Читать книгу Too Hurt to Stay: The True Story of a Troubled Boy’s Desperate Search for a Loving Home - Casey Watson, Casey Watson - Страница 11

Chapter 6

What credulous fools we were, I couldn’t help thinking, as we ran back to the house and Mike pulled his boots on.

‘Should I phone someone, do you think?’ I asked anxiously. I could already feel panic rising inside me. It was all very well Glenn telling me not to worry about Spencer, but this was an eight-year-old, and we were responsible for him.

Mike shook his head. ‘Give me a chance to have a quick scout around first.’ He headed back down the path, then stopped and turned around. ‘Actually, do you think I should take the car instead?’

‘No!’ I couldn’t help snapping. ‘Just go! If you take the car you might miss him down an alley. Just hurry, will you? He could be miles away by now.’

Mike jogged off then, and I went back to keep an eye out from behind the window. It was only early autumn but there was a real nip in the air. And Spencer, as far as I knew, was only in pyjamas and slippers. Unless he’d whipped them off while up ‘getting his sketch book for Mike’. God, I felt such a fool. I could only hope Mike found him before I had to ring the police and report him missing, and spare us a whole round of form filling and interventions and, worst of all, the admission that we’d failed.

It was a full half hour, the minutes inching onwards painfully slowly, before Mike returned. Unhappily, however, he was alone.

‘Call the EDT, Casey,’ he said. ‘I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, but if he’s hiding it’s pointless. He won’t show himself until he’s ready to be found, will he?’

The EDT – or Emergency Duty Team – are a 24-hour on-call service, dedicated to social services. They are the first port of call in situations like this. They would provide us with back-up and advice and, most importantly, log the incident so that there was a permanent record on file of what had happened – something that was particularly important in cases of violence or harm, or a child reporting something untrue. I ran to the locked cabinet where I kept my fostering log book and Spencer’s details, knowing from experience that they would ask me endless questions. It made sense to have the answers on hand.

Some minutes passed before the call with the EDT came to an end. They’d wanted a physical description, obviously, plus Spencer’s home address. They also wanted any information I could give them about other people and addresses that might potentially help them track him down. That done, they then told me to call the police, so the whole process had to be repeated again.

‘So what did they say?’ Mike asked as I put the phone down for the second time. He passed me a mug of coffee.

‘Thanks, love. That they’re sending someone to us now, plus it’ll have gone out to the patrol officers. With any luck, there’ll be some looking for him right now.’

Mike shook his head. ‘Little tyke,’ he said, taking up my former position at the window. ‘I hope this isn’t going to be a regular occurrence.’

I went and joined him. His jaw was set and his face was pale with worry. ‘He’ll be okay, love,’ I said, sliding an arm around his waist. ‘Like you said, he’s probably hiding. He’ll show himself eventually. He won’t want to be out long in this cold. He’s just trying to teach us a lesson, isn’t he? That he can beat the system. Get one up on us …’

‘Exactly!’ he said with feeling. ‘And where does that leave us? What leverage do we have to help change his behaviour if he has the means to flout the rules whenever he doesn’t like them?’

‘Plenty,’ I said. ‘If he wants to play hardball then so will we. We must. While he’s still young enough to have his behaviour modified.’

‘In theory,’ said Mike, peering into the blackness.

It was another two hours before there was a knock on the front door. Two hours in which we’d done nothing productive bar drink more mugs of coffee and fail to find something to distract us. This wasn’t one of our own kids, but it didn’t matter: we were in loco parentis, and our charge – the child who social services had entrusted to our safekeeping – had run away, which wasn’t a nice feeling. Didn’t matter how much we’d be reassured that there was nothing we could have done to stop him (which we would be) – if something happened to that little boy I would never forgive myself.

We flew to the door together, to see a policeman-shaped shadow behind the glass, and, to my immense relief, an eight-year-old-boy shape as well.

‘Spencer!’ I cried out as soon as I saw him. He was indeed in just his pyjamas and slippers. ‘Oh, Spencer. God, you must be freezing! Come on, come in.’

Spencer’s expression was forlorn, and the policeman looked stern. I got the impression that a dressing down had already been delivered. The first one, anyway. It wasn’t going to be the last. But for the moment all I cared about was that he was back safely with us. Even though, as it turned out, it was by chance.

‘I was on my way here to take your statement,’ the policeman explained as I herded everyone into the warmth of the living room, ‘when I saw this young man sitting on a wall at the top of your street.’

