Four Waifs on Our Doorstep

by Trisha Merry

  They were both in a good mood that evening, excited to be parading their new outfits for the family, but as usual their exuberance got the better of them. It was almost as if they were drunk they were so loud, and over the next few days they pushed the boundaries so far . . . The first day of school couldn’t come soon enough.

  I dropped them off that first morning and went back home to wait for the fireworks. I was not wrong. Hamish and Anita both stood out like beacons.

  ‘They won’t sit down, Mrs Merry,’ was the first call in the middle of that first morning. I felt like saying: well, what do you want me to do about it?

  The next call followed at lunchtime. ‘Hamish won’t write. He won’t do anything I ask him to do,’ said his class teacher. ‘What can I do about it? And Anita’s teacher says she shouts out all the time in her class.’

  I don’t come to you, I thought, with my fostering problems, so why are you asking me about teaching? It’s your job.

  By the time I drove over with the younger ones in the back to collect Hamish and Anita from St Mary’s, I imagined they had probably started a full-scale riot, or worse. I dreaded finding out. But when I went to meet Anita from her classroom, her teacher smiled warmly.

  ‘Anita has settled in quite quickly, Mrs Merry. She is happy and cheerful, and has already made a couple of friends.’

  ‘But I heard she was too noisy this morning.’

  ‘Yes, but she was much calmer and quieter after some lunch and a good runaround on the school field.’

  Next we went to pick up Hamish. He saw us coming and ran over to meet us in the playground, waving his new red book-bag at us.

  ‘I’ve got a book to read tonight—’

  ‘So have I,’ interrupted Anita, never one to be outdone.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Merry,’ said Hamish’s teacher, who had followed him out.

  ‘How has he been since you rang me?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, funnily enough, he settled down a bit better after that. He still didn’t want to do what I asked a few times, but I think it’s about adjusting to school rules and classroom routines. He does seem bright and eager to help, when he’s not too busy protesting!’

  ‘I think it’s mainly because he had to assume the role of a parent to his siblings for the past few years,’ I explained. ‘So he finds it hard now to become a child again, and relinquish control.’

  ‘I see. Yes, that would explain it.’ She looked a little uncertain. ‘He does seem very fidgety as well, as if he finds it difficult to stay within the classroom or to sit down and work on a group task.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean. But he’s always had to be so self-reliant, that I think he finds it hard to cooperate with others or let anyone take over.’

  ‘Right, I’ll try to bear that in mind.’

  Off we went home, with Hamish and Anita chattering on about school all the way home. They had clearly enjoyed the first day, oblivious of the minor troubles they had caused.

  ‘Right, go and get out of your school clothes while I butter you some toast,’ I said, and they both scampered upstairs to their rooms.

  A couple of minutes later, Hamish came back down. He had taken his school clothes off all right. In fact, he had taken me rather too literally. He was completely starkers!

  ‘Oh, Hame,’ I said, trying not to laugh, ‘you could have kept your pants and socks on!’

  For a moment he looked unsure, but then he saw the funny side of it and went back upstairs.

  Most days after that, somebody from the school would phone to tell me of some misdemeanour or other. Quite often I had to drive back to St Mary’s to help them sort it out, whether it was cajoling Hamish to come off the field and go back into his classroom after break, or persuading Anita to let other children have a turn on the climbing frame.

  Once the older two had been in school a couple of weeks, I turned my attention to Caroline and Simon. Although at the age to start her formal education, no school would take Caroline in nappies, so the agency helped me to find her a place in a nearby nursery. She started there, very clingy that first morning. I chose my moment and left her to settle in. I don’t know exactly what happened, but her temper was what prompted the call, later that morning.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Merry, but could you please come and collect Caroline?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘She’s very aggressive, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She’s had a very difficult life.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But we have to think of all the other children in our care.’

  ‘I see,’ I said and went to collect her. So now Caroline had something new to put on her CV. ‘Excluded from nursery school on her first day for aggressive behaviour.’

  Fortunately, they agreed to try having her again the next day, as long as I stayed with her this time, so I left Simon with Mike while I played all morning with Caroline and some of the other children. This seemed to help her settle more, but she still found it almost impossible to understand the concept of routines and rules. And there weren’t enough adults to give her the individual attention she needed, so this placement didn’t last long and I started looking again.

  This time, although she hadn’t been officially diagnosed with learning difficulties, I was sure that was a key factor, so I booked her into a special needs nursery. This one was a marginal improvement, but still understaffed. Caroline was physically better looked after here, and she seemed to be less obstructive, but I felt her learning needs were not adequately met.

  This worried me quite a lot. Should I keep her at home and try to help her learn the basics with me, or was it more important for her to socialise ?

  Simon was a different story. I got him into a different nursery school, where they took very young children and seemed to accept his immaturity and detachment. Because he wasn’t loud or aggressive, he never caused any trouble.

