One day, Maria’s social worker, Claire, rang to tell me that Christine had put in a complaint to Social Services because she said we weren’t allowing Maria to phone her.
‘But she’s supposed to phone Maria,’ I said, baffled and irritated, ‘and she doesn’t always call when she has arranged to!’ The truth was that Maria had called her mum on numerous occasions, but Christine hadn’t answered the phone, or responded to the messages Maria left for her.
I imagined Christine might be causing trouble about the phone calls because she had to be on speakerphone with either Jonathan or I listening in, which clearly wasn’t ideal for her.
‘It seems like the same old story,’ I lamented to Jonathan. ‘Christine is twisting the truth and trying to blame other people for the problems in her life, but the fact is she caused this situation in the first place!’
After the ‘break things in the house’ remark that Maria had seemed to repeat when she was on the phone to her mum, there actually were a few unexplained breakages in the house. For instance, the toilet-roll holder became unhinged, as if someone had tried to pull it off, so it was hanging down at an angle. I found the handle of a mug that I’d had for years, bought by one of my former foster children for Mother’s Day, chipped so badly I could no longer use it. And one morning I came down to make breakfast and discovered the freezer door had been left open all night with a drawer pulled out, so I had to throw quite a lot of food away.
We had no proof that Maria was responsible for any of those three things, and it could have been a complete coincidence that they happened in the wake of that phone call, but of course it did cross our minds whether Maria was deliberately causing damage. I was cross with Christine for making me suspicious of Maria like this, because it’s important to see a child in a positive light and to look for the good in them above all else.
After I explained to Claire about the fact Christine didn’t call when she was supposed to, we then heard that Christine had claimed she couldn’t afford to phone her daughter.
‘I see,’ I said patiently. ‘Well, we don’t mind paying for the calls at all. In fact, as I’ve said, we’ve always made it plain to Maria that she can use the phone to call her mum.’
After that it was agreed that Maria would phone her mum at 6.30 every Thursday evening after Bible classes, but that didn’t really work either. Despite the fact Christine had chosen the time herself, she rarely picked up the phone when Maria called. I found it very upsetting to see Maria standing there, clutching the receiver, listening to it ring and ring and then trying not to sound as disappointed as she clearly was when she left a mumbled message for her mum.
On the occasions when she did manage to speak to her mother, it was even more heartbreaking. Maria did not look at ease at all, and she would sit there with her shoulders hunched as she reeled off a list of every single thing she’d done – every meal she’d eaten, what time she’d eaten it, every television programme she’d watched, every card or board game we’d played with her and who had won, who she had played with in the park behind the house – literally, everything. Her eyes would be closed and she looked to be in deep concentration as she tried to remember every detail. Whenever Christine made a snide remark, as she often did, Maria would shut her eyes really tightly, as if she was trying to block it out.
‘You did crochet with Angela’s mum? Well that doesn’t sound much fun!’ was a typical Christine comment. ‘Board games on a Friday night? Aren’t you bored living there, babe?’
Maria would choose her words carefully. I could tell she wanted to please her mother and agree with her point of view, but Maria didn’t want to offend Jonathan and me, and the truth was she usually thoroughly enjoyed doing crochet and playing board games.
‘It’s OK,’ she’d say. ‘I’m fine, Mum, don’t worry.’
The calls would always last for a minimum of twenty minutes and Maria seemed drained at the end of them as she did most of the talking, until she had completely run out of things to say.
It was impossible not to notice that Christine didn’t ever say anything during the phone calls she had with Maria to suggest that she felt any real affection for her. It was horrible seeing the anxiety on the little girl’s face as she tried to answer her mother’s questions about what she’d been doing. They weren’t the friendly, interested sort of questions you would normally ask a child, and it was clear that Maria found it very stressful having to recite her carefully memorised list of events, which only ever seemed to gain any approval from her mother if they could be interpreted in some way as being negative, or could be twisted in a way that reflected badly on Jonathan and me, our home or Social Services.
Unbelievably, Christine then went on to make yet another complaint to Social Services, this time because she claimed that the calls Maria made to her weren’t lasting long enough.
It was a claim that was easily refuted by our phone bills, which showed quite clearly that all the calls Maria made to her mother’s number either lasted a few seconds, when she left a message as the phone was not picked up, or for between twenty and forty minutes when the calls were answered. So then Christine complained once more about the fact that either Jonathan or I listened in, but again this was an accusation I shouldn’t have needed to defend, as Social Services had made this rule.
During the period when all this was taking place, Maria’s social worker, Claire, moved to another town. Unfortunately, the new social worker who took over from her, Rebekah, seemed to take Christine’s side and came across as being critical of Jonathan and me whenever she presented us with Christine’s latest complaint.
‘But we were told to listen in to the phone calls,’ I said, trying not to sound as affronted by her tone of voice as I really felt. ‘I don’t have a personal interest in hearing what Christine’s saying. In fact, there are plenty of other things I could be doing to occupy my time, as I’m sure you can imagine. However, it was a stipulation imposed by Social Services, which I expect you already know, as you’ll have read the records and reports in Maria’s case file.’
‘Yes, well . . . I’m sure you can understand the way the mother feels,’ she said.
‘And I’m sure you can understand why listening to the phone calls was thought to be necessary, for the child’s sake,’ I retorted.
