Too Hurt to Stay: The True Story of a Troubled Boy’s Desperate Search for a Loving Home

by Casey Watson

  ‘No,’ he said, chewing his nails. ‘Why would I know anything about it? That’s typical, that is. Why am I getting the blame? I always get the blame for what little kids do.’

  A clear case, it occurred to me, of protesting too much. ‘I’m not blaming you, Spencer. I was just asking if you’d seen it. Now can you help us look, please? Riley’s due home and she needs to find her purse.’

  He stood up quickly enough and I assumed he was going to help, but instead he made straight for the door and up the stairs. Moments later, we all heard his bedroom door slam.

  ‘Well,’ said Mike, who’d caught the tail-end of this, ‘that was something of an over-reaction, don’t you think?’

  ‘It was,’ I replied. ‘And I wonder if there’s more to it.’

  I told him of my suspicions about the things that had gone missing. He didn’t look surprised.

  ‘Well, that’s probably it, then,’ he said. ‘After all, they did say he had hidden depths, didn’t they? So maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what the petty offences all were. Maybe stealing’s his thing.’

  ‘God,’ said Riley. ‘Honestly …’

  Mike frowned. ‘Which means we’ll have to search his room, of course.’

  I felt hesitant. ‘But what if it isn’t him? What if that’s exactly the sort of thing that happens to him at home? Won’t make for much of a start, will it, making it clear we don’t trust him?’

  ‘Mum,’ said Riley, ‘I take your point, but it can really only have been him. If Levi had had it out we would have already found it, wouldn’t we? He’s not been anywhere else in the house today, has he? And I definitely had it, and he was in here all that time, with my handbag. It must have been him.’

  ‘We need to confront him, at least,’ Mike added. So, all out of options, we trooped up the stairs.

  Mike knocked on the door before pushing it open, and found Spencer sitting on his bed, reading a book. ‘Listen, mate,’ Mike said, ‘I know you said you hadn’t moved Riley’s purse, but when something goes missing we have no choice but to search everywhere for it, and that includes your room, I’m afraid. Is that okay?’

  Spencer shrugged and stood up. ‘Course,’ he said, moving into the doorway, out of the way. ‘Help yourself. That’s fine.’ Mike began searching.

  I joined him. Between us we found nothing. We looked under the bed, behind the curtains, under the pillows, inside the drawers. I’d been fostering long enough to have got pretty clever: our very first child, more chillingly, had a habit of self-harming, and used to carefully stash any sort of blade he could find. With Spencer watching, however, this felt distinctly uncomfortable, especially as it looked as though the purse really wasn’t there.

  ‘It’s obviously not here, Mike,’ I began, having run out of places to look for it. ‘Let’s go and have another look in the dining room, shall we? Perhaps it’s –’

  Mike raised an arm then, to stop me. He now had an odd sort of look on his face. And as I watched, his gaze moved from Spencer to the wall – to the place where we’d hung a print of two footballers. He held his gaze there, and the effect on Spencer was immediate. He let out a whimper, then suddenly rattled off down the stairs.

  ‘What the … hey!’ I heard Riley exclaim, from the hall. She was waiting there with the little ones, phoning David.

  ‘What?’ I asked Mike. ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘That picture.’ He crossed the room in two strides and clasped the print in both hands, lifting it slightly so he could free the cord and take it off the wall.

  I was just wondering how on earth you could hide a purse behind a picture – any purse, let alone Riley’s receipt-stuffed great big thing – when the question I’d not yet finished asking was answered. As Mike stepped back with it we both gasped in unison, unable to quite believe what we were seeing.

  Before us was a hole, in the shape of a raggedy-edged circle, about eight inches in diameter and going back some way. Enough plaster had been dug out to expose the timber framework, and as I stepped closer it was clear that a huge space had been made available, because Mike was already beginning to pass things to me. First the Jaffa Cakes, unopened, then the missing DVD, then the earrings, which had been carefully wrapped in a folded envelope, then one of my necklaces – one that I hadn’t even realised was missing – then a cigarette lighter Riley had accused me the week before of losing, then finally, with a last insertion of Mike’s arm, Riley’s purse.

