Mummy's Little Helper

by Casey Watson

  I told Riley about the conversation I’d had with Abby’s teacher, and about what John and Bridget had found at the house, and how isolated Abby had become. Riley shook her head. ‘Unbelievable,’ she said. ‘What was her mother thinking?’

  ‘That she’d be less of a burden on Abby, if Abby knew how to look after herself. That’s what she told me, anyway.’

  Riley’s face made her feelings clear. ‘Look after herself? Or her mother? Because that sounds more like it to me.’

  ‘I’m sure there must be an element of that,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t think that was her intention. I think she really thought she was doing the right thing. I –’

  I stopped then, as Abby was fussing around Jackson, who was trying to head off for a quick cruise around the coffee table but was being restrained, much to his annoyance, by her holding onto his dungaree straps. He was growing in confidence every day and he’d be walking soon, I reckoned. If he was allowed to, that was. ‘He’s fine, sweetie,’ I reassured Abby, who was looking anxiously in our direction. ‘Just let go of him. He’ll be okay. And if he falls on his bottom, that’s fine. It’s all part of him learning …’ At which point, of course, Abby having grudgingly relinquished her hold on him, he did fall. And quite sharply, too, having been straining against her.

  Abby’s wail of anguish drowned out Jackson’s one of frustration, and she scooped him up as if he’d toppled ten feet, rather than ten inches. ‘Honestly, love,’ Riley tried to reassure her also, ‘he’s fine!’

  Abby wasn’t mollified, and still cradled a by now wriggling and indignant Jackson. ‘But he could have fallen against the coffee table and hit his head!’ she persisted. She let him go, however, as he was getting ever more cross in her grasp. She stood up instead, looked around, and seemed to consider. ‘Perhaps I should move the table, do you think?’

  We both watched in amusement. She was already reaching for the pile of magazines and the TV remote that were on it.

  ‘There’s no need …’ I began. Then I thought better of stopping her. ‘But if you’ll feel happier, then by all means. You could slide it around behind the armchair.’ I indicated where. ‘Do you want me to come and help you?’

  Silly question. Getting ‘help’ was an alien concept for Abby. The job was done before I could even finish speaking.

  Matters didn’t change much over lunch. I was beginning to realise that Abby was incapable of relaxing in the presence of the little ones. By the time we had finished preparing the food there had been major health and safety work accomplished in the living room. Presumably thinking I wouldn’t mind, since I’d been happy enough about her moving the coffee table, Abby had set to work building a little fortress for the three of them. She’d removed all the seat and back cushions from both the sofa and the armchairs and the three of them were now playing Duplo in what looked like some sort of World War One foxhole.

  I didn’t mind at all, but once we called them all for lunch itself I began to get an unexpected insight into just how ingrained and acute her anxiety was.

  ‘Is it okay if I feed Jackson?’ she asked Riley politely, as we sat down.

  ‘Of course you can, sweetheart,’ Riley answered. ‘If you want to. Be my guest.’ Jackson didn’t really need much help with eating these days, of course. He ate a lot of what we did, and loved feeding himself, too, so by now Riley would only feed him if we were eating on the hoof and she didn’t want the usual attendant mess.

  And he was happy enough to let Abby feed him, in any case; like all little ones, he enjoyed the attention. But Abby was much too stressed to enjoy it herself. ‘I think this spaghetti needs mashing up, doesn’t it?’ she asked me anxiously. She was already busy crushing the strands to a virtual pulp. ‘Or he might choke, mightn’t he? You can’t be too careful, you know.’

  ‘It’s just fine, love,’ I reassured her. ‘He can’t choke on it. It’s too soft.’ Even so, she began giving him the tiniest little mouthfuls, and it was no wonder he kept trying to grab the spoon out of her hand.

  Levi, seated the other side of her, was another cause for her hawk-eyed concern. ‘Open wide,’ she kept saying, every time he spooned up a new mouthful. ‘I need to check your mouth’s empty before you put any more food in.’

  Levi, clearly bemused, would obediently do so, but after the sixth or seventh time of being inspected in this fashion he turned to me, confused. ‘Nana,’ he wanted to know, ‘is Abby a little mummy?’

