Mummy's Little Helper (9 page)

I nodded. ‘I understand,’ I said carefully. ‘It must be hard, with Mummy’s illness. But while you’re here … and since we’re going to be throwing a party for Jackson anyway. Well, I just thought – why not ask a few friends from school along too?’

Again, I felt her tension. ‘But I might not be here next month, might I? And besides,’ she persisted, ‘there’s no one. No one I’d
want
to come, anyway. They’re all just silly. I told you …’

She had, too. I couldn’t argue that point. And I wasn’t about to contradict her about when she may or may not be able to go home again. Not right now. And once again I felt saddened at how all this had come about. You didn’t tend to maintain friendships when you were the perpetual outsider. When you never invited any of your peers round to play. And though it wasn’t a nice thought, and a part of me felt guilty for thinking it, it occurred to me that Sarah couldn’t let her daughter have friends round for parties, even if Abby wanted to. If she had, it would obviously mean interacting with their parents, which might mean someone realising the conditions in which poor Abby lived. Which might have profound repercussions …

I was just reassuring Abby that she was under absolutely no pressure to ask anyone round when a key turned in the front door to reveal Kieron, closely followed by an excited and dripping Bob. Bob had been the family dog for getting on for three years now – since the day Kieron just arrived with him, fresh from an animal sanctuary. Though he no longer lived with us – he’d gone with Kieron, to Lauren’s – he was still very much part of our home. Which was presumably why he still had no compunction about doing his drying off by shaking his wet coat in the middle of my kitchen.

‘Hey, Mr!’ I tutted. ‘Thanks for that!
NOT
.’ I pulled my own rubber gloves off, the cleaning spell clearly now over. What with everything, I’d lost all track of the time, not to mention the fact that Kieron had already told me he’d be popping over. He’d promised to come and sort half a dozen huge boxes containing some of his collection of CDs and DVDs, which, with the house move being so last minute, still required his attention. It was a collection that had been acquired over his entire childhood, and it really needed pruning, the plan being to decide which to take to his and Lauren’s, which should go to the local charity shop and which were worth trying to sell on eBay.

Kieron being Kieron, this would be no simple task. With his Asperger’s, he was pathologically obsessed about order, so this would be no simple ‘keep, donate or sell’ half-hour job. Even assuming he’d be able to part with half of them – and there was only so much room for, not to mention sense in, storing them – they would first have to be re-catalogued to the minutest degree.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ I said to Bob now, before he could add to his crimes by launching himself – and his filthy paws – over an already cringing Abby. ‘You’re out of bounds till you’ve had a proper rub down!’ I scooped him up – I was still in my muddy jeans, so it didn’t matter. ‘And I tell you what,’ I said to Abby. ‘I think we can call it a day with cleaning, don’t you?’ I grinned at my son, as he shrugged off his jacket, a perfect plan hatching in my mind. To some extent, I realised, these two were peas in a pod. I grinned at Abby while Bob enthusiastically licked my face. ‘I’m betting Kieron here would love the chance to recruit you.’

‘What’s that, Mum?’ Kieron asked, hanging his coat over the newel post. ‘All right, Abby?’ he greeted her. She nodded shyly.

‘Your big DVD sort-out,’ I explained. ‘Abby’s a complete whizz at getting organised, aren’t you, sweetie? So why don’t the two of you crack on while I make us all some tea?’

Abby nodded again. As did Kieron, who was obviously happy to have the company. And as I watched them trot off upstairs, I reflected that, even though, as peas went, they were very differently sized ones, my random thought might just turn out to be the best one I’d had all day. Abby might not have friends at school, but she might just find one in Kieron.

Though quite how much of a friend he’d turn out to be, bless him, I was yet to see.

‘Good news,’ I told Abby when she returned home from school the following day. ‘Mummy’s feeling well enough again for us to visit her.’

I’d taken the call from Bridget that lunchtime. Sarah was apparently recovering from her fever, and though she was still very poorly she was keen to see Abby.

