What's Love Got to Do with It?

by Jenny Molloy

  ANGELIKA

  My foster home was clean and warm; I had my own shower and could help myself to food. The couple, Mark and Judy, were both about fifty and lovely. I found it really easy to socialise with them. They asked me lots of questions without making it sound as though they were being nosey – they were interested in what I had to say, what I thought. It was strange at first; this wasn’t a type of conversation I was used to. I would wonder why Mark and Judy, clever and successful people, cared about what I thought, when they knew far more than me about everything.

  I was helped by their daughter Becca, who was more or less my age. She had no trouble voicing her own opinions and got me to join in – it was fun. Me and Becca got along just fine; I really appreciated the fact that she was able to share her parents with me. If they were my parents, I wouldn’t have wanted to share them with anyone because they were so good.

  One of the harder things to deal with was that Mark was a security guard. This scared me at first but he was so gentle and understanding that I quickly took to him, and saw him as a big softie. After I’d been with them for a couple of weeks, Mark came home a bit late and plonked himself down at the dinner table with his uniform still on. It was too formal. It felt wrong.

  ‘I’m not eating dinner with you like that!’ I said.

  ‘Like what?’ Mark asked.

  ‘You’re still in your work clothes; you’re not on duty any more. You’re supposed to be part of the family.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Mark said, and he went and got changed. He never wore his uniform at the table again and I really appreciated that he listened to me.

  The whole family showed me a way of looking at my life in a new way – to make plans, think of the future and how to manage my money. They took me on outings and, during the long drives, we discussed what I might do in the future. We came up with the idea of hairdressing and they helped me find a work placement with the local branch of a large chain.

  I was also able to go and see my dad. I hadn’t been home for months and, from the moment I saw the front door, I noticed that the house felt different, as though all the life had been sucked out of it. Dad gave me a long, lovely hug when he opened the door. It wasn’t a home any more, though; none of us kids were screaming, arguing with one another, or laughing at cartoons. It was just a building with a sad, old man inside.

  Mum had vanished again and had moved in with the father of her new baby. Dad was drinking, not like an alcoholic, but enough to worry me that he was depressed, as though he’d given up. He was lonely and felt like he’d lost everything. All he’d ever wanted was his family. He wanted to provide us with a secure and straightforward life, and he had failed. We were spread out, in different homes, in different towns, living separate lives.

  I made sure I came back two or three times a week to check on him. I promised him we would be a family again, that this was just temporary, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  My foster parents also took me to see Davina and Stanny; we met at Burger King. Someone from social services had to be there and wrote everything down, which was really weird and made a lot of my conversation quite stilted. I wanted to talk about Dad but I didn’t want to increase our chances of staying in foster care for any longer. As much as I liked Mark and Judy, I loved Dad and I wanted to be with him and help him. He needed us.

  Stanny didn’t seem to care. He said they’d hit the jackpot. Their foster family was rich and they were getting everything they wanted – Nike trainers that cost £100, skateboards and all the latest PlayStation games, and they’d been on holiday to Spain.

  ‘I’m worried about Dad,’ I told Stanny when the social worker left to use the loo. ‘He’s drinking; I think he’s depressed. He needs us back with him.’

  Stanny looked down for a moment, then back at me. ‘I’m happy now,’ he said. ‘Can’t I just enjoy myself?’

  He looked anything but happy. If I had to pick one word to describe him, it would have been angry. Maybe he was confused. I was certain that Stanny wanted to go home but his foster family had brainwashed him into wanting to stay with them, thanks to all the presents and the promise of a nice life ahead.

  Sure enough, Stanny’s anger soon burst out in the form of rage against his foster parents. He got into a shouting match with his foster mother and demanded to be moved. The social workers tried to persuade him to stay but Stanny insisted he didn’t want to live there any more, so they moved him. Davina stayed.

  It was wonderful that these foster parents wanted to show these broken-home kids a good time with lots of presents and holidays, but I think children need emotional support a lot more. There quickly comes a point where a new pair of trainers or a PlayStation game won’t help.

  Even though things had not gone well for us, nearly all the social workers I’d met had been fantastic. And then Gillian started turning up. She promised Dad that she would help him find a new house, a school for the kids and a job for him, but she did nothing and when Dad asked, Gillian told him: ‘I’m not allowed to help you. You have to do it yourself.’

  So Dad went and found a new job on his own. He saved some money and found a new house. He then went to court to try and get us back. There were two cases, first up was Davina and Stanny, and, although Dad was ready to fight for them, he was taken by surprise at an unexpected report from Gillian.

  Gillian had paid Dad surprise visits. The house was usually clean and there was fruit on the table, nothing fancy but liveable. But Gillian made it sound as though Dad was an alcoholic. He did drink after we’d gone but who wouldn’t in his position? He could have taken tranquillisers but he preferred to drink. In her reports, Gillian made it sound like Dad couldn’t get through the day without a drink, which I knew wasn’t true.

  I kept asking about going home to Dad and when I was told that Gillian thought he had an alcohol problem I believed her, because all of our previous social workers had been so good. ‘We’re never going to be a family again,’ I thought, and I became really angry. I withdrew from family life at my foster carers’. I was full of anger but I didn’t know how to let it out. I couldn’t sit still. I needed to do something to let it out.

