The Boy No One Loved (8 page)

‘Put the knife down,’ I said firmly. ‘Justin, just put the knife down.’ But he was almost blue in the face now, and I could see he wasn’t hearing me. He had completely zoned out and gone to that other place. It was then, in a flash, that I had an idea. One that definitely wasn’t by the book. Not any foster-carer’s handbook I’d ever seen, anyway.

Having considered two things – that Justin had picked up the smallest knife in the block, and also his great love of films, and one film in particular – I lunged myself for the biggest one, which I whipped from its slot and brandished every bit as menacingly as he had.

Then, in my very best Australian accent, I said, ‘Call that a knife? That’s not a knife.
This
is a knife!’ And then paused, my breath held waiting for his response.

He just stared, now stock still, looking incredulously at me, then, to my mingled shock and immense relief, he burst out laughing.

Astonished almost as much as I had been thirty seconds earlier, there was a second or two when I had no idea how I should react, and then it came to me; I smiled, and then I laughed along with him. ‘Now get down from there, you little madhead!’ I admonished, still grinning. ‘And put your pathetic excuse for a knife back as well!’

Incredibly, he did both things without a murmur.

I still felt shaky, and also slightly stunned by what had happened. Who’d have thought I’d end up diffusing a dangerous situation by using a line out of
Crocodile Dundee
?

We did manage to talk about what happened, in the end. Seizing the initiative – and what felt like at least a version of the upper hand – I then changed my mind and suggested he might like to help me, and put the knife to better (and slightly less terrifying) use by chopping some tomatoes and cucumber for a salad. After all, I pointed out, if he loved food so much, it made sense for him learn how to feed himself properly. I even pointed out, remembering Mike’s words about Justin’s view of ‘women’s work’, that some of the best chefs in the world had started out by helping in the kitchen, just like this. And as we worked, and I felt it safe to broach it again, I talked about the different jobs that people had to do: some people were chefs, other people were policemen, and some people – me and Mike being a good example – had decided to make their job one of helping children. Children like him who had had bad things happen, and who needed lots of love and care to help them feel better about things.

I explained again about the reality of my situation; that as his carer, I worked with other people, and had rules I had agreed to, and one of those rules was that I mustn’t keep secrets. Just like chefs had to obey all sorts of rules about hygiene in the kitchen, so that the people who ate their food didn’t get sick, so I had to follow the rules I had been given. Which weren’t put there to hurt him – absolutely the opposite. I had people who were there to support us – us
and
him – but who could only do so if I told them the truth. Which meant I had no choice – none at all – but to do as I had done.

He seemed to digest all this, nodding at intervals as he stood and chopped beside me, and I felt so much happier that he’d taken it on board now. Even so, I wasn’t stupid, and knew he still felt hurt and betrayed. You could be given all the explanations in the world, after all, but you couldn’t just conveniently switch your feelings off, could you?

‘And there’s nothing you can do about it,’ Mike reminded me that night, as once again I lay in bed, fretting. ‘All you can do is to keep doing what you’re doing, love. You’ve made progress. He’ll get over this blip. You’ll
keep
making progress.’

‘You think so?’ I really hoped so, but I wasn’t convinced. Maybe it was just too late for Justin.

‘I
know
so,’ Mike said. ‘Look, love. Try to look at it this way. The fact that he felt betrayed – and he will get past that, I honestly do believe that – is precisely
because
he’s made progress. It’s precisely because he’s bonded with you; with all of us, with the family, that this – well, this reality check, if you like – has hit him so hard. Must be
bloody
hard, when you think about it, having your life dictated by a bunch of adults who keep turning up and interfering in your business. I don’t know …’ Mike shrugged. ‘But maybe he’d forgotten about all of that, you know, having got so settled in here. Which he has. He really has.’

‘Yeah, and then he gets grassed up. By
me.
’

‘Tsk! Listen to you! Case, come on, I
mean
it. You’ve got to stop this!’ He reached an arm out and put it around my shoulder, then pulled me close and hugged me. ‘You’re doing great. You’re a great mum and a brilliant foster mum, too. It’ll come right. I promise. It really will.’

I knew Mike talked sense – he always did – that was why I loved him. But it was dispiriting, even so, to see the change now in Justin. Within a day, all the stuff he’d got out and started leaving around his bedroom – books, toys, computer games, the football rug, a couple of the puzzles – had once again been banished to the back of the cupboard, and the blue throw had been reinstated over the bookcase. Once again, the room looked just like a prison cell. Except, if anything, even more spartan.

