by Casey Watson
We’d been taught all sorts of things about how to handle violent situations with children, but it was something my dad had told me when I was a child that sprung to mind now. He’d been a boxer when he was younger, and one of the things he’d taught his children was that in self-defence you needed to remember it was all in the eyes. ‘Watch your opponent’s eyes,’ he’d said, ‘and then you’ll know where the next punch is coming from.’ What bollocks, I thought now. I couldn’t even see her eyes. The slaps were coming thick and fast and she was just a blur of hair and limbs, but something else my dad said kicked in instead. Grab her arms and cross them. I must grab her arms and cross them. Being so much smaller it was vital that I use my whole body, if I had a hope in hell of overpowering her.
And I did it. I grabbed her wrists and quickly yanked them across each other, launching myself, at the same time, on top of her. We fell in a heap on the bed, her below and me on top, in as ungainly a position as it was perhaps possible to be in, being jerked up and down by her bucking, furious body.
‘Get off me, you fucking whore!’ she screamed.
And all I could do was scream right back at her. ‘Is that right? I’m not some silly little girl you can knock about, you hear me? What exactly do you think you can do to me, eh?’
‘Bastard, whore, motherfucker!’ she spat in my face, writhing.
‘I’ll let you up when you shut the hell up!’ I screamed back.
I was then startled by hearing a commotion downstairs, which had the effect of stunning us both into silence. ‘Mrs Watson?!’ The man was shouting so loud through the letter box that I could hear my name clearly. ‘It’s the police! Is everything okay?’
‘Oh, thank God!’ I thought. My neighbour must have heard the noise and called them! I sprung from Sophia. Now I’d be safe, even if she chased me. And she did manage to kick me, hard, as I bolted for the staircase, almost falling down them in my haste to open the front door.
‘Oh, thank God you came!’ I said, yanking it open to reveal two big policemen. ‘Thank God someone called you!’
The younger of the two, stepping inside, shook his head. ‘No one called us. We’re here to follow up an incident report. But it sounds like you’re having one right now!’
I nodded and explained, marvelling at this piece of good fortune, trying to flatten down my hair as I did so, feeling the sting of a cut as I smoothed my hand over my face. They were PCs Turner and Jamieson, PC Turner explained, upon which I promptly burst into tears.
The taller one, PC Jamieson, ushered me into the living room, while PC Turner set off up the stairs. ‘Mrs Watson,’ he said calmly, pulling out a small black notebook, ‘you’ve clearly been assaulted. You’re quite within your rights to press charges. Would you like to?’
I shook my head and sniffed. ‘No, I wouldn’t. She’s sick, you see. She’s got a health condition. She has psychological problems … But it’s all being sorted … She’s …’
But I was stopped mid-sentence by the sound now coming from the hallway.
‘Morning, boys!’ It was Sophia, who’d come halfway down the stairs in her pyjamas. ‘Oh, I see the witch has got to you first.’ She pulled a face at me. ‘Oh, boo-hoo! Is poor Casey crying?’ Only she pronounced it ‘cwy-ing’, along with contorting her face into an exaggerated frown.
She then turned to the two policemen. PC Jamieson had stood up now. ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ she observed. ‘Aren’t coppers young these days!’
PC Turner boomed so loud that I nearly exploded up from the sofa. ‘Shut your filthy mouth, young lady, and get down here!’
‘It’s not me,’ she said. ‘It’s her!’ She jabbed a finger in my direction. ‘She came up and attacked me in my fucking bed!’
PC Turner ran up the stairs then, closely followed by his colleague, and when he reached her he skilfully twisted her arm behind her back, before frogmarching her back towards her bedroom. First, though, holding her at the top of the stairs, he turned to me.
‘Mrs Watson, Sophia is going to go and get dressed for school now, but if she doesn’t I take it I have your full authority to take her to school in her pyjamas? And don’t think I won’t do it!’ he growled at her. ‘I’ll march you right across the playground in them, if I have to. You get me?’
