by Cathy Glass
The Easter holidays approached, and on the last day of term Alice’s nursery had an Easter parade. All the girls went to school dressed in long flowing skirts, and blouses, reminiscent of fashion in the 1870s when the tradition of the Easter parade had begun. They wore Easter bonnets they’d made in class, which were tied under their chins with brightly coloured ribbon. The boys went as Easter chicks, with bright yellow head-pieces they’d made in the shape of a chicken’s head, and long brown beaks jutting over their foreheads. There was much laughter and excitement as parents and children saw each other and met on their way into nursery. I was getting to know some of the other mothers now and we smiled and laughed with our children.
As I entered the school gates I happened to turn and look back over my shoulder. I don’t know why; possibly I’d sensed someone was watching me. As I looked, over to the other side of the road, standing half concealed behind the large oak tree, I saw Alice’s mother. I recognized her immediately from the photograph Alice had in her room. Even from a distance Leah’s slight frame, light brown shiny hair and big round eyes just like Alice’s were unmistakable. I was shocked and concerned. Leah would have known she shouldn’t have been there. But as our eyes met I sensed she hadn’t come to make trouble, just to catch a glimpse of her daughter going into nursery all dressed up.
I didn’t know how Leah knew it was the Easter parade; perhaps she had a friend with a child at the school who’d told her. Or possibly she didn’t know and had waited outside the school before, hoping to catch a glimpse of her daughter, and I hadn’t seen her. It crossed my mind to tell Alice her mother was there, so that she could at least see her and wave, or possibly even go over and say hello, for it was six weeks since Alice had seen her mother and she was missing her dreadfully. But I knew I couldn’t. It would have been unsettling for Alice to suddenly see her mother after all this time without any warning, and I couldn’t be sure Leah would be able to handle the meeting and act rationally – just saying hi, complimenting Alice on her outfit and then going. Added to which there were no contact arrangements in place for Alice to see her mother and I couldn’t take it upon myself to establish contact. Had Alice been seeing her mother regularly and we had bumped into her in the street it would have been a different matter and we could have spoken. But for now I followed the acceptable, sensible and very sad option of continuing into nursery without Alice being aware her mother was close by.
When I came out again I looked for Leah, with the intention of speaking to her and reassuring her that Alice was all right – which was acceptable, as Alice wasn’t with me. But as I emerged from the playground and looked over the road to the tree, and then up and down the street, there was no sign of her. It would be some weeks before I saw Leah again and then her situation had deteriorated badly.
I am not a great fan of football, but every Saturday afternoon I dutifully sat on the sofa with Alice and Brian the Bear and watched the football. Alice knew more about football than I did, and sometimes more than the referee, who she often felt was in need of her advice when it came to penalties. I guessed she’d learnt all this from her grandpa – they’d been watching the football together for as long as Alice could remember. So every Saturday Alice’s whoops of joy and groans of disappointment echoed round our house as goals were scored or missed, and teams won or lost. If a player performed well Brian the Bear jumped up and down on Alice’s lap and clapped his hands; if a player performed badly then Brian hid his head in shame. Lucy thought I’d totally lost the plot one Saturday when she came into the sitting room to ask me something and I hushed her and said unless it was an emergency she’d have to wait until the penalty had been taken.
‘But you don’t know anything about football,’ Lucy said, throwing me an old-fashioned look.
‘But I’m learning fast, and I know you have to be quiet when a penalty is about to be taken.’
Alice nodded furiously and put her finger to her lips to hush us both. Lucy hovered by the sitting-room door, and the three of us watched in silence as the penalty was taken, and missed! Alice and I groaned; Brian the Bear hung his head in shame; and Lucy raised her eyes skywards. ‘You’ll be taking up knitting next,’ Lucy said – the next most unlikely pursuit after my watching football, but if it made Alice happy of course I would.
At 6.00 p.m. on Saturdays when we phoned Alice’s grandparents, the first thing her grandpa always asked was, ‘Did you see the football, Alice?’ They then spent some time chatting about the pros and cons of the game, who had played well and which player hadn’t been on form. Watching the football and being able to discuss it was providing a positive link for Alice between the life she had left and was missing at her grandparents’, and the life she was now living with me.
One Saturday evening when I phoned, and before I’d put the phone on speaker so that Alice could talk to her grandparents, Mrs Jones said quietly to me: ‘Don’t put Alice on yet. I need to close the sitting-room door. Leah is with us, in the kitchen, and Alice mustn’t hear her.’
It was sad that Alice couldn’t speak to her mother and vice versa, but with no contact arrangements in place, Mrs Jones knew we couldn’t just take it upon ourselves to instigate phone contact and let Alice speak to her mother. Mr and Mrs Jones had previously been told by Martha that phone contact was for her and her husband only, although obviously as Alice was no longer living with them they could have Leah in their home whenever they wanted. Such constraints on contact are put in place to safeguard the child, but without a social worker in post I was concerned that Alice’s case wasn’t being reviewed as it should, and that phone contact could have been established between Alice and her mother, but hadn’t because there was no social worker to make the decision.
