Jodie’s normality was short-lived, and it took all my energy to see her through the following days. The morning after the visit, she woke up expecting to see cows out of her bedroom window, and became angry when I told her that they were at High Oaks, and that she’d see them again the following week.
‘You’ve taken them,’ she sneered. ‘It’s your fault. You hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you, Jodie. I like you very much.’
‘Give me the cows, then,’ she persisted. ‘I want them now.’
‘I can’t, sweet. They’re not here. It’s impossible.’
I wondered if her confusion was due to the impending move. Bringing her to a realization that she would be going was a subtle and gradual process. I had obviously never said, ‘You are going to leave us, Jodie,’ which would have made her felt rejected and negated the positive feelings about High Oaks that we had carefully been nurturing. Instead, we worked on bringing her to an understanding that she would be going to High Oaks in the near future, first for a visit where she would have her own room and stay the night and have lots of fun. It all had to be very positive, which it was. It was moving on, not leaving behind. She appeared to listen as I emphasized all the progress she had made during her stay with us, how much she would enjoy herself at High Oaks with Ron and Betty, how we would all miss her, and that we would still visit.
‘Will my mummy and daddy visit?’ she asked.
‘No. Definitely not.’ But whereas in the past this would have given her some comfort, she now seemed to see it as another rejection.
‘You lot! You’re all the same. I hate you. Get out!’ Reg suddenly appeared and lunged at me, spitting abuse. I hurried out and shut the door, then hovered on the landing. Ten minutes later the door swung open. Amy appeared, with her thumb in her mouth and a wet stain down the front of her pyjamas.
And it was a measure of how strange and distorted our lives had become that I was pleased to see Reg and Amy back. It meant that some level of ‘normality’ had been regained.
As the days brought us closer to Jodie’s next visit to High Oaks, she flipped between acute lethargy and violent anger, so I was administering sympathy and discipline in equal amounts, sometimes within the same minute. I was also struggling to come to terms with my own feelings about her leaving, as well as having to try to keep the rest of the family’s spirits up. I felt I was being stretched in all directions.
Wednesday morning finally arrived, and we found ourselves at High Oaks again, this time with Jodie’s overnight bag. Jodie rang the bell enthusiastically, and Ron and Betty answered. They’d advised me to keep my goodbye as short as possible, but in practice I was given no choice in the matter. Jodie wanted nothing to do with me, instantly transferring her affections and attention to Betty.
‘Bye, then, Jodie,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Have a lovely time and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She said nothing, and met my offer of a kiss and a hug with sullen refusal. Betty gave me a sympathetic smile, as if to say ‘don’t take it personally’, but that didn’t stop the pang of rejection I felt. Jodie and I had been together almost constantly for a year and I felt that everything we’d been through had bonded us and brought us close. It was hard seeing her turn her back on me and walk away without a second thought.
It was not her fault, I reminded myself. Her ability to form attachments was yet another piece of her personality numbed and stunted by the abuse. I was the normal one, not her, and I ought to be grateful to have the capacity to love and miss other people. On the way home, though, I had to stop for a strong black coffee and some quiet time to help me recover.
By the time I arrived back, there wasn’t much of the day left. I made dinner for the children, cleared up the plates, and then collapsed in front of the television.
After a fitful night’s sleep, I returned to collect her at 1.00 p.m. However, as much as our first visit had been a success, this one had not. Ron took me aside on the gravel drive and updated me.
‘She had a couple of tantrums, which weren’t entirely unexpected. Betty had to restrain her once after she attacked one of the boys. But please don’t worry, Cathy. This move is obviously going to cause a reaction. We’re well prepared for it.’
Jodie was due to move there permanently in only five days’ time, and I now had misgivings about the timetable. ‘Do you think we ought to consider pushing the move back, to give her more time to adjust?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘In my experience, delaying it now would only confuse her and make it worse.’
We stepped into the hall, and Betty and Jodie appeared from the playroom. Jodie wasn’t happy. ‘What you doing here?’ she scowled. ‘Why do you always stop me having fun?’
‘It’s time to go home, Jodie,’ I replied patiently.
‘But I want to stay here. Why won’t you let me stay?’
The same old Jodie, with her unfathomable switcharounds and contrary behaviour.
‘You can stay very soon, Jodie, but just not today, OK? Now come on, we have to get going.’
Ron and Betty saw her into the car with her bag.
