Little Prisoners (8 page)

‘Ah,’ said John. ‘Actually, I was getting to that, Casey. I’ve not long put the phone down to Anna, as it happens. It seems that in the light of your emails about what the children have been doing, social services are requesting a further adjournment so that all this new stuff can be added to their final report.’

This seemed pretty sensible, from social services’ point of view. What we’d witnessed, both in terms of physical neglect and the strong possibility that all the kids had been sexually abused, could only strengthen the case for them not being returned. I thought about Olivia’s comments about her ‘gwandad’ and shuddered. But the other implication, and the thing John was obviously braced to tell me, was that an adjournment meant a delay, which meant only one thing.

‘So the kids will need to stay with us for even longer than anticipated, then?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, the other thing I have to tell you is that Anna has already been on to the Education Department to see about moving the kids to a primary school close to you for the new term. I believe
she’s also asked for a full report to be sent on from their old school which, once she’s got it, she plans to bring over to discuss with you.’

‘Great,’ I said. Not so much about having the kids for longer – Mike and I had already crossed that bridge, and we were fine with it. But because, logistically, this would cause a real headache. ‘So it’s going to be a bloody rush job, then. Brilliant. There’s only a fortnight – slightly less – before the start of the autumn term, and I’m going to have a whole set of uniforms, PE kit and so on to go and buy. And try to socialise them too – John, you really have no idea how bad things are. They don’t even know how to eat using cutlery! Or dress themselves, or wash themselves – or anything, basically. How the hell am I going to have them ready for a completely new school in two weeks?’

I also thought, but didn’t mention, that it wasn’t just about the kids. It wasn’t just a case of the kids adjusting to a new school, it was how the school would cope with having
them
!

‘I know,’ John soothed. ‘I do appreciate how tough it’s going to be. Just stick to the basics – concentrate on the simple stuff. And it might be worth popping down to speak to the school too? You know – you and Mike, just to prepare them.’

Just like that, eh?
I almost laughed out loud when I put the phone down. Outside, I could see the pair of them in the garden, playing. Except they weren’t playing. All they were really doing was pushing one another around and squealing. They didn’t seem to even know
how
to play. Not
unless you sat them down and explained every single thing to them. John was right. I didn’t know where to start.

So, stuff what I’d been told, I would do this by numbers. Well, stickers on charts, anyway. I set to work.

I made two charts that morning. One for each child. And on each I had written three statements. 1) Today I had a poo in the toilet and wiped my bottom. 2) Today I washed my hands after using the toilet. And 3) Today, I didn’t wee anywhere but the toilet. For each successfully completed task, there would be a gold star awarded, and if each child received three stars, they would be given a small chocolate bar.

I found myself wincing slightly as I explained all this to the kids. I knew social services would be tutting in disapproval if they could hear me. Using sugar treats as enticements was an absolute no-no, naturally, but I also knew something else: chocolate works. Anyway, I reasoned, this was surely so much better than the alternative scenario, which social services weren’t having to clean up. And they couldn’t hear me, could they? So they would be none the wiser. Though I did make a mental note to be extra vigilant where the brushing of teeth was concerned.

I thought that Ashton, given his age, might have been embarrassed at such a chart, but he was just as excited as Olivia was, bless him.

‘I bet I win chocolate every day!’ he said brightly. ‘I’m much better at this stuff than
she
is. And it’s good, because if we wipe our bums, the kids in the new school won’t call us smelly.’

I had been pleased at how the kids had responded to the news that they were going to a new school. Even at their young age, I sensed they were glad to have a chance of a clean slate. ‘No, sweetheart, they won’t call you that,’ I agreed. ‘Is that what they called you in your old school, then?’

‘They called me pissy pants,’ Olivia chipped in now. ‘But I’m not, am I Casey?’

‘Yeah you are,’ Ashton said. ‘You’re always pissing yourself.’

At this slight, Olivia proceeded to thump Ashton, kicking him and thumping him, while showering him with a stream of choice obscenities. It was like some sort of default, this automatic physicality. Almost as if they were young animals, who knew no other way to communicate.

