by Angela Hart
‘Are you really sure, Angela? Can you look again?’
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I really don’t think you left it here. It would be in the ironing pile if it was anywhere. I know nobody else has it by accident, as the last time I ironed I sorted out all the clothes and handed them back to the other girls myself.’
Grace was only half listening. She was now clawing even more desperately through the contents of her big suitcase. The carpet was littered with clothes but the top she was looking for was still nowhere to be seen.
‘Shit,’ she spat. ‘I knew it! Can I phone home?’
She was bright red in the face, and she wiped her sticky brow dramatically before planting her feet firmly on the carpet and standing with her arms folded tightly across her chest.
As tactfully as I could, I reminded Grace that there would be nobody at home, as her family had gone on holiday early that day. It was the first time I’d heard her swear and I also told her not to use bad language, though I could see she was extremely agitated and was not exactly in control of herself.
‘My nightie’s gone too!’ she snapped, rummaging through the clothes once more. Then she spun her head around and fixed her eyes on me.
‘No, they’re not on holiday yet, they’re still there.’
‘No, Grace, I don’t think that’s right.’
‘It is! They’re going tomorrow, Lily told me. Can I call? Can I phone home?’
I was sure she’d got that wrong, as Colette had been clear about her holiday dates, saying she would be unable to attend today’s placement meeting as she was going away early in the morning. Grace had told me before that Lily told lies, and I wondered if this might be a fib of hers. Either that, or maybe Colette had made a mistake? Or had she been economical with the truth because she didn’t want to attend the placement meeting?
‘Can I, Angela? Can I use the phone?’
I couldn’t refuse. I would never stop a child attempting to call home, and I thought that if Grace got the answerphone, at least she’d had the chance to try to speak to her family. We went down to the lounge, Grace running ahead. She looked wired, as if on high alert, and her eyes were shining as she snatched at the phone impatiently. I told her to try to be calm, saying that’s the best way to be when you want to get answers, and to get your message across.
I helped her dial the number, as she couldn’t remember it and had forgotten how our phone worked. Someone answered almost straight away. I busied myself at the other end of the room, so as to give her some privacy.
‘Have you got my Spice Girls top?’
Grace was standing stiffly, with one hand on her hip, looking like she meant business.
‘You’re a liar! I’m telling Mum. Is she there? Can I speak to her? What? What d’you mean? I hate you!’
There was a pause and then she spoke to someone else, mentioning the holiday and checking when they were going, before slamming the phone down. I wanted to ask who she had spoken to but I could see I needed to tread carefully. Grace looked so upset and her face was contorted, as if she were about to cry, but she didn’t shed a single tear.
This response is something I’ve seen a lot. After a difficult start in life, many children suffer from what I now recognise as a symptom of attachment disorder. Again, back in the nineties I was only just learning about how the brain develops in babies and children, and I knew far less about this kind of thing than I do now. That said, I’d started to recognise a pattern and worked out that kids who hadn’t had a nurturing, loving upbringing often didn’t have the ‘typical’ reactions you’d expect to see in children who had been loved and cherished in the normal way. Long before I did research on different types of attachment disorders, I used to look at some of the children in our care and think it was as if their brain was wired up differently to other people’s.
In a way, I was right. A child’s brain doesn’t develop how it should when it is starved of the basic nourishment it needs to grow. In other words, when there is a lack of bonding between the child and their caregiver, and when the child doesn’t feel secure, and is not consistently nurtured, brain development is damaged. The consequences can be far-reaching. Some children lack self-esteem and the ability to self-regulate. They may be unable to empathise in a normal way, show compassion or even develop a normal conscience. In some cases kids lack healthy defences against, and reactions to, stress and trauma – crying being one of those – and they may struggle to make friends and form meaningful relationships.
