Four Waifs on Our Doorstep Read online

  ‘Perhaps our ages may not be a barrier to adopting – we’ll have to wait and see. But would it be fair on the children? We’ll be as old as most of their friends’ grandparents. They might not like that when they’re teenagers.’

  ‘Yes, but teenagers will always find something to complain about. If not age, it would be something else.’

  ‘That’s true!’

  ‘So, do you think they would accept us to adopt the children?’

  ‘I think it looks like a strong possibility. After all, that would get the children, the expense and the responsibility off their hands in one go.’

  ‘And they would all be ours instead!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said with a hollow laugh.

  ‘It will be a struggle to afford it all . . . and a new house that’s almost falling down!’

  ‘I know, but I’ll find a way to earn some money. I could start our own fostering agency. After all, I should know enough about it by now! And I’m sure Jane would help me.’

  ‘It will be a challenge, but we’ll cope with the expense somehow.’

  ‘If we do get the go-ahead to adopt them, we’ll be in for a bumpy road ahead. Do you remember what Jane said when we adopted her?’

  ‘No. What was that?’

  ‘She said, “You always told me you loved me, but once you adopted me, I wanted to see how much . . .”’

  ‘Ah, yes. And I seem to recall that she did push the boundaries.’

  ‘I’m sure they all will.’

  ‘The main thing is to remember the alternative,’ said Mike. ‘And we can’t let that happen.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, vehemently. ‘There’s no way I would let that happen, when it looks as if we may hold the key to a better future. What do you think?’

  ‘Well, it’s a chance for any couple to take.’

  ‘Yes, but if anything does happen to us, we have a close and supportive family, and lots of great friends.’

  ‘Yes, they’d all rally round.’

  ‘And I’m sure the children are learning from how we all are with each other, how a strong family works together. We’re none of us perfect. We can fall out with each other, then make up again. We can get angry and walk away, but it doesn’t last for long.’

  ‘Yes, we are certainly lucky with our family, but they are lucky with us too,’ said Mike.

  ‘All the way along, we’ve both done the best we could for all our foster and adopted children. We haven’t always got it right,’ I conceded. ‘And they haven’t always got it right either. But, as I always say, we’ve done it all out of love.’

  ‘So we’re saying yes?’ He looked hopeful.

  I nodded. ‘We’re saying yes. I’ll call the guardian ad litem tomorrow.’

  17

  The Freeing Order

  ‘The contact with your birth family seemed to be unsettling for you all . . . A goodbye meeting took place.’

  Extract from a letter to Anita

  ‘You must be mad!’ erupted Jane when I told her we’d decided to apply to adopt the four children. ‘Look at their behaviour now. It’s not going to get any better.’

  Then I phoned my other adopted daughter Sally and it was a similar, shocked reaction: ‘Do you really want to do this . . . at your time of life?’

  Our adopted son Daniel was in Russia, and out of contact, so I couldn’t let him know at that time. But Anna, our older foster daughter, who is one of the family, had a different reaction. ‘I can understand why you want to adopt them . . .’ but she sounded concerned for us too.

  The move into our new, seven-bedroom house gave us a lot of extra space, so I set up an office and put my idea into action by starting up my own fostering agency. Whether we would be allowed to adopt the children or not, it was something I was well qualified to do and all my experience over the years gave me a head start. Now that Jane’s children were getting older, she came and joined me as the business grew.

  In fact, the agency was doing so well that it needed more of my time and I now had the worry of how I would cope if the adoption did go through and I had to work full-time. I had a chat with Mike about it one evening.

  ‘Well, don’t worry,’ he said, in his usual measured way. ‘We could take on a daily cleaner, and have the laundry done for us . . .’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Part of me was relieved, but I also had a niggle of guilt there.

  ‘And I’ll be retiring soon,’ added Mike. ‘So I can do the school runs. I’ll go and buy a chauffeur’s cap to wear!’

  We filled in all the adoption paperwork to start off the official process, knowing it could take a very long time to get through all the stages, if it ever got that far. I always had the feeling that someone was going to come along at some point and say ‘No’.

  But as the weeks turned into months and things slowly edged forward, I reached the stage where I knew I would fight tooth and claw to keep these children, and woe betide anyone who tried to stop me! And, like many experienced foster parents, I had developed a certain ego that says ‘Nobody’s going to look after these kids better than I can.’

  For Mike and me, the thing that gave us the most hope for the adoption becoming a reality was getting our Form F done. As part of that we each had to have a session with a psychologist, to judge whether we were stable enough as a couple, with a supportive enough family and a strong enough capability to look after these vulnerable children for the rest of their childhoods, no matter what.

  I compared notes with Mike afterwards.

  ‘Did he ask you about us – how we get on with each other?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yeah. I don’t find it easy talking to strangers about our marriage.’

  ‘Me neither. But I thought he was very fair. He didn’t make it feel like he was prying or anything.’

  ‘No, he seemed all right.’

  ‘What did you tell him about us?’

  ‘Quite a bit, when he asked. Oh, and I told him you were my ideal partner.’

  ‘What do you mean, “were”?’ I laughed.

  ‘Go on then, what did you say about me?’

