by Angela Hart
We let her talk and talk, and finally she was on safe ground again.
By the time the car was packed up she went quiet again. We spent much of the journey back explaining to Grace that she had to do as we asked her. She couldn’t run off like that, especially across a car park, and she must not climb trees without our permission.
‘Do you, like, actually care?’ she wrinkled her little nose.
‘Yes, Grace. We care very much indeed. We want you to be safe and happy. We are here to help and support you, and you can talk to us about anything you like.’
‘OK.’
She sat fidgeting and not saying very much at all for about ten minutes. Then, from nowhere, she piped up with, ‘Lee and Lily, they don’t care. They don’t even like me. My mum cares about me. She would have me back at the drop of a hat, if she could.’
13
‘She’s a harum-scarum kid’
Around five weeks after Grace moved in with us we had another placement meeting. I had received a letter in the post a few weeks earlier, informing us of the date, time and venue of the meeting, which Social Services had decided to hold in our house. As it happened that was fine by us, though I must admit I did use to feel it would be nice to be asked if this was convenient, rather than being told when we were hosting the meeting in our own lounge!
This particular meeting had been arranged to fit in with Colette, who had agreed to come to our house to meet with the social workers, and then take Grace back to the family home for the weekend. This would be Grace’s first visit home since moving in with us, and she said she was looking forward to staying with her mum, ‘but not Lily and Lee’. There had been very little contact with home in the previous few weeks, as Colette had made no effort to call us and had often not been available when Grace tried to call her.
The school holidays were coming to an end and Grace was starting school the following week, which she was excited about. We’d been on a visit to her new classroom and the head teacher had shown her around. Grace’s eyes were everywhere, drinking it all in. Afterwards she talked non-stop about what her classmates would be like, whether the other girls were into disco dancing and Take That and the Spice Girls, and whether the school dinners would be as nice as the head teacher said they were.
When the two social workers arrived for the placement meeting, Barry had a word with Grace in private before she went up to her bedroom to wait for her mum’s arrival. This was normal procedure, to give Grace the opportunity to discuss anything she felt uneasy about mentioning in front of Jonathan and me, or our support social worker Jess, or indeed her mum.
I prepared a tray of tea and biscuits and then Jonathan and I settled in the lounge with Barry and Jess. The four of us discussed all the various issues I’d flagged up in my notes in the preceding weeks, and I found myself feeling quite surprised by how much there was to talk about, considering Grace had only been living with us for a relatively short time.
I told the social workers Grace still hadn’t unpacked and explained that she was still taking food to her room from time to time and trying to hide it. This hadn’t happened very often, but I’d found more biscuit wrappers and the packaging from some cheese triangles just a couple of days before. I’d spoken calmly to Grace each time, reiterating there was no need to do this and that she could ask me for treats or food if and when she needed anything. Grace’s response each time was to politely say sorry and that she wouldn’t do it again, but she always did. Jess suggested I put a personalised tuck box in the kitchen for her, with Grace’s favourite snacks and treats in it, and tell her she could choose what she wanted. She would not need to ask us, only let us know if it was empty. We both agreed this was a good idea. Barry recalled seeing something in Grace’s notes about a shortage of food in the family home and wondered if this was what had led to Grace’s habit. It was something that had crossed my mind too, having been told that when Grace and Lily were left home alone by their father as very young girls they were frightened and hungry.
I mentioned the tree-climbing episode and her disappearing act in the shoe shop and we recapped on Lena’s accident. By now my friend Gail had confirmed to me that Lena was fine and, luckily, had got away with just two small stitches in her arm. Gail certainly did not want any money for the damage to the greenhouse and there had been no comeback from Lena’s mum Shannon. I could only assume she saw it as an unfortunate accident, as we did.
Barry jotted down a few notes as I spoke.
‘She’s a harum-scarum kid,’ he commented. ‘I think that’s obvious.’
‘Yes, but she’s got a good heart. She’s not a bad kid, not at all.’
