Four Waifs on Our Doorstep (6 page)

‘Is that how Caroline got her broken arm?’ I asked.

‘Yes, that was Wayne.’

He stopped for several seconds.

‘He put a cupboard in front of the door of the bedroom and Caroline started screaming. That’s when he broke her arm.’ Hamish sniffed. ‘I think he must have been hitting
her. I tried to open the door, but I couldn’t.’ He wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeve. ‘And she kept on screaming, so I kept trying the door, and sent Anita to get
the big man over the road to help us. He was very strong and got the door open.’ He dissolved into tears. ‘I couldn’t stop him,’ he sobbed. ‘I couldn’t protect
her.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault, love.’ I gave him a cuddle. ‘You did the best you could.’

‘Wayne’s the one who sexed Anita,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘He’s been bad to all of us.’

‘Well, he can’t hurt you here,’ I reassured him.

Just then there was a shriek from the cellar playroom and Hamish dashed off down the stairs, with me following behind.

I can’t remember the rest of that day. It was a chaotic blur. Somehow, after putting them all to bed, I fought my own fatigue to sort the fast-growing pile of washing and put some in the
machine, before going up.

‘I’m shattered,’ I said to Mike.

‘That bad?’

‘Yes, anyone would think I’d never looked after a family before. The food is colossal, the washing is huge, and everything is a mammoth task. Even trying to get the kids ready to go
to the supermarket, let alone when we get there! It’s full on. Do you think I’m getting too old for all this?’

‘Of course not. You’ll get back into the swing again – you always do!’

‘Well,’ I yawned. ‘I hope you’re right.’

Monday morning is another blur. I know it was frenetic, but I don’t remember most of the details, except for one thing. I had been worrying about Simon since he arrived.
He was immobile for the first couple of days. But once or twice that morning, down in the playroom, he started to crawl a bit. Not very far, but at least he was moving.

‘Well done, Simon,’ I encouraged him, against the background melee of scrapping children with short attention spans and the growing pile of broken toys, as the older three just
trampled over them.

Up to now, I could put him down somewhere and know that if I didn’t move him myself, he would be in the same place two hours later. I went over, picked him up and took him to a clean area
of carpet, near the door. Then I held him up so that he let his legs down, lowered him to the floor and gently let go. I sat back three or four feet to see what he would do. Simon stood, with his
arms outstretched at each side, as if about to hold on to something, although there was nothing there. Then he took a few steps forward, into the room. His legs were very unsteady, as if the ground
was moving. I feared he would fall, but he kept going another step or two. It was a very odd and ungainly walk.

‘Hamish,’ I said.

‘Yes?’

‘Does Simon always walk like this?’

‘He doesn’t usually walk. Mum carries him everywhere. He’s her favourite. When she isn’t carrying him she puts him in his cot.’

‘Where is the cot?’

‘In the lounge,’ said Hamish, reaching for a large ball. ‘Can I go outside and play football?’

‘Not now, love. But maybe later.’

The social worker from the agency was due to come round that afternoon, so we had an early lunch, giving me time to tidy up before she came. We had stacker boxes full of toys
in the kitchen, so I put various toys, puzzles, modelling dough and colouring books out on our long kitchen table, and the children sat on the old church pews at one end. I sat with them to get
them started and for the first few minutes, with their tummies full, they all chose something to do without squabbling. That was an achievement.

Then the doorbell rang.

Carol introduced herself and I took her through to join the children at the kitchen table.

I think she wanted to have a chat with them to start with, but by now they were too busy trying to take the puzzles and colouring books away from each other.

‘Let go, you wanker!’

‘Fuck off!’

Carol raised her eyebrows.

‘Let’s just talk here,’ I suggested, pulling out a couple of chairs. ‘I’m sure Hamish and Anita will chip in if they feel like it.’

‘Well, the first thing to tell you,’ she said, ‘is that it’s now a full care order, so that means you can do all the normal things that need doing, but you must not cut
the children’s hair, or take them away overnight, without permission through the fostering agency.’

‘I don’t think the boys will need their hair cut for quite a while!’ I smiled, looking at their shaven heads. ‘And Anita says she wants to grow her hair.’

