Four Waifs on Our Doorstep

by Trisha Merry

‘Possibly,’ he hesitated. ‘But I expect there could be other causes too.’

  ‘Yes. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it. I just wish they’d tell me. It’s so frustrating when everyone knows and they won’t say anything to us.’

  ‘Never mind, love. As long as we help her cope with it. That’s the main thing.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Well, at least A & E took her seriously this time and gave her a thorough examination. If they’d done that the first time I took her, maybe it wouldn’t have made her so ill.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mike sighed as he opened out his newspaper.

  ‘But there’s always something to worry about with these four. I wonder what it will be next.’

  7

  Knickerbocker Glory

  ‘Simon’s face is not responding. He needs time.’

  My diary entry, 13 March 1997

  Alongside the swearing chart, we had a behaviour chart, with stickers for good behaviour. The children all loved to see the columns and the jars filling up.

  ‘What happens when the jar is full and we can’t get any more money into it?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘I’ll give you another jar.’

  He beamed with pride as he went to bed that evening. But the next morning he was a different boy. The others were all sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen, when Hamish stormed in. I don’t know what had happened to change him, but he just went ballistic, shouting obscenities, punching Anita’s arm, pinching Caroline, then throwing his breakfast bowl, full of cereal, onto the tiled floor, so it smashed into smithereens and splattered milk everywhere.

  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ I tried to give him a cuddle, but he wriggled free and kicked my leg. ‘Ouch! That hurt.’

  ‘Good!’ he shouted. ‘I fucking hate you. I hate this fucking place—’

  ‘Right,’ I interrupted him. ‘You’ve thrown away your breakfast and you’ve hurt and upset everybody, so I think we’ll have to empty your jar and you can go up to your room. You can shout and swear as much as you like up there. Kick the furniture if you want. It’s your furniture, so if you damage it, you’re only harming yourself. Make as much noise as you want. Nobody will hear you, so that’s fine. But don’t come down until you are ready to start the day again.’

  He looked as if he was going to refuse, and for a moment I wondered how I would deal with that. But the fire fizzled out. He turned around and stomped off, up the stairs. I heard the door slam, but nothing more for a couple of hours. I emptied his jar in front of the other three, leaving just 4p at the bottom, and they looked as subdued as I felt. This was a big setback for seven-year-old Hamish and I worried what would happen next.

  The house was unusually calm after that outburst. The two girls played quietly together for once in the playroom. Simon sat by a box of cars, taking them out one at a time and opening their doors, opening and shutting the boot, or whatever else a particular car had on it. At least he was doing something. I was baking in the kitchen when I heard a sound behind me.

  I turned round to see Hamish standing in the doorway, shifting from one foot to the other, his face a mixture of embarrassment and pleading, like a puppy who’s just made a big puddle on the best carpet. He looked so uncomfortable and unsure of himself.

  ‘Hello, Hame. Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, barely audible.

  ‘Good. Then you can come over here and give me a hug.’ I held my arms wide and hoped that would break the ice for him.

  He hesitated for only a couple of seconds, shrinking back like a wounded animal, then ran over and gave me that hug. I cuddled him, the flour from my hands all over his T-shirt, as I felt his tense little body relax.

  ‘Look what a mess I’ve made on you,’ I laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. Then louder, ‘I’m sorry I was so horrible.’

  ‘You’re not horrible, Hame.’ I ruffled his hair, growing through at last. ‘It’s not you. It’s all that happened to you. All the responsibilities you had to take on. It must have been a very hard life for you. It’s not your fault if remembering all that makes you angry sometimes. We must help you learn to cope with that anger. The only thing you did wrong was to take your temper out on your sisters and me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he repeated, looking up at me with his sad brown eyes.

  ‘It’s all gone and forgotten,’ I reassured him. ‘Now sit down and I’ll make you some breakfast. And after that we’ll go shopping.’

  That made him smile. Then his face clouded over again.

  ‘What are you thinking about now?’

  ‘I like going shopping every day,’ he said. ‘And making sure we have enough food. But . . .’

