by Rosie Lewis
It often worked and this time was no exception. Phoebe sat up and yawned, stretching her arms above her head.
‘OK.’
When I had told Emily of my latest ploy to try and stir Phoebe from despondency by getting her to make things, my inventive daughter had come up with the idea of trying to sell what she made at a car boot sale. Phoebe, though she lacked interest in most things, had seemed to like the idea.
She followed me to the table and, caught by surprise, I bustled around gathering pieces of card and paintbrushes, trying to hurry before she lost what enthusiasm she had managed to muster. For the next hour we sat side by side, carefully ruling lines on the card and then cutting to make small rectangles.
Phoebe’s efforts were half-hearted at first, but once she’d produced her first bookmark and witnessed my reaction (I heaped so much praise on her on seeing the end result that anyone looking through the window might have thought she’d presented me with a winning lottery ticket) she was eager to do more, even embarking on two at a time. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her; she was so absorbed and worked with such care. I hoped that the activity quelled the upset that must have been churning inside her and that the temporary solace would seep into her mind, a subliminal message to train her brain to feel at ease. I was convinced that it was the small moments in each day that would teach her there was a future, not too far away, when she would feel something other than sorrow.
There was still a long way to go, but her parents hadn’t totally obliterated her spirit. I felt suddenly so proud of her. And seeing her small face breaking into a faint smile as she presented me with her second bookmark, even though it didn’t quite yet reach her eyes, gave me the confidence that with our support she would get there.
Chapter 31
Salvation comes in unexpected ways and it was only as Phoebe began to lose her fear of leaving my side that I fully appreciated that hope had arrived. It turned out that she was an entrepreneur in the making, branching out from bookmarks to produce a whole range of products, including birthday cards and beaded bracelets made from macramé.
On the day of the much anticipated car boot sale I felt a warm-blooded, buoyant feeling in my stomach. Besides her excitement for the sale I sensed a re-emerging interest in the world around Phoebe was a sure sign of her recovery. Her appetite had increased and for a few weeks I had only cooked porridge on a couple of occasions, something I was thrilled about since the sight of the stuff sparked vivid memories of her retching and made me physically ill.
We pulled our overloaded car into the site of the sale at 6.30am. It was a windy day and as we tried to set up, the signs that Emily and Phoebe had so carefully prepared kept blowing over so that they were unreadable. Worried no one would show any interest in Phoebe’s wares I had invited as many friends and neighbours as I could and, loyally, many of them turned up, each of them making a small purchase.
At first Phoebe hovered behind Emily, Jamie and me, refusing to involve herself, but as the morning went on she seemed to come to life – excited, I think, to see the things she had produced were in demand. Her eyes lost their weepy look and I completely lost any guilt I felt in setting her up.
With over half of her stock sold she gained the confidence to take the front line, even taking the money herself and counting out the change carefully, her lips moving as she worked out the amounts. It might not sound like that much of a big deal but it was a seismic step forwards as far as I was concerned.
It was as big a surprise to me as to her then to find that many other customers were showing an interest, actual strangers I’d never met before. I wasn’t sure whether they were kindly passers-by who could tell that what we were selling was the work of a child, or if they genuinely liked what they saw, but many of them bought something.
As the crowds dispersed and just a few stragglers remained our table was virtually empty. While I took down the larger signs and balloons then folded up the paste table, Emily and Jamie, excited by the sight of the full money tin, were trying to convince Phoebe to let them buy into her business. Their enthusiasm soaked into her so that, not only was there a change in her energy, but also her colour. She looked as if someone had taken a brush and painted some pink on her cheeks.
Later that evening Phoebe arranged herself between Emily and me on the sofa, lying on her stomach with her elbows down and chin resting in her hands. We were halfway through watching an American sitcom when Jamie got up and went into the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards for food, even though he’d only finished dinner an hour earlier.
‘Pause it for me, Mum,’ he said, as he swallowed down a Jaffa Cake and helped himself to another two.
Phoebe sat up. ‘Can I have one of those?’