‘It’s going to be blonde,’ Anita added.

Carol looked at her black, tufty hair and smiled.

‘Anita’s very girly,’ I explained.

‘What time did they finally arrive on Friday?’

‘About eleven o’clock at night. They were in such a state when they got here – tired, starving hungry . . .’

‘I believe there were some delays at the other end.’

‘Yes, what happened? I did ask Hamish, but he seemed a bit vague about it all. I don’t suppose the children were told what was going on.’

‘I don’t know much more than you do, I’m afraid. All we’ve been told so far is that Caroline’s arm was broken, several days before, and it was a social worker who
took her to the doctor and he called an ambulance. I’m afraid it’s all quite fuzzy apart from that. It seems they were all at the hospital with the social workers, but it’s not
been explained what happened to break her arm . . .’

‘Wayne,’ interrupted Caroline. ‘Wayne broke my arm.’ I repeated this more clearly for Carol.

‘He pulled a cupboard across to block the door and attacked her,’ explained Hamish.

‘And she screamed,’ added Anita.

‘Really?’ Carol paused and waited, but the children said nothing more. ‘I don’t know what happened after that,’ she continued. ‘There seemed to be a gap, till
the next day I think, and then they came to you.’

‘So why didn’t they come here earlier, instead of that awful, long drive late at night?’

‘It might have been something to do with the courts.’

Hamish had been half-listening to our conversation. ‘Me, Anita and Simon, we went to a foster home for the night, but we didn’t like it there.’

‘What do you know about the children’s family?’ I asked Carol, hopeful that she could fill me in.

‘Very little, I’m afraid.’

That might have been true, with an emergency care order like this. But if she had known, she probably couldn’t have told me anything anyway. The agency is in a difficult situation. They
can’t slag off the local authority who are responsible for the children, because they are the people taking the children from that local authority.

‘All I can tell you is that all four children were on the at-risk register. That’s the only information they’ve sent us so far.’

‘I do have a lot of concerns over these children, so I was hoping you could give me some answers,’ I said. ‘For a start, there seems to be a lot of gaps in their
education.’

‘You mean their schooling?’

‘No, I mean eating, language and social skills – all that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ she said with a smile, as Caroline chose this moment to grab a doll from Anita.

‘Give me that back, you cunt!’ yelled Anita, pulling it back from her.

Caroline immediately burst into tears and banged the table with her uninjured fist. ‘I fucking hate you!’ she yelled, though it was difficult to understand and I don’t think
Carol realised what she had said.

‘I tell you what,’ continued Carol. ‘I’ll arrange for a support-worker to come and help you. It looks like you might need it!’

‘Could you? That would be a great help.’

‘It will only be for a few hours a week.’

‘Yes, I know. But it will allow me to nip out and get the main supermarket shopping done.’ I told her about our chaotic experience, shopping with them all the night before and we had
a good laugh. ‘They’re like over-enthusiastic puppies, you know, so excited they’re running everywhere, leaving havoc behind them. You should have seen Mike and me, trying to
control the trolleys and run after them at the same time!’

I suddenly noticed the look of alarm on Hamish’s face. ‘If I can do the big shop on my own once a week,’ I continued, ‘then I can take the children on a smaller trip
every day for their things.’ Hamish relaxed again.

‘Every day?’ asked Carol in surprise.

‘Yes, they were starving when they arrived on Friday, and they’re all desperate for food. Hamish panics if he thinks we might run out of anything.’

‘Did we get enough cornflakes?’ he asked, as he went over to the pantry.

I waited while he checked. ‘How many packets, Hamish?’

He counted them. ‘. . . five, six . . . seven packets,’ he announced with a smile.

Carol raised one eyebrow.

‘Hamish was in charge of food before they came here. I don’t think any of them would have survived without him,’ I explained, then turned to him. ‘Tell Carol what you
told me.’

‘About the bins?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, we were always hungry, so I had to go out at night to get some food for us.’

‘On your own?’ asked Carol, shocked by this news. ‘Every day?’

‘Yes, I used to unlock the door and let myself out when it was dark. Then I went round the back of Tesco’s every night to get food out of their bins. If they were empty, I knocked at
the door and a man gave me food, so I could take it back for Anita and the others.’ He sounded so matter-of-fact. ‘We had to eat.’

