by Casey Watson
‘Even so,’ I said. ‘So the kid gets on your nerves, and it’s okay to just throw him in a cage?’
‘I know, but her point is that after those isolated incidents, it was always Sam who put himself in the dog cage.’
A memory returned. Of Sam asking if he could have a dog cage. So it wasn’t just a version of Stockholm syndrome, then, where captive people grow to trust and identify with their captors. If what Mrs Gough said was true, it genuinely was Sam’s safe place.
‘D’you remember that?’ I said to Colin, once I’d mused on it out loud.
‘I do indeed,’ he said. ‘You live and learn, eh? Anyway, the other news to come out of this is that solicitors and guardians are being appointed for all the siblings now, so we can go to court to get a full care order for each of them. There’s no chance any of them will be going back home. Not that the mother wants them back anyway.’
‘She’s made that clear?’
‘Yes, she’s made that clear.’
Another reality that made me wish I believed in unicorns. No, of course I wouldn’t have wanted the children to be sent back to such an uncaring mother, but to know that she didn’t want them anyway was just an extra bit of damage to add to their already blighted lives. They were all young now, so there was hope, but I also knew from experience that when children in care became teenagers, they wanted to know the ins and outs of it all, no matter how hard it was to hear. And I also knew that the effect of hearing truths like this, warts and all, often had life-changing and devastating results.
‘Okay,’ I said sighing, ‘I don’t think I expected any different, if I’m honest. But the thing is, where do we go from here? Sam says he was abused, and I believe him, Mrs Gallagher has hinted that lots of men were regular visitors to the house, and now the mother says that’s all codswallop. Surely that can’t be the end of it?’
‘No, not at all,’ Colin said. ‘At the end of Kim’s email she assures me that they will continue to make enquiries and that, at some point, Sam will have to be interviewed again, I’m afraid. Still an informal setting, but he will be pressed to disclose some more.’
As if things weren’t bad enough. Sam already had me down as the tell-tale who started this ball rolling in the first place, and if I didn’t do some serious damage control, it would definitely have an impact on our future relationship.
And, by extension, his future.
‘Wish me luck, then,’ I said, after telling Colin about the previous night, and my fears that it would get worse after another interview. ‘I’m not going to tell him yet, though. I need to find a way to let him see I’m not the enemy before we go down that particular road again.’
‘You’ll be fine, Casey,’ Colin said. ‘I don’t know Sam as well as you yet, but I do know that he holds you in high regard – you and Mike – so although he might be a bit confused right now about who to blame, I’m sure he’ll work it out for himself in time.’
Despite Colin’s supportive words, I was feeling pretty low by the time I hung up the phone. I stared up at the ceiling, in the direction of Sam’s bedroom, and wished that I had the superhero ability to freeze time. Just for a few hours, I thought, just so that Sam didn’t have to wake up feeling frightened and wrung out again. So I had longer to try and think of some way I could start to fix all this.
‘But you can’t, Mum,’ Kieron said after I poured my heart out to him. Sam was still asleep, unsurprisingly, and I was loath to go and wake him. So, since my son was in no rush, we at least had time to chat. Well, for me to gabble on and him to listen. Since when did my son become my counsellor? ‘Mum, you can’t fix everything,’ he pointed out, as Luna pattered round the kitchen. ‘And you shouldn’t try to. Colin’s right. It’s going to take time – you, of all people, should know that. You know what your problem is?’
‘Enlighten me, dear son,’ I said. ‘But then I suggest you duck before I have to swipe you one.’
Kieron grinned. ‘You always try to be everything to everyone. And that can’t always work, Mum. It does for some kids, to have a mummy figure who’s also a therapist, a teacher, a psychologist, and so on. But for kids like Sam – well, I reckon he’s a bit like I was, don’t you? And all he needs is a mum. To go to when he’s scared. He won’t expect the answers. He won’t expect explanations. He just needs a cuddle and the knowledge that you’re there.’