  ‘He’s like a little dumpling,’ said one of the nursery nurses, fondly. He went to the nursery, he stayed there all day, but I don’t think he made his mark there. He wasn’t naughty, but he didn’t take part at all, and he wasn’t really learning anything.

  It was bad enough being called out during the day, in the middle of mixing a cake or doing the never-ending laundry, to deal with a recalcitrant child, or a displeased adult, but the morning and evening run was always a nightmare, with St Mary’s being five miles away to the north of the city, and Caroline and Simon’s nurseries being in different directions across the city. I was fed up with battling so much rush-hour traffic from place to place every day, trying to get them all dropped off at their required times.

  One particularly fraught day, when I’d already had to go and collect Caroline from her second nursery for spitting at other children, the phone went as soon as I came through the door.

  ‘Hi, Trisha, it’s John from the agency. We’ve decided to start our own nursery for our hard-to-place foster children and we’d like to offer you places for both Caroline and Simon.’ He paused.

  To be honest, I was so surprised . . . and distracted by what I was going to do with Caroline, that I was stunned speechless. This couldn’t have come at a better time.

  ‘From what Carol tells me, you might be interested in their joining our group. We’ve changed our headquarters around to free up some of the large ground-floor rooms for the nursery. We are taking on some very experienced and well-qualified staff, with a high adult-to-child ratio—’

  ‘That’s music to my ears, John,’ I interrupted him. ‘Can I book their places right now?’

  Teatime that evening, I was on a cloud, thinking about how wonderful it would be to have Caroline and Simon at the same nursery, and of course that they would be so much more appropriately cared for and their needs met. Perhaps my good mood rubbed off on the children, because I noticed how well behaved they were all being that evening. Anita was using her cutlery to eat her beans and egg on toast. Hamish passed the ketchup to Caroline and helped her put some on her pl
ate.

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him.

  Even Simon remembered to put his hand in front of his mouth when he coughed. Were these the same children who only a few months before had stuffed every kind of food into their mouths with their hands and gobbled it down like wolves?

  It was a great step forward . . . but I knew it couldn’t last.

  I collected the children early from school and nursery for Jill’s next visit and we all went to the usual family centre near Stonditch. We went in and the children zoned straight in on the snacks in my bag and the play area, in that order. We settled down to do some puzzles and play with the toys until Jill came . . . but she didn’t turn up.

  ‘Has there been any message?’ I asked the lady in the reception office who usually came in to supervise Jill’s visits.

  ‘No, nothing. I’ll give Social Services a ring and see if they know anything.’

  I waited while she phoned them, listening to one side of the call while also keeping an eye on my exuberant clan through the window in the door.

  ‘No, Mrs Merry,’ she said as she put the receiver down. ‘They gave her the ticket yesterday, and she was meant to be coming. What time was she due?’

  ‘Three o’clock.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking up at the office clock. ‘It’s four now, so I’m afraid it looks like she’s not coming. Will the children be very upset?’

  ‘I never know,’ I shrugged. ‘I’ll gather the hooligans and we’ll go on home.’

  ‘Oh, they’re not that bad,’ she laughed.

  ‘You don’t know them!’ She probably didn’t realise I was only half joking.

  ‘I thought she wouldn’t come,’ scowled Hamish in the car on the way home, but glancing in my mirror I could see that the others looked completely unconcerned.

  I did ask them all later: ‘Are you fed up that Mum didn’t come today?’

  ‘No,’ said Anita. ‘It’s boring when she’s there, because she doesn’t want to play with us. It was good today because we could get all the toys out and have fun.’

  ‘Not really,’ agreed Caroline. ‘I liked playing with Anita.’

  Simon said nothing at all, as usual; just a slight shake of the head.

  Only Hamish had shown any reaction in the car, so I repeated my question to him.

  ‘What about you, Hame? Were you upset?’

  ‘I would have liked to see that she had been eating properly. Do you think Steve will make sure she eats proper food?’

  ‘I should think so, Hamish, because she’s expecting the baby.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ he said and gave a half smile. ‘I didn’t think she’d come anyway.’

  ‘Well, never mind. I expect she’ll come next time.’

  ‘I don’t really care,’ said Anita. ‘She’s probably at home watching horror films with her mates. She used to make us watch horror films. The first one I remember was nightmare something.’

  ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ said Hamish.

  ‘It was very scary and I didn’t want to watch it when it was on, but I couldn’t stop. I don’t know why I liked being scared. But it did give me nightmares.’

  ‘You always had nightmares,’ commented Hamish.

  ‘I still do. But not so many now.’

  ‘I still remember being sat in front of Chucky and being made to watch it,’ said Hamish. ‘I never want to see that film again.’

  ‘We had to watch rude films as well,’ added Anita. ‘I don’t want to go back home.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘Because Mum will let people hurt me.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Her boyfriends,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Larry is nasty to us,’ explained Anita.

  ‘And Wayne tries to put his hands over our faces,’ continued Hamish. ‘So that we can’t breathe. He tried to kill us when Mum and her other boyfriends were in bed.’

