Mike and Tyler were home only minutes after I’d finished talking to Christine, which gave me little chance to get my own head around what we’d discussed, let alone package it up and tie it in a bow for them both. So, neither happened; I just ran through everything Christine had told me about the case, pretty much verbatim. It was all still so fresh in my mind, after all.
Then I waited, as I habitually did (neither one of them being inclined to speak without thinking, the way I was) and wondered who was going to be first to speak. And to say what I expected them to – that I was crazy, to point out all the likely problems and pitfalls. And, in Mike’s case, to wonder how in the space of less than an hour we’d gone from me fancying getting another child in, as I was feeling a bit bored, to suggesting we take on a challenging four-year-old, plus a five-day-old baby, plus their young mother, once she was let out of prison. Irritatingly, though not surprisingly, they both remained silent – as if waiting for me to deliver a punchline.
So, I did. ‘So,’ I said, ‘that’s it. And yes, I know it sounds mad. But we have the room for them, we’ve had plenty of experience with babies and toddlers, and …’
Tyler glanced at Mike, who I could see was still cogitating. ‘She’s already made her mind up,’ he said. ‘I can tell.’ He looked at me then. ‘You have, haven’t you?’
‘Of course not,’ I told him. ‘Not properly. Not completely. Not without you guys being okay with it, of course not. I mean, it was you, Mike, who said I should phone Christine and ask about another placement, and you did say you were fine with us taking on some little ones.’
Mike tutted. ‘Casey, that was not what I said, and you know it. You were talking about doing respite. This is categorically not respite. This could not be further away from “doing respite” if it tried.’
He plopped his keys down on the kitchen counter and went to fill the kettle, pushing his free hand through his hair as he did so. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘This all sounds a bit intense, to be honest. I mean, yes, I know we have the room, and yes, we do have enough experience not to be fazed by it, but you can’t pretend something like this will be a walk in the park. It’s going to mean major changes.’ He turned around then. ‘This will be hard, love. Proper hard. You sure you want to take on something this challenging?’
Truth was, I wasn’t entirely sure and I’d started agonising about it as soon as I’d put the phone down to Christine. It had been almost ten years since our last mother and baby placement, and even back then, when I was ten years younger, Emma, the mother, had run us ragged. Yes, it was true that ten years ago the night feeds, the sound of baby cries, and me being a constant laundry and feeding machine, hadn’t bothered me in the slightest, but the nurturing, the monitoring, and the reporting back of everything Emma had or hadn’t done had made me feel awful. I’d felt constantly torn, split down the middle between heart and head, because no matter how much I had wanted Emma to succeed, my duty was to record and report any and all of her failings. It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do, and the first time I’d ever felt part of a system that was just waiting for someone to do exactly that.
Well, not exactly. Deep down I knew that of course that wasn’t true. Everything was set up to give a mother every chance; all they had to do was follow the rules and the examples set. But how many mothers – even the best mothers – could hope to be that perfect? Every new mother fails at some things at some point, which is why a second child always feels that bit easier. And for mothers like Emma, so young, and so lacking in support and family role models, how could the scales not help tip towards failure? And being scrutinised to such a level while experiencing one of the biggest learning curves a human could experience … well, it was no wonder the odds were against them. It was that more than anything that had made me want to try. If I could keep those little ones out of care, wouldn’t it be worth it?
And she’d succeeded. That was the main thing. She’d had so much stacked against her, yet she’d proved the doubters wrong. We were still in touch. She had turned her life around. She had come through.
She had set a precedent. That was the main thing. Not least where I was concerned. With my thought processes, right now.
‘I think I do,’ I said.
Tyler grinned. ‘See, I told you, Dad,’ he added.
‘No, but listen,’ I said, as Mike began assembling mugs. ‘These placements only last for around twelve weeks, as far as I remember, just like an assessment period while the local authority decide what to do. So even if it is hard – and I’m not under any illusions about that, trust me – it will only be for a limited time. And if it’s plain the girl won’t be able to cope they’ll end it by default at the interim court hearing in any case. And if it all gets too much for us – at any stage in the process – then we call Christine and say we need to end it. We do have that option. It’s not like an open-ended placement, is it?’
Mike rolled his eyes. ‘Like you’d ever do that,’ he said.
‘I know. But if we have to, then I will,’ I said. ‘I promise.’
Which was, or at least looked like, the end of the conversation. I had been all braced for fielding a raft of objections or, at least, considerations, before we plunged straight on in. And nothing.
‘So?’ I said.
‘So if Ty’s happy, I’m happy,’ Mike said. ‘Ty, you happy?’
‘Happy,’ Tyler agreed, with a nod. And – was it that? – a slight smirk?
