The Cast-Off Kids (13 page)

‘You’re part of our family,’ added Mike. ‘And we’ll always think of you that way.’

The tears coursed down Chrissy’s forlorn face. ‘But I can’t go. How will I manage? Mum’s always at the pub.’

‘Well, she probably won’t be if you’re living with her.’ I didn’t really believe that, but I hoped it all the same.

She was desperate to stay with us, but as her foster-parents we were powerless. It was very difficult for her, and for us and the other children too, especially Sheena and Daisy, who were the
closest to her in age.

The hardest thing was that I felt strongly it was the wrong decision, but they didn’t consult us. As always, Social Services were a law unto themselves. It would be cheaper for them to
send Chrissy back to live with her mother, so that was it. As we watched her go, I knew we might never see her again.

It was mid-afternoon when the phone rang. ‘Can you take an emergency placement – a family of three children?’

I thought,
here goes
. . .
the children the milkman told me about; it must be
. But they included a baby so I just wanted to check, as I was sticking to my rule of no babies under
six months. ‘How old are they?’

‘Two girls of five and three, plus a nearly one-year-old boy.’

Yes, I thought, definitely the same family. It had to be. ‘When do you want them to come?’

‘Now?’

I sighed. I’d have a job to get everything ready in half a day, let alone less than an hour. And it would be a squash with eleven children, but I knew we could cope. ‘OK,’ I
agreed.

Well, what a sight they were when they arrived! I had the door open and watched the social worker walk the two girls up the drive, while carrying the little one. The girls were dressed in what I
can only describe as drab, jumble-sale clothes, that didn’t fit them properly, and plastic sandals on their feet. The toddler had just a nappy and an open cardigan on, so big it was down to
his knees, with no vest or anything else, plus a pair of black wellington boots, at least two sizes too large for him. The social worker put him down and, after two or three wobbly steps in those
boots, he clearly decided he’d had enough for one day. So he did his own little sit-down protest on our gravel, bawling his head off and refusing to stand up. The social worker had to pick
him up again, boots and all, to bring him to our door.

The two girls looked pale, their skin almost grey, and their bodies far too thin. They looked as if they hadn’t been out in the sunlight for weeks, nor been anywhere near a bath. They were
probably malnourished too, judging by their dull hair and slow movements. The boy, on the other hand, had a lusty cry, but I wouldn’t have put him at more than seven or eight months old, to
look at.

‘Hi kids!’ Mike grinned. He always said the same when he came in from work, no matter whether any were missing or new ones had come.

‘What are their names?’ he asked me quietly, against the noisy background, as we sat down with a cup of tea at one end of the table.

‘Noreen, Linda and . . . Oh no!’

‘What?’

‘I’ve forgotten his name already. I’ll have to look it up on the social worker’s form. Apparently, they left the family home in such a hurry that nobody noticed he
hadn’t got anything on his feet, so they picked up a pair of wellingtons for him to wear. You should have seen him in them – they were far too big. The kids are all calling him Baby
Boots.’

After their baths and bedtime stories for the younger ones, I settled the new family down to sleep that evening, all in the same room to start with. Later on, if they were still with us,
they’d join the others.

We spent the next few days feeding the three of them up and sending them out to play in the garden. They hung back the first morning, but Daisy and Sheena encouraged the two girls to join in
their games with Mandy and Laurel. Meanwhile, Paul took charge of Baby Boots and put him in a cardboard box with a rope round it and hauled him round the garden; just like when Ronnie had pulled
him around in a similar box himself on his first day, I remembered with a smile.

Because of these three’s emergency placement, we now had two more than a full house. In order of age, we had AJ, Ronnie, Sheena, Daisy, Paul, Gilroy, Noreen, Alfie,
Mandy, Linda, Laurel and Baby Boots. We had a spare cot, but the bed space for Noreen and Linda could have been a problem, so we made it into a game.

Every night I tied a sheet to the bunk-beds to make a ‘tent’ down to the floor, and put a sleeping bag in it. Then I’d get all the children together and say, ‘Now,
who’s been the very, very best-behaved child today?’

