The Girl With Two Lives

by Angela Hart

  ‘Rot? The only rot around here is the rot you’re talking!’

  ‘Please don’t speak to me like that, Danielle. I’m on your side. I want to help you and look after you as well as I possibly can.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I’ve had enough of this!’ she shouted. ‘I hate it here and I hate you! All you care about is making money out of me.’

  I thought carefully about how to react. According to the rules Nelson suggested we follow, Danielle would have to lose a star for giving me cheek. I didn’t think it was a good idea to remind her of this now. After what had happened the night before I imagined that taking away another star would only fuel her anger, which would not help matters. I was worried about getting her to tuition in a fit state to learn, as well as in clean clothes.

  ‘OK, Danielle,’ I said dramatically, throwing my hands in the air. ‘If that’s what you want, have it your way. Just go to your first tuition session smelling like you do. And leave the wet bed. Hopefully it will have dried out a bit by bedtime.’

  It was a tactic I’d used before, of course, but I wasn’t sure Danielle was going to fall for it a second time. To my relief, she did.

  ‘Fine. Even if YOU don’t care about me, I’m having a shower. You can’t stop me, Angela. And I’m going to tell Jonathan how mean you are when I see him. Oh yes. I’ll tell him. You won’t like that, will you? I bet he’ll be on my side! I like him better than you because he’s not so MEAN!’

  She was stomping up the stairs now, looking straight ahead as she shouted loudly.

  ‘Please bring me your dirty things and I’ll put the washing machine on before we go to tuition,’ I called after her.

  ‘All she does is nag, nag, nag,’ Danielle said. She was still looking ahead, and it was as if she was talking to an imaginary figure on the stairs.

  I went into the kitchen, counted to ten and thought about the star chart. I was worried about it and my instincts were telling me it was not going to work. It was unusual to use a star chart so early on in a placement and after the incident with the felt-tip pens the night before it seemed to me that Danielle viewed the chart as a stick rather than a carrot. Still, I trusted Nelson’s advice and decided we should persevere, at least for a little while longer. I’d pick my moment and talk to Danielle about it later.

  I hoped Social Services could help when it came to Danielle’s problems with wetting the bed and having accidents during the day, perhaps by giving me some historic-information they may have had about these issues. Danielle had intimated to me she’d had the habits for years: ‘Why are you so worried? I can deal with it myself, thank you very much! Nobody has ever nagged me all the time like you do. Get over yourself, Angela!’

  Clearly, I couldn’t use the star chart to encourage her to stay dry: I knew full well there are often psychological reasons behind a child wetting the bed at night, and behind a child of Danielle’s age wetting herself in the daytime. Nelson had not given me any advice in that regard, other than to reassure me he would speak to Danielle’s social worker, Susan, as soon as possible, to see if there was anything useful on file that he could pass on.

  During a quiet moment to myself I thought about how Danielle somehow seemed to deliberately set out to cause trouble, particularly when she wanted to provoke a reaction in me. Were the two things connected – her bed-wetting and making trouble for me? I kicked this thought around my head that morning. Perhaps Danielle was capable of not wetting the bed or wetting herself in the daytime, but chose to do so, as a way of lashing out or causing trouble. Or was I overthinking this?

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Jonathan said, when he walked into the kitchen.

  I told him what was on my mind, as I always do.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I can see why you could think along those lines. Danielle is very hard to work out. I’m feeling confused myself and looking for answers. I guess it’s good to talk it over, but at the end of the day we can only work with the facts, and unfortunately we don’t have very many of those yet. We must try to boost her self-esteem. Maybe that will help.’

  I smiled. This was typical Jonathan, summing up the situation sensibly and reminding me to be conscious of the difference between fact and opinion.

