by Angela Hart
‘Why did you do that?’ I gasped. ‘You’ll get poorly wearing a damp costume for hours on end.’
‘Felt like it.’
‘Didn’t the teachers tell you to change?’
‘No. I don’t think they noticed. It’s no big deal. Keep your hair on, Angela!’
When we got home I found Keeley’s knickers wrapped inside her swimming towel. She’d clearly wet herself; the underwear was soaked through and smelled strongly of urine. I realised this was probably the real reason Keeley decided to keep her swimming costume on, and I was in two minds about whether to talk to her about this. I didn’t want another fight or for her to tell me any more fibs, but equally I couldn’t just leave it.
‘Keeley,’ I ventured. ‘When I went to put your washing in the machine just now I found your knickers. Did you keep your swimming costume on because your knickers were wet?’
‘No, why would I do that?’
‘So that you didn’t have to wear wet knickers.’
‘But I wore a wet costume. What’s the difference? What does it matter?’
‘OK, perhaps you’d like to keep a spare pair of knickers in your bag, in case one pair gets wet?’
‘Why would I do that? I DON’T WET MY KNICKERS!’
As she bellowed this, Phillip walked into the kitchen, and he stifled a laugh.
‘What are you laughing at, you little fucker?’ she shouted at the top of her voice.
‘Keeley, with language like that you’ll be missing the next treat!’
‘See if I care!’
‘Cow,’ Phillip muttered under his breath.
‘Phillip! You mind your language too! I think you two should apologise to each other, right now.’
Phillip and Keeley both had their arms crossed and stood glaring at each other across the kitchen table.
‘I’m not saying sorry to him,’ she bellowed. ‘He’s a loser! Ha ha, I’m going to live with my dad and you’re just a LOSER! You’ve got to stay here ’cos nobody else wants you!’
Phillip exploded.
‘You BITCH! I’m gonna get you!’
Philip then launched himself towards Keeley. I stepped forward and just about managed to block his path, raising my arms as I did so and saying, ‘Stop! That’s enough!’ Thankfully, Keeley had been standing close to the kitchen door, and at the same time she darted out of the room like a scalded cat and ran up both flights of stairs at breakneck speed. I heard the bathroom door slam very loudly, and then Keeley shouted at the top of her voice: ‘Go to hell, everyone! I’m not coming out of here until it’s time to see my dad!’
Moments later Carl arrived home from school, complained that he’d been sweating his head off in a stuffy classroom for hours, and said he was going straight upstairs to have a shower.
‘Keeley’s in the bathroom,’ I said, still catching my breath.
‘Bitch!’ Phillip spat again.
‘What’s happened?’ Carl asked, rolling his eyes as if to say, ‘What now?’
Phillip said it didn’t matter and that he didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I’m going to my room,’ he huffed. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
‘Me too,’ Carl said, backing away. ‘I’ll just wait for Keeley to come out of the bathroom, Angela. I can wait for my shower, don’t worry. I don’t want another argument.’
The boys both skulked upstairs, leaving me to prepare the evening meal with a very heavy heart.
There was a hand-painted wooden sign on my kitchen wall that said ‘Meals and Memories Made Here.’ It was a gift from a former foster child, Mel, who was now grown up, and when she presented it to me I’d been very proud to display it.
‘Thank you for the memories,’ she had written on the back. Mel’s placement with us had been very successful. She stayed for just a few months before moving back in with her mother, and she had kept in touch ever since. When I thought of Mel I always felt grateful for being able to do the job I did. When things go well in fostering, it is the best job in the world. Helping a child turn a corner and move forward with hope and optimism or better prospects is incredibly satisfying, and I can’t imagine any greater reward in any job. When things go wrong, however, it can hit you very hard and make you feel responsible for failing to improve a child’s life, which is the worst feeling in the world.