It wasn’t the fact that the social worker seemed to be entirely on Christine’s side, without knowing the details of the case, that incensed me so much as her apparent criticism or even condemnation of our behaviour, which was guided by what we had been told to do. Even though Jonathan and I had our reservations about Christine because of what we’d seen and heard about her, we did everything we could to support her so that she retained a relationship with her daughter, for Maria’s sake.
However, despite my irritation with whatever the social worker said, I always bit my tongue as best I could, though it was not always easy.
It turned out that Christine had also complained to Rebekah that I was ‘confrontational’, which was definitely not the case when it came to interacting with Maria’s mother. I take my role as a foster carer very seriously indeed, and so does Jonathan. It doesn’t matter how difficult, obstructive or downright rude a parent may be; I never lose sight of the fact that being difficult, obstructive or rude in return will not only have absolutely no effect on the parent, but might create a pull in the child’s mind between the mother or father they love, however badly they’ve been treated at home, and the foster carer they ought to be able to feel safe with.
Most of the social workers we’ve dealt with over the years have been professional, reliable, reasonable, experienced and extremely hard working. Sometimes, though, you come across one who is easily manipulated by people like Maria’s mother, who’ve had a whole lifetime of practice. Rebekah was certainly like that, and I know that some other foster carers found her attitude unhelpful too. In fact, she didn’t last in the job for very long, which was perhaps for the best. Foster carers need to feel supported by the system, not under unnecessary scrutiny from it.
Through Babs, I started to gradually have more of an insight into Christine’s world and personality. Babs loved a good ‘chinwag’, as she called it, and if you caught her in the right mood – or perhaps I should say ‘wrong’ mood – she could talk until the cows came home, and didn’t seem to have much of a filter on what she was saying.
Considering I was Maria’s foster carer, and that there was an ongoing investigation into Christine and Gerry, you’d have thought Babs would have been cautious in what she said about her daughter, but that wasn’t the case at all. Mind you, I knew that Babs herself was not averse to calling Social Services if the mood took her, so I suppose this was not surprising.
‘Christine only seemed to care about Maria until she reached the toddler phase,’ she told me as she dunked a succession of chocolate fingers into her tea one afternoon when Maria was at school. ‘She was very good with her when she was a baby – and she was like that with Colin too. Far more interested in babies. But as soon as they got to the age of four or five, when they started going to school and developing their own personalities, she lost interest.’
‘What a shame,’ I said. ‘I wonder why.’
‘I wish I knew. Maria was always hungry when she came to visit us,’ Babs went on.
My heart sank.
‘The first thing she’d do when she came through the front door was go into the kitchen and start raiding the cupboards, looking for something to eat. One time she tried to eat dried noodles from a pot, not realising you had to add hot water!’
The more I heard, the more I had my doubts about whether Maria should be allowed to ever live back with her mum and stepdad. Of course, my opinion would not sway the decision Social Services and the courts would ultimately come to, and all I could do was keep my eyes and ears open, and record anything I felt the social workers ought to know about, including things Babs said.
One incident I told Social Services about was a strange phone call Maria had with her mother one Thursday evening. The conversation started off as usual, with Maria reciting everything she’d done, in fine detail.
‘. . . then Angela combed my hair because it was all tangly. She used the tangle spray and it didn’t take long. I had a purple clip today, my favourite!’
‘Oh, that old thing? I know Angela got it for you, love, but I’ve got a nicer one I’ll give you, one you’ll like much better.’
‘OK. Then the taxi came and it was long.’
‘Long?’
‘I mean, the journey to school is always long, but the taxi was a bit late so it was really long today.’
‘Couldn’t Angela take you if the taxi is late?’
Maria stared intently at the floor. She was clearly embarrassed by her mum’s question, as it was said in a rude tone of voice, and the intention was obviously to try to undermine me and the way I was caring for Maria.
‘Er, I had PE today but I hated it.’
‘I knew you were going to say that. It was gymnastics, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘It’s my gift, Maria, don’t you remember? I’ve got the gift. Never forget that. Maybe you will have it too, when you are older.’
Maria appeared to freeze for a moment and then she quickly said, ‘Oh, just a minute, Mum. I think Angela wants to use the phone.’
I was sitting quietly in the kitchen with a magazine open on the table and hadn’t said anything. But without turning to look at me, Maria said out loud, ‘You need the phone, don’t you Angela?’ Then she said into the receiver, ‘Yup, sorry Mum. I’ll speak to you next week,’ and abruptly ended the call before Christine had a chance to object.
Maria obviously felt embarrassed by what she’d done and avoided catching my eye. I didn’t want to make her feel any worse, so I just gently told her that she could talk to me about her mum, or anything that might be troubling her.
‘OK,’ she said, but then changed the subject.
Inevitably, though, Christine made yet another a complaint to Social Services, this time claiming – with some justification under the circumstances – that I was cutting short her phone calls with Maria.
Despite her various complaints and apparent resentment when Maria was excited about something she’d done with us, we did manage to remain on reasonably good terms with Christine. It was difficult sometimes, particularly on the many occasions when she seemed to be intent on being as obstructive as possible. But it was important to keep the peace and remain on civil terms, for Maria’s sake, which as far as Jonathan and I were concerned was the only thing that really mattered.
As we were to discover in the months that followed, however, it sometimes seemed as though everything was conspiring to make it as difficult as possible for us to do what we believed to be the right thing for Maria.