I remembered my early childhood in London as being very happy, despite the challenges my mum faced. She’d often say, ‘Sorry, princess, but Mummy’s wearing her black cloak today.’ On those days, she’d cry a lot and sleep a lot, but my dad was an exceptional man who devoted his weekends to me. We baked together, cooked dinner, kicked a ball round the garden, and climbed trees or played hide and seek in the park. I loved it when he read me stories because he gave all the characters accents. Dad had such a zest for life that he could always make Mum smile, even on her darkest days, albeit briefly.
Whenever I asked Dad what I could do to make Mum happier, he hugged me tightly and insisted that I made her happy every day by being me – their little Pollyanna. Pollyanna was one of our favourite books. It told the story of an orphan who had to live with her miserable aunt, Miss Polly, and I loved the grumpy voice Dad used for her. Pollyanna radiated positivity and wouldn’t let anything get her down, frequently playing ‘the glad game’, which her dad had taught her. The game involved finding something to be glad about in any situation, no matter how bad it initially seemed. Mum seemed to like me playing ‘the glad game’ on her dark days – I was glad she was staying indoors during the winter because it meant she wouldn’t catch a cold, or I was glad that she’d had a nap instead of playing with me because that meant she would be awake enough later to watch a film with Dad and me.
But one summer’s day, when I was eight, the darkest day ever arrived and there was absolutely nothing to be glad about.
It was the school holidays and Mum brought a blanket downstairs and said she’d nap on the sofa while I played with my dolls. Dad kissed us both goodbye and went to work as usual, telling me that we’d bake an apple pie when he got home. We never baked that pie.
As the afternoon stretched into evening, my stomach started rumbling. Mum was asleep and Dad still hadn’t arrived home from work so I made myself a cheese and crisp sandwich. I was about to eat my second quarter when I saw a police car pull up outside. I crept to the side of the window and watched two policemen get out and look up at our house, shaking their heads. Even though I saw them open the gate and walk the few paces across the front yard, I still jumped at the sound of the door knocker. Somehow I knew there was bad news coming and I didn’t want to answer the door.
They knocked again and Mum stirred. ‘See who that is, Pollyanna,’ she murmured. ‘There’s a good girl.’
‘It’s two policemen,’ I responded.
I noticed her sharp intake of breath, her hand fluttering to her throat and the glance towards the clock on the mantlepiece.
‘You’d better let them in,’ she said when they knocked once more.
The sad looks and the grave tone of voice when one of them asked if Mum was home confirmed my worst fears. Definitely bad news.
In the lounge, I pressed myself against Mum’s side as they spoke. I didn’t understand it all but certain words jumped out at me like accident, fall and hospital. They weren’t good words. Then one of the policemen said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I can still sometimes hear Mum’s agonised scream in my dreams and feel her clinging onto me so tightly that I could scarcely draw breath.
I later discovered that Dad had been a health and safety manager. He’d visited a building site in response to allegations of unsafe working practices. The owners swore they were fully compliant and took him on a tour to prove it but the scaffolding rig they climbed on collapsed and that was that. Not so compliant after all.
Mum couldn’t cope without Dad. She pulled her black cloak tightly round her after the policemen left and, even though she tried to remove it, it was far too heavy. I tried to get Mum to play ‘the glad game’ but she couldn’t find any positives and neither could I. He was the best and, without him, we were both lost. No amount of positive thinking or creativity could draw a reason to be glad.
My teacher at school was worried about me. Obviously she knew I’d lost my dad but when I started showing up in dirty clothes, hair unwashed, smelling, she realised things weren’t right at home. I’d tried my best to keep it all going but I was still too young to properly look after myself. My teacher arranged for some social workers to visit. They saw the state of the house and the state of Mum and, next thing I knew, I was whisked away for emergency foster care. I’m sure it wasn’t that straightforward or quick, but it felt that way to me at the time.
My first foster home was with a lovely widow in her fifties who’d been unable to have children of her own. She told me that she and her husband had provided a home for more than fifty kids over the years, and she’d continued the amazing work on her own after he died. Two months after I moved in, she found a lump in her breast so I couldn’t stay. The next couple – Mr and Mrs Ashwell – had also been unable to have children so had adopted two and would foster between four and six at a time. After eight months with them, they had to move to Florida for Mr Ashwell’s job and could foster no more.
I longed to return to Mum but my social worker would look at me with sad eyes and say, ‘Your mum isn’t well enough to look after you, Tamara. I’m really sorry.’ Not well enough to look after me but also not well enough to see me. I didn’t see her at all while I was on my first foster placement and I only saw her for an hour when I was with the Ashwells; an hour in which all she did was hold me and sob and apologise that the black cloak was getting heavier and heavier. That was the last time I ever saw her.
