Four Waifs on Our Doorstep Read online

  ‘You can’t let him in here,’ he pleaded with me.

  ‘I want Kevin to come in with me,’ Jill’s shrill voice resounded. ‘He wants to see my kids. They will want to see him.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tried to reassure them. ‘I’m sure he won’t be allowed in.’ Well, I was nearly sure, but there was only the social worker and me, so I hoped we could stop him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Mackay. You know the rules. If your friend does not leave the building immediately, I will call the police.’

  There was a pause when we couldn’t hear them speaking, and then the front door opened and closed. I went to look out of the window and Kevin was sitting on a bench outside the patio doors. I checked they were locked.

  Jill sidled in with a forlorn expression, her hair lank and her clothes shabby, emphasised by their contrast with her bright-pink plastic shoulder bag.

  ‘Why did you have to bring Kevin with you?’ asked Hamish, keeping a watchful eye on the man they all feared, his back to the building, smoking a roll-up and tapping his foot impatiently on the flagstones.

  ‘He helped me come on the train,’ replied Jill with a distracted glance towards the patio doors. ‘He wants to see you.’

  As before, Jill sat on a chair and more or less ignored the children as she fiddled with her phone, texting.

  At one point, Caroline went up to her with a picture book. At least Jill didn’t push her away this time. Instead, she took Caroline’s hand and walked her across the room to the play area, and whispered to both of the girls. Anita immediately cast an imploring glance in my direction, as Jill tried to steer the two girls towards the door. I looked at the social worker, who glanced at me and we both hurried across to intercept them.

  ‘No, I don’t want to,’ wailed Anita, trying to pull away from her mother’s grasp.

  Caroline looked confused and Hamish came running over to try, as always, to protect his sisters from their own mother and her dangerous friend.

  ‘Leave them alone, Mum,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I’m only taking them out to the toilet,’ Jill said, trying to open the door.

  ‘I’m afraid you cannot take the children out of the room, Mrs Mackay,’ said the social worker. ‘Trisha, can you take them, if they want to go?’

  ‘OK. Who wants to go first?’

  ‘Can we both come?’ asked Anita.

  We went across the entrance area.

  ‘I don’t really need the toilet,’ she said when we got there.

  ‘OK. Let’s go back then.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to be with Mum.’ She was trembling as she spoke. ‘She wants to take us to see Kevin.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘I don’t like Kevin,’ wailed Caroline.

  ‘I hate Kevin,’ added Anita. ‘He hurt me.’

  ‘Me too. I don’t want him to hurt us again.’

  ‘We’re all frightened of him. He tried to take away Mum’s baby.’

  By the time we got back into the family room, Jill had gone.

  That night, both Anita and Caroline sleepwalked and had terrible, screaming nightmares all through the night. Hamish mumbled and cried out in his sleep. Being deaf, Mike didn’t hear a thing, but I always had the baby monitors on, so I heard every distressing sound. I can almost hear it still.

  15

  Fire! Fire!

  ‘Anita gained in confidence but she still had many other problems. She was over-friendly to strangers and had one experiment with fire before she left.’

  Anita’s school report

  One Saturday, the children got ready for Mike to take them off for the day, as usual.

  ‘Right, Trisha,’ he said. ‘We’re off now.’

  ‘Here are your lunch boxes,’ I said to the kids, handing them over to pack in their backpacks. ‘Have a good day.’

  Then I turned to Mike. ‘Please don’t buy them any sweets or fizzy drinks. Please do not buy them any gunge, rubbish, or whatever.’ Those were my last words to him as they piled into the car.

  I knew Mike would go to Tesco’s and pick up his papers first, and then they were all allowed to choose a small bag of sweets each. I suspected it of course, but I never let on.

  I was revelling in the prospect of a whole day of peace and quiet, to do the chores uninterrupted and maybe have some time to read. But only half an hour after they left, the phone rang.

