by Cathy Glass
‘I’m sure Lily would have offered it,’ Jill said. ‘Although from what I know of Bonnie’s lifestyle, she doesn’t stay in one place long enough to access counselling or support services.’ Which I had to accept. ‘Did Bonnie give Lucy the birthday present she mentioned in her card?’ Jill asked.
‘No, and Lucy didn’t expect it, so she wasn’t disappointed.’
‘Just as well,’ Jill said dryly. ‘But it’s best not to make a promise if you can’t keep it.’
‘I don’t suppose Bonnie has the money to buy presents,’ I said.
‘No,’ Jill agreed sadly. ‘I don’t suppose she has.’
Jill now took a file of papers from her large bag, which doubled as a briefcase. ‘Your application to the permanency panel,’ she said, tapping the file. ‘Because you’re already fostering Lucy, we’ve been able to streamline the process. If she wasn’t here already, your application would have been far more complex and lengthy. Don’t worry, I’ll go through this with you now.’
I moved closer so I could see the papers and Jill opened the file. ‘The application begins with the basic stuff, your essential information, which I’ve taken from our records,’ she said, referring to the top pages. ‘I’ve checked it all and it’s current.’ I nodded and ran my eyes down the pages as Jill turned them. ‘Then we have your fostering history,’ she said. ‘And what you learnt from looking after those children. This was all included in your last review, which you read and signed at the time.’ I nodded and skimmed the pages. ‘Then we go on to information about your family,’ Jill said, ‘including family interests, and that you are all aware of the implications of fostering long term. There is a paragraph on your motivation for offering a long-term placement to Lucy, how well you handle contact and how you support Lucy. All of which you do admirably, of course,’ Jill added, as I read. She paused while I finished reading and then turned the page again. ‘Here we have your children’s views about fostering Lucy long term, which are of course very positive, followed by Lucy’s views on staying here – again, all positive – which I wrote after speaking to you and Lily.’ Jill paused again as I finished reading these pages.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘The next question is standard, so don’t take it personally,’ Jill said. My gaze fell to the next box on the form which asked: ‘Do the carers and their family understand the impact of racism, and what do they do to support the child’s ethnic origin?’
I read Jill’s reply and nodded. ‘Thank you,’ I said again.
‘I’m almost certain there will be a question along these lines at the permanency panel too,’ Jill said. ‘So be prepared.’
‘I will,’ I said.
‘Your references,’ Jill continued, turning the next few pages. ‘All positive, of course. Then your police checks and medical, which are current and always included. And a copy of your last fostering review, which you’ve already read.’ This alone was twelve pages long. ‘And, finally,’ Jill said, ‘my conclusion, with my recommendation to the panel that they should grant your application to foster Lucy long term.’
Jill waited while I read this section.
‘What lovely words,’ I said.
‘You deserve it. So if you’re happy with all of this, sign here, and I’ll send it with Lily’s part of the application for the March panel.’
I picked up my pen, signed on the dotted line and returned the file to Jill. She then told me a bit about what to expect at the panel hearing, after which she read and signed my log notes.
‘You know, you’ll still have to keep your log notes going, even after permanency,’ Jill said.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be off. See you at the review next week,’ Jill said. ‘Ask Lucy if she would like to attend her review. She might feel differently now.’
‘I will,’ I said.
When Lucy arrived home from school that afternoon, I told her Jill had visited and the reason why. But when I asked her if she’d like to attend her review, she said, ‘Maybe next time. I don’t want to miss school.’ Which was reasonable.
‘Perhaps I could ask for your next review to be held during a school holiday?’ I suggested. ‘So you won’t have to miss school.’
‘OK,’ Lucy said amicably, and went off to listen to her music, which was far more interesting than discussing her review.
That evening, when I went upstairs to say goodnight to Lucy, she was sitting in bed, with Mr Bunny on the pillow beside her. Her hands were beneath the duvet and there was a lump in the covers, as though she was concealing something, something she’d possibly hidden when she’d heard me approaching.
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but there’s something I want to show you,’ she said. ‘It’s a secret and I haven’t shown anyone before.’
