by Casey Watson
Chapter 22
However much, as a foster carer, you must expect the unexpected, sometimes you have to expect the expected as well. It was always the same when a foster child left the family. The house felt much too quiet, the vacated bedroom one room too many and the days seemed to drag like an old lady’s bloomers. But it was to be expected. It was a period to be got through.
But, for some reason, particularly since he’d been with us a relatively short time, Jenson was proving to be a hard child to get over. Every now and then I would come across something that had belonged to him – an old sock at the bottom of the laundry basket, or his well-chewed school pencil – or I’d see his grinning photograph, which now adorned my living-room wall, smiling down among the photos of all the other kids. I would then have to force myself not to dissolve into tears. I was convinced I must be going through the menopause, I was that emotional.
But as Riley pointed out when I moaned on at her about it, Jenson wasn’t like any of the other kids we’d looked after. He didn’t come with half of the emotional baggage and we’d always known exactly where he’d be going back to. Therefore, Riley reasoned, we hadn’t really seen him as a ‘looked-after’ child; we had taken him into our hearts and our family just as we would if it were a niece or a nephew, and this is what had made it all so difficult. I didn’t know if I agreed with her or not, but it kind of made sense, so I went along with it. Better than the other explanation!
Georgie’s reaction after Jenson left puzzled me as well. Despite the emotional display on the doorstep, ten minutes later, when we’d gone in and made a restorative cup of coffee, it was if he’d forgotten all about it.
‘Here, Casey,’ he’d said to me a couple of days later. ‘Georgie good boy. Georgie helping doing housework.’ I’d smiled as he’d handed me a crumpled mound of paper. I opened it up to find that it was actually two photos of Jenson, one from the bathroom door and the other from his bedroom.
‘Oh, thanks, sweetheart,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say really. ‘But wouldn’t you like to keep these in your special box?’
Georgie looked at me blankly. ‘There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are,’ he said. ‘This is not one of them. The eleventh Doctor.’ He then dropped his head, clasped his hands behind his back and walked away, leaving me open-mouthed.
I stared after him. Did this kid actually realise what he was saying? Did he try to select the correct quote to fit the occasion, or was it just luck? Whatever the answer, that particular bit of mish-mash was uncannily apt.
Due to our impromptu holiday, I hadn’t yet met up with Georgie’s social worker, Mandy Heseltine. We’d spoken on the phone a couple of times and she seemed really nice and, most importantly, very enthusiastic about working with Georgie. So I was pleased to finally make an appointment to meet her and have the chance to put the face to the name.
It was the following Tuesday, just a week before school started – as if anyone who didn’t know that could have missed it. The shops were no longer trying to offload all their summer-sale stuff, and instead were looking distinctly autumnal and back-to-work-ish – full of the usual reminders that it was time to knuckle down again: pencil cases, ring binders, racks of cardigans and jumpers, backpacks and lunchboxes and boots.
‘Come in, come in,’ I said to Mandy as I greeted her. ‘I’ve explained what’s happening to Georgie and he’s waiting in the front room. I think he’s a little nervous. He’s been pacing.’
Mandy, who was very tall, very blonde and in her thirties, laughed as she followed me in. ‘That makes two of us!’ she confessed, and I immediately took to her. ‘I was thinking – is it okay if I just say a quick hi to Georgie, and then you and I have a chat before I get to meet him properly?’
‘Of course,’ I said, understanding that a two-stage process might suit her better. Though we’d discussed Georgie on the phone, it still made sense to do it that way – she could grill me first and be better prepared.
I made a quick introduction and was as pleased as any mother that Georgie remembered his manners and held his hand out to shake. This was a recent accomplishment and a huge thing for Georgie. He found physical contact so difficult – and sometimes painful – but had been really trying to improve all his social skills so that he could be, at least superficially, a bit more like other kids. It was still all very stiff but, even so, a giant leap for him, and I felt a real sense of pride as I got him out some jigsaws before taking Mandy through into the dining room.
‘Oh, wow – he’s gorgeous!’ Mandy remarked as we sat down with our coffee. ‘He’s on course to break a few hearts when he’s older, for definite.’ She sipped her coffee and grinned. ‘But what about the maintenance? How on earth do you manage all that hair?’
