Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new)

by Jeanne D'Olivier

  My father and I went to a local pub to get something to eat and Brian joined us shortly afterwards having left Alison to now negotiate with the Department's lawyer – a butch, aggressive girl with a loud grating Liverpudlian accent and known to prefer horses and dogs, to children.

  Brian ordered a round of drinks and downed his usual large glass of wine whilst we attempted to nibble through a meal for which he had no appetite. Christmas was fast approaching. I didn't know how I would endure it if I couldn't see my precious M. I had such strong happy memories of those that had gone before and I thought even Social Services could not be heartless enough to prevent us seeing each other on Christmas Day. I was, of course, wrong.

  Alison returned with the news that she had got two three hour contacts agreed around the holiday period and no contact on either M’s birthday or Christmas Day. I was in pieces. I immediately demanded that she get back in touch with the Department’s lawyer and say we didn't accept it.

  “Too late.” Alison said coolly. “I have to go and catch my flight now.” I realised how little my life or M’s meant to her. We were just another case. Whilst she would spend a happy Christmas with the children painted on her handbag, I would spend Christmas day without one single minute with mine.

  The only other thing that Alison had achieved was an additional hour for me in the New Year - every fortnight, but it was at the expense of my father’s contact. He had to sacrifice one of his contacts every two weeks. It was so cruelly wrong, but Alison was gone in a taxi back to her life, her children and her highly paid barrister’s salary. It was soon after this, she became yet another lawyer, I removed from the case.

  I felt defeated but I still had faith in Brian who promised to find someone else. Meanwhile his daughter, also a barrister, came over to represent me on my next appearance in the criminal court and again I headed to the airport to meet her off her flight.

  When Gabrielle came through the small arrivals gate, I was not at all prepared for her appearance and nearly missed her altogether. She was tall like her father, looked a little like Keira Knightly and was much younger than I'd expected. With her Ugg boots and backpack she could easily have been a university student returning home for Christmas and I guess she realised this as the first thing she said when she greeted me warmly, was “Don’t worry, I’m older than I look.”

  I liked Gabby immediately and found her to be open, bright and down to earth. She shared her father’s affinity with wine, and occasionally Vodka but I was fast learning this went with the legal territory and I certainly needed no excuse to have an occasional glass myself under the immense pressure I was under. In my case, it was more the soporific effect that I was sought, as I hardly slept at all.

  Gabby was in fact thirty, so was still very young and early in her career, but the advantage of that was that she wasn’t jaded in her approach. She believed that we were the victims of terrible injustice and had no problem voicing that. I found her a refreshing change from the lawyers that had come before.

  Over another dinner at the same hotel where we were fast becoming regulars, we told her our story. She was sympathetic and when she heard that we were not happy with Alison, she told us that there was a Family Law barrister in her chambers whom she believed may be better for our case. She rang him and gave him a quick summary and he told her that he believed he could get the Interim Care Order revoked. It was one of many promises that were made to us as new barristers got involved and each time we clung to these with renewed optimism and hope.

  We were delighted with Gabby. She was up-beat, optimistic and determined to reunite M and I - Her enthusiasm was contagious and I believed she could do this. When I told her that there was a police interview of M, she pronounced, “done deal.” She was convinced that no jury would convict me if they saw my son’s evidence and on this point, I had to agree. How could anyone not understand my reasons for running, if they saw what I had already seen – heard M make the most horrific disclosures about what his father had allegedly done to him whilst in the bath and in his bed. I could not believe that any normal person could witness this and not be as sickened and scarred by the experience as I had been.

  I didn't like the thought of M having his interview shown to the jury, but on the Island the jury is only seven and Gabby reassured me that M himself would not be called to testify. We had to show them that I had cause to run and this was the only way. I knew that I would be no use to M in jail and couldn't imagine what affect it would have on a 7 year old boy if I did - stigmatisation at school, probable bullying - who knew how other children would respond?

