by Angela Hart
‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ she started, flicking me a glance from beneath her heavily mascaraed eyelashes.
‘No, Lorraine. I really shouldn’t have mentioned it. Maybe it’s a conversation for another day. I just thought it might help me to care for Vicky, if I knew a bit more, that was all.’
‘I wish I could help,’ Lorraine said, sounding very apologetic.
‘Please don’t worry. I just thought I’d ask, as there are no Social Services records . . .’
I was waffling now as I felt so embarrassed at having put Lorraine on the spot like this, today of all days.
‘Angela, I would help if I could,’ she said finally, ‘but I don’t know what happened to Vicky, and I feel very guilty about that, because I wasn’t there for her, for years and years.’
Lorraine went on to explain that she was ten years old and living with her father when Vicky was born. She went back to live with their mother a year later because of the secondary school she wanted to attend, and she stayed with Brenda for three years, until she was fourteen and Vicky was four.
‘I just couldn’t take Mum’s drinking any more,’ Lorraine said, her voice full of remorse. ‘But I shouldn’t have left Vicky at that age, not with the way Mum was. It was wrong of me.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘But please don’t blame yourself. You were a child too, Lorraine. I’ll take Vicky home now, and let’s keep in touch.’
‘Thanks,’ she sniffed. ‘And thank you again for everything.’
Jonathan and I ended up ordering a takeaway pizza that night for Vicky’s birthday tea, as she said she didn’t feel like going out. My mother came round with a birthday cake decked out with fourteen candles, which she’d edged with chocolate fingers, Vicky’s favourite biscuits. On the top she had written, ‘Happy Birthday, Vicky! 14 Today!’ in purple icing, and she also brought round some fancy cocktail sticks in the shape of umbrellas and parrots to put in our beakers of lemonade.
It had taken Vicky several hours to come round and start talking and behaving normally again after the funeral, but she seemed to thoroughly enjoy her birthday tea, and she was particularly thrilled with the parrot cocktail sticks, telling my mother all about her love of birds.
‘Imagine if you woke up in the morning, dressed in bright colours like a parrot, and you could spread your wings and fly into the sky,’ Vicky said.
‘I’d love that!’ Jonathan smiled. ‘I’d fly to Barbados and sit on the beach in the sunshine!’
‘Ooh, I wouldn’t,’ Vicky said. ‘I’d just swoop around, looping in and out of the clouds, looking down on all the people.’
‘That’s a lovely idea!’ my mother said.
‘Yes,’ Vicky replied. ‘And if anyone looked lonely or frightened, I’d fly down, sit next to them and sing them a song to cheer them up.’
‘How delightful!’ my mother smiled. ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be fourteen again. You have such a wonderful imagination, Vicky!’
We all settled into the lounge after our feast and then Vicky turned to my mother.
‘By the way, Thelma, did you hear about my dad?’
‘No,’ my mother replied. ‘I’ve never heard any mention of your dad. Not a thing!’
Vicky looked astonished.
‘I thought Angela might have told you. It’s big news. His name is Vincent and Social Services have tracked him down. He’s already written to me and hopefully I’ll get to meet him soon.’
‘Oh what lovely news!’ my mother replied. ‘Angela didn’t tell me anything, but what a lovely surprise!’
I explained to Vicky that I would never discuss any details of her life with anybody, not even my mother.
‘Oh! Am I allowed to tell her?’ Vicky then asked, eyes widening.
‘Yes, love, of course. It’s your news, and you can share it if you want to.’
Vicky then repeated all the details she’d gleaned about her father, before asking my mother if she would help her check over the letter she had already written back.
‘Of course,’ my mother smiled. ‘I’d be honoured, Vicky. This is a very important letter indeed.’
Vicky knew that my mother was something of a stickler for grammar and punctuation, as she had helped her with her homework many times.
‘Thanks! I want it to be good.’
‘And so it shall be!’ my mum smiled.
Minutes later Vicky had a piece of A4 paper in her hands that she’d collected from her bedroom and she cleared her throat and began reading aloud from it, which I hadn’t expected at all.
