by Rosie Lewis
Chapter 26
Over the next couple of days, Phoebe resembled a ghost as she wandered around the house, her alabaster complexion shocking me every time I walked into the same room. It was also unsettling to find her so utterly compliant: there were no protests, no tantrums. She did exactly as I asked of her without a single complaint. Her hair, though lustrous with all the attention and conditioner I had lavished on it, only amplified the colourlessness of her skin. There was a residue of shock in her eyes, their glassy stillness conveying such vulnerability that I just wanted to wrap her up and hold her, anything to break her out of her morbid reverie.
I wondered if her dream-like state was her mind’s way of protecting itself, defensively shutting down all but the necessary processes. Her father’s betrayal had injured her body but also her mind and it was my theory that his assaults, however long they had been going on, had triggered her descent into mental illness. From our conversations, I still hadn’t managed to glean what age she was when he first began the abuse, but I suspected it was early on. Perhaps she would always have developed autism – I had no way of proving otherwise – but I suspected that the abuse had moved her way down the spectrum, drastically exacerbating her condition.
On one level, I reasoned, maybe this was a glimmer of good news. If abuse had made her illness worse, then surely freeing herself by talking about it would have the opposite effect? Before her disclosure I had witnessed a dramatic reduction in the strange movements and weird gait as she walked, the result, I thought, of being moved to a safe environment. She no longer felt the need to repel untrustworthy adults with alarming behaviour. There was no doubt that bringing the abuse to the forefront of her mind had caused a downward mental spiral but I hoped that by releasing the harrowing memories she would finally let go of some of the trauma that accompanied them.
I hadn’t told Emily or Jamie any of the details of her disclosure but they could sense there had been a breakthrough of some sort. As far as I was concerned they deserved some sort of award for the renewed effort they put in with her, inviting her to play board games or offering up their electronic gadgets. I had said there was a problem with Phoebe’s father and I think Emily immediately put two and two together. Jamie, though usually like a dog with a bone, didn’t question me further, so perhaps he had an idea about what had happened as well. Either that or he preferred not to know. It wasn’t to remain a secret for much longer anyway.
As was often the case, Phoebe began to confide in them. Youngsters often find it easier to talk to their peers, one of the reasons why the children of foster carers grow up fast. At first she revealed small nuggets of information, which Emily and Jamie would then relay to me but by the end of the week she was discussing her history openly in front of us all while watching TV, in the car, or, most often, at the dinner table. It turned out Mum had been right about the floodgates. Once they creaked open there was no stemming the flow.
Her openness took its toll on all of us, proving a double-edged sword. I wanted her to feel secure enough to tell us anything, and clearly she did, but there was a limit to what I wanted Jamie to hear. With Emily it wasn’t as bad since she was older, but I worried about the effect Phoebe’s talk would have on my son.
I was also anxious about the effect it had on her. With each confession, rather than showing some sense of relief, her mood seemed to grow darker. After school she would immediately change into her pyjamas and lie on the sofa or the rug, not wanting to move. Eventually even Jamie’s invitations to play Wii fell on deaf ears. Lenke assured me that Phoebe’s name was on the waiting list for counselling but I regularly pressured her to try and hurry things along.
As the long summer holidays neared I was hoping for a fundamental shift in her mood. As a family the six weeks away from the usual routine was our most favourite time of year. I loved the children being off, especially now they were older and we could visit different places without worrying about all the paraphernalia that comes with taking young children out.
A few weeks before the end of the summer term, we sat at the dinner table discussing options for our holiday. Jamie suggested camping but Emily’s plans were more ambitious.
‘We could rent a cottage in France or Italy. Aisha’s going to Lake Garda next week – I’m soooo jealous!’
‘Hmmm, not sure our finances would stretch to that,’ I said, plus we didn’t have a passport for Phoebe. Also I wasn’t sure that I was confident enough to take her so far away from home in her current state of mind. As foster carers we were entitled to two weeks’ leave a year, when any children in placement could be moved to another carer, but so far I hadn’t taken advantage of it. It seemed unfair to ship Phoebe off when she would probably love a holiday as much as we would. ‘I was thinking more of a cottage in Norfolk or something. We could invite Nanny, if you like?’
‘Boring!’ Jamie rolled his eyes. ‘I want to go snowboarding or canoeing.’
‘What do you think, Phoebe?’
She gave a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t like holidays.’
‘Why not?’ I had a feeling that the answer wouldn’t be that palatable.
‘When we go on holiday Daddy always gives me a bath. The noises follow me everywhere – he hurts me lots of times.’
We all froze, still shocked even though we’d heard it many times by then. Jamie held his fork in mid-air and Emily lowered her gaze to her plate, unsure of how to react. As Jamie had almost finished his dinner, I asked if he would mind taking his plate out and then going out to get the washing from the line. He hesitated for a moment, disgusted and yet captivated at the same time. A wave of my hand and a slight nod of my head got him moving. Emily watched us carefully, her face a picture of intrigue.
‘Em, would you make a start on the dishes?’ I piped up.
She looked as though she might protest, but I gave her a look and she started clearing the plates, piling them in the crook of her elbow.
