As a foster carer, I have to say, the best feeling in the world is when you realise that a child who leaves your care takes something of yourself with them. In the early days it’s easy to think that you’re not making a difference, and to believe that you’ll be forgotten the moment a child settles somewhere else, but luckily for me, in a lot of cases that hasn’t been true, so I was over the moon when our very first teenage mummy, Emma, phoned me back the minute she received my message.
We had stayed in touch over the years (Mike and I had even been at her wedding) but, as with all our foster kids, it was sometimes hit-and-miss. Birthdays and Christmas mainly (I’m a traditionalist like that), and, of course, if they had any problems. If they’d stayed in touch they knew we’d always be there for them. Which was great – we were always happy to help and support if needed, but equally happy if contact was sporadic due to them having happy, fulfilling lives of their own.
‘I’ve messaged her and she’s added me as a friend,’ Emma said, after we’d spent a few minutes catching up and chatting about Roman and Mercedes, her not-so-little-anymore little ones. ‘And I managed to get her to open up a fair bit. She seems lovely.’
‘Ah, so you went all Casey on her then,’ I said, laughing. ‘Good on you.’
‘Of course!’ Emma laughed too. ‘The apple never falls far from the tree.’
And there it was. That validation. That something, anything, had been carried from me, as a part of herself. It wasn’t a smug feeling, merely a contentment deep inside that the work I do does count for something.
‘Anyway,’ Emma went on, ‘did you know Jenna has a court hearing next week?’
I didn’t, but that didn’t surprise me. It had probably been relayed to her by the solicitor when they’d spoken, but Jenna had been so angry about all the other stuff he’d said that she’d neglected to share the most important reason for the call.
‘And as you’ll most likely be minding the kids when she goes – I think the solicitor is going to take her to the court – I said I’d meet her for a coffee in town a bit beforehand and go along and support her during the hearing. She was dead nervous, but she says she really wants me to do it. So, yes. There you are. I just hope I can be of use.’
I was stunned – really moved – by what she’d just said to me. That she’d do all that, and for a girl she barely knew.
‘Emma, that’s fantastic,’ I said, ‘thank you so much, love. It will do her so much good to meet you, it really will – to see someone who has gone through what she is at the moment, and come out the other side of it.’
‘I did, didn’t I? God, it all feels unreal now. Like a dream – lol, no, a nightmare. Not that I’m going to start scaring her about all the pitfalls she might face. Sounds like she’s got enough on her plate just now …’
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘and I think the most important things she needs to hear are that if you follow the rules that social services put in place, to the letter, you keep your babies, and it’s really that simple. Did she tell you about Jake though?’
‘She did,’ Emma admitted, ‘and that’s the bit that’s worrying me, as you can imagine.’
And I could. And all too well – Emma’s own journey having been complicated and almost derailed by her attachment to what sounded like a similar sort of boyfriend – the type who gives parents nightmares. Drug dealer. Violent. The usual grim tick list. Cutting her ties with him had been key to her not losing her kids. It was depressing, really, just how familiar and déjà vu it all felt.
‘What did she say?’
‘About him? Not a lot. Only that he isn’t the monster “they” are painting him as. Honestly, Casey, it’s like we read the same crappy manual. The main thing, as far as I can see, is that whole “them and us” thing. What seems to be preoccupying her the most seems to be working out how she can outwit social services, so she can see him again. She didn’t exactly spell it out, but I think she’s focussed on that more than anything.’
That seriously bothered me, especially as Jenna had promised me she wouldn’t. Had he changed her mind? Did he exert that much control over her? And, as a result, was Jenna’s focus becoming less about fighting for her children, and more about beating the authorities who had it in for her? And him. I could so readily see that. Yes, she was making the right noises to me – I can’t lose my kids. I can’t imagine life without them. I’ll die before letting anyone else have them. Trouble was that Jenna would also regularly rail against the system, telling me how she couldn’t wait to ‘shoot those bastards down in court’. Such an adversarial approach definitely wouldn’t help her.
Naturally, I’d try my best to impress upon Jenna how she sounded when she spoke like that, how she would come across to the court. But almost inevitably she would be immediately on the defensive, and accuse me of not being on her side, not supporting her. It put me a little in mind of warring parents who, in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, are so busy heaping opprobrium on the adversary they so hate that they almost seem to forget about the effect it might have on the actual children.
