Mummy Told Me Not to Tell (23 page)

‘Who is leaving the building apart from me?’ the chairperson asked.

‘I am,’ I said. So too were Kirsty, Jill and the nurses. So the five of us left the conference room together and went downstairs and into reception. The two security guards were at the main entrance and Kay, who had been chairing, asked them if Tracey was in the area.

‘We don’t think so,’ one of them said.

We left the building in a vigilant little crowd, and then went our separate ways to our cars. Jill came with me to mine, and waited until I had driven away.

It was with a sad and heavy heart that I drove the twenty-minute drive home, my thoughts entirely occupied by Reece and his life before he came into care. It didn’t make it any easier having heard of similar families before: each child is an individual with their own personal suffering. In some ways it made it worse, as all the work seemed a bit pointless, like a small drop in a very large ocean. Social services had been trying to help Tracey’s family for years, yet from what I’d heard today, their efforts had come to nothing. And while Reece and Susie, being younger, might have a chance to escape the cycle of abuse, I wondered about the damage that had already been done to them, and the wounds that were now festering. Certainly Reece (and Susie) must have suffered dreadfully and for a long time. Reece must now be starting to see that the life he led with his mum was not normal, compared to the life he now led in care. But unless he lost some of his fear, and started to talk, his wounds could continue to fester for years to come.

My thoughts were still sombre as I pulled onto my driveway at nearly one o’clock. It had been a long meeting and apart from a glass of water, I had not had anything since breakfast at 7.00 a.m. I opened the front door and was looking forward to lunch, and sitting quietly for a few minutes, but it wasn’t to be. The light on the answerphone was flashing, signalling a message. As I played it back my spirits sunk even lower.

It was Betty, the school secretary. ‘Please come to the school as soon as you get this message. Reece has stabbed a member of staff with a pencil. He is now excluded.’

T
he message from the school secretary was timed at 11.37, over an hour before. Having just closed the front door, I opened it again and returned to my car. I drove fast, my thoughts reeling. I felt hot and slightly nauseous. The head had left the meeting at 11.15, so I presumed the incident had happened while he’d been at the child protection case conference, and he had dealt with it by issuing this exclusion on his return to school.

It was the end of the lunchtime play when I arrived at the school, and the children were lining up in the playground, ready to go in for the afternoon lessons. I pressed the security buzzer and the gate clicked open without my having to give my name. Likewise as I went up the steps to the main door it opened from inside.

‘The head wants to see you straightaway,’ Betty, the secretary, said. I guessed she’d been watching for my arrival from her office, which overlooked the main entrance. ‘He’s in his office. You know where it is — down the corridor, and then left.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. I opened the door with all the ‘welcome’ signs and then went along the corridor to Mr Fitzgerald’s office. The door was closed, so I knocked.

‘Come in,’ he called brusquely.

Mr Fitzgerald was seated behind his massive desk and speaking on the phone. He gestured to the armchair in front of his desk and I sat down. I noticed he didn’t make eye contact as he wound up the phone conversation. Only when he’d replaced the receiver did he look at me, and there wasn’t an ounce of warmth.

‘Mrs Glass, while we were at the case conference there was a very serious incident here. My deputy dealt with it as best she could but it has shocked everyone.’

I met his gaze and waited for the details.

‘Mrs Morrison was helping Reece in the classroom during a science lesson when it happened. Reece had been annoying Troy, whom he sits next to, on and off for the whole of the lesson. I understand he kept poking Troy in the ribs, and going up close to him and making loud noises in his ear. Mrs Morrison asked Reece to stop many times and eventually she sat between them. At that point Reece shouted to her, “Get the fuck out of here.” Then he stabbed the back of her hand with his sharp pencil. It pierced the skin and I have sent her to the hospital for a tetanus injection.’

The head paused, but continued to look at me. I hadn’t got a clue what to say, but my expression said it all — I was mortified.

‘Everyone is shocked,’ he continued. ‘The children in the class are very upset at seeing a beloved member of staff attacked in this way, and also by Reece’s shouting.
He was completely out of control. It took his class teacher ten minutes to persuade him to leave the room.’

