by Jenny Molloy
At 9pm the fire service called to say the fire wasn’t deliberate, it was down to faulty wiring.
I don’t know how I kept my cool as the detective said, ‘We have to make sure.’
All I had left were the clothes I was wearing, my handbag and a mobile phone.
The children stayed with their cousins that night. Because it was so late and they were already in bed, I went to Dad’s, which was nearest to the police station and the only family home with a spare bed. The next day, waking up to this fresh nightmare, I felt a little less blessed, I have to admit. At 9am my phone rang. It was someone from social services. ‘We’re taking your children back today.’
‘What?’
‘They weren’t kept in your care overnight.’
I put them on speaker so Julie could tell them that she made the decision after the house burned down and I had to go with the police. ‘Tina wasn’t there, the police took her, so I had to decide. I called to let you know what had happened. If there was something wrong you could have told us then.’
‘I’m sorry. You have to get the children and tell them they’re going back to live in foster care again.’
They reasoned that my house was either burned down by someone who was out to get me, or I started it accidentally, in which case I wasn’t a safe mum, and the fact that a fire could burn down my house suggested I wasn’t taking good care of the kids.
‘Mum?’ Sophie asked. ‘What’s going on?’ Having to explain that they were going away again, back to the foster family, was so hard. I said it was because of the fire, until I had somewhere else to live. To let my kids go once was hard, to do so a second time, and this time through no fault of my own, was almost impossible to bear.
I had to go to court to fight social services, who initially claimed that they should be adopted. That battle I won and Sophie was allowed to stay with her step-gran and granddad, but Emily and Angie would stay with the foster carers.
A few weeks later, I was in town just after sorting out a flat, when I saw Liam, standing outside the pub he managed, having a smoke. I stopped.
‘How’s things?’ he asked.
‘Not that great, to be honest.’
‘Yeah, you look like you could use some cheering up. How about it?’
‘How about what?’
‘I’ll take you to the pictures tonight.’
‘As long as it’s not some nonsense with Jean-Claude van Damme.’
‘You choose the film.’
I hadn’t realised how much I needed to be close to someone and a pleasant evening at the pictures was followed by a passionate night in Liam’s flat above the pub.
A few weeks later, I took a pregnancy test and, sure enough, I was going to have another child. This time I wanted to make sure I did everything properly and so I called social services to let them know and that I was planning to keep the baby.
‘And what about the father?’
‘Not interested.’ And that was most certainly true. I never saw Liam again after that.
Social services sent me a lovely lady, Nikki, who I saw regularly, and everything was going just fine until Julie’s son, my half-brother, died from a heroin overdose when I was eight months pregnant. He was in his early twenties and had fallen in with a bad crowd after leaving school, although no one knew he was injecting heroin. It was one of those events when you add up the parts afterwards and wonder how you could have been so stupid.
It was a shock coming home after the funeral, from being with lots of people and then alone again in the new, bare flat. I had time on my hands and that feeling of mental paralysis started to creep in. I picked up the phone, called my contact and took three grammes of speed all in one go. As soon as I’d taken it I thought: ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’
Nothing I could do about it now, though. I was up for three days straight.
‘Never again,’ I told myself, and I knew this time I meant it. I’ve never touched another drug since.
A few days after the speed incident, Nikki the social worker called me up.
‘Are you available to come in?’
‘Why?’
‘I’d like you to come in and have a chat with my manager.’
‘Why?’
‘Please, Tina, this isn’t my doing. I know you’ve been going through a really hard time, but you have to come in.’
Even though she’d just buried her son, Julie drove me down to social services and came in to give me support. I didn’t much like the look of the social work manager. By the end of the meeting, I hated him. It was as if he’d been sent to make my life difficult. Because my half-brother had died the way he had, they decided to look into my case again and change all the rules.
He ordered me into a mother and baby placement – as soon as I had my baby we would have to live with a foster family together for three months. If I didn’t do it, then the baby would be removed.
‘But I’ve just buried my brother and I’m about to give birth. I need to be near my family.’
‘I’ve made up my mind. The order has been given.’
‘How is this going to work with Sophie? She’s a teenager now, she needs me.’
‘As long as Julie is OK to let Sophie live with her, that’s fine with us and we will provide money for train tickets so she can come and see you.’
We were both reeling when we left the office. I called Nikki, who apologised, adding: ‘I completely disagree with it but he’s the manager, he’s made up his mind and there’s nothing I can do.’
As I prepared to give birth, I packed my bags, knowing I wouldn’t be going home after the hospital. I was expecting Nikki to be there but I didn’t know that she’d fought with her manager over my case and then, when she turned in her notice, he told her to leave immediately. Instead, I was joined by someone I didn’t know, who described me as ‘combative’ because I wasn’t happy that no one had thought to tell me the social worker I knew and trusted wouldn’t be with me at one of the most important and difficult moments of my life.