  Which had us all smiling, Abby included. However, it didn’t escape my notice – though again I didn’t press it – that her own lunch was largely untouched.

  We did get our walk in the end, though it ended up being the Sunday before we could head down to explore the woods, when the clouds had finally shifted enough for us to enjoy a little sunshine, even if it was boggy under foot. We’d had a second call from John, too; Sarah was okay, sent her love and would call Abby that evening, but they felt it inadvisable for her to visit that day. They hoped we’d be able to visit again on Monday or Tuesday, which news Abby took on board without too much visible upset.

  But the constant tension that I realised seemed always to be around her soon began to manifest itself again. We headed out and the little patch of woodland turned out to be delightful. A tract of land that had been preserved between two large areas of housing, it followed the course of a stream that tumbled down a slight incline, and was criss-crossed with several meandering paths. It was obviously a haven for dog walkers and children, and even in gloomy February, with very little growing yet, it was, I decided, a real find.

  But I wasn’t sure Abby could even see it, let alone enjoy it. It was as if, in Levi and Jackson, she had found something else to get herself worked up about. It certainly seemed to be the only thing on her mind.

  ‘So,’ Mike had asked her, as we’d headed down the pathway across the green. ‘Did you enjoy playing with Levi and Jackson yesterday?’

  This simple enquiry had unleashed a kind of torrent; it was as if she’d spent the whole of the previous night worrying and now needed her fears about them to be allayed. Did Riley, she wanted to know, know how to look after them properly? Did she understand about filling a bath with cold water before hot water so there was no danger of scalding them accidentally? Did she understand about germs? Did she have a fire blanket and did she keep it somewhere accessible? Did she have stair gates that she kept closed at all times?

  Mike chuckled as we began to make our way through the woods. ‘Oh, don’t you worry. Of course she does,’ he reassured her, glancing across at me, his expression one of mild amusement. ‘Fixed to the wall, they are,’ he added. ‘They even borrowed my drill to do it. And, actually, now I think about it, I’m still waiting for it back.’

  ‘How d’you know about stair gates and all that stuff, love?’ I asked her. I wondered if she had more experience of little ones than I’d first thought. And if so, from where? Maybe Sarah wasn’t so isolated after all. Maybe there was a friend we didn’t know about.

  Abby carefully negotiated an expanse of muddy water before answering. This was clearly not a child who’d jump in a puddle. She would probably be thinking too much about the laundry it might create. ‘From my book,’ she said, as if surprised that I wouldn’t already know that.

  ‘What book’s that, love?’ asked Mike, doing likewise, in a single squelchy stride.

  Abby watched him, edging back a little. I could swear I saw her wince. ‘My safety book,’ she answered. ‘Don’t you have one? Doesn’t Riley?’

  I shook my head. ‘Safety book?’

  Abby nodded. ‘It’s called Look Out! Mummy got it for me. I think she bought it off the internet. I’ve got three of them, actually. But Riley can borrow them. I don’t mind. If someone can go and get them …’

  ‘That’s really kind of you,’ Mike said, ‘but you keep it safe at home. Don’t worry. Riley knows what to do. Here, look,’ he said, pointing. ‘Here’s that stream Casey was on about.’ He took a couple more steps, then squatte
d down on his haunches to scrutinise it more carefully. It was actually more like a stepped series of ponds. ‘I’ll bet there’ll be tadpoles in there before too long. And a few stickleback. It’s just the sort of –’

  ‘But does she?’ Abby’s voice was a sudden plaintive squeak behind him. She obviously had no interest in pond-life. ‘I bet she doesn’t. Not everything. Do you know how many accidents happen in the home, Mike? Well, do you?’

  We both stared at her, taken aback by this unexpected little outburst. And, as had kept happening, once again her eyes immediately filled with tears. I rushed to put my arms around her, but she stiffened at my touch.

  ‘You shouldn’t laugh! You just don’t realise!’ she spluttered, shrugging me away. ‘The home’s a very dangerous place!’