‘Where is he now?’ I asked, sombrely.

‘In the quiet room, with my other two TAs. They have had to leave the children they were working with, but I wasn’t having one TA alone with Reece. It isn’t safe. That child is dangerous. He’s an animal.’

Upon hearing Reece being described and segregated in this way, my first instinct was to protect and defend him, but what could I say? Clearly it was a vicious attack and on a lovely lady who was kindness itself, and had gone to a lot of trouble to look after Reece and help him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said at last. ‘I really don’t know what else to say. Is Mrs Morrison all right now?’

‘I shall phone her later. I have told her to go home after she has been to the hospital. Apart from the shock of the physical injury she was very upset that Reece should attack her. She’s taken it personally.’ The head was looking at me intently now, awaiting an explanation, which I didn’t have. ‘Has there been an incident like this with you or when he was with his previous carers?’ he asked. ‘I still haven’t received anything from his social worker, although he promised me this morning that he would fax something over.’

Although I wanted to defend Reece as much as I could, I had to be honest. ‘When Reece first came to me he was very confused and angry. Right at the beginning we had some incidents of aggression, but he responded very quickly, and we have had nothing since.’ Mr Fitzgerald continued to look at me carefully and I knew he doubted what I was saying. ‘As I told the meeting
this morning, Reece has settled down remarkably well,’ I said, ‘although I can see where this type of behaviour has come from. Without doubt he has resorted to learned behaviour from his past with his mother.’

‘I appreciate that,’ he said, ‘but I can’t have it in school. I have spoken to the director of education, and I shall be excluding Reece for the rest of the day. Normally I would issue a formal exclusion for three days following an incident of this nature. However, the director of education has advised me not to. I am therefore making allowances for Reece’s appalling past, the fact that he has only just joined us and that there are only three days next week before we break up for Easter. I shall make this an unofficial exclusion. He will be allowed back into school on Monday, but I shall be monitoring him very closely.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’ I was truly grateful: an unofficial exclusion meant that it wouldn’t appear on Reece’s school record. The last thing he needed was another exclusion.

‘You must make it very clear to Reece,’ the head continued, ‘that I will not tolerate this type of behaviour in school. It is vicious and very upsetting for everyone. When I spoke to him he seemed oblivious to the fact that he had hurt Mrs Morrison, let alone his anger and foul language. I assume that is how his mother behaves.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘she does. I will be speaking to Reece very firmly when we get home.’

‘I appreciate he has had a very bad start in life,’ he said, ‘but if Reece is to make anything of his future,
then he is going to have to learn what is right, and change. When he is out of control, as he was in the classroom, it is very frightening for those around. Miss Broom said she feared for everyone’s safety and some of the girls were in tears.’

I could say nothing but apologize again. ‘Will you please say how sorry I am to Miss Broom, and to Mrs Morrison when you speak to her? I will make it very clear to Reece that this type of behaviour is wrong, and must never happen again. I don’t know why it has happened now.’

The head looked at me and seemed to still doubt that I really couldn’t throw any light on Reece’s behaviour; it was as if he thought that I must be concealing something, which I wasn’t. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I will take you to him. I have already spoken to him about the incident and why he is going home early, but I don’t know how much he has understood.’

‘I’ll explain,’ I said.

Mr Fitzgerald stood behind his desk and came round. I followed him out of his office and down the corridor where the children were now working in the classrooms. I glanced in as we passed and looked enviously at the small groups of children seated at their tables working together, with the teachers walking between the tables, offering help and advice. How I would have loved to see Reece in there working happily alongside others, but that certainly wasn’t going to happen this afternoon, and part of me now wondered if it ever would.

Mr Fitzgerald opened the door to the quiet room and I followed him in. Reece was seated at a small table
between the two TAs and he was painting. He looked up as I entered and grinned, pleased to see me and apparently oblivious to the reason for my being there.

‘Hi, Cathy,’ he said, waving his paintbrush in the air. ‘Look, I’ve painted a big spider, and ‘ere are the ‘airy legs.’