They would all be pushing themselves forward.

‘I have.’

‘Me.’

‘No, ME!’

Each night I picked a different one. ‘Yes, you have been brilliant today, so you can sleep in the tent tonight.’

The girl or boy I chose always looked so proud and their excitement was infectious. They all tried their hardest to be good, and they all had to have a turn. It worked a treat. You’d think
I’d given them a trip to Disneyland, with a hundred gold coins to spend!

So that was the beds sorted out. However, the only trouble was getting them all into our old estate car, which was now impossible, so we sold it and bought a large van, which was like a minibus,
except without the windows; and it only had the three front seats. So we put lots of carpet offcuts and cushions into the back, along with some soft plastic toys for the kids to play with on long
journeys. They were fairly good at making up their own games, too.

Baby Boots was a lot of fun. He had such a contagious giggle and was always excited about something or other. We all loved him, but we never called him his real name. I can’t even remember
what it was.

‘Isn’t he bootiful?’ said Ronnie soon after he arrived, and we all laughed.

Daisy was usually the quiet one, often rather detached. But she really took to Baby Boots and wheeled him around the garden in our old pram. She used to cut toast into fingers for him at
breakfast time and she often came and watched me change his nappies, amusing him with a mobile or some other toy while he was lying there. We’d had a lot of babies to stay but, apart from
baby Gail, the one with hydrocephalus, and abandoned newborn Laurel, I don’t remember Daisy paying any of them as much attention as she gave to Baby Boots.

It was quite a shock when the family’s social worker, Ray, rang me a few weeks later to say they would be leaving us.

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re going back to their mum.’

‘But I thought the police were taking her to court?’ I had learnt that from the milkman, whom I rang every now and then to update him on how they were doing. He even visited them one
day at the end of his round. Noreen seemed pleased to see him, but the others didn’t really know who he was.

‘Surely the mother’s not fit to look after them?’ I asked.

‘Well, you know I can’t tell you much,’ said Ray. ‘They did take her to court, and there was such a good case against her from the police that everyone thought it would
be an open and shut case. But . . .’ I could tell he was being careful with his words. ‘Let’s just say that she had an excellent barrister and he got her off, so the judge agreed
the children can go back to her.’

‘Oh dear.’ I sighed. ‘I hope they’ll be all right.’

‘As you know, I can’t comment.’ His voice might have seemed calm to most people, but I’d known Ray a long time and I could sense the anger underneath his neutral tone.
‘But I’ll remain their social worker for a while at least.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s something.’

‘I’ll come and collect them at ten tomorrow morning.’

So, after two months, we said our sad goodbyes to Noreen, Linda and Baby Boots. We all missed them terribly – Daisy most of all. Nobody could replace Baby Boots.

We presumed that would be the end of it. But no . . .

A few weeks later I had a call from Social Services. A rule had recently been implemented that foster carers could not exceed their set number of children, no matter what the circumstances.
‘The three children who left you recently are coming back into care,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘According to our records, you have nine children now. Is that
correct?’

‘Yes, that’s right. But it would be no more of a squash to have the three of them back again than it was last time, and we managed very well then.’

‘Yes, but as you know, we have new rules and your maximum is ten, so that means you can’t have more than ten at a time.’

‘But we have the space and we’d love to have them back,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m sure it would be less unsettling and better for them.’

‘I can’t comment on that, I’m afraid. We just have to follow the regulations. But you could have one of them. That would be a help.’

‘Who would it be a help to?’ I asked with indignation. ‘It wouldn’t help the children. They need to stay together, to support each other.’

‘That may not be possible, Mrs Merry. So which one could you take?’

I refused to say. How could I take only one of them? And how could I choose? If they had to come back into care, they should be able to come back to us. We would love to have them. But if they
couldn’t all come, I didn’t want to be the person who split them up.

‘I can’t have just one of them,’ I said, ‘and leave the others out in the cold.’

‘Oh, that’s going rather too far, Mrs Merry,’ said the snippy voice on the other end.

