by Rosie Lewis
‘He puts it in my mouth,’ she sobbed, her face twisting and convulsing with disgust. She looked as if she might actually be sick. ‘I can’t breathe when he does it, Rosie. I can’t breathe.’ She gasped for air and shook uncontrollably, as if the pain of the memories was as fresh as the day they took place.
My stomach was seized with revulsion. I was struck by the realisation that this was another of those moments that would stay lodged in my mind forever, however much I tried to overwrite it. Feeling sick to my stomach and hardly wanting to continue myself, I kept my eyes fixed on a pile of freshly sawn logs at the end of the lay-by, the concentration helping me to keep an even tone.
‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that, sweetie. That shouldn’t happen to any child.’
My seemingly calm reaction must have had some effect because when she next spoke it was with less reluctance, the words tumbling over themselves in her eagerness to get them out. ‘And he sometimes puts it down there.’ In the rear-view mirror I could see her arm moving. With a rush of nausea I guessed where she was pointing. ‘That’s when it stings the most. He gets cross when I make a noise so I cry in my head when he does it.’
Her sobs became loud and racking. There was a click as she released her seatbelt, drawing her legs up to her chest and resting her face on her knees. After five minutes of continuous crying I could bear it no longer. Turning slowly, I pulled the door release and went to climb out. She needed to know I was on her side and I felt an overwhelming urge to hold her.
‘No, please, Rosie, stay there.’
In the glove compartment there was a pack of tissues. I reached over and plucked a few from the top, then dangled them over the back of my head. She took them and gave an exhausted blow of her nose. ‘I need more,’ she managed to choke out, all her sinuses full and her throat clogged with mucous.
We stayed like that for what felt like an age, Phoebe sobbing into her soggy tissues and me sitting helplessly a few feet in front of her. Gradually the sobbing subsided and all I could hear was her breathing, heavy and muffled with her nose so blocked. ‘The man isn’t always mean,’ she said, after a further five minutes of silence. ‘Sometimes he’s nice. I think he must really be two different people – do you think he might be?’ she asked in a tiny and what I sensed was a somewhat hopeful voice.
‘Hmmm,’ I said, trying to sound as if I thought that might be possible.
Another few minutes elapsed while I willed her to continue. When she didn’t say any more I decided to risk a prompt.
‘What is his name? The mean man?’
‘He hasn’t got a name – I just call him horrible man.’
She fell silent again. I thought carefully about how to continue. After a while I asked, ‘How about the nice man?’
‘Huh?’ She hiccoughed through her sobs.
‘What do you call the man when he’s being nice?’
A pause. My jaw was beginning to ache through clenching it so tight.
After a few more sobs she choked, ‘Daddy.’
When she spoke the low hum of a tractor engine from across the fields and the shouts of children playing in the distance seemed to recede. All I could hear was Phoebe’s tremulous voice repeating itself over and over: Daddy, daddy, daddy.
An overwhelming swell of sadness rolled through me as she dissolved into a fresh outburst of sobs. I felt such deep sorrow for her. Without caring whether she objected or not, I reached for the door handle and released it. Suddenly light-headed, I steadied myself by gripping the frame. Grabbing the precious few seconds of fresh air, I took some deep breaths then climbed into the back and sat beside her. She sank down to rest her head on my lap.
‘You’ll be alright, you know,’ I soothed, stroking her damp hair. ‘Everything will be alright.’
The high voice I heard didn’t sound like my own.
‘When am I next seeing Daddy?’ she asked in a small voice as we walked into the house a while later.
Her face was still red and swollen, large blotches covering both cheeks. There was a long pause while I weighed up what I should say to her. There was no way I wanted her to feel guilty for what she had revealed, but at the same time I felt I had to be honest. It was no use making false promises. ‘Well, I’m not sure yet, honey. We’ll need to talk to Lenke and decide the best thing to do.’