  ‘Oh my God, Trisha!’ It was Mike’s anguished voice at the other end. ‘You won’t believe what . . . I’ve just been asked into the manager’s office.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I thought I’d won a prize – millionth shopper or something, but it was nothing like that. He was very angry and he’s made all the children pull their pockets out.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  ‘Hamish had a small pack of Jaffa Cakes. Simon had his pockets full of Pokemon cards, stuffed to the gunnels. Caroline had been the lookout, which she wasn’t very good at, and she just had a small packet of sweets.’

  ‘What about Anita?’ I asked, knowing that of all of them, she was the most likely to steal.

  ‘Well, that was the strange thing. The manager didn’t find anything at all in her pockets.’

  ‘Did he look in her pants?’

  ‘No.’ Mike laughed. ‘He didn’t want to get into that kind of trouble!’

  ‘But I bet that’s where she’s stashed her haul.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to leave that to you to find out.’

  ‘Did any of them say anything?’

  ‘Yes, Anita said Simon was taking the Pokemon cards for Red Nose Day.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘She said he was going to sell them at school to raise money for charity.’

  ‘Right,’ I said to Mike. ‘I’m coming straight down to the store, big guns blazing!’

  Luckily, the manager knew Mike well as a customer, so he just wanted us to make sure it didn’t happen again. Out of the children’s hearing, I told him my plan and he let them go with no more than a telling-off, this time.

  As soon as we got back home, I lined them up in the hall and put on my cold, angry voice.

  ‘Right. All put a backpack on please. Put in your pyjamas, your toothbrush, your flannel, your toothpaste and one small toy. I want you back down here in five minutes.’

  The look of confusion on their faces! But they knew I was cross and, for once, they meekly did as they were told.

  During the couple of minutes they were packing their bags, I told Mike what I intended to do.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to keep a straight face,’ he said.

  ‘OK, then you stay here and I’ll take them down on my own.’

  ‘Have you got everything?’ I asked them as they lined up again. ‘Now, into the car.’

  They all piled in and off we went.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Hamish in a little voice.

  ‘The police station.’ In the mirror, I saw them giving each other sideways glances, with apprehension on their faces, but nothing more was said.

  We pulled up in Middle Street, outside the police station, and went in.

  ‘Can I speak to the policeman please?’ I said to the woman behind the counter. ‘The policeman in charge of Tesco’s stealing.’ I gave her a wink, unseen by the children.

  ‘Oh, dear me,’ she said with a serious face, looking at all of them in turn. ‘Right. Are you the ones that have been stealing in Tesco’s?’

  ‘Yes,’ they all said in unison, their heads bowed.

  ‘Right, OK,’ she went. ‘Go and sit down.’

  They all looked petrified, so I knew it was having the desired effect. But I was slightly concerned, thinking: I hope I haven’t gone a bit too far.

  As we sat in silence in the foyer, a security door barrelled open and two big policemen came over to us and stood, jangling their keys.

  ‘Are these the children?’ asked one of the policemen.

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded.

>   ‘What is your name?’ they asked me.

  ‘Mrs Merry.’

  ‘Your names?’ he asked the children, and they said all their names in turn.

  ‘Right, come with us.’

  I thought, oh, he is just going to have a word with them, you know. So we all followed him back through the door, which he locked behind us.

  ‘Right,’ he said, giving the children a stern look. ‘If you steal again, this is where you’ll be having your fingerprints taken. This is where you’ll have your photograph done.’

  ‘Are we allowed to smile?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Do you have a number?’ added Hamish.

  Quite interested they all were by this time. Curious about the details. The officers could see something more was needed, so they led us all down the corridor until we got to the overnight cells.

  ‘Cor, it smells of wee,’ sniffed Hamish.

  ‘Yes, it does,’ said the main officer. ‘Prisoners have to stay in overnight.’

  ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Caroline.

  So the policeman said: ‘Right, I’m going to open the door.’ He looked at the children and pointed at Hamish. ‘You’re the oldest, you can go in first.’

