The Cast-Off Kids (32 page)

‘I don’t know, but I had my suspicions. I could see the signs.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think she stayed on with Dad for a bit, but I’m pretty sure he abused her a lot.’

‘Sexually?’

‘Yes. She was very unhappy and depressed. She stopped eating, and I think she started self-harming too, just before I left. I lost contact with her after that.’

‘Oh dear, you have had a hard time of it, the two of you. What an awful shame you were taken away from us.’

‘Yes, I’ve often thought that about you, and about what our lives would have been like if we could have stayed on with you and Dad.’

‘Well, it’s all in the past now. But maybe we can make things better in the future? Let’s start by having something to eat. How about . . .’

‘Bacon sandwiches? Yes, please.’

After lunch I brought down all the things I’d been collecting and a new box to put them in. ‘Let’s do you a new memory box, Pauly.’

‘OK. Do you know, you’re the only person who has ever called me that. I’ve missed it.’

We sat down at the kitchen table and started looking through all the photos I’d found.

He pointed at a boy in a group photo. ‘Who was that little boy with the elephant?’ He asked. ‘You know, the one we took to the zoo to see the real elephants. Didn’t he
run away or something?’

‘Yes, that was Alfie. He wasn’t expecting real elephants to be so big. Mike had to run off and find him. That was a funny day.’

‘Most days were funny days, as far as I can remember,’ said Paul with a wide grin.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right!’

Then I went to get a couple of things I had seen in town and bought especially to go in Paul’s new memory box.

‘Here’s a present for you,’ I said, giving him a bulging paper bag.

‘What is it?’ He looked intrigued.

‘When I saw it I had to buy it for you. Go on, open it. I want to see what you think.’ Slowly, Paul opened the bag and peeked inside. ‘Oh,’ he said, laughing, and pulled
out a little teddy that looked very like his original Ted, only a bit smaller and a lot softer.

‘Thank you, Mum.’ He got up and came round to give me a hug. ‘How did you find him? He’s just like my Ted.’

‘That’s why I bought him.’

‘That’s brilliant.’

‘I’m glad you like him.’ Then I handed him the other present I’d bought for his memory box.

He slid in his hand and pulled out what was inside, then burst into laughter. ‘A times-tables book!’ he said.

‘To replace the one you made . . . that got burnt.’

‘Yes! Thank you.’ He gave me a big bear-hug, then slipped the tables book into his box. ‘I still can’t remember all my tables!’ He grinned.

He chose some photos and we spent a happy afternoon, sharing memories, punctuated by laughter, until it was almost time for him to catch his train.

I got him a black carrier-bag, which looked quite macho, to put it all in. And he put his jacket on for the journey home.

‘There’s just one more thing I want you to see before you go,’ I said, opening the back door. ‘It will only take a minute. When you said you were coming today, I
scrabbled about and found it to show you.’

Paul looked puzzled as we went out across the yard, then his face lit up when he saw it standing against the garage wall.

‘My bike!’

‘Yes, we kept it for you all these years.’

‘Thank you, Mum. That’s amazing. A shame it’s miles too small for me now, but wonderful to see you kept it and polished it up specially for me. I was so proud of that
bike.’

Another hug and off we went to the station.

As I waved him off towards the platform, I wondered when I would see him again.

A
fter Paul left that day, I didn’t see him for a long time, because he was moving around with the army. Then I had a brief phone call from
him to tell me his baby boy had been born, he’d got married and he’d left the army. A few months later, he sent me a photo of his little boy and his wife.

Soon after that, we moved house, took on four more siblings to foster and I started up my fostering agency, so I was always busy. But I couldn’t get him out of my mind. The only clue I had
to where he might be living was that his wife came from Chester. But how could I track him down in a city like that? And where would I begin to look for him if he was anywhere else? I didn’t
even know whether his wife was the girlfriend he had told me about, or someone new.

‘Why don’t you get a private detective to search for him?’ suggested Mike one evening.

