by Angela Hart
Lily muttered something under her breath when I asked her if she wouldn’t mind removing her trainers. I wouldn’t have asked Colette to remove her shoes – it was up to adults to offer – and in any case she told me she was keeping her sandals on, ‘if you don’t mind, Angela’, saying they were clean and she never went anywhere without heels on. The strappy sandals were about four inches high; I don’t know how she managed to walk in them, let alone drive!
Jonathan was pouring more tea and Jess and Barry were chatting and each finishing off a custard cream when I showed Colette and Lily into the lounge. Grace trailed behind them, looking cowed. How her mood had shifted, I thought. It was such a shame; Grace’s expectations were so high and she had been so excited about seeing her mum, but all I saw now was a little girl who was anxious and nervous and desperately wanted to please. She needed nothing more than approval and love from her mother, but it seemed to me that she found herself squirming in her skin just for being herself.
The two social workers and Jonathan politely stopped eating and talking and got to their feet for the introductions.
‘Hi guys!’ Colette said to the room, giving a wave and a giggle, and flashing her large, white teeth in the process.
Colette and Lily sat in the two armchairs Jonathan and Barry had been occupying, leaving the men to squeeze onto the sofa next to Jess and me. Grace slunk to her knees and sat on the carpet.
‘You don’t mind me bringing our Lil, do you?’
The social workers asked Grace if she minded having her sister in the room and she said ‘no’.
‘OK, you can stay, Lily,’ Jess said, ‘but I might have to ask you to step outside if we want to talk privately about a few things, OK?’
‘Whatever,’ Lily said absent-mindedly. She was chewing gum noisily.
Jess displayed her usual professionalism and ran the rest of the meeting with impressive authority and charm. She was complimentary about Grace and told Colette she should be proud of her daughter for the way she had settled in so far.
‘Angela and Jonathan are very experienced carers,’ she said. ‘I love working with them, because they have a way of making a real difference, often where others have found it very challenging.’ She added that she believed the key to our success was that we followed all the advice we received from Social Services to the letter and were constantly sharpening our skills through our regular training and support groups. ‘They are hardworking, diligent and consistent, and the children know the boundaries. That’s very important,’ Jess said. She gave a confident smile. Knowing Jess as well as I did, I realised this was her subtle way of trying to tell Colette not to rock the boat, either by clashing with us or by letting things slip when Grace went on home visits.
Colette yawned, quickly followed by Lily. ‘Why does that always happen?’ Colette hooted. ‘One person yawns and it sets everyone off!’ Lily laughed too while the rest of us shifted in our seats, wishing Colette would focus on the purpose of the meeting. We were here to discuss her young daughter’s life, and it was awkward to see Colette behaving so insensitively.
‘I am grateful to Angela and Jonathan,’ Colette said, having suddenly seemed to remember where she was. In a blasé voice and rolling her eyes to the ceiling as she spoke, she added, ‘God knows, I couldn’t cope with her like they do.’
Grace looked mortified. Again, I wanted to hug her and I wanted to protect her. The last thing she needed was to be upset by comments from her own mum.
Jess went on to say, very politely, that it would help everyone, and especially Grace, if Colette would try to follow the rules Grace was used to in our house during all her visits home. She clearly didn’t trust that Colette had picked up on her subtle cues and decided to spell it out. ‘This is very important,’ Jess said. ‘It will be helpful to everybody and most of all Grace.’
Jess now asked Lily to step outside. I took her to the kitchen, where she sat looking bored, while I made her a drink of squash.
‘Are you OK there, Lily? We won’t be long, I shouldn’t think.’
‘Suppose.’
‘OK, see you shortly.’ I switched Radio 1 on for her and gave her a magazine and she seemed quite happy.
When I went back in the living room Colette was saying, ‘I do my best, you know, but sometimes it’s hard. It’s been totally nuts round our house!’ Then she began making excuses for the fact she had hardly been in touch with Grace by phone since her move. I was reminded of what she’d said when I’d called her to try to make arrangements for a contact visit. ‘Didn’t I tell you, I’ll call you,’ she’d said. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on at the moment, things you wouldn’t believe! Nuts, it is. I’ll be in touch, don’t you worry. Gotta dash now.’