Abby’s response, however, was typically brisk. ‘About flipping time!’ she blustered, pulling off her backpack and yanking her arms from her blazer, before hanging the latter neatly over the newel post. ‘About flipping time!’

To my delight, the DVD sort-out with Kieron had been a great success. Not only had they cleared all six storage boxes between them, but Kieron had also given Abby the pick of all the kids’ films as a thank you for all her hard work.

‘You should have seen her, Mum,’ he’d told me before he’d set off for home. ‘She was like the cat that got the cream – and all over a few ancient Disney films!’

It had made me think, that. What had been throwaway items, almost – many of Kieron’s movie collection had been picked up at boot sales and charity shops in the first place – were obviously things this child had simply never had. With no family to buy her presents, and a sick, often housebound mother, who was probably chronically short of cash, such luxuries as DVDs might have been in very short supply.

After Kieron had gone I’d dug out an old DVD player for her to use, and set up our old portable for her bedroom. And it was Kieron she mostly talked about on the way to the hospital now. How funny he was and how generous he was. She also mentioned something I hadn’t been aware of at the time – she’d told him how she’d never been allowed to have a pet, and he’d said she could have a ‘virtual one’ instead. He’d taken a photo of her and Bob on his smartphone, and had printed it out so she could stick it in her scrapbook and show it to her mum when she visited. Hearing that, I felt that warm glow you always get when a plan comes together. I was also naturally very touched by what he’d done.

But for all her apparent jollity, Abby lapsed into silence as the hospital buildings loomed into view. I couldn’t blame her. As reminders of ‘grim reality’ went, this was it. It had been one of those dull, drizzly days that make you think the winter’s never ending, and in the dusky pewter light the hospital looked as bleak as could be. It had also started raining pretty heavily.

‘Don’t forget the scrapbook, then,’ I reminded her as we parked up in the usual far corner of the car park. I peered at the heavens, and wished for my son’s attention to detail. No hat and no umbrella, despite my popping the latter on the hall windowsill ready. Though at least Abby had a hood, so we wouldn’t get completely drenched.

I fed the pay and display machine with the usual cobbled-together assortment of loose change, and we hurried up to the hospital buildings, dodging puddles. But if I was glad to get inside and reunite mother and daughter for a bit, my hopes for a fond reunion were to be quickly dashed.

Sarah had been moved to a side room now, which was something of a blessing, because the first thing Abby did on seeing her was to march up to the bed, slam her hands against her hip bones and glare at her mother.

‘How much longer are you going to keep this up, Mummy?’ she shouted. ‘When are you going to have a remission? WHEN?’

Shocked both by her tone and by the unexpected decibel level, I caught up with her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off angrily. ‘Mummy! What’s going to happen to the house? It’s going to go to the dogs! It’ll be dis
gust
ing! Come on! We need to GO HOME!’

Sarah’s face, initially registering bafflement, began to crumple.

‘Poppet, I’m so sorry …’ was all she managed to get out before collapsing into shoulder-heaving sobs. And even crying looked painful. My heart really went out to her. ‘Abby, love …’ I began, but by now Abby had burst into tears too, and, once again shaking off my comforting arm, launched herself onto the bed and flung herself across her mother’s chest.

‘Oh, poppet, I’m so sorry,’ Sarah said again, tears streaming down her face as she hugged her daughter. ‘Mummy doesn’t want to be ill. I just can’t help it! Oh, Abby, I miss you so much! I’m doing my best, I promise! Please don’t cry. Please don’t …’

Once again, I could see Sarah’s obvious discomfort. And I was acutely aware of my own, for that matter. I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I was pretty sure Sarah didn’t want me there, either. I took a step back, and then another, and since they were oblivious to me anyway I mumbled something about getting a drink, and scuttled out.

I remembered the brace of vending machines that were stationed just down the main corridor, and headed gratefully for them. Clearly in macabre mood (possibly a side-effect of the gloomy weather) I tried to imagine what it must be like to know you were dying and that you would have to explain it to your distressed, soon-to-be-orphaned child. Sarah wasn’t dying – I did know that – but even so it was still upsetting. She wanted to take care of her child, her child wanted to be with her, yet they were at this horrible impasse, kept apart from one another, with the spectre of being permanently separated ever present. And it seemed that at any moment I was about to find out just how very likely that was looking.