Now I felt the sign was mocking me. What memories were we making for Phillip and Carl now that Keeley was disrupting their life in this way? And what about Keeley herself? I wanted her to thrive in our care, and to be able to look back one day and see how Jonathan and I had helped her, and given her some good memories. With things the way they were, I felt that the longer she stayed, the more unlikely this was.
As I cooked dinner I found myself willing Keeley’s meeting with her father to go well. How she would react if it went wrong was not worth thinking about; she was difficult enough to deal with as it was. I even allowed myself to daydream about the prospect it might go extremely well indeed, and that Keeley really could go and live with her dad. Good things do happen in life, and this wasn’t completely beyond the realms of possibility. After all, Frankie wanted to see his daughter and he had no other family responsibilities standing in the way. We’d been searching for a single placement, and perhaps he was the one who was finally going to provide it? The daydream seemed too good to be true, but I lived in hope; it could be her salvation, and ours.
To my surprise, Keeley appeared in the kitchen while I was still busy cooking.
‘I’m sorry, Angela,’ she said quietly. Her voice sounded slightly hoarse, no doubt from all the shouting she’d done. ‘Can I hug you?’
‘Of course you can, sweetheart,’ I said, because however badly a child had behaved I would never deny them a hug.
She flung her arms around me and squeezed me tight, and then she asked if she could make a pattern in the mashed potato I’d just put on top of the fish pie I was making for dinner. This had become one of Keeley’s favourite jobs in the kitchen whenever we had fish pie or cottage pie, and she did a different design every time.
‘Of course you can,’ I said again, thinking how I wished she was in this frame of mind more often, and how I was going to have to talk to her about what had happened earlier, even though I wanted this mood to last for as long as possible.
‘There!’ she said triumphantly, standing back and admiring her work.
I looked at the top of the pie and smiled. Keeley had used a fork and drawn a great big heart with the letter ‘A’ in the middle.
‘That’s for you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’m not always good.’
26
‘Who is Jonathan?’
On Thursday morning I reminded Keeley that Hazel was collecting her and Ellie from school and taking them to the theatre group, and that she would be having her tea at Ellie’s house.
‘So what?’ she said to me.
Keeley was in a difficult mood and was stalling for time as she got ready for school. I’d wanted to suggest she took some spare knickers, as I didn’t want to risk her being smelly going to the theatre group or to Ellie’s, but she was in such an unresponsive frame of mind that I kept quiet, knowing she would only give me short shrift.
She dawdled over eating her breakfast and then had a row through the bathroom door with both boys.
‘I’m doing my hair!’ she shouted when they nagged her to hurry up.
Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, this had become a very tedious daily ritual. Keeley would spend anything up to half an hour in the bathroom, damping down her hair and brushing it, trying to get the curls out.
‘Go and use my bathroom!’ I called up to the boys. ‘Don’t be late! Don’t argue!’
Jonathan and I had started getting up a bit earlier than usual so we could use our bathroom first, before the boys might need it. This was a nuisance, but it was better than having Carl and Phillip getting wound up before school, or being late.
Once she was dressed, Keeley went through her now all
too familiar routine of spending ages putting on her shoes. By this stage I was well aware that her behaviour became worse when she felt she was irritating Jonathan or me or stressing us out. Therefore, we would busy ourselves doing jobs in the kitchen while the shoe drama played out.
On this particular day I could hear Keeley repeatedly throwing her shoes at the front door. This went on for a full ten minutes before I reluctantly conceded that I’d have to intervene.
‘Keeley, we’d better get a move on. I’d hate you to be late today.’
‘Why? Are you worried what the school will think of you?’
‘No, I’m worried you might get into trouble. What if you get kept behind after school? You’re being picked up by Ellie’s mum, remember?’
‘They won’t keep me back. They’re not allowed. You’re just saying that to make me hurry up!’
‘I’m not, actually. I’ve known children be kept back after school many times because they can’t arrive on time in the morning. Never mind, though, it’s up to you.’
Keeley’s eyes were blazing.