Colette was taking the opportunity to expand on why she had barely spoken to Grace over the past month or so and had been hard to pin down for a visit. She said she was only telling us this story because it had been playing out in the local paper, and she expected we’d all see it anyhow. I wondered if she was secretly proud of the fact part of her life was interesting enough to be worthy of a report in the local paper, as she seemed to be enjoying recounting the story.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said, giving a little giggle. ‘But this is what happened. I’ll tell you the truth and the whole truth.’ I thought, Where have I heard that before?
Colette looked very comfortable holding the floor as she told her story in painstaking detail. The essence of it was this: she had been involved in a spat with her husband Malcolm’s ex-wife Linzi, who had accused Colette of stealing her jewellery. In fact, Colette said Malcolm had originally paid for all the jewellery and was adamant it was his property after he and Linzi divorced. He gave the jewellery to Colette but told her a ‘white lie’, saying he’d bought the heavy gold necklaces, rings and hooped earrings at a second-hand jewellers in town.
Linzi went to the papers with her story, providing old pictures of herself wearing the jewellery on holiday, dressed in a tight white leather dress. She also posed for new photographs at her home, wearing a miniskirt and low-cut top. ‘Likes the spotlight, that one,’ Colette said, before explaining that the pictures showed Linzi opening the empty drawers of a little wooden jewellery box and looking shocked that the jewellery was missing. Colette rolled her eyes dramatically as she relayed this detail. ‘Can you imagine? Why would you be all dressed up like that at home? She’s such a drama queen. I can’t believe the paper was even interested.’ She continued, barely pausing for breath. ‘Anyway, I don’t know how she had the nerve, with me and Malcolm raising her two boys. I told this to the reporter when I got my right to reply.’
It turned out Colette had also given a lengthy interview, and she posed for pictures too. I was perplexed by all this. I couldn’t understand why either woman would want to air her dirty laundry in public like this. More to the point, how could you let something like this get in the way of you speaking to your daughter on the phone, or arranging to see her? Grace was in care, in a brand-new foster home yet again, but it seemed Colette had more time to talk to a local reporter, pose for photographs and have a public slanging match with Malcolm’s ex-wife than make time for Grace. Also, why bring it up and talk in so much detail about it at this meeting? Grace’s life was being discussed. Barry and Jess had far more important things to spend their time on; we all did.
On the back of this story, Barry adeptly mentioned the fact Grace had said her clothes went missing at home.
‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘No. All I know is that trouble follows Grace around. This is exactly why I can’t have her living with me. She probably just loses stuff and blames other people. She’s such a scatterbrain.’
Just as our elderly GP had done, Colette said this as if Grace was not in the room. I was furious. I was about to ask if it would be best if Grace also left us while we talked in private, but Jess was already on the case.
‘Colette,’ she said. ‘Please can we focus on the issue
at hand and remember that Grace is here with us.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Is this true Grace? Are you really saying someone is taking your clothes? I suppose you’re accusing Lily?’
‘Er, I’m not sure,’ Grace muttered. She blushed bright red again then spoke in a tiny whisper. ‘It might be Lee.’
‘Lee?’ Colette looked incredulous and gave a hoot of laughter while Grace looked mortified.
‘What would a teenage boy want with a little kid’s clothes?’
‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘I might have lost things at other foster carers’ or something, I dunno.’
Barry wasn’t going to let this go. ‘Could it possibly be Lee is causing trouble?’ he asked Colette. ‘I’m not accusing him, just asking the question. Is it worth having a word with him, make sure he’s not been going in Grace’s room and taking things to wind her up?’
‘Lee winding Grace up? Nah, it’s the other way around. But OK, if it’ll make you happy, I’ll have a word. I’ll make sure he doesn’t nick anything this weekend.’
