Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new)

by Jeanne D'Olivier

  My heart was breaking as he was led away by his two jailors. I was led back to the wing by one of mine. We were both in the same boat really – being in Foster Care was as much a prison to M as he had gradually been denied every part of his former life, his family, his friends and his activities, reduced to a life of television, computer games and an unknown future and locked away from everything he knew and loved. The Island had destroyed us for daring to expose the truth and at just eight years old, M was paying with his life for daring to tell me what his father had been doing for who knew, how long.

  Desolate, I walked quietly back onto the wing to meet the hard cruel glare of Charlene who stared at me jealously for the time I had been allowed with M. I collected my rancid supper on its plastic plate and took it back to my cell on a tray, unable to cope with Charlene along with my pain. I had been moved that morning from Amanda’s cell to the one next door. This one was no warmer than the last as those closer to the yard area got the full blast of the North wind which blew relentlessly, day and night at this time of year. The jail really was a modern equivalent of a Siberian camp and I can’t remember being warm there at any time, no matter how many of my few allowed pieces of clothing I piled on.

  Miss H had at last managed to get some hot water bottles for the wing and although it was small comfort, it was at least something to put my ice cold feet on later that night.

  With Christmas fast approaching, M had asked whether they did anything special at the jail. I had told him they had a Family Day and he might be able to come to that. He said, “yes,” with a flicker of hope in his eyes, quickly extinguished by the realisation that he would likely be living with his father in England by then. Neither of us wanted to believe what was happening and the only way we could survive was to pretend that things would go back to normal or at the very least had a chance of doing so.

  I didn’t know how I would survive Christmas without M. It had been hard enough coping with his first Christmas in Foster Care, but at least then, we had seen each other on Christmas Eve and spoken to each other on Christmas day. What would happen this year if he was no longer on the Island? We needed a miracle but I had lost faith in God long ago.

  I spent a sleepless night of worry and anxiety about M’s future, battered by the extreme cold from the northerly wind. My cell felt like an ice-box. Even with the comfort of the hot water bottle, I couldn’t get warm and I shivered all night, longing for morning and an escape from the freezing conditions. If only I could have escaped my fears and pain so easily.

  It was during the following morning, that I had at last succumbed to the idea of moving upstairs. It was a Hobson’s choice really. I could either stay downstairs and freeze to death or move upstairs and live with Charlene’s threats of throwing me over the railings. I decided I had a better chance of surviving the latter than the former. At least Annabel would be next door if I moved and perhaps that would make life a little less lonely, given that now Amanda had gone, Annabel was the only person who ever spoke to me.

  Half-way through exercise that morning in the biting wind, meds were called, and relieved to get back inside where it was marginally warmer, I had made my decision and let the staff know that I was ready to move to the upper floor. Charlene picked up on this and began taunting me immediately, calling me, “Madam” and repeating her threats to push me to my death if I dared to move upstairs. I hesitated as I genuinely believed she was capable of this and the wardens did nothing to ease my fears as they too found her threatening and knew she was quite capable of violence. After all she was inside for assault and battery, so it was not an unrealistic fear.

  Annabel heard the threats and immediately approached. She said she didn’t like Charlene and not to take any notice. “She’s all mouth and just wants to scare and intimidate you.” But I was not reassured by these words. Annabel went on encouraging me, saying she herself felt lonely and would be glad of someone to talk to. In the end, I decided to risk it and hope for the best.

  With no escape from the music that blasted day and night on the upper floor, it was now much more difficult to think, let alone write, so I spent a lot more time knitting scarves and hats for M and left my writing until Charlene went to Cookery or Education, which was not very often.

  I learned later that day that my QC was coming to visit and after the junior’s visit which had shaken me, I was much relieved. I hoped that Phillip might be able to offer me some cogent plan of action. Deep down, I knew that he was more likely to recommend maintaining the defensive position that we had taken throughout the case which I had felt was hugely damaging.

  Of all the lawyers involved so far, Phillip understood the corruption least, but he was someone who had always listened so I tried to keep an open mind.

  I had moved upstairs whilst the other girls were at I.T. Throughout my move, Charlene who had not gone to class and was now only two cells apart from me jeered at me or stood at the door of my cell, her hands pushed firmly into the pockets of her regulation track suit bottoms and her round shoulders hunched as she stared at me. She clearly hoped to intimidate me as much as possible, but I ignored her as best I could. If she threw me over the metal railings, so be it. I could not live in fear of that happening every second. I was in so much mental anguish that it may have been a blessed relief.

  The wardens had advised me to stand up to Charlene, but it wasn’t in me to 'eff and blind' at someone which was the only language she understood. The best I could manage was “go away” or “leave me alone.” Feeble as that might sound, I couldn’t change who I was, my background or my upbringing. In a way it was a form of protest to hold onto my value system and not to become like those around me.

  The noise upstairs was deafening and relentless and wore me down even more than Charlene’s constant abuse. During lockdown after lunch, I attempted to read legal documents in readiness for Phillip’s visit but I could barely hear myself think with the noise emanating from the next door cell.

