I called Anna the next morning. I felt helpless; I hadn’t even really known what to say to Olivia, let alone what to do. All I could do was what I did do; record it and report it. And as ever the advice was the same.
‘Remain vigilant,’ Anna told me. ‘And keep recording everything, obviously. That’s all you can do.’
Which wasn’t much help. ‘But you know what?’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps it would be a good idea if I came for a special visit and perhaps gave her a bit of a biology lesson using her dolly; see if we can find out a bit more about where her knowledge lies.’
I was conscious that Anna’s motivation might be more about securing more evidence against the family than worrying about the urgent need for help for these kids. ‘I could probably do that myself,’ I answered shortly, ‘rather than you having to drag up here.’
Her response, after a brief pause, was interesting. ‘You know, Casey,’ she said – had she read the irritability in my tone? – ‘if this is all becoming a bit too much for you, we could try to find some respite care for the kids for a couple of days. Would that be helpful?’
Helpful? I politely declined her offer. No, I thought, that really is not what I need.
But Anna’s comments did at least energise me. Over the next couple of days I trawled the internet to try and find some information about sex education, and what would be appropriate to discuss with children of different ages. I felt sure that Olivia was still too young to be told anything graphic, but these were not normal kids, and had been exposed to sexual practices, and I felt strongly that there must be something I could do to help. I simply couldn’t just sit there and have Olivia do things like she had to her doll and just observe and record and report them. This child – both these children – needed these things addressed, and it needed to start happening as a matter of urgency. To just stand and watch – to not point out that the things they were doing were inappropriate was tantamount to actually reinforcing them. Every episode left unchallenged brought them closer to a point where they might be scarred irreparably, for life. Was there anyone who hadn’t heard the familiar – and true – adage that abused children often went on to abuse?
But my investigations threw up something positive at least. I was out of touch, these days, with the various childhood ages and stages, so it was news to me that apparently Olivia was already at an age when she should know about reproduction, recognise and name body parts and be able to talk about feelings and relationships. That was all the encouragement I needed. I would give her that biology lesson myself.
I don’t know what a casual observer might have thought had they happened upon Olivia and me in the kitchen a week later, with our two new temporary members of the family, Mr and Mrs Gingerbread, which I’d bought from the local supermarket, and accessorised myself – with a little bit of white writing icing in the places I wanted to discuss.
But though Olivia was giggling – I’d decided to leave Ashton out of this one; he was in the other room, on the PlayStation – I was in deadly earnest about this.
‘Casey, you’re so rude!’ Olivia laughed, once I’d got her sitting up at the table and explained what we were going to talk about. ‘Look! This one’s got boobies and a tuppence!’
She giggled. ‘An’ this one got boobies and a pee pee! You can’t have boobies and a pee pee, Casey!’
I was about to answer, when Olivia corrected herself. ‘Actually, you can, can’t you? Mens got boobies, but only tiny. Only the ladies got milk. That’s right, innit, Casey?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, that is right, Olivia,’ I agreed. ‘Only ladies have milk in their breasts. Do you know why that is?’
Olivia adopted her knowing expression. ‘I’m not stupid!’ she informed me. ‘It’s to feed their kids, of course!’ Upon which, grinning impishly at me, she picked up Mr Gingerbread, and bit off his head.
This was beginning to feel a little pointless. ‘My mummy’s got fat boobies!’ she then informed me, through her mouthful. ‘Big old boobies. Like footballs!’ she said, gesturing with her free hand. ‘Gwandad always used to say that,’ she added, by way of explanation. Mr Gingerbread, I could see, was now half the man he had been.
This was pointless. Perhaps I should leave it to Anna after all. ‘Come on,’ I said, picking up Mrs Gingerbread and snapping an arm off. ‘How about you help me make tea then? Meatballs and spaghetti. Kieron and Lauren are coming.’
‘Yeah!’ she trilled, beaming happily at me, and looking for all the world like a bright-eyed little innocent who wouldn’t yet know one single inappropriate thing about tuppences and pee pees or anything else. Such a wicked twist of fate that she was not.
It hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected, Kieron moving out, because he’d been home almost as many times as there’d been days since he’d left. Indeed, on more than one occasion, he’d just turned up as usual, yelling ‘I’m starving! What’s for tea, Mum?’ as he came in. So we made plenty of meatballs, and it was just as well we did, because Riley and David turned up for tea too. And it was an absolute joy to have the whole brood together. Not just for us, but for the little ones as well. And all the talk was about Levi’s upcoming birthday.