  Despite the fact that M was back at his old public school, he had not had a happy time there in the preparatory department. The memory of M being returned to me with his clothes soaked in his own urine, shaking and sobbing after being bullied by members of staff and a cruel psychologist would never leave me. They had told him he couldn't go back to Mummy unless he kicked a ball with his father and had his photo taken. Pictures of M kicking the ball for five minutes to try to get to go home, were then presented as evidence of a good relationship between father and son, but his form teacher had been sobbing in my arms the following morning at what she had witnessed of the cruelty shown to him in trying to force him to comply, by harassing him for nearly an hour. It was perhaps, no coincidence that shortly after she testified, she left the school.

  On that occasion, M had been pushed through my back door by the dangerously malign Educational Psychologist Dr C and I had driven straight to my GP with him in my arms. I had carried him red-faced and shaking into her surgery but she had been powerless to help us. Already M’s father had filed a complaint against her for supporting us and accused her of being biased and withholding evidence - this being the evidence of the brief period of depression in my late teens, some thirty years ago. The GP had not withheld it, but considered it of no great consequence – she had described it as a teenage blip. R was not satisfied with that – he wanted to try and persuade the Court I was mad.

  How many times in history had Patriarchy sought to quash women who tried to speak out against oppression? It was ironic that I had chosen to study Women and Representation when doing my Masters Degree and I had looked at the lives of those figures in literature who had been caged by Patriarchal and oppressive husbands. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, TS Elliot and his wife Viv – their stories were well- documented. Zelda a beautiful free spirit, creative in her own right and plagiarized by her own husband, had sought refuge in painting, Viv had suffered with a condition which today would most likely have been diagnosed as Endometriosis, endless heavy periods and awful pain and yet she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act for this physical condition. Nowadays, she would likely have undergone a hysterectomy.

  Two examples of women who suffered at the hands of misogyny and whose voices they attempted to silence. Jealousy knows no bounds and femininity and creativity combined can be a powerful threat to men. Zelda managed to retain her voice through her art and through her novel – Save Me the Waltz, one of the most beautiful books ever written and in my opinion, far more eloquent than Gatsby and yet who has ever heard of it? How many have read it? It is Scott and not Zelda who is remembered to this day.

  In doing my degrees, I paid tribute to some of these women and attempted to find my own voice. I wrote poetry which embraced femininity and strength because they are not mutually exclusive and I grew into someone with the confidence to pass on what I had learned through teaching and writing. Below I pay tribute to Zelda and yet how much of myself do I now find in those random words scrawled in a happier time, etched in a memory so far away from where I am now that it may as well have been the life of another person.

  For Zelda (And me?)

  Where did you go in your tortured mind?

  Which corner became your home,

  when all your words had been emptied into his cup

  and he had drunk you dry.

  That voice so loud with living, knew no fear,

>   shouting from mountains, dancing the days,

  silenced to let his nightingale sing

  securing your dove in its golden cage.

  He kept you warm and fed, and dry.

  He tendered your night and damned your day.

  The seeds of your words were swept aside

  and in the dark, he foraged there.

  Your images sought another way,

  grotesque figures with stronger legs.

  Allowed insanity kept you sane,

  your cut-out life a tarnished dream.

  With every stroke you faded more

  a faint reflection of his desire

  the golden girl now slammed the door

  and tossed the play script onto the fire.

  As I brought myself back to the despair of today and filed the old me in my memory bank under Persons Unknown, I heard the reassuring voice of Gabby penetrate my reverie – “Hey, guys it’s good news, Tom is going to take your case.”

  Another day in Court with Gabby saw a further adjournment. Everything was headed towards Christmas and people with normal lives were going on holiday. Tom, the new barrister, was off skiing, Brian to Barbados and myself back to the bleak prison of my solitude in the place that held me captive, a metaphor for the Depths of Despond.

