by Cathy Glass
‘I’ve bought you a birthday card,’ I heard her say. ‘And there’s one here from your mother.’
There was no reply from Lucy and I hovered on the landing, just to make sure they were all right. I heard Stevie say, ‘Cathy tells me you had a nice birthday and you got a new bike,’ which was a nice comment to make. Stevie was trying hard and I hoped Lucy would respond, but there was silence.
Then I heard a floorboard creek as Stevie took another step into the room. ‘I won’t keep you long,’ she said. ‘But I need to tell you what I’ve been doing to find you a permanent home. I believe Cathy told you we’ve ruled out your extended family – your gran, aunt and uncles – so we’re now concentrating on finding you a long-term foster family. You’ll be able to stay there until you’re eighteen and come out of care.’
Stevie didn’t get any further. I heard a loud crash as something hit the inside of Lucy’s bedroom door. Then Lucy was shouting at the top of her voice: ‘Get out! I hate you! Leave me alone!’ The vehemence of her anger was frightening.
Stevie rushed from the room as another object hit the inside of Lucy’s bedroom door. I went in. Lucy was standing in the middle of the room, her face set hard in anger and her eyes blazing. She had another ornament in her hand and was about to throw it. ‘Put it down,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ll be sorry later that you’ve broken your things.’
‘Don’t care. Hate you all!’ she cried. ‘Get out!’ She threw the ornament, not at me, but at the door, and it broke in two.
‘I’ll be going then,’ Stevie called from the landing. ‘I’ll let myself out.’
Lucy screamed, ‘I hate you!’ I hadn’t seen her this angry since the early days, and for a moment I thought she was going to go after Stevie. I stepped forward and, taking a chance, laid my hand lightly on her arm. ‘Calm down, Lucy,’ I said. ‘Take some deep breaths and calm down.’
She pulled her arm away and reached for another ornament. ‘Don’t!’ I said sharply. ‘You don’t need to do this. I understand why you’re upset.’
‘I hate you all!’ she cried again. ‘I wish I’d never been born.’ Then she threw the ornament onto the floor and collapsed, sobbing, into my arms.
Standing in the middle of the room, I held her and soothed her until her sobbing gradually eased. Once she was calmer, I reached for a tissue from the box and gently wiped her face. ‘There, that’s better,’ I said. I could hear Paula and Adrian on the landing, clearly worried for Lucy. ‘It’s all right,’ I called. ‘We’ll be with you shortly.’
I drew Lucy to the edge of the bed and we sat side by side. I took her hand gently in mine. ‘Feeling a bit better now?’
She gave a small nod. ‘I wish I wasn’t in care,’ she said, her anger now replaced by sorrow. ‘I wish I didn’t have social workers. I just want to be normal, like other kids. Like Adrian and Paula. I didn’t ask to be born. I wish I hadn’t been. No one wants me.’
‘Oh, love,’ I said. Slipping my arm around her, I held her close.
While I felt desperately sorry for Lucy and wanted to say something to help her, I knew I had to be careful in what I said. ‘I want you,’ I said. ‘And so will your permanent family, when Stevie finds them.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘Maybe. I just wish she wouldn’t keep going on about it. It makes me angry and upset.’
‘I understand, love.’
She was quiet for a few moments and then, leaning forward, she picked up one of the two birthday cards that were lying on the floor. ‘I’ve got a card from my mum,’ she said, showing me.
‘That’s lovely,’ I said. The card had a pretty picture of a bouquet of flowers on the front, but it didn’t say ‘To My Daughter’ or similar. It was a general birthday card of the type you might send an acquaintance.
‘She’s written inside,’ Lucy said, now opening the card and holding it for me to read.
The printed words in the card said: Happy Birthday. May your day be special. Then underneath Lucy’s mother had written: Have a lovely day. I know you will. I hope you get lots of presents. I’ll give you something next time I see you. Love Bonnie (Mum).
