by Angela Hart
Marty, who was yet to meet Melissa, said if he was going to run away he’d do it after his tea, especially if it was a curry. Ryan laughed. ‘Yeah, I’d do the same. Girls just don’t have good survival skills, do they?’
Marty shook his head and said very seriously, ‘It’s the way of the world. Girls are dumb. Boys rule. That’s just how it is, I’m afraid.’
He spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were delivering some grave news about world events. Ryan laughed and I could see how Marty’s manner and tone could come across as amusing to another young boy. However, I couldn’t really let this go; clearly Marty had picked up some sexist views from somewhere.
I talked to both boys in simple terms about equality, and about not judging another person because of their sex. The two of them sat there looking rather nonplussed, just wanting to get on with the next round of rummy.
I had no luck at all with my hand, and Marty made a comment about cards being a ‘man’s game’, which set me off on another attempt to educate him about equality and sexism. This time I gave a personal example, in the hope of getting my point across effectively. ‘Look at it like this,’ I said. ‘Ryan, how would you have liked it if I’d said you couldn’t help me make scones the other day? What if I’d said boys couldn’t bake and only girls were good at making scones?’
‘I’d have proved you wrong!’ Ryan retorted proudly.
‘There you go. We all deserve the same opportunities and you don’t know what a person is capable of when all you know is whether they’re a boy or a girl. Therefore you must never judge a person because of their sex.’
Ryan looked a bit embarrassed, although I think that was possibly at the mention of the word sex, which made his eyes temporarily widen. Nevertheless he seemed to take my point and gave a little nod of acceptance. For a moment Marty seemed less accepting of my view. He was still looking very serious and thoughtful, but then he said, ‘I do get what you’re saying. And I think I’ve kinda changed my mind about something.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes. You see, there’s a five-a-side football tournament at the leisure centre. A lady mentioned it to me and I said I didn’t want to go, but maybe I’d like to go now.’
I imagined it was Marty’s social worker who’d mentioned it, or one of the other professionals he came into contact with, but it’s very common for children not to talk about these people in front of other children. Even though the kids staying in our house know they are all fostered, it’s often like there’s an unwritten rule that nobody mentions it, unless strictly necessary. It’s very rare for foster children to discuss their family backgrounds and the reasons they are in care with each other, and more often than not a foster child will not correct a member of the public who assumes Jonathan and I are their parents, and so we don’t either.
I think this is all very understandable; it’s not that they are necessarily ashamed of being in care and try to cover it up, but they don’t want to be defined or judged negatively by their status, which can happen. For instance, on one occasion Jonathan and I attended a swimming gala with a foster child. A swimming instructor referred to us as ‘Mum and Dad’, to which the child replied, ‘They’re not my parents, they’re my foster carers.’ The instructor’s ill-judged response was, ‘I’d never have guessed it – you’re very well behaved and you’ve got a nice new swimsuit.’
Jonathan looked at Marty and considered what he’d said about the football tournament. ‘Why the change of heart? What was it that put you off going before?’
Marty reluctantly admitted that the lady had told him her daughter was participating.
‘My dad always said girls shouldn’t be allowed to play football, see,’ he said. ‘But, er, that’s not right, is it?’
‘Well,’ Jonathan said, ‘that’s your dad’s opinion; it’s not a fact. In my opinion, girls should definitely be allowed to play football. Everyone should have an equal chance.’
Marty looked lost in thought. ‘Like boys are allowed to do ballet,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I get it.’ He didn’t say any more.
I looked at Marty and wondered if he was only just starting to work out that so many things he’d been brought up to believe, and mimic, were questionable. Sadly, having a sexist role model was only the tip of the iceberg. I thought about what had happened in his past. It was so sad, and I hoped his ongoing counselling would help him understand why he had behaved inappropriately with the younger child. I also hoped it would shine a spotlight on other aspects of his childhood, teaching him that not everything he’d been told in his formative years by the people he loved and trusted was necessarily correct and true.
When the boys were on their way up to bed I asked them if they would like me to get some information about the football tournament that weekend, and maybe try to book them both in for it. They said they would like that.
‘Maybe Melissa could come too?’ Ryan said. ‘I mean, she’ll be back then, right?’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I said, giving him a smile. ‘We can ask her. Hopefully she will come too.’
Marty thanked me for getting the information and said it would be good if Melissa could come, as he still hadn’t managed to meet her. Ryan had told him she was ‘sound’, which made me smile as he’d only spoken to her for a minute or two about the fact she’d attended his primary school and said ‘it sucks’.
Both boys went to bed without any fuss. Their lights were out and the house was quiet within ten minutes of them going upstairs. I sincerely hoped Melissa would be home and in her own bed by the time they woke the next day.
Jonathan observed that we normally loved it when the house fell silent in the evening and we got to enjoy some peace and quiet together. Now, of course, we were willing Melissa to come back, or at least for the phone to ring. We didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. We weren’t relaxed yet, neither of us was in the mood to concentrate on anything or just do nothing. It was a horrible kind of limbo.