After the Ashwells, I had a few weeks here and there before they found me another ‘long-term opportunity’ with the appropriately named Foster family. I liked it there too but it only lasted five months. I can’t even remember why I had to leave but I do remember Mrs Foster sobbing so much when she tried to break the news that Mr Foster had to do it instead. I didn’t cry. I was so used to that conversation that I’d known it was coming, probably before they had. We played ‘the glad game’. Mr Foster said that he would have fond memories of when Pollyanna came to stay because he had two wonderful sons but had always wanted a daughter too. Mrs Foster agreed, through lots of tears and snot, and said that meeting someone who ‘sees the rainbows even through the torrential rain’ would have a positive impact on her outlook forever.
For me, it was yet another lovely family to walk away from, but there were always positives. I was glad to have met them all.
I was approaching eleven and being constantly on the move and away from my mum had started to dampen my positivity. It wasn’t just changing family all the time. It was changing schools. Changing friends. Changing my life constantly. Packing, unpacking, packing again. Never really belonging. But then I was placed with the Sandersons and, finally, I found my long-term home.
Right from the very start, Kirsten and Tim Sanderson treated me like their own child and their daughter, Leanne, was like the big sister I’d always longed for. I’d struck gold, almost literally. The Sandersons were absolutely loaded. Tim was a director for an investment bank in the city and Kirsten owned Vanilla Pod, a successful chain of bistros across South London. They had an enormous four-storey townhouse called ‘The Larches’ in Kensington and, on my first day there, they said there were five spare bedrooms and I could choose the one I wanted. Five! I remember staring at them, wide-eyed, wondering if I’d misheard. I’d been used to the box room in all my foster homes and I’d been used to sharing too. When I made my decision, they asked me about my favourite colours and my hobbies, then commissioned a designer to create the bedroom of my dreams. I’d finally had some good luck.
Their daughter, Leanne, was seventeen when I turned up. When she came home from college on my first day, she squealed with excitement, hugged me tightly and told me how thrilled she was to have a baby sister.
I’d only been with the Sandersons for a few months when Kirsten picked me up from school early, her eyes red, her face grim, and I knew the day that I’d always dreaded had arrived. Standing in the church at Mum’s funeral a week later, clutching tightly to Kirsten’s hand, I played ‘the glad game’. I was glad that Mum was no longer strangled by that cloak most days and I was glad she’d been reunited with my dad. I missed them both so much. I clung onto every single memory from too few years together, replaying each one over and over so I’d never forget and never let go.
Mum had intermittently kept diaries over the years which came into my possession after she died. From them I discovered she was bipolar and had battled depression and anxiety since her early teens. Dad was always so supportive and without him, she fell deeper into despair. My Pollyanna approach to life had been a blessing but wasn’t enough to pull her out of the darkness. A couple of nights after I left, she’d taken an overdose and only survived because a neighbour found her. It turned out it wasn’t her first attempt and Dad had covered up others. Three years and several failed attempts later, on what would have been Dad’s birthday, she took a way out that couldn’t fail – a tumble off a passenger bridge in front of a speeding train. That damn black cloak of hers had a hell of a lot to answer for and, ever since, I’d tried not to wear black. I needed my world splashed with colour.
Back in The Chocolate Pot, I looked up at Carly with tears clouding my eyes. ‘So at age eleven, I was an orphan. Losing Mum was painful but I’d really lost her the day Dad died and I’d grieved for them both then. Despite such pain, I focused on my promise to Dad to always be his positive Pollyanna. I believed I was the luckiest girl on the planet with so much to be glad about when I was placed with the Sandersons. I’d been given a second chance to be a permanent part of a loving family and, as well as two wonderful parents, I had this amazing big sister to look up to. And Leanne wasn’t just a sister. She was a role model and a friend. Or so I thought.’ I shook my head. ‘What Leanne did… What she put me through…’ I paused as my heart raced and I felt quite nauseous. I couldn’t do it. After all these years, I still wasn’t ready to talk about it. Guilt? Shame? Both?
‘Are you okay?’ Carly asked, her voice and expression full of concern.
I hadn’t talked about my parents or my time in foster care to anyone and I felt peculiar, as though I was on a precipice somewhere between laughing hysterically and sobbing uncontrollably. It genuinely could go either way.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wearily, ‘but I can’t tell you the rest. Not tonight.’
Carly reached across the table and squeezed my hand. ‘You look exhausted. Do you want me to go?’
I nodded slowly.
‘I’m so sorry about everything.’
We stood up and I picked up both mugs. ‘You understand why I haven’t talked about them before?’
‘Yes, and I’m sorry for quizzing you. I shouldn’t have asked.’ Carly looked genuinely mortified.
‘I like that you care enough to ask. And, if I hadn’t wanted to tell you, I wouldn’t have. I’d have remained an enigma.’ I gave her a half-smile, hoping it was enough to convey that I wasn’t upset with her.
‘I absolutely promise I won’t push you about Garth or what happened with your foster sister,’ she said as we headed towards the front door. ‘But I’m here when and if you’re ready.’
I thanked her as she stepped out into the rain, but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. Talking about my parents and time in foster care had been hard enough, but talking about Garth and Leanne was on another level.