The Saddest Girl in the World

‘Donna,’ I said again, moving closer to her. ‘We really need to go now.’

  ‘Yes, and we should be going in too,’ Mary said.

  It was always difficult ending these impromptu meetings; in contact the start and end times of the session were clearly stated to everyone, and strictly adhered to. ‘Come on, Donna,’ I said again.

  It wasn't Donna who spoke next, but Rita. ‘Come on, boys,’ she said, ‘give me one last hug.’ She drew them to her and at the same time, looked over their heads to Donna. ‘And you can piss off, you cunt,’ she sneered, and then she spat.

  I gasped. Ray and Mary looked at each other, horrified, and Granny Bajan said, ‘May the Lord forgive you, Rita.’ The neighbour remained impassive, as though it was a run-of-the-mill comment that she'd heard before. And Aunt May said, ‘Rita,’ in a cautionary tone. Chelsea grinned maliciously while Donna simply stood there, as though half-expecting this or something similar.

  I touched Donna's arm. ‘Come on, love,’ I said quietly. ‘Let's go in now.’

  With a final glance at her mother, who was still cuddling the boys, Donna came with me, and I quickly led the way up the short path to the main entrance. The door opened as we approached and Mrs Bristow appeared.

  ‘I was just coming out,’ she said, looking worried. ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded. Although Mrs Bristow couldn't have heard Rita's comment, being a very experienced head she would have been aware that the meeting was not advisable at any level, and undoubtedly had had to deal with similar situations with looked-after children before. ‘Perhaps I could have a word with you once I've got Donna settled,’ I said.

  Mrs Bristow nodded, but she was still anxiously watching Ray and Mary through the window in reception. They were trying to persuade the boys away from Rita. After another few moments the boys broke away and ran down the path and round the side of the building towards the playground, followed by Ray and Mary. Rita and her gathering slowly turned and wandered off.

  Mrs Bristow let out a quiet sigh of relief and returned her attention to us. ‘It's lovely to see you, Donna, and to see you again, Cathy.’ We shook hands, and she gave Donna a hug. ‘Edna has given me your contact details,’ she said to me. ‘And I understand you want to buy Donna a new uniform.’ She smiled at Donna. ‘That will be nice, won't it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and I smiled too, hoping that an entire new school uniform might in some small way be recompense for her mother's atrocious rejection and comment. I was still appalled and shaken by what I had just seen and heard; I would obviously be logging the details and my observations in my notes when I returned home, and also making Edna aware of it.

  Mrs Bristow took us through to the office. Kay, the school secretary, remembered me; we exchanged greetings and she too gave Donna a big hug. ‘Good to see you again, Donna,’ she said, ‘and looking so well.’ Kay was lovely, warm and welcoming, exactly what a school secretary should be. I guessed she had a soft spot for Donna and her brothers, as she had done for the last child I'd looked after who had gone to the school. Edna had said that Donna liked school very much; clearly school had been her lifeline. For so many children who have appalling home lives, school is often the one place that can be relied upon to be constant, safe and secure.

  Mrs Bristow left us and said she would be back later when I had sorted out the uniform. Kay took us through to the stock room, where I bought two school sweatshirts, three T-shirts to go underneath, two skirts, PE kit and a bag to put the kit in, together with another bag for Donna's reading book and homework; all of it was navy, with the school's logo in red.

  Donna changed into the uniform, and Kay and I said how smart she looked; Donna dismissed the compliment with her usual self-effacing shrug. Kay gave me a carrier bag for the clothes Donna had changed out of, and we returned with Kay to the office, where I wrote a cheque for the uniform and accessories. Foster carers receive a grant to cover most of the cost of a new uniform. The bell had rung and Kay suggested Donna now went straight through to join her class. I gave Donna a hug, told her again how smart she looked and said I would be waiting in the playground for her at the end of school. I watched her disappear through the door that would take her to the classroom.

  ‘Poor kid,’ Kay said once Donna had left us.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And do you know what her mother said to her?’ I was fuming, at last able to give vent to my fury. ‘I can't believe it!’

  ‘I can guess,’ Kay said dryly.

  ‘I won't repeat it, but it was foul.’