  I was a bit worried now, watching Hamish going in and the cell-door clanging shut behind him. He couldn’t bear to be enclosed in small spaces. Maybe this was going a bit too far.

  Anita went into the next cell, quite gingerly, and then the policeman shut the door. I was beginning to panic now. That’s enough, I thought. It seemed ages, but it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes, with Caroline and Simon waiting next to me in the cold corridor, looking as anxious as I felt.

  When the police officer opened the doors, Anita was very pale, and Hamish couldn’t get out of his cell quickly enough. Next he put seven-year-old Caroline in and he just shut the door for two or three seconds and Simon swapped places, but without the door being shut. Even so, he was near to tears. I felt like Cruella de Vil for having put the younger ones through that. I hadn’t expected this dose of medicine to go so far.

  ‘Did that frighten you?’ asked the officer.

  ‘Yes,’ sniffed Simon. ‘You haven’t made a space for the food to come under.’

  The officers laughed and the second one turned to me. ‘I think he’s been watching too many old films!’

  Finally, the first officer gave them a good pep talk about the perils of stealing.

  ‘Even if it was for Red Nose Day,’ added the second guy.

  ‘Right,’ said the first one. ‘Do not let it happen again.’

  When we got back home, my grown-up daughter Jane was there with Mike and she greeted us at the door.

  The children couldn’t wait to tell her and Mike what had gone on.

  ‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yes, we have,’ squeaked Simon, near to tears. ‘We have, because we’ve been banned now from Tesco’s and we’ve got to go to Sainsbury’s and we don’t like Sainsbury’s.’

  That broke the tension at last and we all had a good laugh together. Even the children saw the funny side of it.

  It wasn’t quite true, but we kept up the pretence for a while, to stress the seriousness of their actions. For quite some months after, Mike would pull up in the car park. ‘You can’t come in,’ he would say. ‘You can’t come in. I’m just popping in to get the papers.’ And of course they would knock seven bells out of one another when they were left together in the car. Then Mike would come back and have to sort them out.

  I think in the end it was Mike who absent-mindedly said one day: ‘Oh come on, we’ll all go in.’

  ‘No, we can’t go in,’ said Anita.

  ‘We’re banned,’ Hamish reminded him.

  ‘No, it’s all right. You can come in,’ explained Mike. ‘We only said that.’

  ‘Oh, can we really?’ asked Simon. They couldn’t believe we had been teasing them all this time, but they took it very well.

  Anita was now stealing from school on a daily basis. If it was there, she would take it. She’d steal clothes, money, whatever she found; it didn’t matter what it was, anything, hair clips, make-up . . . She had boxes and boxes of stolen property upstairs, and when I discovered it I asked her about it.

  ‘Why do you take all these things, Anita?’

  She just looked at me and shrugged.

  ‘There must be a reason. Some of these things belonged to your friends. Why did you steal them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It just happens.’

  I think half the time she just took it because it was there. And, nine times out of ten I think she threw it away after she’d taken it, because she knew she didn’t need it, and often she didn’t even like it. I was always being called up to the school and the head was always as patient as she could possibly be with Anita, but we were at a loss to know how to stop her.

  One morning, about two hours after seeing Mike drive all the children off to school, the phone rang. Here we go again, I thought. Another problem at school. Who was it this time?

  I picked up the phone.

  ‘Mrs Merry, can you come up? Anita’s set fire to the school.’

  Of course I had an immediate vision of flames rising up through the roof. I dashed out to my car and drove as fast as I safely could.

  As I rounded the last bend, I expected the school to be in ashes, but I couldn’t even see any smoke. What an anticlimax. So perhaps Anita hadn’t caused too much damage. In fact, when I got there I found she’d just scorched some floor-tiles and the door jamb in the toilets.

  After a fireman gave Anita a stern telling-off, during which she looked suitably subdued for once, we had to see the head teacher, who told her off again and banned her from swimming for a week.