Panic filled her eyes, fresh tears following in its wake. ‘I lied about that stuff.’ She flapped her arms as if the gesture would be enough to make it all go away. ‘Daddy didn’t do anything, Rosie, he didn’t hurt me – I was pretending.’
She was sobbing now, her thin hand gripping mine so tightly it was beginning to hurt. A tight ball of anger unfurled itself in my stomach. How could any man bring himself to hurt a child in such a vile way? I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, stroking her hair and making shushing noises. That was almost the most shocking thing of all: the love children have for their parents, no matter what harm has been visited on them. ‘I know it’s hard, sweetie. But the most important thing to us is that we keep you safe.’
Gripping hold of my cardigan with both hands, she buried her face in my chest, crying and crying. Steering her to the sofa, I sat down and she flopped next to me, her whole body racked with sobs. We stayed like that for what felt like an hour, her head buried in my shoulder while I patted and stroked her back. She trembled so violently that I was worried for a moment that she might go into a fit, but still I didn’t move, wanting her to express her grief, and knowing it had to come out, one way or another.
When she eventually fell silent I turned my head slowly, my neck stiff with the weight of her leaning against me. I was surprised to find that she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 25
Phoebe’s disclosure was so shocking that when I woke the next morning I wondered for a moment if I’d dreamt it. I longed for 9am to arrive so that I could report it to Lenke and then give Des a call. When I had telephoned the out-of-hours duty social worker after Phoebe had gone to bed, her advice was to discuss the matter with Phoebe’s own social worker in the morning. It felt wrong to do nothing but wait, as if I were ignoring an emergency situation, although I could appreciate that in the arena of social services what had happened to Phoebe wasn’t that unusual.
It was at times like this that I felt totally disconnected from the real world, completely alone. Child abuse was hardly a subject I could bring up over a cup of tea with my next-door neighbours. To protect Phoebe’s confidentiality I couldn’t even share what I knew with my closest of friends. I wondered if this was how severely depressed people felt, drifting through each day with no one to turn to, no anchor to keep them from sinking.
Which was probably exactly how Phoebe was feeling. Overnight her life had changed. I wondered whether she was able to fully comprehend just how far-reaching the consequences would be. Never again would she be going home to both parents. If she were to go home, it would be to her mother, as a single parent.
She was deeply attached to her father and so it was a depressing thought. All night I hadn’t been able to think of anything else and my stomach was still churning with the knowledge of what she’d had to endure. She hadn’t given any indication as to how old she was when the abuse began, but from what she had said, I got the impression it had happened repeatedly.
As soon as I got up and pulled on my dressing gown I bypassed my usual pit stop at the kettle and ran straight into the bathroom, kneeling down on the bath mat and throwing up into the toilet bowl. Grabbing some tissue, I sank my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
After a few minutes I pulled the flush lever and stood, washing my hands and splashing some cold water on my face. I just wanted to repeat what she’d said to someone, to tell them over and over to purge the knowledge of it from my brain. What I felt, I realised as I climbed into a hot shower, was unclean. Debased by the sickening images swimming around in my mind. No wonder Phoebe had ingested so many cleaning products, I realised, with a s
udden bolt in my solar plexus; it was as I’d suspected – she was trying to clean herself from the inside out. Soap and water weren’t enough to rid her of that awful feeling.
As I got dressed I suddenly remembered Phoebe telling me about the noises inside her head. It occurred to me that what she had been experiencing was a manifestation of utter panic whenever she sensed her father was planning a visit to her room. If only her teacher had been more attentive when she had tried to tell her about the noises, she may have been rescued from her abuser sooner. In some ways it was a blessing that her mother had lost her cool and struck out, injuring Phoebe’s arm. If that hadn’t happened, I realised with a shudder, she might have been trapped in a cycle of abuse for many years to come.