  ‘I said they shouldn’t underestimate you.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘And that whenever we have a problem, we always talk it through together.’

  ‘I told him the only thing we argue about is the Christmas decorations . . . every year!’ Mike said it with a groan, then we both broke into laughter.

  ‘It’s true. Every year since we got married, we’ve had a row about the Christmas decorations. It’s become a tradition now!’

  The Form F was completed, ending with a strong recommendation that we should be approved as adopters of the four children. Phew! It was sent off to go before the panel, who were a group of people with a lot of experience in deciding about suitable adoptive parents. They would read everything about us and discuss it in detail together, then interview both of us as well, before making the final decision as to whether the adoption could go ahead.

  While all this was going on, behind the scenes, we were in lengthy discussions with Social Services to have some sort of financial arrangement, to replace at least some of our generous foster carers’ allowance. They finally agreed, along with leasing us a new people-carrier. I desperately wanted them to pay for long-term therapy for each of the children, but I didn’t dare make any more demands . . . it was all such a delicate balance, and they could have turned around at any moment and taken the children away from us completely, if we pushed them too hard.

  We’d had a rough ride for more than a year already, while all this adoption process was going on, not to mention the house-move and all the work we had to do on it, and the continuing phone calls from schools and . . . So it was such a relief when we finally heard that we’d been accepted! It felt like a stamp of approval. All of these ten or twenty people along the way had agreed that they thought we could do a good job. At last we knew we could do it, and everybody said we could do it well. But then, of course, there’s always that niggling d
oubt . . .

  As Mike said: ‘Now we’ve got to prove it!’

  ‘And we’ll have to tell the children what we’ve done.’

  ‘How do you think they’ll take it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I just hope they won’t be too upset at the prospect of being stuck with us for life!’

  A couple of days later, I called the children together around the dining-room table to tell them the news and discuss it all with them.

  ‘Are you going to join us?’ I asked Mike.

  ‘No. You’ll soon get fed up with me saying “pardon” whenever I can’t hear properly. You can tell me later how it went. Just tell the kids I agree with everything you say, as usual!’ He laughed before going off to catch up with his newspaper.

  They all sat down, still in their school uniforms, wondering what this was all about.

  ‘Do you remember when I asked you if you would be happy to stay longer with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hamish in a solemn voice. ‘And I said I didn’t want to go back.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back either,’ added Anita.

  ‘What about you two?’ I asked Caroline and Simon. ‘Are you happy to stay here?’

  ‘I like it here,’ smiled Caroline, and Simon just nodded agreement.

  ‘And do you remember that day when Steve came and took photos of you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ grinned Anita. ‘I wore my pretty dress.’

  ‘What were the photos for?’ asked Hamish, as if he could sense the way this conversation was going. ‘Why didn’t he send them to us?’

  ‘He took them to show people who might want to adopt you,’ I said carefully. ‘But we didn’t want anyone else to adopt you, so we applied to adopt you ourselves. And now we’ve been told we can. Would you like us to become your proper parents?’ I looked round the group, with all their faces breaking into wide smiles.

  ‘Forever?’ asked Hamish, as if in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, forever. Even when you’ve grown up and left home, we would still be your parents, like we are to Jane, Sally and Daniel.’

  ‘And Anna,’ added Anita.

  ‘Yes. We couldn’t adopt Anna because she still wanted to stay with her real mother sometimes. But we always include her in our family, don’t we?’

  ‘But what about Jill and Gary?’ asked Hamish. ‘Won’t they mind?’

  ‘They’ve been told you are going to be adopted and they have signed the forms agreeing to that. I think they know they were not very good at looking after you themselves, so they have said yes to your being adopted and looked after the way you need.’

  ‘But what if they change their minds and come looking for us? I don’t want them to know we live here,’ he pleaded with a frown.

  ‘No, it’s OK. Nobody will let them know where you are, without your permission.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’ That seemed to reassure him, for now anyway.

  ‘So we won’t have to go and live anywhere else?’

  ‘No, you can stay here.’

  ‘All of us?’

  ‘Yes, all of you. We’ve waited till now to tell you because we wanted to get through the application stages first. But now it looks like it’s all going ahead, once the judge signs the agreements, and we will be your mum and dad.’

  ‘Can we call you Mum and Dad?’ asked Anita.

  ‘You can if you like, or you can call us Trisha and Mike if you prefer.’

  ‘Will we have to call you that?’ asked Hamish, frowning again. ‘Can’t we call you Nan and Grandad, like Laura and Brett do?’

  ‘Yes, if you want to. We’re not fussed about our names.’

  ‘Can we stay in this house forever?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Yes, you can all stay in this house if the judge says “yes” but maybe not forever, because we might move to another house one day. Wherever we live, we would all be together. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Caroline, unsure what it was all about, but certain she wanted to stay together.

  ‘But what will happen to Mum?’ asked Anita, thinking it all through. ‘Will somebody feed her? Is she going to miss us?’

  ‘I think your mum will be very sad. But she knows it’s the best thing because she can’t look after you. And I’m sure the social worker will go in and look after her.’ They hadn’t seen her for months now, as she rarely turned up for visits and they had petered out.