My first thought was why had he been allowed to indulge in one of his favourite activities, painting, when he was supposed to have been reprimanded and in disgrace? By letting him paint, the school had effectively rewarded his bad behaviour and sent him the message that if he stabbed a TA with a pencil then he would be taken from the classroom and be allowed to enjoy himself by painting! The school should have known that.

‘Yes, I can see,’ I said to Reece, with no enthusiasm for his painting. I purposely didn’t show my usual delight for his work, as I was about to tell him off. ‘Reece, do you know why I am here? It’s not the end of school, is it?’

‘No,’ he said, dipping his brush into the paint again. ‘Why you ‘ere, Cathy?’

The head was hovering to one side and the two TAs were looking expectantly from me to Reece and back again. I hoped that Reece had been told off at the time of the incident and that they hadn’t simply left it to me, for too much time had elapsed for anything I could say to have a real impact. Cause and effect has to be immediate with children, particularly those with behaviour problems, so that a bad act is sanctioned with the loss of a treat or privilege at the time, and the reason for the
withdrawal of the privilege explained. Absolutely no way would I have allowed Reece to paint.

‘Reece, put that paintbrush down now, please,’ I said firmly. ‘We are going home early because of what you did and said to Mrs Morrison.’

He didn’t put his paintbrush down but looked up at me, amazed. ‘Why we going ‘ome, Cathy?’

‘Because you hurt Mrs Morrison with a pencil and shouted something very rude at her.’

Reece continued to look at me and I could see he was trying to retrieve the incident from his memory. But of course it had happened over two hours before, and for a child with learning difficulties that is a very long time, and since then he had been playing happily.

‘Did I?’ he said, grinning self-consciously.

The head and the TAs looked at me, waiting for my response.

‘It’s not funny,’ I said sharply. ‘You have hurt Mrs Morrison and she has had to go to hospital. Now put down that paintbrush straightaway. We are going to get your coat and go home. I will need to talk to you.’

Reece put the paintbrush in the paint pot, stood up and silently came to my side.

‘I’m not pleased, Reece,’ I reinforced. ‘I have heard bad things about what you did. You will say you are sorry to Mr Fitzgerald now, and on Monday you will say you are sorry to Mrs Morrison and Miss Broom.’

‘Sorry,’ Reece said to the head.

Some of the fear in the head’s eyes went, as it did in the TA’s. For it was fear I’d seen on their faces when
I’d first walked into the quiet room, with the head keeping his distance from Reece, and the TA’s indulging him and keeping him amused. And if I’d seen their fear so too had Reece, for he’d had the example of his mother, who instilled fear through her aggression and shouting. I’d little doubt that Reece had been in control of the situation in the classroom, and also here in the quiet room before I’d arrived. I also knew that he would continue to push and challenge the boundaries in school until someone stood up to him.

Mr Fitzgerald took us to the cloakroom, where Reece put on his coat. Then he saw us out of the school.

I was silent in the car driving home, allowing Reece time to reflect and feel my disapproval. When we arrived home, I first made myself a cup of tea before sitting Reece in the living room and going over what had happened and why it was so very wrong. Intentionally harming someone is obviously wrong to anyone from a ‘normal’ background, where the rules of good and kind behaviour have been put in place from the start, but not so with Reece. He had spent his life in a highly dysfunctional family and, from what I’d heard at the case conference, one where violence was an acceptable part of every day. It was therefore nothing to him to lash out at someone as he’d doubtless seen his mother do countless times before. Reece listened as I spoke, and agreed it was wrong, as he had done when I’d previously told him about the sexual incidents. But I inwardly sighed as I spoke, for three incidents in three days had hardly got us off to a good start. I knew the head was doubting my claims that Reece’s behaviour
had improved at home, as I would have done in his position.

‘Reece,’ I finished by saying, ‘I have told everyone at school what a good boy you are. Please don’t let me down.’

‘No, Cathy, I won’t let you down. I’m trying to be a good boy, really I am.’ He gave me a big hug.