If Only He'd Told Me

by Mia Marconi

  The more he realised that there was never going to be a happy ending for his family, the more he rebelled. Running away gave him an adrenalin rush and that feeling of being scared that he was so used to. It was as familiar to him as being snuggled up next to Martin in a cosy, safe, warm bed was to me. And if Brody liked feeling scared I wondered how I would ever manage to cure him of his addiction.

  Either I or the school were calling the police on a weekly basis, and at one point nine police cars and two helicopters were out looking for him. He had become what social workers call a ‘fostering absconder’, as he would run the minute he couldn’t get what he wanted. ‘No’ was a trigger word and I tried to avoid it as best as I could. The psychologists call it ‘fight or flight’ and in Brody’s case it was flight. The more comfortable and safe home was, the worse he became.

  On the day the helicopters and police cars were out, he had run away from a happy family party. These occasions would make Brody feel particularly uncomfortable and you could see him begin to get agitated. When that happened I would try to distract him somehow until he calmed down, but on this occasion I didn’t manage to get to him in time and he was out of the door faster than you could say party poppers.

  By this stage he was ten, with the cunning of an eighteen-year-old. Even with all that manpower it was eight hours before the police found him. Eventually, he was spotted not far from the house hiding behind a neighbour’s wall. Two officers brought him home and knocked on the door. Brody stood behind them looking defiant, refusing to say where he had been or to answer any questions.

  It was a few days later when I asked him: ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘On the bus,’ he said.

  Brody had got on a bus, got off it, got on another bus, got off, and so on, until he’d had enough of buses. He had no idea where he had been, but he’d been riding round for hours. It was what he and his sisters did when they left their house because they could stand it no longer.

  ‘How did you know how to get home?’ I said.

  ‘Just asked,’ he replied matter-of-factly.

  Brody was a fast runner, and on occasions when he absconded he would usually run and hide at the first sign of a police car. He was often found on local council estates or hiding in fields. Roaming the streets held no fear for him – why should it? He had been walking the streets all his life, so it was perfectly normal. Brody was finding that old habits were hard to break and new ones impossible to form.

  It was becoming a game for Brody and a nightmare for us and all the agencies involved with him.

  The family became divided. Alfie spent more and more time with his twin Isabella. Francesca and Ruby were always together anyway and Martin would care for those four, while I had my hands full with Brody and my youngest child Lucia.

  Despite his aggression towards me, Brody also had an unhealthy attachment and wanted to control me. He began operating a divide and rule policy. He absolutely adored Martin, Lucia and Francesca, which compounded Alfie’s misery. He wasn’t that fond of Ruby, which caused problems between Ruby and Francesca, and he loved to hate me. But the fact that he had become attached to some of the family filled me with a sense of relief. At least Brody was capable of forming a close relationship with someone. I was making excuses for him again.

  The truth was that our family was breaking down, but I couldn’t see it. People tried to get me to see sense, but I would not listen.

  ‘Mia, can’t you see that Brody is breaking your family apart?’ my mum said one day.

  ‘It will sort itself out, Mum.’

  ‘How do you know? Are you going to wait until you have no furniture left, Martin’s left you and someone gets seriously hurt?’

  ‘None of that is going to happen. Trust me, things will work out,’ I said. But I only half believed myself.

  One by one, the family gave up on Brody. No one said that I should get rid of him, and although Martin, Francesca and Lucia had a much more positive relationship with him than Alfie and Ruby, even they tried to persuade me that it wasn’t working.

  Ruby and Alfie had given Brody so many chances they had no more to give him. Ruby was dedicated to protecting her little brother no matter what, and being very clever she had worked Brody out long before I did. In the end, they found a solution: they stayed away from him and he stayed away from them.

  Despite being treated like an infectious disease by Brody, Alfie only flipped once after Brody had gone into his bedroom and taken some of his games. When Alfie asked for them back Brody became aggressive.

  ‘Make me,’ he said, and Alfie took him on.

  They started fighting and Martin managed to break it up. Alfie hated fights – we all hated fights – and when I looked at him he was shaking from head to toe. I had an overwhelming urge to cry, but I was determined I was not going to do it in front of Brody.

  Still I did not want to give up on this boy whose horns were really showing now. For all Brody’s faults I loved him and I knew he loved me, and I lived in hope that one day we would turn a corner and everything would be all right. But before any safe place could be reached, we were just another family at war.

  It wasn’t just us as a family who were struggling; the school were finding it increasingly difficult to keep Brody safe. Meetings with his form tutor and head of year had become a weekly entry in my diary and we were all running out of ideas.

  ‘Mrs Marconi,’ the head began, ‘I am concerned that there is not much more we can do for Brody. We might have to consider a more secure unit.’

  ‘But we’ve done so much for him, wouldn’t it be a shame if we gave up now? I really do think he will turn a corner.’

  ‘We don’t share your confidence, I’m afraid.’

  While I was dealing with all the dramas I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. My family were the wood and I just took it for granted that they were happy to take second place for a while. Particularly Alfie – he was such a good little boy who demanded very little attention and he took a back seat without complaining so that Brody could get what he needed.