It seemed a distant message from a mother to a daughter, but in some ways appropriate, given the distance I’d previously witnessed between them. Lucy’s only comment was: ‘She’ll forget.’
‘Forget what?’
‘To buy me a present. She always does. I don’t mind. She can’t help it.’ As with all her mother’s other failings and shortcomings, Lucy forgave her mother. I was touched. I doubt I would have been so forgiving in her place.
‘You’re a lovely person,’ I said, and gave her a hug.
She shrugged and I kissed her cheek.
‘Shall we put your card on the mantelpiece in the living room with your others?’ I suggested.
Lucy nodded and then picked up the card from Stevie, which was still on the floor. ‘I’d better put this one on show too,’ she said.
‘That would be nice.’ I smiled.
We went out of Lucy’s room. Paula was still on the landing and she came with us downstairs. We both watched Lucy position the two cards beside the others on the mantelpiece, making five in all. It was a nice display. In our house, birthday cards usually stay on show for a couple of weeks after the child’s birthday and I then put them safely away.
Lucy and Paula watched some television while I made dinner. We were eating later than usual and I assumed everyone would be hungry. Lucy, however, hardly ate anything – far less than usual – and I thought that, while outwardly she seemed to have recovered from her upset with Stevie, inside she was still hurting and in turmoil. I’d noted before that distress caused Lucy’s eating to plummet, and I’d learnt from my reading that this was her way of trying to regain some control in her life.
‘I’m really not hungry,’ Lucy said, pushing her plate away. So I cleared away and hoped that, as had happened before, her eating would improve when she was completely over the upset. I wondered if Stevie fully appreciated the impact her words would have on Lucy. It was a week before she was eating normally again.
I hung the Thai flag on the wall in the living room as Stevie had suggested, and two weeks later I took it down – at Lucy’s insistence. Apart from it looking slightly ridiculous – I mean, how many people have a big flag hanging in their living room? – visitors naturally asked why it was there. I then had to explain that Lucy’s father was Thai, which to Lucy – who just wanted to blend in and have a normal family life – singled her out and made her feel conspicuous. Lucy complained, so I took down the flag and continued as I had been doing, by educating Lucy on her cultural heritage in more subtle and, I would say, more meaningful ways.
September gave way to October and autumn arrived. The leaves changed from green to magnificent shades of orange, yellow, red and brown. At the weekends we put on our coats and boots and, bracing ourselves for the chilly air, went for walks in the woods, where we collected pine cones and saw squirrels burying acorns for the winter. The days shortened and the nights drew in, and although I love summer I think there is something cosy and comforting in being at home on a cold, dark evening, when the curtains are drawn, the lights are on and the fire glows, and the family is safely cocooned away from the outside word.
At the end of October we celebrated Halloween. The children dressed up in scary costumes and I went with them to those neighbours who had a pumpkin in their porch, confirming that they welcomed trick or treaters. Then, on Guy Fawkes Night, we went to a fireworks display on the playing fields at Paula’s school. As usual there was a huge bonfire built by the parents, staff and pupils, and a dazzling display of fireworks. After the display, while the bonfire crackled in the night air, we stood in small groups and chatted with other families as we ate barbecued hot dogs with fried onions and lashings of tomato ketchup.
Christmas was now fast approaching and by the end of November most of the shops were festively decorated and selling Christmas gifts. Some even had Christmas music playing. I hadn’t heard
from Stevie since she’d visited us in September, and she was now well overdue for her next visit. It crossed my mind that perhaps Lucy’s reaction to her on her last visit had upset Stevie more than she’d shown at the time, although as a social worker she would have had to deal with a lot worse than Lucy throwing a few ornaments and tormenting her with the cat. Lucy only had to see Stevie or hear her name mentioned and she became angry and upset. I hoped Stevie wouldn’t make her next visit too close to Christmas, as I didn’t want Lucy upset over the festive period. However, when Jill next visited – the first week in December – she said, ‘Stevie has left the department and has gone to work for another authority. Her post won’t be filled until after Christmas, so if you need to contact the department in the meantime, phone her team manager.’
