by Casey Watson
The three of us – plus Bob – then regrouped in the living room. It felt like we were in the middle of a siege. And Kieron was growing more adamant about things by the moment. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘I told Mum: you have to give this up. Not fostering, but this one.’ He nodded towards the stairs. ‘It’s crazy. She’s crazy.’
Mike nodded. ‘I know, son. And you know what I honestly think, Case? I think the longer she’s with us, the worse she’s getting. Don’t you? That can’t be right, can it, love?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Maybe we need to sit down and talk to Dr Shackleton. You’re both right. We can’t go on like this, can we?’
‘No,’ Mike said firmly. ‘We can’t.’
But it seemed that we weren’t going to have to. Because five minutes later Sophia returned to the living room, and in doing so took all decisions about her out of our hands. Perhaps she had listened to my little homily earlier, after all. Perhaps the futility of refusing to eat anything had sunk in. Or perhaps she’d just realised she was as fed up with things as I was, and had decided to speed the whole process up a bit.
In any event, there she was, standing in the living-room doorway, ashen faced, her arms hanging limply by her side. And I was so mesmerised by the expression on her face that for some moments I completely failed to register what was happening. Indeed, it was Mike who alerted me, by leaping from the sofa, yelling, ‘Jesus Christ, Case! Jesus! Oh, God! Call an ambulance! Kieron, find some bandages! Anything! Just find something!’
It was then that I noticed all the blood. There was just so much blood. Pouring from both her wrists, dripping from her fingers, forming two dark spreading pools on the carpet.
She caught my eye then, as I leapt up myself, stunned. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Chapter 25
Mike was incredible. While I stood there horrified, stunned into inactivity, he’d already scooped a drooping Sophia up into his arms and laid her down gently on the sofa.
‘Ambulance, Case,’ he said again. ‘Go and call an ambulance.’ The words sunk in and I finally juddered into action as, with incredible calm and instinct, he gently raised her arms to stem the bleeding. She was deathly pale, grey, and seemed to be losing consciousness. God only knew how much blood she’d already lost.
I snatched the phone from its rest in the hall and dialled 999, conscious of Kieron dashing past me, back into the living room, his own face looking green. I really thought that at any moment he might throw up. I thought I might.
Though it felt like it was happening in super-slow motion, it was probably only a couple of minutes before I’d given the emergency services our address and gone back into the living room, gaping anew at the grisly pools of blood darkening on the floor.
Sophia, droopy lidded, looked in my direction as I entered, and, seeing me, her body started jerking, racked by sobs. ‘I’m so sorry, Mummy,’ she said again. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
Mike was now kneeling at the head end of the sofa, trying to carefully wrap strips of bandage round her flayed wrists – it was a pathetically thin roll of the stuff that Kieron had found from somewhere, and the blood was just seeping straight through it.
I sank to my own knees by Sophia’s head and started stroking her hair, saying, ‘Shhh, Sophia, shhh, sweetie. You’ll be all right, don’t worry.’
‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ she said again. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I looked to Mike, who shrugged helplessly. She was clearly delirious.
‘It’s all right, Sophia,’ I kept saying. ‘Shhh, it’s all right.’
‘Call me Sophie,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you call me Sophie any more, Mummy? Like when I was little. Please call me Sophie. I’m so tired. I’m so tired …’
The tears were pouring down my cheeks now. My heart was breaking for her. How had she done this to herself? What the hell had she used? I felt the weight of Kieron’s arm around my shoulder. He squeezed it.
‘Don’t cry, Mum,’ he said. ‘Please don’t. Don’t be upset. This isn’t your fault.’
Kieron’s words just made me cry harder.
When the ambulance came, sirens blaring, a scant ten minutes later, it seemed everything – in contrast to the slow-motion reel earlier – sped up to an incredible rate. Before I’d even really got my wits together Sophia was examined, attached to a drip, stretchered out and into the ambulance, and Mike was herding me to the door, pressing my handbag into my shaking hands.