There was no question that Jenna hadn’t forgotten about her children, but if she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop railing at her ‘enemy’ I knew she’d come across as immature, reactive and aggressive – none of them qualities they’d be hoping to see in her if she had any chance of getting them on side.
I could only hope that just as a little of me had rubbed off on Emma, so a little of Emma would rub off on this poor beleaguered girl.
Now, however, almost a week after my call from Emma, it was the morning of the hearing I’d heard about so belatedly, and after a largely confrontation-free week, which couldn’t help but lift my spirits, everything I thought I knew about Jenna was about to be turned upside down again.
It was 7 a.m. when I awoke and as I glanced at my alarm clock my first feeling was one of instant panic. Something wasn’t right. But what? Seth. That was what. He normally started up shouting from his bedroom much earlier – he was my alarm clock. Why wasn’t he today?
Mike wasn’t there. He’d already gone to work without waking me – as he usually did when he was on a run of earlies. Perhaps he’d taken Seth down with him, and now Mike had gone to work, Seth was in the conservatory with Jenna? But sometimes you just have this overwhelming sense that all the options you can think of are the wrong ones. That the silence itself is already thrumming with foreboding.
I plucked my dressing gown from the hook on the back of the bedroom door. If they were all asleep still – best-case scenario right now – then we’d be late getting Seth down to nursery. I opened the bedroom door and immediately almost tripped over, narrowly missing a mug of coffee which, inexplicably, had been placed outside my door. Confused, I leaned down to pick it up. It was warm. Even more confused – who had put it there? – I carried it downstairs with me, full of trepidation. What on earth was going on?
I heard the television before I went into the living room, and entered to see a tableau that blew me away. Was I dreaming? Because little Seth was kneeling nicely by the coffee table, a glass of juice in front of him and a piece of toast in hand, dressed smartly, hair – thankfully grown a little now – clean and shiny, and quietly watching PJ Masks. I was too stunned to speak. Seth, however, wasn’t.
‘Morning, Aunty Casey,’ he said, looking anxiously up at me. ‘Is it okay that I’m watching the big telly? Mummy needs some time with Tommy just now, so I’m being a really good boy. Cos we don’t want the social or polices to take us,’ he added. Then he frowned. ‘Mummy’s sad. She’s been crying. Can you help her?’
My heart felt as if it had been pulled out and stamped on. ‘You are,’ I agreed. ‘You are being such a good boy. Please don’t worry, darling. You finish your breakfast. I’ll go check on Mummy for you.’
The conservatory doors were shut, and I opened them to see Jenna similarly togged up to the max, all ready for her big day in court. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, in her smart black trousers, and a white tie-necked blouse I hadn’t seen before, with her hair neatly straightened, but her make-up all smudged, and, on her lap, Baby Tommy, apparently asleep, who she was gently and rhythmically rocking.
She looked up. And I could see Seth was right – she’d been crying. Was still crying, actually, tears sliding down her cheeks, taking most of her mascara along with them.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ I said as I went to sit down beside her, ‘don’t be scared, love.’ I put my arm around her and hugged her bony shoulders, realising just how much weight she must have lost in the last couple of weeks.
In answer she only cried more. ‘What’s up, love?’ I asked. ‘Are you frightened about today?’
She leaned down and kissed the baby’s head, her hair falling like a curtain. It seemed symbolic, like an act of maternal protection. ‘I’m such an idiot,’ she whispered eventually. ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t. I can’t even bear the thought of it. I don’t think I can bear to go on living if they take them.’
Sad though it was to hear, this was music to my ears. To see this genuine outpouring of maternal emotion made my heart leap with equally genuine hope. These were words I’d longed to hear. And Seth had heard them too. I turned to see him standing there, still as a statue, in the doorway. He ran across to us, crying too now, and flung himself on the bed, burrowing his head down under Jenna’s arm, close to Tommy’s.
‘Don’t leave us, Mummy!’ he said, sobbing, as she put her free arm around him. ‘I’ll be a good boy. I promise. Every day. I’ll be good as good as gold, I swear down!’
