by Cathy Glass
‘Yes,’ I agreed. Mrs Jones had given Leah sound advice.
Mrs Jones then went back over the six months Alice had been living with them, prior to coming into care. ‘We were doing all right,’ she said. ‘I know we’re a bit old to be parenting a young child, but we always made sure Alice was at nursery on time, clean and well fed. Our biggest mistake was to ask that social worker for some help. I had a hospital appointment and Martin – Alice’s grandpa – was going to take me. We asked the social worker if someone could take Alice to nursery that morning. They took it as a sign we couldn’t cope.’
‘Usually the social services are pleased to put in help to keep families together,’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ Mrs Jones sighed. ‘Perhaps this was the excuse they were looking for to take Alice away. We didn’t get any help, just more visits from social workers, leading up to the court cases. You know, they took us back to court three times. I’ve not been well and I was physically sick with worry each night before we had to go. The first two times we went to court the judge wouldn’t grant them the court order to take Alice away. He said there was insufficient reason. But the third time he did. I don’t know what was different, other than that we’d asked for help with the hospital appointment, but by then we were too exhausted to put up a fight and Alice had to go into care.’ Mrs Jones stifled a sob.
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I reassured. Certainly the first part of what Mrs Jones had said fitted in with what I knew: the social services had returned to court three times before the Interim Care Order had been granted, although the reasons for this I didn’t know.
‘We did our best for Alice,’ Mrs Jones continued. ‘But it wasn’t good enough. We’ve lost her and I think Leah is blaming us.’ She stopped again to catch her breath.
‘It’s very difficult for me to comment,’ I said. ‘I don’t know enough about the circumstances that brought Alice into care. But what I do know, and what I have said to the social worker, and will be saying again, is that Alice has been very well looked after. She is a delightful child and a great credit to you and your daughter. You should all be very proud of her. It’s a long time since I’ve looked after a child who’s been so well brought up.’
It was a moment before Mrs Jones could speak. ‘Thank you, love, so much,’ she said, her voice faltering. ‘That means a lot to me.’
‘Before Alice came to live with you,’ I asked, ‘did Leah look after her?’
‘Yes, although we’ve always played a big part in her life.’
‘I can tell. Alice has many fond memories of you and Grandpa, as well as her mother.’
‘Cathy, can I speak frankly to you? I’m not saying anything I haven’t told the social workers, but Alice’s father is a very wicked man. He was the one who got Leah into drugs; he deals in them, or used to. He treated Leah dreadfully; he beat her up more than once. He’s never been a father to Alice, and now they are going to send Alice to live with him and that Sharon woman. It’s shocking, and Leah is so desperate I’m frightened she will do something silly.’
I hesitated. I didn’t know what I should or could say, for while I knew Alice’s father hadn’t been involved in her life in the past, I didn’t know the truth of Mrs Jones’s claim of him beating Leah or starting her on drugs.
‘Has Leah been found now?’ I asked.
‘Yes. She handed herself into the police on Wednesday.’
‘Is she still in police custody?’
‘No. Thankfully they let her off with a caution, although she’s been told not to go to the nursery or try to contact Alice. The police were very fair. They said they recognized that snatching Alice was an act of desperation, so they wouldn’t prosecute her, but they told her to get medical help.’ I was relieved that good sense had prevailed. ‘I think it was me letting Leah see Alice that led to Alice being taken into care,’ Mrs Jones added tearfully.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. When was this?’
‘When Alice came to us, six months ago, when Leah couldn’t cope, the social worker – not Martha, but a different one – said that because of Leah’s mental problems I mustn’t let Alice see her, or speak to her on the phone. They said they would set up supervised contact so that Alice could see her mum, but it didn’t happen – I don’t know why. But tell me, Cathy, you’re a mother: how could I stop my own daughter from seeing her child? Where is the milk of human kindness? I couldn’t do it, so I used to let Leah into the house so she could see Alice. There was never a problem; Leah always behaved herself – I made sure of it. The one time she arrived having been smoking something I sent her packing. But the social services found out I’d been letting her in to see Alice and they told the judge, and also that we’d all spent Christmas together. And I’m pleased we did. We had a lovely time and I think it will turn out to be our last Christmas together as a family.’ Mrs Jones stopped as her voice broke again.
