‘Will Craig be punished?’ Aimee asked, standing in the well of the seat and peering at me. ‘Will he have to say sorry like he made me say sorry to him?’
‘I hope so, love. He certainly should do.’
‘Will my mum have to say sorry too?’ Aimee asked.
‘For what?’
‘For letting Craig hurt me. I think she should have stopped him, don’t you?’
I swallowed hard. ‘Yes, love. I do. Hopefully she’ll say sorry too.’
That evening as I was seeing Aimee into bed she asked if she could watch some television. Although it was her bedtime we didn’t have to get up for school in the morning, so I said she could as she’d been good.
Aimee looked at me sheepishly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, of course. Why do you ask?’
‘You said I’d lost ten minutes’ television time for swearing in the car at contact.’
With all that had happened in the interim I’d forgotten, but Aimee had remembered and reminded me, which was a good example of how much children appreciate boundaries – they’re safe and reassuring. I didn’t feel like punishing Aimee, given all that she’d told me about Craig, yet I knew I couldn’t simply let her off either – it would have undermined my authority.
Quick thinking from years of fostering saved me: ‘You’ve earned back your lost television time,’ I said, ‘because you sat at the table and ate your dinner nicely.’
Aimee grinned. ‘That’s good.’ And just for a moment I thought she was going to reach out and hug me, but the moment passed.
Saturday morning saw no sign of the vulnerable and engaging child I’d established a rapport with the evening before. From the moment Aimee got out of bed she was rude, confrontational and verbally aggressive.
It began with the clothes I’d taken from my emergency supply and laid on her bed. She didn’t want to wear them; she wanted to wear her school uniform – indeed she demanded it. I explained that she’d only wear these clothes until we’d been shopping and bought her new clothes, which we would do that morning, and that her school uniform had to be kept for school. But Aimee persisted in her demands, folding her arms across her chest defiantly and refusing to dress. As a compromise I suggested she might like to choose her own clothes from the ottoman in my bedroom and eventually she agreed to do so, stomping off round the landing with giant steps that made the floor shudder, so that I reminded her to tread more quietly.
‘Won’t!’ Aimee shouted.
The skirt and top she chose from my emergency supply were too small but rather than risk further confrontation over something relatively minor, I decided they’d do for now. Then Aimee didn’t want to brush her hair and she refused to allow me to brush it either.
‘We’ll do it after breakfast, then,’ I said, hoping she’d be in a better humour after she’d eaten.
Downstairs she demanded biscuits for breakfast, adding: ‘If you don’t give me biscuits I’ll tell me mum!’
‘You can have a biscuit later with a drink of milk,’ I said, ignoring the threat. ‘For breakfast you have a choice of cereal, toast or egg.’
‘Nothing!’ she growled, arms folded and glaring at me, which I ignored. Then a few minutes later: ‘Cereal.’
‘Good. Would you like cornflakes, wheat flakes, Rice Krispies or porridge?’ I asked politely.
‘Give me porridge,’ Aimee demanded rudely.
‘Could I have porridge, please,’ I corrected, while taking the packet from the cupboard.
‘Porridge!’ she said gruffly, and plonked herself at the table, where she began kicking one of the chairs.
‘Don’t kick the chair, please,’ I said. ‘You’ll damage it.’
‘Can if I want to,’ Aimee said, her eyes blazing defiantly.
‘If you continue to kick the chair you’ll lose your television time,’ I said evenly.
‘Hate you,’ Aimee said, but the kicking stopped.
Aimee had every right to be angry, having been badly neglected and abused, and an abused child’s anger isn’t selective – indeed they are often most angry with those they feel safe with and who they know won’t retaliate and hit them.
Ignoring Aimee’s ill humour as best I could, I finished making her porridge and placed the bowl with a spoon in front of her.
‘Yuck,’ she said, screwing up her face. ‘I ain’t eating that muck.’
‘Don’t be rude,’ I said. ‘It’s the porridge you asked for. Now eat up and then we can go shopping to buy your new clothes.’
