Mummy's Little Helper (10 page)

I could only see wetness on her face, however, and reached across to switch on the bedside lamp. ‘Sweetie,’ I said gently, sitting down on the bed, ‘what are you doing?’

Abby swallowed before answering, her throat clearly catching. Judging by the look of her eyes, which were red and puffy, she’d been crying hard for some time. I reached for the milk. ‘Here sweetie. Have a drink of this,’ I said. And it was in passing it to her that I noticed some bits of fabric in the bed with her.

I reached for one. It looked familiar. Like part of a sock. ‘What’s this, love?’ I asked her. Fresh tears welled in her eyes.

‘I was just making bandages,’ she whispered, gulping back further sobs. Once again, I heard alarm bells.

‘Bandages?’ I asked, confused. ‘Why? Are you hurt?’

She shook her head.

‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where did you need the bandages?’ I remembered the way she’d hastily pulled her sleeves down. ‘On your arms? Is that it? Can I see?’

Abby was a good girl, who came from what was clearly a disciplined, loving home, however dysfunctional it might be. There was no part of her that would let her deny such a request from an adult. She duly rolled back one of her sleeves, the tears plopping onto the back of her hand as she did so.

‘Shhh, it’s all right, sweetheart. Don’t cry …’

‘I
have
to wear them.’ She gulped the words out. ‘To keep my bones safe.’

‘Your bones safe?’

‘Or they might go like Mummy’s.’

She’d now pulled the sleeve up sufficiently for me to see that – to my relief – she’d not harmed herself at all. Quite the contrary. She’d cut the toes out of some school socks to wear as ‘arm bandages’. She had also cut the feet out of some woolly tights, she explained, which she was wearing under her pyjama bottoms, to ‘protect’ her leg bones from breaking.

‘I’m sorry I took your scissors,’ she said, sobbing. ‘I wasn’t going to steal them. I would have put them back, I promise. It’s just that I couldn’t bear it …’ She took the milk I again proffered and drank thirstily. ‘My proper ones are at home, you see, and I can’t bear it. I can’t sleep without my bandages. It makes me so scared. And I just lie in bed awake all night long, thinking about everything. And now Mummy’s so wobbly … and I just
knew
it would happen. And now it
has
happened. It’s happened to her, just like I knew it would. And now she’s smashed all her bones and she can’t even
walk
…’

‘Oh, love,’ I soothed, putting my arms round her and trying to still her once-again heaving shoulders. ‘Don’t worry about the scissors. But I wish you’d told me. We could have had them fetched for you, couldn’t we? We still can. Promise me you’ll tell me if there’s anything else you need, won’t you? But you know, what happened to Mummy, that was just one of those things. She fell awkwardly, that’s all. And you’re young and you’re strong, and you really don’t need to worry about your bones. Your bones are fine. They won’t go wobbly.’ I looked at the empty glass. ‘Not with all this milk you’re drinking, eh?’

I hugged her tighter, feeling absurdly relieved not to be dealing with what experience had shown me time and again I might well have been. I didn’t know how the notion had lodged itself in her psyche – something else she’d read? But no wonder, with her mother’s injury, that it was frightening her now, bless her. Nonetheless I was still relieved, because in the grand scheme of things her ‘bandages’ were harmless, just a form of comfort item really, such as a teddy was, or the corner of a blanket or a favourite doll. If she slept better wearing them, particularly at a stressful time, who was I to stop her? ‘But if you want to wear them,’ I reassured her, ‘that’s just fine by me, okay?’

Once I’d settled her, I took the scissors back down, feeling at least reassured that it was out in the open. It had obviously been really bothering her since she’d heard about her mum’s fracture. And apart from anything else, she must have been chronically sleep deprived for years. No wonder she’d developed so many funny little ways. Classic anxiety symptoms, basically. I felt better, thinking it through. Perhaps, now she’d got new ‘bandages’, she’d find things easier to deal with.

But, of course, that would have been way too simple.