Numb with shock at this bizarre turn of events, I could only nod at him. But then something else occurred to me. ‘But we mustn’t forget to make sure she takes her pills first.’
Ten minutes later, fully dressed, and with her meds inside her, Sophia went to school in their police car.
Chapter 24
Alone in the house, finally, I burst into tears again. I was so tired of all this and it was made doubly worse because I didn’t know what to do to make things better. I looked at the livid scratch that ran down my left cheek, and fresh tears spilled from my eyes. It would be joined tomorrow by some equally livid bruises, I knew. I felt useless – utterly useless. Unworthy of my position. How could a 13-year-old girl have driven me to this?
I paced the floor, then, trying to calm myself down. The policemen would be back soon, to take the statement they’d come to take from me in the first place. I couldn’t bear the thought of them seeing me in this state. I didn’t trust myself to phone John Fulshaw yet, either. Not without breaking down and wailing at him. I wasn’t even sure I had it in me right now to write an accurate, unemotional record in my log.
Instead, I went out into the garden with my cigarettes, but lighting one, rather than calming me, just made me feel angry at myself. I was even too weak to give up smoking! I’d promised Mike I’d cut down, and had been doing so well lately, chomping away on horrible nicotine chewing gum and really making a sustained effort. But at the first hint of stress, what did I reach for? My fags. Hopeless, that was what I was. Hopeless.
But the minutes passed and, as I sat in the sunshine, I began to feel calmer, forensically replaying the morning’s events in my mind. Rationally, I knew I couldn’t have played things any other way. When Sophia wanted a fight, she wanted a fight, and that was that. Even John Lennon and Yoko Ono couldn’t have pacified her. But the look as she’d left for school had made me shudder. If looks could kill … I knew what that saying meant now. She had lost it, really lost it, and I was the subject of her loathing. There was no getting away from that fact.
‘Are you sure you’re okay, Casey? Really sure?’
It was an hour later, the police constables having come and now gone, and I’d finally felt able to ring John with an update.
‘I am now,’ I said. ‘Still a bit shaken, but I’ll live. It’s not the first time I’ve been in a scuffle with a teenager.’ In fact it was the first time alone in my own home, without the support network of a whole school behind me. But there was no point in saying that. It just made me feel even less up to the job than I did already.
John sighed. ‘Look, Casey,’ he said. ‘I know more bad news is the last thing you need to hear right now, but I’m afraid I have some none the less.’
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I don’t think anything else could upset me today. Not after this morning.’
‘Okay … They withdrew Grace’s life support at 9 a.m. this morning. She died at 9.20.’
‘Bloody hell! Since when was that sanctioned? I thought they’d planned on waiting till Sophia could say goodbye to her.’
‘So did I. But apparently the grandmother told them to do it. Just her and Sophia’s granddad were present. The uncle’s apparently furious.’
‘Oh, God, John. How am I going to break all this to Sophia?’
‘You’re not. Not today, anyway. Let me check on the funeral arrangements first. Given what’s happened this morning, I think we should leave it for a couple of days. And look, are you sure you don’t want me to come over or something?’
‘No, John,’ I said. ‘There’s only one thing I want right now, and that’s to hear that you’ve made progress in finding help for Sophia. I just don’t feel we’re up to the task any more.’
&
nbsp; ‘We have done, I promise. We have a provisional slot with Panel, just as soon as she’s been assessed by the psychiatrist. They know how urgent this is, Casey. I’ve made that abundantly clear.’
This was a relief to hear. ‘Panel’, as they’re called, are a team of senior professionals within social services, whose primary role is to decide what kind of fostering a child needs and, crucially, how much funding will be made available for it. Having a slot with Panel, in which Sophia’s markedly more complex needs could be reassessed, meant there would finally be some action – and an end to what felt like this constant fobbing off. It was all very well, all this ‘we’re doing this’, ‘we’re sorting that’, ‘we’ll have progress on this shortly’, but – and I gingerly touched the scab on my cheek – urgent, in the real world, meant now.