  Everything was going so well in this final stage of the process . . . perhaps too well.

  One Sunday, while Hamish and Anita were sorting something out in the garden with Mike, the two younger ones were sat with me at the kitchen table, doing some colouring while I sewed somebody’s buttons back on.

  Suddenly, the calm atmosphere was broken by a wail from Caroline.

  ‘Simon has taken my red pen!’

  ‘It’s my pen,’ protested Simon. ‘I had it first.’

  ‘It was my turn.’

  Simon looked up and stuck his tongue out at Caroline.

  She reached across and tore his colouring in two.

  ‘Get off!’ He scribbled with the red pen on the back of her hand.

  Caroline now completely lost her temper, swore at Simon and aimed her two middle fingers straight at his eye. He put his hand up to try to protect himself.

  ‘Don’t do that, darling,’ I said. ‘Because you’ll hurt him.’

  She looked at me, then she looked at Simon.

  ‘I hate him,’ she growled and suddenly lunged for his other eye.

  ‘No, no, no, you mustn’t do that!’ I moved to protect Simon, but he ducked, then spat a great gob of saliva across the table into her face.

  This time she really went for him, both fingers rigid, with all her might.

  Instinctively I put my hand up in between and it just caught her fingers. ‘No!’ I said again. ‘You do not do that to eyes.’

  Simon, realising his narrow escape, started to cry. Caroline, her fury thwarted, started crying as well out of frustration. I sat down again and they each got down from their chairs and came over to me for a cuddle. That was it – fight over.

  The next day I dropped the children off at their schools as usual, and about an hour later there was a knock at the door. It was a social worker, so I showed her in.

  ‘Mrs Merry. Caroline has made a complaint at school that you smacked her for no reason.’

  ‘Really?’ I was angry. ‘Let’s call her teacher and find out what this is all about.’ I didn’t wait for her agreement. I knew all the school numbers by heart.

  Sure enough, the secretary took the phone to Caroline’s teacher, who told me that Caroline had been crying when she came into school.

  ‘I asked her what was the matter, and she said you had smacked her very hard and it made her cry. I asked her why you had smacked her and she said no reason. So I’m sorry, Mrs Merry, but our school policy is to report anything like this, so I had no choice.’

  ‘Even if it wasn’t true? You’ve told me yourself that Caroline often tells you lies.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t know for sure whether it was true—’

  ‘You could have rung me first!’

  ‘Our policy is always to believe the child, so I had no alternative.’

  I thanked her coldly and put the phone down.

  ‘I know what this is about,’ I said to the social worker as I sat down with her in the living room. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened and you can make your own judgement.’

  I recounted the whole episode of Caroline’s finger-jabbing, describing every stage of their fight, what I said and how I reacted.

  ‘So you see,’ I explained, ‘I put my hand out to protect Simon as Caroline lunged at him and it caught Caroline’s outstretched fingers.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ was all she said. ‘I will report back to my superior and we will let you know how we will proceed.’ She got up to go.

  ‘When will you let me know?’ I asked, anxious that this seemed to be e
scalating too far, and the final stage of the adoption was only weeks away. I was only too aware how this could impact on all our hopes and plans.

  A few days later, the senior social worker called round to interview me. I went through it all with her, blow by blow, and finished with the catching of Caroline’s fingers.

  There was a pause while she wrote some notes.

  ‘Are you aware of these children’s problems?’ I asked her.

  ‘Do you think you need more help?’ she replied.

  What a loaded question. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. So I said nothing as I thought it through.

  She just gave me a long, withering look. ‘I think you need a break, Mrs Merry.’ Another ambiguous statement. I felt a sense of dread, knowing where this could be going.

  I showed her out and dropped into a heap on the sofa. This seemingly innocent accusation by Caroline could scupper everything, for her and the others. It really frightened me. I felt in more of a turmoil than I’d ever experienced before. But then my sensible side kicked in and I realised that I could over-analyse all this. Yes, perhaps that was what I was doing.

  Apparently she went back and spoke to the school again, the doctor and I don’t know who else, but it was so near the end of the adoption procedure that it was too late and the issue too comparatively insignificant to stop it now. We were on a roll, thank goodness!

  The final requirement before we could officially adopt the children was the freeing order. This is a chance for the children and their birth family to say goodbye. Normally, it’s supposed to be done in easy stages, over as long a time as can be arranged, to smooth the process – usually a month to six weeks. But, despite it being two years since our application, the end part of it was all so quick that the freeing order had to be done and dusted in a day.

  So a meeting was arranged, to include everyone at once, even though the children hadn’t seen some of these people for a long time.

  There was birth dad, birth mum, mum’s first husband, who none of them knew, their elder half-sibling Mandy, who had severe learning difficulties, their grandma and their grandad.

  I had to take our four along to that meeting, stay, then take them back home again. But even more arduous was the need for me to explain all this to the children themselves, so that they all understood what it was about, and to prepare them for the emotional impact it might have on them. I had to try to keep them as calm as possible, despite the significance of what they were about to experience. I also had to encourage them to talk to everyone when they got there – an almost impossible task for the younger ones in such a large and daunting gathering.