by Casey Watson
With still no sign of him, I decided I needed to trust my instincts. I abandoned both my coffee and the café, and made my way to the spectator area on the other side of the pool. Over here was the play pool for the toddlers and babies. It wasn’t a place I’d expect to see him, as he preferred the deep water, but, even so, that’s where I found him.
He waved and grinned as he saw me, but even as he did so the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach persisted. There was something about the scene that wasn’t right.
I waved back, still uneasy, trying to put my finger on it, trying to work out what it was about the scene that felt wrong. And then I saw it. Two small legs suddenly emerged from the water, kicking out, feet up, at Spencer’s side. Before I could catch my breath what was wrong became obvious as, before my eyes, Spencer, still smiling angelically at me, calmly pulled a small girl’s head out of the water by her pony tail. Worse than that, he’d obviously been holding her under, for as she righted herself, coming up, gasping for air, she lunged right at him, screaming and crying. I watched stupefied as Spencer, deflecting her blows, then pulled her calmly out of the water onto the tiled edge.
Since I was not allowed onto the pool edge, and Spencer was still smiling at me, I furiously beckoned him over. Having crossed the small pool, and then the deep end, which he knifed through expertly, he emerged and, still grinning, looked enquiringly at me. ‘Is it time to get out?’ he asked innocently. I shuddered involuntarily. Just at that moment his demeanour scared me.
I was almost speechless. ‘Spencer,’ I hissed. ‘What were you doing with that young girl?’
‘What girl?’ He looked around quizzically.
‘The one you were holding under the water,’ I answered. ‘Spencer, you know full well which girl!’
‘Oh, you mean Molly?’ he answered. ‘She’s okay, we were just playing. I had to count how long she could stay under water.’
‘No, Spencer,’ I said, ‘that was not what was happening. She was scared and she was panicking. You were holding her down.’
Spencer’s expression altered then. Only subtly, but enough to confirm that I’d been right in what I’d seen. He’d thought he’d got away with it, and now he’d been rumbled. He looked petulant. Defiant. And cross.
‘I’m off to get dressed,’ he huffed. ‘An’ I’m not coming swimming with you again. You’re just like my mum,’ he said. ‘Always accusing me of stuff.’ And with that, he stormed off to the changing rooms.
I was left feeling sick and confused. There was no way on earth I could trust him to go swimming again on his own. But what should I think? What should I do? I knew what I’d seen, and it chilled me. He’d deliberately tried to hurt that little girl – he could have even drowned her. Yet to him, I mused, as we drove home in a mutual stony silence, it was all part of a game. And in the face of his insistence on that point, what could I do? Was this a deeper insight into the sort of child his parents were dealing with? A child with no understanding of causing pain to other children? A child who didn’t care who he hurt? I thought back to all the other instances of cruelty in Spencer, and to the few insights I’d gleaned into the behaviour of his parents. What was the cause and what was the effect here? I realised I honestly didn’t have the first clue.
Thank goodness the support worker had a background in psychology. As for me, I decided, sadly, my little halcyon patch had ended. I was shocked, I was upset and I was baffled.
Chapter 16
It was frustrating, though perhaps inevitable, that the first thing Spencer’s new support worker suggested when she turned up for our initial meeting was that her preferred activity to do with him was to take him swimming. It would, she commented, be so good for him.
Inevitable precisely because it had been so good for him. And, as a consequence, my reports – which I would log and email daily – had been equally positive in tone. Not that she took a whole lot of notice of my fears. Even after I’d explained in detail what I’d witnessed the previous Saturday, and how hard it would be to supervise him properly, her response was to look at me with an un-fazed expression and tell me I really shouldn’t worry.
‘He’d have to be pretty damned fast to escape me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll obviously keep a very close eye. No, it’s clear swimming’s something that’s therapeutic for Spencer. And in terms of how I bond with him, that’s important. I’ll be able to get to know him so much better if we have our interactions in an environment he feels comfortable with.’
