by Casey Watson
‘So what’s been going on? You know, since then. Has she had any schooling at all?’
‘Not much,’ Danny said. ‘By the time I took the case on they’d done all the usual. She’d had mentoring, detentions, been excluded and so on. She’d also had a spell at a different school. ELAC had organised home schooling for her, and that was ongoing for a bit. Then back in school. Then not, and now she’s in year 11 … well, hypothetically …
‘Look,’ he said. ‘The last thing I want is to put you off trying – not least because it’s bound to be challenging having her around the house all the time. You know where we are with her – she doesn’t want to continue with her education, period. But if you can persuade her otherwise – find her some vocational college course or something that she feels enthusiastic about – that would be great. Perhaps this whole upheaval will turn out to have been a good thing; shaken everyone out of just accepting the status quo. Shaken her out of her rut, even. And I’m sure ELAC could swing something, even if it’s mid-term and temporary, so if you want to get a prospectus, be my guest. Or I could do it if you like? Save you having to?’
I wasn’t directing it at Danny, because I didn’t have all the facts, but it seemed to me that these were options that should have been discussed yonks ago, shouldn’t they? And I just couldn’t get my head round the mentality of her last foster carers. Why had they allowed things to get this bad? Had they just given up on her?
I told Danny I’d sort out a college prospectus myself and, after ringing off and ordering a print one from their website, I called John, to update him, and to put the question to him too.
‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘And I doubt we will find out any time soon either. But I’ve read more of Keeley’s file now’ – so he, too, had more flipping information than I had – ‘and my hunch is that when they realised they’d taken on more than they could deal with they started to regret taking her on. Maybe she hit puberty and started acting out – perhaps her past – not to mention her future – was finally catching up with her, and they didn’t know how to manage her. Maybe they reckoned she was a bad influence on the younger one. Jade, isn’t it?’
‘Who she tells me she’s very close to,’ I said. ‘And I believe her.’
‘Which makes her actions over last weekend rather precipitous, don’t you think? At least, if we all believe they’re going to be unsubstantiated, that is. Which seems likely. All a bit of a puzzle, isn’t it? Either way, you know what I think? I think they’re probably fine with it. Perhaps they were relieved – they’ve certainly not been in uproar about it, by all accounts. Which makes me even surer it’s all fluff. That it’s a game they know she’s playing. A game they are happy to go along with because it’s turned out to be a gift – they know it has no substance, but at the same time it means they can wash their hands of her, without recriminations.’
That term again. Was that her lot in life? To be a child who everyone wanted to wash their hands of?
Things must have been bad at the Burkes, then, I decided. They must have been if it was preferable to be accused of making sexual advances than to continue to foster the poor girl. And that was another thing. There didn’t seem to be any progress on that front; something I’d have thought would have been nothing short of critical – because if it turned out that Mr Burke had done something untoward, then surely their adopted daughter Jade would also be classed as being at risk. Yet there was nothing. Not a peep. And no one seemed anxious to push things. Every time I asked it was simply ‘ongoing’.
As was Keeley’s loose attachment to the Watson family rules.
Despite her assurances to Danny that she knew toeing the line at ours was the key to her promised freedom, by the Sunday evening of the second week I was feeling more than a little frazzled by her smiling disregard for boundaries.
I knew what we’d taken on, of course, because it had already been made clear: a girl old enough to enjoy a measure of freedom – her phone and her social life, not to mention her self-destructive choices about schooling. But it was hard to square that with our other responsibility – to Tyler, our son, who was older than she was, and enjoyed no such parental latitude.
And Keeley seemed to enjoy wielding her power. If we told her to be in by nine, it would be half past, and if we said half past, then it would be ten. And so on it went, with Mike and me trying to rein her in, by insisting that the consequences of returning home late one night would be that she had to be in the following evening an hour earlier. But we were wasting our breath. Whatever we said, she came in when it suited her. Never so long after the agreed time that we’d have to send out a search party, but just late enough to deliver a clear message – that, despite the tossed out ‘sorry I’m late’ apologies and ridiculous excuses she always offered, she would come home when it suited her.
It was Tyler I felt for, particularly. He knew all too well that if he slipped out of line there would be consequences. For a start I would have taken his phone away from him for a period, and restricted his time on the internet.
With Keeley it wasn’t as simple. Her phone was her own and I had no right to take it from her, which meant that she could access the internet any time she wanted to; one of the biggest modern headaches for foster carers. And what was true for her school was true for us too. Our only recourse, when it came to Keeley flouting our family rules, was to tell John we didn’t want to hang on to her after all. That we’d wash our hands of her as well.
Did she want that? Did she care if she was once again moved on? With mere weeks to go till she could move on in life alone, I suspected her only reason for keeping us sweet was to ensure she kept Danny sweet and so got what she was really after – supported lodgings and a chance to run her life herself.