  ‘But what, Hame?’

  ‘Well, do you think we could buy some food for my mum too?’

  I put some bacon on and filled a big bowl with cereals and milk for him. ‘How could we get it to her?’

  ‘Well, we could buy her some sandwiches when we go to the supermarket.’

  ‘Yes, we could if you want, but we can’t send sandwiches through the post.’

  He looked serious, thinking about that as he scooped up spoonfuls of cornflakes into his mouth. ‘Could you go to my mum and give her the sandwiches?’

  ‘It’s a long way to go, Hame. Do you remember, when you came here? It was a long drive, wasn’t it? About a hundred miles I should think.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so . . . but she might be hungry.’

  ‘Does she not go shopping herself?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. She only had food sometimes when Dad was living there, or when the social workers brought it for her.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Dad’s gone to Scotland and I think the social workers only came because we were there.’ He paused. ‘So who’s going to make sure she has some milk?’

  ‘Isn’t she expecting another baby?’ I asked him. I think it was Carol who had told me that. ‘I expect the social workers will still be visiting her if she’s going to have a baby.’

  For the first time that morning he sort of smiled . . . with relief, I think.

  I never did find out what had sparked Hamish off so badly but there was a lot of anger seething below the surface in that little boy. It astonished me that he was so caring of his mum and whether she would have enough to eat, but he knew more than I did.

  Hamish was a very serious child sometimes, but also a determined little boy. It didn’t take long for him to build up some more coins in his jar and he tried doubly hard not to mess up again . . . for a while at least.

  Most of the time, Simon was the least troublesome child of the four, if that’s the right word, so it was easy to pay less attention to him when the others were demanding it in spades. But I was aware that he probably needed more attention than any of them, to get him to where he should be at his age. I began to feel guilty that I hadn’t given him more of my time.

  He was still silent and inactive, expecting me to carry him around. So I decided to stop that, unless it was necessary. He needed to move of his own accord. I’ve had children like Simon before, though nobody quite as rigid and detached. But the dislike of touch, skin to skin, I have come across a few times, so I knew what to try. It had worked with them, so perhaps it would work with him too.

  I bought a set of face paints, with a sponge. That’s the best thing. In fact, I’ve made my own face paints in the past. I started to bodge and splodge with the sponge, on his legs first, to get him used to the feel of it on his skin, which he didn’t seem to mind. He watched as I sponged messy marks and patterns on his skin. Then I rollered his feet with paint and held him over a large sheet of paper.

  ‘Put your feet down on the paper, Simon,’ I said. ‘So that you can see your own footprints.’

  He seemed reticent, with a slight move, but not yet touching the paper.

  ‘Go on,’ I coaxed him. ‘Look, I’ve made one foot blue and the other one red. Which one looks best?’

  This time he lunged out
with both feet and picked them up again to inspect the results. His face lit up for the first time.

  ‘What do you think, Simon?’ I asked, trying to persuade him to speak.

  ‘Mmm,’ was all he said at first. Then, ‘Footprints.’ We were getting somewhere now.

  I wiped his feet clean with a large towel, then sat him down on the carpet, on top of some newspaper. He didn’t seem too keen on that at first.

  ‘I know it’s a bit crinkly,’ I explained. ‘But I want us to have some fun, without getting paint on the carpet.’

  He made no response, so I dipped the sponge in the paint again and this time began to dab it very gently on the tip of his nose, on his chin and the middle of his cheeks. Most children will look at your eyes when you’re painting their face, but not Simon. He did look at parts of my face, but his eyes never strayed to mine – no eye contact.

  ‘Dgoo, dgoo, dgoo’ I sang as I dabbed his face repeatedly round the edge with my painted sponge. Then I started to go a bit closer to the middle, all the time singing noises or talking to him in a funny voice. Finally, I handed him a mirror.

  ‘Go on, Simon. Look what I’ve done to your face.’ I helped him to hold up the mirror to look and he made eye contact with himself. I got him to hold it still and then, with my fingertips thick with paint, I daubed a bright orange stripe, right down the centre of his nose, then a big red blob like a clown on the end. That was the moment when he broke into a smile. What a breakthrough that was.