This time, though, I noticed something else as well. I had nipped in to pick up the laundry a couple of days later and noticed that his TV had been left on. I picked up the remote to turn it off and realised that the cartoon that was playing was in black and white. Thinking that the TV was broken, I called Mike to take a look. ‘No,’ Mike said, taking the remote from me and pointing it. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. Look.’ He pressed a button and the colour returned. ‘See? You just have to put the colour back on with the remote.’ He handed it back to me. ‘He’s done it before.’

‘What, made the television black and white?’

Mike nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve been in before and seen he’s done it.’

‘But why would he do that?’

Mike shrugged. ‘Search me. But then he does do a lot of odd things, doesn’t he?’

I shuddered. And maybe this was what he did when he wanted the TV to match his black moods. This kid just seemed to get stranger and stranger.

And also, it looked like, more and more determined to punish the world for what had happened to him by completely refusing to engage with it. Both John and Harrison came to visit, on separate occasions, and though I wasn’t present – I couldn’t be, because that was not the protocol – they both reported that they’d got absolutely nowhere. Justin had clammed up; draped that blue throw metaphorically over himself, too, his only response to their gentle questions about what he’d told me being a series of stony looks and silent shrugs.

At least, I thought, at least he would be off to school now. Maybe the change of scenery, the new environment and new people might help. Perhaps he’d even make a friend or two, who knew?

But in that, it seemed, I was probably being seriously naive. He’d been there only a few days when I got a call from the school, one lunchtime.

‘Mrs Watson?’ a male voice said. ‘It’s Richard Firth, Head of Year Seven at the high school. I’m calling about Justin Reynolds. I believe you’re his foster mother, yes?’

I felt my stomach lurch. ‘Yes. Yes, I am. Is everything alright?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to exclude him from school.’

‘Oh, no. Why?’ I said, mentally saying but not adding the words,
what, already?

‘For throwing another pupil down some stairs.’

It was a freezing cold day at the end of February, and, looking out of the front window, I saw the cavalry arriving, here for Justin’s LAC review.

LAC simply stands for ‘Looked After Child’, and this meeting, following Justin’s distressing disclosures, had already been put in the diary. But given the school incident and subsequent exclusion, the powers that be had decided to flag it up as urgent.

He’d been excluded from school for a week for what he’d done, and I’d been asked to go in for a meeting to discuss things, with both the head teacher and Justin’s special needs co-ordinator, Julia Styles. Thankfully, the girl hadn’t been hurt, and was just shaken, but given the potential for serious injury in what he’d done, it was felt important that Justin be sent a strong message. He had also been told how easily this could have been a matter for the police. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t going to happen on this occasion, as it seemed that the girl’s parents had been satisfied that the school had dealt with the matter appropriately.

Neither I nor the school had been able to establish much in the way of background facts, however, it being almost impossible to get anything out of Justin about it, bar repeated grunts about how all the other kids liked to ‘wind him up’, and how, on that particular occasion, he’d ‘just lost it’. I realised that I would just have to accept that I wouldn’t ever get to the bottom of this one.

Since then, we’d spent a trying week with Justin at home, who was guarded, withdrawn and generally uncommunicative, as well as feeling the effects of his resultant loss of points, loss of TV and computer time being the worst – so perhaps the most effective – kind of punishment. Irrationally, I felt like I was being punished too. Life was so much harder at home when Justin was unhappy.

But now he was back, and so the way was cleared for the meeting with his care team to finally take place and his package of current measures reviewed. I reminded myself to have my notebook and pen at the ready for the review, as I knew that it was to be an important one and I didn’t want to forget anything that might be helpful.

Not that the situation – Justin being absent – was what I’d initially expected. There was something else going to come up at this meeting, I was sure. They’d specifically told me not to even mention it to Justin and said that Janice wouldn’t be invited to it, either. This was very unusual; Mike and I had been told during training that the child is
always
present at an LAC review, and, if they still have contact, the child’s parent/s or guardian are always invited too. That Justin’s mother wasn’t to be consulted seemed very odd to me. It just didn’t seem right – whatever the circumstances around it – for a child’s future, assuming the parent still had legal access, to be discussed without that parent being present.

But even without Janice it was a pretty big meeting. On my doorstep that morning stood a small but robust posse: as well as our link worker John Fulshaw and Justin’s social worker Harrison Green, there was Helen King (educational support), Gloria Harris (the reviewing officer), Julia Styles (the special educational needs co-ordinator) and Simon Ellis (the supervisor of our specialist fostering programme). As Mike was at work, last but not least, there was me.

