by Trisha Merry
She looked quite shocked.
‘I mean towards the end of the garden,’ I explained.
‘Oh.’ She gave a little nod, and off she went.
Two or three days later, she came round and knocked on the door again.
‘Mrs Merry. Some of your children are looking through our fence.’
‘Yes . . . ?’
‘Erm, we like it private. That’s why the fence is there.’
‘Right.’ I was trying not to laugh. ‘But it’s a woven fence, so even the littlest ones can see through it.’
‘Well, they should know not to look.’
‘I’ll have a word with the children about it,’
‘Thank you.’ She turned and strode away. What a moaner! It was true that I had seen them all lined up along the fence one day, peeking through, with little Laurel’s bottom sticking out. In fact, she looked so funny that I went in for the camera and took a photo of her, and another one of all of them. I think I’ve still got those photos somewhere.
A few days later, a couple of men came into next door’s garden and replaced the fence with a higher one that had stronger overlapping wooden slats.
‘They won’t be able to see through that,’ she told me when she saw me.
Well, that was what she thought. In fact, the kids soon discovered the knots in the wood and started poking them out to look through. So it was all a lot of fuss and expense for nothing.
One morning, we decided to tidy up the orchard and have a bonfire but next door had their washing on the line, so I went round to see her.
‘I’ve just come to let you know that we’re going to light a bonfire shortly, so you might want to take your washing in.’
‘It’s immaterial to us,’ she said in her snootiest voice, ‘what you do in your garden.’
‘Well, we could have lit it, but I thought it was only fair to come and let you know, so that your nice clean washing doesn’t get covered in sooty smuts.’
She gave me a look. Then, without saying another word, she shut the door in my face. I couldn’t believe it. As I walked back . . . I knew it was petty, but I thought sod you, and I blew a raspberry in the direction of her house. That made me feel better!
I went back to our garden and, as I struck the match, I caught sight of her closing an upstairs window and staring daggers at me. I lit the kindling and watched it go, sending black smoke up from a couple of tattered tyres in the middle. I was glad that she rushed out and took her washing in, before the smuts blew over that way.
But what I didn’t realise was that, while I’d popped next door, Paul had picked up a plastic ride-on tractor and somehow thrown it up onto the top of the bonfire heap. I didn’t notice it until he shouted, pointing at it, with the flames curling up between its wheels.
‘Tractor’s gone! My tractor’s gone!’
‘Too late to rescue it now,’ I told him. ‘Why did you throw it up there?’
‘King of the Castle!’ he shouted out.
Isn’t it funny how children’s minds work – doing things on impulse with a real purpose in their minds, but without any idea that there might be consequences.
It wasn’t so funny how Gilroy’s mind worked, except on this one occasion. I just caught sight of him doing a moony to the lady next door as she stared out of her window at us. She raised her hands in horror, then immediately drew the curtains across from both sides. Gilroy grinned from ear to ear . . . and, turning away from him to hide it, so did I.
As if the kids weren’t rowdy enough, we had all sorts of animals too when we were at Sonnington. We had dog kennels and rabbit hutches spaced out between the trees. The dogs occasionally barked during the day, especially when the children were playing with them, and once or twice I heard the cats wail in the night. But I suppose the kids made the most commotion.
Our relationship with our neighbours was on a downward slope and they found fault with everything. The funniest complaint was the day she came round and Mike answered the door. I’m glad it was him and not me.
‘Hello,’ he greeted her cheerily. ‘What can I do for—’
‘This noise is going too far,’ she interrupted him. ‘Could you please stop your children screaming in the orchard?’
‘Well, I’ll try. But they’re just happy kids, using up their energy and having fun.’
‘That’s not fun,’ she said. ‘They’re doing it on purpose to annoy us.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so . . .’
‘Well, I am asking you to stop them,’ she insisted. ‘We’ve got a pair of doves that are trying to mate, and your children are disturbing them.’
‘Well’ replied Mike. ‘I find that surprising. It’s never bothered us!’
Ronnie, Chrissy and Sheena were old-timers at school, and AJ had settled in well.
‘It’s much better than my old school,’ he announced one day. ‘We can have breaktime snacks at this school.’ AJ hadn’t forgotten what hunger felt like, so food was always the most important thing for him. We still had the occasional problem of petty thefts in school, and I was always being called in to help sort it out, with all my brood in tow.
It happened at home too, but usually only minor things that we managed to restore to their owners quite easily. AJ couldn’t get rid of his need to steal. I suppose it was still too ingrained.
One day, when I checked his bedside table for any stolen loot, I was shocked to find a bracelet I thought I’d lost a couple of weeks before. I’d asked all the children if anyone had seen it, but they’d all said no. I looked everywhere that I thought I might have put it or dropped it, but had to give up in the end. I just thought it was gone.
I don’t know why, but I really didn’t expect to find it in AJ’s bedside drawer. I’d have to have a talk with him that evening.
When the children got back from school, I gave them all drinks and sent the rest of them out to play. ‘AJ, you stay with me,’ I said. ‘I want to talk to you about something.’
He looked a bit uncomfortable, but came and sat at the kitchen table with me.