  We had a bit more fun as I encouraged him to put his fingers in the paint and dab his arms and face as well. He was quite amused by his efforts.

  ‘Face paints,’ he said after lunch the next day. So this time we sat in the kitchen so it didn’t matter if paint got on the floor and we both had fun, first painting his face together, and then mine! By the end of this session he was happily accepting the touch of my fingers on his face, my skin on his, and it was lovely to see his wide smile when he saw the results.

  One rainy afternoon, the children and I were all sitting round the kitchen table playing games, colouring and doing puzzles. Somehow, as often happened when they felt safe and cosy like that, thoughts of their former lives came tumbling out. I listened and took it all in. It was important for them to know that I believed them, so I nodded or empathised when it seemed appropriate, but I tried not to comment, other than to soothe and reassure.

  As usual, Hamish and Anita had the strongest memories. Caroline consciously remembered only snatches, with many of the worst things buried in her subconscious I suppose. But her older siblings occasionally said things that brought to life one episode or another. As usual, Simon sat silently, as he rolled some playdough into fat, stubby snakes.

  ‘Mum chucked me out of the house once,’ said Anita in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘Yes, I remember that. It was when she had some of her boyfriends there and you were crying because you didn’t like them.’

  ‘I was frightened of some of those men. But when Mum chucked me out, I was very scared. I thought she wouldn’t let me in again and I didn’t know what to do. I was frightened that the big man over the road would come and get me.’

  ‘Yes, we were all scared of him,’ nodded Hamish.

  ‘So what did you do?’ I asked, trying not to betray my horror.

  ‘I stood on tiptoes and shouted through the letterbox and somebody must have let me back in.’

  ‘I got locked out one night,’ said Hamish, with a despondent expression. ‘I went out to get us some food, and Mum wouldn’t let me back in. It was very dark and I kept shouting and banging on the door, but she just ignored me.’

  ‘Maybe she was upstairs with one of her boyfriends,’ said Anita.

  ‘I don’t know, but I did hear her shout at me after a bit.’

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked.

  ‘“Fuck off.”’

  ‘Was that all?’

  He shook his head and said nothing for a moment, then, ‘She said she wished I would die and she wouldn’t care if I did.’

  ‘Oh, Hame . . .’ I leaned over and gave him a cuddle. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it.’

  ‘She did,’ he whispered, his body trembling.

  ‘How did you get back in?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Well, I was getting frightened, so I kept on banging on the door, and one of the neighbours must have heard me because somebody called the police.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said. ‘So did they come and sort it all out?’

  ‘No. They didn’t come at all. I only found out about the complaint when the social worker mentioned it. But it was all right in the end. One of Mum’s mates opened the door.’

  Caroline had been listening to all this as she threaded some coloured beads. ‘I don’t remember any of that,’ she said. ‘But Mum used to tie me to the bed, didn’t she, Hamish?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘She used to tie you to one of the bed legs. I don’t know why, but sometimes I managed to untie you.’

  ‘You looked after me,’ she said, smiling at him.

  ‘Well somebody had to.’

  The swearing chart was working well, with occasional lapses, of course, but the pennies were piling up again so we decided it was time to up the ante. First we extended it to a whole day without swearing – that would earn them 10p. I had to get change from the bank to make the daily payments. So finally we sat them round the kitchen table and made them a promise.

  ‘If you can go a whole week without using any of these swear words . . . you can’t use them in the garden or the house, you can’t use them in the park, or on the bus or in the supermarket, or any shops. You can’t use them anywhere at all. If you can all do that, every morning, every afternoon and every evening for six whole days, we will take you out on the Sunday to a proper restaurant for lunch, and you can all have a Knickerbocker Glory for pudding.’ I stopped, expecting great excitement, but it was just blank faces and dead silence.

  ‘What’s a knicker-thingy?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Haven’t you heard of it before?’

