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I was worried as to where Dawn could have got to, although not as worried as I would have been with another child who didn’t have a reputation for going missing. I was also frustrated and disappointed, for we had all viewed Dawn going into therapy as a turning point, when she would be able to share her problems and hopefully alter course towards a better future. I was also somewhat annoyed with Dawn – she had gone off with the bus fare and, without saying a word to me, simply decided not to attend the appointment, unless of course there was a very good reason for her not arriving.

‘The bus broke down,’ she said, when she finally appeared two hours later. ‘By the time they sent another bus to pick us up it was too late to go to the hospital, so I walked home.’

It was plausible; the buses did have a reputation for breaking down in the country lanes, particularly the one that led to the hospital, which had a steep gradient. And Dawn had offered the excuse with enough sincerity that I could believe her, just.

‘Next time I’ll take you in the car,’ I said. ‘And I’ll drop you off. I won’t come into the hospital if you don’t want me to, but at least I’ll know you have arrived safely.’

‘Oh,’ Dawn said, her thoughts clearly racing ten to the dozen. ‘Oh, OK. When is it?’

‘Not for another three months.’ I looked at her carefully. We had walked through to the lounge where Adrian was, and we were now standing facing each other. ‘Dawn, love, it is important you see the psychiatrist. You’re not talking to me about your problems, and as far as I’m aware you’ve not talking to anyone else either. What you tell the psychiatrist is confidential. Dr Gibbons won’t tell anyone – not me, your mother, or your social worker. But it’s important you share your burden with someone.’

‘What about the police?’ Dawn asked, squatting on the floor beside Adrian. ‘If the police went to see the psychiatrist and asked him to tell them what I’d said, would he?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. The psychiatrist is bound by confidentiality like a doctor. What you tell him is just between the two of you.’ I hesitated. ‘Dawn, is there something badly worrying you that you need to share? Something that caused you to harm yourself, and attempt suicide? If so, rather than wait another three months, couldn’t you tell me? I’m a good listener and it wouldn’t go any further. I promise.’

I watched her as she concentrated on Adrian. Then she said quietly without looking at me, ‘If only I could tell you, Cathy. But I’ll have to wait until I see Dr Gibbons.’

And I knew at that moment that the bus hadn’t broken down, and that Dawn had missed her appointment because she had been worried that what she told the psychiatrist could be accessed by the police. What her burden was I didn’t know, but I bitterly regretted not telling her the consultation was confidential before she went, and also that I hadn’t taken her to the hospital in the car. But at least she’d had enough trust in me to confide that there was something badly worrying her; I viewed this as a huge step forward, and hoped we could build on it in the future.

That afternoon I telephoned Dr Gibbons’ secretary and, apologising again for Dawn’s non-attendance, told her the bus had broken down. Then I booked the next available appointment, which wasn’t until 4 November.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Lifeline Vanishes

I
negotiated with Dawn that while she was on holiday from school she could go out with her friends during the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in addition to her usual Friday and Saturday evenings. Dawn cannily suggested that if she went out during the day on Friday instead of Thursday it would save me the bus fare, as she could stay out all day and continue into the evening.

‘I can afford the bus fare, Dawn,’ I said. ‘And I wouldn’t want you out from ten o’clock in the morning until nine thirty at night. I want to see more of you, not less.’ Which was true, in addition to feeling that the less time Dawn spent out of the house the less opportunity there was for trouble to present itself to Dawn and be accepted.

The six-week break from school fell into something of a routine. Dawn met her friends – who she assured me were school friends and not the ‘old lot’ – between ten o’clock and four o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and spent Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with Adrian and me. I took Dawn on outings. She seemed more comfortable going out when there was just her, Adrian and me, rather than family outings at weekends, which were still being curtailed because of Dawn’s refusal to join in. I didn’t know why, because she got on very well with John; perhaps it had something to do with appearing in public as a family group and loyalty to her own father. We went to museums, a theme park, swimming, ice-skating and for walks in the country. Dawn appeared to enjoy herself and most of the experiences were new to her, as she had missed out on such things as a child. I also drove us to the coast for the day – leaving at 8.00 a.m. with a picnic and returning in the late evening. Dawn was as excited as Adrian to see the sea, and to my amazement she told me it was only the second time she had been to the seaside, although we were only forty miles from the coast. Her first visit was a vague memory of a family holiday before her parents had divorced.

Dawn’s Friday and Saturday evenings followed the same pattern as they had during term time, with her arriving home at 9.30 p.m. on Friday and late (and often drunk) on Saturday. She wasn’t daft, and knew that if she was late on a Friday she wouldn’t be allowed out on the Saturday. Clearly we couldn’t stop her going to her mother’s on Sundays as a sanction, so eventually I said if she wasn’t home on time (and sober) on Saturdays she wouldn’t be meeting up with her friends the following Tuesday. This had the desired effect for one week before she forgot again the next week. Not wishing to be locked in a continuous battle with Dawn, John and I decided we had to give her some leeway and accept that she pushed the limits. If we had been too strict and grounded her every time she hadn’t adhered to the rules, then it could have easily tipped her into rebelling completely. At least, with some flexibility on our part and by overlooking some of her behaviour, we had Dawn’s co-operation most of the time.