  Kay nodded, and by her expression I could see that she had probably had similar dealings with Rita. ‘It's the drink,’ she said.

  I said nothing; drink or not, it was a dreadful expression to use, especially to a child. I considered it the worst of all swear words, and for a mother to use it to her daughter was abominable.

  Kay sorted out and gave me various printed sheets — a list of term dates for the year, forthcoming school events and PTA activities, and a copy of the school's new prospectus. Mrs Bristow reappeared and suggested we went into her office for a quick chat. Her office was as I remembered it from five years before: carpeted in bright red, the walls adorned with children's work, and with an area with toys for young children to play while their parents talked to her.

  ‘I'm still reeling from the way Rita spoke to Donna,’ I said as we sat down in the armchairs (I couldn't remember Mrs Bristow ever sitting behind her desk — she was far too ‘user-friendly’). ‘You will never believe what she called Donna! And she didn't even say hello, let alone hug her.’

  Mrs Bristow looked at me, sombre and concerned. ‘Donna has been so badly treated by that family,’ she said. ‘I raised my fears about her and the boys when they first joined the school. I can't tell you how relieved I am that the children have finally been taken into care. Why did Donna have to leave Mary and Ray's?’

  ‘There were some problems between her and the boys,’ I said. ‘I don't know all the details.’ And I left it at that. If Edna hadn't seen the need to give Mrs Bristow all the details, it wasn't incumbent on me to do so. Although Mrs Bristow was a caring and highly professional head, I didn't want Donna's reputation in any way sullied at school by my describing her aggressive behaviour at her previous foster home. Donna had moved on from that and I was dealing with her aggression and other issues at my home. At school Donna could just be Donna, a ten-year-old who would improve and make the most of her education. I felt sure that if there were any issues at school in respect of Donna's behaviour then Mrs Bristow would tell me. I doubted there were, though, because, as with many children like Donna, she had been operating a double standard — between acceptable behaviour at school and what went on at home.

  ‘I want to help Donna all I can with her school work,’ I said. ‘I understand she is in the year below the group for her age?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Bristow confirmed. ‘Donna has mild learning difficulties, but to be honest I think a lot of her poor learning ability has been a result of her home life. Now she's settled with you I'm sure she'll make huge progress.’ Which was exactly my feeling. Then Mrs Bristow spent some time telling me about Donna's strengths and weaknesses in her school work, and said that she would give me a copy of Donna's PEP (Personal Education Plan), which all looked-after children have. It would help me to work alongside the school and reinforce the work her teacher was concentrating on.

  ‘Do you think Rita will be outside the school again?’ Mrs Bristow finished by asking.

  ‘I've no idea,’ I said. ‘I hope not. Donna and her brothers have supervised contact on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We can do without that every morning.’

  ‘I'm thinking it might be better if you and Mary and Ray used the staff entrance to enter and leave by. It's at the rear of the school and is security locked. I could give you the pass number. Rita has already been warned by Edna that she is not allowed on the school premises or else I will call the police, which is presumably why she waited outside this morning an
d not in the playground.’

  ‘I would appreciate that,’ I said. ‘It was very unpleasant for Donna. I understand Donna helps out at breakfast club, so we will be coming early in future.’

  ‘Yes, at eight fifteen. I'll update the class teacher, Beth Adams. She's hoping to meet you briefly at the end of school.’

  Mrs Bristow wrote down the security code for the staff entrance on a piece of paper; we said goodbye and I left the building. Outside there was no sign of Rita, but then she had come to see the boys, not Donna and me.

  I drove home, now even more aware of the dreadful injustice that had been inflicted on Donna by her mother, and telling myself it was little wonder Donna behaved as she did sometimes. I collected Adrian and Paula from my neighbour, and then the three of us spent a leisurely afternoon in and around the house and garden. And it would be dishonest of me not to admit that it was a lot easier to have just Adrian and Paula, and not have to be continually vigilant. However, I remained hopeful that, given time, Donna would improve to the point where I could trust her again with Adrian and Paula.

