by Angela Hart
Contents
1: ‘So many questions!’
2: ‘I miss you, Daddy. When can I come home?’
3: ‘She wanted to hurt me’
4: ‘The sooner she starts school again the better’
5: ‘I’m happy, very happy. I love you!’
6: ‘She frightened me to death’
7: ‘I didn’t take them! I don’t know how they got there’
8: ‘I’ll be very, very good when I go home’
9: ‘I’m allowed to go to the party!’
10: ‘I just can’t cope with her’
11: ‘I think she’s a bit of a control freak’
12: ‘I’ll miss her when she’s gone’
13: ‘Why should you care?’
14: ‘My throat hurts. Thanks a lot!’
15: ‘Why, exactly, is Lucy in foster care?’
16: ‘Where’s my daddy?’
17: ‘Grown-ups always change their minds’
18: ‘What’s happened to her?’
19: ‘It doesn’t make sense’
20: ‘D’you think he’ll have forgotten what I look like?’
21: ‘You’ll have to ask Lucy about that’
22: ‘It’s lucky I like Angela or I’d be even more annoyed’
23: ‘I don’t want to make you sad’
24: ‘We can’t have Christmas ruined’
Epilogue
The Girl With Two Lives
The Girl and the Ghosts
The Girl Who Just Wanted to be Loved
Terrified
The Girl with No Bedroom Door
1
‘So many questions!’
‘That’s wonderful!’ Jess exclaimed. ‘I’ll let the social worker know right away. Thanks so much. This is great news for Lucy. Please thank Jonathan from me. What would I do without you two? I shudder to think!’
Jess had been our support social worker for some time and we’d got to know each other well. She was a good ten years younger than my husband Jonathan and me – we were in our forties now – yet Jess always seemed wise beyond her years. She was extremely efficient at her job and had a way of always saying the right thing, even when she was completely snowed under with work.
‘Thanks, Jess. We look forward to meeting Lucy. It’ll be nice to have another little girl in the house.’
‘Lucy’s very fortunate,’ Jess replied, sounding relieved. ‘I think you are the ideal foster carers for her. Let me make the arrangements and I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Hopefully we’ll get her to you tomorrow. Is that OK?’
‘Perfect.’
When I put the phone down I felt supported and appreciated, just as I always did after talking to Jess. I was also excited, apprehensive and slightly nervous about meeting our new arrival. To this day those emotions still collide whenever a new child is due to start a placement. I love the sense of anticipation, wondering what the child will be like, how we will get along and how we will be able to help. I immediately start thinking about how to make him or her welcome when they turn up at our door; I want them to feel comfortable from the moment they arrive, although that’s not always possible. No child comes to us without issues and I always have underlying worries about what state they will be in, what problems we may need to deal with and whether or not we really will be the right foster carers for the job.
Lucy had recently turned eight years old and Jess had explained to me on the phone that she was described by family members as being ‘disruptive’, ‘aggressive’, ‘belligerent’ and ‘totally impossible to live with’. She had support in the classroom, which suggested she had some special educational needs, but there were no further details. Her mum was off the scene – Jess didn’t know the details – and Lucy was left with her father, two brothers and her little sister. Problems started when her dad moved his new partner and her young daughter into the family home. Lucy clashed with her ‘stepmother’ so badly she was sent to live with two different aunties, miles out of town. They either didn’t want her or couldn’t cope and so Lucy was packed off to stay with her elderly grandmother who lived even further away, in a different county. Lucy had missed a lot of school during this period and it was her struggling gran who had reluctantly called Social Services, asking for help after finding herself unable to cope.
Jess also told me that Lucy’s placement would be short term. The little girl missed her daddy and siblings and desperately wanted to go home, despite the issues she had with her new stepmother. It would be our job to help integrate Lucy back into the family unit. Her father and stepmother and possibly some of the children would be given support in the form of family counselling, to help pave the way for Lucy’s return. Lucy would see a psychologist and also take part in group family therapy. It was expected the whole process would take two or three months, although understandably nothing was set in stone.
Jonathan and I are well used to taking in children at short notice and not knowing how long they will be staying. We’d been fostering for more than a decade at this point in time. We’d looked after dozens of kids and many had come to us as emergency cases, at even shorter notice than Lucy. I was delighted we could offer Lucy a home, and as soon as I’d finished talking to Jess I went to sort out a bedroom for her, to make sure she would feel as welcome as possible.
The following day Lucy arrived with a social worker called Brian. I was standing on the pavement in front of our flower shop, helping to take in the last of the displays, when they pulled up in a bright red Mini. To my amusement Brian looked exactly like Rowan Atkinson; the likeness was uncanny. As he got out of the car and shook my hand I thought to myself, I’m glad his car’s not green or I’d have thought Mr Bean had arrived!
‘May I present Lucy,’ Brian said very brightly as the small and very slender little girl climbed out of the back of the car.