Grace had packed a very small bag for her weekend visit home, and I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t see why she would make up a story about her clothes being taken, given that she was at pains to prove to her family that she wasn’t a so-called ‘wind-up merchant’. Also, I’d seen her very upset about the items that went missing. I believed her concerns were real, and I could see she was genuinely worried about what might happen to her clothes this time.
When we waved Grace off with her mum and sister I felt terribly sorry for her, and fearful of what the weekend would bring. I’d originally thought it was good timing for her to have this visit home before she started school. I thought it would give her a lift to spend time with her mum, but now I really wasn’t sure.
‘See you on Sunday!’ I shouted as she climbed into Colette’s jeep. ‘Enjoy yourself!’ Jonathan called.
All the windows were wide open. Lily was in the front passenger seat, next to her mum. She was looking very pleased with herself for being up front while Grace had to sit in the back. Poor Grace, I thought. She seemed destined to be made to feel like the odd one out.
Grace turned her head and looked as if she was about to say something to Jonathan and me, but Lily must have pressed the button to close the electric windows.
‘You don’t have to be nice to her, you know,’ I heard Lily say loudly as the windows slowly closed. ‘She’s not your mum.’ Grace looked away as the jeep was sealed shut. Meanwhile, Lily looked back over her shoulder and gave me a smug look. Clearly, she had intended me to hear her barbed comment.
What a little madam, I thought. Colette must have heard what Lily said, but appeared to completely ignore her daughter’s rude remarks.
14
‘What’s wrong with her?’
Barry brought Grace back to our house after her weekend visit home. She was in a terrible mood, ranting and raving about how Lee had been through her weekend bag and ‘messed about’ with her clothes as well as her collection of hairbands and even her underwear. She accused him of going in her room when no one else was there and stealing some specific items of clothing, even though she had deliberately taken very little home with her.
‘He’s a druggie and a weirdo,’ she said, before she’d even taken her shoes off. ‘He’s taken my skirt this time. He’s a creep!’ She said she had found the Spice Girls top she’d previously accused him of taking: it was under his bed, apparently.
I had considered whether Lee may be stealing her things to sell, if it was true about him being on drugs, but that seemed unlikely. None of Grace’s clothes were particularly expensive or had designer labels, but what was the alternative explanation? As Colette had pointed out, why would a teenage boy want a young girl’s clothes? Grace’s clothes were not unisex and wouldn’t fit a teenage lad. Was he just a trouble-maker, intent on upsetting Grace? Colette had been very quick to defend Lee and say that Grace was the only one who did the winding up, but that was no surprise, given that she had been accusing Grace of being a disruptive influence for years. Worryingly, the spectre of there being some kind of abusive element to this was looming large in my thoughts.
I supposed that Lee’s life had not been that easy, what with his mum Linzi divorcing his dad and Colette becoming his stepmother. Nobody had told me why Linzi didn’t have custody of her two sons, but there must have been a reason, as back then it was much more unusual than it is today for a father to take on the kids when their mum was still alive and well and living in the vicinity, as Linzi was. Mind you, that was also what had happened with Grace and Lily, as they had stayed with their dad too. I had not been told why this had been the case.
‘I’m sorry you’re not in a good mood, Grace. What else happened over the weekend?’
She blushed bright red. ‘I don’t want to talk about it! Why would I want to tell you about it? You don’t care, you’re just looking after me for the money.’
‘Grace, Jonathan and I are very fond of you indeed. We love having you here and we are looking after you because we care about you a great deal and want to give you a lovely home. We have our shop to make money, we don’t foster children for it.’
‘She said you’d say that.’
I wanted to ask if she meant Lily or her mother – or someone else – but I was wary of asking a leading question.
‘I’m not sure I know who you are talking about.’
‘Lily, I’m talking about. For God’s sake! I might as well be talking to the fucking wall!’
‘Grace. Please don’t use bad language and don’t be rude. I’m just trying to find out about your weekend and have a civilised conversation with you.’
