pretty, and intelligent too. I’m sure you would like her. I’d like you to meet her one of these days. But she had to work today. And anyway, I wanted to tell you about her first. Maybe I could bring her next time I come?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her,’ I said, with a smile.

  Gradually, the conversation turned back to when Paul and Daisy left us. ‘I’ve been wondering what happened to you after Pamela sent you to that children’s home,’ I said. ‘What was it like? Did you settle there all right?’

  ‘No. It was awful, but I wasn’t there for long.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘Well, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but Dad – Rocky – do you remember him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t seen him for years, I don’t think, but then he turned up at the home, out of the blue, really angry.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘No, not at all. Well, not then anyway. I assumed he was angry with Pamela.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘Well, apparently, Rocky had been told we’d been moved to Pamela’s, so he rung her. He was furious that she’d already sent me away, after just two weeks. So he guessed which school Daisy went to, drove there as the kids came out and picked her up.’

  ‘So he abducted her from the school?’

  ‘Kidnapped her, yes.’

  I suddenly recalled that awful day when a man phoned me to say Daisy had been abducted from school when she was about five. What a trauma that was.

  ‘Next, Rocky turned up outside the children’s home with Daisy. Boy, was I glad to see them! I had been worried about her, coping on her own at Pamela’s. Rocky asked them at the home if he could take me out, so off we went . . . and I never went back, thank goodness.’

  ‘So where did he take you?’

  ‘To our grandma’s. Apparently, she looked after us for a couple of months when we were babies, but neither of us remembered, and we hadn’t seen her since. She was quite old, but seemed pleased to see us. That was a change for the better. We stayed there, in hiding. We didn’t go to school for about four or five months. Rocky turned up every now and then, and his sister came to stay there to help Grandma, so it was quite good for a while. We even saw that boy, Carl, but he just ignored us.’

  ‘So what did you do at your grandma’s, if you didn’t go to school?’

  ‘We watched television a lot. And there were some fields and a bit of woodland behind her house, so we ran wild there, well I did anyway, while Daisy sat under a tree and read, or drew something.’

  ‘Typical!’

  ‘Anyway, the police got involved and Social Services tracked us down in the end, so we both had to go to new children’s homes. None of them had more than one space, so we were separated again. And a few months later I was moved to a new one, so Daisy didn’t know where I was, and I lost her address in my move.’

  ‘So neither of you went back to Pamela?’

  ‘No. She didn’t want us.’

  ‘And where was Rocky during all this time?’

  ‘Oh, moving about I think. You know what he was like. He still is as far as I know, but we fell out about three years ago, after he took me away from my third children’s home and down to Canvey Island in Essex for a bit, sharing a room with him above a pub. Then we collected Daisy from her children’s home and went on to a tiny flat in Clacton. That’s when we really got on each other’s nerves and he started knocking me about. He got really violent. Well, I wasn’t going to stick around for any more of that, so I went and joined the army cadets and slept rough until I could join the proper army.’

  ‘What about Daisy?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I had my suspicions. I could see the signs.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think she stayed on with Dad for a bit, but I’m pretty sure he abused her a lot.’

  ‘Sexually?’

  ‘Yes. She was very unhappy and depressed. She stopped eating, and I think she started self-harming too, just
before I left. I lost contact with her after that.’

  ‘Oh dear, you have had a hard time of it, the two of you. What an awful shame you were taken away from us.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve often thought that about you, and about what our lives would have been like if we could have stayed on with you and Dad.’

  ‘Well, it’s all in the past now. But maybe we can make things better in the future? Let’s start by having something to eat. How about . . .’

  ‘Bacon sandwiches? Yes, please.’

  After lunch I brought down all the things I’d been collecting and a new box to put them in. ‘Let’s do you a new memory box, Pauly.’

  ‘OK. Do you know, you’re the only person who has ever called me that. I’ve missed it.’

  We sat down at the kitchen table and started looking through all the photos I’d found.