I blinked at Kieron. When exactly did my son get to be so bloody grounded?
He caught my expression. ‘I’m pretty damned amazing, aren’t I?’ he said, laughing. ‘That’ll be ten pounds please. Oh, and that’s with the family and friends discount.’ He then stood up, reached down for Luna, and tucked her under his arm. ‘Now I’m off for my next session, upstairs, with a certain young man, and I’m taking my assistant up with me.’ He tipped his head to the side. ‘So just leave it on the table.’
Chapter 17
Life is full of contradictions, and, over the next few days, life at home with Sam seemed to have become one. I found myself in the very unusual position of being seen as both the enemy and the saviour. There was no doubt, as he struggled to come to terms with having revealed his secret, that Sam blamed me for making him tell. But at the same time, now that he felt so vulnerable and exposed, I appeared to be the one person who he could hide behind.
And ‘hide behind’ in a very literal sense. He became extremely clingy, following me around the house as I went from room to room, anxious not to let me out of his sight. The only times in the day when I was parted from my little shadow was when Kieron came round and they would go off to walk Flame and Luna together.
This too was an unusual situation. It was definitely fortuitous that Kieron’s work situation (he was working through an accumulation of untaken annual leave) meant he was free most mornings to help – what had proved workable for him and Laura as a way to manage Dee Dee’s school runs slotted perfectly with my need to call on him to ‘babysit’ Sam. But it was normally Riley who stepped in to help out with any of our foster children, not least because she was a trained foster carer herself.
But it was definitely Kieron who Sam had struck up a bond with, perhaps because, in some ways, they recognised their similarities. Which was lovely for Sam, and, on the face of it, likewise for Kieron – I certainly never pressured him to help me in any way. But still I worried. Sam was a complex little boy, and however genial their walks and talks, I fretted about the pressure it might place on my son, who had never coped that well with pressure.
But it was what it was, and for the moment it was a godsend. And, for Sam, who was so isolated – entirely without friends and family – the blossoming of such a friendship could only ever be a good thing.
All that said, Sam wasn’t stupid.
‘You’re sending me out a lot, Casey,’ he observed, on the morning of Christine’s visit, when I told him it was time to get dressed, ready for Kieron’s arrival. ‘Why aren’t you coming too?’
‘Because I have a meeting, sweetie,’ I said as I handed him his T-shirt. ‘And besides, when you and Kieron have both dogs with you, you run too fast for me. I can’t keep up with you. Not with my little legs.’
‘What meeting?’ Sam asked, looking at me as his head poked through the top of his T-shirt. ‘Is it going to be about me again?’
‘Not this time,’ I answered, pleased that this was true. ‘Remember Mrs Bolton? Christine? The lady who brought you to us? It’s her who is coming over, and today it is all about me.’
‘About what?’
‘About my job, and how I’m doing it.’
He looked confused. ‘What job? You mean like Mike’s job? I didn’t know you had a job.’
Ah, from the mouths of babes, I thought. Then struggled a little with how to answer. ‘My job taking care of you,’ I plumped for eventually. ‘You know, making sure everything is as it should be. And making charts so you can earn all those sticky stars,’ I added. ‘An
yway, it’s all very boring. So you don’t need to be here. And wouldn’t you rather be out in the park with Kieron and the dogs?’
Sam nodded and tugged his top down, then leaned down to lace his trainers. ‘Course,’ he said. ‘But I’m coming right back again, aren’t I? And you’re still going to be here?’
‘Course I will be, silly. I’ll be waiting right here for you. And I’ll have snacks ready for when you’re back, okay?’
It seemed it was, because he trotted off with Kieron happily enough. But as I waved them off, I reminded myself I must press Christine about assessment – a boy of Sam’s age really needed to be in school, making friends who were his own age. And the longer he wasn’t, the harder it would be.
So it was the first thing I asked Christine when she arrived.
