I have to have the sound on low because Mum is asleep on the mattress, and she gets angry if I wake her. Then I sit on the floor and eat me toast. I get toast and biscuits whenever I want.’
What a morning routine, I thought! I could picture Aimee waking in the morning beside her mother on the filthy mattress on the floor, then slipping out so she didn’t wake her mother, and making toast from rotting bread, which she ate dry because there was nothing to put on it. Compare Aimee, I thought, with a child from a good home. A chasm of neglect lay between them.
I made Aimee another slice of toast and gave it to her dry with the glass of water she’d asked for, but I knew I should start introducing new foods into her diet as soon as possible. She was pale, her skin was dull and her movements were lethargic, which made me suspect she might be mineral and vitamin deficient. All children who come into foster care have a medical and I would raise my concerns with the paediatrician when we saw her, and while I couldn’t give Aimee a vitamin supplement without the doctor’s or her parents’ consent, I could improve her diet.
Paula and Lucy came down to breakfast as Aimee finished eating hers.
‘Feeling better?’ Lucy asked, taking a bowl for her cereal from the cupboard.
‘No,’ Aimee scowled.
‘What’s the matter?’ Paula asked, joining Aimee at the table.
Aimee looked at the girls for a moment, then at me, and her face crumpled. ‘I want me mum,’ she cried, and burst into tears.
‘Oh, love,’ I said, immediately going to her. ‘Please don’t upset yourself. You’ll see her soon.’ I went to put my arms around her, wanting to hold and comfort her, but she drew back, so I settled for laying my hand on her arm and standing close to her.
I saw Paula’s eyes mist as Aimee sat at the table with her head in her hands and cried. ‘I want me mum. Please take me to my mum.’ For like most children, no matter how bad it has been at home, Aimee missed her mother, with whom she’d been all her life.
‘You’ll see her tonight,’ I reassured her, ‘straight after school.’
‘Don’t cry,’ Paula said, her voice faltering. ‘We’ll look after you.’
‘Better than your mother did,’ Lucy added under her breath. I frowned at her, warning her not to say any more.
‘Why can’t I see me mum now?’ Aimee asked, raising her tear-stained face. She looked so sad.
‘Because your social worker has arranged for you to see your mum tonight,’ I said. ‘And we have to do what your social worker says.’
‘Me mum didn’t do what the social worker said,’ Aimee said, oblivious to the fact that had she it would have probably helped them both.
‘I know it’s difficult to begin with,’ Lucy said, going round to stand at the other side of Aimee. ‘But it will get easier, I promise you. And doesn’t your hair feel better already? No more itchy-coos.’ Lucy lightly tickled the back of Aimee’s neck, which made Aimee laugh.
‘Good girl, let’s wipe your eyes,’ I said. I fetched a tissue from the box and went to wipe Aimee’s eyes, but she snatched the tissue from my hand and wiped them herself. Children who have been badly neglected are often very self-sufficient; they’ve had to be in order to survive.
I called goodbye to Paula and Lucy, and Aimee and I left for school at 8.00 a.m. as planned. This would allow half an hour to drive through the traffic so that we arrived at school – on the opposite side of the town – well before the start of the school day at 8.50. This morning I wanted to go into school before the other children so that I could introduce myself at reception and, I hoped, meet Aimee’s teacher or the member of staff responsible for looked-after children. All schools in England now have a designated teacher (DT) who is responsible in school for any child in care. The child is taught as normal in class but the designated teacher keeps an eye on the child, attends meetings connected with the child, and is the first point of contact for the social services, foster carer, child’s natural parents and professionals connected with the case.
As I helped Aimee into the child seat in the rear of my car she asked why she had to sit in this seat and I explained it was so that the seatbelt could be fastened securely across her to keep her safe. She had no idea how to put on the seatbelt and I showed her what to do, how to fasten it, and then I checked it was secure. I closed the car door, which was child-locked and therefore couldn’t be opened from the inside, and climbed into the driver’s seat. I started the engine and reversed off the drive. As I drove, Aimee asked many questions about the car and how I drove it, as though being in a car was a new experience for her, so that eventually I asked: ‘Aimee, have you ever been in car before?’
‘Only with the social workers yesterday,’ she said. ‘But it was dark and I couldn’t see what was happening. Mum and Dad use buses.’ Which was another indication of just how disadvantaged Aimee’s background had been. For a child in a developed country to have reached the age of eight without regularly riding in a car was incredible; I’d never come across it before. Even if a child’s parents didn’t own a car (not uncommon for children in care) the child had usually been a passenger in the car of a relative or friend’s parents; usually someone the child knew owned a car. But I believed Aimee when she said her first experience of riding in a car had been the day before, for her curiosity and questions about my car and driving it seemed to confirm this and were unstoppable: ‘What’s that blue light for?’ ‘Why’s that number moving?’ ‘Why you holding that stick?’ ‘I can hear a clicking!’ ‘There’s an orange light flashing!’ And so on and so on.
Although I was happy to answer Aimee’s questions, I soon began finding her constant dialogue very distracting while I was trying to drive through the traffic. A few minutes later I asked her to sit quietly and save her questions for when I’d stopped, as I needed to concentrate on driving. She did briefly and then began a running commentary on what was happening outside her window: ‘There’s a man with a big dog.’ ‘That girl’s going to school.’ ‘I saw a bird, Cathy!’ ‘Look at that lady’s hair! Cathy! Look! Look!’
‘I can’t look, love,’ I said more firmly. ‘I’m driving. I have to concentrate on driving or we’ll have an accident. Let’s listen to some music.’ I switched on the CD player, which still contained a CD of popular children’s songs and nursery rhymes from the last child I’d looked after. Aimee listened and then I said, ‘I expect you know most of these nursery rhymes?’
‘No,’ Aimee replied.
So I guessed Aimee’s parents hadn’t recited, sung or read nursery rhymes to her as a child, although I thought she would have seen them in children’s programmes on television.
‘Your mum and dad had a television, didn’t they?’ I said, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
‘Yeah, a great big telly,’ Aimee said. ‘A lot bigger than yours.’
‘Didn’t you watch children’s programmes like CBeebies?’
‘Na, they’re silly,’ Aimee sneered.
‘What did you watch, then?’ I asked, half anticipating her reply would include a list of adult programmes.
‘Me and me mum watched EastEnders and horror films,’ Aimee said. ‘There was one about a woman who got chopped up with a big axe. First the man chopped off her arms and all blood spurted out of her shoulders, but she kept on walking ’cos she was a zombie. Then the man stabbed her in the face so her eyes came out, then he chopped off her head and it rolled on the floor and there was all blood spurting out of her neck and you could see her brain on the floor and –’
‘All right, Aimee, that’s