  We knew by now that we would have a placement meeting coming up in the next few weeks, with Nelson and Susan. There’s normally a brief placement meeting within five days of the child’s arrival, which we’d had. We were very willing to agree for Danielle to stay with us for longer than the initial weekend of respite care we’d been asked to provide, though we had no idea at this stage how long she might stay. After the initial placement meeting, full placement meetings are typically held approximately every six weeks. Sometimes you don’t see a social worker in between these meetings, but we’d been told the first full placement meeting would happen much sooner than usual. It seemed we were already getting more support and a higher level of contact with Social Services than normal, which we were grateful for.

  As far as Jonathan and I were concerned, this meeting, which would be held at a Social Services office, couldn’t come soon enough. I had so many questions about Danielle and I really wanted to do my best by her. Now she had her tuition in place I imagined she’d be staying with us for a few more weeks, at the very least, so I wanted all the help, advice and information I could get hold of.

  Jonathan and I both drove Danielle to tuition later that day. She was finally dressed in clean clothes and had even washed her hair, which I was pleased to see. She was quiet in the car all the way to town, and when we arrived at the education centre she was very polite to her new tutor, Miss Powell, who was waiting in a corridor next to the main reception. I was thankful Danielle was behaving herself, especially as Miss Powell was very young and shy, and my first impression was that the tutor was someone who could be easily upset or manipulated by Danielle, if she were in a difficult mood.

  ‘We’ll be back in two hours,’ I said to them both. ‘I hope the session goes well.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Hart. We’ll be right here when you return. Please, take a seat Danielle.’

  The tutor motioned for Danielle to sit at a very small table in the corridor, next to where we were standing.

  ‘We’re working here?’ Danielle said, looking down her nose at the table.

  ‘Yes – er, it’s not ideal, but I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ Miss Powell said, slightly sheepishly.

  Jonathan and I said goodbye and walked away, leaving them to it. When we got back to the car we found that Danielle had left twisted-up bits of tissue all over the back seat. That’s what she must have been doing when she was quiet in the back of the car. I scooped them up and put them in a carrier bag, ready to throw in the bin. I guessed she might have wanted me to get cross about this and tell her off, but I wasn’t going to go down that route. It was just a bit of paper, and it was easily cleared away.

  When we got home Jonathan went straight into the shop to give our assistant, Barbara, a break, and I did some housework. Danielle had given me her dirty laundry as I’d asked her to, and it was now washed and ready to be pegged on the washing line. I went up to Danielle’s room to check her mattress and, thankfully, it had escaped a soaking. I always have a plastic-lined protective sheet over all the mattresses used by children in the house, just in case, and it had worked well. I opened the window to air the room then looked around for the towels Danielle had used for her shower. I’d explained I wanted her to keep her towels on the rail over the radiator in her bedroom and not in the bathroom. This is a rule I have with all the children. Jonathan and I have our own bathroom next to our bedroom on the floor below, so we don’t have to worry about our towels being mistaken for anybody else’s, but with children sharing the bathroom on the top floor I like to be sure there are no mix-ups.

  ‘Why do I need to bother?’ Danielle had challenged when I explained the rule. ‘I might as well leave my towels in the bathroom. There’s only me using it.’

  ‘No, please keep them in your
room. Then if another child comes to stay you won’t have to change what you’re doing.’ I explained that we had enough room in the house for another two children to stay if need be, adding, ‘Usually, we do have more than one child staying with us.’

  ‘I don’t think they will ask you to have another child while I’m here,’ Danielle had said flatly.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘No. You don’t know, do you, Angela?’

  ‘I don’t know what?’ I said. I didn’t want to ask any leading questions, because I sensed Danielle could be thinking about making some sort of a disclosure and I didn’t want to put words in her mouth.

  ‘What I mean is, you don’t know why, Angela, do you? You don’t know why Social Services won’t ask you to have another child while I’m here.’

  ‘I don’t know why, Danielle.’

  As we spoke I began to fold up some towels and load them into the ottoman we had on the landing, which was full of clean laundry. I busied myself deliberately, knowing that sometimes it’s easier for a child to speak about a sensitive matter if they don’t have to look at you and if you don’t give them eye contact.