I sat on the bed, puzzled and a little apprehensive as to what it could be. I thought I knew Lucy well and I couldn’t think of anything she might have wanted to hide from me all this time. She was sharing her worries and past experiences more easily now.
‘It’s this,’ she said, producing the object from under the duvet. ‘I think you call it my Life Story Book, but I call it my diary.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, surprised and relieved. ‘That’s right. I remember Paula and I had to close our eyes when you unpacked it when you first arrived.’
Lucy smiled. ‘Now I’d like you to see it, and you can read some of the writing, but I’ll tell you what you can and can’t read.’
‘Thank you, love,’ I said. That Lucy wanted to share this with me now was not only very touching, but also highly significant: she was, in effect, entrusting me with her past. And although it was her bedtime, I knew I needed to give her all the time she needed.
‘That’s a photograph of me on the front,’ Lucy said, tilting the book so I could see. ‘I’m three years old there.’
‘What a lovely dress you’re wearing,’ I said.
‘It was my party dress,’ Lucy announced proudly. ‘Do you know how I know I was three?’
‘No.’
‘There are more photographs like this inside. I’m wearing my best dress because it was my third birthday.’ Lucy opened the book to reveal a double page of photographs showing her at the same age and in the same dress. The top of the page was neatly labelled: ‘Lucy’s Third Birthday’.
‘I had a little party,’ Lucy said, happy at the recollection. ‘There’s my cake, and look at all those presents! I can remember unwrapping them and playing games. That lady was my foster carer.’ She pointed to an adult in one of the photographs. ‘She was called Annie,’ Lucy said. ‘She’s written all the names of the people in the photographs underneath. Mum was there too.’
I looked at the photographs. Bonnie was sitting on the sofa watching Lucy unwrap her presents. So much younger and with different coloured hair, I wouldn’t have easily recognized her.
‘I had a lovely day,’ Lucy said, with a satisfied sigh. ‘I was happy living at Annie’s. Here I am in the garden,’ she said, turning the pages. ‘And here it’s Christmas.’
I smiled as I looked at the pictures. ‘Presumably Annie started this book for you?’
‘Yes, one of my social workers told me she did. The social worker said she’d asked Mum for some photographs of me when I was a baby to put in it, but it never happened.’
‘I’ll ask Lily,’ I said. ‘It’s important you have some photographs of when you were very little. I’m sure Bonnie must have taken some.’
‘Thanks,’ Lucy said, and turned the page. ‘Here are some more of me with Annie and her family. We did lots of things. Look at me at the farm stroking the rabbit, and here I am on the swings in the park. I don’t really remember all of those things, but I can tell I was happy because I’m smiling in all the photographs. I look happy, don’t I?’
‘You certainly do, love.’
Lucy turned the page again and the photographs taken at Annie’s suddenly
stopped. Lucy’s face grew serious. ‘I think Mum must have taken me away then, because that’s Dave,’ she said, pointing to a passport-size photo. ‘I was going to tear it up, but I kept it to remind me what he looked like, in case I ever meet him again. He was horrible to me. He looks horrible, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. With a shaved head, one earring, a scar running through one eyebrow and cold, grey, staring eyes, he looked the epitome of a thug. I wondered what Bonnie had seen in him and how she could ever have entrusted her daughter to him.
‘There he is with Mum,’ Lucy said, pointing to the photograph beneath. It was another passport-size photo, presumably taken in a booth, and showed Bonnie and Dave with their heads pressed together and lips pursed towards the camera.
‘Who gave you these photographs?’ I asked.
‘Mum,’ Lucy said. ‘I think she was proud of Dave.’
I didn’t comment. Lucy turned the page. ‘And there’s me again,’ she said, brightening very slightly. ‘I’m at school.’ But I could tell as soon as I looked at the photograph she hadn’t been happy at that time.
‘My teacher gave me the photo,’ Lucy said. ‘All the children in the school had their photographs taken. We were supposed to pay for them, but Mum didn’t have the money, so my teacher said I could keep it anyway. She was a nice lady. She was called Mrs Bridges.’