‘Dear Vincent, slash, Dad,’ she read. ‘Thank you for your letter. I was very pleased to hear from you. I heard you were a soldier in Northern Ireland. I would like to hear more about your life, and what you have been doing since I was a baby. I will be fourteen when you get this letter. I’m living with Angela and Jonathan Hart, my foster carers, and my sister, Lorraine, lives not far away. She has a baby called James. Do you remember Lorraine? My mother is no longer alive. Please tell me more about Matty. I look forward to hearing from you again.’
Vicky looked up triumphantly when she reached the end of her letter and myself, Jonathan and my mum must have all been holding our breath, because as soon as she finished reading we all exploded with relieved cries of, ‘That’s great!’ and, ‘well done!’
‘Are you sure it’s OK?’ she asked.
‘Of course it is!’ I said. ‘Mum, what do you think?’
I looked across at my mother and was taken aback to see tears in her eye. As usual Mum was wearing perfectly pressed Marks & Spencer trousers and a fine-knit turtleneck sweater, and she had a fancy string of beads around her neck. Her blue eye shadow and rose-pink blusher were immaculately applied, and her dyed brown hair was beautifully set. The tears looked completely out of place on her face; I had never seen her cry before.
‘Mum!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s not like you to be a big softie!’ My mum was unerringly stoical and had been brought up to keep a stiff upper lip. I could honestly not recall ever having seen it wobble like this before, even when my father died.
‘Goodness gracious me!’ she declared, reaching in her handbag for a cotton handkerchief. ‘That’s wonderful, Vicky darling. Just pass me a pencil and I’ll check it over for you. You might need the odd little comma here and there . . .’
I looked at my mum with pride. She was a much loved and very valuable part of our family, and I realised she had slipped into a grandmotherly role with Vicky very naturally, which was extremely heartening. Jonathan and I shared a knowing smile, as we often did at times like this. It was wonderful that Vicky felt comfortable enough to share this letter with all of us, and I hoped and prayed that she would get the happy outcome she deserved.
14
‘My head hurt a lot when I was little’
Very sadly, just a week after Vicky’s mother was buried, Jonathan and I received the most dreadful news. Our nephew Aiden was being moved into a children’s hospice, as doctors could do no more to save him. Then, unbelievably, within days of hearing this news, I took a phone call from my brother Andrew’s life-long friend, Timothy.
‘Angela,’ Timothy said. ‘I really don’t want to alarm you and Andrew does not know I am calling you, but I feel you ought to know.’
‘Know what?’ I asked, a feeling of dread descending on me.
‘Andrew’s been poorly for a while. Has been in denial, I think it’s fair to say.’
‘What do you mean?’
My mind was searching back to the last time I’d seen my brother. It had been many months earlier, around Easter, when Jonathan and I had been away for a long weekend with Michelle, staying at a campsite about forty miles from Andrew’s home. I didn’t see much of my brother; a get-together at Christmas or New Year was typically in order, and we’d meet at big family events from time to time, or on the odd occasion when we found ourselves in the same vicinity.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked nervously. ‘I had absolutely no idea he’d been ill.’
‘I think you should come over,’ Timothy said. ‘He’s very poorly. It’s cancer, I’m afraid, Angela.’
‘Good God! Why have I only just found out about this? Does Mum know anything?’
‘Honestly, it has all happened incredibly quickly. He didn’t want anybody to know, as he thought he might get away with it, you know what he’s like . . .’
‘What exactly are you saying, Timothy? He’s . . . not going to make it?’
There was a long pause.
‘He’s having palliative care, Angela.’
I honestly could not believe my ears. My brother was a single man who lived an extremely active lifestyle. He regularly took part in long distance races and was a keen fell runner who looked as lean and lithe as a mountain goat. The last time I’d seen him he was talking about doing a big mountain climb for charity, which he went on to complete in the summer, and he looked fantastically fit and well.
Telling my mother was horrendous.