  So I ran away.

  It started with a party. A house packed with young people. Music banging. Parents away. It only took me a few minutes to find what I’d been looking for: marijuana. The one thing that could make me feel better. I gratefully took a drag from the joint that was going around, and asked who was selling. A short, dark-haired boy, wearing dark glasses and an old army jacket, pointed me in the right direction.

  ‘You want to find Ruben,’ he said, trying to see down the hall. ‘There he is. Tall, curly hair.’

  ‘I see him, thanks,’ I answered, quickly digging out my stash of pocket money to buy some.

  Ruben was a bit older than the others. ‘I’m not really a dealer,’ he said; ‘I just know someone and am selling it to friends.’ We sat and shared a smoke together in one of the bedrooms. I felt better and better. ‘Why couldn’t it always be like this?’ I wondered. We stayed there most of the night, as people came and went, joining us for a smoke and a chat, before heading off again. Then the boy with the army jacket showed up. ‘Got any of that resin, Ruben?’ Ruben nodded and took out a small black lump. I’d only smoked grass up until now. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Finest hash from the fields of Lebanon,’ the short boy answered. Ruben made a joint and we smoked it. It was nice.

  ‘What brings you here?’ the short boy, whose name was Nathan, asked.

  ‘This,’ I said, holding up the joint.

  ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘And what brings you here?’

  Ruben laughed. ‘It’s his parents’ house we’re currently trashing.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried you’re going to get into trouble?’

  ‘Worried? Me?’ Nathan said. ‘No chance. What are they going to do? Chuck me out on the street?’

  The room started to lighten. Dawn was comi
ng. To make the most of it, Nathan took us up to a roof terrace to see the sun come up. We had a nice view of some hills and, in the distance, the beginnings of London. We smoked and drank as the sky turned from grey to pink. Trippy music came from inside the house. ‘Why couldn’t it always be like this?’ I asked myself again. Always at these moments, thoughts of my family crept in. My mum messing things up, my dad’s failure to hold us together, Stanny falling apart, and now me. Was that all waiting for Davina, too?

  I didn’t go home that night. I stayed with Ruben and Nathan and helped them clean up after the party. I didn’t go back the next night either and then, once Nathan’s parents were due back, I met Ruben at another party and stayed out all night again and went home with Ruben in the daytime. He was at university and lived in a house with lots of other students, who all talked about their incomprehensible studies and all the parties they were going to. They made life sound so easy and I was jealous. Ruben had a computer, so I decided to have a look on Facebook. There was a post on my timeline from Mark, my foster carer, telling me off, proper Dad style, adding that I had been reported as a missing person and I needed to get in touch as soon as possible. I didn’t like that at all. It made me angry. I couldn’t see that he was worried sick and just wanted me back safe and sound, or at least to know, through Facebook, that I was OK. I wasn’t prepared to do that. What future was there for me without my family? Better to leave now and spend as much time out of it as possible because there was nothing else to do. I quickly shut down the laptop – Ruben thought I was his age.

  ‘I need to smoke a spliff most urgently,’ I told him.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve got nothing left. We’ve smoked ourselves clean out.’

  ‘Can you get some more?’

  He checked his pockets. ‘Need some more cash, you got anything?’

  I scraped together about £15; it was all I had left.

  ‘Still not enough for an ounce. Let’s see if Nathan can chip in.’

  So we walked over to Nathan’s house and that’s where four police officers found me, practically unconscious, later that night. Mark had made sure every police officer in the county had a picture of me and, because he was a security guard, his workmates had pulled out all the stops for him.

  When the cops brought me back to Mark and Judy’s house, Gillian the social worker was there. Reality bites. Surrounded by cops, carers and busybodies, I was ready for my telling off but Mark and Judy took me to one side instead.

  ‘It’s your father,’ Judy said.

  Dad didn’t think anything of it when he opened the door to the woman from the gas company. She was in uniform, had a clipboard and he waved her in. He’d been playing cards and drinking with a friend, Terry, who was in his sixties, and he left the woman to it and told her to show herself out.

  Thirty minutes later there was another knock on the door. This time when Dad started to open it, it exploded inwards followed by two huge thugs who, slamming the door behind them, pushed Dad back into the kitchen, kicking and punching him as they went. Dad used to be able to fight but he was old now, smoked, drank and never exercised. The men had no mercy. Even when he was on the ground, they kicked him in the ribs, then the head, until he was barely conscious. His friend Terry was even older than Dad, and smaller. They punched him, even though he begged them not to, and said that he would be no trouble. They beat him to the floor, where they bound and gagged him. Terry could see Dad was in a bad way but there was nothing he could do as they dragged and threw him into the hall cupboard, which they then locked from the outside. The men trashed the house, tearing everything to shreds, taking their time to look for any secret stashes of cash. They took what little there was, as well as our passports and a little bit of jewellery.