‘Ah,’ she said, her expression pained. ‘About that …’
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘Not ominous exactly,’ she said, sipping her tea. ‘More irritating. The truth is that we did get the referral through –’
‘What?’
‘And an appointment,’ she continued. ‘Which I’m afraid we’ve had to cancel. At least postpone for the moment.’
It took a moment for this to sink in. Except it didn’t. Appointments for assessment were like manna from heaven. You didn’t cancel them. You clung to them as if your very life depended on them. ‘What?’ I said again. ‘But –’
‘Because of the probable necessity for further police interviews,’ she explained. ‘The psychologist we spoke to said it would all be too much for Sam – that he’d only end up even more traumatised and confused. It was felt that it would be better to get to the bottom of all this first. That it would be better to hold off working with him till he’s had time to process what he’s already having to deal with. Which is a fair point.’
‘Oh, I know. And I do understand. But, God – what a mess! These bloody appointments take so long to get, and when we finally get one, we have to let it go. Typical. Grrr!’
Christine laughed. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be amused,’ she said. ‘But it’s the right thing to do. Imagine Sam having to deal with all that, in the middle of all this. He just wouldn’t cope, would he?’
I was busy imagining the next three or four months – of Sam languishing at home while the world whizzed on without him. But Christine was right. To throw formal assessment interviews and tests into the current mix would be highly likely to destabilise him even further. And, by extension, shunt that precious school place even further into the far distance. And with no guarantees that the police investigation would even come to anything – anything that could benefit Sam, more specifically – it felt like the worst of all worlds.
But there was no point in wishing things were otherwise. That appointment had flown now, to someone else’s benefit. ‘No, you’re right,’ I conceded. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to hope the police make some progress.’
‘Which I’m pushing for, believe me,’ Christine said. ‘They know the score. Speaking of which’ – she was already rummaging in her laptop bag – ‘shall we crack on and zip through all the paperwork?’
Which wasn’t paperwork. Our organisation had finally wheezed its way into the twenty-first century, and all the supervision paperwork was now on the screen of her newly gifted tablet, complete with the means for me to sign it off once done – not with a pen, but my fingertip.
‘But is this even legal?’ I asked, once we’d ploughed through all the pages and I drew a cack-handed approximation of my signature with my finger.
‘Apparently so,’ she reassured me. ‘Though I don’t feel quite on board yet. To be honest it terrifies me every time I close it down, in case I lose everything I’ve done. Truth be told, I’d much rather scribble in my notepad. At least I know my work is safe then. Because you never know, do you? I know I sound like a dinosaur, but it genuinely appals me that so much confidential stuff is virtual these days.’ She closed the cover on the tablet and patted it with her hand. ‘Can you imagine the repercussions if some of what we store here got hacked?’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said. And said with feeling. ‘Technology is fast becoming the bane of my fostering life.’
Which led to a happy interlude, where, free from the censure of any sniggering young people, we banged on about our mutual mistrust of the modern world, the way everything was moving too fast to keep up with and how apparently straightforward stuff, like updating the software on our smartphones, sometimes felt like a terrifying leap of faith.
‘Honestly, you should have seen me with my mother-in-law at the weekend,’ Christine told me. ‘We’ve got her on the internet – finally! – so she can manage all the household finances, and setting it all up has been the epitome of the blind leading the blind. You need a whole new dictionary just to navigate the flipping acronyms! Do you know what an IP address is? I’m still not sure I do. It’ll be a miracle if she manages a week before we go into total meltdown and she pays her gas money to the phone people and vice versa.’
‘How are things going generally?’ I asked her. Her father-in-law had dementia – one of the reasons she’d moved to our area in the first place – and, having deteriorated very quickly, was now facing a move into a home specialising in end-of-life care. I felt for her mother-in-law. I also felt for her. It was a grim road that many of us would be travelling eventually, and I knew managing it must take a lot of her emotional energy. Not to mention actual energy.
