by Angela Hart
‘So that’s the deal – you come back from Sonia’s by quarter past seven, then you can go back out and meet Rosie at quarter to eight.’
‘Then how late can I stay out?’
‘Nine as usual,’ I said, reminding her that she was not to drink anything. She agreed, rolling her eyes and telling me again she didn’t even like vodka. ‘Am I allowed to eat chips or do I need to ask your permission for that? What about ketchup? Shall I ring you and ask how many squirts I’m allowed on my chips?’ She shrugged her shoulders playfully and turned her palms to the ceiling as she looked at me quizzically.
‘Cheeky!’ I said. ‘It’s very simple. Be good and come home at nine, not a minute later.’
As Melissa was in an upbeat and receptive mood I took the opportunity to ask her not to smoke either, although I’d detected the smell of cigarettes on many of her clothes by now and suspected she was a regular smoker. ‘I’ll be good,’ she said. ‘You can trust me. Don’t worry, I won’t get addicted.’
7
‘All we have is words’
Melissa didn’t return on time from visiting Sonia. I watched the clock like a hawk and from quarter past seven onwards, as every minute ticked past, I felt more anxious. Jonathan was ready to walk to the top of the road for quarter to eight, and if Melissa didn’t turn up to meet Rosie we would have to think about calling Social Services and reporting her missing.
‘We can do that at eight fifteen,’ I calculated, as it was dark and that was when she would officially be an hour late home.
There was a news programme on TV but I couldn’t concentrate on anything the presenter was saying.
‘I wish we could just stop her going out,’ I said to Jonathan.
‘I know, but we can’t.’
‘I know, I know. It’s so frustrating.’
To our great relief, Melissa burst in the door just after half past seven. ‘Really sorry I’m late,’ she said, sounding genuinely apologetic.
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, I just walked the long way round. Oh is that the time? I’ll have to go straight back out to meet Rosie.’
She smelt of cigarettes and I thought her eyes looked a bit glazed, but she was perfectly alert.
‘Have you drunk or smoked anything?’
‘What? No! Why?’
‘I thought your eyes look different to normal and I thought I could smell cigarettes, that’s why. Are you OK?’
‘Well, my hand’s still swollen and it was hurting, so I took some painkillers. Sonia gave them to me. They did make me feel a bit funny. You don’t need to worry about me though. I’m fine, honestly. Sorry to dash off again.’
Melissa had only taken one pace through the door and now she stepped swiftly out again. She turned and walked away quickly, shouting ‘Bye!’ over her shoulder.
‘Don’t forget you need to be home at nine, no later.’
‘I know. Have no fear, Melissa will be here!’
I watched her walk jauntily away. I sighed, and just before I closed the front door I caught the sound of what was becoming her trademark whistling. Melissa sounded happy, which was a good sign, I figured. At least she had made the effort to pop back and let us know she was OK before she met Rosie. Nevertheless, I was still worried about what she was up to. I knew I would now be spending the next hour and a half watching the clock all over again. Despite Melissa’s demeanour and the reassurances she gave me I was filled with an uneasy feeling from the moment she disappeared from view. I didn’t trust her to come back on time and I was annoyed that I couldn’t follow my instincts and keep her in, safe from harm.
‘Do you think it’s her personality?’ I found myself saying.
‘How do you mean?’ Jonathan asked.
‘I mean, is the real problem that she’s one of those people who finds it difficult to say no?’
‘It could be. That would certainly explain how she is such a nice girl, as well as being such a worry.’
‘Precisely. I don’t think she goes out of her way to deliberately defy us or cause upset, do you? I think she genuinely has good intentions, but things seem to go wrong when she’s with her friends.’
Jonathan frowned. ‘Easily influenced? Gullible? Naive? I guess she may be all of those things.’
‘Yes, and I wonder if she’s like that because of what’s happened to her in the past. Maybe her self-esteem was damaged and that’s dented the confidence she has in herself? So she looks to others for guidance and follows their lead?’