I looked from one to another. ‘What?’
Mike glanced at Tyler, then rolled his eyes, and smiled. ‘Just a little wager, that’s all.’ He passed me a mug of coffee. ‘Love, if you’re sure you want to do it, then we’ll do it. I think it’ll be tough, maybe even tougher than it sounds, but even given that, I suspect it’ll be preferable to you turning Christine down, not now you know all about it, about those little ones. I think that’s something we can agree on, eh?’
‘You’re probably right,’ I began. ‘Still, I –’
But something had evidently just occurred to Tyler. Some important detail that he’d previously not considered.
‘Mum, the mother, yeah? She’s not going to be, you know, breastfeeding it, is she? You know, like Lauren does with Carter – you know, as in in the lounge and the kitchen and all that? Because that would be weird.’
I almost burst out laughing at his mortified expression. ‘No, love, she won’t be. At least, I’m ninety-nine point nine per cent certain she won’t, anyway. The baby would be coming here a month before her, wouldn’t he? Pretty tricky to breastfeed remotely.’
He was blushing to his roots. Eighteen going on fourteen, I thought, but didn’t say. Easy to forget how late a starter our boy was. But equally easy, given his start in life, to understand why as well.
‘Phew,’ he said. ‘That’s alright then. Okay, I’m cool.’
As was Mike, and, in that short time since I’d told Christine I would think about it, so was I. Too cool? Perhaps. But I was one for following my instincts and they were telling me the same as Mike was; that if I didn’t take this little family in, now I knew about them, I’d probably regret it more.
So it was that while Mike caught up with the late news, and Tyler headed off upstairs to pack for his training course (he was being picked up by his boss at seven the next morning), I phoned Christine back to tell her that we were up for it. Though not before establishing what the ‘wager’ had been about. Ty’s analysis of the scenario that would likely greet them when they returned. That I’d have made up my mind to do it, as in agree to a new placement, that Mike would suggest we didn’t act in haste, that I’d promise that I hadn’t, and wouldn’t, and would happily turn it down if he said no to it. And then we’d do it anyway. ‘Because that’s what always happens, Dad,’ he’d apparently pointed out.
Ouch.
The following afternoon, which Mike had hastily arranged with his boss to take off as annual leave, we were stationed by the living-room window, both clutching cups of coffee, waiting for the imminent arrival of little Seth. He was being picked up from his grandparents at lunchtime and was being brought to us early afternoon, to give him time to settle in (well, at least, to adjust to his new reality) before his baby brother was brought to us a couple of hours later. Because that in itself was going to be a major change for him. Though he had been old enough to understand that his mum was expecting another baby when she was taken away to prison, the reality – that he was no longer her only child, and that he now had a baby brother – was a big change for any child, let alone one who’d already seen a lot of upheavals in his young life, and been parted from his mum for a month now already.
Mike was pacing, as was his habit, wearing out the same old strip of carpet. Calm as he was, he was always a bit tense at such moments, perhaps because they represented the point of no return. We’d be getting what we were getting and there was nothing we could do about it – or at least so much less than we could have before this point, possession not only being nine-tenths of the law, but also the point, in the sense of us taking possession, where to extricate ourselves would all be so much more difficult.
Happily, a car pulled up while there was still a little pile left on the carpet. ‘That’s them, now,’ Mike said. ‘That definitely looks like a social worker’s car.’
We had never discussed by what rationale he decided what a social worker’s car looked like, but he was invariably right so I put down my coffee and took my habitual deep breath as I watched a slim young man unfold himself from the driver’s side and, having retrieved a passenger from the rear of the car and a holdall from the boot, re-emerge onto the pavement, closely followed by a sweet-looking little boy. ‘So get away from the window then, you loon,’ I said. ‘Let’s not have them thinking we’re as mad as we actually are. Come on.’
The child was already marching up the path as we opened the front door to them. He looked slight, pale of face and had severely cut hair, and wore a matching hoodie and joggers in a lurid shade of green. ‘Well, hello!’ I said, by way of greeting, while the social worker caught up. ‘I’m Casey, and this is Mike, and I imagine you must be Seth?’
My big smile remained glued, even though he completely ignored me, pushed resolutely past both of us and marched onwards into the house.
‘Baby Tommy! Baby Tommy!’ he yelled, first towards the stairs and then again as he marched on into the living room. He was a skinny little thing, but he had a bulkier boy’s swagger. ‘Where are you, Baby?’ His voice was sing-song. ‘It’s your big brother, Seth!’
I focussed on the social worker as Mike followed the boy through the house.
‘Does he think the baby is already here, then?’ I asked.