  In order to try and alleviate the intolerable suffering I was about to face through the festive season, I invited my old boyfriend who I had recently reconnected with in the UK, to come over for a visit. He was rightfully reluctant to start with as I guessed he could probably see better than I that this wound was too deep and too open for any temporary salve. What I was really doing was inviting him into my abyss, my own personal hell, but there was no room for him in there. My total grief consumed and seeped into every corner and my external world held no place for anyone other than M. It was a foolish decision and yet, I kidded myself that I could be distracted through Christmas and M’s birthday. I knew I needed to survive and I would try anything to do so. All the wrong reasons for inviting a guest and one that was not an active parent himself, was hardly likely to understand.

  To give Robert his due, he tried. He took me out, wined and dined me and bought tickets for a New Year’s Eve dinner dance. He even bought me a new evening dress to wear - all kind gestures and incredibly generous and in different circumstances, I would have been there, enjoying an extremely rare evening off single-parenthood, having some adult time for a change. For in the seven years since I had had M, you could count my nights out on one hand. Now, I would have given anything for one night of parenthood and to never have a night off being a mother again.

  That first Christmas apart was one of the hardest days of my life. I saw M on Christmas Eve in the presence of Miss Whiplash and Nanny Mac. All my Christmas presents for M had to be checked before he arrived, which meant I had to unwrap them on arrival and then hurriedly wrap them up again before he got there. I had brought him a stocking from Santa too. I had done my best to try and create Christmas in a bleak room with two jailers watching our every move and word.

  I bought M a Santa outfit and eager to please, he put it on, but the picture of him taken with my I-phone showed a child with a haunted expression, dark circles below his eyes under a Santa’s cheery hat – he looked thin, gaunt and ghostlike and it tore my heart to shreds. I put balloons everywhere and we made crackers, but sadly decorating a prison cell, does not make it any less so. As we hugged our final goodbye and I pushed the last of his gifts into his Santa’s sack for him to take, we had clung to each other for dear life. He was then gone and I wept bitter tears as I drove the ten miles back to the south of the Island.

  I managed to share a meal with Robert that night, but I didn't want to be there. I wanted to crawl into a hole so deep and so dark that no one could come near. I wanted to wrap myself in a cloak of cool, silent sleep and stay there until the nightmare ended; Instead I sat in an Indian restaurant trying to fake another smile as I swallowed mouthfuls of curry, I could not taste.

  Christmas Day had been even worse. I was due to have a scheduled call with M at ten o'clock but it never arrived and we ended up having to go through the whole performance of chasing down a duty social worker via the police. It took an hour before eventually his little voice came on the phone. The foster carers, having allegedly forgotten. How could they forget to let a child of seven call his mother on Christmas Day? I had never met them, but I now saw them in the same league as the Social Workers. How could I feel anything other than contempt for people who were complicit in keeping my son away from me? And yet, I wanted to think well of them. I wanted to believe that they would be kind to M and that he was being well cared for. I could not bear to think that perhaps they were in it for the money.

  M told me he had been sent a present by his father. It was a Liverpool football shirt, signed by his favourite player, along with an autographed picture. He said he didn't like them as much as the presents I had given him but I told him that he must enjoy all of his presents. I felt a sense of disquiet though as I realised that the part of the Care Plan leading him to his father had now begun in earnest – the grooming of M to distort the facts in his mind and to let his father back into his life and place M back in danger, had begun. It was only a matter of time.

  I tried to be bright on the phone for M’s sake but he sounded terribly down and when he was suddenly told “time’s up,” tears began coursing down my cheeks. However, as I went to switch the phone off, I noticed something. the Foster Carers with the distraction of Christmas Day, had forgotten to withhold their number and it was clearly displayed on the screen. I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote it down. Suddenly I had a mission, I had a link to my son’s world.