‘Sounds very plausible. The trouble is, the people she looks to aren’t helping. She needs friends who are the same age and aren’t going to lead her astray. Maybe Rosie’s a good influence.’
I thought about this but then started to worry that Rosie was in exactly the same boat as Melissa, going out with TJ’s friend who I imagined was also sixteen or seventeen.
Jonathan encouraged me to watch a film to try to relax. We had the video of Pretty Woman and I chose that. The film had come out a few years earlier and was one of my favourites. Normally I was gripped by it, even though I knew the story well, but this time I couldn’t concentrate. I was thinking about Melissa, wondering what she was doing, if she’d come in on time, and whether she was being talked into doing something she didn’t want to do.
There was no sign of her at nine. We had a grandfather clock in the lounge that chimed loudly, making me catch my breath. I usually felt soothed by its steady, predictable rhythm, but tonight it was a countdown timer, an emergency alarm. Each tick-tock taunted me, plucking at my nerves. I was becoming more anxious and irritated as each second passed.
‘I knew this was going to happen. Why did we even let her go out? I wish we had more power. It seems so ridiculous sitting here. I can’t bear it. It’s like waiting for an accident to happen.’
Jonathan said all the right things, reminding me that attempting to keep Melissa in the house might make her rebel and run away, and then we’d be in a worse position. He also said we couldn’t do anything differently, because if we kept her in then Melissa might put in a complaint to Social Services about us restricting her freedom.
‘I know all this, of course I do. And I can see how frustrating it was for Lynne. Remember she said it’s harder to keep a foster child in the house than one of your own? I can totally see that. The rules we have to follow to safeguard the kids are all well intentioned, but the reality is that in respecting Melissa’s right to freedom we’re potentially allowing her to walk into danger. Sometimes I wonder about Social Services. The rules we have to follow are so rigid, when really we need to be able to follow our instincts, like a parent would.’
Jonathan was frowning again and looking exasperated. We were both finding this placement difficult already, and it was still very early days. He admitted that it felt like our hands were tied and agreed with my point about feeling like we were waiting for an accident to happen. It was such an unpalatable thought and it made me shudder.
‘The fact is, we’re not parents,’ I said ruefully. ‘If we were, I imagine we wouldn’t be letting her out, but who knows? Kids are kids. And as we’ve said before, when you start restraining and restricting a wilful child, their instinct is to rebel. We need to work with Melissa. If she sees us as the enemy we could lose her, and then what? Five weeks is a long time in the life of a vulnerable twelve-year-old.’
We switched the video off when it was less than halfway through. Neither of us was interested. At 9 p.m. we put on the TV news instead. In those days there were no 24-hour, rolling news channels. Tuning in to the BBC and hearing the familiar 9 o’clock theme tune was something we did all the time. It was part of our everyday life, but that night the programme only served to push us even further out of our comfort zone. There was a story about a child killed in a hit-and-run and this sparked a whole new wave of worry in my head.
I resisted the temptation to stand at the window, looking out for Melissa. The grandfather clock chimed at quarter past nine, half past the hour and aga
in at quarter to ten. We switched over to another channel but nothing caught our attention. Jonathan flicked through the paper and I tried to read a magazine.
‘I can’t stand this,’ I said. ‘I’m going to put the kettle on.’
Jonathan put the paper down and immediately got to his feet. ‘I’ll come with you. If she’s not in at ten we’ll call out-of-hours.’
On the way to the kitchen I stopped, unlocked the front door and stepped outside, looking out into the black night and willing Melissa to appear. Everything was still and quiet and I wondered if it might snow. I instinctively looked up at the sky to see if I was able to see any stars. I always do this when I’m out in the dark, whatever the weather. It reminds me of childhood camping trips, when my parents used to point out the constellations and encourage me to make a wish. Thanks to them I grew up associating the stars with hope and possibility, and to this day starry nights always lift my spirits as they remind me never to stop wishing and dreaming.
