The Cast-Off Kids (2 page)

‘No,’ he admitted, with a barely concealed grin, as if he found that idea funny. ‘No, it wasn’t me. Their grandmother did all their washing. They stayed with her for a
few weeks every now and then, but she just couldn’t manage them any longer. In between it was mostly me looking after them, off and on.’ He paused. ‘Their mum walked out after
Paul was born, when Daisy was just turned one. So they don’t remember her.’

At that moment, Paul stood up and tumbled awkwardly, so Judy went over to pick him up. I took advantage of her temporary preoccupation to probe for more information. It was the only way to find
out anything, because I knew Social Services would never tell me.

‘So you can’t keep them yourself?’ I asked.

‘No. I’m a chef,’ he explained, with an air of pride. ‘Mostly in Swindon.’ He paused. ‘But I have to move around with work and stay in digs, so I can’t
have them with me . . . and there’s nobody else.’ For just a moment, his body drooped in on itself and he had a vulnerable look in his eyes. ‘I don’t know what else to
do.’

‘Yes, it must have been difficult,’ I agreed. ‘I hope you’ll be able to visit the children when you can?’

‘I’ll try,’ he half-agreed, hanging his head. ‘But it won’t be easy.’

‘Well, just let me know when you want to come.’ I turned to the social worker. ‘Will that be all right?’

‘Yes, fine. As long as he lets you know beforehand.’

I wrote down our phone number on a piece of paper, which he stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans. I wondered whether he would ever look at it again.

I took Daisy’s hand and carried Paul as we went along to the playroom to join the rest of the children, with Judy right behind us and Rocky lagging further back.

‘Let’s have a look at the toys,’ I said, as I sat on the floor with our newcomers, leaving Judy to go through the forms with Rocky.

I had a lovely group of children at that time. Sheena, aged three, came and took Daisy’s hand to join her and four-year-old Chrissy, our eldest foster child, playing with some dolls. Paul
crawled in a bee-line across the floor, heading straight for a red tractor. He picked it up and brandished it triumphantly, next to our other three boys, playing with a farm.

Both Daisy and Paul seemed happy enough for now, without even a glance towards their father. Children coming into care didn’t often have a parent with them, but when they did, they tended
to be clingy. Not these two. They seemed wary of him. And having been moved around so much, between family members, perhaps they had gained some resilience along the way.

Judy sat on the sofa next to Rocky, whose legs twitched up and down with impatience as she explained the forms to him and gave him a pen. Rocky didn’t hesitate for a moment before signing
his children away into our care. I did think that strange. I wanted to ask him more questions, but I knew the social worker would have stopped us. Foster parents weren’t allowed to know
anything back in the 1960s.

Once he’d signed the forms, Rocky was clearly keen to go, but he realised Judy wasn’t yet ready to leave. He sat back and half-heartedly gazed out of the window as his children
played, like a prisoner eager for his release. At one point, both Daisy and Paul came over to him, sitting on either side to show him their toys, but he failed to engage with them. I yearned for
him to take an interest and give them cuddles, but no. They were just three separate souls in a line on the sofa, till the two children gave up and drifted away.

At that moment, I wouldn’t have left a dog with Rocky.

‘I need to get back,’ he said to Judy. ‘I’m working tonight.’

‘OK,’ said Judy, giving me an apologetic look.

‘Come and say goodbye to your dad, kids,’ I said, picking up Paul and taking Daisy’s hand to walk across the hall to him. Rocky looked embarrassed and hesitated.

I thought for a moment that he was going to refuse. Maybe he thought any affection would be bad for his image.

‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ said Daisy, as if trained for this scene, which I suppose she was.

That did it. He gave in, crouched down and gave them both a brief hug. They clung a little too long for his liking, so he carefully unentwined himself from them. ‘See you soon,
kids.’ He turned and left. I took the children to the front doorstep to wave, as Rocky and the social worker drove away in the car, but he didn’t even turn his head to look.

We all sat round the long wooden table in our kitchen for the children’s teatime. I was coaxing Daisy and Paul to try dipping some fingers of toast into their eggs, when
Mike arrived home from work.