Even if it compromises other children’s safety? I wondered, though not out loud, as it was patently pointless. I’d told her what had happened, and it clearly didn’t bother her. And who was I to judge anyway? She had a wealth of experience. Perhaps she knew what she was doing a whole lot better than it might seem. Or perhaps not.
‘Oh, and I’ve been speaking to Glenn, too,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a long discussion and we both feel that if we’re going to make progress with his problems, then Spencer needs to be allowed a bit more freedom.’
‘Really?’ I began.
She nodded. ‘So, ideally, we want you, if you feel you could, of course’, she added sweetly, ‘to look into alternatives to grounding him, basically.’
I digested this carefully. It took me all of half a second. ‘But it’s him having freedom that’s causing all the problems,’ I answered. I was getting really rather irritated by now. Did she know anything about the child she was taking on? At all? Or had she just decided – Glenn, too – that I was making things out to be worse than they actually were? ‘Grounding him,’ I persisted, ‘has been the only punishment – strategy, whatever – that has worked. Nothing else, in terms of sanctions, really bothers him.’
Penny’s expression softened. And in a way that made mine harden somewhat. I could see I might be about to receive a small lecture. And I was. ‘The thing is, Casey, and I don’t want to offend you, is that this programme is not about punishment at all. The only time, as you know, when kids can’t have their home comforts – and, as you know, that includes peer time – is when they haven’t earned enough points to “buy” them. If we veer away from that formula, then we miss the whole point of the programme – a programme that we both know has been shown to work, and work well.’
So that was me told. And despite my brain telling my face not to, it blushed. I was being told off, and it didn’t feel nice at all. And what made matters worse was that I knew Penny was, in one respect, anyway, quite right. What she had just said was exactly what Mike and I had been taught, back in training. For me to ground Spencer was effectively not only punishing him, but punishing him twice, because it was ignoring the points he’d already earned – and on a programme that, as Penny pointed out, wasn’t based around punishment, for a zillion reasons, all of which I already knew.
No, I had to admit to myself that I had veered from the programme. That I was treating Spencer as I would have treated my own children – normal, well-adjusted children, without deep-rooted psychological problems, apart from Kieron, of course, who had a mild form of Asperger’s. Children for whom straightforward punishments like groundings normally had the desired effect. But Spencer was none of those things, obviously. And I knew I was grounding him for pragmatic rather than therapeutic reasons. To keep him safe, yes, but not as a means to help him negotiate his emotional issues. All of which might have sounded like so much psycho-jargon, but was right, for all that. I felt chastened, and not least because of the fact that it was Spencer himself who had also pointed out some of these facts to me some weeks ago, when he was trying to work out how he could manipulate the system. I remembered him using the exact words, in fact: ‘That’s like punishing me twice.’
‘I do understand,’ I admitted. ‘It’s just that when you’re the one dealing with these things day to day, it’s sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees. I guess I’ll just have to take things right back to basics. What kinds of extra freedom did you have in mind?’
Penny looked
happier now she’d imparted her wisdoms. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s important that Spencer sees himself as having the same opportunities as every other child. The main thing he needs to work on is accepting boundaries.’
You don’t say, I couldn’t help but think. But I kept my mouth clamped tight shut. ‘We need him to be allowed to play out for, say, an hour a day, so that when he does misbehave he has to pay for it with points. D’you see? If he’s out, he has the means to lose points, which will make him appreciate the relationship between points and privileges … i.e. learn about consequences. If he’s out, you see, and taking responsibility for his behaviour, then the onus is firmly on him to behave. Grounded, he learns nothing. D’you see?’ I kept my mouth shut again, difficult though it was. It wasn’t easy, having spelt out what I already knew, even if, temporarily, I seemed to have forgotten it. ‘I suppose it’s really a case,’ she finished, ‘of giving him enough rope to hang himself with. If you want to look at it that way, anyway. But if we’re consistent, as you know, then eventually he’ll recognise that he has that precious thing – autonomy. Autonomy to allow himself to live a happy life.’
