by Angela Hart
Miss Heather had a concerned expression on her face when we arrived in her classroom. Lucy avoided looking at us. She was sitting at a desk and when we installed ourselves next to her she suddenly seemed very interested in a blank piece of paper that was in front of her.
‘I think one thing that might be contributing to Lucy’s behaviour problems is that she is not getting enough sleep,’ Miss Heather said.
I looked at Lucy. She blushed and stuttered as she tried to explain that she had told her teacher about how she helped with the horses.
‘Lucy does spend quite a lot of time with the horses but I don’t understand how this has anything to do with her sleep,’ I said. ‘We do make sure she gets enough sleep. Lucy is a naturally early riser, but she always goes to bed at a sensible time and she sleeps well.’
Lucy was scarlet by now.
‘Can I go to the toilet please?’
‘Just a minute, Lucy. What have you said to Miss Heather about the horses?’
‘Oh, I think I got a bit muddled up.’
It turned out that Lucy had told Miss Heather she got up at five o’clock every morning to help muck out Diane’s horses before school. She had given the impression that she was obliged to do this in order to be allowed to have riding lessons.
I told Miss Heather that Lucy had indeed got ‘muddled up’ and that the truth was she was allowed to ride regularly, regardless of how often she helped out. She never helped in the mornings before school, as there wasn’t time: Lucy typically got up at seven in the morning and went to bed at eight o’clock. I estimated she had ten hours sleep on average per night, which was the recommended amount for her age.
Miss Heather asked Lucy why she had ‘told tales’.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I was in a mood because you told me off.’
‘Thank you for being honest now,’ the teacher said. ‘Now, do you think you can explain what happened with Joey in the playground? He has a nasty bruise on his leg.’
‘He started it. He said I smelled of piss.’
‘Lucy! Please don’t use language like that.’
I thought back to the wet bed that morning and wondered if Lucy had showered properly, as I encouraged her to do each morning before school. Miss Heather thanked Lucy for telling the truth and told her that if Joey called her any more names she was to report him to a teacher immediately and not lash out, under any circumstances. The same went for anyone else.
Unfortunately, it was a very hot and stuffy day and when we drove home I could detect the faint smell of stale urine on Lucy. I hadn’t noticed it that morning. She had definitely told me she had showered and I heard the water running in her bathroom, and she was dressed in a set of clean clothes when she left the house. I didn’t know she’d wet the bed until she was already at school and I stripped the sheets and found the knife, but I still felt guilty for not noticing she wasn’t as clean as she should have been. We’ve had many children tell us fibs about showers over the years, and a lot of kids seem to be a dab hand at running the water and making out they’ve washed when they haven’t.
I made a mental note to check Lucy’s bed while she was having breakfast in future, and I had a gentle word with her about hygiene, which she seemed to take on board without a problem.
The horse knife was something else we needed to talk about.
‘Why don’t you go and have a shower,’ I said. ‘It’s a very hot day and I think you need to freshen up. I’m making some milkshake, so afterwards we can sit in the garden and have a drink.’
‘You can’t make me have a shower.’
‘That’s true, but I’m requesting that you have a shower as you need one.’
‘Well I’m not having one.’
‘OK, well that’s up to you. Don’t have one. But if I were in your shoes I would like to smell fresh and clean.’
‘OK I’ll have one, but only because I want to have some peace and quiet!’
She ran upstairs and half an hour later she came down dressed in clean shorts and a striped top, asking for her milkshake.
‘Do you feel better?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I love you, Angela.’
She gave me a hug.
Jonathan joined us in the garden. We’d bought a swinging chair that summer and Lucy and I sat side by side, gently swaying back and forth. Her legs dangled over the edge and she took a deep breath.
‘I like the smell of cut grass,’ she declared, looking at our freshly mown lawn. ‘You’ve done a very good job, Jonathan! Nearly as good as Daddy!’
