He nodded and I wiped his eyes.
I knew that Rosemary and Edward had promised Alex lots of outings over the half-term holiday, but his upset wasn’t about missing those activities as missing the family he’d been promised. I comforted him as best I could and said that when we missed something we often noticed it more in others and it seemed that their lives were better than ours. I couldn’t offer any reassurance about being with a foster carer because when Alex left it would be to go to another foster carer, albeit a long-term one. Having foster parents rather than a mum and dad is something many children in permanent care have to come to terms with, and often after a while they think of their foster family as their own family and call their carers Mum and Dad. Thankfully, as before, once Alex’s anger was spent he let me give him a hug.
The following week was shaky at school and at home for Alex. Miss Cork saw me with a brief update either before or after school on most days. She was very kind and caring, but acknowledged that the half-term break had done little to improve Alex’s behaviour, and he remained quiet and withdrawn with outbursts of anger at school – just as he was at home. She apologized for not being able to attend Alex’s review and said she’d sent Debbie a copy of Alex’s latest personal education plan. I appreciated that she and the other staff were making allowances for Alex’s behaviour (as we were at home), but if he didn’t do his work in class then he finished it at home.
Halfway through the week Alex started bedwetting – a sure sign of stress. I reassured him that it didn’t matter, quietly changed his sheets and tried again to talk to him about his worries, but all I got in return was a resigned shrug. Aware that on top of all his feelings of rejection and being unloved and unwanted he was probably also feeling very insecure, I told him that he wouldn’t have to move from me until Debbie was sure she’d found him the right family. But to be honest my words sounded feeble even to me, for how many times had something similar been said to him before? He shrugged, unconvinced.
On Thursday morning Jill telephoned to see how Alex was and also to advise me that Debbie had arranged the adoption disruption meeting for the following Tuesday at 11 a.m. I had been invited and Jill would be going too. ‘You’ll need to prepare yourself for meeting Rosemary again,’ she said. ‘And possibly Edward, if he can get the time off work.’
‘They’re going?’ I asked, slightly surprised.
‘Yes. Rosemary was reluctant to begin with, but Debbie explained that it wasn’t going to be a witch hunt. That the social services wanted to learn lessons from what had happened to avoid something similar happening again.’
‘All right. I’ll have to arrange childcare for Paula. She’s not at nursery on a Tuesday.’
‘Thank you. The meeting is at the council offices. Shall I see you in reception?’
‘Yes, please.’
I noted the time of the meeting in my diary and then straight away telephoned my parents, who were free that day and happy to come over and look after Paula. They would stay until Adrian and Alex came out of school so they could see them, although Mum understood that Alex might not want much to do with them.
The remainder of the week and then the weekend continued in much the same vein. Alex was very quiet or angry; there was nothing in between. I asked him again if he would like to have a friend home, but he said despondently that he didn’t have any friends. This wasn’t true, he had friends at school, but I knew from Miss Cork that he wasn’t having much to do with them at present. Alex’s unhappiness and low self-esteem was blighting all aspects of his life, and despite my efforts he didn’t seem to be improving. I kept a note of my concerns and incidents of his anger in my log so that I could update Debbie (and Jill), and I hoped it might help bring Alex’s referral to CAMHS forward. At what point did his case become urgent?
On Sunday evening as Alex climbed into bed he suddenly asked me, ‘Was it because I wanted to learn the guitar?’
I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
‘Sorry, love, what do you mean? Are you going to learn the guitar at school?’
He shook his head vehemently. ‘When my dad – I mean Edward – said I should learn a musical instrument I said I wanted to learn the guitar so I could be in a boy band. He laughed and said that I needed to learn a classical instrument that would teach me the scales like James. Is that why he didn’t want me?’
‘Alex, of course not!’ I said, shocked. ‘It had nothing to do with that, and he shouldn’t have laughed.’ Despite all my assurances, Alex was still clearly going through the conversations he’d had with Rosemary and Edward, dissecting them to see if he could find out what he had done wrong. ‘It was nothing you said or did,’ I said firmly, sitting beside him on the bed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Positive. If you’d wanted to learn every musical instrument in the whole wide world it wouldn’t have made any difference. The reason you left was because Rosemary and Edward hadn’t thought enough about adoption and what it would mean to them and James. They should have done. It was a big mistake that they didn’t. But it was not your fault. You must understand that. Sometimes adults get it wrong, just as children do. We all make mistakes.’ I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. I was passionate in what I said – he had to believe me. I looked at him carefully. ‘But Alex, do you know what the biggest mistake of all would be?’ He shook his head. ‘If you continue to let this make you so unhappy. You need to try to let it go and look to the future. I think you could if you tried really hard. I will help you.’ Without replying, he picked up his soft-toy polar bear, climbed into bed and turned away, rejecting me.
‘Please think about what I’ve said.’ I tucked the duvet around his shoulders. ‘You need to get over this. It can’t stay with you forever.’ Although I knew that to what degree he did get over this would depend largely on what happened in his future. If the long-term carers he went to provided him with a stable, loving home and he became a permanent member of their family then there was a good chance he’d be able to leave behind the upset of his unsettled early life. But if the move to the next family didn’t work out and there was another move and possibly another one after that, then his experience with Rosemary and Edward would be compounded: another brick in a wall of unhappiness and rejection. I knew too many cases where a series of placement breakdowns (as they are called) had damaged a young person so much that they turned to drink and drugs and promiscuity in an attempt to block out the pain and convince themselves they were lovable. Hopefully that wouldn’t be Alex’s fate, but at present it was impossible to be sure, and if – heaven forbid – it was his future, then not only Alex’s mother and Rosemary and Edward, but every foster carer and social worker who had been part of Alex’s life would hold some responsibility.
The adoption disruption meeting had been playing on my mind since Jill’s telephone call, and by Monday morning it was completely dominating my thoughts – or, more specifically, seeing Rosemary and Edward was. Debbie had said that the meeting wouldn’t be a witch hunt – they weren’t looking to blame someone – but that the department wanted to learn lessons. I thought this was very magnanimous of Debbie, as I was struggling not to blame Rosemary and Edward for all the grief they had caused – and were still causing – Alex. Each time he said something about them it hit me afresh. But I knew I needed to be professional when I met them. I had to concede that it was decent of them to attend the meeting at all, and that they hadn’t set out to reject and upset Alex, but must have been convinced they were doing the right thing in applying to adopt. Furthermore, I doubted that they had any idea just how devastated he was.
I didn’t tell the children what the meeting was about, only that I had to go to a meeting and Nana and Grandpa would be looking after Paula, and they would see Adrian and Alex at the end of school. Paula and Adrian were pleased to be seeing their nana and grandpa again, while Alex just accepted the arrangement with the same resignation he accepted anything that involved him now.
Although it was March, Tuesday morning was bitterly cold with a cruel northeasterly wind, so the children and I wrapped