  He pointed at a boy in a group photo. ‘Who was that little boy with the elephant?’ He asked. ‘You know, the one we took to the zoo to see the real elephants. Didn’t he run away or something?’

  ‘Yes, that was Alfie. He wasn’t expecting real elephants to be so big. Mike had to run off and find him. That was a funny day.’

  ‘Most days were funny days, as far as I can remember,’ said Paul with a wide grin.’

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right!’

  Then I went to get a couple of things I had seen in town and bought especially to go in Paul’s new memory box.

  ‘Here’s a present for you,’ I said, giving him a bulging paper bag.

  ‘What is it?’ He looked intrigued.

  ‘When I saw it I had to buy it for you. Go on, open it. I want to see what you think.’ Slowly, Paul opened the bag and peeked inside. ‘Oh,’ he said, laughing, and pulled out a little teddy that looked very like his original Ted, only a bit smaller and a lot softer.

  ‘Thank you, Mum.’ He got up and came round to give me a hug. ‘How did you find him? He’s just like my Ted.’

  ‘That’s why I bought him.’

  ‘That’s brilliant.’

  ‘I’m glad you like him.’ Then I handed him the other present I’d bought for his memory box.

  He slid in his hand and pulled out what was inside, then burst into laughter. ‘A times-tables book!’ he said.

  ‘To replace the one you made . . . that got burnt.’

  ‘Yes! Thank you.’ He gave me a big bear-hug, then slipped the tables book into his box. ‘I still can’t remember all my tables!’ He grinned.

  He chose some photos and we spent a happy afternoon, sharing memories, punctuated by laughter, until it was almost time for him to catch his train.

  I got him a black carrier-bag, which looked quite macho, to put it all in. And he put his jacket on for the journey home.

  ‘There’s just one more thing I want you to see before you go,’ I said, opening the back door. ‘It will only take a minute. When you said you were coming today, I scrabbled about and found it to show you.’

  Paul looked puzzled as we went out across the yard, then his face lit up when he saw it standing against the garage wall.

  ‘My bike!’

  ‘Yes, we kept it for you all these years.’

  ‘Thank you, Mum. That’s amazing. A shame it’s miles too small for me now, but wonderful to see you kept it and polished it up specially for me. I was so proud of that bike.’

  Another hug and off we went to the station.

  As I waved him off towards the platform, I wondered when I would see him again.

  33

  Finders Keepers?

  After Paul left that day, I didn’t see him for a long time, because he was moving around with the army. Then I had a brief phone call from him to tell me his baby boy had been born, he’d got married and he’d left the army. A few months later, he sent me a photo of his little boy and his wife.

  Soon after that, we moved house, took on four more siblings to foster and I started up my fostering agency, so I was always busy. But I couldn’t get him out of my mind. The only clue I had to where he might be living was that his wife came from Chester. But how could I track him down in a city like that? And where would I begin to look for him if he was anywhere else? I didn’t even know whether his wife was the girlfriend he had told me about, or someone new.

  ‘Why don’t you get a private detective to search for him?’ suggested Mike one evening.

  So that’s what I did. I gave this detective the only clues I had, which were Chester, Paul’s name and details, a copy of the photo of his wife and son, the fact that he’d left the army, and I had an idea that he was working at a large factory somewhere in the Chester area, but I could have been wrong about that.

  This private detective worked away at tracking down Paul for three whole weeks, without any leads at all. The only phone number I had for him had been disconnected, and he’d never given me his Chester address, so it was a complete dead end. Why couldn’t we find him? Where had he gone?

  It was very frustrating, but I had to give in for now.

  Many years later, I was talking to my grown-up granddaughter Laura about some of the children I’d fostered, and I mentioned Daisy and Paul.

  ‘Paul came to find me when he was eighteen and we kept in contact for a few years. He married and had a little boy, or the other way around. They moved and then we moved too and sadly we just lost touch. It was such a shame.’

  ‘We could try to find him,’ suggested Laura.

  ‘I did try to find him. I even hired a private detective, but he couldn’t track him down either.’

