by Rosie Lewis
Jenny returned a few minutes later, having settled Phoebe at a wooden table on the patio, a large assortment of pens and crayons laid out in front of her. She had left the garden doors open just an inch, probably so that we could talk in private.
‘Here he is!’ she cried as a dark-haired little boy walked shyly into the room, a cuddly toy clutched in his hand. He made straight for Jenny, burying his face in her skirt before peering shyly at us from behind her legs.
‘Hello, Billy,’ I said, crouching to greet him. Rachel, with Katy in her arms, waved hello with her free hand.
Billy glanced up at Jenny several times, seeking reassurance. I could almost visualise the thoughts behind those questioning eyes. Were these adults to be trusted or were they like the ones he had known before? Three years old, Billy had been placed with Jenny five months earlier due to severe neglect. The change in him over that period was staggering. She smiled down at him.
‘You remember Rosie, don’t you, sweetie? And that’s Rachel,’ she murmured softly.
‘Wosie and Wakel,’ he lisped sweetly, daring a smile.
‘What have you got there, Billy?’ I asked. He glanced up at Jenny again. On another smile from her he walked over and rested a plump hand on my knee, lifting his cuddly toy until it was a few centimetres from my eyes.
‘Bunny,’ he said. ‘Jenny got him for me.’
I felt a moment’s tightening in my stomach, a longing for the all-encompassing, defining comfort that young children offer.
Jenny grinned, her expression doting. ‘Come on, Billy. Let’s introduce you to Phoebe and you can do some colouring with her.’ I felt a familiar prickle of anxiety as she took Billy’s hand and led him to the table, wondering whether Phoebe could be trusted to be in such close proximity with a little one. So I took a seat in one of the armchairs nearest the garden, close enough to leap up at the first sign of trouble.
While the kettle boiled, Jenny answered the door to Liz, a former primary school head teacher who had made the decision to give up the position she had worked hard to achieve so that she could focus on her ambition of improving the futures of under-privileged children by helping them achieve academically.
Jenny came in with a tray laden with tea, pastries and biscuits. As Rachel reached for her tea, I marvelled at how she found time to match her lipstick with her nail polish. Running my bitten fingernails through my own less than neat hair, I realised I could learn a few lessons from her.
‘So how’s it going?’ Liz murmured, lowering herself onto a bright pink beanbag next to the sofa.
‘Apart from the plate-throwing, kicking, swearing and self-harming, you mean?’ I answered wryly. ‘Couldn’t be better. How about you?’
Liz had recently taken on a 14-year-old girl who had worked her way through four carers in three months. I knew she was reluctant to give up on her but it was clear her extreme behaviour was taking its toll on the family.
Liz dragged her hands down her face and sighed. ‘I had to take her to A&E the other day. She came in around lunchtime, staggering around the house like she’d had a stroke. Her eyes were glazed over and she couldn’t formulate her words, not that she’s that coherent at the best of times. Anyway, doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong with her and gave her a CAT scan. Turns out the girl had inserted a tampon inside herself – soaked in gin.’
‘What?’ we exclaimed in horrified unison. ‘Why?’
Liz rolled her eyes. ‘New craze, apparently. The smell is undetectable that way and they can get away with consuming litres of the stuff, even at school.’
‘No!’ We stared at each other in amazement and I made a mental note to contact Ellie, the glamorous local authority tutor, so that she could add yet another shocker to her list of outrageous facts.
I found myself relaxing into the armchair, the adult contact reviving me. I loved our regular meet-ups. There was a camaraderie among us that reminded me of being back at school, each of us understanding the unique challenges that came with fostering. The gossip and scandal helped me feel less isolated, part of a team, but most valuable of all was the mutual support and kindness. Our backgrounds were quite different: Jenny was the middle-class one and probably the only carer in our group who could still afford to foster if there was no allowance available. Her husband ran some sort of internet trading company based in London, staying in the city and travelling back home for weekends. With both of her own children at university, I got the impression that Jenny would have been lonely, if not for the company of the children she fostered.