It hardly seemed possible that my first grandchild was going to be two already. It seemed only yesterday that I’d watched him being born. But an awful lot had happened since he’d come into the world. It was no exaggeration to say our lives had changed dramatically. But all for the good, I thought, even if it had been challenging sometimes. We might have had our stressful moments, but on the whole, I felt happy and fulfilled.
And definitely up for a party. And, as per the Watson family tradition, Levi’s wasn’t going to be a low-key affair. Riley had already hired a local hotel for it; one that had established a reputation locally for providing brilliant birthday parties, themed to whatever was your choice.
Riley had refused to spill the beans on what she’d decided upon for Levi, but when the following Saturday came around, it was clear what it was as soon as we pulled up in the car park. We were greeted by staff wearing Teletubbies costumes and greeting us all pretty manically. Half of the car park was already cordoned off too, to house a giant bouncy castle, from which hung a banner that said ‘Hip hip hooray! Levi’s 2 today!’
‘This is fantastic, love!’ I said, as I took it all in. And it was. There was a wooden bridge, which led to the back door of the hotel, which was decked out with balloons and cardboard daisies. Even the ground was decorated – with big splats of red and yellow, which were presumably supposed to be jelly and custard – the Teletubbies’ favourite.
‘You wait till you get inside,’ Riley told me excitedly. ‘Honest, Mum, you ain’t seen nothing yet!’
But the children, like all the other little guests, only had eyes for the bouncy castle, so, even though it was a bitterly cold November day, I was happy to stay outside and supervise for a bit. Not that I needed to do much. The hotel staff, all in costume, were doing a wonderful job, keeping Levi’s playgroup friends, plus all his cousins, plus my two, entertained with lots of games and silly dances.
But eventually the weather drove most of us gratefully inside, and, despite a few clinging tenaciously to the small fence around the inflatable, the little ones’ attention was soon readily diverted by the delights on offer in the warmth of the function room. Here too, they’d done Levi proud for his birthday. They’d created a setting just like the original, complete with cut-outs of daisies and other Teletubbies characters and, the pièce de résistance, at the far end of the room – an actual working jelly and custard machine, which looked just like the one on TV.
Ashton and Olivia were speechless, and looked around the room open-mouthed, eyes like saucers.
‘Oh my gosh!’ said Olivia in awe. ‘Look at all this! Oh, where’s Levi? I want to show him all the pretty flowers. He loves flowers!’
Touched, I pointed him out to her. ‘I’ll bet he’d love that,’ I agreed. ‘Go on, then. But remember, no picking him up, okay?’
I had to take care with Levi where Olivia was concerned because, being the second of five, she had no qualms about marching around holding little ones. It had probably been a big part of her young life. But she nodded obediently and trotted over to Riley, who I knew I could rely on to keep an eye on her.
I turned to Ashton. More self-conscious than his little sister, he seemed to be finding the whole thing just a little bit overwhelming. ‘Go on,’ I told him. Why don’t you go and join in with your sister? Or maybe go and get some food from the buffet.’
Ashton still seemed reluctant to leave my side, perhaps shy about helping himself among all these strangers. ‘You hungry?’ I asked him. I nudged him. ‘I’m surprised you weren’t the first there!’
I was, too. Though we’d not seen the stark evidence of it that Olivia had displayed when she’d first come to us, Ashton cared about food and when it was coming. Not to the extent of our first foster child, Justin, who had to know exactly what the next meal would be, and when. But Ashton did worry about it and, like Olivia had that first night, he still sometimes binged on it and hid it. Where his little sister seemed to have settled down in that regard, he’d often still squirrel away biscuits in his room. These were understandable behaviours, given both the children’s shocking background. But in the midst of all the sexual stuff going on with these kiddies, perhaps I’d not fully grasped the true extent of Ashton’s obsession with the everyday business of getting fed.
‘I’m starving,’ he said now. ‘But I can’t go by myself. I don’t know what to get.’
‘Love, you can have anything you fancy. That’s the point of a buffet. You get a plate and then you choose the things you like best.’ His brow furrowed as I said this and he looked unconvinced. I took his hand. ‘Tell you what, shall I come with you?’
He shook his head then, his pride clearly coming to the fore. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, wriggling his hand from my grasp. ‘I’m fine.’
And, oh, how I wish I’d just gone with him.
As it was, I watched him walk across to the room to the groaning table, where at first it seemed nothing was amiss. He filled a plate with food, nibbling on a sandwich as he did so, and I was so busy chatting to one of Riley’s friends about her children that it was a while before I realised he hadn’t moved away. He seemed rooted to the spot, clutching his full plate of food, just looking from side to side at all the half-full platters, as if unable to tear himself away.