Aimee sat at the table scowling for a while longer while I concentrated on eating my own cereal; then she finally picked up her spoon and began eating. A few minutes later her bowl was clear. ‘That was nice,’ she said quite pleasantly, smacking her lips. ‘I’ll have porridge again tomorrow.’
‘Good. It’s nice to try new things,’ I said. ‘Now let’s go upstairs and clean your teeth and brush your hair.’
‘Later,’ Aimee said.
‘We need to do it now, so we can go shopping,’ I said.
‘I’ll do it after shopping,’ Aimee said, used to having her own way.
I didn’t say anything but busied myself in the kitchen. Aimee watched me for a while and then asked, ‘I thought you said we were going shopping?’
I looked at her surprised. ‘I did, love. I said we’d go shopping just as soon as you’d cleaned your teeth and brushed your hair.’ I continued with what I was doing as though Aimee’s refusal was of no consequence and it didn’t matter if we went shopping or not. Having met Susan, I guessed Aimee and her mother had thrived on the drama of confrontation and I wasn’t going to be drawn down that path. Aimee needed to learn to do as the adult looking after her asked, as it was for her own good.
Aimee watched me for a while longer and then muttered, just loud enough for me to hear, ‘Come on, then, I’ll do it. You always get your own way.’
‘That’s because as an adult I usually know what’s best for you,’ I said with a cheerful smile.
‘My mum don’t,’ Aimee said, following me out of the kitchen. Which was doubtless the truth.
Upstairs Aimee brushed her teeth nicely and then let me help her brush her hair. Once we were ready we left Paula and Lucy in bed for a Saturday morning lie-in, and I drove into town.
Buying clothes was a whole new experience for Aimee, and one that she had to learn. I’d parked the car in the multi-storey and we went down the stairs and into the high street.
‘I want to go in that shop,’ Aimee said, drawing me to a halt outside a charity shop.
‘Why? It sells second-hand clothes,’ I said. ‘I’m going to buy you new clothes.’
‘Oh,’ Aimee said, dumbfounded. ‘Mum and me always go in the charity shops. They don’t put security tags on their stuff so the alarm won’t go off.’
‘You mean you stole things from the charity shops?’ I said. I’d fostered children before who’d stolen but not from charity shops.
‘It’s not stealing,’ Aimee said. ‘The stuff was for me.’
‘It’s stealing,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter who it’s for. If you take something from a shop without paying for it, it’s stealing, and it’s wrong.’
Aimee gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Say what you want but I believe my mum and dad and they say it’s OK to take stuff for me. How else am I supposed to get me things?’
‘We pay for them,’ I said, drawing Aimee along the pavement and away from the charity shop. ‘People work hard and get paid money which they use to buy the things they need.’
‘My dad don’t,’ Aimee said. ‘He can do as he likes.’
‘No one can do exactly as they like,’ I said, and continued into the clothes shop.
It wasn’t Aimee’s fault she’d had such bad role models as parents; she was only repeating what she’d been brought up to believe, and it would take a long time for her to change. In most big towns and cities, there exists a parallel society; drug-fuelled and feral in its existence, such societies de
fy the normal rules of a civilized society. Many of the children who come into care come from these backgrounds. It’s a different world but the only one Aimee had known.
Once inside the shop, Aimee entered into the spirit of choosing and trying on new clothes, although she told me more than once that she didn’t see the point in buying the clothes when they could easily be taken. She was an expert on security tags, pointing out how, and the ease with which, a security tag could be removed. In fact her expertise dominated her choice of clothes. ‘We don’t want that one,’ she would say, returning an item to the rail. ‘The tag’s in the arm and the hole will show when you pull it off. This skirt’s OK – the tag’s on the label. Have you got scissors in your bag so we can cut it off in the changing rooms?’ I dreaded to think what other shoppers were making of Aimee’s comments, and the sales assistants who were dotted around the store.