We couldn’t be sure how Grace’s psychological development had been affected up until the age of three, when she was taken into care, but we did know she had been scared and hungry when her dad left her and her sister home alone. Neither could we know, or quantify, what damage had been done by her repeated moves to different foster homes; it was many years before I would start to see research highlighting the negative effects of multiple moves on a child in care. All I could do was look at the evidence in front of me and hope to God that Grace would be able to overcome any damage she had suffered. It broke my heart, because before me I saw a very angry, hurt and confused little girl. Grace was desperate to be loved by her mum and she tried hard to be friendly and popular with her peers. She seemed quite lost and desperate to me. It was an incredibly sad situation.
Silence fell on the room for a moment after Grace smashed the phone down. Then she kicked the edge of the sofa and spat the word ‘liar!’ again.
‘Sweetheart, what is it?’
I asked her not to kick the furniture and she stopped dramatically, as if she’d frozen on the spot.
‘Grace, do you want a hug?’
She didn’t react immediately but then suddenly screamed, ‘No! Leave me alone! You don’t even like me! You hate me, like everyone else!’
With that Grace ran back up to her room and I heard the door slam.
‘Honeymoon period over already?’ Jonathan said despondently when I went down to the kitchen.
‘Looks that way.’
I told him everything and he sympathised and gave me a hug.
‘More tea?’
‘Yes please. And chocolate.’
‘Coming right up.’
I felt better already as I sipped my tea, ate a chocolate biscuit and chatted to Jonathan, and I found myself wishing that it would be as easy for Grace. Unfortunately, tea and sympathy were woefully inadequate. Grace would need a lot more help than that, and I imagined she would do for a long time to come.
After a short while I went up to check on Grace. There was no reply when I knocked on her door but I could hear her moving around. It sounded like she was dragging something across the floor and for a moment I was worried she was about to barricade the door.
‘Sweetheart, can I come in?’
Still no reply.
‘Grace, I’m going to open the door now, as I want to see you and make sure you’re all right.’
I heard footsteps, and she flung open the door before I even reached for the handle.
To my surprise, there was nothing strewn across the carpet as there had been earlier; not one single item. I saw that Grace’s bags and belongings were stacked up neatly in the corner, and for a moment I was pleased, because I thought she’d tidied up, unpacked and found a home for everything. Of course, this turned out to be wishful thinking. Grace, I realised, had packed all her belongings back into her case and bags once again, just as she’d done during her trial visit. The room looked completely unlived in and, as before, there was not even her cuddly toy on the bed or her toothbrush on the dressing table.
‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’
‘I’m fine,’ Grace huffed, avoiding eye contact. ‘Why? Can I just go and play outside?’
I said that she could but I also had a word about how she mustn’t be rude to me, because it made me feel upset.
‘OK. Sorry. It’s just such a wind up!’ She breathed out, as if expelling something nasty from her mouth. ‘Can I play out now?’
�
��Yes. I’ll come with you. Shall we go over to the playing field?’
‘Yes. Can I take my scooter?’
I said that was fine. I had lots of jobs I wanted to do in the house, but they could wait. I could see that the priority was for Grace to get outside and let off a bit of steam. However, I didn’t bargain for quite how much steam. As soon as she was through our back gate, she scooted around the pathways so energetically I had to run to keep up with her. Two of my neighbours commented on it.
‘Wow! Speedy Gonzalez!’ one remarked.
‘Me or her?’ I joked.
‘Who have you got staying with you this time – Damon Hill?’ another laughed, referring to one of the most successful British racing drivers at the time.
Everybody in the neighbourhood knew we fostered and most were very friendly and interested. I often got comments along the lines of ‘I don’t know how you do it!’ and ‘You must be a saint’, to which I always replied that we were privileged to be able to do the job we did. That’s truly how we felt; no matter what problems we had to deal with, it was an honour to be in a position of trust, and to be responsible for a precious child who needed more help than most.
