his room as Phoebe tore along the hall, holding out his hands in a defensive action as she flapped her arms through the air. His look of horror told me that he realised exactly what she was covered in.
‘Sorry, Jamie,’ I muttered, charging past him and, with damage limitation at the forefront of my mind, followed Phoebe down the stairs.
‘Urgh, she is sooooo disgusting!’ Jamie, usually so mild-mannered, wailed angrily from upstairs. ‘Come and have a look at her room, Mum.’
Ignoring him, I followed Phoebe into the living room, desperate to catch her in case she nursed an intention of sprawling herself out on one of the sofas in all her self-decorated glory. There was no sign of her there so I quickly scanned the dining area, half-aware of Jamie’s bewildered shouts of disbelief floating down from upstairs. ‘Mum, really, you’ve got to come and see this. You won’t believe what she’s done in here.’
‘Eww-urgh!’ Another horrified shriek announced Emily’s emergence from her room. ‘Mum, what’s happened to my butterflies?’
Phoebe was crouched in the corner of the kitchen, her face full of fear. She held her dirty hands protectively in front of her.
Ten minutes later Phoebe sat in the bath with the door open while I gathered together every cleaning product in the house to spray, squirt and obliterate the smell permeating each room. Jamie hunkered down in his room with Emily. I was pleased that they had chosen to recover from their shock together. The pair had always shared a good relationship and it seemed that bad experiences brought them even closer. I could hear their urgent chatter drifting beneath the closed door, low tones interspersed with manic giggles.
As I scrubbed Phoebe’s soiled room, I was gripped by regular heaving fits: it wasn’t only the acrid smell – every time I set about cleaning a new area, the mess spread. What it really needed was a power hose.
Every few minutes I stopped what I was doing and peered around the bathroom door to make sure Phoebe wasn’t feasting on anything she shouldn’t. After the ‘Bubble Gate’ affair I had cleared the bathroom of anything that wasn’t nailed down but there was a chance I might have overlooked something. For all I knew, even the bath plug might be adequate fodder in her eyes.
The hollow gaps above her clavicles were so deep with undernourishment that the bath water pooled there as she sat up. Resolving to try and tempt her into eating with double chocolate pancakes for breakfast, I leaned into the bathroom and, with reluctant, pincered fingers, picked up her discarded pyjamas from the floor. Her soiled knickers were knotted up with the legs so I tried to separate the items, realising there was far more than one pair of pyjamas in the tangled heap. Unravelling the clothes, I pulled out four pairs of knickers and three sets of bottoms.
A dismal, draining feeling crept across my skin as the memory of another little girl I had cared for broke the surface of my thoughts. Four-year-old Freya came to stay soon after I first registered as a foster carer seven years earlier, along with her younger sister and baby brother. She had a habit of wearing all of her clothes in bed, one layer on top of another. It was her way of trying to keep herself safe, should anyone pay an unwelcome nightly visit to her room, as her father had done.
Feeling nauseous, I stared at Phoebe’s fragile back, trying not to let past experience colour my perception. Foster carers, like social workers, can be prone to jumping to conclusions and piling on layers of clothing was not necessarily an indication of abuse; it could simply be yet another manifestation of her condition. ‘Phoebe,’ I said gently, holding up the smelly clothing. ‘Why did you wear so many pairs of pyjamas to bed?’
She stared at me blankly, so I decided not to make an issue of it. Stuffing the clothes into a carrier bag, I dropped it onto the floor. ‘Do you mind if I give your hair a wash, Phoebe? I won’t do anything else, just your hair. Is that OK?’
‘NOOO!’ she howled. ‘I hate having my hair washed.’
‘Yes, I can see that. But you need to have it done.’
My tone made it clear that refusing was not an option. Surprisingly, she sat motionless as I lifted the shower head and dampened her hair down, running my fingers over the stubby ends. It really was frizzy, almost Afro-style in texture. I reached up and unlocked a cabinet fixed up high on the wall and retrieved the shampoo, squeezing a generous blob into my palms. After rinsing the suds away I smoothed in some conditioner, trying to massage it all the way through to her scalp. The tightness of her hair seemed to loosen so I lavished another handful through, rubbing it in with my fingertips.
Phoebe wriggled away, whimpering.
‘Keep still or you’ll get conditioner in your eyes,’ I said. As I massaged and rubbed her scalp, the texture softened beneath my fingers. Strangely, the tendrils seemed to be extending, like the hair of one of those dolls that Emily had years ago, where the style could be altered by winding a ponytail in and out of the head. It was then I realised her hair wasn’t as roughly chopped as I had first thought; it was actually matted.
‘Owwww!’ Phoebe began to howl.
‘It’s alright, you’re done now,’ I soothed. I wasn’t surprised she’d been moaning – it must have been very uncomfortable. There were still balls of matted hair clumped to her scalp and I was itching to sort them out but I decided to rinse her off and tackle it again next time. Leaving Phoebe to dry herself, I grabbed the bag of soiled clothes and went downstairs to prepare breakfast, wondering why on earth any mother would leave her daughter’s hair to get into such a bad state.
Phoebe managed to eat a few mouthfuls of porridge before clanking her spoon onto the table. Leaning forward to rest her elbows, she cupped her chin in her hands and watched the rest of us tuck into our chocolate pancakes with a look of sickly distaste on her face. She really seemed to derive no pleasure from eating, or anything else, come to think of it. Despite her middle-class background she looked malnourished, her cheeks the colour of frozen pastry and her eyes dull and lifeless. She had that look that children seem to get the day before a cold comes out, where their eyes just don’t seem right.
After clearing away the breakfast things I packed up my manicure set and hairdressing scissors and told Phoebe we were going to visit a friend of mine who needed some help. The friend was actually an ex-neighbour who was elderly and unable to get out and about as she once did. Apart from one son there was no one else to help her so I paid her a call once a week to give her hair a wash and tidy the house. Once or twice over the last couple of years I had made the suggestion that her son might consider running some of the errands himself but each time I broached the subject he shuddered, declaring old age made him nauseous.
Today Mary had requested a haircut and foot manicure, something I wasn’t looking forward to with any relish, but it was a relief to escape the gloomy confines of the house. Before we left I suggested that Phoebe choose a book to take with her and I was surprised to find what an interest she showed in selecting one. While she scanned our bookshelves there were no strange whirly arm movements or whooping noises; she just ran her fingers across the spines, pulling one out every now and again to examine the cover. I was also a bit taken aback by the one she finally settled on: Roald Dahl’s The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to manage it and was wondering whether she chose it for Quentin Blake’s colourful illustrations alone, when she read the blurb out loud, inflecting parts and showing real expression. Amazed, I chastised myself for jumping to conclusions and underestimating her.
With an interest in reading, I hoped that Phoebe would behave and let me get on with sorting Mary out. And I was grateful to find that she did. Apart from exclaiming when we first arrived that the house ‘stinks’ and that Mary’s toenails looked like ‘dirty old twigs’ she simply sat reading her book and looking up occasionally, watching us with interest. It was a joy to witness her animated face as she read. There were lots of smiles interspersed with gasps and sudden bouts of giggles. I made a mental note to take her to the library so that she could choose from a wider range of books.
Soon after we arrived back home I suggested a walk to the local shop. ‘You could have a look around and see if anything takes your fancy for lunch,’ I said, hopeful