‘Andrew, which Andrew?’ she said, which shows how unexpected the news was.
‘Our Andrew, Mum.’
‘Our Andrew? My Andrew?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘But there’s nothing wrong with him!’
She said this stridently; looking back, she too was in a certain amount of denial.
‘That was my first reaction when I heard the news from Timothy. I think the diagnosis was made very late though, Mum, and it’s an aggressive form of cancer, apparently.’
True to form, my mother did not cry. She poured us both a brandy from the decanter she always kept in her lounge, and she raised her glass.
‘To Andrew!’ she said. ‘He’s made of strong stuff, and he’s not beat yet. Let’s drink to his health. May he beat the bugger!’
I sipped at the potent brandy out of politeness; I rarely drink, and when I do I only ever have something sweet and light.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘We have to face the fact Andrew is gravely ill. We need to go and see him, as soon as we can.’
She collapsed into her favourite armchair, the heavy crystal glass wobbling in her trembling hand.
‘I’ll cancel my hair appointment,’ she said, giving me a subtle nod. ‘I was booked in at Jan’s for a shampoo and set at 9.30 a.m., but I can manage without.’
I left Jonathan in charge of looking after Vicky and the shop, and early the next morning I drove myself and my mother to my brother’s home, which took us almost six hours through some terrible traffic jams. To our absolute shock and horror, we arrived too late. My brother had passed away just fifteen minutes before we arrived, with Timothy and a specialist nurse at his side. Andrew was just forty-seven years old, and my mother was in such a state of anxiety that she had a panic attack when she saw his body, and then insisted I drive us both home almost immediately afterwards.
‘Mum,’ I said softly, ‘it’s a long way. Perhaps we should check in to the hotel. Jonathan has made a booking for us.’
‘I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed,’ she said. ‘Please, Angela. Just take me home.’
I felt I couldn’t refuse, and we drove back largely in silence, an atmosphere of gloom and despondency hanging in the air.
By the end of October 1989 Jonathan and I had buried my nephew as well as my brother. Aiden was just a few days short of his seventh birthday. It was utterly heartbreaking to see his tiny white coffin and the crumpled figures of his parents, and all the family and friends who loved him.
‘Why do good people have to die?’ Vicky asked one day. It was early November now, and she had just asked me for some money to buy a poppy at school, for remembrance Sunday.
‘Well, death isn’t a punishment for bad people,’ I replied. ‘It comes to us all, unfortunately. Some people are just unlucky, and their lives are cut short.’
‘And some people choose to cut their lives short, like my mum. She didn’t deserve to live as long as she did.’
‘Vicky!’ I said. ‘It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead.’
‘I don’t care what I say about her. She doesn’t deserve any sympathy! I hate her! I wish she died years ago!’
‘That’s enough!’ I said.
‘Why? You can’t tell me what to say about my own mother!’
‘Vicky!’ I said exasperated.
She stormed out of the kitchen and up to her bedroom shouting, ‘I hate her! She was evil! Don’t tell me what I can and can’t say about my mother!’
I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, reluctantly acknowledging the fact that I didn’t have the energy or the inclination to go after Vicky and have this out with her. If the truth be told, I’d been to see my GP because I wasn’t sleeping well and was feeling incredibly stressed. Every muscle in my body seemed to ache permanently and I had a dull pain in my temples that came and went so frequently I’d started to accept it as the norm, routinely taking an aspirin with my morning cup of tea.
The doctor had offered to give me sleeping pills and tranquilisers but I didn’t want to go down that route. I knew that some prospective foster carers had been turned down for being on medication but, more importantly, I have never been in favour of taking prescription drugs if I can possibly avoid them. Instead, I’d left the surgery with a fact sheet about stress and relaxation, which I hoped might help. The advice it gave was to take regular exercise, eat healthily and make time for myself, to soak in the bath or indulge in a pastime I enjoyed. When I looked at the well-meaning list I thought, If only it were that easy! What happens when your loved ones die? Or when your foster child is rude and difficult? A plate of salad and a soak in the bath aren’t going to help, are they!