I’d just arrived at the coffee machine and pulled my purse out of my handbag, when I could hear someone approaching behind me.

‘Hiya,’ a female voice said. ‘You just brought Abby up, right?’

I turned around to see a young woman walking towards me. She was perhaps in her mid-twenties, with a bright smile and an enormous patchwork bag. I wondered if she was perhaps Sarah’s social worker. I nodded. ‘Just giving them some time alone.’

‘I’m Chelsea,’ she added, plonking the bag down on the row of seats beside the machines, while I fed coins – my last few – into the slot. ‘I’m Sarah’s occupational therapist.’ Ah, I thought. Not right, but nearly. ‘Well, for the present, at least,’ she added. ‘You’re Casey, right? The social worker mentioned you.’ I nodded. ‘Poor kid. Sarah was explaining things to me. You just can’t imagine how bad it must be for them, can you? Being separated like this. Poor little thing,’ she said again. I was about to answer – in the affirmative – when she laughed, and re-grouped her features. ‘Doh! What am I
saying
? You’re a foster carer!’ She pulled her own purse from a pocket in the bag and started rummaging in it for coins also, then smiled up at me. ‘I’ll bet you’ve seen far worse in your line of work.’

I smiled back as pulled my plastic cup from the holder. The contents looked reliably undrinkable. ‘I’ve seen my fair share, I guess,’ I said. ‘But you’re still right. It’s just so sad, all this, isn’t it?’

Chelsea’s face now formed a professional frown. ‘You’re telling me. Horrible,
horrible
disease.’

‘So I’m learning,’ I agreed, as she began feeding her own coins into the machine. ‘I’ve been trying to gen up on it. It’s all new territory. I’ve no personal experience of it myself.’

‘Hurrah to that. I have an aunt who has been living with it since her teens. It’s part of the reason I became an OT. And it’s particularly grim in Sarah’s case, of course, now it looks like she’s moving to secondary progressive. Not the best news, all things considered. And God –
how
unlucky was that wretched fracture? But, yes, grim all round. Though, truth be known, looking at what I’ve seen of her history, maybe she’s never really been in the relapsing–remitting group anyway. Perhaps she’s actually had primary progressive from day one.’

I sipped my grey coffee-flavoured water and duly grimaced. ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

Chelsea smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. I tend to do that.’ She then explained about the various types of MS you could have, and how one could morph into another – and often did – while another was benign (‘Would that every kind were that kind, eh?’), and a fourth – and what it seemed they thought Sarah might have, which was increasingly disabling from the outset, with each relapse causing irreparable damage.

‘So that’s the one they call primary progressive – for obvious reasons. And it would seem to fit. This is certainly proving to be quite a severe relapse, isn’t it? And, of course, given the home situation, it’s
all
a bit grim, isn’t it? Always difficult when patients have no one to support them at home, obviously. I mean, here by the grace of God and all that – where the hell do they
go
?’

‘Exactly,’ I said, because I’d wondered that myself. ‘Where
do
they go?’

Chelsea sipped her own drink. ‘God! How do they make this stuff so spectacularly grisly? What, you mean, in the short term? Well, off an acute medical ward, for starters, otherwise there’d be no beds left free for anyone. To nursing homes, often, to shuffle around with all the octogenarians. Can you
imagine
? But if they fulfil the criteria, or have the means to finance it, ideally to a dedicated rehab facility.’

I tried to imagine being in your thirties and having to move to a nursing home. Or a rehab facility, for that matter, though the latter sounded marginally better. ‘What, as a live-in patient?’