‘These shoes are too small. I’m going to go to school with no shoes today, I can’t be bothered with them!’
‘OK. That’s fine. Get in the car then. Perhaps you’d better take off your socks, as you’ll get holes in them if you walk on the pavement like that.’
She narrowed her eyes.
‘Are you messing with me?’
‘No, why?’
She pulled off her socks, threw them on the floor and then decided to put her shoes on her bare feet.
‘Ready then?’ I said.
‘Yes!’ she spat.
Jonathan appeared and picked up the socks.
‘Don’t you want these, Keeley?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘I was only asking because I was looking for something to warm my ears up with.’
With that he wrapped each little white sock around his ears and gave a daft grin.
‘You’re not funny,’ she said. ‘You’re stupid.’
I laughed. ‘Well I thought that was quite funny!’
‘You would, wouldn’t you. You think the sun shines out of Jonathan’s arse.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Keeley, but he is my husband and actually, yes, I do think he is a fantastic man.’
‘Who is?’
‘Jonathan, of course.’
‘Jonathan who? Who is Jonathan?’
Keeley grabbed her bag, walked past Jonathan as if he were invisible, and then climbed in the car while I stuffed the socks in my handbag. When we got to school Keeley darted out of the car and ran across the car park without saying goodbye or even speaking to me. The bell rang the second she stepped foot in the playground, and so I went to the school office and handed in the socks.
‘Can you make sure Keeley gets these?’ I asked the receptionist.
‘Of course,’ she smiled kindly. ‘In a forgetful mood this morning, was she?’
‘You could say that,’ I said through gritted teeth.
On the drive home I began to worry about how Keeley would behave with Ellie after school. I assumed Hazel knew that Keeley was fostered, as she’d heard her call me by my first name, and most people in the neighbourhood knew that Jonathan and I were foster carers. I wasn’t sure though. I had Hazel’s phone number and I wished I could pick up the phone and tell her so many things she didn’t know about Keeley, to forewarn her, in case something went wrong.
I wanted to say: ‘Please understand, Keeley has led a traumatic life, and next week she is meeting her dad. She hasn’t seen him for two years. If she behaves appallingly, this is probably why.’ Of course I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t. The child’s privacy is paramount, and I just had to cross my fingers and hope that if there were an incident tonight it would be something Hazel could take in her stride.
I couldn’t relax for the rest of the afternoon. I gave a customer the wrong change in the shop and I had to call a gentleman back who had phoned to order a bouquet for his girlfriend, as I’d failed to ask him some basic questions, such as how much he wanted to spend, and was there any particular colour or flower his girlfriend wasn’t keen on. Normally these questions tripped off my tongue automatically, but I was preoccupied thinking about Keeley.
When I finally went to pick her up from Ellie’s house I was a nervous wreck.
‘Hi Angela!’ Hazel said breezily when she came to the front door. ‘Do you want to come in for a minute, the girls are just washing their hands, they’ve been doing some cutting and sticking.’
‘OK, thanks! Have they been all right?’
‘More than all right. They are absolutely full of beans. They seem to be really enjoying the theatre group. They’ve both got a little part now. We’ll have to go and watch the show when it’s on.’
Little Jake was crawling around in his playpen in the kitchen, grizzling and bashing a rattle against the rails.
‘Of course! That’ll be lovely. I’m so pleased they’re enjoying it.’
‘Oh, they are. And they’ve played beautifully together. It’s Jake who’s been the most trouble this afternoon.’
‘Oh dear, what’s he been up to?’
‘He’s just been out of sorts really. He was fine earlier on, but he got a bit grumpy at teatime and started crying for no reason. I think he’s just getting a bit frustrated maybe, seeing the girls charging round. He’s not walking yet but I think he’d like to be haring round with them! He’s teething too, so that doesn’t help, does it?’