Liz had been drawn to fostering after working at an inner-city school where the catchment area took in several housing estates. She had often sent the most deprived children home with a few treats tucked into their book bag but for years had longed to take a more direct role in helping to improve their long-term prospects. Often she would come out with depressing statistics about how children fared once they left the care system, radiating frustration as she told us that 40 per cent of the prison population had spent time in care as children and almost one third of fostered children leave school with no qualifications. Her determination to make a difference was inspiring and I loved her company, but of all the foster carers I knew Rachel was the one I probably felt closest to.
In many ways we mirrored each other in our life experiences. Soon after the birth of her second child Rachel had moved with her husband to the US, returning six months later as a single parent. During one of our coffee mornings she had tearfully confided in me that, while she had found the move to an unfamiliar country difficult, her husband had embraced all that was American, reserving most enthusiasm, it seemed, for its female citizens.
Fostering gave Rachel the opportunity to gain the large, happy family she had always yearned for, as well as helping to distract her from her own angst by turning her focus outwards. The sense of achievement she gained from helping children was gradually boosting her battered self-esteem, but, like me, Rachel was one of those carers who found it difficult to let go and so, for her, fostering was a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
‘Have you heard how Tess and Harry are doing?’ Jenny asked. ‘Can’t be long now until you meet up with them, is it?’
Jenny must have noticed my crestfallen face because she quickly added, ‘Oh dear,’ before I’d even managed to nod my head or gather a response. The trauma of yesterday’s letter had settled into a background ache but still it was hard to ignore and there was a quaver in my voice as I spoke: ‘They’ve decided to make a clean break – I got a letter from the couple yesterday.’
They all listened, Rachel pressing her hands to her heart and shaking her head as my eyes filled up. ‘Ah, but they were so attached to you,’ she said, her dangly earrings trembling in a heartfelt way as if each bead was independently attuned to our conversation.
‘The inevitable happened, then?’ Jenny asked.
What I needed from Jenny and the others at that moment was indignation to match my own, so I took the remark badly.
‘It wasn’t inevitable,’ I said spikily. I wanted to dissect the new parents’ failure to keep their promises of staying in touch and was ready to welcome bitter remarks from all. The more vitriol the better, as far as I was concerned. I was thirsty for it, such was the mood I was in. ‘It didn’t have to be that way – I could have been auntie to them and …’
Jenny eyed me sceptically and teased: ‘You would never have taken a back seat, honey, not in a million years. The poor new mummy would have been constantly fending you off.’
I possessed enough self-awareness to recognise that Jenny’s remarks contained grains of truth. Probably it would have been difficult for me to stand back and not offer ‘helpful’ advice but that realisation made her comments prickle all the more.
‘Of course she wouldn’t,’ I protested, a defensive edge to my tone.
Jenny scoffed. ‘Yeah, right! It would have been “Are you sure that nursery is a good idea?” and “I really don’t think they’re old enough to s
tay with relatives while you swan off for the weekend …”’
The others joined in with a fusillade of quips, bouncing off one another with the ease that only well-meaning friends can, and I soon surrendered, laughing along with them. Despite the mockery, I could sense the flare of fellow feeling among the four of us – I knew that I wasn’t alone in grieving for children lost to me. In their own way, my friends were rallying round in the best way they could – helping me to see that my fostering really shouldn’t ever be about me. What mattered, over and above my own feelings, was the welfare of the children.
If we were honest, each of us drew many personal benefits from the ‘job’. None of us were saints. Besides the immense satisfaction of helping someone, fostering was the perfect antidote to a sense of worthlessness. Since registering I no longer felt quite such a waste of space. And it was also true that foster carers without a sense of humour should find themselves a new career.
‘They only need one mummy, honey,’ Liz said as she leaned over and patted my leg.