The next bit seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw David go over to him and then smile and say something, and, from what I could see, gently try to steer him away. Ashton’s response was to put down his plate and then grip the buffet table with both hands. It was difficult to be clear about what happened next because there were children playing between us, which kept obscuring my sight-line, but when I saw David wincing and hopping on one leg, I hurried over to see what was going on.
‘He stamped on my bloody foot!’ he said. ‘Hard!’ He glared at Ashton, who was still clinging on to the edge of the table. ‘Look, lad,’ he said to him. ‘You’ve had enough now!’ He turned to me. ‘He’s not stopped, Casey. Been stuffing food down his throat now for close on twenty minutes. Honestly, he’ll be sick if he carries on.’
‘Ashton, come on, love,’ I tried. ‘You’ve had enough.’
‘No!’ he practically snarled at me. ‘There’s still loads here. I can’t!’
Just then, a young mum approached the table with two little ones and reached out to take a couple of iced buns.
‘Gerroff!’ Ashton snapped at her. ‘They’re mine. Just leave off!’
‘Ashton!’ I barked. ‘They are not! They’re for everyone!’
His face was a mask of distress by this time, and before I could really register what had happened, he kicked out at the startled woman, his foot delivering what would have been a pretty painful blow had she not darted sideways to avoid it. And the same fate befell another child, who’d dared to approach. It was only my yanking Ashton smartly backwards that spared another unsuspecting shin from getting whacked.
People were looking towards us now, aware of the growing commotion. ‘Get off!’ he screamed. ‘Tell them, Casey! Tell them! It’s all gonna be gone!’ He had tears in his eyes and was trembling with anger and it became clear that I was witnessing behaviour around food that was every bit as troubled as Justin’s had been. He simply couldn’t deal with seeing so much food in one place at one time without needing, not just wanting – compulsively needing – to eat or hide away every scrap. In short, he could not walk away from it. Years of chronic hunger had so damaged his psyche that his response was as powerful as it was instinctive. The only reason I’d yet to see it was because he’d not been in this situation. He couldn’t help it, I realised. He had no control over it.
Smiling apologetically at the growing crowd, and anxious not to cause a scene that might spoil the party, I gently prised Ashton’s white fingers from the edge of the table. Then, with David to help me, I forcibly, but calmly, led him from the room, trying to ignore the screams of protest and the wildly thrashing limbs, which were a distressing enough sight as it was, and meant the people closest had to hurriedly shimmy out of the way. Already a couple of the little ones had started crying and, as I passed him, I could see my little grandson was one of them, looking petrified at the sight of this hysterical, flailing boy.
It was a job to contain him, but we were eventually through the doorway, upon which, sensing our grip on him loosening, Ashton wriggled free of us both and threw himself on the floor.
‘Go back in,’ I told David. ‘Get back to the party. I’ll sort Ashton out.’
‘You sure?’ He looked sceptical.
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Just got himself into a bit of a state.’
David still didn’t look convinced, and I did understand his reticence. I was five foot nothing, and Ashton wasn’t much shorter. But he had no fight left in him, and was no threat to anyone. He just needed comforting, that was all.
Once David had gone back in, I sat down on the floor beside him, stroked his hair and tried my best to console him.
‘It’s okay,’ I said softly. ‘I understand, Ashton. That was hard for you, wasn’t it? Seeing all that food and not being able to –’
‘But you don’t understand!’ His face was running with tears now. ‘You don’t understand! It’s your fault! I coulda had that! An’ now it’ll get wasted! And I’ll starve! You’re so cruel to me, Casey! You just want me to starve!’
‘Don’t be daft, love,’ I said. ‘Why on earth would I want to starve you? I feed you enough, don’t I? I give you lots and lots of food. But you know what? I do understand how you feel, you know. How you must fret about going hungry. I get that, I really do.’
But Ashton was still too upset to be mollified. He was now a picture of perfect misery. And all over a few sandwiches and sausage rolls. I should have thought. I should have realised. I should have prepared him better. And because I hadn’t, this had ruined Levi’s party. ‘I don’t care,’ he sobbed. ‘I just wanna go home. They can keep it. They can throw it all away. I DON’T CARE!’
‘Okay, love. That’s okay,’ I said, hugging him to me. He was now like a big floppy rag doll. ‘We’ll get you home, okay? And then you’ll feel a whole lot better.’
I popped back inside and explained to Mike what was happening, knowing David would be happy to drop off him and Olivia. Then we slipped out the back and went home.