‘Perhaps we should call her bluff and start delivering ultimatums,’ Mike suggested. But I couldn’t yet agree. That would play right into her hands – her taste for getting expelled made that obvious – and I wasn’t ready to do that. No, I’d stick with it and do my best to try and interest her in some kind of college course, even if only a couple of days a week and even if it involved an element of manipulation, such as making her signed-off pathway plan conditional upon it. Because I was sure that if she had something positive to focus on she’d be less inclined to wander the streets.
Right now, though, she breezed into the house as cool as you like, making only the most cursory nod towards an apology as she swept in.
‘Before you start …’ she said, ‘my phone died and I had no idea what time it was. By the time I saw anyone to ask, I was already fifteen minutes late, so I had to literally run all the way home.’
If she was expecting a round of applause for her efforts she was about to be disappointed. Mike glared at her and I could tell he was angrier than she probably realised, having been interrupted in the middle of helping Tyler with some revision for an upcoming test. And as she banged the side door shut, she then added to his irritation, having caused enough air turbulence to send several sheets of A4 wafting off the kitchen table.
‘Yeah, right, great job, well done,’ said Tyler.
Mike stood up and I sensed an impending flash point. ‘That’s no excuse, Keeley,’ he said, his voice low and stern as he towered over her. ‘And did you think we came down in the last shower of rain? Eh? Don’t you think we’ve heard every excuse in the book?’ He raised a hand. Pointed a finger. ‘Every time, Keeley. Every single time, we’ve given you another chance. And every time you promise you’ll do better. Well, young lady,’ he said, and I could see just how angry he was, ‘now I’m making you a promise. The very next time you’re so much as five minutes late you will be grounded the following night. Do it again, and you’ll be grounded for two nights. We’re not having it. It ends right this minute. Do you understand?’
I think Keeley must have been a little shocked to hear Mike speak so harshly. I was too, to be truthful, because it wasn’t often that he lost his temper, especially with one of the foster kids. But I co
uldn’t blame him. I knew he was more annoyed that Tyler was witness to all of it and I knew what he was thinking about that too. He needed to be cross. To assert his authority. If not, how long before Tyler, quite reasonably, began to question how much she was getting away with?
I watched Keeley’s expression run through various options. And perhaps – sensibly – opt for contrition.
‘I am sorry, Mike, honest,’ she said, sounding sincere. ‘And look, my phone is dead.’ She held it up as evidence. He ignored it, instead reaching down to gather up the papers.
‘C’mon, son,’ he said to Tyler. ‘Let’s finish this off in the dining room.’ The coldest of cold shoulders.
Keeley shrugged, though half-heartedly. Mike wasn’t even looking. And as they left the kitchen she slipped her phone back into her pocket. Which was interesting. I’d have expected her to fall desperately upon her charger. It was her lifeline to everything that mattered to her, after all.
But maybe not right now this minute.
‘I’ve saved you a Sunday dinner,’ I said, trying my best to sound impartial. I really didn’t want it to look like Mike and I were playing good cop, bad cop. Some rules were sacrosanct – and the two of us presenting a united parental front was one of them. I knew that was the best way, from long experience. But neither did I want Keeley to feel that the whole world and its uncle were against her. Cool was sufficient. Not ice-cold. ‘You hungry?’ I added.
She nodded. Then she sat down and, with no phone to stare at, stared across the hall to where Mike and Tyler now were instead. An outsider looking in? I sort of hoped so. Another feature of parenting was working with the knowledge that all children, whatever their age or their background, craved the approval of those adults they respected. Early days, yes, but I wondered if this was true of Keeley and Mike.
Perhaps so. I was just programming the microwave when she spoke. ‘Bit harsh,’ she observed. ‘I was telling the truth, honest. He didn’t need to go off on one like that. All shouty.’
I watched the plate turn behind the glass and considered how to respond. ‘What did you expect, love?’ I said mildly. ‘You’ve been pushing it and pushing it. You’ve been late almost every single night you’ve been out. It’s worrying for us.’
‘I told you, I’m fine.’
‘You knowing you’re fine is irrelevant, Keeley. Even us believing you’re fine is irrelevant, for that matter. We have a job to do. A responsibility for you, whether you like it or not. Don’t you understand that? That’s why Mike’s annoyed with you. Because this is all so exhausting and we really don’t need it. Surely you can see that?’
The microwave pinged and I grabbed a cloth to pull the plate out. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Get on the outside of that and let’s hear no more about it. And tomorrow –’
‘Oh, I meant to say. Danny’s coming round. And his manager, I think. Possibly.’ She speared a potato.
‘Oh, really? I didn’t know anything about that.’
‘You won’t have. Well, you might have. But you will do.’
‘I’m losing track, love.’
‘That’s why my phone died. ’Cos I was on the phone to him for so long. He’s gone off on one too.’ She glanced pointedly across to the other room.
‘Why? What about?’
‘Because I told him I made it up.’
There was a moment of incomprehension before the penny dropped. ‘What, about your foster father?’
‘Of course about him,’ she said, putting the potato in her mouth. ‘Who else?’
I pulled a chair out and sat down. ‘You really mean that? That he never touched you? That you did make it all up?’