On Easter Sunday my parents joined us for lunch and we held our usual Easter egg hunt, which was confined to the house, as it was raining outside. We saw my parents every couple of weeks and Alice had immediately warmed to them and they to her. And while my parents were considerably older than Alice’s own grandparents, she had clearly found an added security in being with them and looked upon them as surrogate grandparents. For their part they were soon doting on their new grandchild.
There were four chocolate eggs hidden for each of the children, and one each for my parents and me. Alice had already been given two eggs at contact – one from her grandparents, and one from her father and Sharon – and would have happily eaten the lot in one sitting had I not explained that this was inadvisable, as it was likely to make her ill. Lucy, on the other hand, had panicked at the sight of so much chocolate and, when my parents had gone home, tried to give her eggs to me.
‘I won’t ever eat all these; you have them,’ she said, bringing her chocolate eggs into the kitchen.
I’d seen Lucy panic before when faced with too much food. When we went to my parents’ for dinner I always plated up Lucy’s food, giving her a little, which I knew she could cope with, rather than the very generous portions my mother dished out. Now, Lucy wasn’t able to delight in the prospect of unlimited chocolate, as most children and teenagers would have done, but saw it as an insurmountable hurdle, and just wanted to get rid of the eggs.
‘OK, love,’ I said, not making an issue of it. ‘Put your Easter eggs in that end cupboard and if you fancy a piece of chocolate you can help yourself. Otherwise I’m sure they won’t go to waste.’
As it was, gradually, over the next couple of weeks, bit by bit Lucy ate her chocolate, and enjoyed it. As with many people with mild eating disorders (as I thought Lucy had), when presented with too much food or the expectation to eat, she felt out of control and panicked, rejecting it all. Left to her own devices Lucy could manage food, a little and often; the problem came with mealtimes, when you were expected to eat enough to see you through to the next meal. And with so much socializing in our society centring around meals, mealtimes were a continual worry for someone like Lucy. Yet I felt that little by little we were getting there and although Lucy’s eating still worried me she
was slowly improving.
We had a few warm spring days during the Easter holiday from school and we made the most of the weather by visiting parks and having an away day to the coast. Two days before the weekend and the start of the new term, on Monday, Alice’s health visitor phoned, having just heard that Alice had been taken into care. She was called Glenys and she said she’d visited Alice at her mother’s, and also once at the grandparents’. She was phoning because it was time for her to make a routine visit, so we made an appointment for her to come the following day at 2.00 p.m. I was looking forward to meeting her; she’d been involved in Alice’s life for the last three years, so I assumed she’d be able to fill in some of the missing background information which might help me better look after Alice, and also explain why Alice had been removed from her grandparents and was going to live with her father.
But the following day, once Glenys was seated on the sofa in the sitting room, with Alice being entertained by the girls in another room, she said: ‘So when is Alice going back to her grandparents? I assume she’s here on respite – to give them a rest.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Alice won’t be returning to her grandparents. She’s going to live with her father and his new wife, Sharon.’
‘What!?’ Glenys exclaimed, astonished. ‘I didn’t even know there was a father on the scene. There certainly wasn’t during the three years when I visited Alice. Are you sure? There must be some mistake.’
Chapter Nineteen
A Quick Fix
Not only had the health visitor never met Alice’s father but Leah had never mentioned him during any of Glenys’s visits. Glenys’s understanding was that Leah had become pregnant by accident, and was parenting alone with the support of her own parents, Janice and Martin Jones, but with no input from Alice’s father. And while Glenys had realized the previous summer, when Leah’s mental health had deteriorated, that Leah needed help, and had been relieved when Alice had gone to stay with her grandparents, she couldn’t understand why Alice had been brought into foster care. She’d assumed, as I would have done, that Alice would have stayed with her grandparents for as long as necessary.
‘I feel dreadful,’ Glenys said, her face creasing with anxiety. ‘I was one of the professionals who raised concerns about Alice, and was therefore responsible for her coming into care. But what could I do? Leah obviously wasn’t coping. I never dreamt Alice would be taken away for good.’ Blaming herself, she looked close to tears.
‘You weren’t the only one who had concerns,’ I said. ‘The doctor also contacted the social services.’
Glenys nodded. She went on to say that Leah had been a very good parent to Alice (which I’d guessed), and that although Leah had had mental health problems the medication had allowed her to function normally, which was what Mrs Jones had told me. Glenys also said that Leah was an intelligent girl who had put her own life on hold to raise Alice. ‘Once Alice was settled at school, Leah was going to continue her education,’ Glenys said. ‘She hated being on benefits and wanted to get a good job. She wanted to do the best for Alice, and always put Alice first.’
I nodded. ‘Did you know the neighbours had reported Leah for screaming at Alice?’
‘No,’ she said, surprised. ‘I certainly never heard Leah raise her voice to Alice when I was there – far from it. She was always very loving and protective. I wonder how the neighbours could be certain it was Alice Leah was screaming at? There might have been someone else there.’ She paused in thought. ‘Leah suddenly started behaving oddly last August. Perhaps she did start screaming at Alice; I suppose it’s possible. But what I don’t understand is why Alice couldn’t have stayed with her grandparents?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I said again. ‘Was Leah on drugs, or drinking to excess? Martha said these had been issues.’
