Too Hurt to Stay: The True Story of a Troubled Boy’s Desperate Search for a Loving Home

by Casey Watson

  God, I thought, as I drained my mug of coffee. This placement might prove to be harder than I’d thought. I would need eyes in the back of my head.

  I spent the rest of the day with Riley and the little ones, which worked its magic, as usual, and when I arrived back to collect him it seemed school had done likewise with Spencer. He ran out to me brandishing a picture he’d painted, obviously in very high spirits.

  ‘It’s for you and Mike,’ he said proudly, as he held it up to show me. ‘This is a mountain, an’ that’s the black sky – cos it’s dark – an’ this here, with all the red on, is a dead wolf. That’s its blood an’ guts all over that rock there,’ he finished proudly. ‘D’you like it?’

  I nodded as I surveyed the colourful scene of bloody carnage. ‘Very good – very artistic,’ I agreed.

  Mr Gorman was in high spirits too. I got the impression that every day he hung on to Spencer was a day for celebration. ‘We’ve had a good day today, haven’t we, Spencer?’

  And it seemed we were going to have a good evening too. We played Lego after tea, and then Mike produced a new DVD, which he’d picked up on the way home and which clearly delighted Spencer. It was the Disney film Cars, which he’d already seen at the cinema, and couldn’t wait to sit down with us and see again.

  I went to bed happy that night, thinking that we might be making progress. I even let myself believe, given how badly the day had started, that the old Casey magic was beginning to work its spell. Which just goes to show that the adage holds true. Pride always comes before a fall.

  However, it would be the following evening before I could see that. Like Wednesday, Thursday seemed to be a day full of positives. Spencer trotted into school happily – no break for the border – and when I picked him up, once again he was smiling. And he continued to smile until he’d finished his tea, upon which he told me that he wanted to play out.

  ‘You can’t, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘You’re still grounded, remember?’

  ‘But I have to,’ he whined. ‘I told Connor I would.’

  ‘Connor? Who’s Connor?’ I said. I didn’t know the name.

  ‘He lives up the road,’ he said. ‘He’s my age. We speak out of our windows.’

  ‘Out of your windows?’ I asked, baffled. ‘What d’you mean, speak out of your windows?’

  ‘He’s only two doors up,’ he explained, as though any idiot would know that. ‘We lean out of our bedroom windows and we chat. Please, Casey,’ he pleaded, ‘just for half an hour? I told him …’

  ‘No, Spencer, you can’t,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want you leaning out of your bedroom window either. It’s a skylight and it’s dangerous to be leaning out of it.’

  ‘But I said I’d call for him.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have. You knew you were grounded. Rules are rules. You’ll have to wait till Saturday – points permitting, you can call for him then.’

  He acted so quickly right then that I was almost too late. One minute he was sitting there, looking all dejected, and the next he was out of the kitchen and in the hallway like an Exocet missile, only thwarted from escaping by our Yale lock. ‘Spencer,’ I snapped, ‘what on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  He dropped his hands, defeated, and glared at me defiantly. ‘You can’t keep me in,’ he yelled. ‘I’m eight years old. Not a kid.’

  If his sentiment about what age a ‘kid’ was sounded amusing, his defiance was definitely not. I stepped past him, turned the mortice-lock key below, and then removed it, while he pouted his disapproval before stomping into the living room. Here he turned. ‘You can’t keep it locked for ever,’ he said to me. ‘I’ll be off as soon as you forget. Stupid idiot!’

  Out in the kitchen, preparing fish and vegetables for tea, I felt cross with myself. I felt uncharacteristically wound up – and by a little boy of eight! I was also beginning to realise that all the improbable-sounding warnings this child had come with were little by little beginning to come true. I put the fish in the oven to cook and washed my hands. As Spencer was in the living room, watching TV now, perhaps I should go into the conservatory and call his social worker.

  But it seemed Glenn had a slightly different take on things where Spencer was concerned. ‘It sounds worse than it is,’ he soothed, after I’d outlined the incident in school, his teacher’s comments and the fact that he’d just tried to abscond from the house. ‘I mean, I do know he’s only eight, but he’s not stupid. According to his parents he spends the majority of his days out on the streets – always has – and he can obviously take care of himself.’