  It was the kind of music I detested, loud, thumping, tuneless and headache-inducing. As the wardens would not stamp on this, my only other option would be to move to a cell at the end of the corridor which was separated from the others by some empty cells. However, I felt that this would be dangerous as it would isolate me and make it far easier for Charlene to bully me. In any event, that cell was opposite the utility room where the girls congregated and played music on a portable CD player, so there really was no escape from the endless thudding. All I could do was to try and find a way of tolerating the noise. I certainly couldn’t ask to move again and any complaint would be ineffective and only lead to further hostility from the girls.

  The one positive factor was being next to Annabel who the more I talked to, the more I realised had had an appalling childhood of abuse and neglect. It was no wonder her life had come to this. She had survived the most terrible treatment at the hands of her own family and was trying to write her autobiography. When she asked for my help with this, I was only too glad to give it. She was ill-educated so her spelling and grammar was atrocious, but I felt to change it would detract from her story and it was more compelling if it was written in her rather childlike style, than if I had put my English scholar’s critique on it. Her story touched me deeply and I felt it would others. I suggested she go on writing it as she was. Once she eventually left prison there would be time enough to spell-check and hone it, but my belief has always been that writing has to flow from within and be the essence of the creator. I did not want to interfere with her style or writing identity and told her so.

  I felt honoured that Annabel trusted me with her inner-most thoughts and experiences but I also found it deeply upsetting to read and wondered if my own poor little boy would end up as damaged as she now clearly was and what affect that might have on him in the future.

  Helping Annabel did at least take my mind off my own worries. With all that she had gone through, I realised how brave she was to still be standing at all. I wished I could help her to heal
but could not heal myself.

  I wrote that night in my cell, warm at least since I had moved, blasted by mind-numbing music from the adjoining cells, but realising that dire as things were, I was fortunate in having people to help me through – my legal team, my father and my friends. Compared to Annabel who had so little, had lost her children to the father long ago and lived the guilt of what her drug habit had cost her, my life must have seemed infinitely better. But it was M’s suffering that overwhelmed me. It was the image of him being wrenched from me in Florida that haunted me and his desperate pleas that rang in my ears. I too lived with the guilt, of having chosen to run, even though deep down I remained certain, that had I not, that they would still have taken M, only sooner. The only difference would have been location and from what I learned later, he was treated better by the foster carers in America than he was by those back home.

  I worried that M would grow up to blame me for my actions. He would certainly be encouraged to do so by R, should he get residency. I could only pray he would understand that whatever I had done, it was borne out of a desire to keep him safe, with me and out of danger and pain. I had failed. I had done all I could, but I should have factored in my father’s understandable belief in systems that had led to his disclosing our whereabouts.

  One of the girls was due to leave the following day. This meant that Charlene would lose one of her stalwart supporters at least. However, knowing this - she had bonded with another girl, Kylie, who had come in recently, to breach the gap. Kylie was in the cell next door to me and although she had been friendly initially, Charlene wasted no time in recruiting her to her campaign of making my life even more of a misery, than it already was.

  When I politely asked Kylie if she could keep her music down a bit as my final hearing in the Family Court was fast approaching and I was trying to prepare, she retorted, “I’ll think about it.” She then took pleasure in turning the volume up even louder. I was reminded of a problem neighbour we had had when we had first come to live on the Island who had taken delight in harassing me with noise and how she too, like this girl, refused to be considerate or reasonable. M had been a very small baby then and no amount of pleading with her to let him sleep at night, had had any effect on this girl, any more than Kylie now. I had, at least, been able to move house to get rid of the noisy neighbour, but here I was completely trapped and I had no idea how to reach out or communicate with those who were so determined to hate me.

  The girls planned a farewell party for the girl who was leaving. Little by way of celebration could be achieved within these walls, but they had pooled their supplies of crisps, coke, sweets and biscuits and for once there was an aura of congeniality on the wing and they forgot their animosity in favour of giving the girl who had been incarcerated for two years, a decent send-off. It was only a temporary lull though and when she left the wing the next morning, things went back to normal.

  The girl, who had been quite hostile towards me, with her new found freedom, was suddenly released from the shackles of needing Charlene’s protection and had left a good luck note and a bar of Galaxy chocolate on my bed. I was touched and gave her a hug. I realised then that her former hostility had been an act. It was about survival. Unless you sided with the pack leaders, they would likely turn on you. Charlene had adopted this role out of a need to express her anger. It was easier for the others to go along with her, than suffer her wrath, but it was rather pathetic too. After a while I realised she was just a frightened, angry child in a woman’s body, full of self-loathing which she turned outwards, no more threatening than a school yard bully- I took no notice any more.

  I put up with the usual jeers as I passed Charlene’s cell and headed to Annabel’s room for a chat. She told me more about her growing up, her nightmarish childhood and her life which was loveless in so many ways. She seemed so vulnerable and lost. It was hard to imagine her harming any one at all, but sadly she lived with the constant guilt of having killed someone she had cared deeply about. She lived in hell and torment and yet no counselling or support of any kind had been offered to her. Instead they fed her Valium, like Smarties, as they did so many of the girls on the wing. I was one of the few who had nothing stronger than antihistamine and the odd Paracetamol.