What the truth of all this was I’d no idea, but given what I knew of Alice’s case, I could accept what Mrs Jones was saying. I also knew that if Leah was going to stand any chance of having her daughter returned to her, she needed to get medical help, speak to her solicitor, and stop screaming at the social workers as Martha had said she had been doing. I waited until Mrs Jones had stopped crying before giving her the best advice I could.
‘Leah must try to engage with the social workers,’ I said. ‘There is a new one taking up Alice’s case soon, so Leah can start afresh. Also she must make sure her solicitor is aware of all the background information. It is important. Does he know what you’ve just told me about Alice’s father’s violence and drug dealing? Was it ever reported to the police?’
‘I don’t think so. Leah was scared of Chris. He threatened her.’
‘Leah must tell her solicitor all this,’ I said again. ‘Also – and you can tell me to mind my own business – is Leah on any medication to help her?’
‘She was, but I don’t know if she still takes the tablets. She said they made her feel ill.’
‘I really think she needs to go back to her doctor and talk to him about her condition. If Leah’s been prescribed medication then she should be taking it. If she has problems with one tablet then her doctor may be able to prescribe something else. It’s important if she is going to try to make a case for having Alice returned to her, which I assume she will.’
‘Oh, yes. Alice is the most important person it the world to Leah. I know she’s lost her way, but she loves her daughter dearly.’
What I said to Mrs Jones was common sense really, but so often when we’re in a crisis we can miss the obvious. Mrs Jones thanked me and said she would speak to her daughter and tell her what I’d said. We said goodbye.
I replaced the receiver and sat for a moment thinking, before I went to run Alice’s bath. It wasn’t helpful for a ‘them and us’ situation to develop between the social services and the family of a child who was considered to be at risk. But this had clearly happened in Alice’s case, where Mrs Jones (and doubtless Mr Jones too) and Leah viewed the social services as the enemy, who were against them. I could appreciate why. If what Mrs Jones had said was true, then no help or support had been given to keep Alice with her maternal family and, worse, Alice was now being fast-tracked to a father who appeared to have a history of violence and drug dealing. Possibly Mrs Jones was misrepresenting the situation out of loyalty to her daughter; or had a dreadful mistake occurred? In all my years of fostering I had always been able to see the reasons why a child had been brought into care, and that there had been no alternative if the child was to be kept safe. Now, I had serious doubts.
Chapter Sixteen
Breaking the Rules
The first thing Alice said when she woke on Wednesday morning was: ‘Am I seeing Nana and Grandpa today?’
‘Yes, you are, love,’ I was finally able to say. ‘This afternoon.’
I knew how long her wait had been – twelve days since she’d come into care, plus the three days before tha
t when Alice had been missing with her mother. And the waiting, the gap in Alice’s life, seemed to have been highlighted by the regular contact she’d been having with her father and Sharon. When I’d taken Alice to the family centre the day before to see her father, Alice had asked: ‘Why do I have to keep seeing him, and not Mummy or Nana?’
I’d explained to Alice that Mummy wasn’t well enough at present, and then I’d had to rely on ‘You’ll see Nana and Grandpa tomorrow,’ for I didn’t know why Alice hadn’t been allowed to see her grandparents sooner. There was still no sign of the new social worker, and Jill was still chasing up the paperwork.
Now, as I arrived in the playground at 1.30 p.m. to collect Alice from nursery and take her to contact, her face was pure joy. She was looking out for me and as soon as she spotted me she ran over.
‘She’s talked about nothing else all morning,’ the playground supervisor said, also coming over. ‘Please give Mr and Mrs Jones my best wishes. They’re a lovely couple.’