I stepped in to untangle the now tumbling mass. ‘Whoah, there!’ I said. ‘Now just stop all this silliness. And “pissy” is a swear word, so we won’t be using that. And, no, if you do what’s on the chart, you won’t get called names any more, which is why we’re doing it, okay? You both got that?’

It was over in a flash, as I was beginning to understand now. They both straightened their tops and beamed back happily.

But in reality, it was a tedious process. Each day, between us, Mike, Kieron and I would painstakingly go through the same three routines of how to wash, how to dress, how to brush your teeth properly. And every day it felt, though we were
surely
making progress, that they had forgotten the
skills were had taught the day before, and we’d have to go through them all again. It was beginning to feel like
Groundhog Day
in our house; tedious, but absolutely necessary. If they were to have any chance of integrating and making friends in their new school, then we needed to teach them these basics, and fast. But it was slow going; if you left them to their own devices – particularly with the dressing – they’d appear with their clothes on back to front, wearing odd socks, and their shoes invariably on the wrong feet. It really was clear they’d never been taught
anything
.

Anna arrived, bearing the promised school reports, a few days later. And as she warned as she handed the folder over to me, it made for some pretty depressing reading. In fact, it was terrible, really, to think that a school could have all this information to hand, and yet no action appeared to have been taken. The children hadn’t even been given formal statements of special educational needs, which really shocked me. They’d only been classed as ‘school action plus’ which simply meant that because they might be lacking emotionally or intellectually, they needed an extra eye kept on them. Nothing more.

The report then went on to list the obvious: that the kids were always filthy, and infested with head lice, that their clothes were dirty, smelly and un-ironed and often wet with urine. It also noted – as we’d heard at the first meeting – that the children often complained of having had no breakfast, and would often steal from other children’s lunchboxes. Pitifully, it was also noted that the kids appeared to be
friendless, and that other children refused to sit near them in class. Predictably, it finished by commenting that academically both children were way behind their peers.

I tossed the report back to Anna. ‘This is disgusting! Why the hell didn’t they do anything if they knew about all this?’

Anna confessed to having as little clue as I did. She tried anyway. ‘I think the whole family had been known to the school for years,’ she said. ‘Two or three generations of them – parents, aunts and cousins. I think they were just classed as one of those unfortunate extended families. Underprivileged, more than anything. Just a bit chaotic. And there was never an issue with attendance for them to feel bound to investigate. One hundred per cent attendance, by all accounts.’

‘I’m not surprised!’ I almost snorted. ‘School must have been like sanctuary – the only place they’d find some food and interaction!’

It beggared belief but, at the same time, it felt all too believable. They turned up every day, just like clockwork, so they weren’t truants. Just ‘unfortunates’. Not Anna’s fault, I know, but still infuriating.

But if I accepted that Anna wasn’t personally to blame for the welfare of these children having been overlooked for so long, to the kids themselves, she was very much the enemy. Keen to connect with them before she left, she had me take her in to see them, where they were sitting in their now habitual huddle, on the sofa, flicking listlessly (the effect of that morning’s Ritalin) through comics.

At the very sight of her, they bunched up closer together, then proceeded not to answer a single one of her questions – not even her innocent, ‘So what are you both reading?’ Because to them
she
was the enemy – the lady who came into their home and stole them from their parents. And as we already knew, because Olivia had told us, they’d been told not to speak to her about
anything
.

It was sad, I reflected, as I saw Anna out, that social workers, always filled with the very best of intentions, were invariably seen as the villains by the very kids they were out to help.

Not that the children were entirely without help. Sadly, it was chemical, in the form of the drug Ritalin, but for all that, it
did
help. Without it, I knew they’d be so much worse. They’d been with us for a month now and as we approached the start of a new school term, I felt I was beginning to get to know them both a little better as individuals. As far as the ADHD was concerned, Olivia was clearly the worst affected. I’d known this to be the case anyway, as her prescription was for a higher dose than that of her brother, and I knew if I didn’t give her her tablet the minute she was up, her behaviour would become the most unmanageable. I’d also worked out that whereas with Ashton the effects of the drug wore out at around five-thirty, with Olivia, it was more like around four. With this in mind, I’d learned to find something to occupy Olivia at that time, to stop her being destructive while her big brother was still relatively calm. Sometimes Riley would
come over and take her for a long walk with Levi, or I would set her some task that would occupy her sufficiently – she loved colouring – just to keep the household calm for that bit longer.