We were up most of the night. Jodie was scared and disoriented, and adamant that there were people in her room. The next morning I was exhausted, but I was kept busy by a battery of phone calls from the various professionals involved with Jodie’s case, all wanting updates, and arranging their final visits. Sally the guardian came round to say goodbye. Her report was now complete, so her practical involvement with Jodie was over. As she explained this to Jodie, I could see that Sally had developed a genuine affection for her. I realized how difficult her job must be, always having to say goodbye. Jodie, however, couldn’t remember who Sally was, and told her to fuck off.
Jill arrived the next morning and gave Jodie a present for her new bedroom. It was a pretty china ornament of a cat, and Jodie seemed pleased, and even thanked her.
Now that Jodie was leaving me, Jill would end her connection with the case, so she had wanted to come round and say a proper goodbye to Jodie. It was not only that she was a nice person – it’s good social work practice to say goodbye to children when you are no longer going to see them. For a child who is constantly moving and meeting lots of new adults, it can be disorienting if people simply vanish from their lives with no explanation, and it can make them feel even more abandoned and out of control. So when children leave me, there are always visits and goodbyes and a little farewell party.
‘Goodbye then, Jodie,’ Jill said, as she left. ‘Lots of luck.’
‘Say goodbye to Jill,’ I said, and Jodie obediently waved her off. However, as soon as Jill had gone, Jodie threw the china cat on the floor, smashing it into pieces.
Dr Burrows phoned that afternoon, and said she would need to see Jodie one last time before filing her assessment in court. To my relief, she added that she would prefer to leave it until Jodie had relocated to High Oaks, so she could include this in her report.
The final visitor, two days before the move, was Eileen, who breezed in more than an hour late, again offering no apology. In her case it was not goodbye, as Eileen would continue being Jodie’s social worker and should visit Jodie and monitor her progress. I felt a little sad that the only person who was going to stay in official contact with Jodie was the one who seemed to care least about her – but there was not much I could do about that.
‘Are you looking forward to going?’ she asked insensitively. ‘You’ll be living with other boys and girls just like you.’
‘I’m going to kill them all!’ Jodie thundered, rising to the occasion. ‘I’m going to rip their heads off. And yours. You bleeding cow.’
Eileen declined my offer of coffee, and was with us for just fifteen minutes, as usual. It was probably the last time I was going to see Eileen – another social worker might have continued the connection and kept me informed out of courtesy, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t happen in this case. And I couldn’t stifle a sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to deal with her any more myself.
I showed her to the door, and she turned round with a cheery and unconcerned, ‘Bye then!’ There were no words of thanks or gratitude for the hard work I had put into Jodie over the past year, or any sense that we had been bonded by this tragic little girl.
‘Goodbye, Eileen,’ I said. If anyone had needed a damn good social worker it was Jodie, but maybe, between the rest of us – Dr Burrows, Sally, Jill and myself – we had done our best to make up for it.
After Eileen left it took me an hour to calm Jodie down again, and I promised her she wouldn’t be seeing much more of Eileen. Given Eileen’s performance to date, this was probably true.
Despite Jodie’s negative outbursts about High Oaks, she also said on more than one occasion that she wanted to ‘go and live with the cows’. The following afternoon I found her in the kitchen, trying to open the cupboard doors.
‘What are you looking for, Jodie?’
‘Carrier bags,’ she muttered, as if it was none of my business.
‘Can you tell me why? I might be able to help.’
‘I need to pack,’ she answered wearily.
I took her upstairs, fetched the suitcases from the top of my wardrobe, and carried them through to her room. We worked slowly, side by side. ‘It’s like going on holiday,’ she said, stuffing handfuls of toys into the holdalls.
‘Yes, a little. Have you ever been on holiday, Jodie?’
She looked at me blankly, and I realized that, like many deprived children, she’d probably never had a proper holiday, but was simply repeating what she’d heard at school or on TV.
‘This is more like moving home,’ I added, which was something she could relate to. I felt a pang of regret, for, if things had been different, I could have taken her on her first holiday.
During these last few days, Adrian, Paula and Lucy were unusually quiet, and showed enduring patience in the face of Jodie’s tantrums and insults. I knew that they, like me, were finding Jodie’s departure more difficult than that of any other child we’d fostered. To say goodbye when a child is returning to parents who have overcome their problems has an optimistic feeling of success. Even those children who can’t return home, and are found adoptive families or long-term foster placements, leave with a fresh start and the knowledge that they will be welcomed and loved by a new set of parents. The only consolation in Jodie’s case was that she’d be in safe hands, and would finally receive the therapy that I hoped would set her on the path to recovery.