The Girl Who Just Wanted to Be Loved

by Angela Hart

  ‘Keeley!’ I shouted. ‘What are you playing at?’

  ‘What are YOU playing at, Angela? You’re not allowed to shout at me, are you? I’m going to report you.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, exhaling deeply. ‘If that’s what you want to do, I will go and fetch the phone and the out-of-hours number.’

  I started walking down the stairs and Keeley flung open her bedroom door.

  ‘No! I don’t want to phone up!’

  ‘Oh, are you sure? I don’t mind. I’m happy to get the number for you . . .’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then what do you want, Keeley?’

  She glared at me then said in a soft voice, ‘A cuddle, that’s all.’

  I gave her a big cuddle, which she loved, and then she told me she really didn’t like me shouting at her.

  ‘I don’t like shouting either,’ I said. ‘And I don’t like you treating Jonathan like that. So, why don’t we make a deal?’

  ‘What deal?’

  ‘Let’s agree that I won’t shout at you, and that you start to treat Jonathan nicely.’

  ‘Deal,’ she said before getting into bed and wishing me goodnight very sweetly, blowing me a kiss as I closed the door.

  27

  ‘Keep your nose out, you nosy old cow!’

  ‘School was boring today,’ Keeley said when Jonathan and I picked her up, ready to take her to meet her dad at the supervised contact session.

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘We had to do lots of writing, and I don’t like writing.’

  ‘What did you write about?’

  Keeley curled her lip. ‘You had to choose a topic. The topics were all stupid things like “my day in space” or “my magic wand”.’

  ‘What did you choose?’

  ‘Can’t remember. I’ll show you later.’

  She sat staring out of the window all the way to the contact centre. I tried to get her to talk about Ellie, her dolls and anything else I could think of to keep her occupied. Her mind was clearly on her dad though. I wanted her to be the one to mention him if she wanted to, but she didn’t. When we finally pulled into the council office car park Keeley looked pale and withdrawn.

  ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just my foot.’

  ‘What about your foot?’

  ‘You know, the one Jonathan trod on. I think it might be broken.’

  With that she started to make a meal out of limping from the car, although when we’d picked her up from school earlier she’d been perfectly fine.

  ‘Come on, lean on me if you want,’ I said. ‘I’ll help you.’

  She linked arms with me but ignored Jonathan when he asked if there was anything he could do to help. A contact supervisor met us at reception and Jonathan and I were asked to sit outside the room where Keeley’s dad was waiting. We’d expected to be introduced to him, but we didn’t argue.

  ‘Can you look after my bag?’ Keeley said, as she’d carried her school bag in with her.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can read my story while you’re waiting, if you like. My literacy book is in there.’

  ‘OK, thanks. I’d love to.’

  Keeley was taken into the contact room and Jonathan and I perched ourselves on two seats in the waiting area outside. I couldn’t help thinking back to the days when fostering was just an aspiration. Then, I had no idea that when you become a foster carer you have to deal with parents as well as children. Laughingly, right at the very beginning, I mistakenly thought that kids in foster care must be orphans, because why would a child need a foster carer if they had a parent? It didn’t occur to me that usually the kids still have one or even both parents, but that for some reason neither their mother nor their father could look after their child at that time in their lives. Meeting the parents of the kids in our care had been a huge eye-opener to me over the years and, as I’ve observed countless times, the vast majority of youngsters ultimately want nothing more than to be reunited with their mum or dad, no matter what the reason they are in care. I’ve also learned that kids typically don’t imagine they will stay in foster care for very long; they see it as a temporary situation that is going to change any time soon, although this is often not the case at all.

  Predicting how a child’s foster journey will pan out is, of course, impossible. Whatever you are told is likely to happen, or whatever you expect may happen, usually never comes to fruition. Every placement is different, every child unique, and there are any number of external forces that can rock the status quo and completely alter how the future unfolds. Having said all of this, before this meeting was set up with her father, in Keeley’s case I really did imagine she was going to be in some form of foster care for the rest of her childhood. After all, her mother was not capable of looking after her, hence Keeley being placed under a full care order, and her dad had appeared to be completely off the scene. I should have known better, I thought. You can’t make assumptions like this in foster care, and while they are still living no parent is ever ‘completely off the scene’. The majority do try to maintain some kind of contact, however intermittently, and you should always expect the unexpected.

  I wondered how Keeley was getting on with her dad and my eyes wandered to the door of the contact room, and then to Jonathan, who was also looking deep in thought. He caught my eye, gave me a gentle smile and then picked up a local council newsletter that was on a shelf beside him. He started reading the front page, about a new housing scheme for the borough, and so I decided to read too.

  I reached into Keeley’s school bag for her literacy book, and as I did so I noticed there was a pair of damp knickers in there, wrapped in paper towels. My immediate reaction was to sigh, but then I realised that she must have taken my advice and packed a spare pair of pants that day, which I was pleased about.

  I picked up the school book and turned the pages until I found the last piece of work she’d done, which was topped with today’s date and entitled: ‘The best day of my life’. I settled back in my seat and began to read.

