Will You Love Me? (12 page)

Bonnie hadn’t been able to look after Lucy before and there was no reason to think she could do so now. Nothing had changed in her life apart from a different flat and a new boyfriend. The social services monitored the family for six months and as concerns grew, and the threshold for intervention was reached, Lucy was taken into care. This time it was with a court order and not under a Section 20, which gave the social services more power, and should have given Lucy more security.

The foster carers Lucy was now sent to live with were a married couple who had two teenage children and lived in a comfortable modern house on a new estate on the outskirts of the city. Unfortunately the mother didn’t drive and the school Lucy had been attending for the previous six months – when she’d been living with her mother – was over an hour’s bus journey away. It was felt that this was too far for a child Lucy’s age to travel and that, in any case, Lucy might find it embarrassing to arrive at school with a foster carer when she had previously been seen with her mother. It was therefore decided that a fresh start at a new school would be beneficial, so Lucy was sent to the local primary school. By now, excluding nursery school, Lucy had attended at least six different primary schools in five years. Exactly how many different addresses Lucy had lived at by then is hard to ascertain, but a conservative estimate at the time put it in excess of thirty.

Although Lucy was nearly three years behind with her learning she began to make some progress at this school and also enjoyed a pleasant Christmas with her foster family. However, when Lucy had been living with these carers for five months, the family’s fortunes abruptly changed: the factory where the foster father worked gave notice to all its employees that it was having to close. It made the offer that any employee who had been working at the company for over five years could relocate to their other factory – eighty miles north. With unemployment high and jobs scarce, the family understandably felt they should accept the offer to relocate, and they suggested to the social services that Lucy could go with them. Although Lucy was in care under a court order, it was an Interim Care Order, which meant that Lucy’s mother still had a say in any decision-making about Lucy. Bonnie had seen Lucy twice during this five-month period, but now invoked her rights and objected to Lucy moving out of the area in case she wanted to see her more often, which would be difficult if Lucy was living so far away. As a result, the family moved and Lucy was moved to another foster home.

The only carer free in the area at that time was a baby carer – that is, she was approved to foster babies up to the age of two. Lucy was placed with her temporarily until a more suitable carer in the area became free. Repeated moves for children in care for reasons like these are all too common and the whole system needs a thorough overhaul to ensure that unnecessary moves are eliminated as much as possible.

Two months after being placed with this carer, Lucy, now eleven, began at the local secondary school – a big enough step in itself without the uncertainty of not knowing where she would be living in a few months’ time. Six weeks later a more suitable carer became free in the area and Lucy arrived home from school one afternoon to be told that she would be moving at the weekend. Although Lucy had always known at the back of her mind that she’d have to move again one day, on top of just starting secondary school and the accumulated years of neglect, misery and continuous upheaval, it all became too much. As the carer began explaining to Lucy that her social worker would take her for a visit to meet her new foster carer, Cathy, and her two children, Lucy let out the most blood-curdling scream and then fled upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom – the only room in the house with a lock on the door.

The carer, frightened at the sudden outburst from a child who was usually very placid, quiet and obedient, ran upstairs after her. She then spent over half an hour outside the bathroom door trying to reason with Lucy and persuade her to come out. Lucy’s sobs grew louder and more disturbing. By the time the carer’s husband came home from work, Lucy’s hysterical shouts could be heard from outside: ‘I hate you all! I’m not going anywhere! I’m going to kill myself!’ she cried.

PART TWO

Chapter Ten

‘A Family of My Own’

‘It’s a nightmare,’ Jill, my support social worker, said over the phone. ‘The carer’s husband had to break down the bathroom door to get Lucy out, and she’s
still
refusing to speak to anyone.’

‘The poor child,’ I said. ‘You can’t blame Lucy for being so upset. Her life has been a misery, more or less from day one. No wonder she’s so angry and feels unwanted. No one
has
wanted her.’

‘I know. You’ve read the referral?’