Jamie came back into the living room with the packet. ‘Knock yourself out,’ he said, still chomping. It was the first time since her disclosure that she had voluntarily reached for food and as she took a delicate nibble, I could have cried with relief.
Chapter 32
The first few weeks of the summer holiday passed, if not without a hitch, then certainly a lot more peacefully than the Easter break had. Phoebe’s tantrums were becoming increasingly rare now and their cause easily identifiable. She still had a tendency to fly off the handle if plans were altered to any great extent, but I had learnt to give her plenty of warning if something arose in the day that wasn’t already on our schedule and her reaction now seemed more panic-stricken than angry.
I certainly noticed that I was holding less tension myself. Painkillers for stress headaches were no longer obligatory at the end of my day and I no longer felt compelled to force an overly cheerful tone to compensate for Phoebe’s dark moods, something that had been incredibly draining.
Almost every week we took a trip to the seaside. Phoebe adored playing cricket or frisbee on the beach and the exercise, coupled with nice weather, had brushed her skin with a soft glow so that she looked robust and healthy, almost unrecognisable from the girl who had arrived on my doorstep nearly five months earlier. Towards the end of July we met up with Jenny, Liz, Rachel and all of their children, so that our group totalled about 17. I was worried that Phoebe might be overwhelmed by the presence of lots of other children and at first she had held back, glued to my side while the rest of them played.
After a while Jamie tempted her into throwing pebbles in the sea and she joined him eagerly. Unfortunately, after only a couple of minutes the sea breeze, boisterous, threw one of Jamie’s attempts off course and the pebble caught Phoebe on the top of her head. Like most children I have cared for, Phoebe possessed resilience that others lacked. She didn’t cry, and apart from cradling the injured spot with a cupped hand, she made no fuss at all. I supposed that, having survived the degradation of repeated abuse, absorbing the impact of a small pebble was almost inconsequential. She bore the assault stoically but returned to my side, even more reluctant to join in than when she had first arrived.
I was hugely relieved when one of Rachel’s charges, a girl slightly younger than Phoebe, approached and invited her to help build a sandcastle. Phoebe looked embarrassed and for a moment I thought she might refuse, but Laura smiled, leaned over, grabbed Phoebe’s hand and pulled her to her feet. They both laughed and ran off, chasing each other to the group of children already at work with buckets and spades. I could have kissed Laura, and Rachel as well, who stood nearby, smiling. I guessed she’d put Laura up to it but it didn’t matter – all of the other children had shifted around to make space for Phoebe, welcoming her into the fold.
I felt myself welling up but couldn’t help smiling through tears at the sight of Phoebe as she stared around the circle of children. She certainly did more studying of them than digging – truly amazed, I think, to finally feel part of a group. When one of the children, a boy of about six, grew bored and wandered off towards the rock pool the others gradually followed. Soon only Phoebe was left beside their half-finished creation, a crestfallen expression on her face.
&nbs
p; Three-year-old Billy, whom Phoebe had met before at Jenny’s house, toddled back and yelled, ‘Come on, FeeFee!’ In seconds she was on her feet, running along beside him to join the others and leaving a flurry of sand in her wake.
When the children returned from the rock pool with a mangy-looking crab and armfuls of shells we cleaned them up, then ate lunch sitting on rugs on the sand, our backs leaning against the sea wall. Everyone had packed a picnic but we also bought chips from the beach-front shop, hot pasties and warm sugared doughnuts. Jamie was sprawled at my feet, reclined like a Roman emperor, his plate piled high. He feasted hungrily while Phoebe looked on, gazing at him with admiration.
After a few minutes Phoebe tucked in alongside everyone else, copying the other children by adding a bit of everything to her paper plate. It was a joy to watch her enjoying her food and I could hardly believe it when, 10 minutes later, she dived in for seconds.