  I stood speechless with shock at the scene laid before me. If we’d found this stash anywhere else, I could have believed it. The bottom of the wardrobe, say, or tucked away in a box under the bed. But it was that hole. That painstakingly constructed hole had floored me. How much time, how much industry, how many handfuls of carefully smuggled plasterboard must have gone into the creation of that secret safe of his? He was eight years old. Eight! It seemed beyond comprehension. Except, was it?

  Mike brushed plaster dust from his forearm and pulled his sleeve down. ‘Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned,’ he said.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Right,’ said Mike, his expression grim. ‘This needs tackling right now.’

  He laid the picture on the bed and we both trooped back down the stairs. At the bottom of them Jackson was now dozing peacefully in his push chair, but Riley had followed Spencer into the living room, Levi close behind her.

  ‘He’s behind the sofa,’ she told Mike. ‘Curled up in a ball. I’ve tried talking to him but he’s not saying anything. I take it he did have my purse then?’ she asked, turning to me. ‘Whoah!’ she exclaimed then, seeing the haul in my hands. ‘My purse and then some.’

  ‘Come on, young man,’ Mike said, sternly pulling the sofa out a little. ‘Out from there, please. We need an explanation for this, mate. You can’t just go taking things that don’t belong to you.’

  But Spencer had no intention of coming out, it seemed. In response to Mike’s words he just made himself even smaller, hands over his ears, head pressed into his knees, rocking back and forth as if trying to block the world out. A not untypical reaction from a boy of his age, I mused. Not when they’ve been caught red handed.

  ‘Come on, love,’ I coaxed. ‘We just need to talk about it, that’s all. You don’t need to take things, love. If there’s something you want, you only need to ask.’

  I got glared at for this by both my husband and my daughter. I could even hear Riley’s unspoken words: you want my purse and all the money in it? Yeah, of course, mate!

  But I felt a softer approach would be the only one that would work here. ‘Spencer,’ I said. ‘You can’t stay here for ever, love, now, can you? Hiding away’s not going to help. We need to discuss this.’

  Riley’s phone chimed. ‘That’s David,’ she huffed. ‘He must be outside. I have to go. Dad, can you help me with the kids, please? Leave Mum to deal with the Artful Dodger here, shall we?’

  I almost smiled, but not quite. The image of that hole in one of my bedroom walls stopped me. But Spencer did look a little like he might have been recruited by Fagin. What with his mop of silky hair and his butter-wouldn’t-melt looks. And a rather forlorn sight, right now – very Dickensian – as he trembled and cowed behind the sofa.

  But I was wrong to be fooled by such superficial details.

  ‘Come on, love,’ I began, while Mike went out to help Riley transfer Jackson into his car seat, and stow the push chair in the boot of David’s car. ‘Come out and let’s sit down and talk about this, eh?’

  But I barely had time to finish what I was saying, because Spencer, apparently having decided the coast was clear – well, of Mike, anyway – was up out of his hidey hole and barging right past me. ‘Fuck off!’ he yelled. ‘I’m off to bed and don’t no one dare come up. I hate you all!’ And there he was, gone.

  Ah, I thought, as I watched him go. And so the fun begins. The real work, I knew, was about to start.

  In the end, I decided to let Mike deal with him. Already he seemed to be a boy who responde
d to male authority, so Mike’s suggestion – that Spencer would be more likely to realise how serious this was if the dressing down came from him – seemed a good one.

  It was a full 20 minutes before Mike was back downstairs. ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s done any good,’ he said, ‘but he did apologise.’

  ‘And did he say why he’d done it?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Just sat and listened to me, mostly,’ he answered. ‘Then said sorry, and that it wouldn’t happen again. I did ask why he’d done it – that he must have known it was wrong – but he had no answer. Just said he didn’t know.’

  ‘Is he coming down for tea, then?’ I asked, beginning to dish out the bolognaise that I’d finished preparing while Mike had been upstairs.