Good God
, I thought, counting them one by one over the threshold.
I just hope I’ve got enough cups
.

‘Come in,’ I said aloud, as they made their way past me. ‘We can talk in the dining room – through there. Door to the left. I’ll just go into the conservatory and grab some more chairs.’

I could hear John telling people to make themselves comfortable. Moments later, he’d joined me in the conservatory.

‘Sorry, Casey,’ he said. ‘We’re a little mob handed today, aren’t we?’

‘You’re telling me!’ I said, passing him the least tatty of my tatty garden chairs. ‘Bloody hell, John. You could have warned me we were having a party.’

‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘Here, let me grab that one as well. It’s just that there’s some other stuff come up – quite serious stuff – that needs discussing. Hence the big boss being here, and all the others. Go on – you go and start getting some drinks sorted or something. I can take these through and get everyone settled.’

I tutted at John in mock indignation, though, in truth, he was a master at putting people at their ease, and I always felt more secure when he was around. Which was just as well, because these people, all together, were all a little bit intimidating. They didn’t mean to be, I was sure, but they couldn’t help it. They just
were
. They were the ones who made all the life-changing decisions, whereas I felt very much the little pit pony, toiling at the coal face.

I went into the kitchen and pulled down my large coffee jug and tea pot and, once I’d filled them, I took them into the dining room to sit alongside the assortment of china I’d already taken through; my non-matching milk jug and sugar bowl and mish-mash of different cups. Why would I have matching cups, though? In our family, we all used mugs.

Seeing them all, I felt slightly embarrassed at my lack of taste in such affairs, even so. It was something I’d definitely inherited from my mother; we’d always been a make-do-and-mend kind of family, always able to find a bit to enjoy a nice treat with the children, but not so fussed on wasting money on posh china. But perhaps, now that I was going to be hob-nobbing with the great and the good of social services, I ought to splash out a bit. I made a mental note to buy a matching set of cups, at least, the next time I did the shopping.

No-one else seemed to notice though – or, if they did, it wasn’t obvious – and, to my surprise, Harrison leapt up and proceeded to be mother; it was the most animated I’d seen him so far.

It was Gloria – the ‘big boss’ – who started the ball rolling, by introducing herself and letting us know she’d be chairing the meeting and also taking minutes – this was going to be pretty official, it seemed. She seemed really nice, though, and I found myself warming to her immediately; she had a friendliness about her, and I wondered what her background might be. She seemed both warm and wise: a reassuring combination. Which was important, as over the last few days, and amid all recent the trauma, I was beginning to find a sense of maternal protectiveness growing inside me. I felt professionally responsible – which I was: Mike and I both were, of course – but now also emotionally responsible for Justin’s welfare.

The next stage was for everyone present to give an update to the others about their contact with Justin and his current condition. John confirmed that he’d been unable to glean anything further concerning the disclosures I’d recently passed on to him. Harrison did likewise – he had no notes with him, but said pretty much the same as John had; no further progress.

Julia did have news: she was able to update us about the recent school exclusion. She was able to confirm what the school had told me, that the girl’s parents had decided not to take the matter further; but added that as the girl had told the school that she was still frightened of Justin – as were several other pupils – it had been decided that Justin be supervised at break times and lunchtime. He wasn’t happy about this, apparently, but they were going to stand firm – it would continue for the foreseeable future.

Helen had more positive news. Apparently Justin’s behaviour in class had improved slightly, as had the level of his academic accomplishments. As a result they’d decided to reset his school targets in order to make him push himself even harder, the key to an improving profile being very much grounded in the child constantly striving to do better. They believed this particularly applied to Justin, as they felt that, academically, he had much more to offer than anyone had originally thought, which was pleasing.

It was then my turn and I spent some time describing in detail the distressing disclosures, the discovery of self-harming and the blow-up following Justin finding out I’d passed it all on. I felt strongly, and said so, that though we’d come through it and were okay now, that he was still quite distressed at having to deal with the feelings that confronting these suppressed memories had evoked.

Gloria nodded her agreement. ‘I think you’re absolutely right, Casey,’ she said. ‘This is a pattern we see regularly with abused and damaged children. It all comes out and, well … then, sadly, we see what we’ve seen.’ She consulted her notes. ‘Anyone got anything else to add here? I see that you’ve something, John, yes? Some information from one of the younger siblings’ social worker?’

I felt my stomach shift. So here was that ‘something else’ I’d been expecting.