  I almost spluttered. ‘So you’re saying we should just leave him to run wild?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘He obviously needs boundaries. It’s boundaries that have been lacking in his life, clearly. All I’m saying is that if he does run you shouldn’t worry unduly. He knows how to look after himself, and he always comes back. Just as soon as he gets cold or hungry.’

  This seemed to beggar belief. This man was clearly not a parent. ‘It’s all very well you telling me he can look after himself, Glenn, but Spencer is our responsibility. I need to know that we can keep him safe. It’s our professional responsibility to be sure we can protect him, and, frankly, him running around the streets unsupervised does not constitute a part of that. From what you say, we’re going to have to start locking ourselves in.’

  ‘I know,’ he soothed again. ‘I know that. And you’re doing great. And if you have to keep the house locked to feel secure, then, obviously, so be it. I’m just trying to reassure you that he’s not a typical eight-year-old. So if he does go missing, chances are he won’t come to any harm.’

  I finished the call feeling not more but even less reassured, Spencer’s ‘trendy’ social worker obviously seeing things so differently to how I did. It wasn’t even about what harm might befall him if he managed to run away. From what Glenn had said, that was the least of my worries. It was much more about the principle of what foster care was meant to be. How could I possibly create an environment of ‘trust, mutual respect and comfort’ when I had to behave like a prison guard? Not much of any of those three in that, was there?

  I gave Mike a quick debrief when he arrived home from work, not least because I had to unlock the front door to let him in. We decided against him having a further disciplinary chat with Spencer tonight. Better to enjoy tea and keep the atmosphere light in the hopes that he’d feel a little less like doing his Houdini thing. And tea went well, with Spencer chatting animatedly about his paintings, and telling Mike how much he liked drawing in his sketch book. Even his hopes of perhaps becoming an artist one day.

  ‘Would you like to see it?’ Spencer asked him. ‘I could go and get it now.’

  ‘After tea,’ Mike said. ‘Then we can sit down and go through it properly. I’d enjoy that.’

  Some hope, as it turned out.

  Tea was over in double quick time, Spencer shovelling food in as if his life depended on it, and me all the while feeling pleased, at least on that front. Here was a child who would willingly eat fish and vegetables. And just as Mike was filling me in about an order from work, Spencer, his plate cleared, declared himself finished. ‘Shall I go and get my sketch book now, Mike?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Go on then,’ chuckled Mike. ‘You’re obviously dying for me to see it. Off you go. I’ll be done here by the time you’re back down.’

  Spencer ran off happily, and Mike continued with his story. Seconds later, however, he stopped abruptly. We had both heard the front door slamming shut.

  At first I couldn’t fathom it. The door had been double locked. I had the key. Then Mike groaned. ‘Shit! I went out to the car, didn’t I?’ he realised. ‘To get those papers. And left the key on the side in the kitchen … oh, shit!’

  All that acting. All that desperate need to show Mike his sketch book. I felt the biggest fool, suddenly, on the planet. Spencer had been right in what he’d said to me. I had been a stupid idiot.

>   We ran to the door, down that path, onto the street. Spencer was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 6

  What credulous fools we were, I couldn’t help thinking, as we ran back to the house and Mike pulled his boots on.

  ‘Should I phone someone, do you think?’ I asked anxiously. I could already feel panic rising inside me. It was all very well Glenn telling me not to worry about Spencer, but this was an eight-year-old, and we were responsible for him.

  Mike shook his head. ‘Give me a chance to have a quick scout around first.’ He headed back down the path, then stopped and turned around. ‘Actually, do you think I should take the car instead?’

  ‘No!’ I couldn’t help snapping. ‘Just go! If you take the car you might miss him down an alley. Just hurry, will you? He could be miles away by now.’