The phone did ring, twice. The first time it was a wrong number and the next time it was one of Jonathan’s brothers calling about a family party. We both sprang out of our chairs each time the shrill ring cut through the silence, our heartbeats speeding up, only to feel a stab of disappointment when there was no news of Melissa.
We finally went to bed at midnight, feeling tired out but knowing we probably wouldn’t sleep. Rain was lashing on our bedroom window and the wind was whistling around the house. It was an absolutely filthy night. Melissa had gone out in the tracksuit she’d had on that looked too big for her, and she hadn’t taken a coat. I dreaded to think where she was and what she was doing. All we ever heard about her disappearances was that she was mixing with the wrong crowd. Each time the police found her she seemed to get picked up from ‘the streets’, where she was found hanging around with other young people. That was about all the detail we had amassed. I figured that if she was with TJ at least she might be in his van, or maybe at his house. Maybe they even went back to the takeaway, after it closed? It would be shut by now – not much stayed open in our small town after eleven or maybe eleven thirty.
I started to think about why Melissa would run away to be with TJ when we had given her permission to see him. Granted, she had to be in at nine and she considered that too early, but at least she could see him for a short time. Why had she run away like this?
I eventually drifted in and out of sleep, thinking about all kinds of possibilities. Did TJ take her somewhere out of town, to be with another crowd? Was she at a party, drinking or even taking drugs, trying to be cool and impress older boys?
At quarter past three I woke with a start. I’d heard the sound of breaking glass in the back garden.
‘It’s her!’ I said, sitting up. I’d been in a fitful sleep and felt instantly alert.
‘I’ll go,’ Jonathan murmured. I could see he was still half asleep, yet he suddenly began pushing himself up onto his elbows. He knocked his head on the headboard as he did so and winced as he r
eached out and switched on the bedside light. We both blinked, dazzled by the sudden brightness radiating from the lamp.
I got up and looked out of the window, across the back garden and then at the playing fields beyond. I couldn’t see Melissa, though the rain was still lashing and it was incredibly dark outside. I noticed there wasn’t a star in the sky. The wind was wild now; its whistles had become howls in the dark.
Jonathan put on his dressing gown and went downstairs. I listened as he unbolted the door and I watched from the window as he emerged into the garden. He put the patio lights on, and then the dim security light we had on the wall of the house flickered on. It was triggered by Jonathan’s movement and I had a dismal thought, If Melissa is out there, that light would already have come on. I could see that Jonathan had a pair of wellingtons pulled up over his pyjama bottoms, a raincoat zipped up to his chin and a large torch in his hand. He scoured the garden and the side passage, shining his torch all around the garage, the old pet hutch we had propped up against the back wall, the rockery and shrubs, and even behind the bins. Melissa wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
We had a greenhouse tucked in the far corner of the garden and I watched Jonathan walk up to it, bracing himself against the wind as he did so. It was in darkness, as the yellow glow of the security light didn’t reach that far, and nor did the patio lights. Jonathan searched all around the greenhouse, torchlight bouncing back at him as he illuminated the panes of glass. I saw him crouch down, pick something up and examine it. I guessed this must be the broken glass: it glinted brightly under the beam of the torch. For a desperate moment I dared to believe he was going to find Melissa hiding in the greenhouse, but that was just my sleep-deprived head giving me false hope. I was so tired I could hear a dull buzz all around my brain, like the sound of a beehive in a distant place.
Jonathan turned and trudged dejectedly back to the house. I heard him come back in and lock the door, at which point I exhaled deeply and climbed back into bed.
‘Must have been the wind blew one of the door panes out,’ he said flatly as he came back to bed. He squeezed my hand; he was freezing cold and I shuddered.
‘That’s dangerous,’ I said. ‘It could have fallen out on one of the kids. We’ll have to get it repaired.’
‘I know. We’d better have the whole greenhouse checked. This wind has given it a real battering. There was a plant pot on its side and it looks like one of those diamond-shaped panels of glass had fallen out and landed on top of it. You know the type I mean? It was only a small piece of glass – I can’t believe we heard it break from here.’
‘I can,’ I said wearily. ‘I feel like I’ve developed super-sensitive hearing since Melissa came to stay with us.’
‘You’ve always had radar ears,’ Jonathan joked.
‘You can talk – so have you!’
Several of the kids we’d fostered had complained about our ‘radar ears’, saying we never missed a trick. One child even jokingly called Jonathan Mr Spock after he’d overheard a ‘secret plot’ that was being whispered about very quietly, but not quietly enough. The child could not believe Jonathan had heard anything at all, but I think you get used to tuning in even more than usual whenever you hear a child whisper, in case they are up to no good. Quite a lot of kids asked us if we were telepathic. This usually happened after I said they couldn’t do something or have something, and gave the reason. They then chanced their luck with Jonathan, only to be given exactly the same response despite the fact we hadn’t had time to speak to one another. ‘How do you do that?’ they’d ask, incredulous that we’d stuck to the same script without having chance to confer. ‘Are you magic? Are you psychic? You must be telepathic!’
Jonathan and I were certainly on the same wavelength tonight; we were both feeling too fraught and anxious to sleep but agreed we had to try our best to get a few more hours or we’d be feeling wretched the next day.
