Damaged

  ‘What you staring at?’ she demanded as he sat down. Jodie seemed to have a particular fear of being looked at, and was never happy if she felt she was being observed, getting upset with whoever was looking at her. I’d noticed when she arrived that she avoided eye contact and preferred to look at people’s chests when they were talking to her. Similarly, she’d never been able to relax, always jumping if someone walked into the room as if she was on constant alert and ready to take flight if she had to. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now, in the light of what she’d told me, everything took on a sinister significance.

  Adrian shifted awkwardly and concentrated on his breakfast.

  I saw her grin, that ghoulish contortion of her face, then quick as a flash she scooped up a handful of porridge, and hurled it at him.

  ‘Jodie! Stop that!’ I cried, and took her bowl away. ‘That was naughty. Now I’ve got to clean his blazer. Look at the mess you’ve made.’

  She sneered. ‘That’s what you’re here for. To clean and cook. Get on with it, bitch.’

  Adrian couldn’t believe what he’d heard, and neither could I.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ I said. She looked as if she was about to repeat it so I interrupted. ‘Don’t you dare say that. If you think I’ve got nothing better to do than clean up after you, you’re very much mistaken. You’ve lost your television today, and if there’s any more it’ll be for the rest of the week.’

  I washed her hands, sponged down Adrian’s blazer, then cleared away the breakfast things. I didn’t speak to Jodie or make eye contact with her. I wanted her to feel my disapproval. I appreciated that she had suffered a great deal in her life, but the only hope for her future was for her to try and understand how to function in a normal family and in society. She had to learn what behaviour was acceptable and what kind of treatment of others was entirely wrong.

  Only when I’d loaded the dishwasher and seen Adrian, Lucy and Paula off to school did I make the peace. ‘No more swearing or throwing things around. Do you understand? It’s naughty, and you’re not a naughty girl.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, Cathy,’ she said, temporarily chastened.

  ‘OK. Would you like me to read you a story now?’

  ‘Yes please, Cathy.’

  I gave her a hug, and we went into the lounge, where she picked up half a dozen books and dumped them on my lap. We sat side by side on the sofa, and Jodie asked for another hug. I put my arms around her, and thought now might be a good time to ask her about her mum, as she was subdued and reasonably cooperative.

  ‘Before I start, Jodie, I want to ask you something about last night. You remember you were upset and I came into your room?’ She looked at me blankly, which was nothing unusual, so I decided to continue. ‘You said you told someone about what Daddy was doing? You said you told her to make him stop.’ She was still looking at me, and her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember. ‘Jodie, who was it that you told? Can you remember? I know it was a woman because you said “her”.’

  She pulled slightly away, and took the top book off the pile. ‘Free ’ickle pigs. I told the free ’ickle pigs, and they blew my house down.’

  I smiled inwardly at this quite witty diversion. ‘No, you didn’t. Now be sensible. It’s important.’

  ‘Can’t remember. Can’t. Really, I can’t, Cathy.’

  ‘OK darling, let’s read.’

  That afternoon, I phoned Jill, and told her I hadn’t had any success. ‘She genuinely doesn’t seem to remember. I’ll have to wait until she’s ready.’

  ‘OK. You’re doing everything you can, Cathy. This is not unheard of. In some cases, when a child is emotionally traumatized, the brain can shut down to protect the child from the horrendous memories. Once the child feels safe again, they may be able to release a bit more, but only to the extent that the brain feels able to cope with it.’

  It sounds like a mechanism I could do with, I thought to myself. I finished my conversation with Jill feeling a little comforted. I could only hope that this was a turning point for Jodie. Now that she’d been able to reveal what had happened to her, perhaps she would begin to get better.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monsters

  It was weeks before Jodie felt safe enough to reveal any more, and during that time her behaviour, far from improving, deteriorated still further. She became increasingly violent, not only towards me and the other children, but also towards herself. For some reason, she frequently became distressed at the dinner table. In the middle of a meal, she would suddenly start clawing at her face, or tearing at her hair. At other times, she would scratch and pinch her arms, leaving marks and bruises. I would quickly restrain her, of course, wrapping her in my arms until she’d calmed down.

  She was also defecating again. After the first couple of instances, she had calmed down and stopped messing herself, but now it started up again and was worse than before. Now she was simply smearing shit all over herself and then, if I didn’t get to her quickly enough, over the house. There was no apparent pattern or motive, but she did seem to understand that messing up fabrics would lead to a more severe telling-off than smearing impermeable surfaces (such as the walls or banister) and she appeared to make a point of avoiding getting it on the sofa and curtains. As usual, it was impossible to understand Jodie’s motives, or even whether she was really aware of what she was doing.

  As a result of her activities, the house constantly smelled of disinfectant. One evening as I prepared for bed, I saw that the skin on my hands had become chapped and red, and my fingertips were puckered from all the detergents. This habit of Jodie’s was unpleasant for everyone in the house, to say the least, even though we probably have an unusually heightened tolerance of poor hygiene, having dealt with a number of foster children with similar problems. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day I looked round one teenage girl’s bedroom, trying to find the source of a persistent nasty smell. When I peered behind her wardrobe, I found a stash of used sanitary towels, dating back to when she had first arrived six months before.