Unprompted, Phoebe dropped her spoon back into the untouched bowl of porridge in front of her and told me that her father sometimes inserted objects inside of her. It was an effort not to gasp. I managed to suppress my horror but what I wasn’t so good at was keeping my facial expressions under control. My ex-husband always said I had a plate-glass forehead and it seemed Phoebe could read my thoughts too.
‘Why do you look so upset, Rosie?’
Annoyed with myself, I rubbed my hands up and down my face as if physically trying to erase my revulsion. But then, I thought, perhaps there were times when it was best to be honest.
‘Because I am upset, sweetie – it’s a good thing that you’ve told me and you’re very brave but I’m sad that you had to go through that. No mummy wants to think of a child being hurt that badly.’
‘Why doesn’t my mummy get upset then?’
Chapter 27
Phoebe spoke without a shred of self-pity, as if her mother had supported her father in chastising her over some everyday event, like blaming her unfairly for breaking a vase or spilling her drink on the carpet, rather than being complicit in incestuous rape.
‘Does Mummy know that Daddy hurts you then?’ I knew it was a leading question but my thoughts were reeling, so much so that following the correct procedure went out of the window.
She nodded, picking up the end of her spoon and absent-mindedly twirling her cold porridge around in the bowl.
‘How does she know?’
When I heard her answer it felt like a physical blow.
‘She watches.’
She said it simply, as if what she said was not unimaginably awful.
‘Mummy says that all little girls have it done and I shouldn’t moan about it or tell anyone or Daddy won’t love me any more.’
Stunned was almost too mild a word for the way I was feeling. It was as if a syringe of ice water had been injected directly into my chest; the cold feeling spread through my stomach and down into my legs. Suddenly the smell of cooked vegetables lingering in the room became intolerable, winding
its way into my throat and setting off a fresh spasm of nausea that left me feeling physically weak. My face reddened and I realised I was holding my breath. Phoebe noticed.
‘You look like you’re going to cry. Please don’t cry, Rosie.’
So much for autistic children being unable to read facial expressions.
‘I’m not going to cry, honey. I’m just sad, that’s all. And cross, but not with you.’
‘Why cross?’
‘Because it’s not true – little girls shouldn’t have that done to them. It’s wrong and Mummy and Daddy have done something very bad.’
For the first time in the conversation her face crumpled. She looked stricken.
‘It’s not your fault, sweetie,’ I said quickly, reaching out and squeezing the hand that was resting in her lap. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’
After a few beats she got up and walked lethargically over to me, leaning her weight against my side. Pushing my chair out, I held out my arms and she sat on my lap. When I encircled her in an embrace she leaned back, resting her head in the crook of my elbow like a young baby. I hoped she couldn’t feel the panicked thrumming of my heart against my chest as she lay there.
It wasn’t as if I’d never heard of a woman aiding a man in abusing children, but somehow I’d dismissed the possibility of ever coming across it myself. Any woman capable of a crime so hideous would chill me as deeply as the black-and-white speckled prints of Myra Hindley always had, surely? And yet I had sat at the same table as Phillipa Steadman. I had even, I thought, with a fresh spinning in my stomach, shaken her hand. The thought disgusted me. How had I not seen what she was? I was angry, remembering that I’d even felt sorry for her when Phoebe lashed out at her in the pizza parlour and then I remembered with a rush of guilt that I had thought Phoebe was behaving like a spoilt brat.
I took deep breaths to calm my racing thoughts, trying to order them linearly so that I had a better chance of accurately recording what Phoebe had said. If the case went to court my diaries might form part of the prosecution’s case. Precise information was vital and it would be best to note down our conversations verbatim.
After a while her eyelids drooped and so I roused her, suggesting she go and lie on the sofa for a while. She was all too willing to get into her pyjamas – I think there was a certain security in knowing the unconsciousness of sleep lay not too far away – and she said she would prefer to lie on her own bed. Her eagerness to remove herself from our company worried me but, if I’m honest, I felt an overwhelming need to distance myself from her and so I agreed.
While she rested I sat at the computer and tried to record everything she had said as accurately as I possibly could. Emily brought me a cup of coffee, setting it in front of me and silently kissing the top of my head. When my report was complete, I emailed a copy to Lenke and copied Des in too, hoping he would call as soon as he read it. Once again I felt a compulsion to discuss it with someone, to reduce the impact Phoebe’s words had on me.
Shutting down the computer, I stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening for any sounds of movement. There was nothing. I returned 15 minutes later but it was still silent so I quickly climbed the stairs two at a time and tiptoed across the hall, peering around the door to check on her. Remarkably, Phoebe lay unscathed after a conversation that had left me in shreds. Her quilt was thrown to one side and her dark outline stretched out in what appeared to be a relaxed posture.
As I stood watching her, terrible images of what she’d told me catapulted themselves into my brain again. If this was what it felt like just to have knowledge of her history, what on earth must it have been like to live through it? I couldn’t help but wonder what scenes replayed in her mind when the lights went out. No wonder the poor child woke up screaming in the night. But there she was, all her bodily organs functioning as they should – lungs breathing air, heart pumping oxygen around her system.
