by Angela Hart
Louise wrinkled her nose and grunted.
‘Louise, I’m trying to help you here. Please don’t be rude. I don’t want your friends to think you are smelly. That would be awful, wouldn’t it?’
‘I really don’t care and I think they have other things to worry about,’ she replied before walking out the room and slamming the door.
‘She just needs more time,’ Jonathan reassured, whenever Louse was uncooperative like this. ‘She’s had a tough time all her life. She’s not going to flick a switch overnight, is she? Just keep supporting her and telling her she can do it, and she will.’
Jonathan was right. Eventually, as Louise’s schoolwork improved and she continued taking more pride in her appearance, her bed-wetting episodes very gradually reduced to an average of once a week, and I was finally starting to believe it would soon be a thing of the past.
I went to my bedroom with Louise’s note, as she said she wanted me to read it on my own. She was in the lounge watching television and Jonathan was out with the boys. I sat on my bed and opened it slowly, feeling slightly nervous about what I might find.
‘Dear Angela,’ it began in neat lettering at the top of the page.
I am writing this because I want you to know a few things, and I think it is easier to tell you like this. You have been lovely to me, and I want you to know that I am grateful, and I am not a bad person. When I was a baby I was very ill. My dad couldn’t deal with it and left my mum, and after that she couldn’t cope, and she turned to drink. She had a lot of boyfriends. Every year I had a new stepfather, and every couple of years Mum had another baby. The more kids she had, the more Mum drank. There was never enough food in the house and it was always freezing cold, especially upstairs. One day it was so cold my mum’s boyfriend smashed up our bedroom door and burnt it bit by bit in the fireplace. My little brothers and sisters were frightened and cried, but he told us we didn’t deserve a door, or anything else. ‘You don’t deserve jack shit,’ he shouted all the time, whenever we asked for anything, even a drink of water. We were very frightened of him. We all wet the bed. There was a toilet in the house but it was filthy and broken, and so we had to go to the one outside the back door, which meant we normally had to get past him first, as he was always watching telly in the back room. Every day Mum said I was dirty and should know better than to wet the bed. Her boyfriend sometimes gave me a slap and pushed the wet sheets in my face. We never had enough beds in the house, and eventually he broke all the kids’ beds and burnt them too. In the end we all slept on mattresses on the floor, in one room. I swore at my stepfather once and he made me wash my mouth out with soap, telling me I was dirty and ‘scum’. When I was eleven I swallowed all the pills I could find in my mum’s handbag. My little sister found me and screamed her head off, and then I woke up and was very sick, which probably saved my life. Now I know I am not dirty, and it is not my fault I wet the bed. I was never taught how to look after myself, and it was normal for all of us to get back into a wet bed, because Mum never did any washing and we had no choice. My other foster carer used to shout at me when I wet the bed, and her two kids laughed at me because she told me off in front of them. That’s why I ran away from her. I went back to the old gang I used to hang around with, and slept in the field, because it was better than being with her. Now I don’t want to live that life any more. Thank you for caring about me.
I sobbed when I read Louise’s note, and afterwards I told her I was pleased she had confided in me and that I would continue to support her, not just while she was with us, but for as long as she wanted me to.
‘I thought you probably knew a lot of it,’ she said, ‘from Social Services.’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps they don’t know all this. Have you told anybody before?’
‘No, never like this. My stepdad would have gone mental if he found out I talked behind his back.’
I explained that, as I was her foster carer, I would have to pass on some of the information to Social Services, to keep her file up to date and ensure she got the best care possible when she moved to another foster home. There would also be implications for her siblings; all of them still lived with her mother, but Social Services would now have to assess their situation.
‘I don’t mind,’ Louise said. ‘I feel safe now. I’m glad I’ve told you, and it’s for the best if my brothers and sisters get help.’ All of the siblings went on to spend time in care, incidentally, which they eventually thanked Louise for, as the situation at home had worsened since she had left.
Unbelievably, it was less than a week after reading the note that I found myself waiting up for Louise at midnight, worried sick about where she had got to. We had to phone the police and the Social Services out-of-hours emergency line, because she normally came home promptly at 10 p.m. She’d been missing for nearly two hours when I put in the calls. She didn’t have a mobile phone as they were relatively new back then, and none of the relatives we had numbers for via Social Services had heard from her.
It was just before 2 a.m. when the police finally knocked on our door, and Louise was drunk and in a terrible state, with mud on her jeans, make-up smeared around her eyes and her hair falling all over the place.
‘I’m having a shower and going back out,’ she slurred as the two police officers escorted her from their car to the house.
‘Louise, you are not going anywhere but to your bed,’ I said.
‘You can’t make me!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t stop me going out. You’re not my mum!’
7
‘I don’t want to be any more trouble’
The police officers explained that Louise had been found near the field where she had slept rough before, with a gang of teenagers from her old neighbourhood. They had been drinking cider and lighting fires, and Louise and several others had become very aggressive when the police turned up.
‘We’ll leave her in your capable hands, Mrs Hart,’ the officers said.
‘Thank you,’ I replied, as Jonathan attempted to escort Louise up the stairs.
It was 3 a.m. before she was finally settled in her bed; she was too drunk to carry on arguing, and once we’d got her to her room and forced her to drink some water she fell asleep in her clothes.