One of the girls Grace had met at the play area on her trial visit was out on the field with her mum. I saw her recognise Grace. ‘Mum, that’s the girl I told you about!’ she shouted out. I heard her explaining to her mum that Grace was the one who’d organised the Barbie race on the slide. The girl looked very animated and she began chasing after Grace along the winding path, her face full of excitement and expectation. I watched as Grace slowed down, lay her scooter on the grass and started smiling and talking to the girl. Then the two of them ran back over to the girl’s mum and spoke to her. The woman looked over to where I was standing, not far away, and started making her way towards me.
‘Hello,’ she smiled. ‘I’m Jill. It seems the girls met last week. Briony has asked me if your daughter could come over and play some time?’
‘That would be lovely,’ I said, telling Jill my name. ‘Are you new to the neighbourhood?’ I’m sure Grace was in hearing distance and she hadn’t corrected Jill when she said ‘daughter’, so I said nothing either. That’s always my policy; I take the lead from the child. Most foster children don’t want to spell out that they are in care and I never volunteer the information unnecessarily.
Jill told me the family had only recently moved in, which made sense, as I tended to know all the neighbours. I explained that we ran the florists and had lived next to the shop for many years. We sat on a bench and chatted for a while, watching the girls play a skipping game. I warmed to Jill straight away. She seemed like a very gentle person, quite shy but keen to make friends. I was in no rush to have Grace go over to her house, though. It was her first day back with us and I wanted her to find her feet and settle down. Inevitably, the incident with Lena continued to niggle me. I still hadn’t heard anything from her mum, and unresolved business like that always plays on my mind.
‘Grace looks like she’s got so much energy!’ Jill said. ‘She’s exhausting to watch.’
‘Tell me about it. She never stops! Something tells me we’ll be out here quite a lot over the summer holidays!’
‘That’s good, as I’m sure we will be too. And if you’re happy for Grace to come over to play – maybe when they’ve got to know each other a bit better – perhaps we can fix that up? We’re only in that house there.’ She pointed across the field.
‘Great,’ I said, feeling relieved Jill wasn’t in a rush to arrange the play date. ‘I’m sure she’d like that. Mind you, it looks like they’re more than happy out here for now. We might as well make the most of it while the weather’s so good.’
Briony looked quite heartbroken when Jill told her they had to go in and get changed very shortly, as they were going to visit her gran.
‘When can Grace come to our house?’
‘We’ll fix that up soon,’ Jill said, catching my eye. ‘Don’t worry, Bri. We’ve got lots of the summer left. There’s plenty of time.’
Briony smiled at Grace, who was beaming and bright red from the exertion of playing.
‘I need a drink, but can I go on my scooter again first?’
‘Irrepressible!’ Jill smiled. ‘Lovely to meet you, Grace. I wish I had your energy.’
Grace smiled then sped off, panting and dashing and glowing with life.
Back home, she glugged down a large tumbler of water. She was wearing a top with three-quarter-length sleeves, and I suggested she might want to change into something cooler.
‘OK!’ she agreed, running upstairs. When she returned, wearing a vest top, I noticed her shoulders were badly sunburned.
‘Grace, what happened?’
‘Oh. I forgot about that. It’s not sore, honest. It was just, like, well, Mum forgot to put cream on me the other day. She doesn’t mean to forget things. It’s not her fault. It’s like with the holiday. She, like, gets muddled up with stuff. Dates and times and rules, I don’t know. Just, like, stuff.’
‘Muddled up, with the holiday dates?’
‘Yes. That’s what happened.’
Grace explained that when she had phoned home earlier, Lee had confirmed that the family wasn’t going on holiday until the next day, which was Tuesday. This is what Lily had already told her too, though I’d definitely been told that the holiday started sooner, and that this was why Colette could not attend the placement meeting. It was all quite confusing.