‘Go on,’ he was saying. ‘She wants you in the ambulance with her. Go on, they’re waiting. Kieron and I will follow in the car.’
I did as instructed, half-blindly, stumbling up the steps to the back of the ambulance, and perched on a little pull-down seat while they made Sophia comfortable, attaching straps to her, checking and re-checking her vital signs, a blur of efficiency that made me shrink into my little chair, feeling useless.
She was growing less lucid and sleepier by the moment.
‘Still with us, love?’ asked the paramedic. She was a young woman who had a real air of reassuring calm about her. ‘Still with us, Sophia?’
‘It’s Sophie.’ Sophia mumbled. ‘I’m Sophie … where’s my mummy?’
Where had this come from? I wondered. I remembered back to when Sophia first arrived and gave Riley a ticking off for calling her Sophie – God, it felt like a lifetime ago now – and wondered if her anger about people calling her Sophie was some sort of defence mechanism related to her mum. We all had our own versions of our kids’ names – our private pet names. This had obviously been hers. I bit my lip to stop myself crying again.
‘Can you come up here, love?’ the paramedic was beckoning to me, I realised. ‘Just sit by her. Important that we keep her awake.’
‘Of course.’ I stood, lurching as the ambulance began moving, and finding another space in which to crouch, close to Sophia’s head. I took her hand. It felt so cold. ‘It’s okay, love, I’m here.’
Her eyelids fluttered and I felt a reassuring pressure around my fingers.
‘She’ll be okay, won’t she?’ I whispered to the paramedic. And at that instant the sirens once again started blaring. ‘She’ll be fine,’ the paramedic said firmly, above the racket. ‘You’ll be fine, Sophie, love. Hey – you still with us?’
I felt Sophia’s response as another reassuring squeeze. But when I looked up it was to see that, despite her brisk words, the paramedic’s expression didn’t quite match her voice.
As promised, Mike and Kieron had been right behind us all the way, and once we were disgorged from the ambulance and Sophia whisked away for treatment, the three of us were shown into a small waiting room. I felt completely drained, as if every single muscle in my body had been tensed up, and that, now I’d released them, I’d lost the power to stand up. I leaned against Mike, while Kieron went in search of a vending machine, unable to even raise the energy to talk to him. I had seen some things in my time, obviously, but the sight of all that blood was something I knew would stay with me for a long time. Mike was splattered in it – it had even crusted, brown and sticky, under his fingernails, and after a few minutes of just sitting with me, propping me up and holding me, when Kieron came back, he went off to find a sink in which to scrub them.
Kieron’s expression was still grim, but his colour at least had returned now. ‘You okay, Mum?’ he asked, handing me a little white plastic cup of coffee. Black, the way I liked it. It was scalding.
I nodded as I took it from him, taking care to hold it by the rim. ‘I’ll be fine, love,’ I said. ‘Just a bit shaken up. I think we all are.’
‘Do you think she’ll die?’ he said, in his usual, straight-to-the-point manner. No messing with euphemisms for Kieron.
I shook my head automatically even though I didn’t know. She’d still been conscious, albeit barely, when we’d arrived at the hospital. I didn’t know much about medical matters, but wasn’t that a good sign? I felt sure remaining conscious was key.
As was the fact that she had come downstairs once she’d cut herself. She might not have been in full possession of her senses, but she had come down to find us. Had she wanted to die – really wanted to die – she’d never have done that. She’d have stayed where she was. An image filled my head then: the most distressing kind of image. Of my going up to her bedroom, ready to rail at her again about not eating, and about taking her hydrocortisone pill, only to find her dead on the floor. I shivered. How far away from that scenario had we been? Half an hour? It wouldn’t take much longer than that, would it? Not if the bleeding went unchecked.
So she hadn’t wanted to die. She had wanted to be helped to live. It was as clear as the glass on the door of the little waiting room. She’d wanted help. She had wanted to live.