Sylvie was born perfect and beautiful and, after a week in hospital, we were driven down to a coastal town in Norfolk – wide, windswept landscapes, big skies and grey seas – to meet Mark and Sue, our foster parents. I was so nervous about meeting them that I thought I might be sick. So much depended on how we got on, what life would be like for the next few months and whether I’d be able to keep Sylvie. I didn’t much like the idea that I was about to invade someone else’s family and that I’d be living in a glass house, with everyone watching my every move.
Mark and Sue were retired and in their early sixties.
Sue welcomed me with a warm smile. ‘You’re here ’cause shit happens,’ she said. ‘And if I can help, then, that’s what I’d like to do.’ She then added, ‘Just a couple of things I need to make sure you understand: I love babies but I do not wash babies’ bottoms; I do not do your washing; I do not clean the bathroom up after you; I will not hoover; nor, under any circumstances, will I change nappies.’
By now I was laughing, Sue had a way of speaking that made you smile. I knew she meant it and I said I understood and that I’d give them no trouble.
‘Time will tell, girl,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you your room.’
I loved them both right from the start. They made me feel that I belonged. It wasn’t like they were doing ‘a job’. They were the loveliest, liveliest sixty-somethings you could ever hope to meet. They embraced me into their family. I thought their children might be spoiled brats but, while they wanted for nothing, they were wonderful. Their daughter, Donna, had a horse and soon I was going down with her to the stables each morning. I loved the company of the horse, the love it seemed to show Donna and the peace and quiet of the countryside.
Mark and Sue became, after Mum, and along with Dad and Julie, the most important people in my life. I cried with joy when their eldest son, who had left home, asked me to be a bridesmaid at his wedding. No one in my family was married, let alone had had a tra
ditional wedding, and the amount of love in the room took me by surprise; it was emotional but in the most wonderful way.
Not long after the wedding, social services called. They wanted me to come in for a hair strand test to make sure I’d not been using. The result would go in my file and form part of the decisions made at the end of the placement.
‘No problem,’ I said, because I hadn’t been using. It was only when I hung up that it hit me. I had used. I’d taken three grammes just over four months ago. It would show up on the hair strand test.
Everything had been going so well. I’d been a good mum, Mark and Sue kept saying how wonderful I was as a mother, that I was a natural – and I felt as though I was. I still saw Emily and Angie once a week and loved them so much. I wrestled with the thought of telling them that the test could come back with a tiny positive result, explain to them it was a one-off, but eventually decided against it. One wrong step was enough to break my agreement with social services and for them to take Sylvie away.
I travelled on the train to take the test at a lab, where a scientist plucked a random selection of hairs, popped them in a plastic bag, sealed and labelled it. I signed some paperwork and then she placed my sample in with a load of others in a drawer.
It was at this point that I developed a sudden and nasty ‘cough’ and it wasn’t long before the scientist offered me a glass of water. I nodded my thanks in between coughs and, as soon as she went to get it, I reached into the drawer, pulled out my sample and stuffed it down my jeans. She returned with the glass of water and didn’t realise anything was amiss. I necked the water then got up to go. Once I was on the train and it was travelling at high speed between stations I took out my sample, tore it open and threw it away out of the window.
I just hoped they’d forget about it and, after a couple of weeks, I thought they had. We went on a camping holiday, something else I’d never done before but, again, I loved every moment; open skies, cooking and eating outdoors, other people’s kids running around in the day, peace and quiet at night – everyone was so friendly. It was only on the drive home that I fell quiet with a sense of foreboding.
‘What’s got into you?’ Sue asked.
‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ I answered. ‘Just sorry the holiday’s over, that’s all.’
The call came a few days later.
‘That’s funny,’ Sue said, hanging up the phone. ‘You’ll never guess, the lab’s only lost your results. You’re going to have to do another one.’
‘Seriously? Can you double-check? I don’t want to have to go through all that again.’
Bless her, Sue checked and this time the scientist said my sample had been posted to the testing lab before 5p.m. on the day it was done. Only I knew she was lying. So, I had no choice but to do another one and pray that I was lucky, that the amount was so small the test wouldn’t pick it up. There were tricks to get around the test, like bleaching one’s hair, but that was actually forbidden as part of the agreement with social services. I pleaded, but was told I had to take one before the court was due to rule on my future.
So I went, had it done, left the office and cried all the way home. A few days later, the results arrived. I had tested 0.003 positive for amphetamine. They could tell I had taken exactly three grammes.
Sue started sobbing when she saw the results. The guardian of the court came to see me the next day.
‘You know, I genuinely believed you. I believed you when you told me you were clean. I can’t work with you any more because I don’t know if I can believe anything you tell me.’
The first decision was delivered tenderly by a social worker, who must have dreaded this part of her job. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go home this week without Sylvie.’
My heart broke again. The one thing that reassured me at least was that Mark and Sue would be looking after her until the court made a final decision. Sue was beside herself and even Mark choked up with tears when he tried to tell me how much he loved us both.
‘You know she will be OK,’ he said. ‘We love you both so much.’ They gave me the strength to walk out of the door.