  Dad, dazed, tried to crawl out of the house – perhaps to call for help, perhaps simply to try and get away. The men were angry. Terry, trapped in the cupboard, could hear them shouting at Dad. He thought they sounded Romanian. They were angry that Dad didn’t have more stuff for them to take. They wanted to know if he had money stashed somewhere. A lot of immigrants don’t use bank accounts and prefer to keep money at home, especially if it’s made off the books. But Dad didn’t make much money and he’d just spent what he’d saved on a deposit for the new house and buying furnishings for us. That was Dad. He always wanted us to have everything. I don’t know what Dad told them, if anything, Terry couldn’t hear – but he did hear the sickening thump of the hammer they used to hit Dad on the back of the head as he lay helpless on the floor.

  Terry was sitting on a chair by my father’s bed. Terry looked awful. He was bandaged, stitched and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Dad looked a lot worse. He had tubes coming out of him. As I drew close, I didn’t recognise him. He looked so utterly different from the man who came to the UK those few years ago. Apart from the breaks and bruises, his face was so sunken, pale and death-like. He had an enormous amount of bandages wrapped around his head and a special pillow was supporting his neck, lifting it off the bed, so the back of his skull wasn’t touching anything.

  How quickly it had all fallen apart. Everything was a result of Mum messing up. I leaned over Dad and told him I loved him. ‘We’re going to be a family again, Papa. All of us together. I’m going to look after you; then we’re going to fight to get Davina and Stanny back. I swear it will happen, Dad.’

  He didn’t move. I was worried he was in a coma, but the doctors said he was sleeping.

  ‘How long will he have to stay here?’ I asked.

  ‘That depends. Let’s see how he’s doing when he wakes up.’

  Our home looked like a scrapyard. There were holes in the walls the robbers had made trying to smash their way through with the hammer, which they then used to bludgeon my Dad. Plaster covered the floor. The banister was smashed and hanging free, doors were off their hinges and the kitchen was full of water from where they’d smashed the pipes. The cupboards were smashed and the floor was covered in broken plates – plates we’d never even got to use. I moved back in with Mark and Judy and was a new person. They’d treated me so kindly and I’d repaid them by turning into the same monster that brought me to them in the first place. I wanted to change for them, for Dad, to show them I was responsible, that I was becoming an adult. I just wish that Mum had done something similar. I don’t know what had made her do the things she’d done, and behave the way she did. She’d told Dad she loved him and I couldn’t understand how you could behave like that to someone you loved.

  It took a while for Dad to get out of hospital but, as soon as he was fit, I asked to go home. When Gillian asked me why now I replied: ‘I just feel like the time is right.’ It took a few months but I started seeing Dad most days in the run-up and so I felt more than ready when the time was right. Dad had moved again after the burglary. He found it hard to live alone and was worried about it happening again. Once he had a job he paid to have an alarm installed and now we have bars on the windows and the best locks possible on the doors. It feels a bit overwhelming – a bit prison-like – but at least Dad can sleep at night. I still see Mark and Judy and they said they’ll always be there for me, no matter what. I’ve continued with the hairdressing and we’re still fighting to get Stanny and Davina home. We see them often and Mum comes with us sometimes. She’s doing well with her new family now. I still love her. After all, she’s my mum, despite what she’s done. And I think that, perhaps, we’re not so different. I mean, we look alike but we also think alike. We both get frightened by life and want to run away. But I want to break the cycle. Thanks to Mark and Judy; I think they’ve shown me how.

  Actions that lead you to being taken into care take no time, but restoring normality afterwards can take years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s patience. And I’ve taught myself to stop and think twice before I make a bad decision. I understand now that life is not about trying to be happy, not in the sense that I was trying to be happy before – through drugs and living in a bubble of parties – but about
being with the ones you love. The people who you love through thick and thin, side-by-side.

  SARAH

  The council provided me with a tiny two-bedroom house in the town centre. It was lovely but it was just for me and Michael. Robbie had attended rehab and was having to give supervised daily urine samples. They were coming back clean and he kept this up until social services agreed that he could move in.

  It seemed as though, at long last, I had achieved everything I could have wanted – until I caught Robbie shooting up speed in the kitchen.

  ‘What are you doing; I thought you were clean?’

  ‘Me, no, of course not, been buying clean piss to take into the clinic. No one actually watches you pee; it’s easy. Look, you don’t have to use, all right?’

  So I did my best with Robbie either high or stealing to get high and made sure not a crumb of drugs or drug debris was anywhere when the social services came to visit. Dad wanted to see me on my nineteenth birthday so I went home and left Michael with my dad and step-mum while I went out clubbing with two friends from the old days.

  Robbie didn’t like that.

  ‘You should be here with me. You didn’t say what you were doing.’

  ‘I did but you were out of it, you didn’t listen. Then you were out all day. Leave me alone; I want to go to bed.’

  ‘No, we need to talk about this. Have some speed, then you won’t be tired and we can talk.’

  I looked at the open paper wrap in Robbie’s hand, at the white crystals twinkling under the lamplight for a long moment, and something inside me clicked. Everything, even Michael, was forgotten in that moment, as one part of my brain that wanted this drug had blanked out all other thought and was telling me to take it, that there was no reason not to, that I should just take the speed and talk to Robbie.