Mummy, Make It Stop (14 page)

Frustrated, I tried harder, being more and more annoying, hoping to get her and the other older kids to notice me. But it didn’t work. They carried on ignoring me, and in the end I gave up.

Chapter Ten

A few months after we arrived at Cherry Road, I turned eleven, and the following September I moved up to the local high school. Instead of coming into a school halfway through a term - as I had at the last two - I started with all the other kids, and I hoped that would help me make friends. But it didn’t. I endured constant taunts and jibes, first about my weight and then about living in a care home. School is one of the hardest places in the world to be when you are different.

I made friends with a girl called Lucy, who lived near to Cherry Road. We got on well in school, and I really wanted to play with her outside school too. I used to go over to her house and ring the bell and ask her mum or dad if she could come out to play. But they always said no. Lucy wasn’t the sort of girl to play out. She was protected and cherished, while I was the wild kid from up the road. I didn’t give up for ages, I kept on calling, but in the end I realised she was never coming out.

The teachers at this school tried hard to encourage me. They would tell me I was a bright girl who could achieve things if I wanted to. The staff at the home said the same things. They’d tell me I was bright and pretty. I would retort hotly that I wasn’t, but secretly it gave me a little warm buzz, like an inner smile, to hear them say those things. No-one had ever said anything nice about me before. But I was so unused to hearing anything good about myself that it was hard to believe them - I thought they were just trying to be nice.

I was now at school with Tanya and Jamie again, and they were regularly bunking off, so I began going with them. I was desperate to get away from the taunts of the other kids, and I was always easily persuaded - anything Tanya wanted to do, I wanted to do too, because I thought it was grown-up. Tanya and I would go to the bus station and hang about until nine thirty, then use our dinner money to buy a day-rider ticket, which meant we could ride the buses all over Manchester all day. We’d sit on the top of a bus, seeing the sights, and then make sure we got back in time for the end of school. We were only eleven and fourteen, yet no-one ever stopped us or said a word, as we got on and off buses all day.

We had real adventures; every day we saw something new. Then, one day, when Jamie had bunked off with a mate, Tanya said to me, ‘Why don’t we get the bus over to see Mum?’ We did, and I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Until then I’d thought of Mum as being miles and miles away, but in fact she was only a couple of bus rides distance from me. We worked out what buses to take and just turned up.

The first time we went home I was so happy. I hadn’t been to our house for almost two years, so it felt very strange, walking up the road and seeing it there. Nothing had changed on the outside, except that it was scruffier than ever.

Mum came to the door and looked amazed to see us. When she heard we’d bunked off, she chuckled; she was always pleased by anything that got one over on the authorities. She made us a cup of tea and asked us how we were. But after that she seemed to lose interest, and she went back to watching the telly.

Though outwardly little had changed, the house didn’t feel the same any more. John’s kids were sleeping in our old bedrooms and I felt very weird and unsettled, knowing that there wasn’t a place for me there.

Despite this, we bunked off and went home several more times. No-one ever found out, and we would just sit in the house all day with Mum or play out on the street with the other kids who hadn’t bothered going to school that day. Mum would always stress that we mustn’t say a word to the authorities or it would ruin our chances of being able to go back to live with her, and we made sure we got the bus back to Cherry Road in time for tea.

Although I still acted up and wouldn’t admit I liked Cherry Road, I was becoming more settled. So when a couple of the older kids said they were going to run away I didn’t really want to leave. But Tanya said she was going, so, desperate to be part of the gang, I said I would go too.

The escape was planned for a couple of nights later. I packed a few clothes in a carrier bag and waited for the midnight signal - a tap on our door. It wasn’t hard to get out - a downstairs door had to be left with only an inside bolt on it, to comply with fire regulations. All we had to do was slip back the bolt and creep out. We walked and walked until eventually, at about three in the morning, we got to a garage about eight miles from Cherry Road. We went in, hoping to get a lift from someone who was stopping for petrol. There was a taxi driver there, and we told him we’d been to a party and needed to get back home. We gave him Mum’s address, thinking we could all go there. He said he’d take us, and asked us to wait while he went to the loo.