  When I returned to collect Donna at the end of school, I took Adrian and Paula with me; they were keen to see Donna's school and also I didn't feel I could ask my neighbour to look after them again. They were most impressed when I drove into the staff car park, and even more so when I keyed in the security number and let us in through the staff gate. We waited in the playground with the other parents for Donna's class to come out, and when Donna appeared and saw the three of us I thought she looked just a little bit proud. She came over and said ‘Hi,’ to Adrian and Paula, as other children were greeting their younger siblings.

  Beth Adams, Donna's class teacher, followed Donna out and came over and introduced herself. She was in her twenties and very pleasant; she told me she was from New Zealand, and was here on a year's contract with her husband. I said again that I wanted to help Donna with her school work, and she said she would put extra work sheets in Donna's reading folder, and also that there would be set homework, and Donna was expected to read her book every night. I thanked her for all she was doing for Donna, and the four of us then left the school by the staff entrance, with the children feeling somewhat aloof at their new elevated status.

  That evening over dinner I casually asked Donna if Aunt May, whom I had met that morning, was the same aunt she had sometimes visited for her meals.

  Donna nodded. ‘She uses a walking stick because she's got a plastic foot. Warren used to run off with the foot and hide it.’

  I smiled at this childish, if not a little unkind, prank.

  Adrian giggled. ‘Why has she got a plastic foot?’ he asked, while Paula sat there looking nonplussed, having no idea what a plastic foot was.

  ‘'Cos her other one got burnt off when she was a baby,’ Donna said. ‘Her mum hung her over the fire and it got burnt off.’

  We stopped eating. ‘No! Surely not?’ I said. ‘That sounds to me like the story of Pinocchio, who sat too close to the fire.’ Adrian nodded, Donna shrugged and the subject was left at that.

  Later Paula asked me what a plastic foot was and I explained about prostheses and how some people didn't have limbs, without going into too much detail, which could have been upsetting for a child of six. The following day when I spoke to Edna and told her, among other things, about the ‘welcoming party’ at school, she confirmed Donna's account of how Aunt May had lost her foot. As a baby it had been so badly burned when her mother (who was also Rita's mother) had held May over a coal fire that it had had to be amputated. The family had a history of abuse that went back three generations.

  Chapter Ten

  Tablets

  The routine of our school week began in earnest the following day when I woke Adrian, Paula and Donna at 7.00 a.m., and had them dressed, washed and breakfasted and in the car by 7.50. I saw Donna into her school to help with the breakfast club at 8.15; then I drove back to Adrian and Paula's school to arrive at 8.40, which gave us ten minutes to mingle in the playground before the bell went at 8.50. In the afternoon I did the reverse, and first collected Adrian and Paula, who came out at 3.10 p.m., and then made a dash to Donna's school for her dismissal time of 3.30. This arrangement relied on Adrian and Paula coming out exactly on time, and I mentioned to Beth Adams that I might occasionally be a few minutes late, if the traffic was heavy or Adrian and Paula weren't dismissed at exactly 3.10. As it turned out, though, Donna was usually five or ten minutes late leaving the classroom, as she was always the one who volunteered to help clear up if the room was in a mess.

  ‘Donna likes to help so much, doesn't she?’ Beth Adams commented to me after school one day. ‘She'll even give up her lunchtime if something needs doing; she's always asking me for jobs to do.’ I agreed, although I felt that Donna's eagerness to clean and tidy wasn't altogether healthy, and was probably a legacy of her role at her mother's when cleaning had been her responsibility. I would rather have seen her stream out with the other children, not caring a damn about the state of the classroom and happy to leave it to someone else.

  After a few days Donna pointed out her friend Emily to me and I introduced myself to her and her mother; they were both aware Donna was in foster care. Emily's mother, Mandy, was very friendly and told me about Emily's learning difficulties, and how she really appreciated Emily having Donna as her friend — someone her own age in the same class. I said it was important we kept their friendship going, and that I would like it very much if Emily could come to tea. Mandy agreed, but said that Emily was a little shy and asked if we could leave it until later in the term when Emily had resettled into the school routine. They were Polish and had spent the entire summer holidays in Poland, and Emily had found the transition back not an easy one. We always chatted briefly when we saw each other in the playground at the end of the school day.