Eventually, nearly three hours later, we had all the items Aimee needed, including a new winter coat, casual clothes for weekends, trainers, school shoes, pyjamas, vests, pants, socks, dressing gown and slippers. We were laden down with bags but on the way back to the car Aimee asked, disappointed: ‘Is that it? Aren’t you getting stuff for you? Mum always did.’
‘That’s sweet of you, dear,’ I said, touched. ‘But I don’t need anything at present, and I’ve spent enough for this week.’
‘If you’ve run out of money we could go to the charity shop and take it,’ Aimee suggested.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I will save up for what I need.’
‘OK,’ Aimee said. ‘I thought you might say that so I got you this.’ Thrusting her hand into her jacket pocket she took out a necklace, still on its card, and pushed it at me.
I looked at it, horrified, and stopped dead in the middle of the pavement. There was no need to ask where the necklace had come from: it still had the shop’s price tag affixed. ‘After everything I’ve said about stealing, Aimee!’ I exclaimed. ‘And you’ve taken this!’ I’d no idea how or when she’d slipped it into her pocket. She was clearly an expert on thieving.
‘Stay cool. It’s not for me, it’s a present for you,’ Aimee said, as though this justified it. ‘Mum and me always got each other a present when we went shopping.’
‘By stealing it! Aimee, you didn’t pay for this,’ I began. ‘Therefore you stole it. It doesn’t matter who it is for. We don’t steal, as I’ve told you over and over again this morning. Now, we’re going to take the necklace back to the shop, and you’re not to do it again. Understand?
Aimee shrugged. Touching her arm to indicate follow me, I turned and led the way back to the shop. Inside my first inclination was to return the necklace to one of the cashiers at the checkout, but the shop was very busy and there was a long queue at the tills. I didn’t want to wait in the queue; I wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. Also I didn’t want to shame Aimee in front of other shoppers – she was, after all, an eight-year-old girl who didn’t know any better and I didn’t want to humiliate her; but neither could we keep the necklace. I spotted a young sales assistant wandering aimlessly between the lines of garments without a lot to do and I went up to her. Aimee followed, not meekly or repentant, but interested in what I was going to say.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to the assistant. ‘I’m afraid my daughter has accidentally taken this without paying for it.’ I showed her the necklace. ‘Can you return it to the display, please? She’s very sorry and promises it won’t happen again.’ I quickly dropped the necklace into the assistant’s hand, turned and left the store, thinking it would be a long while before I returned.
‘What a waste!’ Aimee said outside. ‘I could have given it to me mum.’
I sighed. ‘Aimee, while you are with me you won’t be taking anything without paying for it. I shall give you pocket money, if you’re good, so you can save up and buy things, not steal them.’
‘Cool,’ Aimee said. ‘Pocket money.’ Then she looked at me thoughtfully. ‘In that shop you said I was your daughter. Why?’
‘It was easier than giving an explanation as to who you were.’
‘OK,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Just as long as you know you ain’t me mum. Although I guess it would have been better for me if you had been.’
Chapter Eleven
The Phone Call
Once home we had lunch and then Aimee helped me hang and fold her new clothes into the drawers and wardrobe in her bedroom. I could see from the expression on her face that she was pleased with all her new things, but she didn’t tell me and she wasn’t grateful. I didn’t expect her to be. I thought she probably resented the fact that I had provided for her when her parents had not; in her eyes this would have underlined their failure to look after her, and her loyalty to her parents would have dominated.
Saturday afternoon passed reasonably amicably with only a few minor scenes, as a result of my refusal to allow Aimee to watch television all afternoon and not give in to her constant demand for biscuits. She had two chocolate biscuits after her lunch but she was used to eating the whole packet in one go (for lunch), so two were not enough to satisfy her craving for sugar. I explained again to Aimee why too many sweet things were bad for us but her response was: ‘Don’t care!’ or ‘I’ll tell me mum.’ She appeared to be addicted to sugar and this was something else I would be mentioning to the paediatrician when Aimee had a medical.