She didn’t say ‘D’you see?’ this time, for which I was grateful. But she was right. That was exactly what he needed to be able to do. But at the same time I refused to beat myself up too much. Before Spencer had come to live with us, if I’d heard anyone else complaining about how difficult it was to control an eight-year-old, I suppose I would have found it a bit hard to believe, too. And, like Penny, I might have come across as a little patronising.
‘You’re quite right,’ I said. ‘And I’m absolutely willing to play it by the book. I just need to know that the support’s there if I need it, and that if it all goes wrong we can look at our strategy again.’
‘Oh course,’ she gushed now. ‘Casey, that goes without saying. We’re also arranging for Spencer to go and see a clinical psychologist – did Glenn mention it? Might as well start as we mean to go on, and find out exactly what we’re dealing with. And, look, I know this is new territory – every child is new territory, aren’t they? – and having read what I’ve read, I know you and Mike really have your work cut out with Spencer. But you can trust me, I won’t do anything half-heartedly, I promise. I’m on this 100 per cent, and I really want to make a difference.’
Penny looked so sincere now that I felt guilty about my misgivings. She was obviously experienced and obviously committed, and I felt confident that she meant every single word she said. I apologised for seeming so doubtful initially, which she gracefully shrugged off with a laugh.
‘I can seem something of the zealot, I know,’ she admitted. ‘So don’t worry. I’m used to it. And I can’t wait to meet Spencer. I’ll be around after school on Thursday, so if you could perhaps have his swimming things ready? And then I’ll take him for a burger, so don’t worry about his tea.’ She winked conspiratorially. ‘I always find kids seem to open up brilliantly when shovelling junk food down their necks, don’t you?’
I grinned back. Something we finally had in common. Now she was speaking my language.
The promise of meeting Penny, and of the resumption of his swimming sessions, seemed to be enough to keep Spencer happy and well-behaved for several days. He was also thrilled to be allowed back out to play on the street, and seemed determined to work hard to maintain his points so that it wasn’t a privilege once again denied him. That said, I’d been careful to tighten up his targets, and ensure there were no loopholes with which to try and catch me out.
And the Thursday itself was a good day. In the morning came the letter containing the appointment with the psychologist, and the promise of perhaps finding out what really made Spencer tick, and in the afternoon came Penny, and an equal amount of promise. Just seeing her with Spencer gave me a real boost of hope.
She was obviously a natural – one of those rare people who seemed to click with children without trying – and right away I could tell this relationship would be a real positive in Spencer’s life. ‘Go on, you little scamp,’ she told him playfully. ‘I’ve already heard all about you and your swimming. Think you can beat me in a race, do you? Bet you don’t.’
‘Bet I do!’ Spencer cried, gleefully. ‘I’m like a fish, me. Just ask Casey.’
‘You are, love,’ I agreed. ‘Now go and grab your bag. It’s in the conservatory. This is Penny, by the way …’
But I might as well have been talking to myself, and soon was. Within seconds, it seemed, the two of them were out of the door. Two hours, she’d told me. Two hours and a promise that by the time she brought him home he’d be way too tired for wanting to go out or run me ragged. So, I thought happily, Thursdays would be good days from now on. And I was right to be confident. They were.
Saturdays too, it turned out. At least the next couple of Saturdays. Because Penny had decided that to form a strong bond with Spencer she’d take him swimming and for lunch, too, plus, having consulted with me, give him the treat of an ice cream at Giorgio’s, a place in town we’d introduced him to, and which he loved. And I agreed with her thinking – any positive adult intervention in his life could only be a good thing. Plus the more consistent Spencer’s routine, the better it would be for him.
