Riley was only with us for three weeks and moved on to a married couple in their early sixties. I was recently startled to hear them proudly announcing that Riley was studying hard for his GCSEs with the ambition of becoming a police officer as soon as he was old enough. Bearing in mind that Riley used to remove the shells from snails and then set light to them, the transformation was remarkable.
Of slighter build than her brother, Taylor put me in mind of a young Hayley Mills. There was definitely more than a passing resemblance there, in her rosy pout, fair skin sprinkled with freckles and deep-blue eyes. Her clothes were anything but 1950s though – she was wearing a navy velour tracksuit top and tight cropped jeans. Even from across the room I could see that they were expensive.
Physically speaking, it was easy to see that the siblings were related, but the similarities seemed to end there. Where Reece seemed highly strung and agitated, Taylor came across as confident, cocky even. But it was early days and children rarely presented their true selves when surrounded by unfamiliar people. According to Maisie, the siblings had been expecting a late-afternoon shopping trip with their mum. It must have been an unpleasant shock to find an unfamiliar social worker waiting for them in the headmistress’s office at the end of the school day. To make matters worse, I had been so surprised to find a boy and girl on my doorstep that my intended warm welcome evaporated as soon as I laid eyes on them. Quickly recovering, I had hoisted a smile back on my face, but, as I was to appreciate in the coming weeks, first impressions stick.
‘OK, good.’ I turned to Maisie and raised my eyebrows, waiting for some input. Eyes watering, she blinked several times, then looked at me expectantly. I got to my feet. Clearly I was going to have to take the lead. ‘Right, shall we go downstairs, then?’
The doorbell rang before I’d reached the bottom stair. Taylor, who had been whispering insistently in her brother’s ear since leaving the bedroom, suddenly clamped a protective hand on his shoulder, holding him back. ‘Who’s that?’ she demanded, sounding thoroughly displeased with the unexpected development.
‘Emily and Jamie I expect,’ I said, glancing back at Taylor. The ghost of a fearful expression lingered on her face. Swiftly, she replaced it with one of disgruntlement but not before I’d noticed. I paused on the stair for a split-second, registering a swell of compassion for her. Beneath her surly exterior was deep unhappiness – I could sense it – no matter how much hubris she managed to project. Reaching it wasn’t going to be easy, I was almost certain of that and as I opened the door another thought fleetingly occurred to me – just what had she been drilling her brother about in such an urgent tone? ‘Ah, yes, here they are!’
My ex-husband, Gary, stood behind Emily, our daughter, who was ten at the time and our seven-year-old son, Jamie. The air around them was damp with misty rain, the sky a stormy grey.
‘Hi,’ Gary said, surprising me with his distant tone. After separating three years earlier, when I was thirty-one, our first year apart had been turbulent. Each of us unsure how to behave, we had passed the children awkwardly between us, something we never dreamed would happen when we first held them in our arms. The trouble was, there seemed to be no raft for fledgling divorcees to grasp on to, no chart to navigate our way out of enemy territory. It took a while to find but eventually, with joint relief, we anchored ourselves in a place of calm, even salvaging a friendship of sorts.
Now though, Gary, five years older than me and craggier, in a handsome way, with each passing year, was bobbing from foot to foot as if cold. Craning his neck, he looked beyond me, into the hall. When my gaze drifted over the top of his head, the uncharacteristic formality made sense – his new partner, Debbie, was waiting in the passenger seat of his car, staring towards the house. Debbie was uninvolved in the ending of our marriage but, somehow, in my not quite healed mind, she was guilty by association. Dark haired and attractive, Debbie smiled when our eyes met. I lifted my hand in a wave, about as much interaction as any of us could take, I think, and it was a relief when the light rain escalated into a deluge. Gary, I noticed with stifled amusement, appeared equally thankful. After ruffling Jamie’s hair and touching a thumb to Emily’s cheek, he dashed off to the car.
Characteristically bypassing introductions, Jamie bundled into the house first, pulling up short at the bottom of the stairs. I had called Gary earlier and asked him to update Emily and Jamie on the placement before they arrived home. They loved being part of a fostering family but I wasn’t sure how they’d feel if they found two similarly aged children making themselves comfortable without prior warning. ‘You’re five,’ Jamie told the bewildered boy who had taken my place on the first stair.
Reece screwed his eyes up again and then glanced at his sister, as if checking it was safe to confirm such personal information. Taylor raised her eyebrows a fraction and gave a little shrug, body language Reece seemed to interpret as a green light. He turned back to Jamie and nodded.
‘And this is Taylor,’ I said, gesturing towards the stairs with a nod. ‘She’s ten.’
Jamie, wiping drops of rain from his forehead with the back of his hand, was about to respond when Taylor took the lead: ‘I can’t stand boys,’ she said, her lip curled upwards in a nasty sneer. ‘I literally hate ’em.’
My son stared at her for a moment then glanced at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Um, your greeting could do with a little tweaking, Taylor,’ I said, trying to make light of it. ‘That’s something we’re going to have to work on, I think.’
‘Wha-t?’ Taylor asked. From her tone it was as if I’d suggested that she sprinkle the hallway with rose petals and throw herself at my son’s feet in welcome. Still perched on the second stair, she was looking down on me with disdain.
‘We’ll discuss it later,’ I told her. Jamie, seemingly unaffected by Taylor’s emphatic declaration, plonked his school bag at my feet and scooted off to the living room. Clearly expecting his new, less frosty housemate to follow, he called out, ‘What year are you in?’ Reece, who seemed to have forgotten all about his tummy ache, trotted after Jamie.
‘One,’ he shouted behind us, repeating it several times until Jamie made a noise of acknowledgement.
In the living room, Jamie had already separated some Lego into two piles and was directing Reece to start work on the base of a helicopter. Maisie took a seat behind them on the sofa, her gladiator sandals almost touching one of the empty cans of Red Bull lying on the carpet. Emily, her blonde hair glistening with rain, hovered uncertainly at the door. Her eyes followed Taylor with interest as the ten-year-old strode from room to room. My chest tightened as Taylor sat herself down in front of the computer and switched it on without even asking. It was natural for her to want to explore her new surroundings but there was something proprietary in her manner that irked me. It was difficult to imagine Taylor and Emily hitting it off as Jamie and Reece already seemed to have done – Emily was quite a gentle soul and I got the sense that Taylor was a girl who liked to rule the roost.
I was about to tell Taylor that she needed to check with me before using the computer when Maisie held out some papers on a clipboard. When children come into care, their foster carer is expected to sign a placement agreement; a form setting out what is required of them as well as essential information about the children, medical consents and contact arrangements. Since the placement had been arranged in a hurry, much of the form was still blank. After scribbling my signature at the bottom of the last page, a noise from the kitchen drew my attention. Taylor had sauntered past us and opened the fridge. She was standing in front of it, perusing the contents. ‘Oh, Taylor, what are you looking for?’
‘Food,’ she said with a sniff. ‘God, isn’t that obvious?’ she added, her head so far into the fridge that her voice was muffled.
‘OK, but tell you what – you let me know what you’d like and I’ll get it for you.’ I balanced the clipboard on top of a bookshelf and walked through to the kitchen.