  Speaking to Annabel showed so clearly how much we are all a product of our upbringing and experiences and how the scars of the past so rarely ever heal completely, only fading a little over time.

  As I headed back to my own cell for curfew, I was struck by how little any of us control our own paths, our life’s work or the events that lead us on any particular voyage – and whilst the ways of religion now eluded me, the twists of destiny did not.

  I had been trying to ring my father that evening to no avail. It was really strange and concerning as we had an arrangement for me to ring at a particular time and knowing how important it was to me, he never failed to be there. He was my only link to M on the outside and he, at least was still able to see him and let me know how he was. He was also my link to the lawyers if I wanted to pass on any thoughts I had about the case. I rang two of my friends and asked them to try and track him down. I was anxious because of his heart condition and the amount of stress he had been under. However, by lock down, having tried intermittently in one minute SOS calls to friends on my list for two solid hours and having run out of my ten minute telephone allowance, I had to give up.

  I managed to let Miss H know that I was concerned. She promised to make a night warden aware. Again I had the feeling of complete powerlessness. What if something had happened to Dad? He was getting on in years and with his history of heart attacks, I was concerned that the strain might have got the better of him. I lay awake wishing someone would allay my fears, knowing I could do no more to help Dad than I could M.

  At ten o’clock, I at last heard a knock at the cell door and the shutter on the tiny window was slid back. It was the night warden. She called from the behind the glass that my father was fine. I could breathe again.

  I discovered next morning that the fault had been at the prison’s end. They had had something wrong with their phone system. I wondered how many others had suffered worry that night trying to contact loved ones. Whatever the wrongs of people’s lives, fear is a universal emotion. Surely this information could have been circulated to allay unnecessary panic, but prison was not steeped in humanity, it was a place to lose all sense of self, any form of dignity and with very little room for courtesy or consideration.

  For the first time in ages, having been reassured that my father was okay, I slept a whole six hours that night. I, at last gave myself up to the overwhelming exhaustion that I had been fighting for the last couple of weeks. I could not escape my nightmares, but I escaped my living hell for the hell of my dreams.

  Charlene was in an even worse mood than usual the following morning with her “partner in crime” having left. The jeers began in earnest straight after breakfast – so much so, that in the end Annabel spoke to Miss H and the staff decided to step in.

  I didn’t go to cookery class, as I had intended for fear Charlene might go for me with a knife to which she would have easy access. Annabel and I remained on the wing and we sat chatting for a while. I then went into my cell to read the letters that had arrived for me. One was from a girl who had come over to give me support when I first returned and had been part of John Hemming’s stable of McKenzie friends.

  I had been to see John, then MP for Yardley, when I had returned to the UK. He had tried to advise me as best he could. When I eventually went back to the Island, he had sent me Claire, one of his McKenzie friends to assist me and to collect my papers to take to Brian who John had advised was a solicitor worth employing. John had no legal background, but was a very bright man with a strong moral conscience and a desire to fight what he saw as horrendous injustice to families and children in the UK at this time. This girl had not only come over for a few days, but had regularly kept in touch and I later discovered had been trying to campaig
n for my release via social networking.

  Charlene got her dressing down that afternoon when she returned from cookery. She was sullen, surly and angry at tea time. She went to her cell and strangely for once it seemed that others who had been backing her were suddenly being friendly. For the first time, Dana, a long termer and Charlene’s mainstay, walked with me at exercise time and chatted - neither of us mentioned Charlene. Kylie too, became less antagonistic. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was not sure what or who was responsible for the change, but I was certainly glad of a reprieve.

  At five O clock lock-down, Charlene began her protest by loudly blasting music from her cell, but that was the least of my worries.

  Earlier that evening I had rung my father, badly needing support and a sympathetic ear. I was grieving hard for M and needed reassurance. He, however, was having a bad day himself and expressed this by taking his anger and frustration out on me - but the worst of those kind of conversations in jail was the ten minute time limit. There was no opportunity to ring back and put things on a better footing. In some ways when Dad’s anger got the better of him and he vented loudly, I felt the cut-off point was a blessing. Shouting at each other certainly didn’t help the situation and when he ranted about the uselessness of the lawyers, the money he had spent and the way it was affecting his golf, I became angry in return, always throwing back at him the same question: “Why did you tell them where we were?” Whilst he tried to defend this by saying we would have been found anyway, it was hard to have to live with the fact that the betrayal had come from someone both M and I loved so deeply. He was just old and afraid, but sadly and perhaps unfairly, I had lost some respect for him, knowing how brave M had been, never giving anything away to anyone that might have led to being found. In the end it had all come down to my father’s inability to tell a lie. I would never stop loving him, but I would never ever understand what he did and it made my grief worse to feel that our situation and my imprisonment were caused, at least in part, by him giving us up. I wanted so badly to forgive him for my sake as well as his, but I wish, if we had to have been found, that it had been down to their investigation or someone else’s betrayal - anyone rather than my own father and M’s beloved Granddad.