I woke again soon after six.
‘Tea?’ Jonathan said the moment I opened my eyes.
‘How long have you been awake?’
‘Not long, ten minutes at the most.’
‘How d’you feel?’
‘Not too bad considering.’
‘Me neither. We must be running on adrenaline.’
‘I think you’re right. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
Jonathan got up and as he did so I said, ‘I’ll check the answerphone.’ He said the same thing at exactly the same time, which made us smile.
‘The kids are right, we are telepathic.’
There were no new messages on the answerphone, and neither of us was surprised. There was no way we had slept soundly enough to miss a phone call in the middle of the night.
Wilf called me shortly after breakfast. There was still no news of Melissa but he said he wanted to come over to discuss Ryan and Marty. I assumed he wanted to talk about the arrangements for them both moving on from our care, which Jonathan and I were expecting to happen very shortly.
The boys were busy swapping football cards in the lounge when Wilf arrived. Jonathan was in the shop, after driving over to the police station first thing that morning to give them Melissa’s photo, which they copied as promised and told us to keep hold of.
I invited Wilf into the kitchen and we chatted as I made us both a coffee.
‘I never used to drink coffee before I did this job,’ Wilf mused. ‘I didn’t even like it. Now I don’t know how I’d get through the day without it!’
‘I’ve always drunk coffee, but never in such large quantities as I do now. But I guess that’s what happens when you have broken sleep and you need something to keep you going.’
I’d told Wilf about the night we’d had, with me hearing the sound of broken glass and Jonathan searching the garden in the small hours. ‘Nobody ever told us social work and foster care was so stressful, did they?’ he said ruefully.
When I gave him his coffee he wrapped his hands around the mug, as if he was taking comfort from it.
‘They didn’t, but would you have listened if they had?’
Wilf shook his head. ‘Probably not. I always felt it was my vocation. I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We get our rewards, don’t we?’
‘Yes,’ I said, immediately thinking of Vicky, and several other children who’d lived with us over the past few years. Seeing their self-esteem grow, watching them smile and helping them learn about the world, and make progress at school and with their friends, were all priceless gifts.
I shared with Wilf that Jonathan and I were incredibly naive when we first became foster carers. ‘We thought the job would simply entail giving kids a warm, comfortable home, putting good food on the table and showing them they were loved and cared for. A bit like looking after flowers in the shop – you know, provide the right environment, love and nourish them and they’ll all bloom perfectly!’
Wilf let out a hoot of laughter. ‘There’s a bit more to it than that, isn’t there?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘I’ve probably said this before,’ Wilf went on. ‘But I don’t think I could be a foster carer. In fact, I know I couldn’t, as you never get a chance to switch off, do you? Even if I’m working until well after eight o’clock trying to place a child, at least once I’m home I don’t have to think about anything until the following morning.’
As we drank our coffee and treated ourselves to a chocolate biscuit Wilf explained there had been another delay with the subsequent moves for both Ryan and Marty. He wanted to know if it would be possible to extend their placements with us further, by another week, or two at the most.
After checking with Jonathan I agreed to this. The boys were no trouble, and we were enjoying looking after them. A school place had now been found for Marty in the area he would ultimately be moving to full time, and Wilf said a taxi would be provided to take him and collect him while he was still living with us.
Jonathan and I always tried to do the school runs ourselves whenever possible, but Marty’s
school was quite a distance away and it wasn’t feasible for us to take on this responsibility, having Ryan and Melissa to consider too.
Ryan’s primary school continued to be very understanding about his situation and Wilf said it was up to Ryan if he wanted to return the following week.
‘Maybe if Marty is back in school Ryan might want to go back too,’ I suggested. ‘It might encourage him, especially if Marty is going to be out for long days?’
Wilf said he thought I could be right and that he’d have a word with Ryan’s social worker to perhaps nudge him in this direction, if the social worker was in agreement. We then talked about how I thought the boys were coping.
‘Very well, I think. Neither of them has disclosed anything to us, although I wouldn’t have expected them to at this early stage. You wouldn’t guess they’ve both suffered as they have. They appear to be fine.’
I explained about Ryan being a little joker and that he and Marty got along well: there had been no arguments and in fact there was a pleasant atmosphere whenever they were together. We agreed it was a good thing they both had counselling and therapy available to them. In my experience children – and particularly boys – rarely open up at the start of a placement. It’s not unheard of, but usually children who’ve been traumatised don’t feel settled enough to disclose the details of their past experiences for weeks, if not months. In some cases it’s many, many years, or never at all.
I told Wilf I was taking the boys to play five-aside football, as I’d managed to book them both into the tournament we’d talked about, the one at the local leisure centre at the weekend. He said this sounded ideal and that it looked like we had everything under control.
‘How are you and Jonathan coping generally?’
‘We’re doing OK. I really think we are, even though it’s incredibly stressful caring for a runner.’
When I heard that word coming back off the walls my heart sank. I didn’t like to use it as it sounded a bit cold, and I don’t like to define any child by their actions. However, that was the word the social workers and other childcare professionals used to describe boys and girls like Melissa, and it was the word Wilf himself used.