  Despite the violence, the insults, the excrement, the lack of sleep and numerous other traumas, the children were remarkably patient with Jodie, as they now knew the reason for her behaviour.

  Shortly after the first disclosures, I sat down with them one evening and told them about the abuse, and warned them about some of the additional difficult behaviour we might expect. It was important to tell them because Jodie was as likely to disclose to them as to me, so they needed to be prepared. Besides, they were already hearing things that she had started saying. Just as she had with Nicola, she was beginning to drop casual references about what had happened to her into conversations. I had to tell them what she was talking about.

  With Paula being only thirteen, there were certain physical aspects of the abuse that I had to explain to her in detail: when Jodie mentioned her father weeing in her mouth, for example, they had to know she meant oral sex. Not only was this embarrassing for all of us, but I was once again reminded of the potentially negative effect fostering might be having on my children. How healthy was it for Paula to learn about sex in this context? Was there a risk that it might harm her relationships in the future?

  The children were, as I’d expected, shocked and horrified. I wished that I hadn’t had to bring all this into their worlds as well, and it was awful to see them struck dumb as they absorbed the implications of what I was saying. The fact that Jodie’s father had done this to her was clearly a difficult and near impossible concept for them to cope with. They were already used to hearing about the difficult backgrounds of other children I’d fostered – it was often important for their own protection that they knew what had happened – but this was beyond all of that.

  ‘As you know, this is strictly confidential,’ I reminded them, and they nodded at me, their faces serious. They’d always understood that anything they learned in the house had to stay the
re and was not to be repeated to anyone. I trusted them completely.

  After we had this chat, the children became even more tolerant of Jodie’s behaviour. They tried to spend more time playing with Jodie, and remain sympathetic even when she was screaming at them to ‘Get out of my fucking house!’, or lunging at them with a kick. Nonetheless, their patience had limits, and when Jodie interrupted one meal by graphically describing how blood had dripped from her finger when her mother had purposely cut it, Lucy lost patience. ‘Gross!’ she exclaimed, then she picked up her plate, and took her dinner into the living room.

  * * *

  One summer’s afternoon, when Jodie had been with us for about four months, Jill came round for one of our regular meetings. Although, being a link worker, she had no statutory obligation to visit us (unlike Jodie’s social worker), good practice dictated that she should come round every four to six weeks to see how things were going, offer a bit of support and check my log notes.

  As it was a glorious sunny day, we decided to take Jodie to the park. Despite having been up most of the night with nightmares and general distress, as she often was, Jodie was full of energy, and restless to get out into the sunshine. I, on the other hand, was simply worn out.

  ‘So, how’s she doing?’ asked Jill, as we walked through the park’s immaculately tended flower garden. Jodie was marching a few metres ahead, anxious to get to the playground, and apparently oblivious to the dazzling array of colours and scents around her.

  ‘She’s getting worse,’ I replied. ‘She’s having more and more of those hysterical screaming fits, for no apparent reason, and once she recovers she seems barely aware of what’s happened. That’s why Nicola didn’t stay for the tutoring this morning; about once a week Jodie’s simply unmanageable, so we have to give up and cancel the session.’

  ‘And how’s she sleeping?’

  ‘Not wonderfully. She wakes up at five, sometimes earlier. She had been learning to stay in her room and play quietly. But over the last few weeks she’s started having dreadful nightmares, which seem to be more like hallucinations. They’re completely real to her, and sometimes they seem to continue after she’s woken up. It’s awful, you wake up to her screaming, and find her writhing on the floor, then she’s like that off and on for the rest of the night. It’s got to the point where I keep a chair outside her room on the landing, so once I’ve settled her the first time I just sit there waiting. If I’m lucky I get to doze for a few minutes, until she starts up again!’

  ‘You must be absolutely shattered.’

  We arrived at the playground, where Jodie jumped on a swing and started working herself higher and higher.

  ‘Careful, Jodie,’ I warned, then stood with Jill on the grass verge, where Jodie could see me watching. She had no sense of danger or instinct to protect herself, and would swing out of control, then fall off, if allowed to.

  ‘How did the hearing test go?’ Jill asked. I had taken Jodie for a test the previous week, as there had been occasions when she didn’t seem to hear what was going on around her.

  ‘I think it’s OK. We’re waiting for the doctor’s letter but the nurse seemed to think there was nothing wrong with her.’

  ‘So she is shut down?’ asked Jill, referring to the way some badly abused children seem to switch off their senses, as a way of protecting themselves. If you can’t see, hear or feel anything, it might not be happening. When they shut down in this way, these children become less aware of what’s going on around them, and less conscious of things that we usually take for granted, like noticing the pleasant taste of food, or recognizing that the water in the bath is too hot.

  ‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘There are certainly signs. Hardly anything gives her any pleasure, and she doesn’t seem to be sensitive to temperature: even when it was really cold, I had to fight with her every day to stop her wearing just a T-shirt and shorts. There are days when she is on a relatively even keel, I suppose, though I couldn’t describe even those as good days. If we manage to get through a day without a full-scale tantrum, we’ve done extremely well. That’s very rare.’