  ‘Ask Susan!’ Danielle had said, with a mischievous note in her voice.

  ‘Ask Susan?’

  ‘Yes. Ask Susan.’

  Danielle ran to her dressing table, peered at her face in the mirror and began talking to herself as she examined her skin. It was greasy-looking, and she had a crop of spots on her forehead, beneath her fringe. ‘Look at you, Danielle. Oooh, that’s a nasty spot. Need to get rid of that. Now what was I doing . . .’

  That was the end of the conversation. I had been left wondering if Danielle was maybe just seeking attention with the mysterious comments she made, or whether there was some truth in what she had suggested. My gut feeling was she was being a bit of a drama queen and trying to wind me up, but I wasn’t sure.

  Anyhow, after our chat Danielle did eventually agree to keep all her towels in her room, and that’s why I was looking for them now. I’m very used to children leaving wet towels in a heap on the floor or on top of their duvet, and hanging them up is something I do almost on autopilot, because I’ve done it so many times.

  Danielle had chosen to use a striped purple and white set, but none of the towels were anywhere to be seen. I went into the bathroom and had a quick scan around. I noticed the shower gel, shampoo and conditioner bottles were all empty in the bin, and I sighed because I knew they had been full up the night before.

  We’d had several different children staying with us previously who couldn’t resist playing with the toiletries in the bathroom, and by that I mean squirting them up the walls, pouring them down the plughole or, on one occasion, depositing whole plastic bottles down the toilet or even hiding them in the cistern. For this reason I only ever stock the children’s bathroom with the minimum of essentials, in small-sized bottles. Razors, tweezers, nail scissors or anything remotely sharp are kept locked away in a cabinet in my room, as required by Social Services, and I have learned from experience not to leave too many toilet rolls, tissues or packs of cotton buds or cotton wool in the children’s bathroom either, as in the past they have been wasted in various ways. For instance, once I found large wads of tissues blocking the sink. I’ve also discovered whole bags of cotton wool thrown down the toilet, cotton buds littering the shower tray or shoved up taps, and bits of sodden tissues slung at the walls and ceiling. I’ve even had to retrieve knickers out of the toilet in the past, and on one particularly memorable occasion, three toilet rolls from a brand-new pack were unfurled from the bathroom window. The pink tissue ended up caught in shrubs and trees and all over the lawn, and not just in our garden but in next-door’s too. It was raining, and Jonathan and I had had quite a job on our hands clearing up. We ended up retrieving soggy lumps of tissue for days afterwards.

  After failing to find Danielle’s towels I went to fetch her a fresh set from the ottoman.

  ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed to myself when I opened the lid. Inside were Danielle’s wet towels, and on top of them was a pair of urine-soaked pyjamas. She must have gone through two pairs the previous night, I realised, as I’d washed one pair that morning.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of this. I guessed it could be a deliberate attempt to irritate me, or perhaps Danielle knew no better and had got confused between the laundry bin and the ottoman?

  When I first started fostering, my natural instinct was to go with the common-sense explanation. Back then, I’d have thought that no twelve-year-old child could accidentally make such an obvious mistake as that, but now I know better. Sadly, lots of children are never taught the basics of hygiene and need to learn everything from scratch. We’ve looked after children who have never been taught how to clean their teeth or had it explained to them why they need to wipe their bottoms and wash their hands after going to the toilet.

  One boy drank some stagnant water from a bucket in the garden, as he couldn’t be bothered going to the kitchen to get a drink. He said it was ‘too much like hard work’ and I remember asking, ‘What, opening the door and going to the kitchen?’ His response was, ‘Yes, because I was too busy playing in the garden.’

  He was genuinely surprised to hear how dangerous it could be to drink dirty water, because nobody had explained this to him before.

  By the time I’d dealt with all the laundry it was time to collect Danielle from tuition. Miss Powell looked happy and relaxed as Jonathan and I walked down the corridor, and Danielle had her nose in a book and seemed to be concentrating hard. We hovered a few metres away in the corridor, not wanting to interrupt, and after a minute or two Danielle looked up and spotted us.