I looked at the posed school photograph. Lucy’s skin was pale and her hair hung lankly around her shoulders. Even though she was trying to smile for the photographer, it was a hollow smile. Her gaze was lifeless, and it was clear to me not only that she was hurting inside, but she wasn’t being well looked after.
‘I think I was six then,’ Lucy said sombrely. ‘But there’s so much I can’t remember. It’s very confusing.’
‘It might help if we ask Lily to tell us what she knows about your past. As your social worker, she’ll be able to look back in the files.’
‘Yes, please,’ Lucy said, and turned the page. ‘I started to write in this book then,’ she said. ‘Mum and Dave didn’t know I had this book. I kept it hidden and only wrote in it when they were in bed or out. I had two things that were mine – this book and Mr Bunny.’ She gave Mr Bunny a little kiss before continuing.
I looked at the page Lucy now showed me, with its childish scrawled handwriting – more like that of a three- or four-year-old than a child of six.
‘I tried to write my name here and draw a picture,’ Lucy said. ‘I know it’s not very good. I didn’t go to school much then, so I couldn’t write or draw well. That’s supposed to be me and Sammy. He was my friend. When I was unhappy at home and wasn’t allowed to go and see Sammy, I used to look at his picture instead.’
The image of Lucy taking comfort from this childish drawing was so sad and pathetic I could have cried. I put my arm around her and gave her a hug. Sometimes a hug can say more than words.
Lucy turned the page again and I was now looking at a number of stick drawings of a lady. ‘They are all of Mrs Bridges,’ Lucy said.
‘I might have struggled to recognize her,’ I said with a smile.
‘So would I!’ Lucy said, laughing. Then her face grew serious. ‘I can’t remember all that happened at that time, but I know my mum wasn’t around, and Dave had lots of girlfriends who I had to call aunt.’ She turned the page and I now looked at rows of childishly drawn faces with their mouths wide open.
‘Those were my “aunts”,’ Lucy said. ‘They were always angry with me, so I drew them shouting. I’ve tried to write some of their names underneath, but I couldn’t spell.’
The ‘names’ were really only jumbles of letters, indecipherable as words, until we got to the picture at the bottom of the page, which showed two people shouting, one with hair and the other without. Underneath Lucy had written clearly ‘Mum’ and ‘Dave’. ‘That’s when Mum came back to Dave. There was a big argument and she left again. Then I had another aunt. That’s her,’ Lucy said, pointing to the next drawing. ‘She stayed for a while, then suddenly I had to leave Mrs Bridges and Sammy and go and live with Dave and a strange woman. I was very unhappy. I didn’t know anyone in the new school and I couldn’t make friends. No one wanted to play with me. Look at all these pictures of me crying.’
Lucy turned the page and I now looked at a double page of childishly drawn faces that were supposed to be Lucy. There must have been twenty or more, all looking unbelievably miserable, with large tears falling from their eyes. The overall impression was of devastating sadness.
‘You were so unhappy then,’ I said quietly, shocked.
‘I was,’ Lucy said. She turned the page and the whole of the next side was covered in dark-grey crayon. ‘That’s a thunderstorm,’ she said. ‘I pinched the crayons from school. We didn’t have any at home. I don’t know why I drew a thunderstorm, perhaps it was raining at the time.’
‘Or perhaps it was your way of showing how unhappy you were,’ I said. ‘All that dark grey is how you felt inside. Children can sometimes show their feelings in art when they can’t put them into words.’
‘You could be right,’ Lucy said. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way before.’ She paused and then said, ‘I didn’t see Mum for ages, then suddenly she came and took me away. I was seven. I know because I wrote the number seven here so I would remember.’ She turned the page. ‘That’s my drawing of Mum and her new boyfriend arguing.’
Her drawings were maturing now and it was obvious the picture was of two very angry people; their fists were raised as though they were about to hit each other. Lucy had drawn a balloon coming out of their mouths, which contained the words: ‘I hate you!’