On this night there was nothing but darkness above, which somehow didn’t surprise me. I stared into it, searching for any glimmer of light, but the sky was a dense black canopy. It didn’t feel like a good omen.
When I came back inside I closed the door but left it unlocked. I’m not normally a superstitious person, but it felt wrong to lock the door when all I wanted was for Melissa to walk through it. Jonathan gave me a hug and rubbed the cold away from my arms and I put the kettle on the hob to boil. When it whistled I thought of Melissa, whistling contentedly to herself. How could such a happy-go-lucky child create so much havoc? Why didn’t she just come in on time? I made the tea but didn’t drink it. I realised I’d only made it for something to do, and not because I was thirsty. I watched the steam disappear slowly as the brown liquid went cold in the cup.
At five to ten we heard footsteps outside and then, finally, we heard the front door opening. Jonathan and I jumped to our feet and rushed to greet Melissa. As we did so, the hallway was flooded with bright light spilling from the kitchen. Melissa looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights as she stepped through the door, and she immediately tried to sidestep us and make for the stairs.
‘Just a minute, Melissa. You’re late. Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, sorry. I’ll go straight to bed. I’m really sorry.’
I hadn’t heard a car outside and I asked her how she’d got home. ‘TJ dropped me off at the top of the road. I’m going to bed now. Sorry. I’m tired. What time’s the doctor’s? Have you been waiting up?’
‘It’s nearly ten o’clock,’ I said, ‘and, yes, we’ve been watching the clock for nearly an hour, Melissa. You really need to come home at the agreed time, or we’re going to have to have a rethink about the rules. You were meant to be in at nine and you told us you would be.’
‘OK, I understand. It won’t happen again. See you tomorrow. Sorry again. Lost track of time.’
I noticed her hand was still a little swollen and she looked generally dishevelled again, with her hair messed up and dirty marks on her tracksuit bottoms. Her eyes were still a bit strange-looking, as they had been earlier, but she didn’t appear to be drunk or high. I found myself feeling very glad we were going to see the doctor and that Melissa herself had asked about the appointment. I hoped that meant she had nothing to hide, and I thought it would be reassuring for the GP to cast his professional eye over her, as maybe he would pick up on anything I may have missed.
I told her what time she needed to be ready for the doctor’s the next day and we let her go to bed. Then I wrote down yet more notes for Social Services.
‘I wish we could do more than write notes and tell the professionals what’s happening,’ I said to Jonathan. ‘Just because everyone knows what’s going on doesn’t make it right, does it?’
Jonathan shook his head. He looked really tired and he had to get up very early in the morning to go to the wholesaler. We had a part-time worker coming in to help us in the shop, as we had done ever since we’d become specialist carers, but even so Jonathan was going to have his work cut out tomorrow.
‘You get to bed and I’ll lock up and switch everything off down here,’ I told him.
By the time I got up to the bedroom Jonathan was already falling asleep, and when I finally put my head on the pillow he was sleeping soundly. I lay silently beside him, my brain whirring. I wanted to help Melissa make the right choices in her life but I felt powerless.
I was drowsy but unable to sleep. Yet the next thing I knew I was waking up from a fitful sleep, remembering a dream. In it Melissa had gone missing in the dead of night. There was a major police search launched and I saw Jonathan and me on the TV news, talking to police officers and telling people she had long red hair and was good at whistling. We gave a news conference and then the whole world started looking for Melissa.
I sat bolt upright in bed, staring into the darkness. What would happen if Melissa really did go missing, perhaps the very next time she went out with TJ, or Sonia, or Rosie? What if she disappeared and was never found? What if something terrible happened to her? I started to imagine what people would think if Melissa really was in the news because the police were looking for her. Would they point the finger at us, and at Social Services, and ask why we couldn’t collectively have done more to keep her safe?