‘All right,’ I said.
‘Hopefully Lucy will get on better with the new social worker,’ Jill added.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And hopefully her new social worker won’t be allergic to cats!’
Chapter Twenty-Two
A New Year, a New Social Worker
I love Christmas, and so does my family. I always make sure the children I look after, as well as my own, have a fantastic Christmas – one they will remember. So many of the children I foster have never had a proper Christmas before, and I can cry at some of the stories they tell me about their Christmases before coming into care. Over the years I’ve heard of every disappointment and atrocity you can imagine taking place on Christmas day: having no Christmas at all, despite being promised one; having no food in the house and having to beg from neighbours; parents being too drunk, hung over or high on drugs to look after their children, so that they were left to get on with it, as they were every other day of the year; and, worst of all, children being abused on Christmas day. Abuse is evil at any time, but at Christmas – a time of good will and peace – it seems an even viler outrage, and my heart aches. One child I looked after had been badly beaten by his parents on Christmas morning for waking them up early, hoping that Father Christmas had been. He hadn’t. The parents locked him in the cellar until they were ready to get up in the afternoon and start drinking again.
Lucy had been in care the previous Christmas, so she knew there was plenty to look forward to. Most foster carers go out of their way to make sure the children they look after have a lovely Christmas, because they know how important it is to them. School broke up four days before Christmas, and Adrian, Paula and Lucy’s excitement escalated until Christmas Eve, when they hung their sacks on the front door in anticipation of Father Christmas coming – only, of course, in our house it was Mummy Christmas. They were all so excited they didn’t go to sleep until after eleven o’clock, and then I heard them wake with shouts of ‘Father Christmas has been!’ just before seven o’clock.
Adrian, now fourteen, no longer believed in Father Christmas, but he was happy to keep the magic alive for everyone else’s sake. Paula, now aged ten, had her doubts, but put them aside, helped this year by Lucy who, though twelve, had never had the opportunity of believing in Father Christmas as a child and embraced it wholeheartedly, so dispelling Paula’s doubts.
As they started unwrapping the presents in their sacks, which had miraculously filled and been placed by their beds during the night, I slipped into my dressing gown and went in and out of their bedrooms to watch them open their gifts. ‘Look what Father Christmas has brought me! It’s just what I wanted!’ Lucy cried over and over again.
‘And me!’ Adrian and Paula called back from their bedrooms, as they tore the paper from their presents.
Seeing their little faces light up with unbridled joy made all the preparation and hard work that goes into Christmas completely worthwhile. Once they’d finished opening their ‘Father Christmas presents’, they admired each other’s gifts and then, when washed and dressed, we all went downstairs for a light breakfast. I’d set the oven on the timer so the turkey was already cooking, and I now prepared the vegetables while we waited for my parents and my brother and his family to arrive, which they did at eleven o’clock. The happiness and excitement grew as we exchanged gifts and then played games, ate a huge Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and then played more games. The house rang with the sound of laughter – from adults and children – and eventually, when everyone left just before midnight, we agreed it was the best Christmas ever; but then, we always say that.
Adrian and Paula’s father took them out the following day (Boxing Day), as arranged. This allowed Lucy and me to spend some one-to-one time together, as on the other Sundays the children saw their father.
‘We’re not going to do school work today, are we?’ Lucy said, pulling a face, as I returned from seeing off the children. Lucy usually did an hour or two of school work when Adrian and Paula were out with their father, as it was a good opportunity for her to have my undivided attention and help.
I laughed. ‘No. It’s Boxing Day – still part of Christmas,’ I said. ‘Anyway, you told me you liked doing extra work to catch up.’
‘Yes, I don’t mind. I’m pleased I’m not bottom of the class any more. I hated that.’
I told Lucy I was going to have to clear up from yesterday before we did anything else.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, following me into the kitchen.
‘Yes, if you’d like to,’ I said. ‘Or you can play with your Christmas presents.’ I rarely asked Lucy to help in the house, as she’d had far too much responsibility for domestic chores before coming into care.