He smiled and glanced at me. I could tell he was thinking the same way I was. It seemed a shame to spoil the moment by bringing up the subject of the horse knife, but of course it had to be done. I mean, we had only guessed that it must have come from Diane’s and that Lucy had helped herself to it. We had to hear what she had to say.
‘We need to talk to you about something,’ Jonathan started.
‘What?’
‘Angela found a knife in your room when she made your bed today. Can you tell us where it came from?’
‘What knife? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Someone must have put it there. I bet it was Maria, trying to get me into trouble.’
Jonathan fetched the knife and showed it to Lucy.
‘It’s this one. Now can you tell us where it came from?’
‘No. I’ve got no idea. Oh! Wait a minute.’
Lucy put on an act of furrowing her brow and looking like she was thinking very hard, trying to uncover a memory buried deep inside her head.
‘Oh, I remember that! It was a present, from Clare. I’ve had it ages. I forgot all about it.’
‘Clare, as in Diane’s daughter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does Diane know Clare gave you the knife?’
‘How should I know? Can you stop asking all these questions? Aren’t I allowed to have a present?’
I explained that we had to be very careful about sharp objects in the house and that we certainly could not let her keep it in her bedroom.
‘You’ve got knives in the kitchen!’ she said. ‘If I wanted to get a knife I could get one out of the drawer!’
In reality I kept all the sharp knives locked away and always have done; only blunt cutlery is within reach. It’s what we’ve been taught and it’s second nature to us. Jonathan told Lucy that he was going to have to look after the knife and would keep it safe. In the meantime he said we’d have to phone Diane and make sure she was happy that Clare had given it to Lucy.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Do you have to?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to my room. It’s too hot out here.’
‘So that’s where it went!’ Diane exclaimed. ‘No, Clare certainly didn’t give it to Lucy. It was a gift to Clare from one of her godmothers, and she’s been upset about it going missing.’
Diane reassured me that as a fellow foster carer she understood these things happen, which was kind of her in the circumstances. She wished me luck in dealing with the situation and told me she once had a similar scenario herself, involving a child she fostered who stole a trinket box from her best friend’s house.
When I confronted Lucy with the facts she bit her lip and stared at the floor.
‘Lucy, sweetheart, why did you take it when it didn’t belong to you?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t even want it. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I made up the story, I just got confused and forgot what happened.’
‘But now you know you shouldn’t have taken the knife? And you won’t take anything else that doesn’t belong to you?’
She nodded her head and whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘OK, thank you for being honest now, at least. We’ll return it to Clare tomorrow, and I think it would be a good idea to buy her a little something to say sorry. What do you think?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Yes, I do. You can’t take things that don’t belong to you, and Clare
has been worried about losing her knife. It’s precious to her. Let’s take her a bunch of flowers, shall we?’
‘Do I have to pay for them?’
‘I think you should contribute £2 from your pocket money.’
‘£2! That’s loads! That’s not fair!’
‘I think that’s fair. Now please go and get ready for bed.’
Lucy stamped her feet then ran away. To my horror she began howling like a wolf as she ran around the house, making a terrible racket that set Maria off. She started complaining and shouting down the stairs and when Lucy ran past her door she bellowed, ‘SHUT UP YOU! YOU’RE MAD! SHUT UP YOU STUPID CRAZY GIRL.’
‘Lucy, what on earth are you making that noise for? Maria, please go into your room and don’t get involved. I don’t want to hear you being rude to Lucy.’
‘I’M SURPRISED YOU CAN HEAR ANYTHING! LUCY STOP HOWLING!’
Lucy got louder and louder and ran faster and faster, up and down the stairs, in and out of every room and around the garden.
‘What do we do now?’
Jonathan scratched his head. ‘Leave her to tire herself out? Hopefully she’ll get fed up if we don’t pay her any attention, like she has before.’
I agreed, and the two of us settled down to watch a film on video while Maria put her earphones in and turned her music up. Meanwhile Lucy continued to howl and rampage around the house. She must have come in and out of the living room half a dozen times, trying to annoy us, but we refused to react and simply paused our video every time until she charged off and continued howling in another room. In the end she kept up her campaign for two hours before she finally stomped into the living room and demanded to know why we were letting her make so much noise.