‘I actually haven’t tried as yet,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve been too scared. He washes and brushes it himself and he’s really very good at it, but I’ve never attempted to take him for a cut, because his last care-home manager said it might be a bit of a nightmare. They used to have to build him up to it for days in advance, but even then he got upset when he saw bits of his hair falling off.’
I also told her about the incident when we’d had to take him to casualty, and how they’d had to gather up the hair they’d had to remove to check his wound, so that he could take it home to keep in his special box.
‘Doesn’t surprise me in the least,’ Mandy reassured me. ‘I have another one just the same. One of my other long-term case kids – he’s autistic too.’
‘I didn’t know that. But, of course, that’s why they’d allocate you to Georgie. And you probably know so much more about it than I do. It’s been a steep learning curve for me.’
‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘Always is.’ And the way she said it and smiled at me made me think that perhaps I was missing something. ‘And that’s exactly why,’ she went on, ‘they’ve given me Georgie. I’ve been Joshua’s case worker for almost eight years now and he’s quite high on the autism spectrum. He’s verbal autistic – do you understand that?’
‘I think so.’
‘So you know that, like Georgie, he’s acquired the ability for speech, although, as I’m sure you’ve realised, a lot of it’s simply imitation and echolalia.’
I nodded, and wondered why she was going into all this. Was she perhaps preparing me for putting him on some sort of programme?
‘Anyway, Joshua – that’s his name – although pretty high on the spectrum, is relatively high functioning, compared to many. He’s 18 now and has moved into a unit with three other young adults – all with special needs, and under the care of a support worker.’
I still didn’t get why she was telling me all this. But then it hit me. Were they planning to move Georgie to some sort of similar but child-centred unit?
‘I see,’ I said, not really seeing at all.
Mandy beamed. ‘It’s been quite a transition, of course – him leaving his foster parents. Nine years he was with them, and they are missing him dreadfully. Wonderful couple. No children. Absolute superstars. But he’s moved on, and is doing well, and that’s what everyone’s been working towards.’
I smiled back at her, my brain finally catching up at last. ‘Oh, I see,’ I said again. ‘And you know, that’s so good to know, because me and Mike were only saying the other day how worried we were for Georgie’s future. I never realised that people like him could eventually move on as adults and have some degree of independence.’
Mandy leaned forward and poured herself another coffee from the jug. She was beaming again. That’s when it hit me, like a lightning bolt. We weren’t talking about Joshua here. We were talking about Georgie. And about a place that might be suitable for him.
‘So this couple,’ I said, wondering how I could be so slow on the uptake, ‘they have a Joshua-shaped hole in their lives, which could perhaps be filled by Georgie?’
‘Precisely,’ said Mandy, reaching into her laptop bag and pulling out
a file. She flipped it open and turned to face me. ‘Helen and Mark,’ she said, fanning out a sheaf of photos.
I looked at the pictures, one by one – such a happy group of images. Happy snaps of what was clearly a happy life. The three of them on a boat, the three of them laughing and eating ice creams, the three of them paddling in the sea, and many more. All depicting such love. I felt my eyes starting to prickle, and quickly blinked to stop the inevitable. Riley’s wrong, I thought. This just has to be hormonal!
‘Casey, Helen and Mark are such wonderful people. We think they’d be the perfect carers for Georgie. He’s around the same age as Joshua was when he joined them, except Joshua had a lot more problems, and they worked miracles with him, they really did. They are devastated that he’s left – devastated – even though this was always the ultimate goal. But when the time came – well, you of all people know how it feels, don’t you? So, yes, they definitely have a Joshua-shaped hole in their lives. So. How about it? Is it time to meet young Georgie?’
I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like one of those nodding dogs that you see in the back of cars. I simply couldn’t trust myself to speak. I’d been so sure I’d have Georgie for a good few months yet. Never dreamed I’d be losing him so quickly after Jenson. And just after I’d got myself so blooming organised and found the best website about autism.