‘Sam Burdett,’ the man said, putting down the holdall, and smiling as he held out a hand to shake. ‘And yes, I assume he must do, despite my telling him at least six times that the baby’s arriving later.’ He lowered his voice slightly. ‘He sort of works to his own agenda, this one. Clearly didn’t believe me.’
The big smile remained in place, as such smiles must in such circumstances. As the social worker now edged past us, too – albeit with a ‘sorry’ – in pursuit of his diminutive but confident passenger, who had now re-crossed the hall and gone into the kitchen. He looked young – mid-twenties absolute tops, I judged – to be in the job he was doing. But perhaps he just had a very youthful face.
We both followed along, to find the social worker in the act of getting down on one knee. ‘Listen, Seth,’ he said, kneeling beside the child with a friendly hand on his shoulder, ‘remember I told you Baby Tommy was coming a bit later? It’s just you for now, remember? So that you can get to check out this new place before your brother gets here. How cool is that?’
‘Piss off!’ the child shouted, immediately ducking away from Sam’s hand and swiftly kicking him in the shin for good measure. It would have been slightly comic, were it not for the fact that the child’s eyes had filled with tears. Angry tears, frustrated tears. Tears that looked pent-up, and born out of genuine distress. ‘This is a shit holiday,’ he sobbed. ‘I wanna go back to Grannie’s! And where’s my fucking brother? She said my brother would be here!’
I rushed forward to try to salvage the situation and also to try and calm Seth, who looked as if he were about to have a major meltdown. ‘Hey, Seth,’ I said, as gently as I could above the din. ‘I’m Casey, as I said. And this here is Mike. And we’ve both been so excited about meeting you. And I tell you what. I have orange juice and blackcurrant squash, and a whole tin of different biscuits to choose from. How about I get you a drink and biscuit? Would you like that?’
He considered me warily, his eyes still angry, his arms stiff by his sides. ‘Are they chocolate?’ he demanded. ‘I only like chocolate biscuits.’
While Sam Burdett returned to a standing position, seemingly happy to let us take the initiative, Mike shot to the cupboard and produced the tin of chocolate biscuits – posh ones, too, left over from Christmas. ‘They are indeed,’ he said, brandishing it, ‘definitely the ones you like. But come on,’ he added, in response to the little hand reaching out to grab it, ‘let’s sit down for a second and eat them at the table, while Sam tells us all about you, how about that?’
My mind was going ten to the dozen, trying to take everything in that I could about our tiny new house-guest. And his keeper. The child had obviously been told he was coming on holiday, which was usually a big no-no in my book, but all too often used with younger children, in order not to worry them too much before they were delivered. Had it been the right call here? I wasn’t sure. He was angry, defiant and clearly not afraid of saying whatever he wanted to anyone, and using whatever language he chose to. So, was this evidence of the challenging behaviour I’d been told about, I wondered? Or just a reaction to the immense upheaval he was experiencing?
Whatever the truth of it, Sam Burdett seemed stressed, and I began to visualise the hour’s car journey he must have had getting Seth to us. And then the reality that he seemed to know almost nothing – either about the child, or the case he’d been given. ‘I just have this,’ he explained, pulling a two-sheet care plan from the inside pocket of his jacket, while Seth tried to stuff an entire chocolate biscuit into his mouth in one go. The term ‘biting off more than you can chew’ came immediately to mind. ‘There’ll be more, though,’ he assured us, as Seth wandered back off across the hall. ‘When they bring the baby, later on, they’ll be bringing much more information,’ not adding, though it was written so plainly on his face, that as he was the newbie, he’d been given the rubbish job. ‘As you can see,’ he did add, nodding towards the living room, ‘Seth isn’t taking this very well at all. To be honest, despite the conditions at his grandparents, he was adamant that he wanted to remain there.’
‘Conditions?’ Mike asked.
Sam Burdett’s immediate response was to grimace and shake his head. And his next – because he clearly didn’t want to say anything inappropriate – was to simply add ‘not good’, and sigh knowingly.
‘As I say,’ he finished, ‘my colleague has much fuller information, and will brief you properly later. But, in the meantime, if you need to get in touch, my mobile number’s on the care plan.’ And then, give or take a nicety, he was gone again, only adding a brief ‘Be good’ to Seth as he passed him.
Mike and I looked at each other in silence and turned back to Seth just in time to watch him deliberately push over the side table in the living room, complete with the two mugs of still-cooling coffee, sending it spilling all over my beige carpet.
‘That was an accident,’ he explained, smiling for the first time since he’d arrived. ‘Don’t hit me. Or I’ll call the cops and have you shot dead.’