  Mike jogged off then, and I went back to keep an eye out from behind the window. It was only early autumn but there was a real nip in the air. And Spencer, as far as I knew, was only in pyjamas and slippers. Unless he’d whipped them off while up ‘getting his sketch book for Mike’. God, I felt such a fool. I could only hope Mike found him before I had to ring the police and report him missing, and spare us a whole round of form filling and interventions and, worst of all, the admission that we’d failed.

  It was a full half hour, the minutes inching onwards painfully slowly, before Mike returned. Unhappily, however, he was alone.

  ‘Call the EDT, Casey,’ he said. ‘I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, but if he’s hiding it’s pointless. He won’t show himself until he’s ready to be found, will he?’

  The EDT – or Emergency Duty Team – are a 24-hour on-call service, dedicated to social services. They are the first port of call in situations like this. They would provide us with back-up and advice and, most importantly, log the incident so that there was a permanent record on file of what had happened – something that was particularly important in cases of violence or harm, or a child reporting something untrue. I ran to the locked cabinet where I kept my fostering log book and Spencer’s details, knowing from experience that they would ask me endless questions. It made sense to have the answers on hand.

  Some minutes passed before the call with the EDT came to an end. They’d wanted a physical description, obviously, plus Spencer’s home address. They also wanted any information I could give them about other people and addresses that might potentially help them track him down. That done, they then told me to call the police, so the whole process had to be repeated again.

  ‘So what did they say?’ Mike asked as I put the phone down for the second time. He passed me a mug of coffee.

  ‘Thanks, love. That they’re sending someone to us now, plus it’ll have gone out to the patrol officers. With any luck, there’ll be some looking for him right now.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Little tyke,’ he said, taking up my former position at the window. ‘I hope this isn’t going to be a regular occurrence.’

  I went and joined him. His jaw was set and his face was pale with worry. ‘He’ll be okay, love,’ I said, sliding an arm around his waist. ‘Like you said, he’s probably hiding. He’ll show himself eventually. He won’t want to be out long in this cold. He’s just trying to teach us a lesson, isn’t he? That he can beat the system. Get one up on us …’

  ‘Exactly!’ he said with feeling. ‘And where does that leave us? What leverage do we have to help change his behaviour if he has the means to flout the rules whenever he doesn’t like them?’

  ‘Plenty,’ I said. ‘If he wants to play hardball then so will we. We must. While he’s still young enough to have his behaviour modified.’

  ‘In theory,’ said Mike, peering into the blackness.

  It was another two hours before there was a knock on the front door. Two hours in which we’d done nothing productive bar drink more mugs of coffee and fail to find something to distract us. This wasn’t one of our own kids, but it didn’t matter: we were in loco parentis, and our charge – the child who social services had entrusted to our safekeeping – had run away, which wasn’t a nice feeling. Didn’t matter how much we’d be reassured that there was nothing we could have done to stop him (which we would be) – if something happened to that little boy I would never forgive myself.

  We flew to the door together, to see a policeman-shaped shadow behind the glass, and, to my immense relief, an eight-year-old-boy shape as well.

  ‘Spencer!’ I cried out as soon as I saw him. He was indeed in just his pyjamas and slippers. ‘Oh, Spencer. God, you must be freezing! Come on, come in.’

  Spencer’s expression was forlorn, and the policeman looked stern. I got the impression that a dressing down had already been delivered. The first one, anyway. It wasn’t going to be the last. But for the moment all I cared about was that he was back safely with us. Even though, as it turned out, it was by chance.

  ‘I was on my way here to take your statement,’ the policeman explained as I herded everyone into the warmth of the living room, ‘when I saw this young man sitting on a wall at the top of your street.’

  I saw Mike’s jaw drop. ‘You’d been sitting there all this time?’ he asked Spencer. ‘But I –’

  ‘He was in a wheelie bin,’ the policeman said, ‘two doors up from here, hiding out. Till he got too cold. Been sitting there for, what, half an hour?’

  Spencer mumbled confirmation.

  ‘But why didn’t you just come home, lad?’ Mike asked. Spencer simply hung his head.

  ‘A hot drink,’ I said. ‘That’s what you need. Constable? Spencer?’

