What a grim thing, to have absolutely no family. And once again, I simply couldn’t quite imagine how that felt. But I berated myself as I queued for my coffee. It was none of my business. I was simply there to foster Abby, and do the best job I could in terms of minimising her emotional fall-out. Sorting everything else in their lives out was the remit of Sarah and Abby’s social workers, one of whom – from what Sarah had hinted anyway – had been busy trying to do just that. She clearly felt defensive about what had been said to her. But what was that? I felt an itch start – and itch that wanted scratching.
No, I told myself. Casey, just leave it.
Despite my resolution not to get involved in things that weren’t my business, Abby was my business and, if it concerned her, it concerned me. So I woke early on Friday morning in a determined mood and with a mental list of questions that needed answers. All of which meant that I couldn’t get back to sleep, so by the time the alarm was due to go off I was already down in the kitchen, pen in one hand, a mug of strong coffee clutched in the other. Since I’d given up smoking, it was my only remaining vice, and one I wouldn’t be giving up any time soon. I sipped the bitter nectar gratefully as I transferred the questions that had been teeming in my brain to a piece of paper. As soon as the taxi came and picked Abby up for school, I knew I had a couple of calls to make.
‘Is it Christmas again?’ asked Mike, trudging blearily into the kitchen and blinking in the brightness of the strip light. ‘Seeing you up at this hour is giving me the strangest feeling of déjà vu.’
It was still pitch-dark, not even seven, and I’d already been up half an hour. I grinned at him. ‘Love, if this were Christmas the turkey would already be in the oven, I’d have Slade blaring out, the Quality Street open, and by now I’d have pulled at least one cracker.’
I pushed my chair back and went across to make him a coffee too – a posh one, from the swish machine we’d treated ourselves to for Christmas. And speaking of Christmas, it was a fair observation. I was nuts about it, and would throw myself into it wholeheartedly, but for the rest of the year Mike was the early riser in the household, bringing the coffee up to me, not vice versa. ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he said, stretching and yawning. ‘For a minute there I thought you’d be having me up in the loft looking for fairy lights.’
I passed him his coffee. ‘Just couldn’t sleep, that’s all,’ I told him. ‘You know what it’s like when you wake up and straight away your brain reminds you about all the things you need to do? So I thought I’d take a leaf out of Abby’s book and make a list.’
Mike frowned as he sipped his drink. ‘You’re not stressed, are you love?’ he asked, nodding towards the ceiling. ‘About Abby? I mean, compared to Spencer … in fact, compared to all the other kids we’ve had …’
‘No, not at all,’ I reassured him, shaking my head. ‘I’m just on a mission to find out what’s going on there. You know, the more I know about this the harder it is for me to understand how the two of them could have become so isolated. You’d have thought someone would have known what was happening at home, wouldn’t you? What about the GP? I mean, he or she must be prescribing drugs for her, mustn’t they? Or the neighbours? Or, come to that, Abby’s school. Surely they’d have noticed something? It almost beggars belief.’
Mike rolled his eyes. ‘Love, you’re asking me that? You’re asking yourself that? Look at Ashton and Olivia. There’s your answer, right there. Just remember the sort of things that went on in that household. Compared to that, let’s be honest, this is nothing.’
Mike was right, of course. The siblings he’d mentioned – both now thriving in new permanent foster-families, thankfully – had come to us looking like a pair of Dickensian urchins: underweight, covered in scabs, eye-poppingly filthy and feral, yet still living with their parents in the sort of conditions that would have the RSPCA throwing their hands up in horror, let alone the NSPCC. And that was before you took the sexual abuse into account … No, in comparison, this wasn’t a big social scandal. Just a woman who, for whatever reason – blind optimism, maybe? – had seemed to have turned ‘muddling through without troubling the outside world’ into something of an art form.
This was confirmed when I rang Abby’s school, after she’d left for it in the taxi, in the hopes that I’d be able to have a few words with her teacher. Knowing how school timetables tended to work was always a bonus, and I was spot on in being able to grab five minutes with the man, who was a youngish-sounding teacher called Mr Elliot.
‘I’m completely gobsmacked,’ he admitted, when I introduced myself to him. He had no idea that Abby had even been taken into care.
‘I mean, I knew her mum had had to go into hospital,’ he said. ‘But nothing about her going to stay with a foster family or anything. I just assumed she was with other family members. Is this long term?’
I told him I didn’t know. ‘So no one’s been in touch?’ I asked, confused myself now about how this fairly important information had failed to get to him. Not that it didn’t happen from time to time. It had only been a few days, after all, and perhaps Bridget hadn’t yet got around to it.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said. ‘Though that doesn’t mean they haven’t. The head teacher was away on a course all day yesterday, so it’s possible that the news just hasn’t trickled through yet … This is a big school, and I wasn’t in myself on Tuesday. These things happen, I suppose … Anyway, thanks for letting me know now.’
‘I’m sure social services will be in touch with you as well,’ I reassured him. ‘Oh, and just so you know, she’ll be coming by taxi each day for the time being, and picked up by taxi as well. I was just phoning myself so we could have a chat about Abby. Under the circumstances, she has a number of issues, as you can imagine …’
‘Circumstances? Forgive me, but as I say, I’m not up to speed.’
‘As a result of her mother’s MS,’ I began.
‘Really? She’s been diagnosed with MS? The poor woman.’
‘Yes, but not recently,’ I explained, once again shocked. He didn’t know this? ‘She’s been suffering with it for years,’ I went on. ‘Abby’s been her carer since she was little, apparently.’
Mr Elliot was even more stunned by this information and maintained he had absolutely no idea. So I spent a few minutes describing the situation, and filling him in on what had been going on at home – as described to me by John and Bridget – after which Mr Elliot seemed flabbergasted.
Not to mention embarrassed. ‘I don’t think anyone here knew anything about this,’ he confirmed. And I believed him. He didn’t sound like he was just covering his back. ‘And you know, Mrs Watson, it explains a great deal. The lateness, the tiredness, the days she’s come in missing kit or uniform …’
So they had noticed something. ‘So why didn’t the school get in touch with her mum?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, believe me, we have. I can think of at least half a dozen letters that have gone home – by post, this is. Not to mention countless phone calls as well. But you know, there’s always been a response from Abby’s mum. And with a plausible excuse as to why, as well. We just – well, I hesitate to say it to you now – but we just thought she was a slightly introverted, slightly difficult child. Only child, of course, and sometimes they can have their own challenges, can’t they? You know – with sharing and so on – connecting with their peers. Oh dear …’ he tailed off. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’
I