This was a fair point. The older the child was, the more ingrained their behaviours tended to be, and since older kids invariably came with more emotional baggage too (particularly if they’d spent a long time in care) it was a more complex business all round. Spencer was different. He’d only just come into the care system, so John’s thinking would hopefully turn out to be sound. And yet, for all that, he had still been cast as an outsider – by everyone around him, by all accounts. He was so young but had already been disowned by his parents, had a history of petty offences and was a pupil at a special school. How had this young boy managed to get to this place, when the rest of his family were essentially so sound? It didn’t stack up. Quite where was this monstrous child? There must be a lot more going on here than I could see.
We spent another 15 minutes or so going through the rest of the paperwork, and throwing around a few ideas about how to tailor the programme to suit Spencer, then Glenn called him down to say his goodbyes. He looked no less anxious as he came down the stairs to say farewell, and it was clear that even in the short time they’d been acquainted they seemed to have quite a rapport. This was a bonus, as our paths would cross often during this process, and it helped enormously if Mike and I had a rapport with him too.
And there was plenty to like. In his late 20s, I estimated, Glenn seemed both positive and enthusiastic, two qualities that a career in social services could often extinguish all too quickly. You saw too much that you wished you hadn’t, had to make too many difficult decisions and worked in a sector that could often be thankless; damned if you took a child away, and damned if you didn’t. Spencer was fortunate, I thought, to have Glenn on side. And though professional in approach, he also looked approachable. With his jeans and his shades and his cool designer T-shirts, he was the sort of character that kids wouldn’t be intimidated by, which would help them open up to him, which mattered.
And it wasn’t just Glenn who had an eye for designer kit. When I went upstairs with Spencer to help him with his unpacking, the first things I saw were five pairs of expensive-looking trainers, all pristine and laid in a neat row against the wall.
‘Wow, I said. ‘Look at these. You certainly like your trainers, don’t you?’
Spencer nodded. ‘I love ’em. But I only wear this make, because this make’s the coolest.’ He looked at me anxiously, then. ‘Mrs Watson?’
‘It’s Casey, love. Casey and Mike, I told you.’
‘Erm, Casey?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You know you mustn’t put them in the washing machine don’t you? Or they’ll get ruined.’
I grinned. ‘Message received and understood. And don’t worry, love. My son Kieron – you’ll meet him in the next day or two – he’s pretty pernickety about his stuff, as well, so I’ve had lots of practice.’
He looked relieved at this. ‘Glenn said you had other kids. Does he live here?’
I shook my head as I began helping him unpack his clothes, all of which, unusually, were good quality. ‘Both my children are grown-up now,’ I explained, ‘though they live nearby. One of them – my daughter Riley, who you’ll meet too – even has two little ones of her own. Just a little younger …’ I caught the words before they had a chance to run away from me. This was definitely not the time to start mentioning his younger siblings. Time for that later. Right now, it would probably only upset him. ‘… than the last little girl we had to stay with us,’ I quickly improvised. ‘Talking of which,’ I added. ‘Her favourite thing in the whole wide world was pizza. So how about you? If you could have anything you wanted – anything in the world – for your tea tonight, what would it be?’
He seemed to consider for a moment, tapping his finger against his lip. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said eventually. ‘Anything is fine.’
I shook my head. ‘No it isn’t. Come on, think.’
‘I don’t mind, really.’
My heart went out to him. It was obviously proving difficult for him to express a preference, because he’d been taught that that wouldn’t be polite. He was such a mystery, this little boy, this apparent ‘monster’ in our midst, and I wondered quite when we’d be seeing him.
By now we’d almost finished putting away all his clothes, and I was struck again, seeing how carefully he folded them all, at how he seemed so unlike any child in the care system I’d come across; my end of the care system, anyway.
‘I’m afraid I insist,’ I said, mock-sternly. ‘It’s part of the rules. You tell me all the things you like, and then I cook them. No point giving you things to eat that you don’t like, is there? So. We already know about how much you love sprouts, don’t we? So as soon as they’re in the shops, I’ll get lots of them in …’
This seemed to do it. ‘Meatballs with spaghetti?’ he suggested, blinking at me nervously. ‘I really like them …’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Because that’s Mike’s favourite too. And that’s with sprouts, then, is it?’
At which he finally cracked a smile.
The day continued in a similarly positive vein. Mike had gone into work for a couple of hours and I was happy enough to let Spencer play on his computer games for a while, and also rigged up the PlayStation for him. I knew people worried about kids spending too much time glued to screens these days, and I certainly accepted whatever evidence there was, but at the same time I didn’t hold with the often-touted line that this kind of media was always the enemy. In my experience, new kids always seemed to settle better when allowed access to favourite computer games. They needed to be age-appropriate, obviously, but I saw more good than harm in them having some ‘down time’ of this kind. It really did seem to help kids calm down, particularly if they bordered on the hyperactive. Many games also had positive educational benefits, helping kids focus and concentrate.
Whatever the intellectual debates about it, when Mike returned home from the warehouse Spencer seemed a lot more relaxed. He was also less timid now, and a pleasure to sit and chat to, and he turned out, as we sat around the table and ate the spaghetti and meatballs, to be very knowledgeable about football. Which was brilliant, because football loomed large in the Watson family. Both Mike and Kieron loved it and Kieron played it, too. The ritual of Mike going to watch him play every Saturday was one of those commitments that were pretty much set in stone.
The only snag was that Spencer turned out to be a fan of Aston Villa, whereas Mike was a dyed in-the-wool Leeds fan. This naturally resulted in a more heated discussion, in which a string of not very nice names were applied to a long list of people I had never heard of.
‘I think I’ll just clear the table and start the washing up,’ I said, as Mike pointed out to Spencer all the reasons why some player on one of their teams should not have done this, that or the other, and Spencer came back with an equally measured argument about why, in this case, Mike was wrong.
The net result was that both of them completely failed to hear me, so I gathered the plates and took them back into the kitchen. I didn’t mind. There was nothing Mike enjoyed more than a bit of banter about football around the tea table, something he’d really missed since Kieron had left home. And it sounded as if Spencer really knew his stuff, too.
I smiled as I began filling the sink and rolled my sleeves up. I knew how the adage went. ‘No smoke without fire.’ And I wasn’t stupid, either. Little Spencer, delightful as he had seemed to be so far, was living under my roof for a reason. But right now, much as I was braced for whatever was coming, I couldn’t feel anything but positive about him. Just how bad could this boy possibly be?
Wherever this apparent alter ego was hidden, Spencer clearly wasn’t prepared to reveal it to us yet. In fact as the days went by he seemed to be turning into one of the best little house guests we’d ever had. Also,