I fought back a fresh wave of tears as the realisation hit me that she didn’t even know yet that her mother was dead. That blow was still to come. Or would it be a release from her pain? I didn’t know. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about any of it, only that it filled me with so much emotion, it was all I could do not to shout it out loud.
But then distraction was there, in the form of a young doctor, who came and told us Sophia would indeed be okay. That they had transfused her and been pumping intravenous steroids into her, and that, thankfully, we’d got to her in time. She’d be poorly but there was no reason why she shouldn’t make a full recovery.
At least, physically. In terms of her psychological condition, there was obviously much work to be done. I know! I wanted to scream. I have been saying that for ages!
But I kept silent. ‘So if I can take some sort of history,’ he told us. ‘That would be enormously helpful. I understand from your husband –’ he looked to Mike, whom he’d obviously already spoken to, perhaps when he’d gone to clean himself up a bit – ‘that there’s a psychiatric evaluation already pending?’
We spent a further half hour with the on-call doctor, explaining all the circumstances, the details of her background, and updating him about how things stood with Dr Shackelton. I also pulled out the emergency injection kit I’d had the foresight to grab as we’d left. ‘Do you need this?’ I asked. ‘I thought I’d better bring it, just in case …’ But even as I started speaking, my voice cracked and I welled up again.
The doctor looked at me sympathetically. ‘All under control,’ he said calmly.
It was impossible to sleep that night, even though all of us were exhausted, and when I woke the next morning I felt like a zombie. Somehow, however, normal life just resumed around me. Kieron went to college, Mike went off to work, and before it had turned eight the house, suddenly so empty, felt oppressive enough to make me want to leave it.
So when John Fulshaw called, just moments after nine, I was ridiculously grateful to hear the sound of his voice. I had planned on calling him as soon as the office was open, of course, and in the meantime had been manically cleaning – trying to get my home back into some sort of order. Right now it felt more like a crime scene. I’d actually been scrubbing the living-room carpet – a grisly business – when the phone rang, so I had to strip off a rubber glove before I could answer.
‘Ah, you are there!’ he said brightly. So brightly, in fact, that I felt guilt for having to quash his good mood.
It took me fifteen minutes to run through everything that had happened, and at the end of it he was indeed subdued.
‘Come down,’ he said. ‘Casey, drive down to the office. If you’re going to the hospital anyway, it’s not going to be too much of an extra journey. Come on, come down and let’s talk. This is not a good day for you to be soldiering on alone.’
‘I don’t know, John …’
‘Or shall I come to your house? I can jump in the car now, if you’d like that better.’
‘No, no. That’s crazy. As you say, I’m going to the hospital anyway. But I’ll come to you first. That makes more sense, with visiting … Okay, then. I’ll see you in about an hour or so.’
I don’t know why I felt so reluctant to go down and meet with John at the fostering agency offices. He was so much more than just our contact there and mentor. He’d become a good friend. But I wasn’t sure I could face him. Any of them. I just felt so wired, as if my body was functioning purely on adrenaline. I felt permanently on the edge of the shakes, and just wanted to hide away and sleep.
Of course, as soon as I got there it was clear why I’d been so reluctant to go and see him. As soon as he jumped up and said, ‘Right! Time to brew up some coffee!’ I just lost it completely. Fell apart. Burst immediately into hot, frustrated tears.
But John was great. He just pulled out a chair and plonked me on it. ‘You get it all out, Case. I’ll go deal with the kettle. Go on,’ he urged. ‘Just allow yourself to weep.’
And I did. I sat and cried for a full fifteen minutes, my shoulders both heaving, gulping air, inconsolable, as the events of the last few hours – not to mention weeks and months – seemed to mass within me, clamouring for escape.
‘I’m so sorry, John,’ I sniffed, once the spasms had died down. ‘I knew there was a reason why I didn’t want to come here this morning. And now I know what it was.’ I smiled wanly as he pushed my mug of coffee across the desk at me. It had grown cold, but I didn’t mind. My throat felt raw.