After we’d eaten, Jenny trudged through the sand with a tray of teas and coffees and came over to share our rug. Billy, never far behind, sat on her lap as soon as her arms were free. With the sun shining, I couldn’t have imagined a nicer place in the world to be than on a beach in the north of England. Closing my eyes, I could hear the delicate chink of pebbles as waves lapped the shore. The gentle breeze carried a salty tang and the peppery sweet perfume of seaweed. I inhaled deeply and stretched out my legs, relishing the warmth of the sun on my skin. It was the most relaxed I’d felt for a long time, I realised.
Gratefully sipping the scalding tea, I was about to ask whether Jenny, as that week’s on-call foster carer, had had any emergency calls so far, when Phoebe interrupted: ‘Jenny, did you know? When I came to the seaside with Daddy before he did horrible things to me with his willy.’
Jenny was startled, her eyes widening, though she quickly recovered. I could see that Liz and Rachel had also overheard by the way they suddenly sprang into action, trying to distract their charges.
‘Honey, do you remember what I said? You can talk to me about that, but not when we’re in public, OK?’
‘There’s a time and a place, Phoebe, and this isn’t it.’ She still used her combative tone to mock things I’d previously said to her but nowadays it was by way of a gentle teasing rather than a nasty sneer. Her ability to recognise the humour in it and to laugh at the way she used to be reconfirmed my conviction that most of her early symptoms were an invention of her own mind, a defence mechanism designed to push away anyone who might pose a threat to her.
The moment was soon forgotten when Laura grabbed Phoebe’s hand again. ‘Come on, we’re going to hunt for flat pebbles and shells.’ Rachel had mentioned that she sometimes found Laura’s controlling ways exasperating but there were times when a foster child’s dominance came in useful and Phoebe seemed happy to fall in with her new friend’s plans. I think she was so bowled over to have someone keen on playing with her that she would have gone along with it, even if it happened to be something she didn’t want to do.
Later, the girls held hands and paddled at the water’s edge. The sea breeze caught the hems of their dresses and the light material fluttered like the wings of the gulls swooping above them. It was funny to think that anyone watching from the promenade would have got the impression that Phoebe, out for the day with her loving family, hadn’t a care in the world.
The children were taken by surprise when a rogue wave crested in, spraying their clothes and making them shiver with cold. Shrieking, Phoebe turned around and searched the beach for me. Jenny had been aiming her camera at the pair and happened to capture the image just as Phoebe locked eyes with mine: her face, framed by ripples of damp, dark golden hair, was a picture of shocked delight.
I still have the photo, displayed on the living-room wall. Remembering the depth of her misery when she acknowledged what her parents had done, I found her animated expression that day a stark reminder of the staggering progress she had made in a short space of time. Now, whenever I look at the way the laughter reaches her eyes, it reminds me how proud I felt to see her so happy.
It’s the way I love to remember her.
Towards the end of August, feeling confident that the trip wouldn’t prove too unsettling for Phoebe, we rented a cottage in the Lake District. Phoebe seemed tense during the journey, even regressing by mimicking everything we said. Emily, Jamie and me exchanged glances, all wondering whether a week in the confines of a small cottage was such a good idea after all.
It was a relief to get out of the car and as Phoebe rushed into our holiday home I hung back to reassure my gloomy children that we didn’t have to stay the whole week, if Phoebe had reverted to her old ways. At least the cottage had been a good choice, full of old-fashioned charm, with an inglenook fireplace, floral sofas and oak-beamed, low ceilings.
A loud clattering upstairs drew my attention away from a tour of the picturesque garden. My heart sank as I ran up the stairs, wondering what damage Phoebe might have inflicted, but it seemed the noise arose from her running from room to room, opening cupboards, wardrobes and doors and looking under beds.
‘What are you doing, Phoebe?’
‘What are you doing, Phoebe?’
Tired after our long journey, I snapped at her. ‘Get downstairs and help us with the cases, please.’
By dinnertime she had relaxed and the mimicking, thankfully, stopped. I knew that she had found holidays traumatic in the past, and then it occurred to me that she was probably conducting a sweep of the place when she first arrived, perhaps frightened that her father would once again join her in the bedroom of her holiday home.
