I’d been at it for about half an hour when Justin suddenly reappeared in the kitchen, startling me, as I hadn’t heard him come down the stairs. He said nothing; just took up his place at the table once more. Taking his lead, I decided to say nothing either. I just smiled but he immediately turned his face away.
It seemed he was determined to get my attention, for all that, because he began tapping cutlery against the table top. Not for long though; he soon tired of that, and got up once again – coming over quite close beside me, at the worktop. Here he picked up the flat knife – the one I’d just used to crush the garlic cloves – and started running it up and down the worktop. He then put it down and went over to the cooker, where the frying pan of chicken was sizzling. Now he picked up the wooden spoon that was resting in the pan and began tapping it rhythmically against the side of it. The growing tension was once again almost palpable.
‘Can you stop doing that please, Justin?’ I asked him levelly. But he ignored me and simply carried on. I left it for a minute then asked him again. ‘Justin, can you please stop that?’ I repeated, this time more firmly. But once again he carried on regardless.
I was well aware something was building again, but was entirely unprepared for what happened next. Even before I could properly see what was happening, Justin suddenly lunged for my knife block, grabbed a knife out of it, then leapt up, in a single bound, onto the worktop.
Both astonished at his agility – so much for his apparent lack of athleticism – and also terrified, as he was now towering over me, I watched horrified as he brandished it, his face set in that scary rictus mask again, screaming obscenities at me and becoming more and more incoherent, as the words tumbled out – he hated me, he was going to stab me, I was a fucking crap mother. But when he yelled that I preferred the dog to him, it really brought me up short – we didn’t own one – and I realised he was talking as if he was confusing me with his mother. I wasn’t even sure he was fully compos mentis at that moment, and I knew I had to think fast, and on my feet.
‘Put the knife down,’ I said firmly. ‘Justin, just put the knife down.’ But he was almost blue in the face now, and I could see he wasn’t hearing me. He had completely zoned out and gone to that other place. It was then, in a flash, that I had an idea. One that definitely wasn’t by the book. Not any foster-carer’s handbook I’d ever seen, anyway.
Having considered two things – that Justin had picked up the smallest knife in the block, and also his great love of films, and one film in particular – I lunged myself for the biggest one, which I whipped from its slot and brandished every bit as menacingly as he had.
Then, in my very best Australian accent, I said, ‘Call that a knife? That’s not a knife. This is a knife!’ And then paused, my breath held waiting for his response.
He just stared, now stock still, looking incredulously at me, then, to my mingled shock and immense relief, he burst out laughing.
Astonished almost as much as I had been thirty seconds earlier, there was a second or two when I had no idea how I should react, and then it came to me; I smiled, and then I laughed along with him. ‘Now get down from there, you little madhead!’ I admonished, still grinning. ‘And put your pathetic excuse for a knife back as well!’
Incredibly, he did both things without a murmur.
I still felt shaky, and also slightly stunned by what had happened. Who’d have thought I’d end up diffusing a dangerous situation by using a line out of Crocodile Dundee?
We did manage to talk about what happened, in the end. Seizing the initiative – and what felt like at least a version of the upper hand – I then changed my mind and suggested he might like to help me, and put the knife to better (and slightly less terrifying) use by chopping some tomatoes and cucumber for a salad. After all, I pointed out, if he loved food so much, it made sense for him learn how to feed himself properly. I even pointed out, remembering Mike’s words about Justin’s view of ‘women’s work’, that some of the best chefs in the world had started out by helping in the kitchen, just like this. And as we worked, and I felt it safe to broach it again, I talked about the different jobs that people had to do: some people were chefs, other people were policemen, and some people – me and Mike being a good example – had decided to make their job one of helping children. Children like him who had had bad things happen, and who needed lots of love and care to help them feel better about things.
I explained again about the reality of my situation; that as his carer, I worked with other people, and had rules I had agreed to, and one of those rules was that I mustn’t keep secrets. Just like chefs had to obey all sorts of rules about hygiene in the kitchen, so that the people who ate their food didn’t get sick, so I had to follow the rules I had been given. Which weren’t put there to hurt him – absolutely the opposite. I had people who were there to support us – us and him – but who could only do so if I told them the truth. Which meant I had no choice – none at all – but to do as I had done.
He seemed to digest all this, nodding at intervals as he stood and chopped beside me, and I felt so much happier that he’d taken it on board now. Even so, I wasn’t stupid, and knew he still felt hurt and betrayed. You could be given all the explanations in the world, after all, but you couldn’t just conveniently switch your feelings off, could you?
‘And there’s nothing you can do about it,’ Mike reminded me that night, as once again I lay in bed, fretting. ‘All you can do is to keep doing what you’re doing, love. You’ve made progress. He’ll get over this blip. You’ll keep making progress.’
‘You think so?’ I really hoped so, but I wasn’t convinced. Maybe it was just too late for Justin.
‘I know so,’ Mike said. ‘Look, love. Try to look at it this way. The fact that he felt betrayed – and he will get past that, I honestly do believe that – is precisely because he’s made progress. It’s precisely because he’s bonded with you; with all of us, with the family, that this – well, this reality check, if you like – has hit him so hard. Must be bloody hard, when you think about it, having your life dictated by a bunch of adults who keep turning up and interfering in your business. I don’t know …’ Mike shrugged. ‘But maybe he’d forgotten about all of that, you know, having got so settled in here. Which he has. He really has.’
‘Yeah, and then he gets grassed up. By me.’
‘Tsk! Listen to you! Case, come on, I mean it. You’ve got to stop this!’ He reached an arm out and put it around my shoulder, then pulled me close and hugged me. ‘You’re doing great. You’re a great mum and a brilliant foster mum, too. It’ll come right. I promise. It really will.’
I knew Mike talked sense – he always did – that was why I loved him. But it was dispiriting, even so, to see the change now in Justin. Within a day, all the stuff he’d got out and started leaving around his bedroom – books, toys, computer games, the football rug, a couple of the puzzles – had once again been banished to the back of the cupboard, and the blue throw had been reinstated over the bookcase. Once again, the room looked just like a prison cell. Except, if anything, even more spartan.
This time, though, I noticed something else as well. I had nipped in to pick up the laundry a couple of days later and noticed that his TV had been left on. I picked up the remote to turn it off and realised that the cartoon that was playing was in black and white. Thinking that the TV was broken, I called Mike to take a look. ‘No,’ Mike said, taking the remote from me and pointing it. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. Look.’ He pressed a button and the colour returned. ‘See? You just have to put the colour back on with the remote.’ He handed it back to me. ‘He’s done it before.’
‘What, made the television black and white?’
Mike nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve been in before and seen he’s done it.’
‘But why would he do that?’
Mike shrugged. ‘Search me. But then he does do a lot of odd things, doesn’t he?’
I