by Rosie Lewis
It was never easy to sit opposite birth parents at a Looked After Children’s, or LAC, Review and tell them uncomfortable truths, but somehow it felt all the more difficult when those parents were as articulate and well-bred as the Steadmans. LAC Reviews are meetings held regularly to provide updates to all professionals involved in the case and to discuss the child’s care plan. As well as the foster carer and child’s parents, school teachers, health professionals and sometimes police officers attend the reviews.
Up on the second floor I passed several notice boards, one with a poster pinned on it with the wording ‘EVERY CHILD DESERVES A LOVING FAMILY’ followed in a smaller font by ‘Could You Adopt an Older Child?’ I wondered if it would come to that with Phoebe. And if it did, would a family welcome her permanently, with the severity of her problems? If not, she could stay with me; I would be her safety net. But at that moment, I reminded myself as I knocked on the third door to the right, she still had two apparently loving parents. Could it be that they were all that they seemed and someone else was responsible for taking a bright, trusting young girl and breaking her?
Dust-ridden aluminium blinds hung at the window of the small meeting room. The walls were a drab off-white and the cream carpet was stained. Most of the space was taken up by a scratched conference table, surrounded by eight grey metal chairs, two of them occupied. Lenke looked up and gave me a brief smile. Next to her sat Juliette Worth, the chairwoman. I had met her at several other reviews. She was a no-nonsense middle-aged woman with a plain face and a strong Yorkshire accent. ‘How are you, Rosie?’ she beamed when she saw me. ‘Nice to see you …’ I got the feeling she was going to say ‘looking so well’, but being a Northern woman she couldn’t bring herself to flattery when it wasn’t due and left the rest of her sentence floating in the air.
It appeared that Mr and Mrs Steadman had arrived just before me. They stood together on the far side of the room, their shiny selves incongruous against such a dreary backdrop. Phillipa, her expression pinched, sat and planted her neat handbag gently at her feet, while Robin edged around the table to offer me his hand. He met my eyes, smiling affably, and I wondered how he felt with the tables turned on him. In his job, it was usually he who got to say what was what.
‘Hello again, Rosie.’ Robin spoke in a tone someone might use with a much-loved relative. It was impossible not to respond pleasantly to his natural, effortless warmth and I shook his hand with a firmness equalling his own. I took a seat opposite the couple, watching them carefully. Phillipa sat wringing her hands, her whole body language exuding unease. It wasn’t surprising, I thought, considering what the pair of them were going through.
Strange then that her husband should appear so unrattled by recent events, as if he had absolutely nothing to worry about. Dressed in a crisp navy blue suit and striped satin tie, Robin Steadman leaned back in his chair and as he cast a laconic eye around the room it was easy to picture him wooing high net worth clients and making deals at the click of a finger.
After sweeping around the table with formal introductions, Lenke distributed copies of the agenda and summarised the events that had led to Phoebe being taken into police protection, touching on the local authority’s reasons for applying for an ICO (Interim Care Order). Juliette read out a report from the school, their feedback being that Phoebe’s behaviour had been much more erratic of late, swinging from excellent concentration to violent temper tantrums several times during each school day.
A slight, smug smile brushed Robin’s lips on hearing the teacher’s summary and he nodded in a knowing way at Juliette, satisfied by the evidence that Phoebe wasn’t doing as well in my care as she had at home.
‘And so, Rosie, perhaps you could tell us how Phoebe’s coping at the moment?’
‘She is quite low, I’m afraid.’ I paused and glanced at Lenke – it was so difficult to judge exactly how candid I should be, although I got the sense that this wasn’t the right time to understate Phoebe’s despair.
‘Why do you think that is, Rosie?’ Lenke asked in a pointed way, presumably giving the go-ahead for frankness.
‘Why do you think it is?’ Robin shot out, his tone unfailingly polite but with a definite angry undercurrent to his words. ‘It’s quite obvious I would have thought – she’s desperate to come home. The girl doesn’t know where to turn, she’s so confused.’