  ‘Let’s see if he’s on Facebook,’ she said, opening up her laptop on the kitchen table. ‘What’s his name?’

  So I gave her his full name and she typed it in.

  ‘Where do you think he might be living?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it could be Chester.’

  She typed that in and scrutinised her screen. ‘No, that’s not come up.’

  ‘Oh. I thought that, with such an unusual surname, he might be easy to find.’

  ‘Well, it’s drawn a blank for that name anywhere in the UK. Do you think he could be living abroad?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She typed in variations of just initials or the full three names. ‘Still nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried it every way I can think of.’

  ‘Oh well, let’s leave it then. I can’t think of any other clues.’

  But later on that evening, I suddenly remembered the photo he’d sent me. I went straight up to my files and found it. I turned it over to see if anything was written on the back . . . and that’s when my luck changed. I found his wife’s name, Annalise. So I went to bed that night with her name on my mind: Annalise . . .

  The following morning, when Laura was having her breakfast, I told her about the photo. ‘And when I turned it over, the name Annalise stood out. That must be the name of his wife.’

  ‘Well done, Nan,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s give that a try. I’ll just log in.’ She reached her laptop down from the dresser and pressed the on switch. In only just over a minute we’d found the only Annalise with that surname on Facebook.

  ‘But what if Paul’s Annalise isn’t on Facebook?’ I asked. ‘Like he obviously isn’t?’

  ‘Well,’ said Laura. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could send a message to this Annalise that’s come up with the right surname.’

  So that’s what I did. I wrote:

  I am trying to trace someone called Paul who has the same surname as you, and I wondered whether this Paul could be a relative of yours? If so, could you possibly send me his contact details, please, if he gives you his permission?

  Then I went off to put on some washing, and Laura started to get on with the assignment she was doing for college.

  Suddenly, Laura called me, and it sounded serious.

  ‘What is it?’ I rushed back to the kitchen.

  ‘You’ve got a message, Nan,’ she said, excitedly
.

  I sat down with her to read the message. But it wasn’t really a reply, which was disappointing:

  What do you want to know for?

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to be careful here. Even if it is the right Paul, this could be his ex-wife, his daughter . . . it could be anybody.’

  So I wrote:

  Paul played a big part in my life at one time, and I just wanted to know if he is happy, and how his life has turned out.

  We checked it every hour or so, but no answer came back.

  Then Laura said: ‘That’s odd.’

  I went back to sit next to her at the table. Another message had come through:

  Do you have a contact number?

  ‘Think hard about that one, Nan,’ she said, going off to the cupboard to fetch the lead for her laptop, as the battery was getting low. By the time she came back I’d answered.

  ‘Oh Nan!’ said Laura. ‘You didn’t give her your personal phone number did you?’

  As soon as I heard her tone of voice, like an adult telling off a silly child, I knew I mustn’t have had my proper head on, to do a daft thing like that.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I owned up.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Nan,’ she continued. ‘Now you’ve got no way of blocking them. You won’t even know who it is.’

  Five minutes later, the phone went.

  Without thinking, I picked it up . . . and was immediately glad I did.

  ‘Hello, Mum. It’s Paul. This is a strange coincidence. I’ve been looking for you, but I couldn’t find anyone called Patricia Merry!’

  ‘Didn’t you think to look for me as Trisha?’

  ‘I did, but I couldn’t find you. ‘

  Then I realised. ‘How did you spell Trisha?’

  ‘T-R-I-C-I-A, as in Patricia.’

  ‘Ah, that’s why. I spell it as T-R-I-S-H-A.’

  ‘Well, no wonder I couldn’t find you. To be honest, I just stopped looking, because I thought you were too old to be on Facebook!’ He laughed, so I knew he was teasing, and I laughed with him.

  ‘Well, I am now,’ I said. ‘Because my granddaughter got me going. She’s the one who suggested we try to find you on Facebook, but we couldn’t, so then we tried looking for Annalise. Do you have your own page?’