  All the children’s behaviour was up and down – good days and bad days, but a few more good days than there used to be.

  They’d been with us for a year now and I decided it was time to start trying to potty-train Caroline. She wanted to go to a Saturday morning club with Hamish and Anita.

  ‘You can only go to Saturday Club when you stop wearing nappies,’ I told her and that really motivated her. So we gradually got her dry during the daytime.

  ‘Well done, Caroline,’ I congratulated her one day. ‘You worked hard to get dry in the daytime. Now you deserve a reward.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You can choose something you want to do.’

  ‘Can I go to Saturday Club tomorrow?’

  So off she went in Mike’s car with the others the next morning, proud as Punch. It would be a long time before any of the younger three would be dry at night, but it was a big first step for Caroline. Simon would take a little longer.

  Both the younger ones were much happier at the agency’s nursery, with other children from difficult backgrounds, so there was a lot more tolerance and understanding amongst the staff and the children were not so fazed by the actions of others. Caroline continued to be slow and wary, but she was learning to dress herself at nursery, so we did the same at home and she soon got the hang of it. Simon too could now put on his own socks and shoes. Maybe we’re winning, I thought as I sat with them one breakfast time, until they suddenly started fighting at the table, which ended up in a frenzy of hair-pulling and biting.

  I had to call Mike to come and help me pull them apart.

  In my diary that night I wrote ‘. . . going through the terrible twos stage, a bit late — what fun!’

  12

  Whistleblowers

  ‘I was shocked at the kids’ reaction. Caroline was rigid. They all looked frightened . . . nightmares, sleepwalking.’

  Extract from my diary

  A large, brown, handwritten envelope arrived one morning, sent in the post. No official stamp like the Social Services mail always had.

  I opened it at one end and extricated the contents – some sheets of paper stapled together, sparsely typed with dates and notes. There was no letter or compliment slip. My hands started shaking as I realised what this was. Who could have sent it to me? And why now?

  As I stared at the top sheet, the children’s names jumped out at me, and the name of an older sibling too. I began reading the first page, going right down to the bottom. I stopped and put the sheaf of papers down on the table, pushing it away from me, and then sat back looking at it.

  This is wrong, I thought. I can’t read this. Oh my God, I could be in trouble. Somebody must have sent me these case notes in error. What happens if I read this and I shouldn’t have done? But I wanted to learn more. It was difficult to take in, but I just had to continue reading.

  ‘There’s something very strange about these notes,’ I said to Mike that evening, after the children were in bed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they look like case notes, and they do give a basic description and list events with the dates, but it feels like it’s not the whole story.’

  ‘So, do you think the notes were not very well written by the social worker, not detailed enough? Or are you saying you think they’ve been doctored?’

  ‘I wish I knew!’ I paused. ‘It’s like I’m having to read between the lines. It says a lot about surface goings on, but I feel cheated somehow. I can’t really explain it. I feel as if the worst things have been deliberately left out.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s just an unobservant social worker who couldn’t be bothered to write much.’

  ‘Trust you to defend the social worker for not doing their job properly!’

  I passed the notes to Mike. ‘Here, have a look. See what you think.’

  As I watched him skim through the first page, I began to feel guilty that I’d read it.

  ‘Do you think I should ring Social Services and tell them I’ve been sent these notes?’ I asked him.

  Mike looke
d up. ‘Who are you going to tell? You could get someone in trouble for revealing confidential information.’

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you think it could have been a whistleblower?’

  ‘I think it must have been.’

  ‘Surely we have a right to this information? But I can’t do anything with it, because I’m not supposed to know about the older sister having severe learning difficulties, or the parents’ previous marriages, or the grandmother’s learning difficulties . . .’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve learned a few revealing things you didn’t know.’

  ‘Yes, the social worker clearly knew the children went to school in wet clothes, without eating anything. And all the missed appointments, and the state of the house. The person who wrote the notes even mentioned the Schedule 1 offenders coming in and out. Offenders – surely that means they must have been convicted paedophiles? Why didn’t anyone ask the obvious questions? Why did they continue to leave the children at such great risk?’

  ‘It sounds like they’ve failed this family badly.’

  ‘Yes, it mentions severe neglect as if it were ordinary, but it doesn’t actually say anything about abuse at all.’

  A few weeks later, I had a call from Social Services. I gulped, thinking they’d rumbled us and we’d need to own up to having the case notes. But no.

  ‘I wonder if you could help us, Mrs Merry?’

  ‘Well, I can try.’ I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of this situation.

  Jill had the baby and it’s a boy. We placed him with a family for adoption.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Yes, we had to be quick.’

  Yet more irony, I thought, considering how long they had taken to remove our four.

  ‘We’ve received a request from Michael Warren, the carer who hopes to adopt the baby, asking if he can have your phone number to find out about the baby’s half brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Right.’ I had to think quickly here.

  ‘Would you be happy for him to contact you?’