Crying for Help (9 page)

But as I lay in bed, waiting for sleep to creep up and overtake me, all I could think of was one of my mum’s favourite sayings.
Never make a promise you can’t keep
.

After the revelations and drama of the weekend, the following week was turning out to be something of an anticlimax, and that was absolutely fine by me.

I’d been on to John Fulshaw first thing on the Monday morning but, as Mike and I had both expected, there was nothing on Sophia’s file about an abuse allegation. ‘You know,’ John said, ‘I have to tell you, Casey, I have heard mutterings about her having a tendency to make stuff up, to be honest.’

‘But if there’s nothing on file …’

‘That may be because she has made an allegation, but it wasn’t recorded because it wasn’t deemed to be true.’

‘I don’t know, John,’ I said. ‘My instinct is the opposite. It
does
ring true. I know I barely know her but I’ve been around children her age for half my life. I think I have a pretty good instinct for when a child is telling the truth.’

‘And I know to trust that instinct of yours, Mrs Watson! Look, leave it with me. I will do some sleuthing and get back to you asap.’

John had also agreed both with my feeling that such a thing would help explain some of Sophia’s inappropriate and worrying behaviours and also that, if it
was
true, then it should be investigated.

Sophia herself, now she’d opened up a bit about the travails of her life, seemed to be happy to forget about them. And at last she seemed to be settling in. We had no upsets, no arguments, no displays of pique or temper all week, and I allowed myself to hope that we could make some solid progress; I felt we’d become closer now she’d decided to confide in me, and if ever a child deserved a break, Sophia did. She was almost entirely alone in the world, after all.

By Friday, I was especially pleased to hear from Mr Barker that, while he was still a bit concerned about Sophia’s health, he was generally very pleased about how she was settling in. She was clearly a bright girl, with the potential to do well academically, and if she could achieve well in school it could make a real difference in her life.

I put the phone down and went back to the cleaning I’d been doing, feeling seriously positive for the first time since she’d come to us.

I returned to the living room to find Kieron, who had a half-day off from college, standing in front of our big living-room mantelpiece mirror, duster in one hand, spray cleaner in the other, flexing his biceps and pulling faces. Housework generally, he hated, but mirrors he liked to do. I rolled my eyes. He was honestly that vain.

‘Kieron, you big poser!’ I said. ‘I thought you were supposed to be helping me, not practising your Mr Universe pose!’

‘Mother,’ he said, sweeping his hands down his torso. ‘It takes a great deal of willpower not to keep looking at this. You may mock, but most females find me irresistible … Anyway, who was that on the phone?’

I returned to my own dusting and he to his. ‘Oh, just school.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, God. What’s she done now?’

‘Oh, it was nothing like that. They were just giving me an update. She’s actually getting on rather well, they said.’

Kieron stopped polishing then and turned to me. ‘Mum,’ he asked, ‘is it true what Dad told me, that she’s been abused?’

‘That’s what she said, love. Though there’s nothing in her file. So I’m waiting for John Fulshaw to come back to me once he’s done a bit of investigating. I mean, kids do sometimes make stuff up –’

‘Why the hell would anyone make something like that up?’

‘Oh, for lots of reasons. To get attention … to get someone they don’t like into trouble. But your dad and I are inclined to believe her. It would explain a lot of what’s happened with her, after all. But don’t you worry – we’ll get to the bottom of it, I’m sure …’

‘Oh, I wasn’t worried,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I was thinking. I mean, if she does make stuff up, she could tell lies about all of us, couldn’t she?’

What Kieron said brought me up a bit short. It had never occurred to me to think about that, and I could have kicked myself – how stupid of me. If she
had
been lying about her mother’s boyfriends, then she was a pretty accomplished actress, and Kieron was right to point out that she could cast him and Mike in similar roles. I shook out my duster, with a snap.

‘Good point,’ I said to Kieron. ‘We do have to be careful. Perhaps I’ll dig out the safe care paperwork so we can have a read through it again, eh? Just to check we have everything covered.’

The safe care agreement was one of the guides foster carers had, commonsense guidelines about how things were done to protect the family against false allegations. ‘Though I do believe her, as it happens,’ I said, ‘sad though that is. But don’t worry about it, eh? And remember, unless we hear differently we
have
to believe her. Way too many kids in care, after all, are much worse off than they might have been if just one adult had taken what they said seriously.’