Instead of letting her watch television for hours I provided Aimee with a steady selection of games and puzzles. I played some board games with her but I encouraged her to do the very simple puzzles for herself. She wasn’t familiar with any of the games or puzzles that one would expect a child of her age to be, so I showed her what to do, and I was pleased when she understood relatively quickly.
‘Did you have any games or toys at home?’ I eventually asked her as she stared blankly at the boxed game of Snakes and Ladders I was just opening.
‘Dolls,’ Aimee said. ‘But I broke them when I got angry, and Mum said she wouldn’t get me any more.’
‘So what did you do all day?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t go to school much.’
‘I watched television,’ Aimee said, confirming what her social worker had previously told me. ‘I like …’ and she reeled off a list of adult television programmes, some of which she’d mentioned before, and all of which were unsuitable for children. ‘I’ve told me mum you won’t let me watch them here,’ Aimee threatened, as though this would force me to change my mind and allow her to watch inappropriate programmes. I ignored the threat and concentrated on the game, praising Aimee as we played.
After a while of playing simple board games and helping Aimee with the puzzles I suggested she might like to do some colouring and she agreed she would. I fetched the crayons and crayoning books and spread them on the table in the kitchen. Aimee grabbed a crayon enthusiastically and held it in her fist as a toddler would, and then made a very uncoordinated attempt to colour in a large picture of a dog. The coloured lines she made strayed all over the page instead of staying inside the outline of the dog. It was incredible (but not unheard of) that a child could reach her age and not have learned how to colour in. Most children of this age are holding a pencil and writing sentences, but Aimee, as a result of a lack of school and no encouragement at home, couldn’t even hold a crayon properly.
‘Try holding the crayon like this,’ I said, picking up another crayon and showing her how to hold it like a pencil.
‘No,’ Aimee said adamantly. ‘I do it my way.’ She turned the page and began scribbling over the next picture.
‘You’ll find it is easier to draw if you hold the crayon like this,’ I said, and began colouring in the picture on the adjacent page. ‘It gives you better control.’
‘I’ll do it how I want!’ Aimee said. But a minute later I saw her change the position of her crayon and hold it as I’d suggested, which as I’d thought proved easier for her and therefore she produced a neater picture. I wanted to help Aimee, but at present she w
ore a protective cloak designed to keep me out, which meant that her immediate reaction to anything I suggested was to reject it and me.
Paula and Lucy had been out for most of the afternoon and returned for dinner, which we ate at six o’clock. Aimee pulled a face when I set the plate of fish, chips and peas in front of her and predictably demanded biscuits. Then she said she’d just eat the chips as long as she could have tomato ketchup.
‘You can have some tomato ketchup,’ I said, and passed her the squeezy bottle.
We all began eating, Aimee’s chips swimming in tomato sauce. But throughout the meal I was acutely aware that once dinner was over I’d have to phone Susan for Aimee’s supervised telephone contact. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Although Susan would be safely at the end of a phone and not in person, I was pretty certain she wouldn’t let the phone call pass without having a go at me, as she’d been so angry the previous evening at contact, especially in respect of my reporting Aimee’s bruises to the social worker. Susan wouldn’t know that Aimee had since told me it was Craig who’d assaulted her and that she (Susan) hadn’t protected her. It wasn’t for me to tell Susan, but I wondered if Aimee would, and what Susan’s reaction would be. Aimee hadn’t mentioned Craig again during the day and it was probably better she didn’t say anything to her mother, but if she did I couldn’t stop her: my role was to monitor the telephone contact, not direct the content.
Aimee ate all her chips, laden with tomato ketchup, very quickly and then put down her knife and fork.
‘Eat your fish and peas,’ I encouraged. ‘They’re good for you and will help your body grow and stay healthy.’
‘Don’t want my body to grow and stay healthy,’ Aimee grumbled. ‘Can I have biscuits now?’
‘Not until you’ve eaten your dinner.’
‘Hate you,’ she said.
‘Mum only wants what’s best for you,’ Paula said.
I smiled at Paula, grateful for her support, while Aimee folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her chair, scowling.