Читать книгу Moving Fostering Memoirs 2-Book Collection - Casey Watson, Casey Watson - Страница 21

It was with a renewed sense of enthusiasm that I woke the next morning, surprised to find that Phoebe was still quiet in her room, despite the time. She was usually the first awake and yet it was 6.45am and there was still no sign of her. I was halfway across the kitchen with a full kettle in my hand when a lurching sensation in my stomach stopped me in my tracks.

Instinct drew me back up the stairs. A memory of the recent bloody scene following her self-harming incident advanced my rising panic and I charged into the room without bothering to knock. My breathing gradually returned within safe limits as I scanned the room. There was no horrific smell or bloody sights and Phoebe lay serenely beneath her duvet, although she didn’t look too well. Pale and sickly I can cope with, I thought, before an uncomfortable twist in my stomach nudged another possibility to the forefront of my mind.

‘Phoebe, have you eaten something you shouldn’t, honey?’

Her eyes were wide with hesitancy as she stared back at me, shaking her head.

‘You won’t be in trouble,’ I said, crouching beside her bed in an unconscious gesture of supplication. If she were to trust me enough to tell me what she’d done, she had to understand that I wasn’t going to be angry with her. ‘But I need to know, now. You really don’t look too well.’

She began to cry. ‘I’ve got a tummy ache,’ she croaked in a sickly voice.

Manoeuvring my way through the piles of half-opened presents still spread across the floor, I threw open the curtains and knelt back beside her bed, crouching to get a better look at her. ‘You must tell me what you’ve eaten,’ I said calmly, sunlight highlighting the paleness of her skin.

With effort she propped herself up on one elbow, wincing and clamping a hand to her stomach. She looked about ready to throw up but I didn’t want to encourage that until I found out what it was that lay in her stomach. If it was a harsh substance it might burn her throat on the way back up. ‘Phoebe, tell me,’ I demanded, furious that she’d tried to hurt herself again.

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. There was a long hesitation before she finally lifted her free hand and pointed under the bed. Down on all fours, I lowered my head to the carpet and gasped. The space between the floor and the slats of her bed was littered with all sorts of containers. Craning my neck, I stuck my arm in as far as it would go and in a long fanning motion I swept them out so they were spread out on the floor in front of me.

Colour burned my cheeks as I took in the sight. There must have been almost 20 bottles of various shapes and sizes there, some full, others almost empty. ‘Which one was it?’ I asked, no longer able to disguise the urgency in my tone. ‘Tell me!’

Leaning over, she pointed to a half-empty bottle of shampoo.

I snatched it up. ‘This one?’

She nodded as tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘How much did you drink?’

Her eyes widened but she didn’t answer, instead throwing back the duvet and rushing to the toilet. She threw up almost constantly for 10 minutes solid, while I perched on the edge of the bath, rubbing her back and offering her sips of water. Every now and then she rested her head on the toilet seat in exhaustion and the anger I had felt towards her transferred to myself.

How could I have let the peace of the last day or so lull me into a false sense of security? And how on earth did she get hold of such a stash of products when I’d locked everything away from her? Then, with a fresh wave of anger at myself, I realised that she must have searched through the bags of presents from her parents and taken them from there. How stupid of me not to check through the contents before leaving them in her room.

Guilt and anxiety rivalled for my attention as I plucked a few sheets of tissue from the roll and offered them to a trembling Phoebe.

The staff at our GP surgery had always wholeheartedly supported me in my role as a foster carer and that day was no different. As soon as I explained what had happened they told me to bring Phoebe straightaway to the surgery, promising to squeeze her into their already-full schedule of patients.

After dropping Emily and Jamie at school I wrapped Phoebe in a warm coat and walked her around the corner to the surgery, supporting her as she shuffled along the pavement. It occurred to me that anyone behind us might have mistaken me for the carer of a frail old lady, the way her feet were dragging so lethargically. Inside the surgery I thanked the receptionist, who smiled kindly, before dropping her jaw in astonishment. ‘No, don’t do that, dear,’ she said, alarmed. Whipping around, I saw that Phoebe had ducked her head under the antibacterial alcohol gel that was fixed to the wall, licking at the dispensing spout with outstretched tongue.

‘Phoebe,’ I groaned. How could she possibly contemplate adding to the concoction already swirling in her stomach? I anguished as I pulled her away.

‘I need it,’ she said as I pulled her away to the waiting room. She spoke with desperation, her tone salvaging something in my mind that I had stored away without fully considering. Lenke was wrong when she said that Phoebe ate things that weren’t food; she hadn’t eaten anything inedible since she came to me. She had only drank, I realised, with a rush of blood to my ears. My mind stuttered as I tried to follow what the pitching sensation in my stomach was prompting. Phoebe had ingested soap, shampoo, shower gel and now liquid alcohol gel.

I’d been so busy thinking about the signs and symptoms of autism that perhaps I’d missed what was staring me in the face. Did she feel dirty? I wondered, watching as she sank heavily into one of the hard-backed chairs and pulled her legs up towards her stomach. Could it be that the poor child was trying to cleanse herself from the inside out?

Any further revelations were forestalled by the appearance of her name on a flashing screen above our heads.

Doctor Kenwick was old school and thorough, hence his surgery always ran at least an hour behind his other, younger colleagues’, so I was grateful that the receptionist had decided to allow us to jump the queue. ‘What can I do for you today, young lady?’ the doctor asked, peering over the top of his spectacles. He was so overweight that his stomach protruded over his belt and the buttons of his shirt appeared dangerously close to popping open, but the cheeriness of his expression more than made up for it, his deep jowls moving independently of each other as he smiled at his new patient.

‘What can I do for you today, young lady?’ Phoebe repeated, causing his smile to rapidly vanish.

‘I’m sorry, doctor,’ I said, marvelling that in spite of her delicate condition, she was still capable of mimicking strangers. ‘Phoebe drank some shampoo during the night and now she has a bad tummy ache,’ I said, producing the bottle from my bag. ‘She’s been sick several times this morning. We’re not sure what time you drank it, are we?’ I looked at her but she was in that other world of hers, flapping and rolling her eyes. ‘Autism,’ I said under my breath, raising my eyebrows and inclining my head towards her. I couldn’t help but register the look of disgust Phoebe gave me when I said it.