Phoebe hardly ate any breakfast again that morning and when I left her lined up in the playground she looked so pale I marvelled that she even had the energy to stand there. She appeared close to collapse. Was her catatonic state a manifestation of post-traumatic shock? I wondered, knowing school was probably the best place for her, to keep her mind distracted, although it was tempting to grab her hand and take her back home with me.
I spent the rest of the day feeling close to tears. Every sinew of me was overwhelmed by what Phoebe had said and it was difficult to concentrate on anything. I went through the motions, whizzing around the supermarket straight after the school run, then driving to our local children’s centre to attend the formal foster carers’ support group, but nothing stilled the emotions swirling around inside my head.
The group get-together was arranged by the local authority, the idea being that all of the borough’s foster carers would convene once a month to discuss any concerns they might have and offer support to other carers who might be going through a difficult time. Although I was registered with an agency, it was still expected that I should attend all of the local authority training and workshop days. Monthly attendance was compulsory, but since it was an official coffee morning chaired by a social worker, it wasn’t a relaxed experience and most of us remained tight-lipped, wary of moaning freely and then having everything we said reported back to the fostering team manager.
Jenny, Rachel and Liz were all there when I arrived and I sat with them, but apart from exchanging pleasantries, we didn’t say much except that we would try to get together for a meal sometime in the near future, if we could all coordinate our back-up carers to stand in for us on the same evening.
This particular meeting was chaired by Bridget, a black lady in her early forties who amazed us all by managing to appear with a different hairstyle every time we saw her; today she wore long braids twisted and piled high on top of her head. She was a cheerful woman, who seemed totally down-to-earth. I had got to know her quite well a couple of years earlier when she was social worker to one of the children in placement with me and she seemed to possess a discretion that ran deeper than her job required but still I wouldn’t have opened up in front of her. Paranoia runs deep in most foster carers.
Bridget ran through the agenda for the day, one of the items being record taking. The social worker emphasised the importance of keeping accurate, meticulous notes as a way of avoiding complaints and allegations. I stifled a snort. My records were accurate but I still hadn’t thought that buying Phoebe a dressing-up outfit was worthy of mention. And even if I had recorded it, the complaint would still have been made.
‘Doesn’t make a whole lot of bleedin’ difference,’ Pauline piped up from where she sat, in the corner of the room on a large purple beanbag. ‘I lent my little un’s buggy to a contact supervisor and she reported me after finding the head of a Jelly Baby stuck to one of the straps.’
Pauline was a Londoner who had moved up north years earlier. She had been fostering with the local authority for over 20 years and was one of the few who really didn’t care who she upset. All she was interested in was the children and everyone else could ‘go stuff ’emselves’ as she put it.
‘Well,’ Bridget said, somewhat carefully, ‘it serves to remind us to keep up our standards of care. You could use it as a learning tool, Pauline, to help you grow as a carer.’
‘Grow as a carer?’ Pauline’s face reddened. Jenny, Rachel, Liz and I all exchanged smirks. ‘Grow as a bleedin’ carer? I bin fostering for over 20 years, Bridget! You show me a busy mum anywhere in the country who don’t have bits of bleedin’ Jelly Babies somewhere about the place. It’ll be a mum that gets the nanny to take the kids out while she swans off to the ruddy gym.’
The rest of the meeting passed peacefully enough and although I hadn’t said much, I felt slightly more cheerful when I left the children’s centre and went home to do an hour’s housework. I hadn’t shared the news of Phoebe with anyone but the simple act of mixing with people who were experiencing emotions similar to my own was uplifting.
Later that day my mother came around. I hadn’t been expecting her and was supervising Phoebe in the bathroom when Emily called up the stairs to say Grandma was in the kitchen. I had a feeling our earlier telephone conversation had prompted the unannounced visit; I had forced a cheery tone and made all the right noises about being fine but age hadn’t watered down Mum’s witch-like ability to sense upset in one of her children. Somehow she knew I was feeling the strain and she wasn’t going to let me suffer alone.