Barry nodded. ‘Yes, that rings true to me, from what I’ve seen of her. I’d agree with that, one hundred per cent.’
We went on to talk about Grace’s continued moodiness, the fact she was generally extremely lively and energetic and could be unpredictable, plus some of the worrying comments she’d made about her family, and Lee and Lily in particular. Barry said he’d also heard Grace complaining about how Lee and Lily treated her. Grace had told him that Lily not only told lies but was a bully. Barry had also heard the allegations about Lee smoking cannabis. He advised me that Social Services were aware.
‘By the way, has Grace said anything to you about the clothes she claims go missing?’ This was bothering me and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
‘Not specifically, but she did make a comment one time that she thought Lily was jealous of all her new clothes.’
This fitted. Grace did have a large amount of clothes, and most were of good quality and fashionable too. I guessed that previous foster carers had treated her to plenty of new things, just as we always did with the children who lived with us. Therefore, I could see how Lily might have become jealous, although, of course, I imagined that Grace would have swapped every last stitch of clothing she owned to be in Lily’s position, still living in the family home.
I started to wonder if Lily took the clothes to be spiteful, given that it was unlikely any of Grace’s things would fit her. Perhaps it was actually Lily and not Lee who was playing games with Grace’s clothes? Or was it both of them?
The conversation moved on. I mentioned to Barry that Grace had got sunburned last time she went home, just before she moved in with us, and had suffered severe sunburn in the past, and I also told him about her frightened reaction to the empty whisky bottle.
‘Well, Dad was an alcoholic,’ Barry said. ‘I don’t suppose you’d need to be a rocket scientist to figure out she was traumatised by his drinking. It’s the reason she first went into care, after all.’ Barry went on to say that Grace was only five or six when her father died of the drug overdose, which he believed had been accidental. We all agreed it was terribly sad.
I made a point of mentioning the fact Colette had given Grace the impression she could move back home if she behaved better, and that I felt Grace looked up to her mum, was keen to please her and saw a return as a possibility rather than the empty promise it perhaps was. The social workers listened carefully and took notes. Neither seemed to disagree with my precis of the situation with Colette; this was a matter to keep a close eye on, Barry said.
We also talked through Grace’s routine appointments. As well as the doctors, Jonathan and I had taken her to the dentist, who had advised that she needed to be extremely vigilant about brushing her teeth; she already had more fillings than average for her age. The optician gave her a clean bill of health and said she had excellent vision. I explained that the GP had not seemed unduly concerned about Grace on any level, but that Jonathan and I still had a feeling there was something going on that we didn’t fully understand, or have a name for.
Jess assured us that we would all continue to talk about and monitor Grace’s hyperactivity and the other issues we were worried about and said that, if necessary, they could look at arranging an appointment with a specialist. Barry commented that Grace might still be adjusting to her new home, and that might expl
ain some of her behaviour. I wasn’t convinced; I’d looked after countless children who’d arrived feeling unsettled and upset. Some had gone through unimaginable traumas, but in my experience that didn’t make a child bounce off all the walls like Grace did at times, or have trouble following simple instructions despite appearing to be academically able. I told Jess that we would of course continue to help Grace as best we could, but that we would appreciate some expert advice if that could be arranged sooner rather than later. She suggested it might be best to do this through the school, and that perhaps we should wait and see what her new teachers said. I agreed to this, it seemed like a good idea and it wasn’t long before Grace was starting school.
Barry reported that when he had spoken to Grace separately, she had told him she liked it in our house and that she had a friend called Briony and was looking forward to starting school. We’d learned she’d had problems settling into schools in the past and teachers had flagged up problems with ‘too much chattering’ and ‘disrupting lessons’, but I wasn’t surprised. She’d been in nine schools to date; no wonder she wasn’t exactly a model pupil.