Despite everything, she was surviving. I marvelled then at the resilience of the human spirit.
Chapter 28
Over the next couple of weeks Phoebe’s mood circled, going from depression to fury until exhaustion, then spinning back to a lethargic low. For me the frustrating thing was that the violent outbursts or sessions of prolonged, loud wailing would occur out of the blue, just when I thought we were making some progress towards recovery. Each episode would be followed by yet another disclosure, though none could have shocked me more than when she told me that her mother had taken a role, albeit a passive one, in her sexual abuse. Although it was sickening to hear her stories, I hoped that by talking about the abuse she was changing the balance of power, taking the authority away from her abusers and thereby liberating herself.
Much of her anger was directed at me and I got the impression she blamed me in some way, perhaps for being the one who had finally prised her secrets out of her. She would kick out at me as I passed by, though never actually daring to make contact. I think the relationship we had built prevented her from taking a step too far and she knew I simply wouldn’t tolerate it, but she would come dangerously close before swerving and inflicting her fury on a cupboard or piece of furniture.
It was a fair enough response, I reasoned. If she hadn’t made any disclosures she would already have been back home with her mother and father. Even though the status quo was terrible, it was a horror that she knew well. There was a strange comfort in the familiar, even if the familiar was terrible abuse. Besides, most children have a fierce loyalty towards their parents, however undeserved it may be, and Phoebe was no exception. Lenke confirmed that contact with her parents was suspended, perhaps indefinitely, depending on what happened legally. Arrangements were being made for Phoebe to be interviewed by experienced police officers from the local Child Protection Team but I hadn’t heard anything since a hurried telephone conversation with the social worker.
Telling Phoebe the news that she wouldn’t be seeing her parents for the foreseeable future was a task that fell to me, but for several days I had been putting it off. Already she was struggling to come to terms with what I imagined she saw as her betrayal of them. It seemed brutal to twist the knife that bit further.
Phoebe tended to drift from day to day in a sort of ‘not quite there’ haze, with us working around her as best as we could. The only time when she seemed to be truly lucid was when she was in a rage. Watching her go through such turmoil was an emotional drain and we all felt it; even Emily and Jamie looked tired.
Getting her to school was an exhausting enough feat in itself. My own children would join in with the encouragement as I ran through all the exciting things she might get up to each day, trying to coax her into her uniform and out of the door. She would fold her arms and adopt that splayed legs pose of hers, the one that told us she wouldn’t be going anywhere without a fight. The funny thing was I was certain that her refusal to comply had nothing to do with naughtiness or obstinacy – that would have been more easily dealt with. She seemed to be genuinely terrified of the place.
Some mornings she was so anxious about leaving the house that her whole body would tremble. Even the hair on her head shook if we got so far as the car on the driveway. Her nerves reached a climax as we approached the school gates and then, if we were lucky, she would calm slightly and plateau, at least enough for me to guide her into the playground. Her teachers, aware of the problem, made the concession that I should be allowed to line up with her and escort her into the classroom.
I think Phoebe’s class teacher and some of the support staff felt ashamed once I had given them an overview of what she had endured at home. The knowledge that they had failed to respond to her attempts to reach out for help must have pained them, although the children they taught had such high levels of need that I knew it can’t have been easy for them to provide individual care.
Accompanying her to the classroom seemed to help her a little but each time I made a move to leave she would cling to my arm and fix me with such a look of despair that I felt physically s
ick. Only after several ‘cross my heart’ promises that I would come back for her would she let me go.
Another Google search offered some enlightenment on her behaviour. I read about some parents who had been hauled through the court system, accused of allowing their children to truant. Some of the families claimed their child suffered from ‘school phobia’. It seemed that children who had suffered loss or bereavement were most likely to develop separation anxiety, which in turn caused a fear of going to school. With all that Phoebe had been through and the sudden loss of her family, her fear of abandonment wasn’t surprising; finding a name to tag onto the problem felt like a positive step forwards but I had a feeling that telling Phoebe the news about her parents would set us back even further.
Knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer, I waited for a moment when Emily and Jamie were busy upstairs and then invited Phoebe to come and join me on the sofa for a chat. Her look was pensive, an anxious ‘Oh no, what now?’ expression, the sort that should never appear on the face of a child so young.
Tears streamed down her face as soon as I mentioned her parents, before I’d even revealed the news about contact. Holding her hand, I said, ‘And so a wise man, called a judge, is going to decide when you’re next going to see Mummy and Daddy. But the wise man is very busy and so it might take a little while before we find out what he thinks is best.’
Phoebe was beside herself. She wept, sobbing into my shoulder, her hands clinging onto my top so tightly that the knuckles went white. ‘Can I just see Daddy quickly then? Just for a little while? Please, Rosie. Please! We could go to his office.’ Her eyes were wide and panicked. ‘I know where he works – we could go on a train. P-l-ease take me, Rosie.’
‘Why is it you want to see Daddy but not Mummy?’ I couldn’t help myself; I had to ask the question that had been puzzling me since I first discovered her mother’s complicity in the abuse – why Phoebe seemed able to forgive her father, when he was the actual perpetrator.