‘Oh, okay,’ she said. ‘We tend to take a “day-by-day” approach. Still firefighting, obviously. Till we get him where he’s safe. When we’re going to reward ourselves with a few days away. Feels like an age since we’d had a day when we’ve dared switch our phones off. But the light is there, at the end of the tunnel at least –’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Well, if we squint a bit. Speaking of which, I have good news on the respite front finally. Well, more an idea to run by you.’
We were in the kitchen, and I was by now making more tea and coffee. ‘That sounds intriguing,’ I said, as I returned with our mugs.
‘Unconventional,’ she said, ‘but it might just be perfect. I was struggling to get someone for your dates – ’twas ever thus, eh? – and I happened to be chatting to Sam’s siblings’ social worker, Linda, and she came up with what I think is the perfect resolution.’
‘Go on, then. Spill,’ I said. I could tell she was enjoying keeping me in suspense.
‘Well, we thought we might ask Maureen Gallagher. It just so happens that she’s already done respite for the other Gough children.’
‘Really?’ This was intriguing. ‘So she fosters, does she?’
‘Not officially. It came up during a similar situation to yours. It was one of the children who suggested it, apparently. They’d been talking a lot about her, and asking if and when they could see her – she was clearly a big presence in their lives. And when they checked it out – well, checked her out, CRB check and so on – it seemed eminently workable. Seems she’s been a bit of a lifeline down the years. When Mum had to go into hospital, or was having a crisis, and so on – one of those unsung carers you always hear about, and probably one of the main reasons they’ve not come into the system before.’
‘And she’d be happy to have Sam too?’
‘Well, we’ve not run it by her yet, but I see no reason why not. Assuming she’s free, of course. I thought I’d ask you first. I mean, equally, we could look further afield for a respite carer for a couple of days, but I just thought it might be less traumatic for Sam to be with someone he already knows and cares about.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Particularly the way he is currently. And when Colin and I went to see her she spoke about him with what seemed genuine tenderness.’ I did a mental date check. ‘I’m surprised she never said anything to us when we were there.’
‘Probably didn’t think it her place to. Confidentiality a
nd all that. Anyway, I’ll get on and ask her. And if it’s a goer I was thinking that maybe you and Mike might like to pop round and see her? Just thinking ahead really – as you do! – about the ongoing situation. Because you never know, she might just turn out to play an ongoing role in the kids’ lives.’
‘God, you’re worse than me!’ I said.
‘I’ve learned from the master. But why not? If there’s anything positive we can haul from the wreckage of those kiddies’ childhoods, I’m all for grabbing it with both hands. Aren’t you?’
I agreed that I was. And another thought occurred to me. Delicate, under the circumstances, because Christine had lost a daughter to cot death, very young. But perhaps she would know. ‘Speaking of childhoods, do you know anything about what happened to her son Sean? There were so many pictures of him around the place, and a couple of the things she said … but I didn’t want to be nosy. Did he die young, do you know?’
‘No, he didn’t die,’ Christine said. ‘He’s very much alive. But not well. Not well at all, bless him. All very tragic. He was born with congenital brain injuries, and will never be able to live a normal, independent life. He’s in his thirties now, apparently. Lives in a residential home.’
‘Wow,’ I said, trying to take it all in, and finding it all falling into place. ‘No wonder she feels the way she does about Sam’s mother. The way those little ones have been treated. The abuse Sam has suffered. She’d probably have given anything just to have a healthy child, wouldn’t she? No wonder she feels so protective towards those children. And, God, it all makes sense now – what she said when we were there. Not sure if I mentioned it in my notes, but I remember it because it seemed such an odd thing to comment. She said that whatever you were given, you had to do your very best for them. Now I know why. God, it’s all so sad, isn’t it?’
Which it was, and I brooded on it for the rest of the morning. While Mike was more pragmatic (when I texted him, he replied with ‘Hurrah! Mini-break back on the agenda down the line then???’), I couldn’t stop thinking about life being such a lottery. About Mrs Gallagher, and the sense of loss that must weep from her very pores.