I didn’t say anything. Lucy was turning the page again and suddenly the drawings had gone, replaced by photographs, and I knew immediately that Lucy was in foster care again.
‘I wouldn’t let the foster carer see this book,’ Lucy said. ‘So she gave me the photos and a gluestick and I stuck them in. That’s why some of them are wonky and coming loose.’
‘Don’t worry. We can soon stick those in again,’ I said.
Lucy nodded. ‘That’s the carer, and those are her other foster children,’ she said, pointing to the photographs. ‘The kids didn’t like me and I got blamed for everything that went wrong. Perhaps it was my fault. I wasn’t happy there, but it was better than at Dave’s. I saw Mum a lot to begin with, and then she stopped visiting. Some time later I had to leave. The foster kids said it was because I was so horrible no one wanted me.’
‘That was a cruel thing to say,’ I said. ‘Of course you weren’t horrible. Just very confused and upset.’
Lucy gave a little shrug and turned the page. We were now looking at some photographs of another carer. ‘She was called Angie,’ Lucy said. ‘That’s her daughter, Shelly. They were kind to me and I liked being with them, but I was only allowed to stay for a little while, then Mum took me away again. I would have liked to have stayed longer,’ Lucy added wistfully.
There were no photographs on the next two pages. Lucy had written the number nine at the top and had ruled some lines beneath it, where she’d written in dates with a few short sentences, like diary entries. ‘I don’t want you to read this,’ she said, covering the writing with her hand and then turning the page. ‘I wrote horrible things about Mum and her new boyfriend. I feel guilty now, but at the time I was very upset and angry.’
‘I understand, love,’ I said. ‘You’d been through so much, of course you were hurt and angry.’
As Lucy turned the page again, more photographs appeared and I knew she was in foster care again. All foster carers are expected to keep a Life Story Book for the child with photographs and memorabilia.
‘That’s the carer, Heather,’ Lucy said. ‘That’s her husband and two daughters. It was OK there, but I had to change schools again and I wasn’t doing well in any subjects. I spent Christmas with them. I did my best to fit in and I think they liked me a little, but they had to move house. They told me they wanted to take me with
them, but my social worker said I couldn’t go. Maybe that’s true or maybe they just wanted to be rid of me, I don’t know. I then had to go and live with Pat and Terry. You met them.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Pat and Terry were the couple Lucy had stayed with prior to coming to me.
‘I knew when I went there I couldn’t stay,’ Lucy said. ‘Stevie told me it was because they only looked after babies. I thought that was just an excuse and that, like all the others I’d lived with, they didn’t want me around for long. I was eleven, and a couple of months after I arrived I had to go to secondary school. The building was huge and I kept getting lost. I couldn’t do my work or make friends and I stopped eating. I felt so alone, I really didn’t think life was worth living. I knew Mum couldn’t look after me, but no one else wanted me either. Then one afternoon, when I got home from school, Pat said Stevie was coming to tell me she’d found me another foster carer and I’d be moving at the weekend. Something seemed to snap inside me. I couldn’t take any more. I screamed and shouted and then locked myself in the bathroom. Pat kept trying to talk to me through the bathroom door, but I wasn’t listening. Nothing mattered any more. When Terry came home, he broke down the door and got me out. So I ran to my bedroom. They left me alone. I don’t think they knew what to do. I planned on staying in my room until I starved to death. I wanted to die, I really did. Then in the evening Pat came in with the phone and left it on the bed. Your voice came through. I tried not to listen, but you kept on and there was something in your voice that told me I should pick up the phone. The rest you know,’ Lucy finished quietly.
We both sat in silence for some time, subdued by the events Lucy had relived. ‘Thank goodness you did pick up the phone,’ I said at last, taking her hand between mine.
‘You can be very persuasive,’ Lucy said, with small smile.
‘Good.’
Yet I saw that Lucy’s Life Story Book had ended with the photographs of her stay at Pat and Terry’s. I wondered why she hadn’t stuck in the photographs I’d been giving her. I’d taken plenty and had always given Lucy a copy, but there wasn’t one in her book.