‘You know them?’ I asked, slightly surprised, as Alice tugged on my arm, eager to go.
‘Only from them bringing Alice to nursery. They must be devastated by all this. They adore Alice.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll pass on your best wishes,’ I said with a smile, and came away.
In the car, during the twenty-minute journey to the family centre, Alice talked excitedly, non-stop, of all the things she was going to tell her nana and grandpa when she saw them: about her nursery, friends, teacher, me, her bedroom, Adrian, Lucy and Paula, and our cat, Toscha. But as I parked outside the family centre and cut the engine she suddenly fell silent.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ I said, guessing that nerves had got the better of her. ‘Nana and Grandpa will be feeling a bit strange too. It will be fine once we’re inside and you’ve all met again.’
‘That’s Grandpa’s car,’ Alice said, pointing to a grey Ford Fiesta, as we walked across the car park, so I knew Mr and Mrs Jones were already inside waiting for us.
I’m often nervous meeting a child’s parents or relatives for the first time, wondering if they will be friendly or hostile, critical or appreciative, and if they will take to me, but now I felt unusually calm. Having spoken to Alice’s grandparents on the phone and having heard Alice talk about them so lovingly, I had no concerns about meeting them; I just felt utter relief that Alice was finally seeing them, and they her.
Alice slipped her hand into mine as I opened the gate, and we walked up the short path to the door, where I pressed the bell and the security lock released. As soon as the door sprang open and we were inside we saw them, standing side by side watching the door, waiting for us to arrive. Alice immediately dropped my hand and rushed into their waiting arms, hugging them for all she was worth. First her nana, then her grandpa, then her nana again as Mr Jones, overcome with emotion, moved to one side to wipe his eyes. Mrs Jones clutched Alice to her as though she would never let her go and allowed her tears to fall freely.
‘Oh, Alice,’ she said over and over again, in her warm Yorkshire accent. ‘Oh, Alice, my love. Grandpa and I have missed you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you,’ Alice said in a muffled voice, her head buried in her nana’s shoulder.
After a while Mrs Jones moved Alice slightly away from her. ‘Here, let me have a look at you. I’m sure you’ve grown a good inch, lass. You’re a fine strong girl.’
I smiled and remained where I was – standing to one side. I doubted Alice could have noticeably grown since Mrs Jones had last seen her, but clearly Alice’s growing was something her nana and she talked about, as many grandparents do.
Alice grinned. ‘I’ve been eating all my meals, so I grow into a big strong girl,’ she said proudly.
‘I can see that,’ Mrs Jones said, and I saw her face crumple again.
Alice then slipped one hand into her nana’s and the other into her grandpa’s, and just stood looking at them, as though she daren’t believe they were actually real, and thought that they might at any moment disappear. The contact supervisor had appeared from the office and was hovering by my side, ready to accompany Alice and her grandparents to the room they would use for the hour’s contact.
‘I’ll just say hello, and then I’ll come back and collect Alice later,’ I said to the supervisor.
Mr Jones looked over and stepped forward to greet me. ‘Martin Jones,’ he said, taking my hand warmly between both of his. ‘You must be Cathy.’
I smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘This is my wife, Janice,’ he said, transferring my hand to hers. She shook my hand warmly and I felt her love and security as Alice had.
‘Hello, Cathy,’ she said, her cheeks moist. ‘God bless you, dear.’
They appeared a lovely couple, just as they had seemed on the phone, and I immediately took to them. They had open, honest faces, and I suspected in other circumstances laughed a lot. Mr Jones was about four inches taller than his wife, and his grey hair was streaked with white. They were everyone’s idea of the perfect grandparents – warm, loving, embracing of others and completely unassuming. If they’d had my sympathy before we’d met, my heart now ached for them. They had only one hour with their cherished granddaughter, and then a two-week wait for the next hour.
Aware their contact time was ticking away, I said: ‘I won’t keep you now. Spend your time with Alice, and I’ll see you again when I collect her.’