‘What on earth was all that about?’ I said to Jonathan as we finally turned off our light, feeling wrung out.
‘Letting off steam? A release of tension after telling you about her past? I really don’t know. Let’s try to sleep. Hopefully she’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
The next morning Louise appeared in the kitchen looking sheepish and carrying her washing basket.
‘I’ve, er, got some washing. Can I do it myself?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let me show you how to use the machine.’
‘Thanks,’ she muttered.
She looked tired and confused as I explained how to select a forty-degree cycle and fill the washing powder dispenser.
‘Are you all right, Louise?’
‘Yes, I’ve just got a headache, that’s all. Sorry.’
I wondered whether she had been sick, as she had never asked to do her own washing before, and I asked her if that was the case.
‘No,’ she replied forcefully. ‘I want to do it myself because I don’t want to be any more trouble to you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
‘Oh, sweetheart! Let’s have a cup of tea and a talk, shall we? You did cause me a lot of worry last night, but I’m still on your side and I want to hear all about it, so hopefully we can stop it happening again.’
‘OK. I’ll go and have a shower first.’
When Louise came back down she looked like a different person. She had spent an hour and a half washing and blow drying her hair, painting her nails and applying make-up.
‘Wow!’ I said when she appeared in the kitchen. ‘You look better.’
She flashed me a smile.
‘Thanks. What do you think of my teeth?’
‘Let’s see. What do you mean?�
�
I stepped up close to have a look and conceded they did look the best I’d seen them. She smelled good too.
‘I’ve got some new toothpaste,’ Louise said. ‘My friend uses it and says it makes your teeth whiter.
‘Oh, I think it’s working,’ I said. ‘And is that perfume you’re wearing?’
‘Impulse!’ she laughed. ‘All the girls wear it. Do you like it?’
‘I do.’
Louise wrapped her arms around her body and gave herself a little hug.
‘I’m not going to run away again, Angela, I promise. It was horrendous last night. I felt dirty and smelly and just horrible. Urgh! I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘Why did you do it, sweetheart?’
There was a long pause.
‘I don’t know. My friends talked me into it, I suppose, and I was angry with my mum for not letting me go to the sleepover. I thought I could teach her a lesson, but now I can see it was you and Jonathan I upset the most.’
‘Do you think you taught yourself a lesson, Louise?’
‘I know I taught myself a lesson,’ she replied. ‘I know now that I don’t want to go back to my old life. I want to be a nice person, like you. I want to do something good with my life. Something really good.’
‘And you can, if you really want to.’
‘I know I can, Angela, thanks to you. And I will.’
Epilogue
Louise stayed with us for another few months, during which time she completely stopped wetting the bed and became even more particular about her appearance. She was always extremely well turned-out and refused to leave the house unless she was ‘done’, as she said, with immaculate hair, nails and make-up and her clothes beautifully clean and pressed. The shell suit was abandoned in favour of flattering jeans and tops, pretty shoes and even miniskirts and dresses, and from her posture and body language it was clear Louise felt confident and was blossoming into a self-assured young woman.
I would like to say that Louise did nothing but continue to thrive, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. Unfortunately, when she returned to mainstream fostering after about six months with us, Social Services placed her with a family in her old neighbourhood, and a few months after that she disappeared again and was not found until several days later. It emerged that her old gang thought she had told the police about a car they had stolen, and they grabbed her off the street one day and drove her to a house, where they kept her captive until she ‘confessed’. To this day I do not know the full details of the ordeal, but I know it frightened the life out of Louise and she still finds it very difficult to visit her old neighbourhood.
After more than twenty years we are still in touch. She has only spoken about what happened with the gang once, when she told me that she drew on the strength she had gained when she was living with us to help her deal with the trauma and move on.
‘It made me more determined than ever that I wasn’t going back,’ she said. ‘I remembered what I said to you after that night when I got drunk – “I know I can” – and it made me want to succeed, more than ever.’
I am very happy to say that Louise left school with a brilliant set of GCSEs, including top grades in French and biology, and she eventually went to university. She is married and in her late thirties now, and she holds a senior position in a law firm. She also volunteers as a kids’ trampolining coach in her spare time, which she absolutely loves. Her many nieces and nephews stay with her regularly, though she told me once that she didn’t want children of her own, which surprised me, as I’d always imagined she’d make a great mum.
‘I know how bad kids can be,’ she said. ‘No thanks. I’m not a saint like you, Angela!’
I have no idea if there are other reasons behind her decision and I would never ask, as Jonathan and I know what it is like to go through the sensitive procedure of not knowing whether or not you can have children.
‘You weren’t that bad, Louise!’ I replied. ‘And in any case, you turned yourself around very quickly, didn’t you? I’m so proud of you.’
‘Thanks,’ she smiled. ‘But it was you who turned me around, Angela. Without you I could have ended up in a very bad place, or I might be nowhere at all. You changed the course of my life. Thank you.’
Terrified
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The Girl Who Just Wanted To Be Loved
Out August 2016.
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First published 2016 by Bluebird
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Copyright © Angela Hart 2016
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Table of Contents
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Epilogue
Terrified
The Girl Who Just Wanted To Be Loved