‘Well, it’s how I feel. And if I can’t have them all, I’d rather they’ve the chance of staying together somewhere else.’

So that was that. I felt sad for them, but there was nothing I could do.

‘Let it go, Trish,’ said Mike that evening, when I told him about it. ‘You know you have to let them go.’

‘Yes, but I can’t help wishing.’

‘I know, but rules are rules, so put it behind you. I’m sure they’ll be all right with a new foster-carer for a while. After all, if they can stay together, they’ve got
each other, and Noreen is a real little mum herself.’

Only a week later I had another phone call about Noreen, Linda and Baby Boots. This time it was from their new foster-carer. They had been found a placement together, so I felt
that, in a roundabout way, I had done my best to help them.

‘I hope you don’t mind my ringing you out of the blue, but another foster-mum friend of mine gave me your number.’

‘Yes?’ I said, feeling guarded. ‘What’s it about?’

‘You’ll never believe what’s happened,’ she began. ‘It’s the three you had with you a few months ago. Their mother got this top lawyer again . . . and
she’s got the children back.’

‘Oh no! Those poor kids.’

‘Yes. It’s all wrong, isn’t it? They should never be going back to her. She’ll only neglect them again, like she’s always done.’

Not long after, I heard through the fostering grapevine that they’d gone back into care yet again; this time quite a long way away, and I never heard what happened to them after that.

‘Lost in the care system,’ I said to Mike. ‘It seems so wrong.’

T
he bigger Gilroy grew the more difficult he became. He was so boisterous, putting it mildly, that he was always in hot water. He could often be
quite hostile too if he felt like it, pushing the other children over as hard as he could, taking or deliberately breaking their things, making cruel comments that upset everyone, including adults,
and generally looking for trouble.

Once, when a pregnant social worker came for a visit, he took one look at her bump and said, ‘I hope your baby dies.’ The poor woman went white, then burst into tears, as if it were
a curse. I had to send Gilroy up to his bedroom and comfort her, but of course he kicked up and trashed his room completely.

Another time, when we were at the supermarket, he shouted at a disabled man: ‘Cripples shouldn’t be allowed in shops.’ The man was understandably very upset, and so were other
customers, so the manager insisted I take Gilroy out of the store and never bring him again.

There were many other instances of this kind, and it became increasingly difficult to take him anywhere, or to have anyone round to our house.

It wasn’t just Gilroy who was difficult to deal with. His mother could be even worse – obstreperous was putting it mildly. A few weeks after the episode with the bunk beds, she
turned up unannounced, wanting to see him. She knew she had to get permission from Social Services, because Gilroy was on a full care order and his mother was only allowed to have supervised
visits. But she ignored this.

She was drunk when she arrived, banging on our front door non-stop, until I came and opened it on the chain.

‘I want to see my f****** boy!’ she yelled.

‘I’m sorry, Kathleen,’ I said in my firmest voice. ‘You know I can’t let you in to see Gilroy without first getting written permission from Social Services. What
you need to do is to go down and get them to do you a letter and bring it back here. Then you can come in.’

She swore another string of non-repeatable words at me, so I shut the door, kept the chain on and double-locked it. I checked the back door too, and all the downstairs windows.

As I turned, I saw Gilroy, sitting on the stairs, close to tears. He was a tough boy, who would never have let the others see any chink of weakness in him. But this day, away from the rest of
the children, a tear or two trickled down his ashen face, as he sat, rigid, on the stairs. Then suddenly, he seemed to change.

‘Why can’t I see my mum?’ he challenged me.

‘Because she can’t come in without permission from the social workers,’ I explained.

‘I f****** hate you!’ he shouted and stomped up the stairs to his room, where I heard him crashing things about. Not for the first time.

I’d have to deal with that later, because at that moment, there was a loud commotion outside in the street. I peeked out of one of our front windows and saw her having a go at our old
friend the milkman, who had just turned up at that moment in his float. She ranted and raved at him, so loudly that Gilroy stopped his destruction, came out of his room and stood at the top of the
stairs, listening.