John cleared his throat. ‘Yes, and I only got the phone call confirming all the details this morning, so what I’ve discovered will be news to all of you, I think. But, yes, a colleague rang me to inform me that Mikey – he’s the older of Justin’s two younger brothers – has given a teacher at his primary school cause to believe that he’s been subjected to sexual abuse.’ He paused to let all of us take this news in. The implications, if so, were very serious – particularly, I realised, with an already sinking heart, for poor Justin himself.

John continued. ‘He apparently told his teacher that his mum’s “friend” had been “pulling on his winkie” and that he “didn’t like it”. And of course, since this fits in with what Justin’s told Casey about similar occurrences involving drug dealers in the past, we’ve alerted the child-protection team. They’re obviously investigating it as a matter of urgency because if she still has relationships with any of these characters, then the two boys are obviously at risk.’

‘So contact for Justin needs to be suspended, then,’ Gloria said.

John nodded. ‘Yes, of course. Certainly while all this is going on.’

‘Which is going to be tough on him,’ I said.

‘I appreciate that,’ Gloria answered, smiling at me sympathetically.

‘And what about the other boys?’ I asked. ‘Will they be taken into care too?’

‘Too early to say,’ she said. ‘Depends what the child-protection team discover. All I can tell you for sure at the moment is that Mikey, Alfie and Janice are all very much under the microscope.’

‘But whatever happens, it’s going to impact badly on Justin. Seeing his little brothers is such an incredibly big thing for him. If he’s denied that …’

‘Well, we’ll just have to keep everything crossed that doesn’t have to happen,’ soothed Gloria. ‘But don’t worry in any case – whatever happens with the siblings in relation to their mother, we’ll make sure they can remain in contact with Justin. We’d obviously make that a priority.’ She glanced at her notes and shook her head slightly. ‘And from what I’ve read, the relationship with his mum is pretty fractured in any case.’

Not half as fractured, I thought privately, than it would surely become if Janice found out that Justin had disclosed details of the abuse he had suffered and the part it was about to play in the current investigation. If the intervention by social services meant she lost her younger sons, she’d blame him. Of that I was sure. However peripherally his own past was a factor compared to the disclosures made by Mikey. However morally wrong and muddle-headed that position might be.

I thought sadly of the contact they had at the moment, which amounted to one phone call to Janice every week. He barely spoke to his little brothers – there’d be the odd time they’d come to the phone, but it wasn’t often – and the calls (still, despite everything, a highlight of Justin’s week) were absolutely heartbreaking to listen to. The halting conversations, the banality of the subject matter, the lack of anything approaching meaningful, much less loving, communication … if you didn’t know, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that he was trying to make conversation with a stranger on a bus.

It seemed so screamingly clear to me that Justin’s most deep-rooted problem – in the here and now of his current life – was not just the trauma of what had gone before, painful though that all was, but the soul-sapping reality of continued rejection by the person who was supposed to love him unconditionally for all time. His mother. His mother, who did not love him at all, it seemed to me. Who had decided at age five that he was some sort of monster. And God only knew what would happen if she lost her other boys. It was too terrible a prospect to even contemplate.

‘No, the main thing now,’ Gloria said, ‘in light of the new information is for us to pull together and support Justin the best way we can. Simon?’ She turned to the fostering programme supervisor, who’d up to now said very little. ‘You’re going to run through this for us, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, moving his coffee cup to one side and opening a file he’d brought with him. I liked Simon, as did Mike. He’d been one of our assessors during our foster training. He was a no-nonsense Liverpudlian with a real warmth about him, and what seemed a really genuine desire to help the kids. He was also one of those rarities within the system who would cut corners if he had to, bypass the red tape, even at the risk of landing himself in deep water.

‘My feeling,’ he said now, ‘is that Justin could really benefit from some extra, one-on-one contact from one of our support workers, Sandie, the idea being that they can begin meeting once a week, and hopefully build a relationship, gradually, that will take him through into his next mainstream foster placement –’ he glanced at me here – ‘which is obviously still the ongoing plan. The hope is that she’ll become someone he trusts and can talk openly to, of course.’

I took all this on board, and John and I exchanged glances. The idea was that, as foster carers, we became very close to the situation and, in being so, our job was to act as parents, not counsellors. We’d been told that as such we should play ‘mum and dad’ and leave the professional therapy to the professionals. I absolutely understood the thinking, but, as Simon knew, because we’d discussed it during training, I didn’t necessarily agree with it. As parents, we all take on many roles with our own children, and I felt – as did Mike – that the same logic applied; there was no reason why foster care couldn’t be simply an extension of this.