‘We’ll come to you in a moment,’ Juliette said, holding her hand up towards him and continuing to smile at me.
‘She’s opening up a bit about her past experiences,’ I said, gaining momentum under the chairwoman’s encouragement. ‘I think it’s difficult for her to cope with the feelings that her memories are provoking.’
‘What memories?’ Robin asked crisply.
Lenke jumped in. ‘Phoebe has grown to trust Rosie. She’s confided a number of worrying things in her over the past few days. Nothing specific but we have reason to suspect some sort of abuse.’
I was impressed by the social worker’s demeanour. She was noticeably cool but still professional. It seemed that she had finally accepted that abuse knows no boundaries.
Phillipa looked startled. Indignation flooded her petite features so suddenly that her face and neck were awash with colour. Robin narrowed his eyes in distrust. From their reaction, I gathered that Lenke hadn’t told either of them anything about Phoebe’s disclosures. Robin’s expression showed disbelief but he wasn’t horror-struck, unlike his wife. He appeared to be a man confronted with news that was simply too ludicrous to take seriously. His confidence was so absolute that although it had been only a few days since Phoebe’s disclosure I was already wondering whether it was indeed possible that she had made it all up. It was possible, of course, that there was someone else lurking in the background, someone the Steadmans trusted around their daughter. That is the trouble with abusers, I thought with a shudder: often they hide behind a veil of decency, expertly gaining the trust of family members.
‘What ideas have you been putting in her head? It’s funny how none of this arose until she went into your care,’ Phillipa spat. ‘You don’t even dress her properly,’ she added hatefully.
Unprepared for a return to what, in the current circumstances, seemed to me to be a particularly trivial complaint, I felt myself stiffen.
‘We have photographic evidence that Phoebe is not being kept clean,’ Robin offered, still using a conciliatory tone. It was as if he were suggesting pleasant destinations for a summer holiday rather than throwing out insults about my standards of care. ‘Her shoes were scuffed during our last contact and she was dressed in an inappropriate, charity shop outfit.’
Phillipa’s face wrinkled in disgust, presumably at the very thought of second-hand clothes. An image of Phoebe’s matted hair came to mind and I could not help but raise a wry eyebrow. ‘You have to appreciate that her last contact was sprung on me. If I’d had more warning …’
‘We don’t have to appreciate anything …’ Robin interrupted, finally losing his cool. ‘What you’ve done is taken a vulnerable child and twisted her mind with lies, trying to poison her against us.’
I swallowed. ‘That’s not true,’ I said, feeling uneasy.
Juliette held up her hands, taking charge. ‘Can you give us some idea of what she’s been saying? Are we talking emotional abuse or …?’
‘I guess it’s partly emotional abuse she’s describing but …’ I was straying into dangerous territory and was unsure how candid I was expected to be. Again I glanced at Lenke. Was I going to have to recount Phoebe’s disclosure verbatim? She nodded further encouragement. Without allowing myself to indulge the detail or embellish any facts, I began to relay our conversation as dispassionately as I could. ‘Phoebe has indicated that a man has hurt her …’ Unsettled by the look on Robin’s face, I slowed down, taking a few deep breaths before continuing. ‘She says this has happened in the bath and also in the bedroom.’
As soon as the words left my lips there was a throttled silence, the kind where
the walls of the room seemed to close in, amplifying the tension through the air.
‘That’s a disgusting lie,’ Phillipa spat, her chest rising and falling rapidly with the energy of resentment raging within her small frame. ‘Why are you so bent on destroying this family?’
It was then that husband and wife exchanged the briefest of looks, betraying a vein of disagreement. There was something in the glance that set off an alarm in my mind. Just a small tone, barely more than a faint jingle, but there all the same.
‘I would question your ability to interrogate a child. Are you qualified in any way?’ Robin’s voice dripped with sincerity but that only made it all the more sinister.