Both Barry and Jess said they were satisfied with how things were going and they praised our efforts. The overall message was that we were doing very well, and that we should continue with more of the same. ‘Well done to you both,’ Jess said. ‘I wish the rest of my caseload was working out as well as this!’ She added that it would be interesting to hear what the new school would have to say about Grace’s general behaviour in the classroom.
‘You mean in terms of how she interacts with others?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Yes, exactly. Whether she is seen to be winding other kids up and so on. All those problems that have cropped up time and time again. I wonder if we’ll hear the same complaints.’
Though nobody spelled it out in the meeting, I think we all shared a common thought, which was that, despite the fact she could certainly be a handful, Grace really didn’t seem to deserve the extremely bad press she’d had from her family, former foster carers and previous teachers.
Colette was at least twenty minutes late for the meeting by now. While we waited for her to arrive, Jonathan and I took the opportunity to ask Barry if he had any other background information about Grace that he might be able to share.
He said he hadn’t yet had time to read every page of the extremely large Social Services file on Grace, but he knew by now that each one of her eight previous placements had broken down amid complaints about her supposedly aggravating behaviour, and every one of the nine schools she’d attended had reported behavioural problems, typically describing her as ‘disruptive’. Other words used were irritating, infuriating, provoking, grating, frustrating, annoying and exasperating. One foster carer had described her as a ‘master wind-up merchant’. I knew Grace was no angel, but I just didn’t see her as a child who was so disruptive she had to be moved from home to home and school to school. I would have liked to have been given some examples of Grace’s behaviour to back up the criticisms, but Barry wasn’t able to provide any, having not yet scrutinised all the paperwork in sufficient detail.
‘If there’s anything in the files worth passing on, rest assured that I will,’ Barry said. Just at that moment the front doorbell rang out. ‘Ah! Saved by the bell!’ Barry chuckled, closing shut a large file he had open on his lap.
I stood up and went to answer the door. I met Grace on the stairs. ‘Don’t run!’ I shouted, but Grace seemed to be in a frenzy of excitement about seeing her mum and sprinted down the stairs. Her eyes were shining and she was springing from stair to stair, full of beans.
Unfortunately, when Grace flung open the door her face immediately fell and she looked as if her batteries had suddenly run flat. Colette was not alone. There was a teenage girl standing by her side.
‘Lily!’ Grace gasped, ‘I didn’t . . .’ her voice faded away and she seemed to physically shrink under the gaze of her sister. I watched in dismay as Grace’s shoulders drooped and she folded her arms defensively in front of her before recoiling, taking several steps backwards. Meanwhile Lily stood strong and bold, her pointed chin jutted upwards and her broad shoulders held firmly back.
I was surprised at how physically different the sisters were. Like her mum, Lily was very tall, curvaceous and buxom. I thought she looked much older than thirteen; I’d have guessed at fifteen. Her long, poker-straight hair was dyed a shade of burgundy, she wore a lot of orange-tinted foundation on her face, and she was dressed in tight leggings and a low-cut T-shirt with a glittery motif on the front. Grace looked like a tiny little mop-haired fairy next to her big sister.
‘How are you, trouble?’ Colette asked Grace flatly, stepping into the hall without introducing me to Lily, who made no effort to even look at me. Lily strode in after her mum, one hand on her hip, inspecting our hallway and giving Grace an unnervingly hard stare as she did so.
‘I’m OK, Mum,’ Grace said in a tiny voice. I’ve heard lots of parents call their kids ‘trouble’ as a jokey term of endearment, but I didn’t detect any affection or even a hint of playfulness in Colette’s voice. Rather, she delivered the word sharply and almost accusingly. Not surprisingly, Grace looked awkward and uncomfortable. I wanted to scoop her into my arms and tell her everything was going to be OK, and that she had nothing to feel worried or self-conscious about.
‘What’s new then? Behaving, I hope?’ Colette boomed this out; her voice was so loud it seemed to bounce off all the walls. ‘Well then, Gracie? Cat got your tongue?’ Colette rolled her eyes theatrically, which seemed to be for Lily’s benefit. I felt very uncomfortable now too, because this seemed so wrong. It was as if Colette was throwing her weight around almost in order to show off to Lily, which I thought was a very odd thing for a mother to do.