‘It’s your choice,’ I said. ‘It’s your voice and your throat. I thought you’d get fed up sooner. I’m glad you’ve stopped now.’
‘I’M GOING TO BED!’ she yelled furiously. ‘YOU TWO ARE SO ANNOYING! OW! My throat hurts. Thanks a lot!’
Lucy wet the bed again that night and didn’t tell me. Thankfully I checked with plenty of time to spare before school so I could make sure she didn’t leave the house again without having a good wash. When I gently tried to tell her that it was OK if she wet the bed and that she could always tell me, she exploded.
‘Do you know what she used to do? She used to rub my nose in the wet sheets!’
‘Did she?’
‘She did, but I don’t want to talk about it any more, OK?’
I wasn’t sure if she meant Wendy or Val, or perhaps someone else. She could even have made it up, but I couldn’t press Lucy if she didn’t want to continue the conversation.
‘Sweetheart, I am very sorry you’re upset. I would never do that to you. I can’t tell you how many wet sheets I’ve changed in my time. It happens. I am only concerned that you’re clean, your clothes are dry and your bed is fresh every night, so you can have a good night’s sleep and always smell nice.’
‘OK, OK! I’ll tell you if it ever happens again. There’s no need to nag me. I’ve got it.’
She barged past me and began putting her shoes on. Lucy then sat frowning in the back of the car and refused to buckle her seat belt. When I insisted we weren’t driving to school until she was safely strapped in she said she ‘couldn’t care less’.
‘You’re the one who’ll get into trouble, not me. You get paid to look after me and take me to school. You’re not doing your job properly.’
‘I’ll have to phone the school and tell them what is going on if you don’t wear your seat belt.’
‘FINE!’ she said, finally clicking it in place. ‘Are you happy now? Anyway, I don’t know why you’re bothered what the school think. I’m not staying there.’
I didn’t respond to this and Lucy and I then sat in silence for the first half of the journey.
‘Do you think I should have gone to the police when she did that?’ Lucy suddenly blurted out. ‘It’s breaking the law!’
‘Gone to the police? What do you mean?’
‘My stepmother. Rubbing my face in the sheets. She put poo in my face too, when I had an accident. I told you that, didn’t I?’
‘No, I don’t think you did.’ I remembered that Lucy had said Val had put dog muck in her hair, but I didn’t say it out loud.
‘She was evil. When Daddy found out what she was like he got rid of her, really, really fast. Poof! She was gone. “Good riddance,” he said. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” He told me I did the right thing telling him about everything that happened. She – that Val – she said I was lying but he didn’t believe her. He believed me. She was a really horrible old cow!’
‘Language, Lucy! I’m very sorry to hear what you’re telling me. And I’m glad you talked to your daddy.’
‘So am I, because he believed me, and she had to go.’
I thought back to what else Lucy had said about Val. ‘She put salt in my tea and pins in my bed.’
I couldn’t be sure of the truthfulness of Lucy’s stories. They sounded a little bit far-fetched to me, but then again I’ve learned that as a foster carer you never stop being shocked, and you never stop expecting the unexpected. Unfortunately, sometimes the tallest and most improbable tales do turn out to be true.
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ she repeated. ‘Wendy’s horrible to me too, but Daddy doesn’t see it. Daddy doesn’t believe me!’
She left this last statement hanging in the air. She gave no specific examples about exactly how Wendy was horrible to her, as she did with Val, but I understood her inference very well. It seemed clear to me that Lucy was thinking Wendy was ‘bad rubbish’ too . . . or at least that’s what she wanted her daddy to believe. An alarming thought struck me. What if Lucy is deliberately trying to aggravate Wendy in the hope history will repeat itself? Does she think her dad will automatically side with her if it comes to her word against Wendy’s, and that he’d get rid of her, like he did with Val?