And Mandy, in her wisdom, could see that. ‘And here’s the best news,’ she said. ‘They’d love to meet you. And for you to go and visit Georgie any time you’d like to. They realise how important attachments are, no matter how brief and tenuous …’
‘What about school?’ I asked suddenly, realising Georgie might be spirited many miles away. ‘The attachment he has with Jenson, the other boy we fostered, is a really positive one. Incredible, really, given the short time they’ve been together. I couldn’t bear it if he couldn’t see Jenson again.’
Mandy’s face fell. ‘They live fifteen miles away, Casey. And there is a really good school near them. Joshua thrived there, honestly.’
Kick me, but I was beginning to get a little irked by this Joshua. This was about Georgie thriving. Georgie and Jenson thriving. That was what mattered to me. Mattered a lot. I decided to be assertive. ‘If they understand about attachments,’ I said, thinking on my feet and doing some mathematics, ‘then they’ll understand how important this particular friendship is. So my recommendation [Hark at me, I thought, giving my professional opinion!] is that, for the last year of primary school, transport is arranged so that Georgie is able to stay at his current school. It’s not just about Jenson either,’ I added. ‘It’s the whole sense of continuity he’ll get from it. It’s only one more school year – only nine months of minor inconvenience – and then he’d be moving up to secondary anyway. At least give him that time. It will be much better for him in a new environment. Particularly if he has Jenson as his constant.’
Mandy laughed. But in a good way. ‘John Fulshaw said you might give me a hard time about this,’ she said, grinning. ‘Said you were a force to be reckoned with when it came to the kids.’
I felt myself blush. ‘Oh, did he now?’ But I was happy to laugh with her. Something told me that this might be a done deal.
‘I will do my very best,’ she promised me. ‘In fact I really can see the benefit. Leave it with me.’ She stood up then, towering over me. ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘How about I go try to make Georgie understand our plan?’
The following Tuesday, the day before the autumn term started, we found ourselves once again on our doorstep, waiting for yet another social worker to tear our hearts out. I looked down at Georgie, who was looking down at the ground, hands behind his back, and reflected that this was something completely new.
Where he’d come to us with that singular ‘cupping his hands in front of him’ behaviour, that had been replaced with this new and different action. It made him look like a professor, trying to work out some important theorem, and it put me in mind of all the working out we’d had to do – and reminded that there was so much we still had to learn about him. The things he did, the ways he interacted, his very personality was so complex that you never knew, from one day to the next, what might be coming. But it wouldn’t be us doing the learning now; it would be his new carers, and now he was going to them I really wished he wasn’t.
Not yet anyway. Not that Georgie seemed that bothered either way, and seeing him smile, though I wasn’t sure precisely what about, I was suddenly grateful for his lack of empathy.
Mike couldn’t be with us today. An emergency at work meant he had to go in, and I felt, though we hadn’t actually discussed it at all, that with Georgie it would be different – and perhaps not as traumatic, meaning he was safe to let me say goodbye alone.
Though not entirely alone. Kieron had come to see him off with me.
‘You all right, mate?’ he asked now, as he gently touched Georgie’s shoulder. ‘It looks like Mandy’s here now. The car’s arriving. See?’
I looked up to see it pulling up outside the gate. ‘Kieron’s right, Georgie, she is here. Are you happy?’ Georgie just continued to smile, but at some point in the middle distance. ‘You’ll be seeing Jenson at school tomorrow, too.’
As I got no reaction to this either, I stopped talking. I’d won on that front, and I felt pretty chuffed to have done so. Georgie would be attending the same school for another year. Oh, but if only I could get one last tiny reaction …
‘Mum, it’s okay,’ Kieron said, and he put an arm around my shoulder. For someone who was supposed to have problems with unspoken nuances, my son could read me like a book, he really could.
‘Come on then, young man,’ said Mandy briskly, as she came and joined us. ‘Would you like to say goodbye to Casey and Kieron?’
She held her hand out, and, as if remembering a new important rule, Georgie took it, and then, also as if on cue – all my gentle training paying off? – he turned to us. I bent down. ‘Is it okay if I give you a little kiss on your forehead, sweetie?’ I asked him. ‘I’m going to miss you but I’ll visit you lots, I promise.’