  I hadn’t noticed it – of course I hadn’t. I was far too busy trying to sort out all the chaos and devastation that Brody seemed to leave behind him. What I wanted Brody to realise was that we weren’t going to give up on him, no matter how hard he pushed us, and I thought once he realised that, everything would slot into place and he would settle into family life.

  Chapter Five

  Unsurprisingly, Brody’s secondary-school transition did not go well. Aged just twelve, he began self-harming with pens and pencils that he would dig into his arms or legs. Then one day I took a phone call from the head teacher.

  ‘Brody has taken a knife from the canteen. He was seen in the toilets hiding it up his sleeve.’

  ‘I’ll come and get him,’ I said.

  He had become aggressive and had threatened to kill himself. It was clearly a cry for help. After all, he could easily have stolen a knife from a shop during one of his unsanctioned excursions and slit his wrists somewhere secluded without anyone knowing, if that was really what he wanted to do. Brody was not a prisoner and he was not in a secure unit, and no one could monitor him twenty-four hours a day. It was easy for him to steal knives from school or from friends’ houses, and the best thing we could do was to reinforce the message that he didn’t need one. But it didn’t matter how many times I explained that he mustn’t take knives, his obsession with them continued.

  I knew none of us was in danger, because it was clear that Brody was only concerned with harming himself, but still, his behaviour was extremely worrying. There was many a morning when I would find a knife under his pillow as I was making his bed. ‘It’s in case we get broken into and I get attacked during the night.’

  It was only a matter of time before it all went wrong, and after he took a knife to school he was suspended. I reasoned that Brody was heading towards adolescence – more excuses – which I knew was a difficult time for any teenager, never mind if you had
all the problems to deal with that Brody had, so I drove to the school to collect him. When we got home, I spoke to him about the dangers surrounding the whole incident. The school did its bit and identified someone for him to talk to when he wasn’t coping, but he didn’t bond with her and began threatening to kill himself more often.

  I would sit for hours with Brody trying to get him to talk about suicide, but his usual response was to clam up. I learned it was a no-go area and played it down, waiting for him to discuss it with me. On a couple of occasions all he would say was that thinking about suicide and harming himself made him feel better. It was his private time and a time when he was in control. To us, it was a signpost that Brody was not settling and that we weren’t able to provide what he needed.

  A year after Brody started at secondary school Alfie followed him, and instead of having an older brother figure to look up to Alfie found being associated with Brody embarrassing. Brody was always in exclusion and Alfie did not want to be linked to a boy who was such a problem to everyone. So, soon after his first term began, Alfie started suffering a lot of little illnesses.

  ‘Mum, I feel sick,’ or ‘Mum, my ear hurts,’ he began saying once or twice a week, and I let him stay at home as it was so out of character for Alfie to want time off school. It was something he never asked for, so I didn’t question whether he was genuinely ill or not.

  It was bonding time for us when Alfie was off and we sat and talked about school, his friendships and family, and he would say if he had any problems, but Brody’s name never came up.

  It wasn’t long before the school called to say that Alfie seemed to be taking a lot of days off sick. When I looked at his attendance record I realised he’d had a lot of time at home, so I asked for a meeting with the school. I thought something must have been happening there; maybe there was a teacher he didn’t get on with or he wasn’t enjoying being at senior school. I knew that it could take time to settle down in year seven and was sure it was just teething trouble.

  The school said they had no concerns and were unable to flag anything up other than that Alfie seemed quiet sometimes. Things were beginning to seem odd at home too, because Alfie had also become quieter and quieter there. When his behaviour wasn’t withdrawn, he was beginning to have angry outbursts.

  ‘I get butterflies when Brody is around, Mum.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Have a good think about it and see if you can work it out.’

  ‘I will,’ he said, but he never talked of it again.

  What we had no idea of was what was happening behind all our backs. Brody was taking his anger out on Alfie, and to cope Alfie was taking his anger out on us. In my ignorance I put it down to his age, and so did the family.

  ‘He doesn’t want to grow up,’ my mum suggested.

  ‘It’s just his age,’ said my brother.

  And at times I did wonder whether Alfie was trying to copy Brody.

  Martin began spending more time with Alfie, playing football and tennis with him. It was partly because Brody was getting to that age where he had his own friends and was going out with them after school, meeting them at local clubs or in the wood nearby.

  Then one night I had a really odd conversation with Alfie when I was tucking him into bed.

  ‘Night, Alfie,’ I said.

  ‘Can you ask my teacher if I can be on report?’ he said out of the blue.

  ‘Why would you want to be on report? It’s not good to be on report,’ I said.

  ‘Yes it is, because when Brody comes off report at school they give him a present.’

  I was totally taken aback. ‘I know, Alfie, but believe me being on report is not a good thing, it truly isn’t. They are just trying to reward Brody for good behaviour.’

  He grunted and rolled his eyes.

  I kissed him and said, ‘Mummy loves you,’ but he didn’t reply.