Phoebe, Emily and Jamie were all seated at the large dining table when I served our dinner but as I set the plates of Spaghetti Bolognaise in front of them, Phoebe began to retch loudly.
‘Oh no, not that again!’ Jamie, ravenous after our journey, looked at Phoebe in disgust. ‘Mum, tell her to stop.’
But Phoebe waggled her index finger in the air. ‘Ha ha, gotcha!’ Then she threw her head back and bellowed and we all joined in, amazed by her ability to laugh at herself. She thought it was a great joke and smiled away to herself as she tucked into her dinner. I got the sense that this fun-loving, gentle girl was the real Phoebe, finally taking tentative steps to freedom after being trapped for so long. The rest of the week passed without incident and was so enjoyable that I began to marvel again that I was able to earn a living in such an amazing way.
It was a shock then, just after 4am one Friday morning at the beginning of September, to hear footsteps on the stairs. As I sat bolt upright and reached for my dressing gown, my heart strummed against my chest. Instinct had told me that Phoebe, though still sometimes volatile, was no longer a risk to herself and so I had gotten out of the habit of cat-napping with one ear tuned for trouble. I flew down the stairs to see what was wrong and was confronted in the living room by Phoebe, bright-eyed and already dressed. She greeted me with a warm smile. Even in my tired state it occurred to me that she no longer woke looking tired, freed from the terrors that had stalked her nights for such a long time.
‘Shall I make breakfast today?’ she asked, all trace of monotone gone.
Startled by her spirited voice, I had no choice but to agree. ‘But not yet, honey. It’s barely morning – much too early to be up.’
Thankfully she went back to bed and so did I, but I was awoken a couple of hours later by the sound of clattering saucepans.
‘Can we make pancakes now, Rosie?’ she asked, reaching into the cupboard with unexpected agility. She was so insistent on making the mixture herself that I left her to it. She’d gone so many days without a tantrum that I didn’t want to set one off and only joined in when it was time for frying. I did my best to bang out all the lumps with the spatula, but there was only so much I could do and the result left a lot to be desired.
Phoebe insisted that the first pancake was for Jamie, who had just got up, drawn by the smell of cooking.
Jamie took the plate, eyeing the contents dubiously, the
n gave me a queasy-looking glance. I resolutely ignored it, reaching for a plate and serving some for myself.
‘Is it nice?’ she asked, her eyes alight.
I took a tentative bite: it was revoltingly eggy.
‘Lovely,’ I said.
She smiled, turning to Jamie. Dutifully he had a nibble before giving me a ‘What in the Hell is this?’ expression. I returned a hard, meaningful stare and thankfully he managed, ‘Mmm, nice.’
Chapter 33
Phoebe had made such rapid progress through the summer holidays that by the time the new term arrived in September 2009 it was clear to me that she was in the wrong school. Annoyed that I hadn’t got the wheels in motion sooner, once I had dropped her off to her Year 5 classroom (trembling from top to toe, with tears streaming down her cheeks), I was determined to get to work finding a mainstream school that could deal with her needs.
Cognitively, for the most part, she was no different to any other child. Throughout the holiday I had worked through some exercise books with her, and, as far as I could tell, educationally she had caught up to the point where she wouldn’t stand out from other children her age. Behaviourally, I knew that she might prove a bit of a challenge – at home with me she was fine, but she still tended to kick off when surrounded by large groups and was prone to outbursts of inappropriate comments – but compared to when we had first met she was far calmer and I was sure that our local primary schools had encountered worse.
First off, I tried Lenke. The local authority would have the most sway in persuading a school to accept a new child, but as expected I was met with a loud sigh and general lethargy: if Phoebe already had a school place, what was the point in moving her? But the social worker had no major objection to the move, providing I did all of the legwork myself.
It took the rest of the day to pinpoint two possibilities, one being a primary less than half a mile from our house. When I explained our situation to the secretary of Glenhaven Primary School, I felt a slight shiver, the sort of feeling that comes when you can sense something positive is about to happen. As soon as I mentioned the word ‘foster’ there was a slight pause and then a change of tone, from brisk and efficient to empathetic.