‘Yes.’ Because Lucy had been coming to me as a planned move, I’d had a chance to read the referral so that I could better understand Lucy and cater for her needs. As well as briefly describing Lucy’s strengths and weaknesses, the referral gave a short history of her past. If a child came to me as an emergency foster placement I knew very little about the child, sometimes nothing. ‘Yes, I’ve read the referral,’ I said. ‘I nearly cried. Lucy deserved so much better. She’s been treated dreadfully.’

‘Absolutely,’ Jill said. ‘But the fact remains, she still has to move and at present she’s refusing to even visit you, or see her social worker. I’m sure she’d feel a bit better about the move if she could meet you, Adrian and Paula beforehand, see her bedroom and have a look around the house. But we can’t force her.’ And of course if Lucy was refusing even to meet me, how on earth were they going to move her?

Jill and I were both quiet for a moment and then I said: ‘I wonder if Lucy would talk to me on the phone? It would be better than nothing. Is it worth a try?’

‘Yes, it’s a possibility, I suppose. I’ll phone Lucy’s social worker and see what she thinks, and then I’ll get back to you. If you did phone it would have to be this evening – they’re still planning on moving her tomorrow, although I’m not sure how.’

‘I’m in all evening,’ I confirmed. ‘Speak later.’

We said goodbye and hung up. Jill had been my support social worker for the last six of the thirteen years I’d been fostering. We had a close working relationship and I respected her decisions and opinions. But as I walked away from the phone, visions of a screaming, struggling eleven-year-old girl being forcibly brought to my door flashed through my mind. I’d experienced younger children being taken from their parents and handed to me in a very distressed state. I’d sat and cuddled them for as long as it took to calm them and until their sobbing eased. Rarely does a child willingly leave their parents – usually only in the worst cases of sexual abuse. But Lucy wasn’t little and couldn’t just be left in my arms. And also, she wasn’t coming to me from her parents, but from a temporary foster placement. I thought it was an indication of all she’d been through that she’d become hysterical at having to move from a family she’d only been with for three months.

It was now 5.00 p.m., and a cold winter evening in February. My two children – Adrian, aged thirteen, and Paula, nine – were watching television while I was making the evening meal. Having grown up with fostering, they’d seen many children come and go, of all ages, of both sexes and from different ethnic backgrounds. They took any new addition to our family in their stride, and when I’d told them a couple of days ago that Lucy would be coming to stay for a while, Paula had predictably said, ‘Oh good, a big girl to play with,’ while Adrian, preferring a boy his own age for company, had pulled a face and sighed: ‘Not another girl in the house!’ Although, in truth, we all welcomed as family any child who came into our home.

Jill, efficient as usual, phoned back fifteen minutes later. ‘The social worker was busy so I telephoned Pat, the foster carer,’ she said. ‘Lucy’s still refusing to talk to her and she’s certain she won’t talk to you either, but Pat said she’s happy for you to try. Also, and more worryingly, Lucy is refusing to eat – she hasn’t eaten since all this blew up the day before yesterday. I’ll give you Pat’s number. I told her you’d phone at about seven o’clock. Is that all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said, now even more worried for Lucy. Picking up the pen I kept with the notepad by the phone, I wrote down the carer’s telephone number and then read it back to check I had it right.

‘Good luck,’ Jill said. ‘Pat and her husband were going to move Lucy tomorrow – Saturday – but if she’s still not cooperating then they’ll have to wait until Monday, when the social worker is back in the office and can sort it out.’

‘And what will she do?’ I asked.

‘No idea. There doesn’t appear to be a plan B,’ Jill said, trying to lighten an otherwise dire situation.

‘The whole thing is so tragic,’ I said, my heart going out to Lucy.

‘Yes, and the most tragic aspect of Lucy’s case is that it needn’t have happened,’ Jill said. ‘Lucy’s life could have been so different if someone had made the decision to remove her early on. She could have been adopted. It’s too late now. She’s too old. The damage has been done.’

Adrian and Paula had been expecting to meet Lucy that Friday evening, just as I had, so once I’d finished speaking to Jill on the phone and before I served dinner, I returned to the living room and explained to Adrian and Paula that Lucy wouldn’t be coming for a visit as she was too upset, but that I would phone her carer later and try to talk to Lucy.

‘Why doesn’t Lucy want to come?’ Paula asked. ‘Doesn’t she like us?’