As soon as I’d said goodbye to John, I called Riley. Not to give her chapter and verse on my morning – I was determined not to burden her with it – but to see if she fancied bringing Levi into town, so we could do lunch and a bit of girlie shopping. Levi was over the worst of his chickenpox now; happy in himself, even if still a little scabby. It would be good to see him, and have a much-needed hug.
Thinking about Grace, cold and dead now, was weighing heavily on my mind. Would this be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Sophia? Much as I knew it needed to happen to enable her to grieve and move on, I tried to put myself in her shoes, and it felt horrible. She was already so unstable, so full of rage, so full of heartache and, selfishly, perhaps, given what she’d already told me, I was gritting my teeth mentally at the prospect of having a suicidal teenager in my house. Yes, I’d sworn to help her, but it was so hard. It was one thing to rationalise her extreme violence as not her fault, quite another to accept that when it was squarely aimed at you.
But I knew Riley and Levi would prove to be the antidote, and I’d been right. After a lovely lunch, and the purchase of yet another bag, I began to feel my mental strength returning. And the bag was a beach bag, because the other thing I’d vowed to do while out with Riley was to plan a holiday – to jet away, somewhere hot and sunny and away from it all, just as soon as our circumstances allowed. In the meantime, however, it was very nearly end-of-school time, and I needed to get home and start on tea.
It was Kieron, however, who was home first. ‘Guess what?’ he said, almost the very second he arrived back. ‘I’ve been invited to go on holiday with Lauren and her parents! To Cornwall! Which’ll be great, don’t you think?’
Bless him, I thought, knowing that what my 20-year-old son was really doing was asking my permission – seeking my approval. He hated making decisions, and was also stressed about change, so he needed me to tell him it was a really good idea before he’d have the confidence to actually go.
‘How fantastic!’ I enthused. ‘You will love it! And it’ll be good for you to get away from this madhouse for a bit.’
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘about that … I’ve been thinking. I’m going to ask Riley if she’ll look after Bob. Is that okay? I know you’ll miss him, Mum, but I just couldn’t bear it if … well, you know. I’d just feel happier knowing he’s at Riley’s.’
I nodded. ‘Of course, love, I completely understand. And I’m sure Riley would love to have him.’
‘And you’ve got enough on your plate, haven’t you?’ he added ruefully.
‘Tell me about it,’ I agreed, giving him the same edited version about the morning as I’d given his sister.
‘Humph,’ he said decidedly. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, but you know, Mum, I am going to be so glad when she goes.’
Which I knew Sophia couldn’t have heard, as it was a full five minutes later when she got home. But when she came in it was almost as if she had heard – straight away I could see she had a face like thunder. ‘There you go!’ she spat at me as she came into the kitchen, plucking her lunch box from her bag and flinging it across the worktop. ‘I didn’t eat any of your shit!’
Nothing surprised me these days, so I didn’t even gape. Not even when she glared towards the chips I was cutting and said, ‘And I won’t be eating any of that shit, either!’
‘Sophia, just knock it off,’ I said instead, more in sorrow than in anger. ‘You know, I am really getting tired of all this.’
‘Get used to it,’ she snapped. ‘Because from today I’m on hunger strike.’
I felt my heart sink. Was there no end to her manipulation? ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, pulling off the lid from her lunchbox, to see that she had indeed failed to eat a single thing. I removed the contents methodically, and placed them in the bin. Hunger strike. Brilliant. That was all I needed. And what was I supposed to do about it exactly? Tie her up and force-feed her?
‘Sophia,’ I said again. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know you have to eat, or you’ll mess up your medication …’
But she had already stomped out of the kitchen.
I took a long, slow, deep breath then, and finished doing the chips. At least Mike would be happy, I thought wryly, as I rinsed them. Pie, chips and mushy peas with lots of gravy, his favourite dinner. Just the small matter of a 13-year-old hunger striker to deal with, and we could all enjoy a jolly family evening.