‘Not as far as I know. There was never any evidence of illegal drugs or alcohol abuse when I visited, or I would have said.’
I nodded.
Glenys was clearly a kind and caring person, conscientious in her role as health visitor and very upset at the outcome for Alice. She had acted correctly in alerting the social services and doctor when she’d had concerns for Alice’s safety, but it didn’t stop her feeling she’d been the instigator in the break-up of Alice’s family. ‘I feel so responsible,’ she said again. ‘And there’s no chance of Alice going back to her grandparents?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I couldn’t allay Glenys’s concerns for Alice’s future and neither could she relieve my worries about whether it had been the right decision to bring Alice into care.
Once we’d finished talking I called Alice into the room and Glenys weighed her, measured her height and asked her how she was doing. Alice told Glenys she was now in foster care and I was looking after her, which obviously Glenys knew. ‘But when I stop living with Cathy,’ Alice continued, perhaps seeing salvation in Glenys, ‘I have to go and live with a new mummy. She’s called Sharon. But I don’t want a new mummy, I want my old one. Can you get my old mummy, please?’
Tears welled in Glenys’s eyes at Alice’s naïve request. She looked at Alice and then at me, clearly not knowing what to say to reassure Alice. There was nothing I could say beyond what I’d already said, so I told Alice she was staying with me while ‘everything’ was being sorted out. Then I changed the subject and pointed to the jigsaw Alice had been doing.
‘It’s for a six-year-old,’ I said proudly. ‘Alice has nearly completed it. All by herself!’
‘Well done!’ Glenys said to Alice. ‘That’s very clever. You’re going to be as bright as your mum.’ She stopped and looked as though she could have bitten off her tongue.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We talk about Alice’s mother. It helps keep the memory alive, that and her photograph.’
Glenys nodded, relieved, and, reaching out, gave Alice a big hug before going over and admiring the jigsaw.
Glenys was with us for over an hour, talking to Alice and then again to me – lamenting the break-up of Alice’s family, for which she held herself responsible. Before she left Glenys said she would visit us again in six weeks if Alice was still with me, but if I had any worries in the meantime about Alice’s health or development I should phone her at the clinic. Alice and I saw her to the door, and when she’d gone Alice told me she was a nice lady and her mummy had liked her.
I thought about what Glenys had said – that Leah was an intelligent woman and a good mother, who had wanted to give her daughter the best. I thought about Glenys’s shock when I’d told her that Alice wouldn’t be returning to her grandparents or her mother, but was going to her father and Sharon. I thought about it, and my doubts and misgivings increased. Something hadn’t felt right at the start, when I’d first met Alice and realized she’d been loved and well looked after. Alice’s nursery teacher and now her health visitor had confirmed this and clearly felt as I did that taking Alice from her grandparents and giving her to the father she’d never known didn’t make sense. Either the grandparents were not the people they appeared to be and the social services had good reason to take Alice away, or a dreadful mistake had occurred and the family had been wrenched apart unnecessarily, causing untold pain and emotional damage. Was it possible, I wondered, that with all the changes of social worker (Martha had been the third) errors of judgement had occurred and a ‘quick-fix’ solution of sending Alice to her father had resulted?
When the Guardian Ad Litem phoned the next day to say she would like to visit us the following week I was very pleased. The Guardian ad Litem – appointed by the judge in childcare proceedings – has an in-depth knowledge of the case, having read the files and been in close contact with all parties. She (or he) advises the judge on what is best for the child. I knew the Guardian would be able to answer my questions and, I hoped, reassure me that the correct decision had been made. Her name was Carole and she made an appointment to visit us at 4.30 p.m. the following Wednesday, but when she came, far from allaying my concerns, she a
dded to them.
Chapter Twenty
Nail in the Coffin
I told Alice that Carole would be coming to see us. Alice had some understanding of the Guardian’s role in deciding her future, and had met Carole once before when she’d been living with her grandparents. But as usual after seeing her nana and grandpa, Alice was very subdued and clingy, and needed lots of cuddles and reassurance that it wouldn’t be long until Saturday when she could speak to them on the phone. When the Guardian came, not realizing this, or forgetting that Alice had just had contact with her grandparents, she tried to chat to Alice, who was on the sofa, snuggled close into my side.
‘How was nursery today?’ Carole asked brightly, as one would normally, talking to a child. ‘What did you do?’
Alice nodded glumly but didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t you like nursery?’ Carole asked. ‘You used to. I remember you told me.’
‘Alice is just a bit sad from having said goodbye to her nana and grandpa,’ I explained. ‘She saw them this afternoon,’ I reminded her.
‘Ah, right,’ Carole said. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then to Alice: ‘How are Nana and Grandpa? Did you play some games?’
Alice gave a small nod, but still wouldn’t be drawn. Carole’s well-meaning, jolly conversation wasn’t really appropriate for the loss and sadness Alice was feeling, having parted from her dear grandparents an hour before. Then Alice lifted her head from where it had been resting against my arm and, looking at the Guardian, said defiantly: ‘My nana and grandpa still love me. And they won’t stop loving me!’