‘Look,’ I said, tears threatening to spill out of my eyes as well now, ‘what’s happening today is only one part of the hearing. Nothing will be decided, and no one is going to be taken anywhere.’ I kissed the top of his head. ‘I promise you, sweetheart. Mummy has to go and have her meeting, but she’ll be back before you know it, and we’re going to have a special tea to celebrate.’ I squeezed Jenna’s shoulder, and motioned that she should give me Tommy, who I carefully placed, still asleep, in his baby seat. ‘And you, my girl,’ I added once I’d done so, ‘are going to wash that face and re-do that make-up. No, let’s call it war paint. Because you are going to put on your game face and be brave, okay? Right, coffee. By the way, did you bring me that coffee earlier?’
Jenna nodded. ‘Seth and me thought you might want a lie-in. Since you’re going to be looking after Tommy all day, all on your own.’
‘And I was really good,’ Seth added. ‘I was really, really quiet. And I got dressed all by myself,’ he added proudly.
They exchanged a glance. And a smile. Now, this was more like it. ‘Well, that’s extremely thoughtful of you. Thank you,’ I said.
And see, Jenna? I really wanted to add but obviously didn’t. See what you can do with this little one when you set your mind to it?
As I dressed, though, I felt a mixture of emotions. Slight regret – this was no time to be talking about war paint, Casey! Plus sadness, because the little family downstairs were clearly in pain, and with a future that must seem so uncertain. But I couldn’t help but feel a little optimism breaking through, because that’s what this felt like – a breakthrough. To see her cry like that, to see the naked emotion – for a girl who’d been so reluctant to open up about herself, this was incredibly heartening. I could only hope she could convey some of that raw emotion to the judge as well.
Thinking back to how her parents were, I suspected Jenna had built many emotional barriers, and had yet to understand that giving free rein to her emotions would not break her, that it would instead help her heal. And it was doubly – no, triply – important that she did so because, if she didn’t, her own babies would suffer the consequences of her broken psyche, whether intentional or not.
But I couldn’t help remembering how Christine had chastised me. Was it my job to try and open those doors? Strictly speaking no, because it wasn’t Jenna that I was fostering. But morally, yes, I had a part to play in that, didn’t I? I might not be fostering her but she was living in my house, and her mental health impacted on the children I was fostering. So, yes, I would definitely have to try.
It was a crisp, frosty morning – bitter cold, but with a watery sun emerging, and catching the ice spicules that rimmed hedges and branches and making them shimmer like diamonds. It couldn’t help but lift my mood as we set off down the road – as did the evidence that, as a result of a date in a court diary arriving, that bubbling of emotion to the surface Jenna had obviously experienced seemed to be having an effect. I got the strong impression that this morning had been a watershed moment, as not just Jenna, but Seth had reached some kind of understanding of what was at stake here. He walked nicely to school and when we dropped him at his classroom, instead of kicking off, he threw his arms around his mother’s legs.
‘Promise you’ll come back,’ he cried. ‘Don’t let the polices keep you, please, Mummy.’
With Jenna looking as if she might burst into tears again, I held onto the pram handle and squatted down to Seth’s level. ‘Sweetie, Mummy hasn’t done anything wrong, so there will be no police involved. It’s just a meeting, that’s all. And when I pick you up from nursery, you, me and Tommy will go shopping, so we can choose the things we want for our special tea. Would you like that? Maybe we could even get a cake. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Mummy?’ I added, glancing up at Jenna. ‘What kind of cake’s your favourite?’
‘Chocolate!’ Seth immediately answered for her.
‘No,’ Jenna said, seeming to pull herself together. ‘That’s your favourite, you little monkey! Mine’s coffee and walnut.’
‘But you like chocolate too,’ Seth said, as she scooped him up and kissed him. ‘I think we should have chocolate. Casey likes chocolate, and –’
‘Enough now,’ I said, rising to my feet as she put him down again. ‘We’ll get both. Now off into school with you,’ I added, seeing Mrs Sykes approaching. ‘Quick kiss for Tommy, then it’s time to skedaddle.’