Grace glanced at me anxiously while Lily gave a little snort. She stared down at her sister, raising one of her thin, highly plucked eyebrows as she did so. An unmistakeable sneer appeared on Lily’s lips, which she made absolutely no attempt to hide. I’m afraid it looked to me like Lily was enjoying seeing her sister squirm like this, and I had the feeling she was hoping Grace had misbehaved so she could enjoy the fireworks. Looking back, if I had to pick one word to describe Lily, it would have to be ‘cocky’. I don’t really like that word and don’t use it very often, but that’s exactly how she came across, even before she opened her mouth.
‘Grace is doing really well,’ I sang out with confidence, throwing a broad smile at both Colette and Lily. This was an instinctive reaction; subconsciously, I think this was my attempt to redress the balance and move things in a more positive direction. ‘I’m Angela, by the way. It’s nice to meet you, Lily.’
‘Hi,’ she said through curled lips.
I tried to prompt Grace to answer her mum’s question about her news.
‘So, your mum asked what news you have, Grace.’ I gave her an encouraging smile and left a pause, hoping she’d fill the silence, but she didn’t. Grace looked like a rabbit in the headlights and, though she opened her mouth, no words came out. ‘We’ve been busy doing all kinds of things, haven’t we?’ I left another, shorter pause. ‘It’s been a busy few weeks and we’ve been out and about quite a lot.’
Grace nodded but still she looked too afraid to speak.
‘Come on Gracie! Tell your mum what you’ve been up to, babe?’
Grace had plenty of news to choose from. We’d really made the most of the good weather and had packed in so many activities. Grace had been with me to visit my mum a few times and had been learning how to grow tomatoes and bake flapjacks. She’d thoroughly enjoyed herself at the town festival, where she bumped into her new friend Briony. The two girls played until they dropped on the bouncy castle, and Grace had found out that Briony went to the same school, which she was thrilled to bits about. Briony’s mum Jill had suggested Grace might like to go for tea one night after school, and I’d said that that was a lovely idea, but maybe Briony would like to come to us first? Jill ag
reed to this without questioning why, and Grace was delighted. In fact, I think that made her day, and she really couldn’t wait to have her new friend over and had talked about this several times. One weekend we’d had some of Jonathan’s family round for a barbecue and we’d all played rounders on the field, which Grace had loved. We’d also been swimming and I’d signed Grace up for some lessons, as she wanted to learn how to do front crawl, having only ever mastered a very basic breaststroke.
Colette looked at her daughter expectantly and I hoped Grace might at least come up with a couple of things from the long list she had to pick from.
‘Dunno, not a lot,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I got new school shoes.’ She went bright red in the face as she spoke. I wondered if she was worried about telling her mum anything in case it sounded as if she was boasting, as I know some children feel anxious about that.
Colette looked at me and said somewhat suspiciously, ‘Are you sure she’s been OK?’
‘Yes,’ I said emphatically. ‘I expect Grace will tell you all about what we’ve been doing, it’s just a big day, that’s all. She’s been looking forward to seeing you.’ I smiled brightly again. I wanted to make the atmosphere as light and optimistic as possible.
Afterwards, I told Jonathan that Grace’s lacklustre ‘dunno’ reminded me of the time we’d taken two children on holiday to Disneyland Paris, or Euro Disney, as it was then. It had been a fabulous trip and the first time abroad for both of them, but when one girl was asked to write about what she did at half term she completely failed to mention the holiday. Instead, she filled a whole page in her school news book with a detailed description of a visit to McDonald’s with her dad, then she wrote, ‘Angela made me polish my shoes last night’ and finished with a summary of the latest storyline on Neighbours. When Jonathan and I read it at parents’ evening we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!
‘Let’s go up to the lounge,’ I said, ushering Colette and Lily towards the stairs.