‘Like Justin,’ Kieron said.

‘Just like Justin,’ I agreed.

‘Still,’ he mused, getting back to polishing his reflection. ‘Even so, you never know.’

I didn’t share what Kieron had pointed out to me with Mike. I didn’t want to stress him, given the unfortunate episode the previous weekend, and, besides, I felt it important that we stood together regarding Sophia. She’d confided in me, and both Mike and I believed what she’d said. If Mike was now having doubts about that – which I wondered about, since he’d clearly spoken to Kieron – we could so easily go down the road of just trying to deal with the symptoms, rather than really getting to grips with the root cause. I knew we were only her foster carers, and very short-term ones at that, but this girl was so messed up, and if abuse
was
part of the cause, then we had a duty to clarify it and address it.

And when Sophia got home from school I felt we
were
making progress. She had some gripes about the girls – who all still
hated
her, apparently, because
all
the boys fancied her – but listening to her woe-is-me moans was actually quite refreshing because it was just like listening to any child of her age.

But the relaxed ambience wasn’t to last. The dinner cleared away, we were all in the living room catching up on the soaps, when Sophia, quite out of the blue, began laughing.

‘Oh, I can’t wait to see my lovely mummy this weekend!’ she said gaily, as if her mummy was fit and well and going to take her for a picnic, not lying in a coma in a hospice bed.
Oh God
, I thought. Not that again.

I gave Mike and Kieron warning glances before responding. I felt she was after a reaction, but the best thing would be to play it down.

‘Yes, it’ll be nice, love, won’t it?’ I responded mildly. ‘And we’ll set off nice and early, so we can …’

I trailed off as she’d now stood up and walked across the room, a strange, puzzled expression on her face. She then turned, as she reached the door. Now she looked at me. ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘I haven’t taken my last tablet today. I’m not sleeping well, and it just makes it worse.’

Mike was on his feet before I was. ‘Come on, love. You know you have to take it. Your doctor said you mustn’t start interfering with your medication, without first –’

‘Erm,’ Sophia interrupted him, grinning. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s my body, my disease and my problem,’ she responded. ‘And I’m not taking it, and that’s that, okay? If the world looks like ending,
then
I’ll call the doctor. End of.’

She walked out of the living room and started up the stairs. ‘Sophia!’ I called after her. ‘Get back down here. Stop being silly.’

‘Just forget it!’ she shouted down. We then heard the slam of her bedroom door.

‘What the hell was all
that
about?’ Mike said.

Kieron, too, looked stunned. ‘God, she’s mad, she is. Is this all about the visit to her mum?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I imagine so.’

Mike frowned. ‘Well, she obviously can’t
not
take it.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. But let’s just leave her for a bit, eh? Then I’ll go up and talk to her. See if I can persuade her.’

I spent half an hour watching but not seeing the telly – I think we all did. The whole thing with her mother had really been playing on my mind. After the allegations she’d made about the boyfriends, and the ultimatum she’d given her mother, it was hardly complicated psychology to figure out how badly her mother’s attempted suicide must play on her mind. It was unfinished business of the worst kind. It couldn’t
ever
be finished, could it? So here she was, having to keep returning to those horrible memories; she’d wished her mother ill, and then her wish had come true. And every few weeks or so she had to stare that reality in the face. Though I felt awful thinking it, it would be better if her mother
had
died, because no one seemed to hold out any hope of a recovery. The chances this far down the line were frankly negligible.

Once I felt I’d waited long enough, I made my way upstairs to her room. I couldn’t find her pills, so I assumed she’d taken them with her, perhaps taken one, even. I knocked softly on the door. ‘Sophia?’ I called gently.

‘Go away.’

‘Can I come in, love? I just want to talk.’

‘No. Go away. I just wanna be left alone.’

‘I’m sorry, love,’ I said, ‘but I need to come in. I’m responsible for you and I need to know you’re okay.’

As she didn’t respond to that, I turned the handle and pushed the door open. She was lying on the bed, fully clothed. The lights were off but I could tell she’d been crying, and my heart went out to her. She wiped her eyes and sat up, her expression stony.

‘How dare you come in when I said no!’ she barked angrily. ‘Get out! I mean it, Casey! Get out! Leave me alone!’

