Four Waifs on Our Doorstep

by Trisha Merry

  In the days leading up to the freeing-order meeting, they were increasingly anxious and asked me to explain the purpose of the meeting over and over again. I’m not sure even then whether the younger ones took in what it meant.

  It was a horrendous situation and an absolutely horrendous day. I don’t think it was any easier for the adults than it was for the children, perhaps even more stressful emotionally. What Jill’s first husband was doing there was as baffling to him as to anyone, but at least he came with their daughter Mandy, who Hamish and Anita did remember as she came to live with them for a short while, when they were little.

  What made the whole situation even more difficult to bear was that it was all these people in one small room, with no toys or play area to break the tension for the children.

  It was hard for Mandy too. It was years since she had seen her mother, let alone Hamish and Anita, and she couldn’t understand what was going on.

  Their birth dad came, but all he did was chain-smoke and drink his lager. He went out then back in repeatedly, smoking all the while, but never interacted with any of the children, other than his initial ‘Hello, kids.’

  Jill, their birth mum, did exchange a few words with Hamish and Anita, but would not even acknowledge Caroline, who was desperately trying to attract her attention, in all the most inappropriate ways – ‘Here I am’ – trying to get Jill to notice her. Finally Caroline burst into tears, inconsolable. It was so frustrating to see the damage they were doing to this little girl and be helpless to do anything.

  Grandma and Grandad were there, and Grandad was going over to talk to her. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. He whispered something to her and her face froze. He took her by the hand and led her back, stroking her hair and arms and more or less all over as he sat down, placing her in front of him, with one hand on her bottom and the other on her tummy, holding her hard into himself, which she clearly found uncomfortable. She squirmed and he smiled. She tried to get away, but he held her even tighter, pulling her in harder. She squirmed all the more. His breathing quickened . . .

  I turned to the social worker who was supposed to be leading this meeting and shot her frantic looks. She looked anxiously from me to Caroline and to the grandfather, back and forth, seemingly incapable of doing anything to rescue the poor child.

  I was desperate to stop this, but Liz, the guardian ad litem, who was sitting next to me, put her hand on my arm, as if to warn me. I was horrified, but I knew I was not allowed to intervene. This was intolerable.

  Fortunately, Jill changed places with her mother, to sit next to Grandad, and leant forward to give him a coquettish smile. My immediate thought was that there was something very wrong here. It looked almost as if Jill was jealous of his attentions towards her least favourite child.

  Grandad suddenly let go of Caroline, who ran to me, as if for safety. I gave her a hug and she clung to my sleeve. Meanwhile, Grandad stroked Jill’s cheek and her ears, gazing into her eyes. She clearly enjoyed this, turned her body towards him and put her hand on his, directing his hand down her neck . . .

  I looked at the grandmother, who was also watching them, but with what looked like a resigned expression. I wondered if perhaps I was reading too much into all this. Perhaps I’d got it all wrong, but I couldn’t ignore the signs.

  The social worker cleared her throat and asked Jill something about her journey, so the spell was broken, for the time being anyway.

  While all this had been going on, Simon just sat alone in the corner, ignored, not spoken to or even picked up, now that he was no longer a toddler.

  By now, with nothing to do, the other three were just bouncing off the walls. The social worker made no effort to re-engage them with the adults and the whole meeting became the nightmare I had dreaded.

  I turned to Liz. ‘Who in their right mind put this together? It beggars belief. Absolutely beggars belief.’

  She nodded, turned her head away from the group and grimaced at me.

  It was cruel, expecting four vulnerable, confused and emotional children to say goodbye to all those adults, lumped together, all in the space of a couple of hours, not to mention all the complicated relationships.

  And what was particularly difficult for me was that I had been helpless to do anything to improve the situation. They kept looking towards me for help, and I could do nothing. By the end of the meeting, all the related adults were in tears and the children looked stressed to bursting point. I couldn’t wait to get them out of it and as far away as possible.

  As I was driving them down the Northend Road, I remembered we’d be passing one of those ball-park places, so I turned in and parked. Whenever I had taken them there before, they had gone wild. I thought it would be especially good for them today because they could scream, shout, jump and make as much noise as they felt like.

  We went in, and yes, they were over the top in one way, but they all looked shell-shocked, in an alien environment, unable to let out their feelings. They had been cooped up in a small room, without any food, both of which Hamish in particular does not do well, surrounded by people, some of them virtual strangers and most of whom completely failed to communicate with them, and they had long ago eaten the snacks I had taken in the car. The four of them just stood there, surrounded by other children’s fun and noise, too traumatised to take part.

  They knew it was coming up to teatime and that was now their one reference point, so we all climbed back into the car and went home.

  After tea, I tried to get them talking about the meeting, because I felt it might help them to get it out in the open. I thought I had prepared them so well for this day, but it seemed to me now that I hadn’t done nearly enough. This was the last time they would see their birth family, at least until they were adults, but I don’t think the enormity of it had really taken root.