  I spent the entire morning going through the phone directory, every single entry looking for the number, but I couldn't find it and the elation I had felt at my discovery was quickly replaced with despair. Even if I had found it, there would be little I could with it, but I wanted to have some sense of where he was and who he was with. It was as if he was being held hostage and in fact, the result was the same.

  Dad collected Robert from his hotel and brought him to the house. Our old neighbour from the cottage had been invited to join us and the four of us set off for a small family-run restaurant nearby. We had become friendly with the people who ran it who were foster carers themselves, and we had wanted to go somewhere quiet and small and most of all close to home so that there was somewhere to escape to, if it all got too much.

  I managed to last not much more than half an hour before, I could not bear the merriment of the other diners one more minute. I had barely uttered a word since we'd arrived and the tables with families and other children increased my sense of being apart from M. All I wanted was to be alone and in the end I excused myself and my father took me back to the house. I left the rest of them to their lunch and took to my room with the television. I have no idea what programmes were on that day, nothing registered.

  I spent most of the afternoon poring laboriously over the telephone directory once more, searching frantically for the needle in the haystack which would tell me where M was. Even if I found it, I wouldn't be able to go near the location, but I wanted to know if he was in a good neighbourhood, in a nice house, something about his life. Hours later, Dad had returned Robert to his hotel and I had still not found the number.

  My father took over my seemingly fruitless quest to locate the number. He poured through entry after entry laboriously and painstakingly as I now lay motionless in my bed praying that sleep would come to take me from the pain of living to the nightmares of my nights, no escape in wake or in sleep but the less conscious of the two was the easier to bear.

  I was almost drifting off with sheer exhaustion when Dad came into my room with the news, “I’ve found it.”

  The number was listed in the Yellow Pages. It seemed that the foster carers were running a business from their home and through this we were then able to go online and even see photographs of them. We now had an
address and identities, we knew their names. Did it help us? Only in that they were no longer faceless people holding my son captive. Was I able to tell if they were kind or caring from the flat two dimensional outlines, not at all. I could go nowhere near my son’s prison or I would be arrested but at least I knew where he was and that gave me a crumb of comfort.

  I searched long and hard from then on, to find out as much as I could about these people who had so carelessly given away their identity. I wondered if they had deliberately let me find them. Was this some kind of trap or were they sympathetic? Either way there was nothing I could do about it. At last in the early hours of Boxing Day I had fallen asleep for a few hours.

  My father took Robert out for a drive to show him the Island in its glory – the beauty I could no longer see of the purple topped mountains, russets and golds - the fairness...but where was the fairness in all of this? All I saw now was the darkness of the shadows that engulfed us in this underworld like the imposing picture by a famous local artist that hung on my father’s wall which I had never liked - the picture of a dark oppressive regime seemed to be embodied in an image reminiscent of the "Jerusalem" hymn – “the dark satanic mills” or in this case the dark satanic Courts.

  Robert was as patient and tolerant as he could be, but the fact was that I was absent without leave and I am sure he regretted coming over. As men feel in situations where neither brawn, nor brains can solve a situation he felt impotent. He could not put a sticking plaster over my pain even for a week and he was struggling to understand why his presence made no difference to my anguish that could not be shared.

  Having spent the allotted three hours with M at the Contact Centre on New Year's Eve, I came back again distraught and in despair. Consumed with grief as always, I now had another worry on my mind - he had suddenly announced that his father was getting him a Play station 3 for his birthday. Obviously it was not that he was getting this extravagant gift that bothered me, but the fact that this clear manipulation of a little boy may lead him into danger. No child of that age would be able to resist the temptation of the one games console that he did not have. A gift designed to surpass the humble new DS Lite that I had bought him or his previously prized, Nintendo Wii, my gift from last Christmas. His father's offering was a means to lure him back to the devil and danger. At that time M believed that he only had to accept the gift, not what came with it. He had no idea of the price he would pay for accepting it, but sadly I did. I feared it marked the beginning of the end of our life together.