  Now Spencer did look up, though he couldn’t quite look me in the eye. ‘Yes, please,’ he said meekly. ‘An’ I’m sorry,’ he proffered also.

  I nodded, but stopped myself from saying ‘That’s okay’, because it wasn’t. He needed to know that actions had consequences, that they couldn’t be cancelled out just by trotting out apologies. They had their place, of course, but they needed to be accompanied by actions. This child must not see me and Mike as soft touches.

  The policeman declined a drink, saying that things wouldn’t take too long now, and by the time I’d made Spencer’s, Mike was showing him out. No need for lengthy statements when the incident’s already over, after all.

  ‘Come on, you,’ I said to Spencer, after I’d been into the hall and thanked the constable. ‘Into the kitchen for this hot chocolate. I’ve made you some toast as well.’

  He followed me in and sat up at the table where I directed, then wound his fingers around his special mug.

  ‘Can I still go out on Saturday?’ he asked quietly, after taking a sip from it.

  I looked at him, amazed. Boy, did we have a way to go. ‘I’m sorry, love, but no. Of course you can’t, not after this. What you’ve done tonight will add at least a few more days to your grounding.’ He looked as if I’d just told him the sky had fallen in. ‘Spencer, love, you can’t just do as you please, you know. The adults make the rules and you – as the child – have to accept that.’

  ‘Casey’s right, lad,’ Mike agreed, coming into the kitchen to join us. ‘Rules are there for a reason. Most of the time they are there to keep you safe.’ He turned to me. ‘Grab Spencer’s points sheet, will you, Casey? Then we can look at how he stands as far as today goes.’

  I reached for the sheet and joined the two of them at the table, while Mike quietly went through the points and rewards with Spencer, urging him to work out how they balanced by himself.

  ‘So I won’t get any polite and respect points today, then?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘An’ I don’t suppose I’ll be getting my “bed on time” points either?’ We all looked at the clock then. It was way past 9 p.m.

  ‘Obviously not,’ I said again. I pointed to the chart. ‘So you see, you couldn’t afford to buy “peer time” in any case. Even without being grounded. You won’t have earned sufficient points.’

  For some reason, this seemed to make
Spencer a little happier. He smiled. ‘So I can’t afford it,’ he said.

  Mike nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  I watched Spencer’s expression changing and suddenly got a sense of what was happening here. He didn’t mind because he felt this was something he controlled. He couldn’t go out, not because we’d grounded him, but because he hadn’t earned sufficient points. This obviously made it feel acceptable. I smiled to myself. At last I had an inkling of what made this little boy tick.

  He picked his toast up. ‘Okay,’ he said cheerfully.

  The weekend came and went without further drama or abscondings, and Spencer spent much of it engaged in productive endeavours like painting pictures and building Lego models. And he was delightful to have around, being both polite and helpful. He helped Mike to wash his car, and also really seemed to enjoy gardening. He spent three hours with us out in the back garden on the Sunday, ‘shutting it down’ for the coming winter. And he seemed to delight, like any little boy, in getting plastered in mud, as he enthusiastically unearthed an assortment of bugs and spiders, as he helped pull up the last of the straggly weeds.

  But the kids who came to us didn’t do so because they were impeccable little angels, so it was perhaps silly of me to have been lulled into a false sense of security. But I clearly had, as I found out the following Tuesday. In fact, I was brought down to earth with quite a bang.

  It was an ordinary sort of Tuesday, so after dropping Spencer off at school I’d decided that once I’d done a bit of housework I’d pop into town. I had to go to the bank, and I also thought I’d take the opportunity to nip into my favourite children’s shop, which was nearby. I was just setting off there when a car pulled up outside. It was Kieron and Lauren, wanting to come and use my internet.

  ‘We’ll come back later,’ they said, seeing as I was obviously going out.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. It was good to see them any time, of course, and, what with Spencer coming, it felt like we’d not seen enough of them lately, so I didn’t want to send them packing the very minute they arrived. Far from it. ‘Come in,’ I said. ‘You can do what you want to do, and then make us all some lunch for when I’m back. And then we can all have a proper catch-up.’