jumped off the sofa in an instant, skipping off to follow Jenny. Her skills at distraction were impressive and I felt grateful that a battle had been averted.
Jenny returned a few minutes later, having settled Phoebe at a wooden table on the patio, a large assortment of pens and crayons laid out in front of her. She had left the garden doors open just an inch, probably so that we could talk in private.
‘Here he is!’ she cried as a dark-haired little boy walked shyly into the room, a cuddly toy clutched in his hand. He made straight for Jenny, burying his face in her skirt before peering shyly at us from behind her legs.
‘Hello, Billy,’ I said, crouching to greet him. Rachel, with Katy in her arms, waved hello with her free hand.
Billy glanced up at Jenny several times, seeking reassurance. I could almost visualise the thoughts behind those questioning eyes. Were these adults to be trusted or were they like the ones he had known before? Three years old, Billy had been placed with Jenny five months earlier due to severe neglect. The change in him over that period was staggering. She smiled down at him.
‘You remember Rosie, don’t you, sweetie? And that’s Rachel,’ she murmured softly.
‘Wosie and Wakel,’ he lisped sweetly, daring a smile.
‘What have you got there, Billy?’ I asked. He glanced up at Jenny again. On another smile from her he walked over and rested a plump hand on my knee, lifting his cuddly toy until it was a few centimetres from my eyes.
‘Bunny,’ he said. ‘Jenny got him for me.’
I felt a moment’s tightening in my stomach, a longing for the all-encompassing, defining comfort that young children offer.
Jenny grinned, her expression doting. ‘Come on, Billy. Let’s introduce you to Phoebe and you can do some colouring with her.’ I felt a familiar prickle of anxiety as she took Billy’s hand and led him to the table, wondering whether Phoebe could be trusted to be in such close proximity with a little one. So I took a seat in one of the armchairs nearest the garden, close enough to leap up at the first sign of trouble.
While the kettle boiled, Jenny answered the door to Liz, a former primary school head teacher who had made the decision to give up the position she had worked hard to achieve so that she could focus on her ambition of improving the futures of under-privileged children by helping them achieve academically.
Jenny came in with a tray laden with tea, pastries and biscuits. As Rachel reached for her tea, I marvelled at how she found time to match her lipstick with her nail polish. Running my bitten fingernails through my own less than neat hair, I realised I could learn a few lessons from her.
‘So how’s it going?’ Liz murmured, lowering herself onto a bright pink beanbag next to the sofa.
‘Apart from the plate-throwing, kicking, swearing and self-harming, you mean?’ I answered wryly. ‘Couldn’t be better. How about you?’
Liz had recently taken on a 14-year-old girl who had worked her way through four carers in three months. I knew she was reluctant to give up on her but it was clear her extreme behaviour was taking its toll on the family.
Liz dragged her hands down her face and sighed. ‘I had to take her to A&E the other day. She came in around lunchtime, staggering around the house like she’d had a stroke. Her eyes were glazed over and she couldn’t formulate her words, not that she’s that coherent at the best of times. Anyway, doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong with her and gave her a CAT scan. Turns out the girl had inserted a tampon inside herself – soaked in gin.’
‘What?’ we exclaimed in horrified unison. ‘Why?’
Liz rolled her eyes. ‘New craze, apparently. The smell is undetectable that way and they can get away with consuming litres of the stuff, even at school.’
‘No!’ We stared at each other in amazement and I made a mental note to contact Ellie, the glamorous local authority tutor, so that she could add yet another shocker to her list of outrageous facts.
I found myself relaxing into the armchair, the adult contact reviving me. I loved our regular meet-ups. There was a camaraderie among us that reminded me of being back at school, each of us understanding the unique challenges that came with fostering. The gossip and scandal helped me feel less isolated, part of a team, but most valuable of all was the mutual support and kindness. Our backgrounds were quite different: Jenny was the middle-class one and probably the only carer in our group who could still afford to foster if there was no allowance available. Her husband ran some sort of internet trading company based in London, staying in the city and travelling back home for weekends. With both of her own children at university, I got the impression that Jenny would have been lonely, if not for the company of the children she fostered.
Liz had been drawn to fostering after working at an inner-city school where the catchment area took in several housing estates. She had often sent the most deprived children home with a few treats tucked into their book bag but for years had longed to take a more direct role in helping to improve their long-term prospects. Often she would come out with depressing statistics about how children fared once they left the care system, radiating frustration as she told us that 40 per cent of the prison population had spent time in care as children and almost one third of fostered children leave school with no qualifications. Her determination to make a difference was inspiring and I loved her company, but of all the foster carers I knew Rachel was the one I probably felt closest to.
In many ways we mirrored each other in our life experiences. Soon after the birth of her second child Rachel had moved with her husband to the US, returning six months later as a single parent. During one of our coffee mornings she had tearfully confided in me that, while she had found the move to an unfamiliar country difficult, her husband had embraced all that was American, reserving most enthusiasm, it seemed, for its female citizens.
Fostering gave Rachel the opportunity to gain the large, happy family she had always yearned for, as well as helping to distract her from her own angst by turning her focus outwards. The sense of achievement she gained from helping children was gradually boosting her battered self-esteem, but, like me, Rachel was one of those carers who found it difficult to let go and so, for her, fostering was a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
‘Have you heard how Tess and Harry are doing?’ Jenny asked. ‘Can’t be long now until you meet up with them, is it?’
Jenny must have noticed my crestfallen face because she quickly added, ‘Oh dear,’ before I’d even managed to nod my head or gather a response. The trauma of yesterday’s letter had settled into a background ache but still it was hard to ignore and there was a quaver in my voice as I spoke: ‘They’ve decided to make a clean break – I got a letter from the couple yesterday.’
They all listened, Rachel pressing her hands to her heart and shaking her head as my eyes filled up. ‘Ah, but they were so attached to you,’ she said, her dangly earrings trembling in a heartfelt way as if each bead was independently attuned to our conversation.
‘The inevitable happened, then?’ Jenny asked.
What I needed from Jenny and the others at that moment was indignation to match my own, so I took the remark badly.
‘It wasn’t inevitable,’ I said spikily. I wanted to dissect the new parents’ failure to keep their promises of staying in touch and was ready to welcome bitter remarks from all. The more vitriol the better, as far as I was concerned. I was thirsty for it, such was the mood I was in. ‘It didn’t have to be that way – I could have been auntie to them and …’
Jenny eyed me sceptically and teased: ‘You would never have taken a back seat, honey, not in a million years. The poor new mummy would have been constantly fending you off.’
I possessed enough self-awareness to recognise that Jenny’s remarks contained grains of truth. Probably it would have been difficult for me to stand back and not offer ‘helpful’ advice but that realisation made her comments prickle all the more.
‘Of course