by Casey Watson
‘Poo!’ she said, grinning. ‘It’s poo! Poo poo poo!’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Poo. And now poor Casey has to clean it. And that’s not very nice for me, is it?’ She looked at me blankly. The concept of ‘cleaning’ was obviously new to her, and I wondered in what sort of God-awful place she must have lived. ‘Look, sweetie,’ I said gently, once I’d banished the offending streaks. ‘Let me show you how we go to the toilet, okay?’
I took a few sheets of loo roll and held them in front of Olivia. ‘After we’ve done a poo, we take some paper from the roll – like this – then we wipe our bottoms – very carefully – and pop the paper in the toilet. Like this, see?’ I then did some acting. It was probably a good thing that no one could see me, because I then took more loo roll, started la la la-ing, as if singing to myself, and proceeded to mime what one did when one had finished on the toilet, wiping the paper across the seat of my trousers in an exaggerated fashion and saying ‘pooh!’, before depositing the paper in the toilet with a flourish, and pressing the flush with a grand ‘ta da!’
Olivia, transfixed, found all this riveting and, like any six-year-old, was keen to play ‘pooh!’ herself. I let her practise about five times before she tired of it, then took her to the basin, where we then spent a splashy ten minutes practising hand-washing too. I hoped, I just hoped, that if I kept this up long enough, my banisters – my whole house – would thank me.
But it wasn’t just a case of learning new skills. Olivia’s problems, in this regard, were more disturbing than I’d first thought, as I would find out a couple of days later.
It was evening, and, dinner over, both the children were in the kitchen, busy completing a giant jigsaw with Mike. I’d decided to use the time to change the children’s duvet covers – washing and turning around bed linen for them had become one of my new daily chores.
I went into Olivia’s room first, and was hit at once by the smell. I was used to bad smells now, but this was something else. It had been a hot afternoon and her windows had been closed, but even by current standards – stale urine, soiled underwear – the stench was both arresting and overpowering. I opened the windows and immediately set about trying to find the source, feeling my irritation rise, even though I knew the poor mites couldn’t help it. I was a clean freak, always had been, and living in such fetid squalor was really beginning to get me down. Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself why I took the job in the first place, but I still couldn’t help feeling angry at social services. If they knew these kids as well as they should have, they would have known about all this. For them to not brief us fully was just so bloody annoying!
I checked the bed, and then under it, then the wardrobe and chest of drawers. But found nothing. I didn’t even know what I was looking for; only that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be pleasant. I then began clearing the toys on the floor. And then it hit me, as I passed the book case, that the smell had suddenly become a lot stronger. I put the toys down, and gingerly began pulling books from their shelves. Now the stench was so strong that I actually retched. I almost dropped the books I was holding when I finally found the cause. Hidden behind the books on the bottom shelf, squashed against the wall, were three packages of human stools, loosely wrapped in tissue paper. I backed away, disgusted, and called down to Mike from the landing. ‘Love, can you bring Olivia up here a moment, please?’
They were up seconds later, and I gestured to Mike to take a look. He clapped his hand over his mouth and I could see that, like me, he was struggling not to gag. Olivia stood, quaking, in the doorway.
‘Why?’ I asked her gently. ‘Why did you do this, sweetie?’ I was genuinely struggling to make sense of it, particularly after the toileting lesson we’d so recently shared.
‘I not done it. Me never done it. I didn’t, Casey, honest.’ She looked terrified.
I crossed the room and put my arm around her. She immediately flung her arms around my waist. ‘I think you did, love,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry. We can sort it all out. Don’t be scared. We just want to know why. It’s made your pretty room all smelly, and you don’t want that, do you?’
She started crying. ‘It’s just my poo,’ she sobbed. ‘That’s all. I just wanted to keep it. But I won’t do it no more if you don’t like it.’
‘Sweetheart, poo must be done in the toilet, like I showed you. Always. Every time you need to go. You must do it in the toilet from now on. Nowhere else, okay? It has germs in, and it could make you sick. Make you very sick. And we don’t want that, now, do we?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘So from now on, when you need to have a poo, where do you go?’
‘To the toilet,’ she said meekly. ‘I promise.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Mike, half an hour later, the little cache of horrors now disposed of. ‘What was that slogan the agency used?’
Olivia, by now, was back playing with her brother. I just hoped what I’d said to her had sunk in. ‘You mean the one in the ad?’ I said. ‘The one on the leaflet I brought home?’ I did remember it. And well. I was unlikely to forget it. ‘Yes,’ I went on. ‘“Fostering the unfosterable.” Why?’
Mike grinned ruefully. ‘I think I’m beginning to get what they were on about.’
Chapter 6
The type of fostering Mike and I had originally been trained to do used a system of points and levels to modify behaviour. A child would start on a very low level and earn points every day for completing various tasks, with which they could then buy a range of privileges, such as extra TV time, or a later bedtime. As they progressed through the programme, the tasks would get harder, but, at the same time, the rewards would get bigger too.