‘Hello, kids,’ he said with a cheery grin, unfazed by the two new faces he didn’t recognise. It was a running joke for us that Mike never knew when he left for work in the
morning how many children he would come home to – who would have gone and who else would have come. He never turned a hair. He always loved our chaotic houseful of children, in which almost
nothing was ever predictable.

He took off his jacket and sat himself down at the table, taking over baby Katie’s bottle feed, while I went to get out a big tub of ice cream from the freezer to cool everyone down.
Meanwhile, Paul sat in his high chair, throwing crusts at partially-sighted Brian, who valiantly felt around and managed to pick one up and throw it back, unexpectedly scoring a bullseye on
Paul’s nose. I waited for the wail, but Paul just giggled. It was clear that he felt quite at home already. As for Daisy, I could see she was much more reserved. She seemed to take an
interest in the older ones’ banter across the table, but she sat slightly apart, silent and still.

While Mike watched them finish their tea, I took Rocky’s old sports bag upstairs to unpack before bedtime. It was full of clothes and scratchy, grey nappies (they would have to go);
pyjamas and wash bags. Even a hairbrush. But no toys or books or cuddlies. Not one favourite thing.

So I found a couple of furry animals in my secret store – a rabbit with floppy ears for Daisy and a bright yellow teddy for Paul. I put them next to their pillows, for them to find at
bedtime.

‘Come on, kids,’ I called downstairs, mainly for Mike’s benefit, so that he could round them up and send them to me, while I ran a big, bubbly bath for them to play in. We
washed them by turns – Mike doing the baby baths and me doing all the rest. I did the baths in shifts – first the girls and then the boys, with bubbles, bath toys and the mini sprayer
for their hair. While I washed them, Mike dried and nappied the little ones and the older ones tried to dry themselves, with a little help from me.

The more children we had, the more chaotic bathtime became. It was like a production line. Everything was. Especially eating and bedtimes. But I loved it – I absolutely loved every moment
of it. Fostering was a joy, although we definitely needed some help. It was time to put that ad in the village shop and cross my fingers for a fairy godmother to apply.

After baths, we had group bedtime stories, then off to their own beds. Daisy and Paul lapped it all up, Daisy quietly and Paul with more gusto. ‘Night-night,’ I
said as I plonked a kiss on each of their foreheads and tucked them in, both holding their new cuddlies. I tiptoed out and listened in the night-light’s dim glow. They didn’t say a word
and within minutes all I could hear was the heavy breathing of sleep.

‘The two new ones seem like good kids,’ said Mike over supper that evening.

‘Yes, Daisy is quiet and rather subdued – I’ll keep an eye on her. Paul is very different – he’s already making his presence felt!’

‘Yes, I noticed,’ agreed Mike with a grin. ‘Do you know anything about their circumstances?’

‘They came with their young dad – very detached. The sort that would probably be a swaggery jack-the-lad with his friends, but he didn’t want to be here. There was something
shifty about him. I don’t know whether he has a criminal record, but I wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘Do you think he would harm the children?’

‘I don’t know. Probably not, but I wouldn’t leave him alone with them.’

I told Mike about their mother abandoning them, and how their grandma too couldn’t keep them. ‘And now their dad can’t manage them either. They’re like
cast-offs.’

‘Do you think he’ll come and visit them?’

‘He said he would when he can. But I’m not so sure.’

‘Poor kids. I hope he doesn’t let them down.’

S
unday was another warm day, but showery. We always tried to take all the children out somewhere together on Sundays, so after everyone had
finished their breakfast Mike asked, ‘Who wants to go and feed the ducks?’

‘I do,’ they all shouted out in unison.

‘I’ll hold the bread,’ offered four-year-old Chrissy, the eldest.

‘Can we have an ice cream?’ pleaded Ronnie, a few months her junior.

‘They don’t sell ice creams at the duck pond!’ Mike laughed.

‘Good job too,’ I added. ‘You can have ice cream after lunch if you’re good. Right, everyone get in a line. Let’s put your welly-boots on first, so you can jump in
the puddles, but we don’t want anyone getting their feet muddy near the edge of the pond.’

‘We might fall in!’ Ronnie always hoped for something exciting to happen.

‘I don’t like it where the grass is squishy,’ three-year-old Sheena made a face.