What more can we all do? I thought. How can we protect her better? I’m not sure if I spoke the words out loud, but Jonathan stirred.
‘What?’
‘It’s OK,’ I whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Yes. I was just thinking about Melissa.’
‘There’s nothing more we can do,’ he said, yawning. ‘We have to sleep.’
‘But what if we hear her running off?’ I hissed, feeling a sudden stab of fear.
‘We’ll do our best to stop her, but . . .’
Jonathan stopped talking and let out a long, dejected sigh.
‘But what?’
‘But the fact is we have no power. All we have is words.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘Maybe. Hopefully. Get some sleep, Angela.’
At about three in the morning I got up to go to the toilet. I’d drifted in and out of sleep again and felt exhausted. As I padded across the bedroom carpet I heard a noise upstairs so I crept onto our landing. Straining my ears, I tried to work out what it was. I could see a light was on upstairs and I slowly headed towards it. Of course, the light was coming from Melissa’s room, as was the sound of her whistling quietly to herself, and the hairdryer going on and off.
I reached the landing on the top floor of the house. Melissa’s bedroom door was wide open and as I approached I could see that she was sitting at the dressing table, wearing one of her tracksuits, blow-drying her hair as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
‘What are you doing? It’s three o’clock.’
She didn’t seem at all bothered that I’d found her like this.
‘I know. Mad, isn’t it? I couldn’t sleep. I decided to wash my hair, because it takes ages to do and I thought I could have a lie-in in the morning, before we go to see the doctor.’
‘Aren’t you tired?’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t sleep.’
I told her I knew the feeling, and we ended up going down to the kitchen and each having a mug of warm milk. Melissa dunked malted milk biscuits in her drink and started telling me all about her friend Sonia and the baby.
‘He’s absolutely gorgeous. She’s called him Kazim. He’s got lovely light brown eyes. I told her they look like Maltesers! He’s so adorable.’
‘Kazim? That’s a Muslim name. Is she Muslim?’
‘No, but her fella was.’
‘She’s not with him now?’
‘No. It’s a real shame. He broke her heart. She thought naming the baby after him might make him stay but it didn’t.’
Sonia sounded very young and naive. I asked Melissa exactly how old she was and she said she was sixteen.
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‘She was lucky to get a council flat as soon as she turned sixteen. She wasn’t on the list for long.’
‘I suppose she was. How old is the baby?’
‘He’s nearly two.’
I was shocked, though I tried not to show it. I’d expected the baby to be much younger than that, given Sonia’s age.
‘So Kazim is a toddler, and Sonia must have been fourteen when she had her son?’ I said evenly.
‘Yeah. She’d had an abortion before that too. She always said she wanted her own family when she was young but her family made her get rid of the first one. They didn’t like her boyfriend and thought he’d clear off after that, but he didn’t – not then, anyhow. She loved him and thought they’d get married, but when Sonia got pregnant again he didn’t want to know.’
Melissa then started telling me that Sonia came from a ‘crappy family’. It seemed her stepbrother had once said to her, ‘I’d shag you if you weren’t family’ and Sonia’s dad was in prison for raping a teenager. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It sounded so extreme I wondered if it could be true, but who would lie about such things? I considered whether Sonia had been truthful in what she’d told Melissa, or whether Melissa was exaggerating or trying to shock me, though what purpose that might serve I had no idea.
When Melissa finished talking and I felt she had no more to say, at least not then, I started to tell her a bit more about my own family, and Jonathan’s. I wanted her to realise that the things she was describing, and the worlds she was involved in, were unusual and that she should aspire for the best life possible. I spoke about how I met Jonathan at a local dance when we were both seventeen. I was the younger of two children but grew up feeling like an only child, as my brother was fourteen years my senior. I felt loved and cherished as a child, despite the fact things were not perfect: my father had a drink problem when I was young, and I mentioned this to make the point that my childhood had not been completely charmed.