‘I don’t mind helping you,’ she said, picking up a tea towel as I began washing the first pan. ‘I like to help you, you’re like a mum. I used to hate doing it for my aunts and Dave.’
‘You were made to do far too much,’ I said, as I’d told her before. ‘It was wrong.’
‘But I got through it, and all the other stuff,’ Lucy said stoically. ‘There’s many kids worse off than me.’
I smiled sadly. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Since Lucy had been with me she’d grown increasingly positive in her outlook, which I thought would serve her well in life.
‘Some of my aunts were worse than others,’ Lucy said, taking the pan I’d just washed and drying it. ‘There was one called Pinky. What a silly name! She was a real cow to me. She used to have men round when Dave wasn’t there. They used to drink and smoke stuff. She told me if I took my knickers off and showed my bare bottom to the men they’d give me money. Enough to buy all the sweets I ever wanted.’
My hands froze in the washing-up water and I stopped cleaning the pan. ‘And did you show them?’ I asked.
‘No! I was only little but I knew it was wrong.’
‘And they didn’t force you?’ I asked, hardly daring to look at her.
‘I don’t think so. It’s difficult to remember. There were so many different people in different flats and houses. I remember Pinky kept asking me to take off my knickers. She said she took hers off for the men, so it was OK for me to do it. She also said I shouldn’t tell Dave, but he threw her out anyway. Or she left. I don’t know which.’
I continued to look at Lucy as she absently dried the pan. ‘Have you told anyone about this?’ I asked gently. ‘One of your social workers or a previous foster carer?’
‘No. I’d forgotten all about it until just now. It suddenly popped into my head as I was standing here. Is that normal, Cathy; to forget and then suddenly remember?’
‘Yes, perfectly normal,’ I said. ‘Especially with bad memories. Because you feel safe now your mind is slowly allowing you to remember – only what it feels you can deal with. There may have been a trigger to this memory – possibly being in the kitchen. But suddenly remembering is normal, and when you eventually start therapy the therapist will help you deal with those memories.’
‘You help me already,’ Lucy said, planting a kiss on my cheek.
I smiled weakly. ‘Lucy, what you told me just now is child abuse, and I’ll be passing on what you said to your social worker, as I have the othe
r things you’ve told me. If there is enough evidence, the police will investigate. It’s important that people like Pinky and those men are brought to trial, to stop them harming other children. I don’t suppose you can remember Pinky’s second name? Or the names of the men, or where you were living at that time?’
‘No. I don’t think I knew,’ Lucy said, with a small shrug. ‘I remember I didn’t have Sammy at that time, and there wasn’t a teacher I could talk to. But I don’t know how old I was or where we were living.’
‘All right, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’ve been through so much; you’re doing very well.’
‘Much better than you’re doing with the washing up,’ Lucy said with a laugh. ‘You’ve only done one pan!’
I laughed too and, taking the next pan, began washing it, as Lucy started talking about Christmas: the presents she’d received and the games we’d played, and reliving the highlights. Like many abused and neglected children, Lucy had developed a coping mechanism that allowed her to recount a memory and then return to the present and pick up where she’d left off.
No Christmas card or present had arrived via the social services from Lucy’s mother, so I assumed none had been sent. Lucy hadn’t mentioned not receiving a card or present from her mother and I didn’t think she expected one. However, now she suddenly said, ‘I hope my mum’s all right. I worry about her when I don’t hear from her for ages.’
‘I’m sure she is all right, love,’ I said. ‘She can look after herself. But if you’re worried, I’ll phone the social services when they reopen tomorrow and ask if anyone has heard from her. Or you could phone them yourself, if you like? You’re old enough.’
‘No, you do it,’ she said. Then, taking the next pan, she looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Cathy, do you ever make New Year’s resolutions? You know, things you’re supposed to do or stop doing?’
‘Sometimes,’ I said.
‘Like what?’
‘Usually not to eat so much cake and chocolate.’