Jenna said little on the journey back home. Which wasn’t difficult because the pram meant it was hard to walk two abreast, and if she wanted to be left to her own thoughts, so be it. After her emotional outpouring earlier this morning, perhaps she needed silence to help her mentally prepare. There must be so much going on in her head.
There was little time, once we were home, for a proper chat either, as a taxi had been booked to pick her up at ten, so she’d have time for a coffee with Emma before meeting her solicitor and going into court. It was a quarter to before she emerged from conservatory, hair and make-up refreshed, her flats swapped for a pair of low heels.
She put Tommy’s empty bottle down by the steriliser. ‘He should stay down for half an hour,’ she said. ‘Maybe longer if you’re lucky.’ Then she frowned. ‘God, I’m so nervous I could throw up,’ she told me. ‘D’you think she’ll actually turn up?’
‘Who, Emma? Of course she’ll turn up, love. Does your solicitor know you’re meeting her? That’s she’s going in to support you?’
She nodded. ‘He knows the café. He said it’s practically next door to the court building.’
‘I know the one,’ I told her. ‘I’ve been there myself.’
‘With Emma?’
‘Yes, with Emma. And with other kids, too.’
‘Your job must be so weird,’ she said. ‘Don’t you find it depressing, being around all this horrible stuff all the time?’
‘Sometimes,’ I admitted. ‘But no, mostly not. I –’
‘New evidence,’ she said suddenly, obviously off on another train of thought altogether. ‘He said he’d come get me half an hour before the hearing so he can share any new evidence with me before we go in. What new evidence does he mean?’
‘I imagine it might be reports from the children’s social worker. About where they’re up to in the process,’ I told her. ‘Or it could even be about the statement your mother put forward. I mean, you haven’t actually seen that, have you?’
She shook her head. ‘Am I even allowed to?’
‘Absolutely you are. You have a legal right to see anything that’s to be presented in your case, so it could just be that, and before you start flapping,’ I added, seeing her increasing anxiety, ‘don’t forget that hearsay isn’t proof. It’s just one person saying something. To which you have the right to reply – to dispute it if it’s wrong.’
Jenna frowned again. ‘That’s the thing. How do I do that? I’m so rubbish at stuff like that. I’m useless at sticking up for myself and Mum knows that. She knows I just get all flummoxed and then lose my shit altogether. If they make me stand up and say stuff to try and defend myself, I’ll lose it, I know I will. I’ll probably end up kicking off and getting kicked out of court.’
I took both of her hands in one of mine and squeezed them firmly. ‘You absolutely can’t do that, Jenna,’ I said. ‘That’s one of the reasons why your solicitor wants to see you before you go into court. He will run through everything he thinks will or might be said, so you know what to expect, and don’t have any surprises. And when he does so, if there’s anything you don’t feel you can answer without getting upset and losing it, then you must tell him you need him to speak for you. Give him all your answers beforehand, and don’t, at any point, be tempted to shout out in court. That’s a definite no-no, love, trust me. Bite your tongue and let the solicitor do the work.’
Jenna was silent for a few minutes, while she poured herself a glass of water, then she turned around, and leaned her back against the sink. ‘You know they put me on the streets when I wasn’t even thirteen yet, don’t you?’ she said.
‘What? Who?’ I asked, confused at this sudden turn in the conversation. ‘Your parents?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, my so-called mum and dad,’ she said. ‘Does the solicitor know all that, d’you think? D’you think I should tell him?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’d like to think they know everything pertinent to your situation – I’d hope social services will have looked into all of that. Or at least tried to. But would they know? I mean, if you haven’t told them anything about yourself? When you went to prison, for example. Did you tell them this then?’
She shook her head. ‘Why would I do that? They’d taken Seth in for me, hadn’t they? If I’d told them they would have taken him off them, wouldn’t they?’
Of course they would. So, tragically, this made perfect sense. ‘But why, love? Why on earth would they throw you out?’
She rubbed a finger and thumb together. ‘Money. I hadn’t been going to school because they wouldn’t buy me a uniform and all the kids took the piss out of me, so I was just hanging on the streets. Anyway, I got this kind of boyfriend. He was fourteen and had been permanently excluded from his school, so we just, like, hooked up. His mum was a junkie, his dad had fucked off years ago, and you won’t believe this but it’s true – he lived in the shed in his garden.’