So that’s what I did. I gave this detective the only clues I had, which were Chester, Paul’s name and details, a copy of the photo of his wife and son, the fact that he’d left
the army, and I had an idea that he was working at a large factory somewhere in the Chester area, but I could have been wrong about that.

This private detective worked away at tracking down Paul for three whole weeks, without any leads at all. The only phone number I had for him had been disconnected, and he’d never given me
his Chester address, so it was a complete dead end. Why couldn’t we find him? Where had he gone?

It was very frustrating, but I had to give in for now.

Many years later, I was talking to my grown-up granddaughter Laura about some of the children I’d fostered, and I mentioned Daisy and Paul.

‘Paul came to find me when he was eighteen and we kept in contact for a few years. He married and had a little boy, or the other way around. They moved and then we moved too and sadly we
just lost touch. It was such a shame.’

‘We could try to find him,’ suggested Laura.

‘I did try to find him. I even hired a private detective, but he couldn’t track him down either.’

‘Let’s see if he’s on Facebook,’ she said, opening up her laptop on the kitchen table. ‘What’s his name?’

So I gave her his full name and she typed it in.

‘Where do you think he might be living?’

‘I don’t know, but it could be Chester.’

She typed that in and scrutinised her screen. ‘No, that’s not come up.’

‘Oh. I thought that, with such an unusual surname, he might be easy to find.’

‘Well, it’s drawn a blank for that name anywhere in the UK. Do you think he could be living abroad?’

‘I don’t know.’

She typed in variations of just initials or the full three names. ‘Still nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve tried it every way I can think of.’

‘Oh well, let’s leave it then. I can’t think of any other clues.’

But later on that evening, I suddenly remembered the photo he’d sent me. I went straight up to my files and found it. I turned it over to see if anything was written on the back . . . and
that’s when my luck changed. I found his wife’s name, Annalise. So I went to bed that night with her name on my mind:
Annalise
. . .

The following morning, when Laura was having her breakfast, I told her about the photo. ‘And when I turned it over, the name Annalise stood out. That must be the name of his
wife.’

‘Well done, Nan,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s give that a try. I’ll just log in.’ She reached her laptop down from the dresser and pressed the on switch. In only just
over a minute we’d found the only Annalise with that surname on Facebook.

‘But what if Paul’s Annalise isn’t on Facebook?’ I asked. ‘Like he obviously isn’t?’

‘Well,’ said Laura. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘How?’

‘You could send a message to this Annalise that’s come up with the right surname.’

So that’s what I did. I wrote:

Then I went off to put on some washing, and Laura started to get on with the assignment she was doing for college.

Suddenly, Laura called me, and it sounded serious.

‘What is it?’ I rushed back to the kitchen.

‘You’ve got a message, Nan,’ she said, excitedly.

I sat down with her to read the message. But it wasn’t really a reply, which was disappointing:

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to be careful here. Even if it is the right Paul, this could be his ex-wife, his daughter . . . it could be anybody.’

So I wrote:

We checked it every hour or so, but no answer came back.

Then Laura said: ‘That’s odd.’

I went back to sit next to her at the table. Another message had come through:

‘Think hard about that one, Nan,’ she said, going off to the cupboard to fetch the lead for her laptop, as the battery was getting low. By the time she came back
I’d answered.

‘Oh Nan!’ said Laura. ‘You didn’t give her your personal phone number did you?’

As soon as I heard her tone of voice, like an adult telling off a silly child, I knew I mustn’t have had my proper head on, to do a daft thing like that.

‘Yes, I did,’ I owned up.

‘You shouldn’t have done that, Nan,’ she continued. ‘Now you’ve got no way of blocking them. You won’t even know who it is.’

Five minutes later, the phone went.

Without thinking, I picked it up . . . and was immediately glad I did.

‘Hello, Mum. It’s Paul. This is a strange coincidence. I’ve been looking for you, but I couldn’t find anyone called Patricia Merry!’

‘Didn’t you think to look for me as Trisha?’