I gave him a penetrating look, hoping that it portrayed every opinion I had of him. ‘I’m a good listener, Mr Steadman, that’s all.’
There was another silence, more uncomfortable than the last, where it felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. A tension entered the meeting that was almost unbearable, particularly for someone like me, who would prefer to stay silent in a room full of people.
‘This is all a terrible misunderstanding,’ Robin protested eventually, but there was unmistakeable fear in his eyes. Lenke recognised it too. I could tell by the fleeting shadow that fell across her face, the way her eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than they should.
Distraught, Phillipa stood up abruptly, her chair thrown over by the backs of her knees. Robin also rose, simple surprise on his face as he watched his wife fumble for her handbag and stumble across the room. Self-assured though he was, the odd flicker in his face belied the fact that he had found the meeting, if not as unbearable as his wife had, at least fairly uncomfortable.
‘You will be hearing from my company’s firm of solicitors,’ Robin said. When he spoke his manner, in contrast to that of his wife, was perfectly amiable. Still utterly in control, the momentary lapse in his composure forgotten, it was almost as if it could have been a figment of my imagination. ‘When an ICO is in place the local authority shares joint parental responsibility with us, as her parents. You are therefore obliged to keep us informed of anything significant. You’ve been derelict in your duty and I shall be lodging a complaint against you, Lenke, for incompetence in dealing with us and keeping us informed about the welfare of our own daughter.’
Lenke was apparently impervious to insult, exhibiting no emotion other than serenity. Aware of the tremor in my own body, I felt a grudging respect emerge for the social worker. She appeared completely calm, merely blinking in response to the atmospheric change in the room. No doubt she was accustomed to the sort of scene erupting before our eyes, but my heart was beating so fast the movement was visible through the thin material of my T-shirt.
Thankfully it had been a long time since I had faced animosity as absolute as the Steadmans’.
Chapter 24
For the first time since I registered, I was seriously beginning to wonder whether I should ever have become a foster carer. From as early as I could remember it was all I had wanted to do. My early employment, after leaving school, had simply been a means to an end, a way of earning a living. No career had appealed to me like fostering had and somehow I knew, from a young age, that it was something I would one day do. Of course there had been moments over the past few years when I had had wobbles, particularly in the stressful early days of a placement, but on the whole I loved caring for children and I cherished the idea of it; of making a difference and doing something meaningful.
But as I sat hunched in front of my computer at 5am, the morning after the LAC Review, writing a report justifying my reasons for buying a second-hand outfit, I realised that sometimes, being a foster carer was less about making the lives of children better and more about covering your own back. I was able to embrace political correctness up to a point, in so far as it helped to reduce racism and other forms of discrimination, but in some cases it was a poisoned chalice.
My eyes were raw from the recent sleepless nights and I closed them for a moment, swinging around on the chair to face the window. It was tipping it down outside and although it wasn’t that cold, goose bumps were visible on my arms. I felt an inner chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Robin Steadman had invaded my thoughts again. I was no expert in psychology but I was convinced there was something not quite right with his body language at the LAC Review – in fact his whole demeanour had seemed off.
Without prior warning, he had received the news that his daughter may have been abused, possibly sexually. He was told that her attempts to confide this information had left her depressed and withdrawn. Surely any father ought to have been distressed, angry, bewildered, or even numb? Bearing in mind how close they seemed to be, I would have expected any reaction other than passivity.
My daily diaries were spread out on the desk in front of me. Once my report was complete I needed to fill in the diary entry for the previous day. After a complaint I knew how important it was to keep detailed, accurate notes but for a while I just sat watching the rain strumming against the window, the bleak greyness of our rain-lashed street invading every corner of the room.
Emily and Jamie got up at 6.30am. With Phoebe still in bed they seemed a bit more cheerful than they had of late, bickering in a jovial way over who was going to have the last of the chocolate cereal. By the time they left the house at 8am, I still hadn’t managed to get Phoebe up.