‘Lee said Mum lied about the dates on purpose, so I had to go back into care quicker, but that’s not true. She must have just got muddled up with the dates. Lee tells lies. He does, you know. He’s a liar, he tells lies, Angela. He does it all the time, like Lily. He does it to be nasty to me.’ She called Lee a ‘druggie’ and a ‘weirdo’. ‘Lily said he takes drugs. He smokes cannabis. That’s what Lily says.’
As she’d accused both Lee and Lily of telling lies I really didn’t know what to believe.
‘I heard you calling someone a liar on the phone,’ I said. I left a pause after saying this, then added, ‘You seemed very upset.’
‘They all wind me up, but I’m the one who gets called a wind-up merchant!’
Grace was getting more and more agitated. ‘Lee winds me up. He tells me, “Nobody will believe you. You’ll be a foster care kid forever.”’ Grace paused for a moment, and her mind went off in another direction. ‘I hate it when he goes in my room. He does it when nobody else is there! I don’t have to go round to that girl Briony’s if I don’t want, do I?’
‘Of course not, sweetheart. You certainly don’t have to go to anybody’s house you don’t want to.’ I added that we could maybe invite Briony to our house, as this is what I’d normally do if I didn’t know the person.
At that time certain social workers asked for police checks on anyone the child visited, even if only for a few hours and even if they were members of our own family, so I’d have to check with Social Services before I made any arrangements. Eventually, ‘delegated authority’ was brought in, which made life easier. This meant a form was completed, usually at the initial placement meeting, spelling out exactly what we could and could not agree to. It saved us a lot of time and energy in trying to get hold of Social Services to ask permission for things on a case-by-case basis.
‘Really, Briony can come here? OK, that’s good, because I’m not sure about going to her house.’ She squinted up at me suspiciously before saying, ‘Because you never know what goes on behind closed doors, do you?’
‘Well . . .’
Before I could answer, Grace was running off, saying she needed the toilet. My heart felt as heavy as a stone as I watched her disappear in a cloud of dancing curls. Needless to say, I was concerned about Lee. If what Grace had said was true, what did he mean when he said nobody would believe her? And why did he go in her room when nobody else was there?
I made notes and, later, I let Social Services know what Grace had said about Lee. I hoped that in time
she’d tell me more.
10
‘I love buying new shoes!’
As Grace was adjusting to living with us, she started to become increasingly moody and unpredictable. I told myself it was only to be expected. Starting again in a new foster home was an awful lot for a ten-year-old to deal with, and the fact she was used to moving and starting again didn’t help in the slightest; in fact, I think it made it even harder for her to settle.
Grace refused to unpack. During her trial stay this was understandable as she knew she was going to visit her mum and was also returning to her previous carers. Nothing was set in stone about her future with us – the only certainty had been that she was staying with us for three nights. Though I’d have preferred it if she’d made herself more at home during that initial weekend, I could see why she didn’t. She was a girl used to packing her bags and moving on.
Now it had been agreed that she was living with us things were different, and I was worried about why Grace continued to refuse to unpack. Was she in denial about the fact she was staying with us for six months, and hopefully longer? Was she refusing to accept this was now her home? Perhaps she was hoping her mum would have her back sooner rather than later? I hadn’t forgotten that Grace had said her mum had made promises about having her back, but I wasn’t sure how true this was, or exactly what Colette had said. I started to worry that perhaps more promises had been made, and Grace was living in hope of moving back home soon.
I decided it was Jonathan’s theory that perhaps held the most water. He thought Grace didn’t unpack because she was so used to being moved and, either consciously or subconsciously, she expected to be uprooted again at any minute. It was possible she thought we would decide the placement wasn’t working and ask for her to be placed elsewhere, just as her previous carers had. I sincerely hoped that was not the case and I took every opportunity I could to tell her how pleased we were to have her living with us.
I gently tried to nudge Grace towards putting her clothes in the drawers and wardrobe and finding a home for the toys and knick-knacks still stacked in cardboard boxes. When that didn’t work, I talked about the plans we’d made with Social Services, and with her social worker, Barry.