The court date arrived a few weeks later. It was just before Christmas. I’d had the same barrister throughout my time in court and he had seen how much I had changed and was extremely sympathetic but not hopeful. Then the judge sent the clerk in to talk to him. A minute later, he took me to a quiet corner.
‘The judge would like you to know we can put you through a four-day hearing but he has read the reports and is planning to side with social services. He knows how hard it will be for you to endure four days of this and no matter what you tell him, the outcome based on the evidence presented to him will be the same. You can go through the hearing, or you can sign a statement that says you disagree with the decision and the judge will spare you the hearing and issue the adoption order for Sylvie, Emily and Angie.’
I nodded, unable to speak, tears already pouring.
The judge then asked to see me in his chambers. ‘I wanted to thank you personally,’ he said. ‘I understand how difficult this must have been for you.’
I thought he couldn’t possibly know, but I understood what he was trying to say.
That night Sue texted me, asking what had happened. I couldn’t believe that social services hadn’t told them already and it was left to me to say, in a text: ‘I lost.’
I didn’t get a response for hours – then Sue called: ‘I am so sorry.’
I travelled down to see Sylvie every day with Mark and Sue before my visits were cut to three times a week for two weeks, once a week for three weeks and then – the final goodbye.
Before that day came, I wanted to meet Sylvie’s adoptive parents. The social services said they’d have to check and luckily they actually wanted to meet me.
They already had a five-year-old boy. They’d adopted him when he was one and had wanted to meet his mum and, although she’d agreed, she didn’t turn up on the day.
Before the meeting was due to take place Julie asked: ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
‘If I don’t, then I won’t know if they’re right for Sylvie. Ill start imagining all sorts of things about them, that they’re evil child abusers or something. The moment I see them, I’ll know if they’re right or wrong for Sylvie.’
We met in a private room in a social services building. Julie took me and we were both sobbing before we went in. We explained we needed a minute and it took me a little while to brace myself sufficiently. This, for me, was a major part of the impossible task of letting go of my perfect baby.
They were a young couple and both of them hugged me when they came into the room. They were lovely and down to earth; I knew they were right for Sylvie.
The husband said, ‘We looked at lots of different children, waiting for the right one to come along, and then we saw your daughter.’
I managed to stay for about fifteen minutes, until it started to sink in that this man would be father to my daughter, that she would have no memory of me. All the things to come – walking, talking, school, boyfriends – these would belong to these people. I was overtaken by an overwhelming urge to leave. I had done what I needed to do and could at least rest easy in the sense that they would give Sylvie a great life. I got up.
‘I have to go now,’ I said quietly. ‘Thank you very much for seeing me.’
Two weeks later I received a card in the post. It said: ‘Dear Tina, Thanks so much for coming to meet us. Please take comfort in the fact that we will look after Sylvie with love in our hearts and we would like to stay in touch.’
They went above and beyond the call of duty. They wrote to me explaining how they became adopters, and how happy they were when social services accepted them.
I called Sue and told her all about them. ‘They’re all right, they are,’ she said. ‘Someone has been looking out for you and Sylvie, as far as they’re concerned.’
In the run-up to saying goodbye, we made a photo album with
all of us (I put a picture of Sylvie in a locket I wear every day) and a trinket box with letters from Sophie and me to give to Sylvie’s adoptive parents.
Being in that foster placement with Mark and Sue is the reason I’m here today, sober and in one mental piece. How and why and what happened to me, and the results, well, I don’t really look for an answer any more.
Mark and Sue changed my life for the better. They taught me patience, how to enjoy life, that it was OK to be sad and moan, to tell them your troubles. They made me realise that I can cope with anything, any situation without using, regardless of the outcome, good or bad.
I can live without using.
Maybe Sylvie will want to find me one day and I sure as hell don’t want her to find a user, or a gravestone. I live for the day when she comes to find me and want to be the best person I can when that day happens.
If she doesn’t want to find me then I’ll know for a fact that she’s happy where she is.
Mum was left with one of us until later in life, and that’s how it’s going to be for me. I still have Sophie and she had her own daughter not long after Sylvie departed. Although she had a boyfriend who loved her and stayed with her, Sophie needed me. She was so young and I helped her through some difficult and dark times after the birth before she came through it and now I’m delighted to see she’s an amazing mum and I’m a damn good gran.
I may have lost my other children to adoption but we have all survived, and I feel as though we will one day be reunited, a family once more. There was a cycle that needed to be broken and I think I’ve managed that now. I’m clean and living a good life with my daughter and my granddaughter. I have letterbox contact with Sylvie, Emily and Angie.
I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy. That was a phrase my mum used to use and I think I sound like her sometimes. She taught me so much in those few years we had together – and when I think of her now, when times are difficult, I invariably hear her telling me something I need to hear. She told me that you do not have to go through life as a martyr, but that lying and doing the wrong thing is so hard – exhausting, in fact. If you have faith, be honest, embrace life’s ups and downs, then, when the time comes, when you have to make a choice, you will do the right thing.