‘Are you kidding?’ I asked. ‘Oh my God, that’s horrible.’
Jenna shrugged. ‘It wasn’t, actually. He preferred it. He wouldn’t go in his house, except to get clothes or food if there was any, because his mum always had dealers round and men sprawled all over the place, and he had done the shed up lovely – cushions and duvets and stuff. We even had a little camping stove.’ She smiled at a memory. ‘We’d go shoplifting early in the mornings to get, like, bacon and bread and stuff, so we were fine.’
My picture of the memory she described was substantially less rosy. Twelve. She’d been twelve. ‘We?’ I said. ‘So you stayed there too?’
Jenna let out a little laugh. ‘Keep up,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course I did. And as soon as Mum and Dad realised I had someone else looking out for me, feeding me and that, they told me to fuck off. More money to spend on them. Though they said I had better keep it quiet or I’d end up in a home – they were still carrying on claiming benefits for me, obviously. But, you know’ – she shrugged, drank some more, and put the glass back down on the counter – ‘it was fine. It suited me, I was happy.’
‘And?’ I asked, trying – and failing – to imagine a twelve-year-old living in a shed with a fourteen-year-old, undiscovered. ‘How long did this go on for?’
‘About a year.’
I gaped at her. ‘A year?’
‘More or less.’
‘And no school?’
‘A bit, here and there.’
A bit, here and there. How many times had I heard versions of this? Of serial absconders and truants, and parents who kept their children out of school. And of schools, underfunded, but still trying to do their best – sending letters, making reports, visiting families (I’d done that) – but eventually giving up the ghost. ‘So it obviously came to an end,’ I said. ‘How?’
‘Winter. That next winter. It was proper freezing. Not like the last one. And Zack – that was his name – was wanting to spend more and more time back indoors. And I didn’t want to do that. He was, like, doing drugs and that by then, and I just sort of got twitched by it all. I mean, I really liked him, but – well, you know. It was just all too horrible. The way some of the blokes looked at me. I didn’t feel safe there anymore. So I went back home. I played them at their own game,’ she told me – and I could hear the pride in her voice. ‘Said if they didn’t let me stay, I’d ring the benefits place and tell them I hadn’t been there for yonks. They didn’t like it, but they didn’t have any choice, did they? They are arseholes, Casey. I mean, like, you have no idea what horrible, horrible people they are. And even worse on the booze by then, obvs. So as always, if I wanted anything, I had to sort myself out.’ Another wretched smile crossed her features. ‘So, I’d shoplift. And if I came home with a six-pack of cans or a bottle of vodka, I was like their golden child. For five minutes, anyway. Arseholes!’
‘And the boy, Zack. Did you keep in contact with him?’
She shook her head, glancing towards the kitchen clock as she did so. ‘Nah. He hung himself not long after I went home.’
It’s hard to articulate how I felt, hearing all that. Sick to the stomach doesn’t quite cover it. Not only because of the tragic loss of a young boy, but because of the matter-of-fact way Jenna had suddenly imparted all these horrors to me. As no biggie. Just an aspect of her past that she was musing on, as part of considering if she should fill in her solicitor. As just an accepted part of her life.
‘Jesus, Jenna!’ I said, and with feeling, because that aspect of it sickened me even more. ‘That’s horrific. Oh my God, love, you must have been devastated.’
‘Yeah, I was upset about Zack,’ she said. ‘That was proper sad. But, you know …’ Another shrug.
I drained the coffee I’d made earlier, that had long since gone cold. ‘Sweetheart, have you ever told anyone any of this?’
‘No, but I will do,’ she said emphatically. ‘If it looks like the social or the judge, or anyone else for that matter, is about to take anything that comes out of Mum’s mouth seriously, then I’ll spill my guts about everything. My childhood, the way they’ve cheated the system for years. My bastard father. Everything. I’ll get my solicitor to write it all down, so he can show her up in court if he needs to. No one in their right mind will believe a word she says once they know what she’s really like.’