  ‘No,’ replied Hamish. ‘Is it something nice?’

  ‘Something nice?’ I repeated. ‘It’s better than that. It’s the biggest, boldest, best-tasting dessert you have ever eaten in your whole life.’

  Now their faces lit up.

  ‘Do you like ice cream, kids?’ asked Mike, knowing what the answer would be. ‘Well this is mega-brilliant ice cream, with all the trimmings.’ He licked his lips.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said to Mike. ‘Maybe you should go down to the restaurant and ask them if we can borrow one of their menus to show the children.’

  ‘OK, kids. Who’s going to come with me?’

  Well, of course, everyone wanted to go, so we all climbed into the people-carrier and Mike drove us there. He parked right outside the restaurant.

  ‘I want to come in with you,’ wailed Anita as he got out of the car.

  ‘No, me!’ shouted Caroline.

  ‘I’ll come and help you,’ suggested Hamish.

  And Simon said nothing.

  Mike looked at me. I shook my head. ‘Nobody is going in this time. We’ll save that for the day we come to have that special lunch, and Knickerbocker Glory for afters.’ Their faces fell. They were obviously disappointed, but I was relieved that nobody protested further. So we sat outside in the car and the children tried to peer through the windows. It had once been a pub, but now it was a restaurant.

  ‘It’s lovely inside,’ I told them. ‘All very clean and modern. I’m sure you’ll like it.’

  ‘Does it have tables?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘Of course it does you . . . silly girl,’ said Anita, changing her choice of words just in time.

  ‘Yes, tables and chairs, knives, forks and spoons, table-mats, proper napkins and waiters to serve us,’ I said.

  ‘Do they have Coke?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘Yes, and almost any drink you can think of.’

  Just then, Mike reappeared with th
e ice-cream menu and there on the front was a big, colourful picture of the most delicious-looking Knickerbocker Glory you have ever seen.

  ‘Wow!’ breathed Hamish, full of awe and wonder. He was like that with most food, but especially this time.

  ‘It looks amazing,’ added Anita.

  ‘How big is it?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘This big,’ said Mike, exaggerating its size with one hand waist high and the other at the top of his forehead, till he saw my exasperated expression, and moved his hands a little closer together. ‘Well, nearly.’

  ‘Ice cream!’ shrieked Simon, unexpectedly, when he saw the picture.

  ‘Let’s take the menu home and stick the picture up on the whiteboard, next to the chart.’ So that’s what we did. ‘Now remember,’ I challenged them. ‘Nobody must use those swear words all week.’

  ‘What if somebody swears and we can’t go?’ asked Hamish, giving Anita a look. ‘That wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Well, I’m really sorry, but that person would have to stay behind.’

  ‘But we can’t!’ wailed Caroline.

  ‘Yes, who would look after us if you left us behind?’

  ‘Well, I’d ask someone to come and look after you.’

  ‘What if you swear?’ asked Anita, grinning at me.

  ‘Then I would have to stay behind,’ I laughed. ‘Mike would have to take you without me.’

  ‘Can I have your knicker glory then?’ she asked.

  ‘It depends how good you’ve been,’ teased Mike.

  It was quite a stressful week, as they tried and tried not to swear. They worked so hard to keep their mouths shut in case the wrong words came out, that hardly anybody spoke! The excitement grew and grew as the week went on and their columns of ticks rose, along with the pile of 10p pieces in their jars.

  ‘Oh YES!’ exclaimed Anita as Saturday evening came around and the ticks reached the tops of all their columns.

  On Sunday morning, they were all up bright and early as usual, with a great sense of anticipation.

  ‘Now, we’ve got to wear really pretty clothes,’ I said to the girls. ‘And proper shirts for you boys.’ My daughter Jane and my grandchildren, Brett and Laura, came to help us get ready that morning. Our four all changed into their best clothes and had their hair done by me or Jane. Brett was just into a bit of gel, so he put some on Hamish who, having been shaved bald when he arrived, was now really proud of his thick, shiny brown hair, shaped by Brett.