‘Yes, of course you did, Hamish,’ Carol reassured him, trying her best to hide her dismay. ‘You were a brave boy to do that for your sisters and brother.’

‘Give me that fucking pen!’ screeched Anita, snatching it from Caroline, who promptly pinched her arm.

‘I think it’s time for a runaround in the garden,’ I suggested. ‘Hamish, please can you take Simon out with you and let him play on the grass. Then, go to the shed and
get out some garden toys for you all to play with. I’m sure there’s a football out there too if you want.’

‘OK.’ Hamish picked up his little brother. ‘Can we come in again when we are hungry?’ he asked, his face almost lined with anxiety.

‘Yes, of course you can. We’ll never be short of food here.’

‘Ooh, isn’t it quiet?’ sighed Carol when they had all gone out.

‘Yes,’ I said with a grin. ‘Great, isn’t it? Mike’s taken a couple of days off and he’s out there gardening, so he’ll keep an eye on them.’

‘Are you serious about going shopping every day, Trisha?’

‘If I don’t, Hamish will be permanently panic-stricken, and they all eat like horses, so we would soon start running out of things.’

‘Aren’t you making a rod for your own backs?’

I shrugged and changed the subject. ‘Nappies are a problem. None of them are dry at night. I always put a waterproof cover on the mattress, but the bedding was soaked through and soiled.
You should see the mound of washing in the bath!’ I laughed. ‘But when I looked for nappies for them at the supermarket, there weren’t any big enough. I managed to get some
trainer pants to squeeze Hamish into and the largest available size of nappies for Anita, but they are too small. Caroline too. It’s a good thing they’re so thin, or I don’t know
what I would do!’

‘I can help you with that,’ said Carol. ‘We have a special supplier for all that kind of thing.’

‘The girls were both covered in bruises when they arrived. Especially Caroline. She had more bruises than I could count. Simon had a cigarette burn on his ankle and they were all thick
with grime and alive with head and body lice.’

‘Eugh!’ shuddered Carol.

I told her my concerns about Caroline’s fear of the bath.

‘I wonder why,’ she said.

‘There’s a huge difference between someone who is frightened of water, and the fear caused by something that has happened.’

She gave me a look. I’m sure she knew what I meant.

‘Simon worries me too,’ I told her. ‘The older three are quite wild, almost feral in some ways, but Simon just sits and does nothing.’

‘Remind me, how old is he?’

‘Nearly three. The strangest thing is that I didn’t think he could walk at first, but when I stood him up and let go, he did sort of stagger a few paces, very unsteady on his feet,
with his hands held out to the sides like this.’ I showed her what it looked like. ‘It reminded me of a documentary I saw a few years ago about a Romanian orphanage, where children his
age were left in iron cots all day. Some of them stood up and tried to walk in their cots, but the mattresses were so wobbly on the springs, they walked with their hands out, ready to catch the
sides. Simon walks just like that, as if he learned to walk in his cot.’

‘Where is the father?’

‘I don’t know. The children never mention him. But I do wonder whether there was more than one father.’

Carol watched the children playing outside while I made a pot of tea.

‘I can see what you mean about them being quite wild.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I suppose they need to let off some steam.’

Just then there was a crash as a rounders bat flew into the air and landed on the patio, breaking a plant pot.

‘Come on, kids,’ I heard Mike saying, in his usual calm voice. ‘Let’s put these things away and go to the park.’

‘Yeah!’ the three older ones cheered, as they threw all the toys into the shed.

‘He’s very good with them, isn’t he?’ smiled Carol.

‘Yes, I couldn’t do any of this without him.’

‘Where were we?’

‘Their mum’s boyfriends,’ I said. ‘Do you know if there’s any history of abuse?’

‘No, we don’t have any background information at all yet. Do you mean sexual abuse?’

‘Yes. I suspected it from the first day, when they were in the playroom and Mike came in. Anita and Caroline both seemed to switch their behaviours.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘All I can describe it as is sexualised behaviour.’

‘Surely not. They were probably just vying for his attention.’