‘Well I’ve told you now. It was Lily who said it!’
I wanted to remind her that she’d said in the past that Lily was a bully and told lies, but I had to play safe.
‘Lily?’
‘Yes. Anyway, Lee does the same to her, you know. She said she’s going to report him to the police if he does it again.’
‘He does the same to her? So she’s going to report him to the police?’
Grace went scarlet. ‘Yes!’ she shouted.
‘You mean he takes her clothes too, is that what you mean?’
‘No! Yes! What do you think I’m talking about? Grrr!’
She stomped up the stairs, leaving me feeling even more concerned and uneasy about the situation.
‘I’ll have to tell Social Services,’ I said to Jonathan. ‘I’m sorry to say my instincts are telling me there’s more to this.’
He nodded sagely, looking crestfallen. ‘Mine too.’
We were now both afraid that Lee might be sexually abusing Grace, and possibly Lily too. We had no evidence and hoped we were wrong; it was simply a gut feeling based on what she’d said and how she behaved when she talked about Lee. We had no option but to act on this, despite the lack of proof. I realised that once I’d mentioned this, Social Services might well want Grace to talk to a specialist of some kind, perhaps a child psychologist or a family therapist. It was like opening a can of worms, but it had to be done. I would not make accusations against Lee, of course, but I’d report what Grace had said, how she reacted and simply relay my concerns. The experts at Social Services would take it from there.
Grace didn’t mention her mum at all and so when she came down for dinner, I asked after Colette.
‘She’s great,’ Grace said, fixing a grin on her face. ‘She is so lovely to me. She is doing her very best to get me home, you know, but it’s not easy. There’s a lot to sort out. She’s up the wall with lots of stuff, and my stepdad is about as useful as a chocolate fireman.’
Not for the first time, Grace was full of phrases I assumed she’d heard at home or from other adults; some of the things she came out with didn’t trip off her tongue very naturally and they weren’t things you’d expect a ten-year-old to say.
‘I see. She’s doing her best?’
‘Yes, but it’s like this. I have to stay
here for a while, until after I’m eleven. But Mum said that if I behave myself then she might be able to have me home when I’m in secondary school. Because then I’ll be old enough to, like, get a job and pay some keep.’
My heart sank. I’d been involved in this sort of situation before, when a parent only wants their child home so they can take some money off them. I felt a flash of anger. Grace was only ten and it would be years before she earned enough money to pay any keep. Why had Colette even started this conversation, just when the rest of us were doing our level best to get Grace settled with us?
Grace was up at six o’clock on her first day of school. Her mood had steadily improved in the three days since her return from her visit home and she seemed to be in extremely good spirits.
‘Why are you being so slow, Angela?’ she asked on the walk to school. ‘Hurry up! I don’t want to be the last one there.’
I was walking slower than normal as I’d twisted my ankle slightly, tripping over the stray end of a sheet as I’d carried the washing in off the line. It wasn’t serious, but I was taking things steady.
‘I’m going as fast as I can, Grace! You’re still going to be early, even at this pace. If we go any faster the gates might not even be open when we get there.’
Halfway to school, I heard the clatter of shoes on the pavement behind me and turned to see Briony dashing towards Grace.
‘Wait for me!’
Grace turned around, yelped in delight and gave her friend a high five. The two of them linked arms and started talking animatedly. I’d learned that Briony had left her old school at the end of Year 5 when her dad was relocated to our area with his job. Jill, her mum, had been in the shop one day, and she had confided in me that Briony had been very negative about starting a new school until she hit it off with Grace.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am that the girls get on so well,’ she’d said.
‘It’s great for both of them,’ I replied. It was a busy day and the shop was packed with customers. I wasn’t sure if Jill knew that Grace would be new to the school too, but I didn’t have time to chat and explain this. However, I was pleased I’d seen Jill again, and that she was so positive about Grace. I liked her a lot. She was clearly a devoted parent who was rooting for her daughter to be happy in her new environment.