I sincerely hoped I was over-analysing the situation and had got this very wrong, but inevitably I couldn’t help thinking back to the awful meeting we’d had. I’d been shocked at how strong Wendy’s antipathy towards Lucy had become, and how it had spread to Dean and Gemma, both of whom made it clear they didn’t want Lucy back in the family home any time soon. I’d been left confused, because the Lucy I saw in my home was not the same little girl who was being described that day. What did they say? Wendy had called her a ‘poisonous little madam’ and claimed she was scared of her. Gemma had said ‘I don’t want Lucy back home. I’m scared of what will happen’ and Dean had effectively taken their side and said ‘I’ll not stand for it any longer’. It had been so upsetting, so baffling and so traumatic, especially for Lucy. When I’d called Wendy to complain, my focus was on how the family had spoken out in front of Lucy and the effect that had on her. But what if I only knew half the story? It still wouldn’t justify their crass handling of the situation, but what if Lucy was a Jekyll and Hyde character, turning nasty when she was at home to deliberately cause trouble and provoke Wendy, in the hope it would break up her relationship with her daddy?
15
‘Why, exactly, is Lucy in foster care?’
Wendy called.
‘I’ve got good news,’ she told me.
‘Good news? What is it?’
‘The solicitor says Lucy should be statemented, and if she isn’t there is a case to answer.’
‘A case to answer?’
‘Yes. It means if your local authority doesn’t pay to have her statemented we will have a strong case if we take them to court to force them to pay. Like I say, it’s good news. It’s a clear-cut case. The authorities should be paying for her – for the statement, for all her educational needs.’
I was very pleased to hear this. ‘It’s great news for Lucy,’ I said. ‘This will make life much easier for her in school.’
‘Should have happened a long time ago,’ Wendy went on. ‘Thank God it’s getting sorted out and she c
an stay at St Joseph’s.’
I told Wendy I’d pass this on to my social worker and that no doubt we’d talk about it at the upcoming placement meeting.
Lucy came in the room at the end of the call, and when she realised I was talking to Wendy she asked if she could speak to her daddy.
‘Sorry,’ Wendy said bluntly. ‘He’s out at work. Won’t be back for ages.’
Lucy decided to call her grandmother instead, and after their conversation she was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Granny said I can stay with her this weekend if someone can take me. Can I please?’
Lucy had an inset day from school the following Monday, which I assumed was how this idea came about. All her friends seemed to be going away on trips and long weekends but we hadn’t booked anything, partly because Maria didn’t have an inset day and partly because it was an extremely busy weekend for the shop, with several large summer wedding orders to deliver. We’d thought about taking the girls out for a picnic on the Sunday, but we didn’t have any plans set in stone.
‘Let me see,’ I told her. ‘I’ll have to check.’
I spoke to Ivy to make sure she was OK with the visit and then I called Social Services, who said that if Wendy and Dean were in agreement it was fine by them. We’d have to work out the travel arrangements between us, which I realised probably meant Jonathan and I would have to take her and pick her up. This was just about manageable, we reckoned.
I called Wendy back and to my surprise Dean answered.
‘Oh, hi Dean, are you just in from work?’ I said.
‘No, I’ve been off today. I’ve hurt my ankle. How can I help?’
I explained about the trip and Dean said it was fine by him, but they would not be able to help with lifts.
‘I’m housebound at the moment and probably won’t be able to drive by the weekend and Wendy is working. If you and Jonathan can take her, that would be great. Oh, sorry, I’ve got to go now. Thanks. Bye.’
I could hear Wendy in the background, asking who was on the phone. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall in their house when she realised she and Dean had told me very different stories about what he was doing that day. It was puzzling and made me wary of Wendy. Maybe she was the one who had Jekyll and Hyde characteristics? I thought. Maybe she meddles and Dean doesn’t see it? It was very difficult for me to get to the truth of the matter; I didn’t entirely trust Wendy or Lucy, and I was struggling to understand precisely what was going on between them, and how it had caused such a rift in the family.