‘I’ve found something I want you to see,’ I began, taking the bracelet out of my pocket. ‘This is my favourite bracelet,’ I said. ‘The one I couldn’t find and nobody knew where it was. Remember?’
‘Yes,’ he shifted uneasily on the chair.
‘Do you know where I found it?’
‘No,’ he replied in a small voice.
‘In the drawer of your bedside table.’
‘Oh,’ he paused, and then tried to cover his tracks. ‘I didn’t know it was there.’
‘Well, that can only mean one thing,’ I continued. ‘It means that you must have taken it and put it in there to keep.’
He cast his eyes downward and his shoulders drooped. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
‘Did you used to steal things from your mum?’ I asked.
‘No, she’d beat me if I did,’ he mumbled.
‘So why do you steal from me?’
‘Because you don’t beat people . . . and you’re not my mum.’
‘But while you’re here with us, I’m your stand-in mum.’
He looked up at me. ‘No. You’re much too nice to be a mum.’
Daisy had really enjoyed school from the start. She loved learning and she was soon reading proper books. She did make a few friends there, but nobody special.
When Paul started school that year, it was a different story altogether. I think they found him a handful. He couldn’t sit still – he had to be on the go. He was as boisterous and mischievous as Daisy was quiet and demure. It wasn’t long before the school started to call me in to sort out one minor misdemeanour or another. He never did anything malicious though . . . except for just the once that I can remember.
He was in the Reception class when I had a phone call to go up to the school to speak to Miss Butcher, the headmistress, about Paul. That hadn’t happened before, so I felt a bit apprehensive as I got the little ones ready, then off we went
to the old Victorian village school.
We all trooped into Miss Butcher’s study and sat down.
She looked incredulous. ‘Are all these children yours, Mrs Merry?’
‘Yes, I am fostering them all.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said with what looked suspiciously like a sneer.
I got some small toys out of my bag to keep the toddlers occupied on the carpet and turned to the headmistress.
‘What’s all this about?’ I asked. ‘Is it something Paul has done?’
‘Yes, Mrs Merry. I’m afraid there’s been an incident.’
Just then, an assistant brought Paul in to join us and he sat on the chair next to me.
‘What happened?’ I asked him.
He didn’t answer.
‘It seems that Paul went into the toilets and another boy came in,’ explained Miss Butcher. ‘Apparently he said something to Paul, who didn’t like it, so he pushed this boy’s head down into the toilet and pulled the chain.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, putting on my serious face. I turned to Paul. ‘Is that right, Paul?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘But it was his fault. He was rude.’
‘Well, if he said something that upsets you,’ I told him, ‘you must go and tell a teacher.’
‘Yes, that’s right, Paul,’ agreed Miss Butcher, looking relieved that I’d said the right thing.
‘What did the boy say to you?’ I asked, but he refused to say anything. He just sat there looking uncomfortable, with his lips tightly closed.
‘I’m afraid I have to ask you to take Paul home with you for the rest of the day, Mrs Merry. I’m sure you understand. It’s as much for the other children as it is for him. We cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour.’
‘No, I do understand, and I quite agree.’ I turned to Paul again. ‘You must not do that sort of thing. You could have hurt the boy. You could have killed him. He might have drowned.’ I knew I was exaggerating, but I thought it was the best way to make sure he never did it again.
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Paul, keeping his head down.
After that, most of the times he got into trouble at school were for minor playground incidents. Yes, he was lively, but very lovable too. As for Daisy, her reports were glowing and her school work always neat and tidy.
What a shame their dad showed so little interest in his children’s achievements. We didn’t even have an address I could send her reports to.
It was Daisy who was more aware of her father’s long absences. He would ring up now and then to say he was coming, but he only turned up about one time out of six. However, instead of sitting and crying about it like she used to when she was younger, Daisy just used to say, ‘Oh, he won’t come.’ And she’d go off and read her book or do a puzzle.
For the past few months a lovely young couple had been making regular visits to us, getting to know baby Gail, the one with hydrocephalus. Now one year old, her parents had signed her away at birth, so she was up for adoption and this childless couple had passed through all the hoops and been accepted as adoptive parents. It didn’t seem to faze them at all to see the shape of her head, to protect it when playing with her, to treat her like any other child, yet special to them. She soon took to them very well and laughed a lot when she was with them.
Finally, it was time for them to take her home with them, and we gathered all the kids to come and see them off. There were a few tears that day. I noticed Daisy with her arm around little Laurel as they waved. The bond between them was still clear to see, after all the times Daisy had helped me to look after Laurel when she first came. She knew that Laurel had no parents either, so she must have realised that Laurel too might be whisked away from her, never to be seen again. She was right of course – it could happen; but not quite yet.
‘If only some of the other kids could be adopted too,’ said Mike that evening, with a glint in his eye. ‘What about Gilroy?’
But of course, while Gilroy was a cast-off, like most of the kids we had at that time, and his father was in prison, he still had a mother – even though we hadn’t seen her since the day he came.