I was just letting off steam with that thought process, of course. The reality was that with everything that had gone on in recent weeks I hadn’t been looking after myself as well as I should, and Jonathan and I had not had the chance to relax and spend any quality time together. I needed to heed this advice, and hopefully it would help me feel better. After Vicky’s outburst Jonathan walked into the kitchen to find me still sitting with my head in my hands, and he sank down beside me.
‘Are you all right, Angela?’
‘Oh, just the usual, Vicky giving me a bit of lip.’
‘I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself at all. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I honestly think we’ve bitten off more than we can chew here. It’s a massive responsibility being a foster carer, and when we’ve got our own issues, or things go wrong, I’m not sure we can cope.’
I looked up at Jonathan and studied him for the first time in I don’t know how long. What I saw shocked me. Jonathan looked gaunt and his skin was grey. The death of his little nephew had hit him very hard indeed, but with Andrew’s death, and our responsibility towards Vicky, who was also coming to terms with her own loss, I’m not sure I’d given my husband the attention he needed.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I feel I’ve neglected you. Things will get better soon, we just need time to get over all that’s happened.’
I started to cry, and Jonathan took me in his arms.
‘You haven’t neglected me. You are amazing. You’ve looked after me and you’ve taken care of Vicky and your mother when really you should have been looking after yourself a bit more.’
‘I don’t want to stop fostering!’ I snivelled.
‘I know that, Angela. I know how strongly you feel about it, but I think we have to consider it. It’s making you ill, on top of everything else.’
‘It’s not making me ill! I’d have been fine if it was just Vicky’s problems I had to contend with, and Michelle’s!’
‘Yes, but that’s my point. Like it or not, we are always going to come up against issues of our own. That’s the way life is, and having foster children in our care is a huge responsibility.’
‘But what’s happened to us recently is completely off the scale and out of the ordinary, Jonathan! We’ve had the worst time
we could possibly have had. Three deaths, all of them so shocking and untimely. This doesn’t normally happen to people. It won’t happen again, it can’t.’
‘I agree, up to a point. What we’ve suffered has been unbelievable by anybody’s standards but these things can and do happen. On top of that we’re inviting all sorts of additional problems into our lives through fostering, problems we could probably never even imagine.’
‘I know, but I love fostering,’ I sobbed. ‘I love helping the kids.’
‘I know that, but is that enough? I’m worried about you, Angela. And what if we have our own kids?’
‘Well I can’t see me falling pregnant at the moment!’ I wailed, as this was something I’d also discussed with the GP, and he’d told me that the stress I was under would not help my chances of conceiving, which did not come as a surprise.
We were still waiting for our appointment at the hospital to discuss our fertility issues and I immediately regretted referring to this. I felt a surge of fear that Jonathan was about to push his point further, and tell me he had made up his mind and wanted to quit fostering.
‘Look, Jonathan,’ I added hastily. ‘I’ve been thinking. What if we take Vicky to Disney World with us? I’m sure we could change the booking from Michelle’s name to hers. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. She’s got her birth certificate from her mother’s house now and there’s plenty of time, so we could apply for a passport. What do you say?’
‘Angela, you are indomitable!’ he said, shaking his head from side to side. I could detect the beginnings of a smile on his face though, and I grinned back.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment! So it’s a yes?’
Jonathan paused.
‘Of course it’s a yes. It’s the obvious thing to do, and I wasn’t suggesting for one minute that we should stop caring for Vicky.’
‘Thank goodness for that! I’ll apply for the passport as soon as I can.’
‘Good idea. We all need a break and the holiday will do us all good.’
The weeks leading up to Christmas were fairly quiet, which was a blessed relief. Hayley was efficient in dealing with our request to take Vicky on holiday. She tested the water with Lorraine, who was very accommodating and readily agreed to let us have Vicky’s birth certificate for the passport application. We all kept the plans secret from Vicky for the time being so as not to raise her hopes, as we now also needed her father to give his permission, as he was her next of kin.