  ‘On his way. I just told him to wash his face and hands and come straight down. Oh, and I did tell him that he wouldn’t be getting all his behaviour points today, so no TV or DS tomorrow. He seemed to accept that.’

  It seemed Mike was right. Spencer was quiet and a bit sullen looking as he sat and ate his tea, but I was at least pleased to see he looked chastened. And after tea, when he went back upstairs to play with his toy dinosaurs, we both agreed that, however destructive the hole-making and the stealing, it at least gave us a chance to see what we were dealing with, and a benchmark from which to improve.

  But the sense of contrition wasn’t destined to last long. At around nine, when Spencer came down for a drink and a biscuit, I decided I’d take the opportunity to have a quick run through his points with him, just so he knew how things stood. This was important. The whole point and reward system was new to him, and almost as important as the business of actually earning them was that the child make the connection between actions and consequences; that was the foundation on which the whole model was based.

  At first, as I explained about the deficit and its consequences for privileges tomorrow, he seemed resigned and accepting. ‘That’s okay,’ he said meekly. ‘I know there’ll be no TV time tomorrow.’

  ‘And I’ll also have to ground you. You do know that, too, don’t you? So there’ll be no playing out for the next few days.’

  Though I’d mentioned it, I’d assumed this would be inconsequential – Spencer hadn’t once yet asked to go out to play. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. He almost harrumphed. ‘What?’ he said. ‘I thought my punishment was no TV?’

  ‘No, love. It’s not your punishment. It’s that you can’t afford to buy it. You can’t afford to buy TV time because you won’t have enough points. If you did, then you’d still be able to buy TV time, wouldn’t you? No, your punishment is not being allowed to go out to play. You know that. We went through all that at the start, remember?’

  His expression hardened. ‘But that’s crap! That’s like punishing me twice.’

  I shook my head. ‘Spencer, I don’t even see why this is bothering you – you haven’t been out to play. You’ve not even wanted to.’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But I was going to! And now I can’t. Is that what you’re saying?’

  It felt like I was talking to a tiny politician. A very cross one. ‘Yes, love, it is,’ I confirmed. ‘For this week, at least.’

  ‘God, that’s so unfair!’

  I was still shaking my head in disbelief as he stomped back off up the stairs, but as the days passed it became clear that this wasn’t about playing out. For Spencer, it was a matter of principle. He simply wouldn’t let it rest, mumbling to himself about it constantly, and going off on one about ‘injustice’ half a dozen times a day. By the time Wednesday came around and he was due back at school, I couldn’t have been happier. Perhaps now we’d see the end of it.

  But school, it seemed, was just another irritant in his life. Just another thing to ruin his day.

  ‘I hate school,’ he told me, after I’d nagged him about the time for the umpteenth time. ‘And my teacher,’ he added as he climbed into the back of the car.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be fine once you get there,’ I said, wincing as he slammed the car door, for good measure. ‘Once you see your friends again, you’ll see. It’s always a bit nerve-racking after the long summer holidays. But once you’re back … tell you what. Shall I put a CD on? Some music to take your mind off things maybe?’

  This seemed to cheer him up. ‘I’ve got one,’ he said, brightening. ‘Here.’ He passed me a CD he’d fished out of his backpack. ‘It’s my favourite. It’s the Chipmunks.’

  It was, too. For the next 15 minutes all conversation was halted as he hummed along to some frankly bizarre, squeaky renditions of a bunch of pop songs I’d never even heard before. But it did seem to have worked, because as we turned into the school car park his mood seemed to have brightened considerably.

  It was one of those balmy September days that just seem perfect for starting school again. Warm and golden, with just enough of an autumnal tinge to signal that summer’s languid days were over and it was time to sharpen pencils and start work. It was a time of year I’d always loved; all crisp new uniforms and a clear sense of purpose. But, as I was about to find out, it was not a feeling Spencer shared.