This kind of behaviour modification programme was a relatively new development in fostering, and was intended for use with a specific type of child, and it had been made clear that, in the case of the children we had now, it wouldn’t be appropriate. Not only would Olivia be unlikely to understand it, but as the children were also to be with us only as an interim measure, there was no point in starting it, even if they could make sense of it – and Ashton perhaps could – as they’d be unable to do more than scratch the surface.
But, having spoken to John Fulshaw a few days after the various incidents we’d witnessed, I decided to implement one anyway. And I did so after hearing yet another bomb-shell. Having brought John up to speed on the various toileting issues, not to mention expressing my concern about all their sexualised behaviours, I had asked – almost as an afterthought, really – how things were going with the court case.
‘Ah,’ said John. ‘Actually, I was getting to that, Casey. I’ve not long put the phone down to Anna, as it happens. It seems that in the light of your emails about what the children have been doing, social services are requesting a further adjournment so that all this new stuff can be added to their final report.’
This seemed pretty sensible, from social services’ point of view. What we’d witnessed, both in terms of physical neglect and the strong possibility that all the kids had been sexually abused, could only strengthen the case for them not being returned. I thought about Olivia’s comments about her ‘gwandad’ and shuddered. But the other implication, and the thing John was obviously braced to tell me, was that an adjournment meant a delay, which meant only one thing.
‘So the kids will need to stay with us for even longer than anticipated, then?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, the other thing I have to tell you is that Anna has already been on to the Education Department to see about moving the kids to a primary school close to you for the new term. I believe she’s also asked for a full report to be sent on from their old school which, once she’s got it, she plans to bring over to discuss with you.’
‘Great,’ I said. Not so much about having the kids for longer – Mike and I had already crossed that bridge, and we were fine with it. But because, logistically, this would cause a real headache. ‘So it’s going to be a bloo
dy rush job, then. Brilliant. There’s only a fortnight – slightly less – before the start of the autumn term, and I’m going to have a whole set of uniforms, PE kit and so on to go and buy. And try to socialise them too – John, you really have no idea how bad things are. They don’t even know how to eat using cutlery! Or dress themselves, or wash themselves – or anything, basically. How the hell am I going to have them ready for a completely new school in two weeks?’
I also thought, but didn’t mention, that it wasn’t just about the kids. It wasn’t just a case of the kids adjusting to a new school, it was how the school would cope with having them!
‘I know,’ John soothed. ‘I do appreciate how tough it’s going to be. Just stick to the basics – concentrate on the simple stuff. And it might be worth popping down to speak to the school too? You know – you and Mike, just to prepare them.’
Just like that, eh? I almost laughed out loud when I put the phone down. Outside, I could see the pair of them in the garden, playing. Except they weren’t playing. All they were really doing was pushing one another around and squealing. They didn’t seem to even know how to play. Not unless you sat them down and explained every single thing to them. John was right. I didn’t know where to start.
So, stuff what I’d been told, I would do this by numbers. Well, stickers on charts, anyway. I set to work.
I made two charts that morning. One for each child. And on each I had written three statements. 1) Today I had a poo in the toilet and wiped my bottom. 2) Today I washed my hands after using the toilet. And 3) Today, I didn’t wee anywhere but the toilet. For each successfully completed task, there would be a gold star awarded, and if each child received three stars, they would be given a small chocolate bar.
I found myself wincing slightly as I explained all this to the kids. I knew social services would be tutting in disapproval if they could hear me. Using sugar treats as enticements was an absolute no-no, naturally, but I also knew something else: chocolate works. Anyway, I reasoned, this was surely so much better than the alternative scenario, which social services weren’t having to clean up. And they couldn’t hear me, could they? So they would be none the wiser. Though I did make a mental note to be extra vigilant where the brushing of teeth was concerned.
I thought that Ashton, given his age, might have been embarrassed at such a chart, but he was just as excited as Olivia was, bless him.
‘I bet I win chocolate every day!’ he said brightly. ‘I’m much better at this stuff than she is. And it’s good, because if we wipe our bums, the kids in the new school won’t call us smelly.’
I had been pleased at how the kids had responded to the news that they were going to a new school. Even at their young age, I sensed they were glad to have a chance of a clean slate. ‘No, sweetheart, they won’t call you that,’ I agreed. ‘Is that what they called you in your old school, then?’
‘They called me pissy pants,’ Olivia chipped in now. ‘But I’m not, am I Casey?’
‘Yeah you are,’ Ashton said. ‘You’re always pissing yourself.’
At this slight, Olivia proceeded to thump Ashton, kicking him and thumping him, while showering him with a stream of choice obscenities. It was like some sort of default, this automatic physicality. Almost as if they were young animals, who knew no other way to communicate.
I stepped in to untangle the now tumbling mass. ‘Whoah, there!’ I said. ‘Now just stop all this silliness. And “pissy” is a swear word, so we won’t be using that. And, no, if you do what’s on the chart, you won’t get called names any more, which is why we’re doing it, okay? You both got that?’
It was over in a flash, as I was beginning to understand now. They both straightened their tops and beamed back happily.