I had a horrible thought that Keeley might have done something to Jake, but of course I had no evidence of this and it would have been very wrong of me to voice this fear. The girls appeared, showing off a very impressive collage they’d put together with all sorts of coloured paper, silver foil, pipe cleaners and bits of glitter.
‘Look what we made!’ Ellie said.
‘Look, Angela, look!’ Keeley beamed.
‘It’s wonderful, girls!’ I replied. ‘Haven’t you done well?’
They were both in a delightful mood and I felt a pang of guilt for even thinking Keeley might have harmed Jake. I mustn’t let her history of pinching cloud my view of her. Of all people, she needed me to think the best of her and be a loyal and positive supporter. All I could do was stay vigilant.
‘You’ve got some very interesting shapes and bits and pieces on there, I must say,’ I went on, admiring the girls’ art work.
‘Keeley got the pipe cleaners off miss,’ Ellie said, which unfortunately rang another alarm bell, as I was sure the teacher wouldn’t go dishing them out. ‘And the coloured paper!’
I thought back to the stolen Blu Tack and my heart sank a little, but I couldn’t be sure Keeley had helped herself in the stationery cupboard again without permission, and of course I kept these concerns to myself too. Instead I focused on the fact Keeley seemed to have behaved herself very well all afternoon, and that her friendship with Ellie appeared to be going from strength to strength.
‘Can you go and put your shoes on, Keeley?’ I asked.
‘Yes!’ She grinned, and she went straight to the hallway and put her shoes on without a fuss. She was wearing the socks I’d delivered to the school office that morning, but again I didn’t comment. I didn’t want anything to spoil her mood.
One the way back to our house Keeley told me all about the part she was playing in the production, and she asked: ‘Do you think my dad will come to see the show?’
‘I don’t know, sweetheart. You’ll have to ask him that yourself.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I might do.’
‘How are you feeling about seeing him again?’
‘OK, I think. Ellie’s dad works away a lot as well. She said he always brings her a present when he comes home. Do you think my dad will bring me a present?’
‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know him, do I? I’ve never met him, I don’t know what he’s like at all, or if he’s the sort of person who likes
to buy presents.’
She thought about this for a moment.
‘I think he is, because once he bought my mum a present. It was a microwave oven, for her birthday. She didn’t like it though. She said it wasn’t a good birthday present. I thought that was mean.’
‘Well, we’ll have to wait and see.’
Just before bedtime Keeley headed downstairs, barefoot, to say goodnight, and Jonathan arrived home at the same time. He’d had a very long day, having visited a new wholesaler about fifty miles away, and he’d also been to see one of his relatives who happened to live nearby. He was taking his shoes off as Keeley crossed the hallway, and by accident he stepped backwards and trod on her bare foot.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ he said as she yelped in pain. ‘That was really clumsy of me, I’m really sorry, Keeley.’
I’d seen what happened and it really was an unfortunate accident, but Keeley was having none of it and started ranting and raving at Jonathan, and calling him every name under the sun.
‘You hate me! You’re mean! You’re a nasty old man!’
‘Keeley, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. It was just unfortunate you were right behind me . . .’
‘Yeah, right! You did it on purpose! You don’t care about me! You want me to get hurt!’
‘Keeley, that’s enough!’ I shouted. ‘You can turn around and go straight back up those stairs, right now. I don’t ever want to hear you treating Jonathan like that again, do you hear me?’
I was very cross and I probably shouted at her louder than I ever had before. She looked alarmed and shot up the stairs, and I waited for fifteen minutes before going up to check on her. In the meantime I made a note about the incident in my diary for Social Services.
‘Get lost!’ Keeley shouted when I tapped on her bedroom door. ‘I don’t ever want to see you again, Angela.’
I left her for another fifteen minutes, and this time she yelled, ‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to say goodnight, and make sure you are OK.’
‘Open the door then!’
I started to open the door, but Keeley had obviously had second thoughts about talking to me. She flew at the door, knocking it shut, and I nearly bashed my face on it.