I saw Mike’s jaw drop. ‘You’d been sitting there all this time?’ he asked Spencer. ‘But I –’

‘He was in a wheelie bin,’ the policeman said, ‘two doors up from here, hiding out. Till he got too cold. Been sitting there for, what, half an hour?’

Spencer mumbled confirmation.

‘But why didn’t you just come home, lad?’ Mike asked. Spencer simply hung his head.

‘A hot drink,’ I said. ‘That’s what you need. Constable? Spencer?’

Now Spencer did look up, though he couldn’t quite look me in the eye. ‘Yes, please,’ he said meekly. ‘An’ I’m sorry,’ he proffered also.

I nodded, but stopped myself from saying ‘That’s okay’, because it wasn’t. He needed to know that actions had consequences, that they couldn’t be cancelled out just by trotting out apologies. They had their place, of course, but they needed to be accompanied by actions. This child must not see me and Mike as soft touches.

The policeman declined a drink, saying that things wouldn’t take too long now, and by the time I’d made Spencer’s, Mike was showing him out. No need for lengthy statements when the incident’s already over, after all.

‘Come on, you,’ I said to Spencer, after I’d been into the hall and thanked the constable. ‘Into the kitchen for this hot chocolate. I’ve made you some toast as well.’

He followed me in and sat up at the table where I directed, then wound his fingers around his special mug.

‘Can I still go out on Saturday?’ he asked quietly, after taking a sip from it.

I looked at him, amazed. Boy, did we have a way to go. ‘I’m sorry, love, but no. Of course you can’t, not after this. What you’ve done tonight will add at least a few more days to your grounding.’ He looked as if I’d just told him the sky had fallen in. ‘Spencer, love, you can’t just do as you please, you know. The adults make the rules and you – as the child – have to accept that.’

‘Casey’s right, lad,’ Mike agreed, coming into the kitchen to join us. ‘Rules are there for a reason. Most of the time they are there to keep you safe.’ He turned to me. ‘Grab Spencer’s points sheet, will you, Casey? Then we can look at how he stands as far as today goes.’

I reached for the sheet and joined the two of them at the table, while Mike quietly went through the points and rewards with Spencer, urging him to work out how they balanced by himself.

‘So I won’t get any polite and respect points today, then?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘Obviously not.’

‘An’ I don’t suppose I’ll be getting my “bed on time” points either?’ We all looked at the clock then. It was way past 9 p.m.

‘Obviously not,’ I said again. I pointed to the chart. ‘So you see, you couldn’t afford to buy “peer time” in any case. Even without being grounded. You won’t have earned sufficient points.’

For some reason, this seemed to make Spencer a little happier. He smiled. ‘So I can’t afford it,’ he said.

Mike nodded. ‘Exactly.’

I watched Spencer’s expression changing and suddenly got a sense of what was happening here. He didn’t mind because he felt this was something he controlled. He couldn’t go out, not because we’d grounded him, but because he hadn’t earned sufficient points. This obviously made it feel acceptable. I smiled to myself. At last I had an inkling of what made this little boy tick.

He picked his toast up. ‘Okay,’ he said cheerfully.

The weekend came and went without further drama or abscondings, and Spencer spent much of it engaged in productive endeavours like painting pictures and building Lego models. And he was delightful to have around, being both polite and helpful. He helped Mike to wash his car, and also really seemed to enjoy gardening. He spent three hours with us out in the back garden on the Sunday, ‘shutting it down’ for the coming winter. And he seemed to delight, like any little boy, in getting plastered in mud, as he enthusiastically unearthed an assortment of bugs and spiders, as he helped pull up the last of the straggly weeds.

But the kids who came to us didn’t do so because they were impeccable little angels, so it was perhaps silly of me to have been lulled into a false sense of security. But I clearly had, as I found out the following Tuesday. In fact, I was brought down to earth with quite a bang.

It was an ordinary sort of Tuesday, so after dropping Spencer off at school I’d decided that once I’d done a bit of housework I’d pop into town. I had to go to the bank, and I also thought I’d take the opportunity to nip into my favourite children’s shop, which was nearby. I was just setting off there when a car pulled up outside. It was Kieron and Lauren, wanting to come and use my internet.

‘We’ll come back later,’ they said, seeing as I was obviously going out.

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. It was good to see them any time, of course, and, what with Spencer coming, it felt like we’d not seen enough of them lately, so I didn’t want to send them packing the very minute they arrived. Far from it. ‘Come in,’ I said. ‘You can do what you want to do, and then make us all some lunch for when I’m back. And then we can all have a proper catch-up.’

Happily they agreed to my cheeky request, and I trotted off, my day already lifted.