Being a foster carer requires lots of skills, obviously, parenting skills chief among them. And it was certainly true that my years dealing with troubled kids in the local comprehensive had given me some solid experience on which to build. And we hadn’t come into fostering blind, either. Mike and I had undergone several months of specialist training to equip us to deal with some pretty challenging children on our behaviour-modification programme.

And, as Sarah’s occupational therapist, Chelsea, had pointed out, I’d already seen – and helped – my fair share of children with difficult behaviours. But I was about to discover a big gap in my knowledge, where children like Abby were concerned. It seemed I’d been going about everything all wrong.

Along with the first flush of jauntily nodding daffodils in my pretty new garden, Monday morning saw me make a mental note to get in touch with John about Sarah’s condition, but before I’d had a chance to sit down and call him, it was worrying news about Abby that was first to reach my ears.

‘I don’t want to worry you,’ said Mr Elliot on the phone (which was why I knew I should), ‘but we’re becoming a little concerned about Abby.’

I looked at the kitchen clock – it must have been just after playtime, and I wondered what his concerns could be; she’d barely been there an hour. And she’d trotted off happily enough, as far as I could see, having presumably slept a little better in her ‘bandages’.

‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing major,’ he reassured me. ‘You don’t need to come and fetch her, or anything like that. She’s fine. It’s just that we’ve noticed lately that she’s spending more time in the toilets than in the classroom – I’d made a note to give you a call this week in any case. She’s been popping to the loo, oh, half a dozen times or so per lesson. And it’s getting worse. I was chatting to one of my colleagues earlier, and it seems it’s not just lesson time, either – she seems to spend much of the break times in the girls’ toilets too. So of course our first thought was that perhaps she had some sort of stomach upset, or something. Or just – well, you know what girls this age can be like, I’m sure, what with approaching puberty and so on. And, of course, she’s always been solitary, as we’ve already discussed. But this seems to be all about washing her hands more than anything. It seems she’s developed some sort of real phobia about getting dirty – she confessed to my colleague that she worries about touching the backs of chairs, sharing crayons with the other children and so on, and it definitely seems to be getting worse. Have you noticed anything similar at home?’

I told him I had, and recounted the tetanus anxiety. ‘And she’s certainly a clean freak,’ I added, ‘as I think I mentioned when we spoke before. Not really surprising, given what we know of the situation at home.’

‘I did wonder about that,’ Mr Elliot said. ‘And, given all the upset, whether this might all be anxiety related.’

About which I definitely agreed. ‘I’m sure it is,’ I said. ‘She’s also become very anxious about touching doorknobs and so on.’

‘Yes, we noticed that too. And, of course, this morning …’

‘What actually happened?’

‘Oh, forgive me,’ he said. ‘Like I said, it’s nothing terrible. But we
are
concerned about it escalating further. The children were working with modroc this morning – it’s a kind of modelling material impregnated with plaster of Paris. You might have come across it – and she became so distressed about touching it – even going
near
it – that I had to take her out of the class in the end, just to calm her down.’

‘That fits,’ I said. ‘She really can’t bear to be dirty. But, as you say, there’s dirty and there’s dirty …’

‘Well, exactly. And once it starts interfering with normal school activities, of course … Anyway, I’ve just had a chat with the head, and we’re both of a mind. What with all the hand washing and her fastidiousness generally, we were wondering if it might be developing into some kind of obsession for her, and we thought we ought to let you know our concerns. Perhaps you’d like to pop in and discuss it with us at some point? And that it might be something you’d want to mention to her GP?’

I knew that, in part, the school were probably keen to redress the balance after having been so, well, hoodwinked, for want of a better word, about just how bad things were at home for Abby, but even so I could tell Mr Elliot was genuinely concerned. And everything he’d said
had
struck a chord with me. Abby washed her hands endlessly. She was so stressed about being dirty … It was then that I had a small ‘eureka’ moment. Handwashing. Obsessions about
handwashing
… Of course! Wasn’t that
the
classic symptom in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder? That and – I dredged my brain for facts – worrying that the gas had been left on? I could have kicked myself. Why on earth hadn’t I connected the two? And the lights, it now occurred to me – Abby was definitely obsessive about lights. And now I was beginning to see it all differently. Was
that
what was happening? Was it more than just her anxiety about hygiene and cleanliness? Had it gone beyond that now – was Abby developing OCD?