But during the summer holidays something strange happened. It was in relation to Dawn’s attitude to Adrian, and I couldn’t understand why. Whereas before she had been all over Adrian and couldn’t get enough of him (or babies in general), she became guarded in approaching him and seemed to back off. It suddenly became apparent that not only did she now spend very little time fussing over Adrian, picking him up and playing with him, but she seemed to be actively avoiding him. Adrian was on his feet most of the time now, staggering around, and into everything. I sometimes asked Dawn if she would keep an eye on him, while I popped into another room, or answered the phone or door bell, or went upstairs to the toilet. And whereas before she would have not only have kept watch on him but played with him, she now said, ‘Can’t he go with you?’

‘I’ll only be a minute,’ I would say.

But as I left the room Adrian invariably followed with Dawn steering him towards me. ‘He wants you,’ she would say.

If I asked her to hold him for a moment, or take his hand, she now refused. ‘I might hurt him,’ she said. ‘He’s very little.’ Which didn’t add up. Adrian would be a year old in seven weeks’ time and was now a strong robust little chap. He had been far smaller and more vulnerable when Dawn had first arrived and then she’d been only too keen to hold him.

I reassured Dawn that she wouldn’t hurt him, and I wondered if her sudden distrust of her competence had anything to do with Adrian’s moneybox. Was she feeling guilty that she had been party to taking his savings, as John and I now believed she had? Perhaps, with a heavy conscience, she felt she didn’t have the right to pet and cuddle him. While the whole incident of the break-in was unfortunate, to say the least, I didn’t want Dawn bearing a heavy burden of guilt. She had enough to contend with without adding to her problems, and I wanted her to know that I had forgiven her.

While we were feeding the ducks in the park one sunny afternoon, I casually remarked, ‘You know, Dawn, we all make mistakes and errors of judgement. Things that we regret afterwards, and would have done differently, or not done at all, if we had the chance over again. No one is perfect. But we can learn from our mistakes, and then we must forgive ourselves and move on. We can’t punish ourselves for ever.’

Dawn went very quiet and, breaking off another piece of bread from the slice I had given her, absently threw it into the pond. I was helping Adrian tear up his slice of bread and feed the ducks rather than himself.

‘You can’t forgive yourself if you’ve done something really bad,’ she said quietly, not looking at me. ‘It stays with you.’

‘Well, yes, I know it can play on your conscience, and make you angry that you did it in the first place. But there still comes a point when you have to forgive yourself. Otherwise the guilt eats away and can make you very unhappy, and even depressed.’

There was another pause. ‘Even if it’s something really wicked?’ she asked. ‘Something so bad that if you told someone they would hate you?’ She was concentrating on the bread, holding the slice, but not tearing off the next piece.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think for one moment that anything you have done could be that bad. Although it might seem like it at your age.’

‘It is,’ she said, without looking up. ‘You wouldn’t know because you and John are nice. You wouldn’t do really horrible things.’

Whatever Dawn had done in the past, I didn’t think that it deserved the guilt she seemed now to be inflicting on herself. Children and teenagers can easily let worries build up and get out of perspective.

‘I’ve said and done things which seemed dreadful and unforgivable at the time, Dawn.’

‘But not evil wicked things,’ she persisted.

‘No. And I’m sure you haven’t either.’

Without saying anything further she tore of another piece of bread and threw it into the pond.

I half expected that now we had broached the subject, she would revisit it at some point and hopefully tell me what was causing her so much anxiety. But she didn’t. And her attitude to Adrian continued to be removed and almost cold, as if by putting distance between them she was protecting Adrian from herself.

John, too, had noticed the change in Dawn’s attitude, and was convinced, as I was, that it was the result of having plundered Adrian’s moneybox. But he was philosophical: ‘If her guilty conscience stops her getting herself into more trouble, that’s no bad thing,’ he said.

But it didn’t. During the six-week summer holiday Dawn was brought home, worse the wear for drink, by the police on three occasions, having been found outside the notorious Queen’s Head pub cheering on a fight. And her guilty conscience seemed to be fuelling the ramblings in her sleepwalking, which often included Dawn telling herself she was wicked and evil.

* * *

Dawn returned to school for the autumn term on 4 September and continued with her part-time education. She managed to attend the whole first week, but given that school hadn’t gone back until the Thursday that wasn’t exactly a runaway achievement. The following week she went in four days.

When the secretary phoned me on Tuesday to say that Dawn hadn’t arrived, she greeted me like an old friend – ‘How are you, Cathy? Did you have a nice summer?’ – before telling me that Dawn wasn’t in school. Then she asked if I could sign and return Dawn’s report slip as soon as possible, as it was supposed to have been handed in on the first day back.

‘What report slip?’ I asked, guessing the answer.

‘The one attached to Dawn’s report that was sent home with her at the end of term.’