Every 10 minutes I had gone into her room and tried stirring her into action but so far, nothing had worked. The rain had cleared and so I had even tried opening the window, the fresh light breeze carrying the scent of freshly mown grass into the room. Sunlight was burning hazily through the clouds and streamed in through the open curtains but still she lay listlessly in her bed, oblivious to it all, curled on her side in the foetal position.
‘Come on, Phoebe, you’ll miss school at this rate. They’re doing cookery as well, so Miss Angel tells me – jam tarts. I’ve got all the ingredients ready for you.’
But her eyes remained fixed on the wall, she didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge me. Reaching for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, her favourite book at that time, I started reading, hoping to gain her interest enough to get her moving, or at least interacting with me in some way. It didn’t work. Refusing to turn around and look at me, she pulled the duvet up to her chin and closed her eyes.
‘OK, you can stay off school today if you’re not feeling up to it, just this once. So, what would you like to do? Shall we go to the park?’
She shook her head. Even that small movement seemed to be more effort than she could manage.
‘Come on, let’s think of somewhere – I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’
Every suggestion I made was met with resistance, but she did finally agree to come for a drive. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for but at least she got up and dressed, and it offered her a taste of fresh air, albeit for the few seconds it took to walk from the house and through the puddles to the car on the drive.
With the sun emerging it was warming up so we drove along with the windows wound down. With no destination in mind I switched unconsciously to autopilot and so we ended up heading out of town, whipping past several new housing developments. I slowed as the roads grew narrower, shops and residential streets giving way to rolling fields and farmhouses. Overhanging branches from woodland trees shielded the sun from view.
We passed a row of neat white cottages and in the forested distance a deer warning sign. I braked in case a fawn should dart out in front of us and glanced in the rear-view mirror, about to tell Phoebe to look out for one. When I saw her expression I swallowed my words, knowing nothing was likely to catch her interest: she looked absolutely vacant. I thought she might react when the wheels bumped over a cattle grid but she barely blinked, even when I told her that a rabbit had sprinted out from the undergrowth and stood on hind legs in the middle of the road, the sun glinting off its silver fur.
After about half an hour I pulled into a
lay-by just past a hand-painted sign for a farm food shop and opened the driver’s door. A roux of fresh earth, pine and forest flowers drifted in through the gap. ‘Shall we go for a walk across the fields, Phoebe? There’s a church just over the hill – can you see the spire? They have a tea shop and …’
‘Nooooo,’ she said. It was more of a wail than a stubborn protest.
I swung around to look at her. Her face had come to life and was full of anguish.
‘Don’t look at me, Rosie. Stop looking at me.’
Turning back, I rested my elbows on the steering wheel and rubbed my hands down my face, staying that way for several moments. Eventually I slipped the key back in the ignition and was about to fire up the engine when a small, stricken voice from the back made me freeze.
‘Why did the man do it?’
‘Do what, honey?’
‘Hurt me.’
How could I possibly explain to a nine-year-old the reason some humans were capable of depravity, when I couldn’t begin to understand it myself? ‘Sometimes adults do bad things,’ was all I came up with. ‘None of it was your fault, Phoebe,’ I said gently. ‘The man should never have hurt you – it was wrong.’
With a brief glance in the rear-view mirror, I could see that she had begun to cry. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. I longed to comfort her.
‘Can I come into the back with you, sweetie?’
‘Nooo,’ she wailed again.
‘OK, it’s alright. I’ll stay right here.’ I knew that over the years many children in care had made disclosures during car journeys. Tucked away, out of view, it was a safe way for a child to reveal something shocking without the pressure of being watched or judged. Children were often so fearful of being disbelieved that they couldn’t bear to witness the effect their words would have.
She began to shake, convulsions gripping her thin frame. Instinct told me that we were close to full disclosure; all I needed to do was to wait and let it come. After a few minutes she began retching. It sounded as though she was struggling for breath. My eyes shot to the mirror again to make sure she wasn’t choking.