She nodded. ‘For a period of weeks, usually. Occupational therapy, physio, nutrition, the whole rehabilitation package. Till they can cope again independently, if that’s possible, of course. With a lot of MS relapses, there’s a critical period when they have a decent chance of regaining some function – miss that and you’re scuppered, basically. Though in Sarah’s case they’re still thinking about that clinical trial first, aren’t they? Which’ll mean keeping her here for at least the next couple of weeks – they need close monitoring, of course. The drugs are pretty heavy duty.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, growing anxious now about how much she was telling me, and realising that she thought I was privy to a lot more than I was. ‘All I know is that I’ve got Abby for as long as she needs to be with me.’ I frowned. ‘Which from what you say is looking like it might be for a little longer than originally thought.’

I could see Chelsea’s face turning a definite shade of crimson. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘I thought … I mean, I hope I haven’t been indiscreet here. I assumed you knew about all this.’

‘Not a great deal,’ I admitted. ‘As a foster carer you don’t usually have very much contact with the birth family, for obvious reasons. Certainly nothing like this. It’s an unusual case for us. But don’t worry. I’m not in the habit of blabbing. And, trust me, the last thing I want is for Abby to know all this. Right now she’s waiting patiently for her mum to get better. Thinking she’s going to is what’s keeping her going. As and when that changes – well, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘God,’ Chelsea said with feeling. ‘That poor mite.’

For all that it wasn’t my business, I brooded about what Chelsea had told me all the way home. Having got her outburst out of the way, Abby seemed in better spirits. Well, if not in particularly good spirits, exactly, at least she seemed calmer for having vented her frustration at her mum, so perhaps it was all to the good that she’d got it out of her system. She badly needed an outlet for her doubtless myriad emotions, and, with no family or friends to draw on, she sadly lacked one.

But knowing what I now knew, I felt out of my depth about how to play things. Should I go along with the whole ‘mum will get better’ line? I’d already asked Bridget about that and her response had been unequivocal: no point in stressing Abby about the future till we knew just how bad things were likely to be. But wouldn’t some preparation help? Wouldn’t opening her mind to a number of possible scenarios be a useful way of drip-feeding the reality into her head? Given how her anxiety was affecting her – the obsessive cleaning, the terror of germs, the increasing social isolation – might it not be better to address the reality sooner rather than later? Perhaps I needed to call John and talk it over with him in the morning – after all, he might not even be up to speed with the medical developments.

And that ‘perhaps’ was soon to be upgraded to a ‘definitely’. After a quiet tea during which Abby spent most of her time pushing her uneaten food around her plate and tapping her knife against her plate rim, I suggested she head up to bed, snuggle down and watch one of her new DVDs, which she seemed keener on doing than sharing the sofa with me. It was a treat to watch TV in bed in our house – particularly on a school night because, for the kids I usually had on the programme anyway, time watching DVDs or TV was a privilege they had to earn as part of the rewards system. It was a key component of the behaviour modification approach.

But an hour in I was still concerned about how poor Abby was feeling. However good it had been to clear the air with her mum, I knew she’d probably still be unsettled and upset. That was the problem when children were expected to be carers – the terrible guilt they felt for having perfectly reasonable feelings of resentment about having to take on such an onerous responsibility at such a young age. Her little rant at her mum would surely still be playing on her mind.

Armed with a glass of milk in one hand and a sandwich in the other, I couldn’t knock on the bedroom door when I got up there. Instead I called out a ‘hi’, and pushed it open with my backside. The room was in flickering darkness, the bedside lamp off – Abby would no more leave an unnecessary light on than fly – and the only light was coming from the television. And though the film was a musical and the volume quite high, I wondered, from the mound under the covers, if she was already asleep.

I crossed the room to put the drink and sandwich down on the bedside table, but had to make space for it: there were half a dozen other DVDs stacked up there, and – to my great surprise – my kitchen scissors. For an instant I froze – how had she got them? Why had she taken them? What had she done to herself? I had seen enough damaged children for it to set alarm bells ringing in my head. I quickly put down the glass and plate and turned my attention to the bed.

‘Abby, love?’ I began, starting to lift the covers that concealed her, but just as I did so, the game obviously up, she stopped feigning sleep and pushed them off herself. She was busy trying to yank down the sleeves of her dressing gown, and I looked anxiously for any grisly signs of injury.