Chapter 13
On the fourth Saturday after her arrival it was Phoebe’s ninth birthday. We arrived back from the contact session with her parents armed with several large carrier bags full of presents. The hour spent with them had passed pretty much as it had the previous week. Phoebe cuddled up affectionately with her father; her mother largely ignored as she hovered beside them like a spare part, offering presents up to her daughter, who pouted sulkily and snatched them away.
Half of the gifts were still wrapped; she simply hadn’t enough time to work her way through the huge pile, let alone play with any of them. Not that there were any toys, as such. The packages she had managed to open struck me as inappropriate for a young girl; there was lip gloss, jewellery, even expensive clothes, but no actual toys. Where was the Lego, colouring pens or puzzles? I wondered. From her reaction it was clear that Phoebe had little interest in any of it. As soon as we got through the door she asked Jamie if he wanted to go and play in the garden again, leaving the bags in a discarded heap at the bottom of the stairs.
It wasn’t an unusual state of affairs. Most parents overindulged their children with ‘stuff’ when they were in care and I often thought it was a way of easing their guilt. The trouble was, with such an abundance of possessions, the children had little chance of appreciating any of them. No item had special significance to them and not only that, but I had to try and find space to keep it all, which wasn’t easy, especially when several children were in placement.
In my experience, when children were in care long-term, they learnt to expect ‘easy money’ with no concept of its true value. By their teenage years, those who had been in the system for years often ended up materialistically minded, with a deep-seated attitude of entitlement. It was hardly surprising that some children left care at the age of 18 believing that the world owed them a living.
Besides gifts from guilt-ridden relatives, foster carers are given a weekly allowance that must be spent on clothes and toys. From my weekly allowance I was obliged to put aside £10 in savings for Phoebe. She was also given £11.50 a week pocket money to spend on whatever she liked, far more than my own children ever got. On top of that there was a clothes allowance of £22 a week, which she was allowed to spend on items of her choice. For 11–18-year-olds the allowances were even more generous.
While children are in care, their parents’ family allowance isn’t stopped, even though the state pays hundreds of pounds a week to house the children elsewhere. So it was a shock for me to learn, when I first began fostering, that if a child returns home, the savings of £10 a week are paid to their parents as a lump sum, to spend as they see fit.
Fearing the lump sum would be spent on alcohol and drugs, when previous placements have come to an end I have asked for permission to pay the savings in the form of supermarket vouchers, so at least the money might be spent on food for the children, but social workers have always insisted that it is the parents’ right to receive the sum as cash or cheque.
As I lugged Phoebe’s heavy bags upstairs to her room, I pictured myself handing a cheque over to the Steadmans on Phoebe’s return to their large detached home and bristled at the thought. It wasn’t that they were clearly already wealthy, that really was none of my business, but there was something about Robin Steadman that set my teeth on edge. Perhaps it was just that he was a bit too smooth. Whatever my own feelings, it had to be said that he seemed to have developed a much closer relationship with his daughter than his wife had. It was puzzling to see how isolated Phillipa Steadman seemed whenever the family were together.
Halfway through the day I called Jamie and Phoebe in from the garden for lunch, still hardly able to absorb that they were getting on so well. Even more surprising, Phoebe was first to sit at the table and Jamie actually chose to sit next to her, clearly no longer feeling vulnerable to the threat of wet fingers or flying crockery.
Emily took a break from her revision to join us at the dinner table and I noticed that Phoebe seemed to be studying my daughter, watching her take bites of her sandwich as closely as someone who might be tested on the subject later. ‘Can I try some of that?’ Phoebe asked eventually as Emily picked up the next half of her sandwich.
‘Of course you can,’ I shot back quickly, rushing into the kitchen to prepare her a cheese sandwich, cutting it into triangles so it would appear exactly like Emily’s. Racing back to the table, I planted the food straight in front of her, before she had a chance to change her mind. Emily and Jamie stared between the plate and Phoebe with their mouths open, eager to see what she planned to do with a piece of actual solid food.