A few minutes later a police car turned up and we realised the taxi driver had shopped us. Cold, cross and tired, we were driven back, to be greeted by a very angry Penny, who doled out punishments all round.

I ran away several more times, mostly with Tanya. I usually decided to go after I’d got into trouble and been stopped from watching TV. I hated having to go to bed before all the others and was always begging to stay up for an extra half hour. When the staff refused, I’d throw a strop and then think, ‘Right, I’m off.’ I’d ask Tanya to come with me and we’d wait until the middle of the night and take off again. The trouble was, after a couple of hours we’d be cold, tired and bored. A couple of times we walked all the way back and got back into bed and no-one ever realised we’d gone.

On one occasion I ran away alone, after Tanya dared me to and said that I was a wimp and too scared to do it. I felt I had to prove her wrong. So that night, off I went. I was always scared of the dark, and out in the middle of the night on my own, I was terrified. It was cold and very dark and there was no-one about. After a couple of hours, I couldn’t stand it any more. I was bored and cold and tired, so I went back. The trouble was, it was still only eleven at night, the staff were still up, and Craig happened to be looking out of the window as I let myself back in, so I got caught. I was punished with extra chores for two weeks, but I didn’t really mind; I quite liked all the attention and fuss. Melanie came to talk to me several times, asking me why I wanted to run away. I just said, ‘Dunno’ and in many ways that was the truth. I really didn’t know, because life at Cherry Road was good.

Then another blow fell. Penny took me and Tanya into the office and explained that Jamie was to be allowed home again, but we were not. I felt betrayed. Why was Jamie going home and not us? Had Mum said she just wanted him? He had always been her favourite. Now he was going home, and would be part of Mum’s new family, while we were left in care.

Penny explained that they didn’t feel certain that Tanya and I would be safe, so we had to wait a bit longer. But I didn’t understand that at all. I ran to my room and lay on the bed, crying my eyes out.

Jamie couldn’t hide how pleased he was to be going home. He did try to be nice and tell us we’d be there soon ourselves. But neither of us really believed it. A couple of days later, Mum arrived to collect him. She came in and gave him a big hug and Tanya and I just stood and watched, feeling unwanted.

It took me a few weeks to settle down again after that. I couldn’t stop thinking of Mum with John’s kids and now Jamie, all settled in at home, while we were left to rot. Though in truth, we weren’t rotting, we were actually quite happy and settled in Cherry Road. But I couldn’t get past the feeling of being abandoned.

By the time I was almost twelve and Tanya was nearly fifteen, I had decided that we should both have boyfriends. I longed to be wanted and liked, and I became convinced a boyfriend was the answer. I knew boyfriends were supposed to be nice to you and pay you lots of attention. I began chasing the boys at Cherry Road around, asking them to find us boyfriends, although Tanya was more than capable of finding her own and had already had several. This got me into trouble with the staff, who said it was unacceptable behaviour for a girl of my age. They threatened to cancel Mum’s visits if I didn’t stop.

Mum was still coming - when she managed to get lifts - and she seemed to take pleasure in telling us about all the presents she was buying Jamie and all the fun they were having now that he was home. She’d already bought him a Sega Mega Drive and a music centre and all sorts of other things we would have loved. It only added to our belief that he was Mum’s favourite.

A few weeks later, we were told that Mum would be allowed to take us out for a few hours at a time. At first it was only an hour, and we’d walk around the shops and go for a cup of tea. When all went well, she was allowed to take us for several hours, and eventually for a whole day. We were supposed to go shopping, or to the cinema, but as soon as she had us for the day, Mum just took us straight home. This was strictly forbidden, but the staff never found out.