  It was an awful situation and, as before, there was no counselling offered to them, which I felt was very harsh. It had been a significant experience for them, but in all the wrong ways, and we were left to pick up the pieces.

  18

  Choosing Names

  ‘I have contacted Dan Tillman regarding your request for name changes.’

  Extract from a social worker’s letter to the children

  ‘Come on, kids. We need to have a discussion.’ I gathered them round the dining-room table one Sunday morning.

  ‘What about?’ asked Hamish with an anxious look.

  ‘Don’t worry. Nobody’s done anything wrong.’ Well, that wasn’t quite true of course, because there wasn’t even half a day without one of them messing up! But it wasn’t the point of the meeting. ‘I want to explain to you about the last part of the adoption.’

  ‘When will that be?’ asked Anita.

  ‘I don’t know. We haven’t been given a date yet. But on that day, we will all go and see a judge, who will give each of you a piece of paper that says this is your new mummy and daddy.’ I paused to let that sink in. ‘And that’s when you can change your name if you like.’

  ‘But how can we change our names?’ puzzled Hamish.

  ‘Well, being adopted means having a new start. And that means having new names as well, if you want. But you don’t have to. Or you could change it just a bit, so you could be Hamish Mackay Merry if you don’t want to lose your old names.’

  ‘I don’t want to be Hamish and I don’t want to be Mackay.’

  ‘Well, what names are you going to have then?’

  ‘Can we choose anything we like?’

  ‘For your first name, yes.’

  He pondered for a few moments, while we all waited with mounting interest.

  Eventually I thought perhaps he might need a bit of help. ‘It’s probably a good idea to choose something similar to your old name,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be Hamish one day and Benjamin the next!’

  He looked anxious.

  ‘The English name for Hamish is James,’ I suggested.

  ‘I like James,’ he decided. ‘I
could be Jamie.’

  ‘Yes, Jamie is good.’

  He smiled.

  ‘What about you, An?’ I gulped, hoping she didn’t choose something too glamorous or outrageous that she might regret later.

  ‘I’m going to be Anastasia,’ she said, with a toss of her long, shining hair.

  ‘That would be fine, An. But it’s quite a mouthful. What about Anna, or Stacey?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But Anna is too much like Anita. I like Stacey.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Stacey,’ she repeated. ‘I really like it. I want to be Stacey. And I can have Anastasia as my middle name. Stacey Anastasia.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what about you, Caroline?’ I was really worried about her name. She was already called a lot of different names because of her speech problems, so if they didn’t see it written down, one person might call her Carla, another might say Carlynne, or Colleen . . . Poor thing, she was already confused enough about her identity, with so many different names and pronunciations. I didn’t think she would cope with a completely different name.

  ‘Caroline, a lot of your friends call you Carrie, don’t they?’ I said. ‘So you could change your name to Carrie if you like,’ I suggested. ‘What do you think about having Carrie as your proper name?’

  ‘OK,’ she nodded. ‘Can I be Carrie Stephanie?’

  I hesitated only a split second, because she couldn’t pronounce her Ss, but she wouldn’t need to say it much. ‘Yes, that would be lovely.’

  Finally I turned to Simon. ‘What about your name? Would you like a new name too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘No.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Can you choose?’

  ‘What about Sam? That’s a good name.’

  Simon nodded and said it to himself.

  ‘Now we have to decide on your last name. Do you want to join the two names and have Mackay-Merry?’

  ‘I don’t want Mackay,’ said Hamish.

  ‘No, no, no, not Mackay,’ agreed Anita.

  ‘Why can’t we just have Merry? I want to be Jamie Merry.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s all have Merry,’ they agreed.

  So that was decided.

  ‘Can we start with our new names straight away?’ asked Anita.

  ‘No, we’ll have to wait till we sign the papers,’ I explained. ‘The schools are not supposed to change your names until then, so we’d better do the same.’

  Hamish screwed up his face. ‘But I start my new school soon. Can’t I start with my new name? People always pick on me with my old name being so different.’

  ‘I’ll go along and see your new head teacher,’ I agreed. ‘I expect they will do it if they’re allowed to. Then they won’t have to change all their records just a few weeks later.’

  I spoke to our local Social Services and they agreed to sign a letter, giving permission for the secondary school to register Hamish in his new name, Jamie Merry. Next, I went to see the headmistress at the secondary school.

  ‘We’re adopting all the children,’ I explained to her. ‘The eldest will be coming here this September and the adoption should be finalised only a month or two later.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And Social Services have signed this letter for you to register him with his new name, Jamie Merry.’ I handed her the short letter and she quickly read it through.

  ‘Right,’ she nodded. ‘That will be fine. I’ll pass this on to the office and they will make all the necessary arrangements.’

  September came around and Hamish went into school on the first day with a cheery wave. But he came out close to tears.