  The best day of my life was when I was five and a half. My mum and dad took me to the zoo and we fed the penguins some fish and had two ice creams! (Me and Mum and Dad, not the penguins!) My dad bought me a cuddly lion in the gift shop and I called him Lenny the Lion. He was my favourite toy, until I was six. We went on a little train and me and my dad had running races in the park. My dad is very fast and strong and he is more than six foot tall and very muscly, once he won a strong man competition at the fair! My mum is very pretty and when we had our photo taken the photo lady said: ‘You look a picture’ and we all laughed. We didn’t buy the picture, I don’t know why, I wish we had. My mum had on a nice dress and her hair looked lovely and shiny. I wish I was as pretty as her! She has nice hair, not curly like me. My dad let me win one of the races BUT!! I cut my foot on a rock and my dad carried me to the fountain and washed it, because it was bleeding lots of red blood. Then it was very hot and me and Mum and Dad all jumped in the water and had a BIG paddle. A man in the park told us off but we didn’t listen, it was funny ha ha ha! We got our clothes wet so we lay on the grass in the sun and got dry. I was very tired and then we went home. My dad carried me for a bit. He said to look after Lenny, but when I was six Lenny got lost, and so did my dad – oh no! He went on a big adventure in the jungle and couldn’t find his way back, but he is back now. I would like to go to the zoo again. The End.

  I’d wanted to see Keeley’s father and find out more about him before I read this piece of work, and now I was intrigued to meet him. This account surely had to be taken with a pinch of salt, as with any child’s story, and I was very keen to know more. I showed the story to Jonathan to see what he made of it.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said, ‘but Keeley is so unpredictable and has such an imagination at times, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess what is true and what isn’t.’

  ‘No, nor would I!’ I said, allowing myself a
laugh. ‘Knowing Keeley, the bit about the jungle expedition could be fact and the rest fiction!’

  Despite my scepticism I couldn’t help being drawn into the story, though, and especially the timescale. We knew that the last time Keeley saw her father was when she was six years old, and so that part of it fitted; she could well have gone to the zoo with him and Tina when she was five and a half. Was it the case that Frankie had been out of Keeley’s life for years and then reappeared when she was five, perhaps just for a short while? I wanted to know, and I was desperate to find out why he had disappeared completely for the past two years.

  Eventually, the door to the contact room swung open and Jonathan and I instinctively got to our feet. Keeley came straight over to us and said politely, ‘We can go home now.’

  The contact officer was right behind her, making sure we were there to collect her.

  ‘Thanks, Mr and Mrs Hart,’ he said. ‘See you next time, perhaps.’

  Frankie didn’t appear, and the contact officer returned to the room and shut the door behind him. Jonathan and I were both disappointed not to meet him, but even though we were curious for news we were careful not to press Keeley for information.

  ‘How was it?’ I asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, it was fine, thanks. What’s for tea?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done a cottage pie so we can heat it up when we get in.’

  ‘Is there any pudding?’

  ‘I’ve got ice cream or there are plenty of yogurts.’

  ‘What flavour?’

  ‘Strawberry.’

  ‘I don’t like strawberry.’

  ‘But you chose it, and it was the one you enjoyed last time we had it!’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’

  Jonathan intervened, and quite rightly so.

  ‘How about some music?’ he asked. ‘Shall I put the radio on?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Keeley said. ‘I want to be quiet.’

  ‘OK, sweetheart,’ I said, reminding myself what a big step she had just taken. ‘I read your story, by the way. I thought you wrote it very well.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said absent-mindedly. Then she turned to stare out of the car window, placing her hands over her ears as she did so.

  No matter what the situation was with her dad, the one certainty was that Keeley had not seen him for two years, and the meeting must have had a huge emotional impact on her.

  My mum was at our house when we got back, as she’d been keeping an eye on Carl and Phillip.

  ‘Hello!’ she said brightly, coming into the hallway to greet us. ‘How is everybody?’

  Keeley ignored her, kicked off her shoes and said she was going to watch television.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. It’s been a busy day.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But good manners don’t cost anything, do they, Angela? Should you be letting her get away with that?’

  ‘Mum! Leave it, please. You have no idea what’s been going on.’

  I hadn’t realised it, but Keeley heard this. She must have loitered on the stairs on the way to the living room.

  ‘Yeah! Keep your nose out, you nosy old cow!’ she shouted down.

  ‘Well I never!’ my mother exclaimed.

  ‘Keeley, how dare you!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘That is extremely rude and you are in a lot of trouble, young lady!’

  ‘I thought we had a deal that you weren’t going to shout at me, Angela?’ she taunted.

  ‘Well I thought we had a deal that you weren’t going to be rude.’

  ‘That was to Jonathan!’

  ‘Well quite clearly I don’t want you being rude to anyone! Kindly come down here and say sorry to my mum. You have no right saying that to her.’

  ‘No, fuck off!’

  My mother gasped in horror, and I steered her back into the kitchen, where Carl and Phillip were looking very uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m sorry, boys. What a drama, and the minute we walked in the door. Come on, I’ll sort the dinner out and hopefully things will calm down.’

  They boys looked at each other, then at my mum, as if to say: ‘What did we tell you?’

