The Cast-Off Kids (26 page)

‘It won’t work.’ He was adamant.

So, I changed the subject again. ‘Tell me about your back,’ I said, with my most sympathetic expression. ‘Is it painful?’

‘No, not now,’ he said. ‘A bit itchy sometimes, with being so messed up and tight, but most of that was a long time ago.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was when I was a littl’un, still living with my mum. There was just her and me . . . and all her boyfriends. She mostly had different ones every day. They had sex on the sofa, so
that she could keep an eye on me, she said. But I hated it. I thought they were attacking her. Sometimes they did and she would have cuts and bruises to show for it. One guy even broke her arm. He
was the one who came most often. If I ever made a sound, or tried to stop him attacking her, she used to get him to attack me instead. It seemed to excite him to hurt people. To start with, he took
off his belt, with its big buckle, and beat me with that, mostly across my back. But then my mum got a cat-o-nine-tails from somewhere.’

‘That sounds terrible,’ I gasped.

‘Yes, it was. She used to get this man to use it on me. He would thrash me again and again with it, while he and my mum laughed at my screams. In the end, I tried not to scream so much, so
that he would stop hurting me.’

‘Didn’t anyone hear your screams?’

‘I don’t know.’ I could see that Luke was quite distressed now, going back over these painful memories

I leant across and put my arm round his shoulder. I was pleased he let me.

‘How old were you?’ I asked.

‘Oh, about three or four I suppose.’

‘It’s hard to believe that anyone can be so cruel, especially your own mother.’

‘Well, they were.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘Looking back, I think she must have been on drugs most of the time, and she used to drink a lot of booze as well. Anyway, Social
Services must have had a tip-off in the end, because they came to get me. I never saw her again after that.’

The next day, a Friday, I went up to wake Luke. I used to let him lie in a bit, so it was after everyone else had gone out. I called him from the stairs, but there was no grunt
of reply, like he usually gave. So I went to his room, which we’d done up specially for him . . . and he was gone. He must have sneaked out overnight.

‘Luke’s scarpered,’ I told Mike when I phoned him at work. ‘What do you think I should do?’

‘Did he leave a note?’

‘No,’ I paused. ‘Remember? He can’t write.’

‘Oh, of course. Well, he’s fifteen. Maybe there’s a reason. He might be back later. Let’s wait till I get home and see if anything happens.’

‘Mrs Merry?’ the male voice on the phone asked that evening.

‘Yes.’

‘This is the Ashbridge police station. We have your young man here.’

‘Oh . . . do you mean Luke?’

‘I do indeed. He has got himself into a bit of trouble today, ramming a shopping trolley into the Co-op’s plate-glass window and smashing it.’

‘On no!’ I exclaimed ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What I need to ask you is, are you willing to be his responsible adult?’

‘Er, yes,’ I said, and then, ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, we’ve charged him, so now we need to interview him. But as he’s under eighteen, we can’t interview him without a responsible adult present. We have specially
trained interviewers to work with young people. If you could come down here to the police station and attend his interview with us and sign the forms, that would move things along.’

‘Will he have to stay there?’

‘Only till you get here and the interview has been completed. Once you’ve signed for him, you should be able to take him home on bail.’

‘Oh good.’

‘But, depending on the interview and any previous dealings he may have had with the police, he may have to appear in court. Do you know whether he has ever been cautioned or charged with
anything before?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. We’re foster-carers, and he’s not been with us long.’

So I left Mike to manage all the children’s bedtime routines, much easier now that most of them were old enough to sort themselves out, and down I went to the police station. The interview
was quite straightforward, as Luke admitted what he’d done from the beginning.

‘Well done, Luke, for owning up,’ I said in the car as I drove us both home. ‘You don’t have to tell me why you did it . . .’

‘That’s OK. I don’t really know why. My head just went wild, with everything raging inside it. I was confused and . . . I think it was going over all that stuff about my mum
and her boyfriends. I can’t cope with all that.’

‘I understand, Luke. We don’t ever need to talk about that again, unless you want to. Let’s get home and have something good to eat. What do you fancy?’