‘God,’ I said, putting the mug down and plucking a tissue from the box on his desk. ‘I feel such an idiot! You must think I’m such a bloody wuss! Coming all this way just to sit here and blubber.’
But he was having none of it. ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said. ‘You’ve just had a terrible shock, Casey! A terrible time altogether, let’s be honest. And I’m amazed, now I’m finally getting the full picture, that you’ve held it together for as long as you have. And I feel responsible. You should have had much more support.’
‘You did all you could, John,’ I said. ‘It’s not like you haven’t tried. And this is hardly your fault, all this, is it?’ I gulped down more coffee. ‘It’s just the bloody system, that’s all. And I don’t know about you, but I for one haven’t the energy to even think about what can be done about that.’
‘But there’s a bright side,’ he said.
‘There is?’
‘Well, in a way. If it’s not too macabre to voice it. At least the word “choice” has been removed from the equation. At least there’s no more waiting for Panel and CAMHS, is there? She’s where she needs to be, by default.’
‘For the moment –’
He raised a hand. ‘No, Casey. Until further notice. And whatever happens, she won’t be coming back to you.’
‘She won’t?’
He shook his head. ‘Now she’s in the system, she’s going to stay in the system. With all that’s happened – well, it would be entirely the wrong course of action to even think about fostering as an option for her now. For the foreseeable future, at any rate, so you can rest a bit easier. You don’t have to worry. Not your responsibility any more.’
Which should have made me feel as if the biggest weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But it didn’t. I just burst out crying all over again.
John was nothing if not calm in a crisis, though. As a fresh wave of tears made it impossible for me to speak again, he simply went and made me another mug of coffee. And when I’d calmed myself sufficiently to tell him why I was crying, he sat, nodding sagely, understanding completely.
‘It’s just I hate this,’ I said. ‘I’m not in this to fail. And I feel I’ve failed her. And abandoned her too, John. I can’t bear for her to think I’ve abandoned her. What’ll that do to her? It just feels all wrong.’
‘You’re not abandoning her, Casey. You’re supporting her. And before you ask, I’ve already spoken to the people I need to speak to. She’s staying in hospital for a few days, while she recovers from her injuries, and then the likelihood is, subject to the psychiatrist’s assessment, that she’ll be transferred to a specialist adolescent mental health unit, where she can get the treatment she so badly needs.’<
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I’d had little experience of such places, though I did remember from my time running the unit in school about a girl – a tragic case; a chronically sick anorexic – and she’d come through it. Got better. Made it back to us. I pulled out another tissue and blew my nose, which felt as if it must be scarlet. ‘And they think she’ll recover?’
‘Probably too early to say. But from the conversations I’ve had, that doesn’t seem an unreasonable prognosis, not with the right support …’
‘But what is wrong with her? Does it have a name? Is it to do with her Addison’s? I wish I knew more about all this stuff.’
‘Casey, you can’t know everything.’
‘But is it? Or is it something else? Is she schizophrenic? Psychotic?’ I was just grabbing words and I knew it. It was probably so much more complex than that.
‘Who d’you think I am?’ John said. ‘Doctor bloody Kildare?!’ His features softened then. ‘Look,’ he said, as I finished my coffee and told him I’d better think about heading off. ‘Don’t agonise, okay? Whatever it turns out to be – and my hunch is that it’ll be a mixture of all sorts of pressures – you can still support Sophia. Go and visit her every day if you want to. Just do me one favour, okay?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t feel you failed her. Don’t feel any of this is your fault. You’re my stars, you and Mike, and I can’t have you wallowing in self-doubt, okay? And one day – and, honest, I’d stake money on this – Sophia herself will know that and be grateful to you. Okay?’ he finished.
‘Okay,’ I said. I suddenly felt so much better. ‘I tell you what, though, John. You might not be Dr bloody Kildare, as you put it. But you’re a brilliant mind reader. Derren Brown, eat your heart out.’