It was Levi’s third birthday in November, just a few weeks away now, and my main aim while I was out was to pick him up some presents, so after I’d done my banking I had a lovely half hour choosing the sort of gorgeous little clothes for him – funky jeans and tiny chinos – that Riley wouldn’t dream of splurging so extravagantly on herself. I wouldn’t myself normally, but I was actually feeling a bit flush at the moment, having recently kicked my longstanding smoking habit, with the little ones being my main motivation.

With that in mind, I also popped into the chemist’s and picked up some more herbal cigarettes; they were pretty foul but so far I’d managed to stay on board the wagon, so it was in a jaunty mood that I finally arrived home.

But it seemed Kieron and Lauren’s was less so.

‘Get the kettle on!’ I shouted as I came in through the front door, only to have Lauren pop her head out from around the kitchen door frame, her index finger held against her lips.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Kieron’s on the phone to school,’ she whispered.

‘To what school?’ I asked, confused.

‘To Spencer’s school,’ she explained, as I followed her into the living room, where Kieron was just now hanging up. His face was a picture of anguish.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ I asked, fearing something dreadful had happened. Had Spencer run away again? Had some harm come to him? What?

Kieron shook his head sadly. ‘You know your chain?’ he started. ‘Your one with the gold musical note, that Dad bought you?’ I nodded. ‘Well, they called to say Spencer’s teacher has just found it in his tray – his tray at school. And seven pounds, as well.’ He looked vexed now. ‘Mum, where would he get seven pounds from?’

‘My chain?’ I parroted back at him, as I began to take it in.

Now Kieron’s expression changed. ‘Mum, it’s not rocket science. He’s obviously stolen it from you, hasn’t he? And the money. He must have decided to start hiding the things he steals there instead. They’re going to give them back to you when you go and collect him. Mum,’ he persisted, clearly upset, ‘why is he doing this?’

‘I don’t know, love,’ I said, putting my shopping bags down finally. ‘Because he can, I suppose. Because he just can’t help himself. Because he’s troubled. There’s always a reason, deep down.’

‘No, Mum,’ Kieron said, ‘there is no reason to steal. None at all. It’s just horrible. Why does he do it?’

There was no answer I could give him that he could accept, and that was that. I felt for my son and understood how hard he found all this. He was a grown man now but, with his Asperger’s, there was so much that still confused him. As well as hating change – which had always distressed him, since he was tiny – he found it genuinely emotionally difficult to process ‘bad’ and aberrant behaviours. Which our foster kids, unfortunately, tended to display in spade loads.

I saw Lauren slip her hand into his and squeeze it to reassure him. I worried about Kieron constantly – what mother wouldn’t? – but his girlfriend was a godsend. I wasn’t really religious but it seemed some deity must have had a hand in bringing someone to us who was so uniquely capable of understanding and coping with all the idiosyncrasies that made Kieron Kieron.

And he’d blossomed so much since they’d been together. They’d met at college and since then he’d really found himself a focus. Though he loved music and was still a keen amateur DJ, he’d now taken a part-time job in the café my sister owned, supporting himself while he trained for his chosen career as a youth worker. He’d really thrown himself into this, and was now shadowing a senior youth worker, and was also volunteering at a local youth club, where he was currently starting up a football team.

But seeing him now, I really worried about his choice of career. I had spent a long time pointing out to him that some of the children he’d come across in work would have problems, some as severe as the children we fostered, and he kept repeating that he was just fine with that. But he obviously wasn’t. I could see that so clearly. Spencer’s stealing had really upset him, and I hated to think he was embarking on work that had the capacity to make him so distressed.

‘Love, don’t worry,’ I said now. ‘I will deal with it. What you need to get your head around is that Spencer’s lacked rules all his life. He’s never had boundaries, which is why he doesn’t understand them. But trust me, love, by the time he leaves us he’ll be a completely different child.’

Kieron, I could see, was now relaxing a little. ‘I hope so,’ he said, ‘because I can’t be doing with stealing, Mum. Mucking about’s one thing. But stealing’s so bad.’

‘Stop worrying,’ Lauren said, putting her arm around him now. ‘You know your mum – she’ll soon lick him into shape, just like she always does. By the time she’s done with him, you wait, he’ll be a proper little angel.’

‘He’s more like a little devil at the moment,’ Kieron huffed. ‘An Oliver Twist.’

I shook my head. ‘You mean Artful Dodger, don’t you? I already thought that.’

‘Well, whatever,’ said Lauren. ‘But not for much longer.’

I laughed with them, of course, but I wasn’t sure I shared Lauren’s confidence. I mentally rolled my sleeves up. I’d just have to hope she was right.