I could still hear Mike chuckling to himself as I put down the phone.
I was on the phone to John only minutes later, pausing only to have a sneaky cigarette in my conservatory (I was obviously banned from the rest of the house, particularly now we had our little grandson around). Suddenly the garden looked very different to how it had. I forgot about the cold and instead mused on how pretty the apple tree looked, covered in white frosting. I finished the ciggie – I really must give up soon, I told myself – and went back inside to fish out John’s number.
He sounded very pleased to have heard from me. ‘Yes, it’s a girl,’ he confirmed, ‘and a real girlie girl too, so I thought she’d be right up your street.’
‘She sounds good already,’ I said. ‘So. What’s the situation? What’s her background and what sort of problems does she have?’
I was hoping for something quite detailed about her, as Justin, our last child, had come with very little known background, and we’d learned the hard way about how being forewarned is forearmed. With him we’d been anything but. However, John was quick to fill me in and reassure me. ‘That’s the thing, actually,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to have to follow the programme with this one. It’s only short term.’
That seemed odd. Our kind of fostering was all about behaviour modification, to help re-integrate kids back into the mainstream, so we’d been trained to use a specific, points-based programme with the kids we cared for.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How come?’
‘Because she’s already been placed long term with a mainstream foster carer.’
‘Oh, I see. But?’
‘But she – the carer, that is – has had some sort of mental breakdown, and needs to take extended sick leave for a few weeks.’
‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘Was it related?’
‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Not that I’m aware of. She wants the child – her name’s Sophia, by the way – to return to her when she’s better.’
‘So she’s fine, then –’
‘Apparently, though I’m told she does have medical problems of her own. But I can’t tell you what they are because I don’t know myself. I did meet Sophia but I was told not to bring up anything medical – not in front of her, anyway, which meant I couldn’t get any proper facts. But I’ll find out more tomorrow and get back to you, okay? Perhaps I could come round and meet with you and Mike on Friday.’
It was around then that I had that niggling sixth sense kick in. Just the feeling that there might be something John was holding back. I tried to dismiss it, because there was really nothing I could put my finger on. But it was there.
And for very good reasons.
‘Another kid already?’ Kieron said as I went back into the living room to tell them, by now with Levi, who’d woken up, in my arms. Riley cooed and took him from me, talking baby talk at him. ‘Isn’t it a bit quick?’ Kieron added. ‘You know, after Justin?’
It’s easy to forget, when your children are grown up, that the things you do still have an impact on them. I’d been pretty low since Justin had gone, I knew, and I was touched to see the looks of concern on their faces. They glanced at one another now. ‘Kieron’s got a point,’ Riley said. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’
‘Definitely,’ I said, meaning it. ‘I’m kicking my heels here, aren’t I?’ Which was true. Before Mike and I had switched to fostering, I’d been running a unit for troubled children in a big comprehensive school. It wasn’t normal for me to have nothing to do but rattle round my house, even with my new grandmotherly duties. Then I paused. Perhaps I wasn’t seeing things clearly. ‘But how about you two? If you’re not up for it, I could always ask to put it off.’
‘Don’t be daft, Mum,’ said Kieron, obviously reassured by my determined manner. ‘Be good to have another kid in. And if it’s a girl, that’s even better. I won’t have to fight for my games console and footie games this time.’
‘And we’ll be able to do lots of girl stuff together,’ agreed Riley. ‘Baby stuff, clothes shopping, make-up and hair … how old is she?’
‘Twelve,’ I said. ‘And funny you should say that. John Fulshaw remarked that she was a very girlie girl.’
‘So she’s going to love Justin’s bedroom, then,’ Kieron said, laughing.
‘Isn’t it going a bit over the top to decorate the whole room again?’ Mike wanted to know, once he was home from work and we were headed down to the chippy. I’d been planning on cooking, but what with getting the house sorted out, plus all the excitement of knowing we were getting a new foster child, I’d been too excited. Plus I fancied fish and chips.
‘Oh, it won’t be that much work,’ I reassured him. ‘And Riley’ll help me, I’m sure.’
‘Would have been no work at all if you hadn’t gone so overboard doing it up in the first place,’ he chided. That was Mike all over. He was so much more sensible and down to earth than me. A proper thinker. We’d been married fifteen years and I’d lost count of the times when he’d sat me down and said, ‘Now let’s just think this through …’ And he was right. I had gone a bit overboard for Justin, taking my football theme to perhaps rather excessive levels, with green carpet, football borders and wallpaper, a football clock – I’d even painted footballs on the bookcase and dresser.
‘I’m sure she will,’ Mike agreed, ‘but look, love, are you definitely sure you’re ready?’
Him too now! Had I really been acting like a nut job just lately? Because he was looking at me in the same way as the kids had. Yes, I’d been down, but how could I not have been? Losing Justin had really saddened me, but we had been warned to expect that. It was a grieving process I had to go through, no more, no less. Not surprising when you have such an intense relationship with a child. But I was over it and keen to move on now. Justin would always be a part of our lives, but day to day I needed that new challenge.
‘I am ready!’ I said to Mike. ‘And I am going to start re-decorating right away. And just you make sure you book that time off on Friday, okay? Honestly, love, I am more than bloody ready.’
Which was just as well, because it looked like we needed to be.
‘It’s a sad story,’ John told us on the Friday morning. He’d arrived on the dot of eleven, as he’d promised, and come armed with a folder full of papers. I thought back to when he’d visited to tell us about our first placement, and how madly I’d rushed around the house, tidying and polishing. So much water had passed under the bridge since that time. John was very much like a friend now. So no big cleaning-fest; just three big mugs of coffee, as we gathered around the kitchen table to discuss the facts.
‘Sophia only came into care about a year and a half ago,’ he went on. ‘Prior to that she lived with her mother – no siblings – who had been bringing her up alone. One-night stand, far as I know. Certainly no father in the picture. And then a tragedy: the mother – name of Grace Johnson – had mental health problems, by all accounts, and had a near-fatal fall down the stairs when Sophia was 11, which was thought to have been a suicide attempt.’
‘Suicide?’ Mike asked. ‘That sounds grim.’
John nodded. ‘There was a difficult family situation, apparently. Compounded by Sophia’s illness. But I’ll tell you more about that in a mo.’ He consulted his notes, obviously scanning them for the important bits. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he said. ‘The mother went into a coma – didn’t die – from which she has never recovered. She’s been classed as being in a persistent vegetative state, from which they don’t expect her to recover. Very sad.’
We both nodded.
‘So