I was struck by Brian’s energy. He had collected Lucy from her grandmother’s house, which I’d been alarmed to discover was more than a hundred miles away. He must have been driving for hours and it was a Friday too and so the traffic can’t have been great, especially in the afternoon rush. Nevertheless, Brian was all smiles and looked as fresh as a daisy. Lucy appeared remarkably bright in the circumstances too. She gave me a broad grin and said hello enthusiastically, which I was very pleased about. As she smiled I noticed she’d lost her two front teeth; her adult teeth were just starting to push through the top gum. Lucy looked very young for her age and she could have passed for a child of seven or maybe even six. She was very pretty, with bright blue eyes, a sprinkling of pale freckles on her nose and beautiful honey-blonde hair that framed her little face and bounced on her shoulders. I grinned back at her, thinking how appealing she looked and how friendly she seemed. It was almost as if she’d come for a social visit, rather than arriving for a foster care placement, which was very heartening to see.
‘I’m Angela. It’s lovely to meet you Lucy. Come and meet my husband Jonathan, he’s in the shop.’
‘Is this your shop?’
‘Yes. It’s a family business. We’ve been running it for a very long time. My mum ran it before us. You’ll meet her soon enough, I’m sure.’
‘I thought you were just foster carers. Wow! Do you own all these flowers? What’s your mum’s name? Where does she live? Does she live with you as well?’
Lucy was standing in the middle of the shop now, taking everything in, her eyes darting everywhere.
‘So many questions!’ my husband said cheerfully, stepping from behind the counter. ‘Hello Lucy, I’m Jonathan. Very pleased to meet you.’
She said hello politely and I introduced Jonathan to Brian. ‘Decent journey?’ Jonathan aske
d.
Before Brian could answer, Lucy was off again. ‘What do you do with all the flowers you don’t sell? Where do you grow them all? You must have a big garden. Who does the gardening? I like gardening. Have you got flowers in your house? Do you have to water them all? Does it take ages? It must take ages. What’s this stuff for?’
‘We try not to have too many flowers we don’t sell, but if we do have any going past their sell-by date we often put them in the house, so we can enjoy them. Jonathan goes to collect them from the wholesalers, we do have a garden, but we don’t grow any of the flowers for the shop. Yes, they all need watering, and that green foamy stuff is for making flower arrangements. It’s called oasis and it helps the flowers stand up and stay in place. You push the stalks into it, to keep them upright. Does that answer your questions?’
‘Er . . . I think so.’
‘My mum’s called Thelma, by the way,’ I said. ‘She lives nearby and she loves to meet all the children who stay with us. She babysits for us sometimes.’
‘Oh! Do you have a baby?’
‘No, I mean she looks after the children we foster for us sometimes.’
Lucy nodded and seemed to approve. ‘I like the smell in here. Can I help you? I’d love to work in a shop!’
‘Indeed you can, but not right now,’ Jonathan said. ‘We’re about to shut up for the evening and you must be tired after all that travelling. Let’s go through to the house.’
We left our assistant Barbara to finish closing the shop. She’d been working with us for many years and was well used to seeing different children coming and going.
‘I’ll see you again soon, by the sound of it,’ Barbara said kindly, and Lucy gave her a smile.
Jonathan and I led Lucy and Brian through the storeroom at the back and into our adjoining town house. Her eyes were everywhere still and she continued to ask lots of questions. I glanced at Brian, thinking, I wonder if he’s had this for hours on end in the car? That man deserves a medal!
‘Do you have children?’ Lucy asked, looking me directly in the eye. ‘Who else lives here? Do I have to share a room?’
I told her we had another girl living with us called Maria, who was just a little bit older than Lucy. Maria was upstairs in her bedroom and no, Lucy would not have to share a room.
‘We have three floors and your bedroom is on the top floor of the house, next to Maria’s. I’ve got it all ready for you but I haven’t put the duvet cover or pillow cases on yet as I thought you might like to choose which colour set you want.’
‘OK. Thanks. Have your own children left home?’
‘No, we don’t have children of our own.’
‘Oh.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is Maria adopted?’
‘No, we are fostering her too, just like you.’
‘Oh. Do you like fostering then?’
We went into the kitchen, and as Lucy and I continued to chat – or, should I say, Lucy continued to interview me – Jonathan fetched everyone a glass of water. It was an unusually warm, sunny day in early spring and Brian said he needed a cold drink after driving for so long in the heat.
‘Thirsty work, wasn’t it Lucy?’ he said jovially, which made Lucy burst out laughing. There was obviously an in-joke going on here, but they didn’t elaborate.
Lucy carried on quizzing me and Brian tactfully took the opportunity to run through the routine paperwork with Jonathan, talking quietly on the other side of the kitchen. By now Lucy had moved on to ask me lots of questions about our garden and what was in the shed she could see from our kitchen window. I was happy to keep chatting while Brian went through the formalities, handing over all the usual forms with contact numbers on, emergency Social Services numbers and so on. Sometimes kids sit in silence during this initial handover, which is never ideal and always makes me feel uncomfortable.
Brian didn’t have a great deal of background information on Lucy. This is not uncommon on the first day of a placement, and Lucy had never been in care before so there were no old records on file. In any case, Brian was not Lucy’s actual social worker and had simply been drafted in to transport her to our house as he was based in the county where her grandmother lived. She would be assigned a social worker from the area her parents lived in as soon as possible.