‘Sausages and mash?’ he asked hopefully.

‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got some lovely sausages in the fridge, so sausages and mash it will be. And this time, make sure you don’t scarper overnight!’

Luke’s youth-court case came up quite soon after the event. Mike went to support him and spoke at the hearing.

‘I told them he’s a good lad really, but he’d had a bad day, affected by having to go over bad memories of his past. And that it wouldn’t happen again. So they took a
while, in their side room, to make their minds up. But finally, as it was his first offence, they let him off with a caution.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ I said fervently. ‘Let’s hope it’s his last offence, too.’

S
ocial Services rang up one November day to tell me that Daisy and Paul’s long-time social worker John had been taken off the case.

‘But why?’ I asked. ‘He’s been with them ever since they came, ten years ago.’ No answer. ‘It’s such a shame.’ I went on. ‘He’s been
really good with them all these years. He can’t be old enough to retire . . . Is he moving to another job?’

I was fuming. I’ve met a lot of mediocre social workers as a foster mum, but John was one of the best. We may not have seen him that often, but when we needed him, he had come to our aid
out of hours at a moment’s notice, like the time when Daisy had been so ill. Not many would do that, in their free time, referring us instead to the duty social worker. John really cared. I
was furious that we had lost him now, without even knowing why.

‘So do Daisy and Paul have a new social worker now?’

‘Yes. His name is Bernard Brown. He’ll give you a ring in a day or two.’

So that was it. I will have to break it to the kids, I thought. But maybe I’ll wait till he’s made contact and I can find out what he’s like. In the meantime I decided to do a
bit of sleuthing.

I started with John himself, which was more than likely against the rules, but nothing ventured . . . He couldn’t say much, of course, just that it was a reorganisation, which sounded like
a recipe for chaos to me as it’s the kids who always lose out. I asked John what he knew about the new man, Bernard Brown. That’s how I found out that he had been a bus driver for
years, before switching careers, so he was a newly trained social worker – a rookie. Just our luck!

‘What’s happened about Luke’s education?’ asked Mike one evening. ‘Shouldn’t he have started at the high school by now?’

‘Officially, yes. But I came up with another plan. I spoke to a senior social worker about him being so dyslexic that he couldn’t read or write yet, and the fact that he’s
hardly had any formal education, and is adamant that school isn’t for him.’

‘So what did they say?’

‘Well, that’s where I gave them the solution. They discussed it with the education department and, amazingly they agreed! They’ll give him his own home-learning tutor two days
a week, as long as I supervise the work he’s set on the days in between.’

‘Well done,’ said Mike.

‘And,’ I said, ‘what’s great is that they have someone in mind that they think will be just right for him.’

The following Monday the tutor arrived, as agreed. I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I saw. In fact, we heard it first, sounding like a
fire-breathing dragon pulling up outside our house. I opened the door to a bearded, tattooed, leather-jacketed ‘Hells Angels’ type on a monster of a motorbike, gleaming proudly in the
sunlight.

‘Hi,’ he said as he took off his helmet, to reveal his bald patch and his long pony-tail. ‘I’m Guy. I guess you’re Trisha?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Hey Luke, my man,’ he said with a grin and a strange hand-greeting that I’d never seen before, but Luke seemed to know what to do. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Good,’ the boy replied, in an American accent.

They came in and I sat them down at our dining room table. ‘Will you be all right in here for working?’ I asked. ‘I’ll shut the door and put up a “do not
disturb” sign, in case anyone comes.’

Luke looked a bit uncertain, but Guy took charge. ‘We’re not stopping,’ said Guy. ‘I’ve got a busy day planned.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ He turned to Luke. ‘Man, how do you fancy putting on my spare helmet and jacket and going out for a burn, to the hills?’

Luke nodded enthusiastically.

‘Aren’t you the tutor?’ I asked, uncertainly, thinking I’d let in some anarchist Luke must have met on the streets.

‘No worries, Trisha,’ Guy reassured me. ‘We’re going to do all this week’s history, geography, English and maths today, so let’s get going, Luke. Are you up
for it?’