Having learnt the hard way when Jamie was a toddler that being too keen for a child to eat can put them off, I drew Emily and Jamie’s attention away from her, gaily prattling on about what television series we might start to watch next. We had recently caught up with all available episodes of Lost and had so far failed to find an equally absorbing replacement. They both fired suggestions across the table and I offered one or two of my own, all the while watching Phoebe out of the corner of my eye.
She poked the bread on her plate several times as if suspicious it might be a living organism. Apparently reassured that it wouldn’t grow arms and throttle her she leaned over and took a cautious sniff. Straightening, she pinched the edge of one of the triangles between forefinger and thumb, and plucked off the tiniest piece of bread. Lifting it to her mouth, she tentatively brushed it against her lips and held it there for a long moment, as if in danger of it biting back.
For goodness’ sake, just eat it, I thought, willing her to take the plunge. She did, rolling the bread over in her mouth with the relish of a child being forced to eat cotton wool. There was a pause during which I held my breath, praying she wouldn’t start retching. She glanced around at us but I averted my gaze, suggesting casually to Emily and Jamie that it might be worth giving Grey’s Anatomy a go.
Within ten minutes Phoebe had managed to eat two whole triangles, which amounted to one full slice of bread. Emily, Jamie and I exchanged furtive but exhilarated glances, both of them looking every bit as pleased as I was. It seemed such a momentous event that I was tempted to cheer but restrained myself, instead suggesting we make the most of the continuing sunshine by taking a walk to the park.
Gone was Jamie’s reluctance to join in. He leapt up and asked if he could fetch the scooters from the shed so that he and Phoebe could ride there and back. If ever there was a moment when I wished I had a camera at my fingertips it was then. Phoebe’s face was a picture; she looked so chuffed that my eyes actually filled up. It made me wonder whether she had ever actually had any friends of her own.
After an uneventful and therefore enjoyable trip to the park, we walked back via our local parade of shops. Phoebe stopped short outside the local charity shop, abandoning her scooter on the pavement and standing frozen to the spot, staring into the window. At first I thought she was studying her reflection and expected her to begin remonstrat
ing at any moment, flinging her arms around manically as she had on most of our other trips.
By the time Jamie and I had caught up with her she turned to me with a pleading expression. ‘Could I please buy that, Rosie? With my pocket money?’
That was a pirate’s outfit displayed on a small mannequin in the window. ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ I said, knowing that if we bought second-hand I couldn’t be sure that it was made with fire-retardant material. ‘It’s not new so …’ I went on, but her crestfallen expression stopped me mid-sentence. If Phoebe was my own child I wouldn’t have hesitated but I knew how meticulously the rules had to be followed when caring for Looked After Children.
‘Oh, please, Rosie.’ She looked at me so earnestly that I thought, sod it – we were always being told to treat foster children as we would our own so I wasn’t going to turn her down. How funny, I mused, as we went into the shop and the assistant retrieved the pirate dress from display – Phoebe had four bags of unopened presents in her room and yet fixated on an item that cost £2.50. As it turned out, the dress hadn’t even been worn. All the labels were still attached, confirming that it was originally purchased at Marks & Spencer, which allayed my fears that it might be a rogue item from a dubious source.
Before we reached the gate Phoebe was removing her jumper in her excitement to try the dress on. Minutes later she emerged from the bathroom and performed a twirl, a huge grin plastered on her face.
‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘looking good, but not quite the genuine article yet.’
Her face dropped. ‘Why not?’
‘A-ha, come with me,’ I said, putting on the accent of a pirate. Energised by the improvement in her symptoms, I was pleased to find my playful side was emerging. I loved playing with children, whipping up their capacity for imaginary games. The last few weeks with Phoebe had been so draining that I’d almost forgotten she was still a child who needed to be stimulated.