  ‘Can I go now?’ she asked Miss Powell.

  ‘Yes, Danielle. And well done today. I’m very pleased with what you’ve achieved.’

  Miss Powell handed Danielle a worksheet and signalled to Jonathan and me to come over.

  ‘This is to be completed at home. Danielle’s done really well. She has a super imagination!’

  ‘Well done!’ Jonathan and I said in unison.

  I was really pleased about this. I wanted to be able to praise and reward Danielle, rather than take away stars and punish her.

  We walked to the car, and Danielle seemed in a buoyant mood.

  ‘I like Miss Powell,’ she said. ‘She said I’m good at writing stories.’

  ‘That’s great to hear. Is English one of your favourite subjects?’

  ‘Yes. I love writing stories. She tells me what to write.’

  ‘And what has Miss Powell asked you to write about for your homework?’

  ‘I’ve got to fill a whole side of paper. I need to write about something I really like, and something I don’t like. And I have to use lots of describing words.’

  ‘Adjectives,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, them.’

  Danielle got straight on with her homework as soon as we got home. For something she liked, she chose to write about her favourite television show, which was EastEnders. For something she didn’t like, she wrote about cabbage and sprouts, although she told me she had never eaten either. Her language was basic and even babyish in places and her handwriting looked like the work of a much younger girl, but in my book she scored ten out of ten because she put a lot of effort into her work. The only thing Danielle hadn’t done was to underline all the adjectives, as she’d been asked to do. When I pointed this out, suggesting this would be the finishing touch and would please Miss Powell, she refused point-blank to do it, even when I offered her the use of my brand-new pink highlighter pen.

  ‘No, I’ve done enough,’ she said flatly.

  ‘But it’ll be perfect if you do that, and it won’t take long at all. Why not finish it off properly?’

  ‘No. I’ve done enough,’ Danielle reiterated. ‘I don’t want to do any more.’

  I had another go at trying to persuade her a bit later on with no luck, and I wondered why she seemed to be deliberately derailing her chances of handi
ng in an excellent piece of work. However, when I reflected on this later I kicked myself, because I realised I should not have pushed Danielle to produce perfect work. She’d done far more than I’d expected, and why had I projected my own standards on to her? It was a mistake, and a lesson learned for me. Danielle had done well and I should have focused on what she’d achieved, not what was lacking.

  I picked my moment to talk to Danielle about the laundry and the importance of keeping wet things away from the clean, dry linen and towels. I brought it up when she was having a cup of tea and a snack, looking relaxed at the kitchen table, but Danielle pretended she didn’t hear me.

  ‘Danielle, did you hear what I said about the laundry?’

  She stared into space, a frozen expression on her face.

  I needed to go to the toilet, so I nipped to the bathroom upstairs, deciding I’d count to ten and try again when I returned. As soon as I locked the bathroom door I heard Danielle outside.

  ‘Angela, Angela, what did you say?’

  ‘Just a minute, I’ll be down in a minute!’

  ‘I want to know what you were saying! What did you say?’

  ‘Hold on!’

  ‘Is it about the laundry?’

  ‘Yes! Give me a moment. I’m just washing my hands.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No. Wait there,’ I said, thinking it was a good job I always locked the door. ‘I’m finished now.’

  When I opened the bathroom door Danielle was standing right in front of me, blocking my way.

  ‘Shall we go back to the kitchen?’ I said, gesturing at her to move away and head down the stairs.

  I’d chosen to use my bathroom on the first floor as I’d got used to Danielle following me whenever I needed to go to the toilet; she did it every day. I thought I stood a better chance of having some privacy if I avoided the downstairs loo.

  ‘OK,’ she said, moving aside just enough to let me step out of the bathroom. I led the way downstairs and Danielle followed, so close behind I thought she was going to tread on my heels. Then she pushed past and overtook me, stopping dead on the stair in front of me, which took me by surprise and forced me to stop in my tracks.