  ‘All the boys made fun of me,’ he wailed. ‘They called me “Haggis” and “Hag-boy”, and made loony faces at me.’ He buried his head in his hands while I drove away, furious that the school had been so insensitive as to ignore my request, despite the local authority’s official permission.

  The next morning, I went into the school, all guns blazing. I didn’t ask anyone; I just marched straight into the headmistress’s office.

  ‘You said you would make sure that my boy’s records would be changed and you would use his new name. But you broke your word and let us down badly.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs . . . ?’

  ‘Merry.’

  ‘Oh well, you know, Mrs Merry, all our paperwork . . . the office, you know . . .’ I had caught her off-guard and she was flustered.

  ‘This boy was so excited about his first day at his new school, expecting to be Jamie Merry, only to find he is still Hamish Mackay. Some of the other children called him names and bullied him. He had a terrible day, and it need not have happened.’ I was on a roll now. ‘Why didn’t you pass on that letter and amend your paperwork as you said you would?’

  ‘To “Jamie”?’

  ‘Well, yes!’

  ‘I . . . I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘It’s not for me to tell you your job, but I am very disappointed.’ I marched straight out again.

  I carried on fuming to myself all the way home. Wasn’t it bad enough that the poor lad had wrinklies like us for his parents? We couldn’t change that, but I had done all I could to ensure that we could avoid this situation, and the school could not do this one simple thing to help us protect a child from being bullied and upset! I felt like shouting out Anita’s favourite phrase.

  One day an official form came in the post, with a compliment slip from Social Services, asking me to sign it. I read it all through. It was asking me to keep the contact going with their birth parents, but they had made it clear to me several times lately that they didn’t ever want to see their mum again and Hamish in particular was scared that she might come looking for him. I didn’t feel it was right for me to sign away the children’s rights to decide. I didn’t want to sign it, so I called the number to tell them.

  ‘You must sign the letterbox contact form, Mrs Merry,’ said a snooty voice at the other end of the phone.

  ‘I can’t sign it on behalf of the children, because this is not what they want.’

  ‘It’s just about keeping the contact channel open,’ she explained. ‘The parents have got feelings too, you know.’

  I wasn’t making any progress there, so I rang our solicitor.

  ‘Just sign it,’ he advised. ‘Because it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.’

  ‘OK.’ So I signed it and sent it off.

  Finally the date came through for us all to go to court and meet the judge who would hopefully confirm the decision made by the professionals.

  It was time for one more round-the-table meeting with the kids to make sure they understood, as I explained what would happen on the day itself.

  ‘And then the judge will probably want to talk to each of you.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘To ask you if you understand what adoption is and if you’re happy to be adopted.’

  ‘I can’t wait!’ exclaimed Anita.

  ‘What can’t you wait for, to change your name or to be our child?’

  ‘Both,’ she laughed.

  ‘Then, when the judge is sure you all understand what adoption is and are happy about it, he or she will ask me to sign the papers for each of you.’

  ‘What do the papers say?’ asked Hamish.

  ‘They put your old name and your new name. They say that you are now becoming the daughter or son of Mike and Trisha Merry. Do you think you will be happy for me to sign that for you?’

  ‘Yes. I wish you could do it today,’ sang out Anita.

  ‘Well, it won’t be long to wait now. Then you will be part of our family for the rest of your lives, or at least until you are grown up. Will that be OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ they all said.

  ‘When you have signed the papers and adopted us,’ Anita said with a grin, ‘then we can be as naughty as we like.’

  ‘Er, no,’ I laughed. ‘That’s not the way it works. If yo
u do something naughty, we will be just the same with you as we are now.’

  ‘But you can’t send us back if you adopt us.’

  ‘That’s true. But we will never want to send you back. We love you all too much to do that. That’s why we’re adopting you. And we will always be honest with you, no matter what. Honesty is very important for you too. We all have to trust each other. If you can’t trust me, who can you trust? When we sit here together and talk about things, we must all be honest and say what’s really happened, or how we really feel.’

  ‘I feel happy!’ Caroline smiled.

  ‘Good. How do the rest of you feel about the adoption? Hamish?’

  ‘Yes, I’m glad too. I want to belong, and I don’t ever want to be hungry again.’

  ‘I’m excited because I’m going to have a proper family,’ added Anita. ‘I love being adopted.’

  ‘What about you, Simon?’ I asked. ‘Do you understand what being adopted means?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how do you feel about it?’

  ‘Good.’

  The adoption day went very well. I signed the documents and took our copies away, one for each child and one for us. It all happened so quickly that it was almost an anticlimax, except that we were all so happy as we left the court building.

  ‘Let’s go and have lunch out,’ suggested Mike. ‘To celebrate being one family. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘The place with the Knickerbocker Glory,’ Stacey called out, and everyone agreed.

  A few months after the adoption day, Social Services phoned me.

  ‘Mrs Mackay is having another baby by the paedophile.’

  ‘Right . . .’