‘She doesn’t even know us,’ Adrian put in quickly, always ready to correct his younger sister.

‘I think she’s just had all she can take,’ I said. ‘She’s never had a proper home and she’s been treated very badly.’

‘Tell her it’s OK for her to come here. We won’t treat her badly. We’ll be kind to her,’ Paula said.

I smiled. ‘That’s nice, love.’ If only it was that simple, I thought.

Once we’d eaten and I’d cleared away the dishes, and before I began Paula’s bedtime routine, I left Adrian and Paula playing a board game in the living room while I went down the hall to phone Lucy’s carers. I needed quiet in order to think what I would say to Lucy if I got the chance, and also I was nervous. Even after many years of fostering, I still get an attack of nerves just before the arrival of a new child, and it’s always worse if the move doesn’t go smoothly. But then, I thought, how much worse must Lucy be feeling, rejected and having to move in yet again with strangers?

‘Is that Pat?’ I asked, as the call connected and a woman’s voice answered.

‘Yes. Speaking.’

‘It’s Cathy Glass.’

‘Oh, yes, Lucy’s new carer. Hello.’ I could hear relief in her voice. ‘Jill said you’d phone.’

‘So, how is Lucy now?’ I asked.

‘Still shut in her room and refusing to come out or speak to us. I don’t know what to do. I feel awful, so does my husband. Lucy’s blaming us for her having to move, but we’re only approved to look after babies. To be honest, Cathy, I regret ever having agreed to take Lucy in the first place. It’s so upsetting and we feel very guilty.’

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault. The social services were desperate to place Lucy in the area after her mother complained, and you were the only carer available. It’s not good practice, but it happens when the system is stretched to the limit. Have you been able to tell Lucy that I would be phoning?’

‘Sort of. I called through her bedroom door and told her. She didn’t answer, but I think she heard me.’

‘How long ago was that?’ I asked.

‘About two hours.’

‘All right. Could you go up now please and tell her I’m on the phone. I assume her bedroom door isn’t locked?’

‘No. We never put locks on the bedroom doors. We’re not allowed to.’ Pat was referring to the ‘safer caring’ recommendations for foster carers, which advise against locks being fitted to the child’s bedroom door, as it could prevent the carer from entering in an emergency or if the child is distressed.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘This is what I’d like you to do. Go up now, knock on Lucy’s bedroom door and then poke your head round and say lightly: “There’s a phone call for you. It’s Cathy, your new carer. She’s hoping she can have a little chat with you.”’

‘You think I should open her door and go in?’ Pat asked, concerned. ‘I thought she wanted to be alone.’

Not used to fostering older children, Pat had thought she was respecting Lucy’s privacy in leaving her alone, but as an experienced carer of older children I knew that, once a child had had time to cool off, they usually wanted you to go to them and give them a cuddle. I would never have left a child alone in their room for any more than fifteen minutes if they were as upset as Lucy was.

‘Yes, Pat. Open her bedroom door and go in a little,’ I confirmed.

‘All right, I’ll do as you say.’

I heard the phone being set down and then Pat’s footsteps receding upstairs. As I waited I could feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest. Adrian and Paula’s distant voices floated through from the living room. I heard Pat knock on Lucy’s bedroom door, then a slight creak as the door opened, followed by: ‘Your new carer, Cathy, is on the phone for you. Can you come and talk to her?’

There was more silence and then I heard the bedroom door close. A few moments later Pat’s voice came on the phone again. ‘I told her, but she’s still refusing to even look at me. She’s just sitting there on the bed staring into space.’

My worries for Lucy rose.

‘What should I do now?’ Pat asked, anxiously. ‘Shall I ask my husband to try to talk to her?’

‘Does Lucy have a better relationship with him?’ I asked.

‘No, not really,’ Pat said. ‘She won’t speak to him, either. Jill said that we might have to leave her until Monday, when her social worker is back at work.’

‘Then Lucy has the whole weekend to brood over this,’ I said. ‘It will be worse. Let’s try again to get her to the phone. I’m sure it will help if she hears I’m not an ogre.’

Pat gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Jill said you were very good with older children.’