  ‘Sweetheart, I know it can be,’ I said gently. ‘As I’m sure your book says. But, you know, you really mustn’t worry about Levi and Jackson. Yes, accidents can happen. And, you’re right – sometimes they do. But, you know, Riley and David do know how to take care of them. They’re very careful. As I know you’ll be if you have children of your own one day, too.’

  Abby’s eyes blazed at this. ‘I’m not having any children! Ever! I just want mummy back! Why won’t they let me have my mummy back? I hate them.’ She turned to Mike. ‘And I hate you as well!’

  And with that she turned and ran away from us.

  Chapter 8

  Oh God, I thought, as Mike and I set off in pursuit. Please don’t let us have another runaway. Spencer had really run us ragged in that regard – ‘run’ being the operative word. In the few months he’d been with us, he’d gone AWOL pretty constantly, more than once being missing overnight. He was a proper little Houdini, and incredibly street-wise for an eight-year-old, and in the end we’d had to keep the house locked up like a prison – including all the upstairs windows. He was such an old hand at absconding he had every angle covered – and that had even included making getaways by shimmying across roofs, like a character in a cartoon.

  Thankfully, Abby, though impressively fleet of foot, hadn’t figured on the perils of running over deceptively soft rain-sodden leaf litter. She’d headed off at quite a lick along the stream bank, but had barely covered a hundred yards before tripping on something – a buried log or tree root or tangle of brambles, probably – and going down hard into the cold peaty soil.

  She was still face down when we got to her, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed, now as much in frustration, I didn’t doubt, as distress. Mike was there first, and helped her up from the muddy ground, and I looked on in dismay at the state she was in. Her previously pale pink hoodie was now liberally streaked with chocolate-coloured mud, and you could hardly see the fabric of the front of her jeans. Worse, her hands and face were caked in it and as she held the former up to the latter she let out a wail that could have brought bears out of hibernation, had there been any in this neck of the woods.

  ‘Sweetheart, don’t cry,’ I tried to soothe, as she looked at her palms in horror. You could see she didn’t know quite what to do with them. There was no part of her she could rub them on that wasn’t already covered. I had a packet of tissues in my jacket pocket, but it seemed pointless to even proffer them. It would be like trying to use a pedalo to cross the Atlantic. I cursed myself. I invariably went everywhere with wet wipes these days, as well as sanitising hand gel. It was one of those things that went with nanna territory. But not today. We were only popping out, the three of us, after all.

  Thankfully Mike had his wits about him. ‘Come on, Abby,’ he said. ‘Back to the bank, eh? Let’s rinse those hands off, at least. Then we can get you home and in the bath, can’t we, while Casey works her usual miracles with the washing machine. She’s a veteran, you know. Muddy kit’s her forte.’

  Abby nodded mutely and stepped gingerly where Mike indicated, and I was glad I’d at least persuaded her to borrow a pair of wellies from the vast supply I had amassed over the years. The one pair of trainers she’d come to us with were almost impossibly clean and white, testimony to the sad fact that unlike most of her contemporaries she didn’t spend her free time doing what other children did. But they would have been white no longer, had I allowed her to wear them. So that was something at least.

  She was still sniffing back tears as we returned to the side of the stream, holding her hands out in front of her, horrified – almost as if they didn’t even belong to her, but had been tacked on to the end of her arms against her will. ‘Don’t you worry,’ I said, as Mike pointed out a place where there was water falling into a pool from a slight overhang. ‘I’ll have everything clean as new. Mike’s right. If they gave out Oscars for getting stains out of stuff, I’d have had to build a bigger mantelpiece to display mine on, I’d have so many!’

  But Abby was far too preoccupied with the mud all over her to really listen, and clearly not in the mood to be jollied along. So instead I shut up, squatted down beside her and Mike, and helped her by rolling her sleeves up. She’d obviously feel much happier once her hands were at least clean. Then we could set off and get her home and in the bath.

  ‘That’s the way,’ said Mike, as she rubbed them together under the water. I dipped a finger of my own in. It was clear and ice cold to the touch. The mud sloughed off her palms easily enough, but also revealed a cut. She had a big scratch across the ball of her thumb, bless her.