  The unit – the more correct name for what Spencer knew as school – was actually a large house, set in the middle of a ring of mature trees. It looked inviting and appealing; very much a place of learning, even though I knew that most of the children who attended it were there precisely because they all had challenges with doing just that. Not that it wasn’t somewhat obvious. We entered via a pair of electronically opened gates, which began closing again immediately we passed through them.

  I parked up, got out of the car and opened Spencer’s door – he couldn’t do it himself, because of the child lock – and, once I’d done so, leaned back in to the front passenger foot well to grab my handbag. It was then, to my astonishment, that he made what was obviously a bid for freedom, sprinting across the car park towards the now secured gates. It took mere seconds for him to scale them – he was obviously something of an expert – and even found time, as I hurried in pursuit, to give me the finger before jogging off down the road.

  Happily, at that point, another car had pulled up and, as I watched from behind the now re-opening gates, the occupant jumped out, shouting, ‘Don’t worry! I’ll catch him!’ before sprinting off after his rapidly disappearing prey.

  To say I was bemused would be an understatement. I was now standing in the middle of what looked like a crime scene: the gates swinging open, the car blocking the entrance, its driver’s door still flung open, the dust that had been kicked up by the chase slowly settling. I was also, for all that, thinking fast. The man – who I presumed must be a teacher, and who looked to be in his late twenties – clearly knew exactly what he was dealing with. I’d also got the impression he knew where to go, and every confidence he’d bring his diminutive charge to heel.

  But why hadn’t I been told about this? Because from the evidence in front of me it seemed pretty clear that young Spencer was a serial absconder.

  It was a good ten minutes before the two of them were once again in sight, walking towards me. ‘What on earth was that about?’ I asked Spencer, as soon as he was in earshot. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. What were you thinking?’

  The young man stuck a hand out and grinned at me amiably. ‘Mr Gorman,’ he said. ‘Very nice to meet you. You’ll be Spencer’s foster mother, then, will you?’

  I nodded and introduced myself. ‘And I’m really, really sorry. I had no idea he’d try to run away. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Watson,’ he said. ‘Not your fault. Someone should have told you – young Spencer here doesn’t like our school a whole lot.’ He playfully ruffled Spencer’s hair. ‘Isn’t that right, young man?’

  We started towards the entrance, Mr Gorman’s hand gently guiding Spencer. ‘His mum and dad used to have to physically bring him right into reception,’ he said chattily. ‘But he’s always fine once he’s in, aren’t you, mate?’

&
nbsp; Spencer looked resigned, but, at the same time, a little pleased with himself. There was clearly a bond here, and something else besides. This stunt of his had brought him some positive attention. Was that a part of why he did it? ‘Come on,’ said Mr Gorman, laughing. ‘Let’s get you settled in your class, then Mrs Watson and I can have a chat, okay?’

  ‘Okay, sir,’ Spencer answered. ‘But it was worth a try though, wannit?’ And with that, he skipped off to class, grinning cheekily.

  * * *

  It took around 20 minutes for Mr Gorman to give me a quick guided tour of the school. He was Spencer’s supervising teacher – a role that a head of year would have in a conventional school – and as we walked he told me Spencer was a miniature Houdini, who’d abscond any chance he could get. What the school did, he explained, was to minimise those chances, keeping him occupied almost every moment of the school day, and never letting him out into the grounds unsupervised. This was reassuring, though it did leave me very unnerved. At no point had anyone mentioned this to me or Mike before, much less given us any directives about keeping him indoors. Surely something like this should have come up? I made a mental note to ring the supervising social worker.

  I was still ruminating on this as I drove round to Riley’s, where I’d planned on spending much of the school day. Spencer was eight, much too young to be safe out alone. It seemed clear I’d need to keep my wits about me.

  ‘Not that you’ll be able to do a lot about it anyway,’ said Riley, after I’d droned on for half an hour. ‘I mean, you can obviously keep him indoors all the while he’s grounded. But what about next week? You’re going to have to let him out then, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I? At eight? Unsupervised? That feels so young.’

  Riley pointed towards her kitchen window, which looked out onto her street. ‘Not at all. Just look out there at three thirty any weekday. There are kids way younger than eight playing out these days.’