Georgie smiled and nodded, and even let me kiss him without flinching. ‘Time Lords, we have this little trick,’ he then parroted. ‘It’s sort of a way of cheating death. Except … it means I’m going to change. And I’m not going to see you again … Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go … you were fantastic!’
And with that, he turned around and walked happily down the path with Mandy.
‘Bloody hell, Mum,’ gulped Kieron as we walked back inside. ‘That’s harsh.’ He blew out a long breath, as if trying to dispel a bad sensation. ‘I couldn’t do that every few months. Are you okay?’
I nodded. ‘Kieron, go and Google what Georgie just said, will you? I don’t know how the hell he does that, but I’m sure it was Doctor Who.’
He did. And sure enough, it was exactly as I’d expected. ‘Apparently,’ Kieron read out loud, ‘it was from the eleventh Doctor, and it was one of the most emotionally charged scenes of the series. The scene when he was saying goodbye to Rose Tyler.’
We were both momentarily speechless, trying to take it in, trying to absorb the meaning. And I think we might have succumbed to a bout of self-indulgent sentimentality, were it not for Kieron, who’d plainly had enough of that for one day.
‘Lol!’ he quipped, closing the lip of my laptop. ‘Emotionally charged? They should try living in this family!’
Epilogue
Sadly, once home, Jenson’s behaviour gradually deteriorated. Though things started positively, and he continued to do well in primary school, his mother, Karen, never really co-operated with social services or came good on her promises to try harder with him.
The transition to high school the following autumn was a difficult one, and once there Jenson began truanting again regularly. He was placed back into care eighteen months later.
But perhaps this development, though we were obviously sad to hear about it, was
for the best. Much as we had hoped Karen might overcome her difficulties in relating to him, for Jenson it would only have been more psychologically damaging to keep hoping for a love that wasn’t there. He was placed with a lovely family in a different part of the country, and that’s where he remains to this day. John updates us regularly on his progress and, the last time we heard, he was well and happy.
Georgie’s local, of course, so we get to visit him all the time. Almost 12 now, he is such a lovely boy – still with his flowing locks! – and always seems to remember us when we see him. Never one to show much emotion, he still needs sensitive handling, but his foster mum tells us that whenever she tells him we are visiting he will pace the floor, hands gripped behind his back, like a little old man, just as he did the day he left us. She says he doesn’t glance towards the window, but when he hears our car coming up the drive he sits down and smiles. That’s good enough for us.
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Chapter 1
The article in the newspaper was tiny, considering the crime. It told of a six-year-old girl who had lured a local toddler from his yard, taken him to a nearby woodland, tied him to a tree and set fire to him. The boy, badly burned, was in hospital. All that was said in what amounted to no more than a space filler below the comic strips on page six. I read it and, repulsed, I turned the page and went on.
Six weeks later, Ed, the special education director, phoned me. It was early January, the day we were returning from our Christmas break. “There’s going to be a new girl in your class. Remember that little girl who set fire to the kid in November …?”
I taught what was affectionately referred to in our district as the “garbage class.” It was the last year before congressional law would introduce “mainstreaming,” the requirement that all special needs children be educated in the least restrictive environment; and thus, our district still had the myriad of small special education classrooms, each catering to a different disability. There were classes for physically handicapped, for mentally handicapped, for behaviorally disordered, for visually impaired … you name it, we had it. My eight were the kids left over, the ones who defied classification. All of them suffered emotional disorders, but most also had mental or physical disabilities as well. Out of the three girls and five boys in the group, three could not talk, one could but refused and another spoke only in echoes of other people’s words. Three of them were still in diapers and two more had regular accidents. As I had the full number of children allowed by state law for a class of severely handicapped children, I was given an aide at the start of the year; but mine hadn’t turned out to be one of the bright, hardworking aides already employed by the school, as I had expected. Mine was a Mexican-American migrant worker named Anton, who had been trawled from the local welfare list. He’d never graduated from high school, never even stayed north all winter before, and certainly had never changed diapers on a seven-year-old. My only other help came from Whitney, a fourteen-year-old junior high student, who gave up her study halls to volunteer in our class.