‘That’s where the ducks do their pooh.’ Ronnie giggled.

Mike finished squeezing them into their boots while I tore up some slices of bread into paper bags, and gave them out to the older ones.

‘’Snot fair,’ moaned little Peter, who used to be the shy one, but was getting braver now. He glared at the others. ‘They got more than me.’ A tear started to
trickle down his chubby cheek.

I calmed him down and off we all went down the lane. Mike went off first with the walkers and I followed a few moments later with the big pram for baby Katie and toddlers Brian and Paul. We
rounded the bend just in time to see two-year-old Peter fall headlong across the muddy grass.

‘Yuk,’ yelled Ronnie with delight.

Peter sat up and wailed. Chrissy tried to help him up, but fell over him instead.

By the time we got back home again, everyone was covered in mud. Oh what fun!

After lunch it had stopped raining and the sun was out again, so they all ran outside to play in the garden while I rocked baby Katie to sleep in the pram. Chrissy encouraged Daisy to join in
with her and Sheena in the Wendy house, while Paul hooted and laughed as he was pulled all around the garden in a large cardboard box with a bit of rope threaded through by Ronnie. That kept both
of them happy until the box gradually fell apart and Paul landed in a puddle.

First thing Monday morning, before the children were awake, I wrote out a quick advert to stick in the village shop’s window.

I added our phone number and tucked it into my bag for later. Right now I needed to feed and change the little ones, get the others up and dressed, then set out the
children’s breakfasts and a cooked breakfast for Mike.

After only two nights, Daisy and Paul had settled in so well that no one would guess they were new. I was beginning to see their characters coming out now – very different from each other.
Even at two, Daisy was a dainty, thoughtful and rather serious little girl who didn’t like things to be untidy, but I could already see she had a will of her own and wasn’t afraid to
stick up for herself if she had to.

Paul, on the other hand, was as lively as a bag of monkeys – a happy-go-lucky little boy with an infectious laugh – nothing seemed to faze him.

Once they were all up, washed, dressed and fed, I put babies Katie and Paul top and tail in the pram, then Brian on the seat, as before. The other five had to hang on – one at each end of
the pram handle, one on each side, holding on to the apron flap, and one in front, holding on to the hood. In this way, I took the lot of them down to the village. It was a slow process, and quite
tricky down the bank at one point, but we made it without losing or injuring anyone – a bit of a nightmare.

As we reached the flat ground and passed the bus stop, Paul threw his teddy out of the pram, so I put the brake on. Two women, waiting for a bus, glanced at all the children, and the little ones
in the pram, then gave each other a look.

As we started off again, the snootier of the two turned to her friend.

‘These Catholics – they don’t know what contraception is!’

I had to turn away to suppress my helpless laughter as I bustled us all off down the road. If only they knew!

The advert went into the village shop window. ‘Do you think anyone will reply?’ I asked Ron, the friendly shopkeeper.

‘I know just the person,’ he said with a wink. ‘I’ll give her a ring this afternoon.’

Next on my list was the chemist. The doorway to the chemist’s shop had an old-fashioned bell contraption that the children loved. If they’d had their way, we’d have been in and
out of that door at least six times.

There were quite a few people in the chemist’s, including a nun, in black robes down to her feet and a white headdress. I’d never seen a nun in the village before, so goodness knows
where she came from. I checked afterwards, and nobody knew what she was doing there.

I held on to Brian’s hand as his eyesight was very poor. He used to wear those round, wire-framed National Health glasses, with glass as thick as bottle-bottoms.

Even with his glasses on, he was always bumping into things. However, he could see solid colours and shapes, as long as they were straight in front of him. The chemist’s wife was giving
all the children a ‘healthy’ sweet each from her special jar, so I started picking the things we needed from the shelves.

Suddenly, Brian shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Dalek!’ He clutched my long skirt in terror. ‘No, no . . . Dalek! Don’t like Dalek!’ He could hardly breathe, he
was so frightened.

Meanwhile, the nun had turned round to see what the noise was about, and what she saw was this little toddler staring at her and shouting that unintelligible word. Understandably, she looked
horrified, assuming that ‘Dalek’ might be a swear word. Or maybe she thought we were putting a curse on her!