The contact supervisor stepped forward and, smiling, led the way along the corridor as I called goodbye to Alice, but she was so engrossed in telling her dear nana and grandpa all her news, unsurprisingly she didn’t hear me.
Having met Alice’s grandparents, albeit briefly, all my worries and doubts as to why Alice had been uprooted and brought into care, instead of being allowed to stay with them, resurfaced. It’s none of your business, I told myself sternly as I opened the car door and left reception. You are the foster carer, you look after the child; the rest need not concern you. But without any real background information – apart from what Martha had said, which hadn’t been much – it was very difficult for me to see that Alice had been in danger of significant harm from her grandparents or that their parenting had fallen below an acceptable standard, which criteria are needed to bring a child into care.
Yes, I appreciated that Alice couldn’t live with her mother, but for the life of me I couldn’t see why she hadn’t been allowed to stay with her grandparents, which was surely the next best option. I remembered Martha had said that the social services had thought the grandparents were in ‘cahoots’ with Leah, as they hadn’t been entirely honest. I now guessed, from what Mrs Jones had told me on the phone, that this had resulted from Mr and Mrs Jones allowing Leah to see Alice and spending Christmas together. But that was hardly a good-enough reason for bringing a child into care. Sharon had said that Mr and Mrs Jones had poisoned Alice against her father, but I struggled with that too. Perhaps I was being naïve, but I just couldn’t see how Alice’s nana and grandpa could have intentionally ‘poisoned’ or misled anyone: they just didn’t seem the type.
There wasn’t enough time for me to return home before I had to collect Alice again at the end of contact so, leaving the car outside the family centre, I walked to the local shops to buy a couple of items we needed. I then returned to the car and sat inside with the radio on, gazing absently through the windscreen. If one hour went quickly for me, how much quicker it must have passed for Alice and her grandparents. Very soon the clock on the dashboard clicked up the last few minutes and the radio presenter began the three o’clock news. I switched off the radio, got out and returned into the family centre.
As I entered, the receptionist looked up and smiled at me. Opening the glass partition she said, ‘They’re in Yellow Room. It’s time. You can go straight in.’
Crossing reception I pushed open the swing doors and went along the short corridor to the yellow-painted door, where a large sign decorated with sunflowers announced ‘Yellow Room’. Aware how p
ainful it was going to be for Alice and her grandparents to say goodbye, I steeled myself before knocking on the door and slowly easing it open. Alice was sitting on the sofa between her grandparents, a book open on her lap as her grandpa read the story. They all looked up and towards me as I entered.
I smiled and the supervisor said gently, ‘It’s time to go, Alice.’
It was impossible to say who looked more shocked and upset as the supervisor’s words slowly registered and the three of them realized that their hour together had ended. Alice stared wide eyed at her nana and grandpa, hoping against hope that it wasn’t true, while Janice and Martin Jones, too engrossed in Alice to notice time ticking by on the clock on the wall, looked horrified.
Mr Jones came to first and, clearing his throat, said in a small voice: ‘I guess we’d better be saving the rest of this story for next time, Alice.’
Alice looked at him. ‘Why?’ she asked innocently.
‘Because it’s time for you to go with Cathy,’ Mr Jones said gently, closing the book.
Although Alice had had the experience of contact ending at a set time with her father and Sharon, she clearly hadn’t realized the same would happen with her grandparents, although I’d explained. Or possibly, and more likely, Alice had simply blanked it from her mind, the thought of having to say goodbye being too painful.
‘But I want to go home with you,’ she said to her grandpa, desperation creeping into her voice and her face puckering. ‘I want to stay with you and Nana.’ She snuggled closer into his side.
‘I know you do, love,’ he said gently. ‘But it’s not possible at present. I want you to be a big girl and go home with Cathy.’ He took the book from Alice’s lap as Mrs Jones sat motionless on the other side of Alice, too upset to say or do anything.
‘Come on, Alice,’ the supervisor said gently, going over to the sofa. ‘You’ll see Nana and Grandpa again next week.’