Of course we’d already been home, when we bunked off school, so we were used to going there anyway. And, to be honest, although we’d wanted to go back so much, it was no fun at all. The moment we arrived, Mum seemed to revert to her old self and lose interest in us. She settled in front of the telly with a cup of tea and ignored us until it was time to drive back to the home. It was as if once she was back on home territory, she forgot about loving us and being kind and went back to being just the same as she’d been before. She was all smiles and cuddles at the home, but as soon as she was out of sight of the staff she’d be cold and distant again. She had kept saying she wanted us back, but when we were actually at home it didn’t feel as though she wanted us at all. She seemed irritated by our presence, and told us to go out and play. We were only allowed in to do jobs for her, or rub her feet or back.

After a few of these trips home, I began to be quite glad when Mum didn’t turn up to take us out. It was boring hanging around our house, with nothing to do and no-one to talk to. John would be at the printers where he worked, his kids would be out playing, and Tanya and I just mooned around, feeling lost.

Jamie didn’t seem happy to see us either. He hated having these new kids in the house and he blamed me and Tanya for it. He said that if we hadn’t been taken away, after blabbing about Terry, then the other kids wouldn’t have moved in. He’d only been back for a short while, but already he was in all kinds of trouble again, stealing and breaking into houses. Mum didn’t mind, as long as he gave her plenty of the stuff he stole. He’d come home with armloads of sweets, cakes and cigarettes, and even things like tellys and videos. He’d sell those, and Mum would pocket at least half of the cash.

We all hated Shaun and Kelly being in our house, but I soon realised that they hated it too. And most of all they hated Mum. They thought she was a witch, because she was so horrible to them. She beat them, made them miss meals, and if they forgot to clean their teeth she made them brush their teeth with salt. They hid a knife in her pillow, hoping it would stab her when she got into bed. She found it when she fluffed the pillow up, and she was livid. It never occurred to her to wonder why they wanted to kill her.

John was a loving dad, and all this was putting his relationship with Mum under a lot of strain. And that made her even more irritable and tense. I used to go out onto the street and hang about, thinking that the kids at Cherry Road were probably off swimming or enjoying a fun outing and wishing I was there.

By this time I’d been at Cherry Road for over a year and a half and I was a much happier, calmer and less angry child than I had been when I arrived. The staff’s kindness and concern had broken through the shell of my resistance and hurt, and I genuinely loved all of them. They would spoil me, giving me little treats or letting me do jobs to earn extra pocket money. I had stopped smoking and was gradually relaxing into being the child I really was, rather than the imitation adult I had been forced to be.

When all the bedrooms were redecorated, they even allowed me to choose my own wallpaper. The one I fell in love with was called ‘woof’; it had little dogs all over a blue background. I was still sharing with Tanya, but luckily she approved my choice.

I had stopped stealing and running away and was far less disruptive. I had learned to keep to the rules and it was rare for me to be punished or get into trouble.

I had also made a friend, at last. A boy called Lee had arrived a few months after me. He was a skinny little kid in glasses, a little younger than I was. He had learned karate and we would play-fight, though he’d win every time. He was a joker and he made me laugh. We began hanging around together in our free time and it was nice to have a friend. Lee was there for about nine months, then one day he told me he was leaving to go home. I missed him a lot.

Even school was better. I was catching up and sometimes getting very good marks and I’d begun to make some friends. I was far more talkative and confident than I had once been. I no longer hung around the edges of the playground, and I joined in with the other kids’ games.

Anna was still coming to see me and Tanya, though by this time it was only every couple of weeks. She monitored our progress closely and she told me how happy she was that I was doing well. I had long since forgiven her for sending us to Cherry Road - I understood by then that it wouldn’t have been her decision alone anyway.

Mum was still visiting us, though she often missed one or two visits, and one day she told us that she had broken up with John. ‘Couldn’t stand his bloody kids,’ she sniffed. ‘The little buggers put ground-up tablets in my tea. Tried to kill me. Anyway, they’re gone now and I’m glad. Best off without them.’