  ‘Ooh, you poor thing,’ I soothed. ‘I’ll bet that’s stinging now, isn’t it?’

  But Abby didn’t answer. Once again she let out a wail of distress.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I know. But we’ll be home soon and we can get some cream on it. And a nice big fat plaster …’

  Now Abby looked up at me with huge tear-filled eyes. ‘But we have to go to hospital,’ she sobbed, ‘or I’ll die!’

  This was, I reflected, as I gathered up Abby’s discarded clothing, not only new but very confusing territory. You get used to things as a foster carer. And perhaps Mike and I, given the kind of extreme foster caring we usually did, had had the opportunity to get used to more than most. We had dealt with all kinds of self-harming, with being threatened with knives ourselves, with kids so badly neglected that they were feral and crawling with lice. We’d dealt with everything from inappropriate sexual behaviour in children barely out of nappies, to extreme violence and suicide attempts.

  And that was just as foster carers; in my previous role as a behaviour manager I’d seen more damaged children in an average week – doing damage to both themselves and others – than some teachers in some schools might see in a whole term.

  Abby was different. She was loved. She was cherished. She’d been wanted. Yet she was damaged too, and quite profoundly. She had been so upset by the cut on her hand that it took us till we were half the way home – Mike had scooped her up and carried her in the end – to manage to get out of her why she was so sure she was going to die.

  Tetanus had been the answer. She was convinced she now had tetanus. And when she’d calmed down enough to speak she was quick to point out why. She’d been cut in the outdoors and that’s ‘where tetanus happened’. It lived underground and it didn’t like the air. So you got it by being cut when you were out playing in the garden, because the germs went straight from under the ground to under your skin, so they didn’t go in the air so they didn’t die.

  But you did. She seemed to know absolutely everything about it, no doubt from both her mum and one of her books. So it took us both a long time to reassure her that she didn’t have to worry because it was only a scratch, and that tetanus was extremely rare, and was only a problem with deep outdoor injuries, such as standing on a rusty nail or something.

  ‘Besides,’ Mike had pointed out, as he pulled off her wellies, ‘you’ll have had an inoculation against tetanus when you were a baby, so even if you had had a nasty injury of that kind, the bug couldn’t live in you anyway.’

  ‘But if we don’t get those clothes off and in the washing machine pronto,’ I added,
‘that mud will start feeling way too at home. Come on, missy, let’s get you upstairs and in that bath, eh?’

  Abby let me pull the hoodie over her head and took her socks off. She kept coming back to her hand – which to calm her I had wrapped up in half a dozen of my tissues – and still didn’t look as if she was convinced.

  ‘But what if I didn’t?’ she wanted to know, as we trooped upstairs to the bathroom.

  ‘What, have your immunisations? Oh, you’ll have had them, trust me. All babies do.’

  ‘But what if Mummy didn’t take me? What if she was too poorly that day and missed it?’

  ‘She won’t have,’ I said firmly. ‘She absolutely won’t have. So. Bubble bath. I have vanilla or I have … let me see … Japanese garden. Which scent would madam prefer?’

  ‘But that is a point, to be fair. She might have missed it,’ said Mike, once Abby was busy soaking in her cherry blossoms. ‘I mean, you don’t know, do you? How would we?’

  ‘Oh, lord, don’t you start,’ I said, as I gratefully grabbed the coffee he’d made for me. I was still feeling the cold and could have done with a soak myself. I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. ‘Of course she’ll have had her jabs. God, you’re going to get me all twitched now.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ said Mike. ‘We know hardly anything about her, after all.’

  ‘Well, it’s something I can check easily enough, I guess. I might have to register her with Doctor Shackleton in any case. So I can ask him to check, can’t I? But she hasn’t got tetanus. That was just a tiny scratch from a bramble, which barely scratched the surface. I think I’d know if it was the sort of wound that was deep enough for tetanus to be a worry. And I’ll put some Savlon on it anyway, and …’ I looked at Mike. Who was grinning at me now. ‘What?’