She stood up then, and straight away I could see she was unsteady. She had to put her hand out against the wall to get her balance. ‘I’m not taking it, okay? I’m not taking it, so just fuck off!’ She was really yelling at me now, as she staggered towards me. Realising she meant to push me out bodily – from her own body language – I began slowly backing towards the landing. ‘Go away!’ she shrieked. ‘Go away, go
away
!’ Her eyes weren’t focusing, and I could see she was losing all control. And in that state she was scary; I knew I was no physical match for her. ‘All right, love,’ I tried to soothe, ‘that’s fine. Go back to bed now. I can see you’re upset, so I’ll go back downstairs again, okay? You lie back down, now. Look, I’m going. See?’

This seemed to satisfy her and she turned and lurched back onto the bed. Mike had come upstairs now, hearing the shouts. ‘What the hell?’

‘Shh!’ I whispered, frantically gesturing him to go down again. I followed close behind and went straight for the phone. ‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ I said, as I dialled 999. ‘She’s in a right state. God, this disease is a bloody nightmare!’

Ten minutes later – ten minutes during which the three of us sat, not knowing quite what to do, bar drink coffee and fret – the ambulance arrived, disgorging a brace of paramedics, who were reassuringly smiley and in control. I felt immediately calmer just showing them through the door.

One went straight upstairs while the other asked for details.

‘So what have you done so far?’ he asked me.

‘Nothing,’ I said. I felt such an idiot. ‘I should have made her take her pill, shouldn’t I? Forced it down her somehow.’

‘Love, you think she would have let you, state she was in?’ Mike countered.

‘I suppose not,’ I agreed. Though it didn’t make me feel any better.

But the paramedic did. ‘It’s not life and death,’ he said, obviously seeing my concern. ‘Don’t panic. She’ll be
fine
. Probably just low blood sugar.’

‘There,’ said Mike. I could see the relief on his face. ‘Listen,’ he said, turning to the paramedic. ‘Can we get you a coffee or something?’

‘Coffee? Who said coffee?’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘Stiff drink, more like.’ He was grinning. ‘Proper little madam you’ve got there, haven’t you? Told me I could ’eff off out of her bedroom. Charming! Is she always this delightful?’

It broke the tension a little, having the paramedics laughing in my kitchen. They dealt with all sorts, and seemed to take everything in their stride. I explained that we were fostering Sophia, and that we were still feeling our way.

‘Absolutely understand,’ he said. ‘And you might find her a bit less demanding from now on. She gave me plenty of attitude, so as well as her tablet I gave her some back. About frightening everyone and wasting our time. Listen, you really don’t need to worry too much about something like this. There’s a simple rule of thumb here. And it’s stress, physical stress. If she has any sort of fever – gets the flu, say – or has a bout of diarrhoea and vomiting, that’s when you have to call the doc about upping her meds. The other thing, obviously, is emotional stress. The body doesn’t differentiate between a temperature and a mental trauma – it’ll go into shock just the same. So again, if in doubt, call the doc or give her more steroid. You have an injection pack?’ I nodded. ‘Well, you mustn’t be afraid to use it. Jab it in, do it fast, get it done.’

I felt the colour drain from my face, but the paramedic grinned. ‘It’s rare for that to happen,’ he said. ‘So you’ll probably not have to. As I say, don’t worry. Forewarned is just forearmed.’

I smiled at this. How many times now had Mike and I said it? ‘I’m just so sorry we had to call you out,’ I said. ‘This is all new to us, and I just wasn’t sure what else to do.’

The paramedic shook his head. ‘No, no. You did absolutely the right thing, Mrs Watson. Any time. That’s what we’re here for. Anyway, we’ll get off – oh, and our notes will go off to her GP. And you get a good night’s sleep. Don’t lie awake worrying. She’s fine now.’

But none of us were fine. I saw the paramedics out, and when I came back into the kitchen to make us all another coffee the expressions on Mike and Kieron’s faces hit me like a slap. They were sitting in silence, both looking so upset and bewildered, and it hit me – did they deserve all this, really? It was my job. My responsibility, and yes, they’d both been such rocks. And Mike had gone through the training with me – I couldn’t have decided to foster without my husband’s full support. But, hand on heart, was I asking too much of my family? This wasn’t just a case of bringing my work home – work
was
home. It was the business of bring children to live with, and be supported by, our family, that our kind of fostering – any kind of fostering – was all about. But was my desire to make a difference actually making the worst
kind
of difference? Committing my own family to much more than they’d bargained for? To all this?