  ‘I hope you have learned your lesson, Anita.’

  I agreed to take Anita home for the rest of the day, till everything got back to normal. We had a silent drive home. I needed her to realise how serious this was.

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ I said to her as we sat opposite each other at the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, I was in the front of the car, on the way to school,’ she began. ‘When I saw a lighter in the space between the seats. I remember looking at it and wondering how it works. Something in me was saying: “If you ask Dad, he won’t let you.” So I thought I’ll just take it, right?’

  ‘Didn’t Dad notice?’

  ‘No, he was looking at the road, so I sneaked it into my school bag.’

  ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘I remember sitting in class with this niggling feeling – I wanted to go and light this lighter. I really had this urge. And I didn’t know why. So I made an excuse to go to the toilet and I set light to some of the toilet paper. But it was like tissue and it caught fire too fast. I didn’t like it burning so quickly. It only lasted a few seconds before it died out.’

  ‘So how did it burn the door jamb?’

  ‘I was really annoyed that it didn’t stay alight, so I went out and got some leaves.’

  ‘A lot of leaves?’

  ‘Two handfuls. I didn’t really think of the fire burning anything else except the leaves. I piled them up together on the toilet floor and set fire to them. It made a psshhh sound. The flames suddenly shot up. I panicked and ran for it, through the outside door, chucking the lighter behind some bushes.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the lighter with Mike’s name on it?’

  ‘Yes, but I forgot about that. Then the fire alarm went off. It rang really loudly. I thought crap, what if they find out it’s me? We all lined up across the playground and then we were told the fire was out and we could all go back to our classrooms.’

  ‘Did somebody find the lighter?’

  ‘Yes, because twenty minutes later, the head teacher walked in, holding it up. My heart nearly stopped. I thought crap, Mum’s going to kill me!’ She gave me a look. ‘You won’t, will you?’

  ‘I might,’ I said. ‘I’m cross enough. But it wa
s Mike’s lighter. What do you think he will say?’

  ‘He won’t be as cross as you!’

  ‘You’re quite right. I’m angry that you took his lighter in the first place, and I’m even angrier that you were stupid enough to use it like that.’

  She sat and waited for the fireworks.

  ‘I’m very disappointed in you, Anita. Do you realise how dangerous this was?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could have caused thousands of pounds of damage. And, even worse, you could have killed somebody.’

  ‘Yes, I know it was stupid. I’m sorry.’ She hung her head. I think she really was quite shocked, but I needed to do something to make her see how important this was.

  ‘There’s only one thing I can do with you, young lady. You’re coming with me down to the police station and you’re going to apologise for setting light to the school.’

  At the police station, Anita was quite subdued. She did apologise and they gave her a very serious telling off. I think that was more of a frightener to her than the first time, after the Tesco’s theft.

  ‘What a day that was!’ I said to Mike as we sat after dinner that night. ‘I really thought the school would be a gonner.’

  ‘Even Anita couldn’t have talked her way out of that one,’ he said with a grin. ‘It will be something to laugh about in years to come.’

  And it has been.

  16

  Over My Dead Body!

  ‘Review meeting. What a shock!’

  Extract from my diary

  As foster parents, we were always the last to hear anything, and we were rarely consulted about any potential change of plan. But I suppose the signs were there.

  The children had been with us for two or three years now and they were costing Social Services about £6,000 per month. They paid the agency and the agency paid some of that over to us. Because they had been such a hard-to-place family with so many problems, we were given a good fostering allowance, well above the norm, but of course our bills were huge. Food alone cost more than £300 per week. And we’d had to buy all of them several sets of new clothes.

  The washing machine and tumble dryer were on permanently with all the nappies and almost daily changes of sheets, and I couldn’t begin to tell you what the electricity bill came to. We needed to swap our previous family car for a people-carrier, which consumed petrol at an alarming rate, and of course there were all the outings Mike took them on to keep them occupied and give me time to get things done.