‘Yes,’ replied Luke, with a bemused expression. I could tell this was not at all what he had expected either.

‘Well, I did suggest he needed a new way of teaching and learning!’ I told Mike over supper.

‘What do they say? Beware what you ask for . . .’ We laughed. ‘How did they get on? Did they show you anything when they got back?’

‘Yes. I have to confess, I was amazed at how much Luke had achieved. Probably more in one day than in any of his previous schooling! He got it all out of his backpack to show me.
Apparently they’d gone on a breezy ride to the Malvern Hills. They sat on the top of the highest hill with a compass and worked out the different counties and geographical features, then Luke
drew his own map, with things labelled. Guy must have helped him with that. Then Luke drew in Caractacus fighting the Romans on the map, and marked the civil war battles too. They followed a stream
down to the valley to see what fish and wildlife they could find and sketched them. And then there was maths, like the distances on the map . . . I think they had a great time, and it was all about
learning.’

‘This Guy sounds like everybody’s ideal teacher,’ said Mike with a grin.

‘Yes, and he’s got loads of great ideas for other educational outings and subjects too! I’ve never seen Luke look so enthusiastic or so healthy after all that fresh
air!’

In between worrying about Daisy and Paul’s new social worker’s inexperience, and supervising Luke’s independent assignments, I also had developments to take
care of at the sex-film children’s house.

It was three years now since we had set up the wraparound package for them, with all the amazing helpers and professionals who supported them. All five were making small steps of progress.
However, the two youngest ones seemed better able to change some of their behaviours and instincts than the older ones.

‘I think it’s time to consider placing these younger two in a family setting now,’ said the senior social worker as he sat with me and a psychotherapist one morning, down at
the council offices. ‘Duane is five and Sindy is six now, and they’ve both made a good start with their reading, writing and arithmetic.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the psychotherapist. ‘It has taken a lot of specialist input and care, but I think they may now be ready to join the outside world, living with a caring family,
going to school and making friends of their own.’

‘That would be great,’ I said. ‘If you’re sure they’re ready, and that they can avoid the sexualised advances they made the day I first met them when mixing with
other children and unknown male adults.’

The senior social worker turned to the psychotherapist. ‘Would you like to respond?’

‘Yes.’ She turned to me. ‘It’s a chicken and egg situation, in a way,’ she began. ‘I believe they have left a lot of their early programming behind and that
they’re young enough to become normalised now. However, until we take this step, we won’t know for certain that it will work.’

‘Yes.’ The social worker nodded, and looked straight at me. ‘That’s where you come in, Trisha.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I know you have some spare spaces, you and Mike, and I wonder whether you would now reconsider and take them in. They already know you, and you are the best, most experienced
foster-carers we have . . .’ She tailed off when she saw the expression on my face.

‘You’ve caught me completely off-guard,’ I spluttered. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Will you think about it?’ he asked.

‘Hmm . . . I’ll have a chat with Mike this evening and see what he thinks,’ I said.

What they didn’t know was that Mike and I had recently decided not to take in any more children and to gradually run down the numbers, as they grew up or left, so that we could prepare for
our retirement. Still, I explained it all to Mike as soon as we were on our own.

‘Well,’ he began. ‘I know we agreed not to take on any more foster-children. But we do already have their younger sister, Lulu, so we would have to wait for her to grow up,
anyway . . .’

So, we surprised ourselves by agreeing. First thing the next morning I called the senior social worker and told him we would take on both Sindy and Duane, on the understanding that it would be
for a probationary period to start with. ‘We have to give them the chance they need and the love they deserve,’ I told him. ‘As well as the time to renew their sibling bond with
our Lulu.’

So I went to collect them a couple of hours later and they seemed to take to Lulu immediately. In fact, all our kids just accepted them straight away. But the next few days would tell,
especially going to school for the first time.

A couple of days later, the overdue call from Daisy and Paul’s new social worker, Bernard, finally came. He started by introducing himself and checking our contact
details and the children’s names and dates of birth.