Olivia’s behaviour, once the drug left her system, could be bizarre, too. Sometimes she would sit and write the same word, over and over, scribbling furiously away, as if her very life depended on it. I would find countless such lists; of the same girl’s name or the same boy’s name. Left to her own devices – particularly in bed at night, obviously – the repetitions could be in the thousands. Other times, she’d count things. I was surprised to hear her tell me one morning, that the curtains in her bedroom had 370 pink spots and 262 white spots.

I didn’t really understand the psychology of these behaviours, but they had clearly grown up over a period of time, and perhaps provided some sort of emotional outlet.

But as I was to find out in the last days before school time, without that morning pill she was a completely different child. Ritalin is a drug that you’re not legally allowed to stock up on, and must order around every two weeks. Realising I was down to my last two tablets, I popped down to the GP’s for a repeat prescription, and then straight on to the chemist’s to get it filled. I was surprised when the pharmacist told me they were out of stock till Wednesday, but not overly concerned at that point. It was Monday, and I still had one remaining pill for Tuesday, so as long as I went early on the Wednesday and took Olivia with me, I could give her the first of the new batch right away.

Wednesday arrived, and, predictably, Olivia was jumpy without her meds, but as soon as Riley arrived – she’d offered to come and look after Ashton for me – I was able to take her straight to the chemist’s. Though that in itself was a trial (just getting her to hold my hand and behave was a mission in itself), it was nothing compared to what was coming; the pills, I was told by the pharmacist when I got there, would not be arriving for two hours!

I tried my best. I asked if perhaps he could let me have just one pill; surely he had one or two knocking around? But he looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘She doesn’t look
that
bad,’ was his opinion, his expression somewhat stern. I left the chemists red-faced, feeling like a drug pusher.

But he was wrong. It was one of the longest two-hour periods of my life. I could only fire-fight, as her behaviour – already on the stressful side of ‘difficult’ – just seemed to unravel before my eyes.

‘Let’s go and buy you a new writing book,’ I suggested, as I led her towards the main shops; this was something I knew would be tempting.

‘No book!’ she said. ‘Don’t want no book! Fuck off, Casey!’

‘Now, madam,’ I said, conscious of her ever-increasing volume. ‘We’ll have less of that language, if you don’t mind!’

‘Fuck OFF!’ she said again, this time kicking me hard, for good measure, before wrenching her hand from my grasp and, before I could stop her, sprinting off along the busy pavement.

I gave chase, alarmed to see how easily she barged through all the shoppers, and also conscious that, even from this distance, I could still hear her, as she swore at any obstacle that got in her way.

Luckily, a woman with a pram saw what was happening and, to my great relief, grabbed her and held on tight.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ I said, as Olivia started kicking
her
now, spitting at her for good measure, and trying to bite her. ‘She has ADHD,’ I explained. ‘And she needs to take her pill …’

But my saviour had her own ideas about the spectacle she’d become a part of. ‘That’s no excuse,’ she snapped, fielding another shin-kick. ‘She needs to be taught some manners, the little brat!’

Never had I been so relieved to get a tablet into Olivia’s mouth as I was on that particular Wednesday morning.

Ashton, in contrast, was a little easier to handle, as he’d yet to scale the heights of dysfunctional behaviour his sister had. But where his need for Ritalin wasn’t quite as evident as was his sister’s, he had problems that were equally in need of addressing. Being nine – two-and-a-half years older than his little sister, even if he didn’t look it – his difficulties with basic personal care tasks and hygiene impacted on his life that much more. He was a solemn little soul sometimes, sensitive and anxious, and who knew the depth of his emotional scars? And where Olivia would still be considered ‘little’ at school, especially with her build and size,
Ashton, I knew, would get no mercy in the playground, and had the potential to be bullied from Day One. And even if he wasn’t – I had to put my trust in the local school on that point – I knew he could quickly become friendless and isolated, and no better off than he’d been where he’d come from.