And good for me, as well, to have a Saturday to myself, of which I took full advantage (sadly, for Mike, he was busy working) by spending the day with Riley and David and the little ones, with Kieron and Lauren joining us for lunch. Spencer had been with us for almost four months now, I realised, and, bar the disastrous stint of respite, this was the first time since then that I’d been able to enjoy the simple pleasure of seeing my family without the worry of what my foster child was getting up to. It was a glorious, invigorating few hours.
I was feeling similarly positive about the appointment with the psychologist, as, rather endearingly, was Spencer himself, who declared himself intrigued and just a little bit excited at the prospect of someone ‘getting to know’ his brain.
He’d been well prepared by Penny about what would be happening and why, and when we arrived you’d have thought it was Disneyland we were visiting, rather than having an appointment with a shrink.
But when they came out – after I’d spent half an hour or so catching up with my gossip mags in the waiting room – I couldn’t help but notice that Spencer looked disappointed.
‘Was it okay, love?’ I asked him, once our goodbyes had been done and we’d set off for home in the car.
‘It was okay,’ he said, sounding deflated. ‘I guess. But it wasn’t what I ’spected. Penny said it would be all about me, but all he seemed to want to know about was my family.’
‘Really, love?’ I said. ‘But perhaps that’s how it works. He gets to know you a bit by hearing about where you come from. Perhaps it’ll be more about you when you next go.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said. Though he didn’t look convinced. ‘But how’s he gonna work out anything that’ll teach him about my brain, when all he wants to know is ’bout my brothers ’n’ sisters?’
I smiled at him through the rear-view mirror. He really was such a little thinker, and this had clearly foxed him. ‘I don’t know, love,’ I answered honestly, ‘but psychologists are very clever people. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. I’ll bet he’s planning on getting to know that big old brain of yours next week. Bet he can’t wait. Hey, now, Mr Long-face. How about some Chipmunks?’
The workings of Spencer’s brain might have still been a mystery to the psychologist, but some things were set in stone. I didn’t have to wait to hear the answer.
It would be another two appointments, and a further week of waiting, before we got to hear about what the psychologist thought of Spencer and his brain. The psychologist himself called me, while Spencer was at school, to run through the main points that the interviews had thrown up, which he said he’d also send out in a letter.
And just as well, because, as with anything complex and medical, I couldn’t take it all in at once.
&nb
sp; ‘Basically,’ he said, wasting no time on preamble, ‘my opinion, based on the few sessions I’ve had with him, is that young Spencer, if clinically assessed and diagnosed, would in all likelihood be diagnosed as a sociopath.’
I took this in, slowly, feeling a stirring of disquiet. It was a word I knew well. It was a word with clear negative associations. Not a psychopath, thank God, but still … ‘So what,’ I asked, ‘are the actual implications for Spencer?’
The psychologist explained that, essentially, if his opinion was correct, Spencer’s brain wasn’t wired like other kids’ were. Though Spencer appeared to display a range of normal emotions, such as pleasure, affection, joy and sadness and so on, he didn’t feel them – at least, not like other children did. ‘All he’s done,’ the psychologist said, ‘is to master the art of mimicking them. Doing the things he’s seen others do to make it look as if he feels them when, in reality, he does no such thing.’
‘So what do we do now?’ I said, as the implication of this began to hit me. ‘You know, to help him? What sort of thing should we be doing?’
‘Well, I’d certainly suggest behavioural therapy might be helpful. Cognitive behavioural therapy. With help, Spencer might be able to be taught how to adjust some of his less acceptable behaviours, and, of course, continuing work with a therapist might be helpful, to assist him in learning to have empathy with others, and to be able to understand how others think and act. But it’s all in my letter, and I’ll obviously be in touch with social services …’
And that, to all intents and purposes, was that. Spencer was what he was. End of. And the ‘what’ was so depressing. ‘I can’t take it in,’ I told Mike, as we lay in bed that evening, remembering all the ‘mights’ the psychologist had used. ‘Might’ be helpful. ‘Might’ be useful. ‘He can be so loving. So genuinely loving and affectionate. I can’t get my head round the idea that he’s just acting it all.’