‘It didn’t arrive, I’m afraid. I’ll speak to Dawn and find out where it’s got to.’

‘Dustbin, probably,’ the secretary said with a small laugh. ‘She’s not the only one. I’ll send a copy in the post addressed to you.’

I thanked her and we said goodbye.

When Dawn wandered in at 3.45 p.m., I asked her where her school report for last year was.

‘I left it on the bus,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t very good anyway.’

‘But I would have liked to have seen it, Dawn, and there was a tear-off slip for me to sign.’

‘Sorry, it won’t happen again.’

‘No worries. The secretary is going to send me a copy.’

‘Oh,’ said Dawn.

‘Yes, “oh”. Although I doubt it will hold any surprises.’ I paused and looked at her. ‘Dawn, you are a bright girl, but you are throwing away your education. Where have you been today?’

She gave me one of her usual shrugs, followed by the usual answer: ‘Just hanging around. I couldn’t face school today.’ I thought that if I avoided every situation I didn’t feel like facing then we wouldn’t have any clean or ironed clothes and there would be no food in the fridge. But then I wasn’t thirteen with all Dawn’s problems.

No longer having the sanction of stopping her going out on Tuesday, I said she would be grounded on Friday if she didn’t go to school, which got her in the rest of that week at least.

Two weeks into the term, Dawn’s sleepwalking escalated for no obvious reason and we were up four nights out of seven. One night we found her in the kitchen with the cutlery drawn open and a knife pressed into the soft flesh of her arm. John grabbed the knife and we quickly examined her arm. It wasn’t bleeding. Fortunately she’d used a fish knife, which wasn’t sharp, and had done no real harm other than leaving an indentation in her skin, which soon faded.

The following day John stopped off on the way home from work and bought another lock, which he fitted to the kitchen door after Dawn had gone up for her bath. Before we went to bed John locked the kitchen door and we took the key up with us.

That night we were woken in the early hours by the sound of Dawn rattling the kitchen door and trying to get in.

Hurrying downstairs, I thought I would try to talk to her – try to talk her through whatever it was she wanted to do while sleepwalking, as the books had suggested and I’d tried before. But when Dawn said in her slow, heavy, sleep-induced voice, ‘I want to cut,’ meaning she wanted to self-harm, I realised it was impossible. I couldn’t say, ‘OK, Dawn you’ve cut yourself, it’s dripping with blood, now let’s go back to bed.’ I just couldn’t say it, so instead I said, ‘It’s all right, love. There’s nothing for you to worry about. Time to go to bed.’ I turned her round and steered her upstairs and into her room, where she slept until I woke her for school.

Adrian had his first birthday on 12 October and I invited my parents, brother, some friends with similar aged children and my neighbour, Sue, to a little party. It was a Sunday afternoon and Dawn was with us until she left at six o’clock to see her mother. She was very helpful, passing round the plates of sandwiches I had made for the buffet and refilling glasses, but again I noticed she stayed well clear of Adrian. Even when she gave him his birthday present she dropped it into his lap and then went to a far corner of the room while we all watched him open it. And when John took group photographs Dawn didn’t want to be in them to begin with and, once persuaded, positioned herself as far away from Adrian as possible.

My mother noticed the difference in Dawn too, and asked me quietly in the kitchen, ‘What’s the matter with Dawn? She used to be all over Adrian like a rash. Now she runs away, as if she’s scared of him.’

I agreed, and said I didn’t know what was the matter. Although we had told my parents of the burglary, we hadn’t said anything of our suspicions of Dawn being involved, as it could have worried them. Yet I now began to wonder if stealing Adrian’s money was really the reason for Dawn’s rejection of him. Four months had passed since the break-in, and it seemed a bit drastic if she was still punishing herself for a relatively minor crime. But what else could be causing it? I’d no idea, and Dawn certainly wasn’t going to tell me, although I tried repeatedly to get her talking about her thoughts and feelings.

By the end of October John and I had our hopes once more pinned on Dawn seeing the psychiatrist on 4 November.

When the day came, I kept Dawn off school for the whole day – she didn’t resist – and I drove her to the hospital for her 1.30 p.m. appointment. I had asked her again that morning if she would like me to come into the hospital with her and wait outside the consultation room, but she didn’t. So having dropped her off at the main entrance and watched her go in, I returned home for half an hour before setting out to collect her. I had Adrian with me in the car, and I hovered with the engine running at the ‘drop off and collection’ parking space until Dawn appeared. She gave me a little wave and smiled when she saw us, which I took as a positive sign.

‘Was it useful?’ I asked hopefully, as we pulled away.

‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘And I’ve told him I don’t want to go again.’ My spirits fell as our lifeline disappeared. ‘He said if I changed my mind, I could call and book another appointment. He told me to think about it and I said I would.’ Which I had to accept.

Although Dawn was only thirteen and had been referred to the psychiatrist after a suicide attempt, it was ultimately her decision whether she entered therapy or not. I had done all the persuading I would, for I sensed that any more pressure was likely to do more harm than good, and possibly strengthen her resolve not to go.