‘I did, but I couldn’t find you. ‘

Then I realised. ‘How did you spell Trisha?’

‘T-R-I-C-I-A, as in Patricia.’

‘Ah, that’s why. I spell it as T-R-I-S-H-A.’

‘Well, no wonder I couldn’t find you. To be honest, I just stopped looking, because I thought you were too old to be on Facebook!’ He laughed, so I knew he was teasing, and I
laughed with him.

‘Well, I am now,’ I said. ‘Because my granddaughter got me going. She’s the one who suggested we try to find you on Facebook, but we couldn’t, so then we tried
looking for Annalise. Do you have your own page?’

‘No, Annie’s the one who uses the computer most, her and the kids, so I leave it all to them. I’d rather be out running, or helping a mate with his building work, or tinkering
with my motorbike in the garage.’

‘So you haven’t changed! You always were the action man.’

‘That’s me!’ He paused and I could hear a voice in the background. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘But I’d love to bring the family up to see you.
Would that be all right? I’ll phone to arrange it nearer the time.’

About a month later, Paul called to suggest a date.

‘That’ll be perfect,’ I said. ‘We have so much to catch up on. Are you bringing Annalise and the children?’ I had a feeling that he had more than one.

‘Yes, a boy and two girls, all teenagers now, so they don’t always want to go places with us; but they’ve heard me talk so much about you that they think of you and Dad as
family too, so they all want to come that day. I reckon they’re curious to meet you, to see if you really do have haloes floating above your heads!’

‘Are you sure you rang the right number?’ I said, laughing happily. ‘Only fallen angels at this address.’

The morning they were coming, we were so, so nervous. Neither of us could understand why, because we were really looking forward to seeing them. It was a strange feeling, being
happy and apprehensive at the same time.

My phone pinged, so I picked it up. ‘Paul’s just texted,’ I called to Mike out of the kitchen window as he got some garden chairs out of the shed. ‘They’ve just
come off the motorway.’

‘Oh good.’ He looked at his watch. ‘They won’t be long now.’

Only fifteen minutes later, I heard the noise of Paul’s car bumping and crunching up the long drive we shared with the farm.

‘They’re here,’ I called out to Mike.

As I went out to welcome them, Paul came to a halt and the second he’d put the handbrake on he threw open his door, leapt out and ran towards me, then flung his arms around me in a great
bear-hug that almost stifled me.

‘Hello, Mum!’ He drew back to look at me.

‘You haven’t changed at all, have you?’ I laughed. His wife and children, left to their own devices, got out of their car and came over to join us.

‘Hello, I’m Annalise,’ said his pretty wife, with a beaming smile. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you.’

‘Don’t believe all you hear!’ I said.

Paul was right. She was a lovely girl, and the children were typical gangly teenagers, determined not to smile . . . but they couldn’t help themselves in the end, as our rescue dogs rushed
out to get in on the act.

We had a brilliant day with them all, reminiscing with Paul and making his wife and children laugh at some of his antics. And as I talked so easily with Annalise, I remembered back to when Paul
had just met her and told me then how lovely she was. His judgement was spot on.

They stayed for hours, but the day seemed to pass in a flash and it was nearly time for them to go.

‘I know you lost touch with Daisy a few years back,’ I said to Paul. ‘But have you made any efforts to find her since then?’

‘Not really.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘I tried once, at the same time as I tried to find you,’ I told him. ‘But no luck. I guess she might have married and changed her name . . .’

‘I don’t know,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve not heard from her in years.’ I saw the sadness in his eyes. But outwardly he hid it well. ‘I honestly don’t know
what happened, or why she stopped all contact.’

‘Please let me know if you do hear from her again one day.’

‘Yes, of course I will.’

Annalise came to join us. ‘I’m sorry to break up the conversation,’ she apologised. ‘But we really do have to go. We have two dogs and a cat at home, waiting to be
fed.’ She looked at Paul and he nodded. ‘We’ve had a lovely day. Thank you so much for having us all. It was very kind of you.’