  ‘I guess the boys have told you how difficult it can be sometimes?’

  ‘Well, yes, they did mention a few things. Are you sure you’re coping, Angela?’

  ‘Of course I’m coping! This is my job! I know what I’m doing, Mum, and I can do without being questioned like this. Now, please, let’s just get the dinner on the table.’

  The meal was a trial. Keeley deliberately ate with her mouth open despite repeated requests from Jonathan and I for her to show good manners. This was something that she knew particularly annoyed Phillip, and he was getting really fed up.

  ‘Can I eat in the kitchen, Angela?’ he asked. ‘I can’t stand it.’

  ‘No, why should you move? Keeley, behave yourself, for goodness’ sake. You are spoiling the meal for everyone.’

  ‘I’ll leave the table then.’

  ‘No, finish your dinner, but please eat nicely.’

  She continued to shovel food into her mouth in vast quantities and then chew it slowly, with her lips open.

  ‘I’m going!’ Phillip said, and stormed out, leaving his unfinished meal on the table.

  ‘Good!’ Keeley said.

  ‘I really think perhaps Keeley should have been the one to leave the room . . .’ my mother began.

  ‘Thelma!’ Jonathan snapped irately, which was really quite unheard of in all the years we’d been together. My mother and I had had our spats, but Jonathan was typically the one who smoothed things over and tried to stop arguments escalating. ‘Do you honestly think that is helpful? Do you?’

  My mother’s jaw dropped and Keeley started laughing.

  ‘Yeah, shut up, Thelma!’

  ‘Right!’ I shouted. ‘That’s it! Keeley, finish your dinner and go straight up to your room.’

  ‘I’m finished. Can I have pudding?’

  ‘No, you said you didn’t like the yogurt I’ve got.’

  ‘I don’t. I’ll have ice cream though.’

  She looked at me menacingly and I very nearly gave her the response I expected she wanted, which was for me to say she couldn’t have any ice cream. I’d learned a lot about how Keeley’s mind worked, though, and I knew this would give her the ammunition she wanted, so she could then accuse me of not only shouting at her, but refusing to give her food.

  ‘You can have a small bowl of ice cream and then it’s straight upstairs.’

  My mother’s jaw dropped even further, if that were possible.

  ‘But, Angela,’ she started.

  ‘Thelma, please don’t say any more,’ Jonathan said forcefully. ‘With respect, Angela and I are in charge here. Please let us deal with this.’

  The look on my mother’s face was priceless. Written all over it was the question: ‘Do you honestly think you are in charge? It doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting, giving a child ice cream after all this bad behaviour . . .’ but thankfully she did as Jonathan asked, and said no more.

  Jonathan and I went to bed exhausted that night.

  ‘Thank God we’ve got the holiday coming up,’ Jonathan said. ‘We don’t half need a break.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘Do you really think it will be a break, with the way things are?’

  ‘Oh come on, don’t be like that. A change is as good as a rest, as they say. Keeley’s not bad all the time, is she? Perhaps if we get her excited about the holiday she’ll behave better? It surely can’t get any worse, and a bit of sea air never did anybody any harm . . .’

  I looked at my husband with the utmost admiration. Somehow, he’d managed to find a glimmer of hope in what had felt like the darkest evening we’d had for a long time, and I lay in bed thinking positive thoughts about the fun we would have at the theme park, and the sun and the sand and the good times we’d have at the coast. School broke up for the summer later that week and the holiday was just two weeks off. Happiness was in touchi
ng distance; we had to keep going, because what choice did we have?

  ‘What if she goes to live with her dad?’ I murmured as I began to fall asleep.

  ‘It won’t happen that fast, if it happens at all. Let’s enjoy the holiday. Maybe Keeley will leave us on a high. Wouldn’t that be good?’

  ‘Eternal optimist,’ I mumbled, burying my head in the pillow.

  28

  ‘You mean you didn’t read my report?’

  Not long before our holiday I met Keeley’s first full-time foster carer, the one she had lived with before moving in with the carer she had accused of giving her the bruise on her cheek. That investigation had been completed, incidentally, and the carer had been cleared. Sandy had passed this information on to me and that was all the detail I knew; Keeley had never mentioned it again and as far as I was aware she never knew the outcome of the investigation. I thought this was probably for the best, as who knew how Keeley would react if she felt she had been disbelieved?

  Anyhow, Keeley’s relationship with her original full-time carer, who was called Mandy, had been much better. Even though the placement ultimately broke down because of Keeley’s bad behaviour, she had talked fondly about Mandy on several occasions.

  Staying in touch with former carers is not something social workers actively encourage, but Jonathan and I have always made an effort to link the children up with their former carers where we think it’s appropriate. We believe it helps foster children feel they belonged in the family, are remembered and maybe even missed, which is important to their sense of self, and in building memories and a childhood history. The last time Keeley mentioned Mandy I casually asked if she’d like to see her again if it were possible, and she said she would love to see her, and her children.

  Mandy was a mother of three, and when Keeley lived with her, which was just over a year earlier, her son Danny was about fourteen months old and her two little girls were aged five and six. It was a very lively household and Mandy stayed at home full time while her husband went out to work.