  Jill looked at me sympathetically. ‘You’re working tremendously hard, I know that. You’re doing a brilliant job, you really are.’

  I smiled weakly. Compliments were nice, but what I really wanted was a good night’s sleep. I was constantly exhausted, and although my patience was just about lasting out I felt at the end of my tether.

  We started walking back, pleased that the outing had so far passed without incident. The sun was still bright, but I was keen to capitalize on Jodie’s good behaviour. If we could get home without any drama, it would allow me to praise and reward her, and we could set a positive precedent for how a day out should go. Jill and I each took one of Jodie’s hands, as we ambled back through the park.

  ‘I must admit I’m concerned about the absence of any improvement,’ I said, using deliberately vague language so that Jodie wouldn’t realize that we were talking about her. ‘The disturbances are getting worse, especially at night.’

  ‘And have any of the disclosures dealt with the maternal presence as we discussed?’

  ‘No. She tells me about those events time and time again, but there’s hardly any new information coming out. Frankly I’m worried sick, things seem to be getting worse rather than better. Is there no practical advice you can give me?’ I tried to keep the edge of desperation from my voice.

  ‘No more than you’re already doing,’ Jill said sympathetically. ‘And to be honest there’s a limit to what you should be expected to cope with. It’s quite possible that the emotional trauma is so severe that only a therapeutic unit can put it right. I tell you what, I’ll have a look and see what’s available. I won’t do anything, I’ll just have a look.’

  As we reached the corner of my street, I allowed Jodie to run ahead, while Jill and I walked in silence. I had been hoping for some practical advice, but the level of Jodie’s disturbance seemed to be outside Jill’s experience too. I was disappointed, but I vowed to press on. I saw Jodie had stopped further up, and was crouching with her back to me, intently focused on something in the gutter. ‘Jodie,’ I called. ‘What are you doing? Come here.’

  She turned around, grinning, then held up a dead pigeon, proudly displaying it like a trophy. The bird’s head slumped sideways, and its breast had been torn open, so that its bloody insides were exposed. Jodie stared at it, fascinated.

  ‘Jodie! Put that down, right now!’ I said firmly. She stared at me, then slowly turned away, poking at the pigeon’s bloody flesh, and dropped it back in the gutter.

  ‘Yuck,’ Jill said.

  I cupped Jodie’s elbows in my hands from behind and steered her, arms outstretched, towards the house. Jill got straight in her car without coming in, as she had another meeting to go to. I manoeuvred Jodie in through the front door and straight to the kitchen sink. She looked up at me as I filled the bowl with hot water and soap.

  ‘We had a nice time at the park, didn’t we, Cathy?’

  Her face was flushed, happier than I’d seen her in weeks. I smiled back. I couldn’t be angry; after all she hadn’t really done anything wrong. But I was concerned at the ghoulish fascination the dead bird had inspired.

  * * *

  The next morning it was clear early on that something was different. Jodie wasn’t screaming at five o’clock, nor six, nor seven. I had time to shower, dress and dry my hair. I made the children’s packed lunches, and even drank a cup of coffee in peace. Then I started to worry.

  I crept up the stairs, tiptoed to Jodie’s door, and listened. There was silence. She wasn’t even talking to herself, which she usually did continuously, even in her calmer moments. I knocked and went in. She was lying on top of the duvet, flat on her back, with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. She was so still that for a moment I feared she could be dead.

  ‘Jodie?’ I shook her shoulder. ‘Jodie?’ She gave a small twitch at the corner of her eye. ‘Jodie? What’s the
matter? Are you ill?’

  She didn’t move. Her arms and legs were held straight, so stiff it was like they were encased in concrete. I knew this wasn’t a fit, or at least not like any fit I’d ever seen. I placed my palm on her forehead. It was warm, but not feverish.

  ‘Jodie? Can you hear me?’

  I shook her again, this time more robustly. ‘Jodie, look at me. Tell me what’s wrong. It’s Cathy. Jodie? Can you hear me?’

  She blinked, then slowly turned to look at me. Her pupils were dilated, and there were large dark rings around her eyes. When she spoke, it was in a flat monotone. ‘He came here last night. You said he wouldn’t, but he did. I know, I know who it was.’

  I knelt down, and held her hand tight. ‘No sweet, no one came here. You’ve remembered something and it seems real.’

  ‘I didn’t tell. I didn’t tell because she saw. She saw, Cathy. She saw, and didn’t stop him.’

  ‘Someone saw Daddy do naughty things to you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Who, sweet? Who was it?’

  She stared straight at me, eyes wide with terror, her cheeks deathly pale. I could see the pulse throbbing in her neck.

  ‘Mummy. Mummy saw. I said make him stop but she didn’t. She laughed and watched. They all did.’

  I turned cold. ‘They? There were others there?’

  ‘Uncle John, and Ken, and Aunt Bell. They took pictures when Uncle Mike did it.’

  ‘Uncle Mike?’

  Her face was blank, she was looking at me and talking, but it was as though she was in a daze.