  The following Monday Alfie was off school again with a stomach ache while Lottie was visiting. Brody was having therapy sessions at home with me by this stage. Once a week, at lunchtime, a family psychologist would come in and sit with us to try and help us turn our relationship around, or at least get to the bottom of what was making Brody so aggressive towards me. He hated those sessions, and they seemed only to be making things worse.

  After the session Brody would not go back to school. Lottie would sometimes visit to talk to us both about how it had all gone, but today she came in, sat down and looked at Alfie. She threw me a knowing look and then went over to the sofa to sit with him.

  I went to make a cup of tea while Lottie put her arm around Alfie’s shoulders.

  ‘What’s going on at school?’ she asked gently.

  Before Alfie had a chance to answer, Brody demanded that Lottie watch him perform a backflip on the trampoline and the moment was lost.

  It was a Thursday, a day like any other. The kids were home from school; they’d had their tea and were settling down to do their homework at the kitchen table. All except Brody.

  ‘Brody, you need to do your homework,’ I said, using the singsong voice I usually used when I wanted to make things sound like fun.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he said, and bolted for the door.

  Brody was so quick he had disappeared before I could cross the kitchen to reach him.

  I knew the routine – I would have to get the car out and go hunting the streets. I asked Alfie to come with me and we drove around places where we thought he would be: the woods, his family’s council estate, and then I turned into a local field where the kids used to kick a football around. A rock hit the windscreen. I ducked and pulled Alfie’s head down. As I lifted my head again I saw Brody running away, so I got out of the car.

  ‘Brody! Get in the car!’ I shouted. He stopped and just stared and laughed at me, turned round and started running again. I got back in the car, shaking, and looked over at Alfie, who was crying.

  ‘I’m scared, Mum,’ he said.

  Suddenly, it hit me like a bolt of lightning – Brody was bullying Alfie. How could I have been so stupid and not seen it? I only had to look at the panic-stricken look on Alfie’s face and the situation became clear. I hugged him.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe. I won’t let Brody hurt you any more.’

  Those words ‘any more’ made all the difference. Without me having to say it directly, Alfie knew that I had worked out what I should have worked out months before. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  All I wanted to do was to get my son out of there, so I picked up my phone, called the police and explained the situation. They took my location and said calmly, ‘Someone is on the way.’

  ‘I need to leave, so I won’t be here.’

  ‘It’s fine, ma’am. We’ll take care of it.’

  An hour later the police arrived at my house, having picked up Brody along with Lottie from social services. I was so livid I didn’t want Brody in the house, so he sat in the car. I looked at him and you could tell he was still in a rage. He gave me a look of pure hatred, but by that stage I was past caring and I gave him a look back.

  I had asked Lottie to come.

  ‘I need a break, Lottie,’ I said. I wanted time to reflect on what had happened and needed to support Alfie. I was now in an impossible situation where I was trying to save someone else’s child, and in the process it seemed like I was damaging my own. This was different to our foster child Hope dying – death is an inevitable part of life, even when it’s premature. It is devastating if it happens, but you can move on. This was different, this was abuse. This was not what fostering was about, I told myself. I knew that my children put their hearts and souls into improving family life for youngsters who had been badly treated by the very people who should love and care for them the most, but what I had seen had convinced me that my son was suffering physical and emotional abuse in return.

  Lottie nodded and did not argue. ‘I will start the paperwork to get you some respite,’ she said.

&
nbsp; My heart ached for my son and hardened towards Brody. I was dreading what would happen next, but I knew I needed a break from Brody and I’m sure he felt the same.

  When the police finally brought him inside, I did not want to look him in the eyes. For six years we had tried with him, but his road map had shown quite clearly that he wanted to be at home with his parents and siblings, however terrible his life was there, and it seemed that nothing was going to persuade him otherwise.

  Chapter Six

  I got my respite and Brody went to stay with another foster family for a week. While he was away I thought about how to deal with his relationship with Alfie. It would do neither of them any good if we just walked away, so our family and social services would have to find a way to help them work it out. Alfie would meet other bullies in life, and Brody needed to learn that bullying was wrong and could seriously harm others.

  When Brody returned, he seemed different. ‘Maybe he’s missed us?’ I thought, but I think he knew that he had almost pushed us too far. I was tempted to let my guard down a little, but I didn’t. Time would tell if Brody was really planning on turning a corner, or whether he was planning another assault, but for now we would take it day by day and try to carry on as normal.

  Social services are like any boss – they make good and bad decisions. The first bad decision they made, in my opinion, was leaving Brody with his parents for so long, but the one that would affect him – and us – irreparably was his trip to army camp in Dorset. Brody was nearly thirteen and he had joined the Territorial Army cadets. It was his first trip and he would be away for a weekend. Martin took him shopping to the local camping store and bought him all the equipment he would need, including walking boots, a rucksack and a sleeping bag. Then the following Friday he dropped him off at the local army barracks. It was to be a three-day excursion and afterwards we all planned to fly off to Italy for the summer.

  Brody was really excited, and so was I. I thought this would be a really positive experience for him.