I was still reeling from what Jenna told me when the cab came and she left. Then I got out my Marigolds. Hopefully I’d have sufficient time to make a proper job of at least Seth’s bedroom and the bathroom, and once Tommy was awake again, I could pop him in the sling and do the downstairs with him snuggled up against me. I hadn’t felt such a powerful need to attack the cleaning in a long time.
It wasn’t so much the story – these kinds of appalling, heart-wrenching tales were par for the course in my fostering life – as was the fact this had apparently been going on for so long, for years, by the sound of it, and no one had even noticed. And I only knew a fraction of it. What other horrors were to be revealed?
It also didn’t escape my notice that if Jenna had been discovered, and had entered the care system when she was twelve (as she so surely would have), I might even have fostered her myself, well, for argument’s sake, anyway, and have been the one in her corner, fighting for her, advocating, as I’d done for many teenage girls before her. Instead, I wasn’t even invited to the ‘party’, in that it wasn’t my place to support her in court. To even be there. My legal responsibility was to her boys. Children she might not even have had, had someone – anyone – noticed her plight, let alone now be having to fight for.
It was a sobering thought. Surely I had to help this girl. Starting with a major talk with Christine about them looking deeper into her background. Though not until today’s ordeal was over, obviously, and we knew the state of play better.
The cleaning wasn’t helping, either. Where, normally, it was a task that pleased and helped me no end, this morning it made me feel even more miserable, as it revealed the full extent of Seth’s destructiveness. Which we were, to be fair, already conversant with, as the list of deliberate breakages – the toaster being the latest – was growing on a weekly basis. But this was in some ways worse, because it was all covert. Crayon on walls – but in places he didn’t expect me to look, such as behind bedside tables, or the inside of wardrobes. Biscuits and sweets crushed and hidden underneath his bed, and more stuffed toys (some I didn’t even recognise, presumably bought by Jenna) ripped to shreds, and thrown into the back of the airing cupboard. So, sadly, his behaviour wasn’t exactly improving, was it? He was merely getting better at hiding the evidence of his escapades.
Not having heard anything from Jenna by the time I had collected Seth from nursery and we’d been to get our shopping, I got the baby fed and settled and, after Seth and I had had some lunch, I took over the daily ‘Mummy and Seth’ time. I was determined this would happen every single day, including today, in Jenna’s absence, because he so needed to expend all that energy.
We played PJ Masks in the garden, Tommy watching from his baby seat in the conservatory, and by the time all of that was done, it was getting on for four. No news is good news, I told myself nervously but just as I did so, as if by psychic transmission, my mobile screen lit up. It was Emma. ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ Seth started up. ‘Mummy coming home!’
Emma, I thought, answering it. Not Jenna. Why not Jenna? But perhaps she’d just left her and thought she’d ring to give me a quick debrief. Which was thoughtful of her because it meant I’d have time to prepare, if the news wasn’t positive. And I was right. Because she told me Jenna was indeed on her way home. And after a day that had not gone as intended.
Emma didn’t mince her words, either. ‘It was awful,’ she said. ‘Utter chaos. That bloody boyfriend of hers turned up in court and started a right commotion. Screaming and swearing at the judge, yelling at her and telling her to give her back her effing kids or he’d punch her effing lights out. He was dragged away by two policemen in the end, screaming that the bloody judge was a paedophile, of all things!’
‘Oh, good Lord! And how is Jenna?’
‘In a bit of a state, as you can imagine. Though I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to her before her solicitor dragged her off. I said we’d catch up on Messenger later.’
‘And what about the hearing? How did it go for her?’
‘They decided to abandon it. The judge ended it early, gave social services a dressing-down about presenting their evidence late or something, and said it’s adjourned for two weeks while she decides what to do. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it was just awful. I hope she’s okay.’ She sighed. ‘Well, maybe “okay” is not the word, but you know …’
That was just it, though. I didn’t. What on earth had that boyfriend of hers thought he was doing? Was he really that stupid that he didn’t understand how badly his actions might have damaged her case? Perhaps profoundly, too. Perhaps beyond redemption.
Almost certainly beyond redemption, I decided. At least as things stood. No sane judge would rescind a care order for two little ones, knowing the mother was consorting with a character like that.
But what could I do now to help redeem things?
In truth? Very little.