‘Course I did,’ she said, seeming completely unconcerned. ‘I hate him. I told you. And I had to say something, didn’t I? I’d tried everything else to get them to move me – Danny knows that – and they wouldn’t. But saying that meant they had to. Anyway, it’s done now. So I don’t know what he’s flapping about. It’s all good.’
It’s not often that I’m speechless, but I came pretty close. I just couldn’t get my head round the calm way she was telling me. If I’d been concerned that she’d falsely made such a serious allegation in the first place, the insouciant way she was admitting that she’d made it all up was on a whole other level. She’d put an entire family through the trauma of what surely must have followed, yet it was like water off a duck’s back. It beggared belief.
‘No it’s not “all good”, Keeley,’ I eventually said. ‘It’s not good at all. You could have ruined their bloody lives!’
Again a shrug. ‘They’re too dumb. Honest, it won’t have even bothered them. And it had to be something bad or they’d have been under pressure to have me back again, wouldn’t they? Which they didn’t want. Really,’ she added, presumably seeing my expression. ‘You don’t know what they’re like. You don’t know what he’s like.’ She moved on to a stuffing ball. ‘Honest, it’s win-win, if you ask me.’
Which struck me as the saddest interpretation of the word ‘win’ I’d ever heard. I really didn’t know this girl at all.
Chapter 8
‘Well, it’s only what we all suspected, isn’t it?’ said Mike. ‘Poor couple. What a horrendous thing to be put through.’
It had ended up being a long night. The display on the bedside clock glowed its inevitable message to prove it. That there were far too few hours of the night left. We should really stop discussing this and go to sleep.
‘And it could have been us,’ I said. ‘You. That’s what I keep coming back to. It was so calculated. She wanted out and she knew how to get out. God, how damaged and cynical must she be? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.’
‘I wonder what his real crime was?’ Mike mused. ‘We know almost nothing about either of them, after all. Though the fact that they didn’t class the other girl as “at risk” tells us lots. Had they so much as a whisper of a doubt they would have acted right away and removed her. And they’re foster carers, for God’s sake. They’d have been scrutinised minutely. And they adopted. So ditto. You know, Case, I’m beginning to feel distinctly less enthusiastic about us keeping this girl.’
I understood. I felt likewise. I didn’t want to, but I did. Much as I kept trying to tell myself that it was the behaviour, not the child – that Keeley was a victim, and that the traumas of her childhood were at the root of how she was now – I felt the same sense of gloom as my husband did about her future. I stared up at the ceiling, contemplating defeat. Perhaps it was too late to help her. Everyone else seemed to think so. She was almost sixteen now, as she kept on reminding us. Perhaps I was being way too idealistic to believe we could help turn things around for her. Why should we succeed where everyone else had failed?
‘I know …’ I began.
‘You know what I think?’ Mike said. ‘I think this crisis has been a long time in the making. The poor bloke’s probably been way too soft with her, for years. And the more she’s got away with, the more powerful she’s become. You know what they say about creating a monster. Well, perhaps by being too soft he’s created one in her. He probably started out like we did, don’t you think? Making allowances. Overlooking the coming home late. The back chat. The swearing. The attitude. Then, before he knew it, Keeley was in control. Till he snapped. Laid the law down. And, bingo, she’s kicked back by doing this. She’s simply playing the system. It’s textbook.’
‘I can’t allow myself to believe she could be that manipulative or heartless,’ I said, even though a part of me so easily could. Teenagers – your own teenagers – could run rings round you. Everyone knew that. So teenagers who had no love or respect for you to temper their excesses – well, as Mike said, this sort of thing happened all the time, particularly with kids who’d become so damaged that they had no attachments to care about. They had nothing to lose.
‘I can,’ Mike said.
‘Yes, but perhaps it was just a moment of madness. We have to give her the benefit of the doubt about that. A spur of
the moment thing, said on impulse, that snowballed out of control. We hardly know her, do we? This whole thing with Danny. Her texting him out of the blue like that. She might not have said as much, but perhaps she’s been looking for an opportunity to set things straight since day one.’
I was saying it as much to convince myself as Mike. And he didn’t seem convinced at all. In fact, he snorted. ‘Maybe so, Casey, but I tell you what – she’s not going to be playing us for fools, that’s for sure. And I hope there’s going to be some retribution from social services about it. Look at the trouble she’s caused.’ He reached across to switch off his bedside light. ‘Love, I’m not sure we shouldn’t just call John and ask him to find somewhere else for her. I’m not sure we want her here, around Tyler. Are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Let’s sleep on it, eh? Everything always seems better in the morning.’
But would it? Should we wash our hands of her too?
Danny called me only seconds after Tyler left for school the following morning.
‘It’s not too early, is it?’ he asked. ‘Only I have some news to share.’
‘If it’s what I’m thinking it is, then Keeley’s already told me.’
‘Oh, she has, has she? What did she say?’
‘Very little really. Just trotted it out as if it was nothing. As if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And said you were coming over today?’