She was waiting at the bottom of the stairs as I trudged down. ‘Come on, I want to get home for EastEnders,’ she said briskly, as if it was me who had insisted she interrupt her evening to come round and counsel me. Propelling me to the kitchen, she directed me to one of our high stools and patted her hands on my shoulders, the loving gesture releasing the emotions that I’d kept bottled up inside. My eyes welled up. Making a low clicking noise that said, ‘Hmm, I knew it,’ she immediately switched the kettle on.
How funny, I thought, that she always turned to tea in turbulent times, as if the caffeine-filled leaves were a magical balm to soothe ragged nerves. Personally, I would have preferred her to slip me a dose of something more calming.
‘How’s Phoebe doing?’ she asked in hushed tones. As was her way, she got straight to the heart of the matter. Emily and Jamie were back watching TV in the living room and Phoebe had asked if she could read quietly on her bed, something she had taken to doing over the past couple of days. I didn’t think she would be able to hear us talking from up there but I was glad that Mum wasn’t taking any chances.
For a few seconds I considered fobbing her off by glossing over all the details and telling her I’d just had a bit of a day of it. Forming the words somehow seemed too much of an effort and anyway, I knew I really shouldn’t tell her anything; Phoebe’s history was confidential. But, then again, she was my back-up carer. Foster carers aren’t allowed to use unchecked babysitters – anyone left to care for fostered children must be screened by social services. My mother had attended a respite carers’ course and been interviewed by the local authority, who had also checked her background. As one of Phoebe’s carers, I reasoned that she should be included on the ‘need to know’ list. Few people possessed more discretion than my mother and besides she had a way of staring at me that rendered me incapable of keeping anything secret.
Once I started jabbering it all came out, along with a few tears. Mum listened in silence, raising her hand to her mouth when I told her about Phoebe’s father.
‘That poor, poor child,’ she said quietly.
I nodded grimly. ‘And now she’s even more down than when you saw her the other day. I thought our talk might have helped her a bit, but,’ I chewed the inside of my lip, ‘she’s so lifeless, as if all the energy has been shaken out of her.’
She shook her head and remained deep in thought for a few moments. It was peculiar but whenever I confided in Mum, all the physical symptoms of stress seemed to vanish from my system. My stomach, having churned constantly all day, suddenly settled. I felt as if I had handed part of Phoebe’s distress to her, thereby sharing it. She sometimes drove me mad with her intuition and occasional disapproval
, but she was a wise old bird and also had an amazingly calming effect on me. I was so deeply thankful for our relationship that I pitied all the children I’d known with tumultuous lives, who hadn’t grown up in the certain knowledge that they were constantly welcome and wanted.
Filled with a sudden wave of affection, I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘What for?’
My eyes filled again. ‘Just, thanks.’
The kettle made faint hissing sounds. Steam rose from the spout and surrounded Mum’s head like an aura. ‘It’s not surprising, love, with what it sounds like she’s been through. Must have been horrific for her, the poor child.’ Mum shook her head, the wrinkles in her forehead burrowing deeper into her skin. ‘You can’t expect her to reveal something of that magnitude and then be right as rain.’
‘I know. I suppose I expected some change in her, some sort of relief after naming her abuser, but she seems worse than ever. I know the way she was in the early days was exhausting but at least she was full of life. Makes you wonder where it’s all going to end.’ I sighed. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to dealing with all of this.’
‘Hmmm.’ Mum blew over the hot liquid in her cup, then, wrinkling her nose, she took a tentative sip. Her glasses steamed up in the process. ‘You’ve just got to get on with it and do the best you can,’ she said. Being a war baby, it was her standard mantra when times got tough, and one I was used to hearing. ‘All you can do is wait and see which way the wind blows.’
She paused, pulling her glasses off and cleaning them with the edge of her blouse. When she put them back on she pushed the frame further up the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and squinted at me. ‘I’m sorry to say this, love, but perhaps there’s more to come.’