I didn’t discuss all this with Mr Elliot right there and then. I just told him I’d take some advice from social services and get back to him. Which I did need to do. If things were as bad as Mr Elliot was suggesting, I certainly needed to do
something
. I was due to be calling John Fulshaw anyway, and could perhaps call Dr Shackleton as well, though as Abby was presumably still registered with her own GP it might be better to go via Bridget – she’d presumably know who Abby’s own doctor was. I rang off and called John, but he was out of the office, so, in the meantime, I did what I usually do in such circumstances: I opened my laptop, updated my log and did a bit of Googling.

Of course, as soon as I began looking at OCD websites, it seemed clearer than ever that Abby was showing signs of developing the condition as a result of her current stress. In theory, at least. I actually had no way of knowing whether this was a new thing or not. Given her home circumstances, it might have been a part of her make-up for a long time, just something that hadn’t been picked up on. The business with worrying about her bones going wobbly, for instance – that had clearly been a worry for her for some time. But, thinking back over the four weeks we’d had her with us now, the kind of symptoms Mr Elliot had mentioned
were
increasing. Again, understandable, given the uncertainty around Sarah’s illness. Abby had come to us expecting to be home before she knew it – but she wasn’t stupid; she could see perfectly well for herself that her mother wasn’t getting any better.

When the phone rang, I was glad. I knew what I was like. I’d be trawling websites for hours if left to my own devices, and I had enough wisdom to know that, in almost all cases, a little knowledge, in the hands of an amateur, was often worse than none at all. Far better to get some sensible professional input than go off half cocked. I was also anxious to speak to John about this whole Sarah situation. If Abby was going to come home from school already in a tizzy, then I wanted a clear line on how I should speak to her about her mother. Answer her questions? Spell it out? Or just continue to reassure her? It was a difficult one to call, especially as I was in the dark myself.

But it wasn’t John on the phone, it was Riley.

‘Jackson’s party, Mum,’ she began, without preamble. ‘We’re going to have to postpone it.’

To my shame I’d not given my grandson’s party so much as half a second’s thought so far this morning, despite us having already made plans to have it the following weekend.

‘Why, love?’ I asked, pretending I had, obviously.

‘Precautionary measure,’ she said briskly. ‘No choice. One of Levi’s pals at nursery has gone down with MRSA.’

‘MRSA?’ It was obviously going to be a morning of medical acronyms. And this was no nicer than the last two. ‘Oh dear.’

‘Quite. Oh dear is right.’

‘But isn’t that the one you get when you’re in hospital? I didn’t think you tended to get it otherwise. Nasty bug to get. Are they sure?’

‘Apparently. I think the mum was in for something and has been ill with it, or something. But you know what these things are like – the usual sharp intake of breath, the mass terror of contagion, the usual “step away from that plague child!” response. Can you imagine what the average nursery school would have been like during the plague?’

‘Er, empty? Aww, poor little thing. Are they very sick?’

‘Bearing up, as far as I can tell. Possibly even on the mend now. But there’s been another one picked up today with sickness and diarrhoea symptoms, so everyone’s panicking that it’s going to spread, of course. It’s an emotive word, MRSA, isn’t it? A bit like “nits”. Everyone’s stressing their little one might have caught it as well now – and yes, Mum, Levi is absolutely
fine
, before you ask, and it’s not a child he’s particularly close to or anything. But I just thought it made more sense to postpone Jackson’s party than to have everyone cry off at the last minute – or, more pertinently, think I’m being a
deeply
irresponsible mum.’

Riley was right, of course. It was the sensible thing to do. The days when mums liked to hold chickenpox and measles parties so all the kids could get it over with were long gone. And Jackson wouldn’t give a hoot. He’d only be one. This wasn’t a party he’d even remember.