As they filled in the paperwork Brian told Jonathan that he had stopped for a cup of tea with Lucy’s grandmother. ‘She seems like a lovely, sweet old lady,’ he said. ‘She told me she’s very sorry she’s had to get Social Services involved and wishes she could care for Lucy herself, but she’s too old and frail. I felt sorry for her, to tell the truth. I told her she’d done the right thing.’ Brian was aware of the fact that Lucy’s schooling had been disrupted with all the moves she’d made between relatives’ houses.
‘Do you happen to know how much school she’s missed?’ Jonathan asked.
‘All in all I reckon she’s missed about half a term from what she’s said, but don’t quote me on that.’
‘I see. I don’t suppose you know if she’s statemented? Our support social worker mentioned she had help in the classroom. Was anything said to you along those lines?’
‘Nothing official, but Lucy told me she always had a lady helping her in her old school, so I guess she must be.’
‘OK. That’s good to hear. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult to find her a school place here.’
If a child has special needs and is statemented it generally makes it easier for us to secure them a school place, particularly at short notice. This is because schools receive extra funding for statemented children, from the local education authority (LEA), which makes it easier for the head teachers to provide the extra support the child will need. I reckoned it would take over an hour to get Lucy to her old school, near her family home. It wasn’t feasible for her to return there while she was living with us and so we’d have to get her a local place. We’d make this a priority, as we always do.
After Brian had completed his handover he said he’d pop back out to his car to fetch Lucy’s bags from the boot. She’d carried one small rucksack in herself and I had assumed that was all she had with her, as a lot of kids arrive with very few belongings.
‘Oh, I forgot about my bags,’ she said. ‘I’ll come and help you.’
‘There’s no need, Lucy. You stay here. Won’t take me a minute.’
‘But you know I like to help!’
The two of them started to laugh again. Brian then explained that Lucy had insisted on ‘helping’ when they stopped at a service station and bought cold drinks earlier in the day. Lucy had offered to hold Brian’s drink but then decided to stand the cup on the bonnet of the Mini while she fastened up the Velcro on her trainers. Brian didn’t notice what she’d done and then Lucy got distracted and forgot all about the drink. The upshot was that Brian began to drive away with the full cup still on the bonnet of the car. Luckily he spotted the drink before it toppled over and they had evidently both had a good laugh about it.
‘I don’t need any more help,’ Brian teased, which made me realise why his ‘thirsty work’ comment had made Lucy laugh so much a few minutes earlier. ‘Leave the bags to me,’ he said jovially. ‘I can manage perfectly well on my own, thank you very much!’
It was great to see that Lucy had a sense of humour and seemed so at ease. I thought Brian had done a fabulous job in delivering her to us in this frame of mind. So many children arrive at our door looking miserable, nervous or even angry and hostile. Often it takes days to raise the faintest smile, let alone a laugh like this. Lucy was as relaxed as I think a child could be in a situation like this.
Brian fetched two sports holdalls from the car and then stayed and made chit-chat for a few more minutes, telling a very funny story about how he once drove for miles through France with his sunglasses on the roof of his car. When he left Lucy wanted to go outside and wave him off, and she asked if she would ever see him again. Unfortunately she wouldn’t, I explained, telling her that she would be assigned her own s
ocial worker, from the county she came from.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘I liked Brian. If I have to have a social worker I hope mine is as nice as him. Why do I have to have a social worker?’
I explained in simple terms why she needed a social worker while we watched the Mini disappear around the corner, Brian’s head millimetres from the roof. Lucy laughed. ‘He’s funnier than Mr Bean!’
Now it was my turn to laugh, and I told Lucy I thought she was spot on about that.
Jonathan carried the holdalls upstairs and Lucy and I followed. I explained the layout of our house as we climbed the two flights of stairs and I told her about a few house rules.
‘OK,’ she said thoughtfully before launching into another round of questioning. ‘But why can’t you have food in the bedroom? Why do people take their shoes off in the hall? Why do I need to ask before I help myself to food from the kitchen? Why . . .’ She went on and on, wanting to get to the bottom of every single rule I had in place. I explained how the rules were simply designed to keep the house clean, safe and tidy, and the people in it healthy and as well cared for as possible.
‘Oh, I thought you’d just made them up to show who’s boss,’ Lucy said seriously.
‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I want everyone to be happy and comfortable and safe. That’s the point of the rules. It’s not about showing who’s boss.’
‘Some people would do that.’
‘Some people would?’
‘Some people would just make up rules to wind other people up and be bossy! That’s all I’m saying. Some people are nasty like that.’ Lucy buttoned her lips and said no more and I didn’t press her. Usually children take many weeks, if not months and sometimes even years to get things off their chest. There was no way of telling when Lucy might make any disclosures that might help us to understand what had gone wrong at home. We’d just have to wait and see, and let her take things at her pace. I hoped her openness and willingness to communicate boded well, however. I had a feeling she was going to be very talkative about her family and her past when she was good and ready, if not with me then with the specialists who were going to provide family therapy and counselling.