9
A Terrible Shock
It was four months since we had stirred the Christmas pudding and Daisy had made her wish to learn to knit. So, one drizzly spring morning, I started to teach her. She watched closely, then I helped her get started, one stitch at a time. We’d just finished the first row when the phone rang.
‘We have a young baby for you,’ said the support worker. ‘A little girl called Michelle, just a few weeks old, but very tiny. Can you take her this morning, in about an hour?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘You said she’s very tiny . . . ?’
‘She’s coming to you from the hospital. She has difficulty swallowing, so she is being fed every two hours.’
‘If it’s a medical problem, how will I know what to do if she gets worse?’
‘We’ll give you an information sheet, provided by the hospital, with an emergency number on it, in case of . . .’ She paused.
‘An emergency?’ I asked.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
It sounded a bit worrying, especially as they never told us the whole story.
It was a weekend and Lizzie was with us that morning, so I gathered up the knitting things, only briefly noticing that there was a knitting needle missing. Where could it be? But I didn’t have time to look.
We quickly prepared for baby Michelle’s arrival and she was with us within the hour. The social worker had brought a ready made-up bottle, just in case, since we had such short notice. We took in this tiny mite, so light in my arms, and I laid her down in our carrycot. All the children were keen to see her. Chrissie stroked her fine, downy hair, while Paul gently put his finger in her hand.
‘She squeezed me,’ he said with pride.
They all came to touch her pale skin and watch her taking tiny breaths.
‘Gently, Gilroy,’ I had to remind him, as he was about to plunge his heavy hand into the carrycot. ‘Do it like this.’ I showed him, and for once he copied my lead and barely touched the sleeping babe. I wondered how long that would last.
Alfie was so taken with her that he put his cuddly elephant in next to her. ‘There you are baby,’ . . . and then he had second thoughts and took it out again. ‘MY elephant,’ he said, hugging it to his chest.
‘Don’t worry, Alfie,’ I said. ‘We’ll find baby Michelle another cuddly that she can keep.’
Mike took over in the playroom, while Lizzie came with me to give Michelle her feed. She took it very slowly, with a lot of breathy sounds. She seemed to have difficulty sucking, choking up almost as much as she managed to swallow. When I took the bottle out, I peeked inside her mouth. It looked as if some of her palate was missing, so presumably that was the problem. I suddenly felt faint and had to sit down before I fell. Lizzie took charge while I collected myself together. Why was I still so squeamish, after all these years?
I knew that lots of people have cleft palates and grow up fine, so I tried not to think about it. I changed her nappy and put her down in her carrycot to sleep. I decided to have her in our bedroom to start with, away from over-enthusiastic attentions.
Over the next thirty-six hours she was a quiet baby. I fed her little and often, giving her lots of cuddles, and she seemed to settle in fine the first night, then a similar pattern for the next day and night. She woke me once during the second night and had her bottle, then I laid her back down to sleep.
The third night, I woke up early, as usual, when the house was still dark and quiet, apart from Mike’s snoring!
I had a quick peek in the cot, where she lay very still, just as I’d left her, then went down to prepare her bottle. When I came back into the bedroom, I put the bottle down and leant over the cot to pick her up. For barely a second, I remember a sense of foreboding. Then I realised she was too still. I couldn’t see any sign of the cover over her little chest rising and falling. I hesitated, then did what I kn
ew I had to do. I reached my hand down to hers. It was cold, and her skin was tinged with blue.
I flinched and screamed. Mike shot out of bed in a moment and came to my side.
‘The baby is cold,’ I wailed. I could hear myself making this wounded animal sound. ‘Please God. She can’t be dead! She CAN’T be dead!’ I shrieked.
Mike held me and turned me away from Michelle’s lifeless body.
I don’t remember much about the hours that followed. I know Mike called an ambulance straight away, and while we waited, several of the children came running into our bedroom, having been woken by my screams. Mike took them downstairs and the ambulance came within ten minutes, though it seemed like hours. I do remember sitting on the edge of our bed as I watched an ambulance man gently lift Michelle out of her cot.
‘Is she . . . ?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
‘He nodded, sadly. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
I followed him downstairs and out to the ambulance. ‘Can’t you do something for her? I pleaded hysterically. Can’t you resuscitate her?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Merry, but it’s too late. I think she must have died an hour or two ago. The damage was done. I’m afraid we can’t help her now.’
I went back into the house. I knew I had to carry on somehow, for the other children. But how could we tell them?
‘Mr and Mrs Merry,’ said the main ambulance man, coming to find us. ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you, but I’m afraid we need you both to come and identify the baby’s body, before we can take her away to the hospital.’
So we went back into the ambulance. It was a horrendous task. I can only remember seeing her tiny, naked, blue-tinged body lying in the middle of the white-sheeted stretcher, as if she were a porcelain doll. I shall never forget that image.
As Mike led me back inside, I was in a trance. I could barely think, let alone string a sentence together.
Mike must have thanked the ambulance crew and off they went.
I had never heard of cot death. I don’t think people knew about it in those days. I’m usually such a positive, practical person, but I just couldn’t pull myself out of the distress I felt over that little baby’s death in my care. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It must have been my fault. I knew that would haunt me, but there was no time to dwell on it now.