‘It might be better in any case,’ I agreed. ‘Give the chance for the weather to warm up a bit. And, actually, putting it back a couple of weeks means we could hold it on Abby’s birthday itself, come to think of it. If you don’t mind us doing it on the Friday, that is.’ And with Abby’s current problems, I also thought, but didn’t say, it might just be one less thing for her to get stressed about right now. ‘But now I’d better get off the phone anyway. I’m waiting on a call from John Fulshaw.’

‘Okay,’ Riley said. ‘But listen – just be sure to disinfect the phone now we’ve spoken to me. You know what these virulent new superbugs are like …’

‘God,’ I groaned, thinking how ironic her joke was under the current circumstances. ‘Don’t you start!’

‘I know hardly anything about Sarah’s current medical condition, to be honest,’ John admitted, once he’d called back half an hour later and I’d given him a run-down on what Chelsea had told me about the clinical trial and the possible plans for Sarah to remain in hospital long term.

‘Do you think Bridget does?’ I asked him. ‘I’m very conscious that Chelsea thought
I
knew. It sounds serious, doesn’t it? And if she’s got to go into some residential rehabilitation programme as well … Well, it will obviously change things, won’t it? Have you had any sort of update on the situation with finding relatives? What about those second cousins she mentioned? Any news there?’ As I spoke it occurred to me that I’d had almost nothing in the way of updates either. Which was unusual in itself. Why not? Usually, there were more meetings than you knew what to do with. But then, Abby wasn’t usual, in that she wasn’t in my usual category. The kids we had mostly required loads of meetings, to plan strategies for coping with the extreme things they did, and in some cases, just to keep them from absconding, not to mention falling foul of the law.

‘I’m also conscious,’ I went on, ‘that if that
is
what’s going to happen, then Abby needs to be prepared for things properly.’

I explained about the school’s worries and how I wanted to know what action John thought I should take. ‘And I was wondering if I should go and see the school, or whether it’s Bridget who should be speaking to them. In conjunction with Sarah, even. Though, as of this moment, we don’t know what “it” even is, do we? Not definitively. I mean, normally, I’d just get on with it, and call Dr Shackleton, but do you think Bridget would want to take Abby to her own GP?’

‘I’d better speak to her,’ John said. ‘I see no reason why you couldn’t give him a call and get some general advice, I suppose, but before you make an appointment with the school or start thinking about strategies, let’s see what Bridget has to say, yes? You’re right. This
is
an unusual situation, in that no one here is trying to exclude Sarah from proceedings, are they? And we also know how it is with all these various protocols. Don’t want you to be seen as stepping on any social service toes, eh?’

We both laughed, of course – stepped-on toes were a constant worry in my line of work – but little did I know that John’s words would be coming back to haunt me, and would wipe the smile right off my face.

It’s reassuringly straightforward, I think, the way the human mind works. While you’re oblivious to something, you obviously don’t look for it, but once something’s pointed out to you, suddenly it’s so
there
– you can’t seem to miss it if you try.

Like being a schoolgirl, in a playground, perhaps, and your friend points out a boy she tells you fancies you. One minute you’re barely aware of his existence, the next, he seems to be everywhere you go. I remembered that sort of thing happening to me more than once when I was younger. Once you know something, you can’t un-know it, and it sticks in your mind.

By the time Abby returned from school, I had trawled, if not the entire internet, at least my memories of the time she’d been with us, and found Mr Elliot’s concerns to be well founded. Things I’d previously attributed to force of habit, due to her circumstances (the making of endless lists, the hygiene issues, the need to turn lights off, the terror of illness), I could now see might equally be part of a pattern of an increasingly over-the-top anxiety response.

I had decided to say nothing to Abby about the incident in school that morning – that should maybe wait until I knew who was going to do what. For the same reason I’d also held off on calling Dr Shackleton. I would do as John suggested and wait for Bridget to guide me – but I
had
taken the school’s worries on board, and had resolved to keep a closer eye on Abby. And, of course, as soon as I did that it all became clear. The poor child was really struggling with day-to-day living to such an extent that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.