Mike frowned, though. ‘I imagine playing’s going to be the last thing on her mind, love,’ he pointed out. ‘For the moment, at least. Poor kid. She must be reeling.’
He was right, of course. This was a uniquely sad and strange scenario – and for all of us. One step at a time. We quickly paid and hurried home.
We’d just finished putting things away and boiling the kettle when John’s car pulled up outside. I loved that this new house gave me a window onto the world. My kitchen was at the front of the house this time, and as it was where I spent most of my time it enabled me to indulge in my secret desire to be a ‘nosey neighbour’. I also liked the fact that we only had a small front garden. One, better still, that was covered with pebbles, so I wouldn’t have to spend much time on maintenance. The other positive was that just across the small road beyond our garden there was a nice grassy area with a children’s play section. That was enough to quell any guilt I had about my small but beautifully kept courtyard; that and the fact that we had a rather large back garden that I intended to fill with child-friendly play things for both the grandchildren and the children we’d be fostering.
Abigail looked dwarfed as she walked up the path in between John and her social worker. Still in her green-and-black school uniform, she stole a quick glance at me and Mike as we opened the front door. She was a pretty little girl, slim and petite, with her long fair hair held in two bunches which were neatly tied with matching green ribbon.
She also looked terrified. I was used to greeting children in distress, of course. There can be few things more bewildering and disorientating for a child than being made to go and live with complete strangers. But most children who came into foster care did so in carefully managed stages, so that even if the process was, by its nature, a relatively quick one, by the time it came to actually being deposited with their temporary family, the child had at least been there for a visit.
Poor Abby had had no such preparation. In less than a day her whole life had imploded. She’d gone to school this morning fully expecting to go home again and instead, she’d been picked up and told her mother was ill in hospital and that tonight she would have to sleep somewhere else. I was used to dealing with kids from bad family situations, but it still seemed inexplicable to me that this sweet little girl didn’t have a single other place she could go to. When my own two were her age it would have been unthinkable. Riley had her little gang of sleepover mates, most of whose mums were friends of mine too. All would have stepped in during a crisis like this one, just as I’d have stepped in had it been them.
My thoughts also naturally went to my Kieron, and how he would have fared in such a crisis. He was all grown up now – twenty-two – but he had Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild type of autism. He functioned well, had been to college and was doing well in life, but a change – any change – to his routine really stressed him. For someone like him, such a thing would be a major trauma. I’d thanked God many times for my network of friends and family, who knew his needs and idiosyncrasies and so could always help de-stress him. How would I have ever coped without them over the years?
Yet for this poor little girl there was no one. The social worker had already questioned both Abby and her mum about this, thinking, quite rightly, that if no family could be found at short notice, then a sleepover with a close pal would be the very next best thing. But no, it seemed the child didn’t have anywhere else to go. Unbelievable. And what on earth must have been going through her mind, knowing not only that complete strangers were rearranging her whole future, but that she had to go and live with some, too? I could only hope that the enormity of what might happen long term hadn’t yet impinged on her consciousness. As far as I was concerned, the best way to manage her in the short term would be to focus very much on the here and now.
I smiled my broadest smile as she hesitantly stepped into the hallway. Both her hands gripped the straps of the backpack she was carrying, and so tightly that the knuckles were white. I smiled as I recognised the logo on the backpack: ‘Glee’, accompanied by the all-singing, all-dancing cast publicity photo. Straight away I was thinking that if Abby liked all the latest stage-school TV programmes and paraphernalia, she would get along famously with Lauren. Lauren was Kieron’s girlfriend and was at performing arts college, and was used to me roping her in to help out with similarly minded foster children.
I also recognised the primary-school logo on Abby’s sweatshirt. Stanholme Primary, although the furthest away, was one of the better schools in the area, and also a feeder school for the big comprehensive I used to work at, and I’d known a couple of the teachers there. It was good to have a pre-existing connection with the place. It gave me a head start in that direction, at least.
‘Here she is. Here’s Abigail!’ John said, with a slightly forced brightness – he looked as worn out as he’d sounded on the phone. I ushered the trio into the dining room and Mike took their orders for hot drinks. Not that he had to go far to make them; like our last house, this too had an open-plan kitchen/dining set-up, the only difference being that the two were separated by a huge arch. Perfect, once again, for keeping an eye on kids.
Right now, of course, I had my eyes on Abigail. She’d hardly spoken – only mumbled an affirmative to a hot chocolate – and looked completely at sea, as if she might burst into tears or make a run for it at any moment. Again, this felt so different from what we’d seen before. We might be strangers – as might be John – but all our previous children had come to us with at least some sort of relationship, however slight, with the social worker assigned to them. As a result they usually clung to them, both physically and emotionally. But that was definitely not the case here.
Bridget Conley, a tall woman in her early forties, I guessed, filed in behind John. She looked nice enough, if a little detached, but it was so immediately obvious she and Abigail had barely met. It would have been so even if I hadn’t already known that. No one’s fault – all this had happened in less than a day, after all – though I couldn’t help feeling it a pity that they hadn’t managed to make some sort of connection. Bridget (whose face was vaguely familiar to me, nothing more) looked friendly and personable, but also as if she’d come from the sort of high-level meeting that she’d felt the need to power-dress for that morning. Where social workers normally dressed to suit the work they did – in comfortable, non-threatening, relaxed clothes, in my experience – Bridget looked more like a head teacher or a politician: all sharp angles, crisp creases and clacky shoes.
And I’d been right. ‘Apologies,’ she began as she started fishing in a laptop bag. ‘I’m not at all up on the paperwork, I’m afraid.’ She grimaced. ‘Been attending a case conference with my manager and her boss. Hence the suit and heels, I’m afraid.’ She grinned, somewhat sheepishly. ‘Why on earth do these things always get me so flustered? You’d think with twenty years in the job I’d be a little less bothered about dressing up for the upper echelons, wouldn’t you?’ She laughed then, and I found myself warming to her. A woman very much like myself, I thought.
John, too, was pulling the inevitable manila file from his briefcase, with such scant notes as he’d presumably been so far able to make. And looking at the tableau of officialdom in front of me made me have something of a ‘eureka!’ moment. While Mike clattered with cups and teaspoons, I looked straight at John. ‘I tell you what,’ I said to him. ‘How about you all take a breather for a moment and enjoy a cup of tea. Been quite a long and stressful day, eh?’ I said, turning my gaze now to Abigail. ‘And why don’t you and I take a look round my beautiful new garden? We’ve only just moved in here, and I’m so excited about it. And it’ll be dark soon …’ I held out my hand.
My hunch had been right. No sooner had Abigail seen it than