I would have to ring the GP again, I decided. Get some advice on what best to do. And though it was hardly rocket science – leave some tempting salty snacks in her bedroom, trust to hunger kicking in and taking over – I felt better for having spoken to Dr Shackleton. He’d also reassured me that he’d be happy to come out if needed, so at least I felt I had some professional support.
‘But what about her pills?’ Kieron wanted to know, after I’d hung up. ‘How are you going to make her take them if she refuses?’
‘I have no idea,’ I told him truthfully. ‘Just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘Or,’ he said, ‘you could just ring the fostering agency. Just tell them you’ve had enough. Make them come and get her.’
I smiled wanly at Kieron’s oh-so-simple solution. He had a point. It really could be as simple as that, couldn’t it? And, heaven knew, not a soul could berate me. Fostering was supposed to be a job of work, wasn’t it? Not a penance.
But every fibre of my being railed against giving up. Giving up on Sophia went against everything I’d signed up for. No matter how hateful, how hurtful, how horrible she was to me, I had to keep on keeping on with her. She couldn’t help it. I had to keep that in mind at all times. She was sick. She was crying for help. She couldn’t help it. And I also knew that I – along with Mike, and my own poor beleaguered kids – was all that stood between her and a secure adolescent unit. There’d be no putting her in a children’s home, not with her history, and her illness. No, it would be straight to a place of incarceration. Which I knew would be the beginning of the end for her. You only had to take a quick look at the statistics to know how terrible the likely long-term outcome would be if that happened. Kids in those places almost never made it back to a normal life.
Since Sophia had taken herself off to the living room after her pronouncement – and I’d left her there – when I dished up I decided to take her plate in to her. It went against all my rules about sitting at the table, but perhaps the smell of the gravy would sway her just a little, and with the rest of us out of sight and out of mind in the dining room, maybe she’d be unable to resist. I’d already briefed Mike, who had sighed and rolled his eyes, as if, like Kieron, pleading, ‘Why are we still doing this?’
Sophia looked up as I entered. Once again her expression was brutally hostile and I had to say it again, in my head: She can’t help this. She needs you.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she snapped. ‘I’m not eating. End of.’
I had a bit of a brainwave, then, standing there, clutching her steaming dinner. ‘Okay,’ I said, placing it on the coffee table, along with cutlery. ‘Don’t eat, then. I’ll leave the plate, but it’s up to you. You should know, though, that I’ve already told the GP, and he’s said t
hat if you don’t eat, and then refuse to take your steroids, you will definitely go into a full-blown crisis. And when that happens I have to follow the emergency procedure, so I will immediately call an ambulance, which will take you to hospital, where you will be fed and medicated, via drips, for as long as it takes. So this is pointless, all this. Just so you know.’
But she wasn’t interested. ‘Fine,’ she said calmly. ‘Do whatever you like. Makes no difference. I’ll just do it again. A body without stress hormones can only take so much, you know. Eventually it’ll work and eventually I’ll die.’ She turned back to the television. ‘End of.’
For a second or two I just stood there and stared. How did you respond to that? What did you say? Nothing in the handbook seemed appropriate for the occasion. Did I rush to her, fling my arms around her and plead with her? Don’t talk like this! Don’t think like this! What are you saying? You are loved! You are cared for! It will all be all right!
How could I? When none of that was true? I wished I could say that my heart had gone out to her then. That in that instant I did feel her pain. But it was impossible. Her manner was so ice-cool, so measured. Don’t think for a minute, she was saying, that you can stop me. Don’t think that I think, for one minute, that you do care.
I went back to the dining room and ate my own dinner – well, a bit of it. My appetite, unsurprisingly, had disappeared. And when I finished, at Mike’s urging, I did call the doctor, who promised to get to us within the next two hours. Which reassured me. Even if I couldn’t get any food into her, at least I knew he’d see to it that she took her medication – administering it by force, if that was necessary. She sauntered into the kitchen just as I was finishing the call, and went straight across to scrape her untouched plate into the bin. ‘You really think anyone can stop me?’ was her only comment, before she sashayed out and went up to her bedroom.