But in reality, it was a tedious process. Each day, between us, Mike, Kieron and I would painstakingly go through the same three routines of how to wash, how to dress, how to brush your teeth properly. And every day it felt, though we were surely making progress, that they had forgotten the skills were had taught the day before, and we’d have to go through them all again. It was beginning to feel like Groundhog Day in our house; tedious, but absolutely necessary. If they were to have any chance of integrating and making friends in their new school, then we needed to teach them these basics, and fast. But it was slow going; if you left them to their own devices – particularly with the dressing – they’d appear with their clothes on back to front, wearing odd socks, and their shoes invariably on the wrong feet. It really was clear they’d never been taught anything.
Anna arrived, bearing the promised school reports, a few days later. And as she warned as she handed the folder over to me, it made for some pretty depressing reading. In fact, it was terrible, really, to think that a school could have all this information to hand, and yet no action appeared to have been taken. The children hadn’t even been given formal statements of special educational needs, which really shocked me. They’d only been classed as ‘school action plus’ which simply meant that because they might be lacking emotionally or intellectually, they needed an extra eye kept on them. Nothing more.
The report then went on to list the obvious: that the kids were always filthy, and infested with head lice, that their clothes were dirty, smelly and un-ironed and often wet with urine. It also noted – as we’d heard at the first meeting – that the children often complained of having had no breakfast, and would often steal from other children’s lunchboxes. Pitifully, it was also noted that the kids appeared to be friendless, and that other children refused to sit near them in class. Predictably, it finished by commenting that academically both children were way behind their peers.
I tossed the report back to Anna. ‘This is disgusting! Why the hell didn’t they do anything if they knew about all this?’
Anna confessed to having as little clue as I did. She tried anyway. ‘I think the whole family had been known to the school for years,’ she said. ‘Two or three generations of them – parents, aunts and cousins. I think they were just classed as one of those unfortunate extended families. Underprivileged, more than anything. Just a bit chaotic. And there was never an issue with attendance for them to feel bound to investigate. One hundred per cent attendance, by all accounts.’
‘I’m not surprised!’ I almost snorted. ‘School must have been like sanctuary – the only place they’d find some food and interaction!’
It beggared belief but, at the same time, it felt all too believable. They turned up every day, just like clockwork, so they weren’t truants. Just ‘unfortunates’. Not Anna’s fault, I know, but still infuriating.
But if I accepted that Anna wasn’t personally to blame for the welfare of these children having been overlooked for so long, to the kids themselves, she was very much the enemy. Keen to connect with them before she left, she had me take her in to see them, where they were sitting in their now habitual huddle, on the sofa, flicking listlessly (the effect of that morning’s Ritalin) through comics.
At the very sight of her, they bunched up closer together, then proceeded not to answer a single one of her questions – not even her innocent, ‘So what are you both reading?’ Because to them she was the enemy – the lady who came into their home and stole them from their parents. And as we already knew, because Olivia had told us, they’d been told not to speak to her about anything.
It was sad, I reflected, as I saw Anna out, that social workers, always filled with the very best of intentions, were invariably seen as the villains by the very kids they were out to help.
Not that the children were entirely without help. Sadly, it was chemical, in the form of the drug Ritalin, but for all that, it did help. Without it, I knew they’d be so much worse. They’d been with us for a month now and as we approached the start of a new school term, I felt I was beginning to get to know them both a little better as individuals. As far as the ADHD was concerned, Olivia was clearly the worst affected. I’d known this to be the case anyway, as her prescription was for a higher dose th
an that of her brother, and I knew if I didn’t give her her tablet the minute she was up, her behaviour would become the most unmanageable. I’d also worked out that whereas with Ashton the effects of the drug wore out at around five-thirty, with Olivia, it was more like around four. With this in mind, I’d learned to find something to occupy Olivia at that time, to stop her being destructive while her big brother was still relatively calm. Sometimes Riley would come over and take her for a long walk with Levi, or I would set her some task that would occupy her sufficiently – she loved colouring – just to keep the household calm for that bit longer.
Olivia’s behaviour, once the drug left her system, could be bizarre, too. Sometimes she would sit and write the same word, over and over, scribbling furiously away, as if her very life depended on it. I would find countless such lists; of the same girl’s name or the same boy’s name. Left to her own devices – particularly in bed at night, obviously – the repetitions could be in the thousands. Other times, she’d count things. I was surprised to hear her tell me one morning, that the curtains in her bedroom had 370 pink spots and 262 white spots.
I didn’t really understand the psychology of these behaviours, but they had clearly grown up over a period of time, and perhaps provided some sort of emotional outlet.
But as I was to find out in the last days before school time, without that morning pill she was a completely different child. Ritalin is a drug that you’re not legally allowed to stock up on, and must order around every two weeks. Realising I was down to my last two tablets, I popped down to the GP’s for a repeat prescription, and then straight on to the chemist’s to get it filled. I was surprised when the pharmacist told me they were out of stock till Wednesday, but not overly concerned at that point. It was Monday, and I still had one remaining pill for Tuesday, so as long as I went early on the Wednesday and took Olivia with me, I could give her the first of the new batch right away.