  On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I had to do a quick turnaround after school because of Donna's contact. As soon as we arrived home at 4.00 p.m. Donna washed and changed, and then had her evening meal, ready to leave the house again at 4.40 for contact at 5.00. I had started giving Donna her evening meal before contact, as Edna had said that Donna was ‘pigging out’ on the biscuits at contact because she was hungry, and then feeling sick. Indeed, on more than one occasion when I'd collected her we'd had to drive home with the car window open as she had felt so rough, and then she hadn't wanted her dinner. On these evenings Paula, Adrian and I ate when we returned from taking Donna to contact and before we had to get back into the car to collect her. It was a rush, but Adrian and Paula had grown up being herded in and out of the car for contact, as do other children of foster carers. Contact always takes priority, even to the extent of rearranging and sometimes cancelling one's own appointments.

  Our routine of school continued and accelerated towards the half-term holiday in October. The evenings vanished, for apart from the contact, which dominated three of the evenings, there was homework to be done, the evening meal to be cooked and eaten, baths to be had and the children's favourite television programmes to be watched, before we began the bedtime routine. I maintained my vigilance with Donna whenever she was with Adrian, and particularly when she was with Paula, for while we hadn't had another incident of Donna actually hitting Paula, Donna would still try to dominate and chastise Paula and tell her what to do, often repeating my instructions with a lot more authority than I had given them. So if I said to Paula, ‘Come on, it's time to do your reading,’ Donna would echo, ‘Your mother told you to do your reading. Now!’ To which I would gently reply, ‘It's OK, Donna, I'll tell Paula. You don't have to, love.’ I suppose Donna felt chastisement was part of the role of looking after younger siblings, which it had been when she'd been living at home. I hoped that this behaviour, like others, would diminish over time.

  I continued to monitor Donna's washing: when she had a bath or went to the toilet I stood on the landing, listening for any sound that might have suggested she was washing with more vigour than she should — tryi
ng to rub her skin colour off again; although having removed the nailbrushes and pumice stone I felt there was less chance of her doing real damage to herself with the sponge and flannels that were left. I also remained concerned about Donna's poor self-image — not only in respect of her dual heritage but also with her self-esteem in general, which was non-existent. Mrs Bristow assured me that she was already seeing positive changes in Donna and felt that she was gaining confidence. Her teachers and I praised Donna at every opportunity. I continued to give Donna little jobs to do in the house so that she felt she was helping, but I was gradually reducing these, hoping to wean her off her need for drudgery and subservience. When she performed a task her manner was so servile it was uncomfortable to watch. However, Donna wasn't ready to let go of this role yet, and in order to exorcise her compulsion she discovered a new behaviour which was quite bizarre.

  I went up to her bedroom one day to find the whole room littered with hundreds of tiny bits of paper torn from old magazines, which she had bought with her pocket money.

  ‘That's a right mess,’ I said, not best pleased. ‘And I've only just vacuumed.’ The tiny bits of paper were everywhere — all over the floor, the bed, the bookshelves and every available surface.

  ‘I'm going to clean it up,’ she said laboriously, and immediately dropped onto all fours and began steadily picking up the tiny scraps of paper. Half an hour later the room was spotless again.

  After that it became a regular pursuit: Donna spending thirty minutes tearing up the paper and then another thirty minutes clearing it up. When she had exhausted her own supply of magazines or drawing paper, she asked me if she could have the old newspapers, which I reluctantly gave her. I wasn't at all sure I should be encouraging this, for it seemed it could be reinforcing exactly the behaviour I was trying to persuade her out of — cleaning. I talked to Edna and Jill about it and they both thought that it was a pretty harmless way of her acting out her role from the past, and as long as it didn't escalate, to let her continue. They said that it should slowly disappear over time, but that if it didn't then it could be addressed at therapy when it was started after the final court hearing in May. I asked them if I should let her do more in the house, as it seemed to me that I might have caused this new development by stopping a lot of her ‘housework’, but they said no, it would be a retrogressive step, and I was handling it correctly. I told Adrian and Paula not to say anything or laugh if Donna's bedroom door was open and they saw her tearing up or picking up the paper for this was her way of dealing with her past.