The Saddest Girl in the World (11 page)

When I returned to collect Donna at the end of school, I took Adrian and Paula with me; they were keen to see Donna's school and also I didn't feel I could ask my neighbour to look after them again. They were most impressed when I drove into the staff car park, and even more so
when I keyed in the security number and let us in through the staff gate. We waited in the playground with the other parents for Donna's class to come out, and when Donna appeared and saw the three of us I thought she looked just a little bit proud. She came over and said ‘Hi,’ to Adrian and Paula, as other children were greeting their younger siblings.

Beth Adams, Donna's class teacher, followed Donna out and came over and introduced herself. She was in her twenties and very pleasant; she told me she was from New Zealand, and was here on a year's contract with her husband. I said again that I wanted to help Donna with her school work, and she said she would put extra work sheets in Donna's reading folder, and also that there would be set homework, and Donna was expected to read her book every night. I thanked her for all she was doing for Donna, and the four of us then left the school by the staff entrance, with the children feeling somewhat aloof at their new elevated status.

That evening over dinner I casually asked Donna if Aunt May, whom I had met that morning, was the same aunt she had sometimes visited for her meals.

Donna nodded. ‘She uses a walking stick because she's got a plastic foot. Warren used to run off with the foot and hide it.’

I smiled at this childish, if not a little unkind, prank.

Adrian giggled. ‘Why has she got a plastic foot?’ he asked, while Paula sat there looking nonplussed, having no idea what a plastic foot was.

‘'Cos her other one got burnt off when she was a baby,’ Donna said. ‘Her mum hung her over the fire and it got burnt off.’

We stopped eating. ‘No! Surely not?’ I said. ‘That sounds to me like the story of Pinocchio, who sat too close to the fire.’ Adrian nodded, Donna shrugged and the subject was left at that.

Later Paula asked me what a plastic foot was and I explained about prostheses and how some people didn't have limbs, without going into too much detail, which could have been upsetting for a child of six. The following day when I spoke to Edna and told her, among other things, about the ‘welcoming party’ at school, she confirmed Donna's account of how Aunt May had lost her foot. As a baby it had been so badly burned when her mother (who was also Rita's mother) had held May over a coal fire that it had had to be amputated. The family had a history of abuse that went back three generations.

T
he routine of our school week began in earnest the following day when I woke Adrian, Paula and Donna at 7.00 a.m., and had them dressed, washed and breakfasted and in the car by 7.50. I saw Donna into her school to help with the breakfast club at 8.15; then I drove back to Adrian and Paula's school to arrive at 8.40, which gave us ten minutes to mingle in the playground before the bell went at 8.50. In the afternoon I did the reverse, and first collected Adrian and Paula, who came out at 3.10 p.m., and then made a dash to Donna's school for her dismissal time of 3.30. This arrangement relied on Adrian and Paula coming out exactly on time, and I mentioned to Beth Adams that I might occasionally be a few minutes late, if the traffic was heavy or Adrian and Paula weren't dismissed at exactly 3.10. As it turned out, though, Donna was usually five or ten minutes late leaving the classroom, as she was always the one who volunteered to help clear up if the room was in a mess.

‘Donna likes to help so much, doesn't she?’ Beth Adams commented to me after school one day. ‘She'll even give up her lunchtime if something needs doing; she's always asking me for jobs to do.’ I agreed, although I felt that Donna's eagerness to clean and tidy wasn't altogether
healthy, and was probably a legacy of her role at her mother's when cleaning had been her responsibility. I would rather have seen her stream out with the other children, not caring a damn about the state of the classroom and happy to leave it to someone else.

After a few days Donna pointed out her friend Emily to me and I introduced myself to her and her mother; they were both aware Donna was in foster care. Emily's mother, Mandy, was very friendly and told me about Emily's learning difficulties, and how she really appreciated Emily having Donna as her friend — someone her own age in the same class. I said it was important we kept their friendship going, and that I would like it very much if Emily could come to tea. Mandy agreed, but said that Emily was a little shy and asked if we could leave it until later in the term when Emily had resettled into the school routine. They were Polish and had spent the entire summer holidays in Poland, and Emily had found the transition back not an easy one. We always chatted briefly when we saw each other in the playground at the end of the school day.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I had to do a quick turnaround after school because of Donna's contact. As soon as we arrived home at 4.00 p.m. Donna washed and changed, and then had her evening meal, ready to leave the house again at 4.40 for contact at 5.00. I had started giving Donna her evening meal before contact, as Edna had said that Donna was ‘pigging out’ on the biscuits at contact because she was hungry, and then feeling sick. Indeed, on more than one occasion when I'd collected her we'd had to drive home with the car window open as she had felt so rough, and then she hadn't wanted her dinner. On these evenings Paula, Adrian and I ate when we
returned from taking Donna to contact and before we had to get back into the car to collect her. It was a rush, but Adrian and Paula had grown up being herded in and out of the car for contact, as do other children of foster carers. Contact always takes priority, even to the extent of rearranging and sometimes cancelling one's own appointments.

Our routine of school continued and accelerated towards the half-term holiday in October. The evenings vanished, for apart from the contact, which dominated three of the evenings, there was homework to be done, the evening meal to be cooked and eaten, baths to be had and the children's favourite television programmes to be watched, before we began the bedtime routine. I maintained my vigilance with Donna whenever she was with Adrian, and particularly when she was with Paula, for while we hadn't had another incident of Donna actually hitting Paula, Donna would still try to dominate and chastise Paula and tell her what to do, often repeating my instructions with a lot more authority than I had given them. So if I said to Paula, ‘Come on, it's time to do your reading,’ Donna would echo, ‘Your mother told you to do your reading. Now!’ To which I would gently reply, ‘It's OK, Donna, I'll tell Paula. You don't have to, love.’ I suppose Donna felt chastisement was part of the role of looking after younger siblings, which it had been when she'd been living at home. I hoped that this behaviour, like others, would diminish over time.

I continued to monitor Donna's washing: when she had a bath or went to the toilet I stood on the landing, listening for any sound that might have suggested she was washing with more vigour than she should — trying to rub
her skin colour off again; although having removed the nailbrushes and pumice stone I felt there was less chance of her doing real damage to herself with the sponge and flannels that were left. I also remained concerned about Donna's poor self-image — not only in respect of her dual heritage but also with her self-esteem in general, which was non-existent. Mrs Bristow assured me that she was already seeing positive changes in Donna and felt that she was gaining confidence. Her teachers and I praised Donna at every opportunity. I continued to give Donna little jobs to do in the house so that she felt she was helping, but I was gradually reducing these, hoping to wean her off her need for drudgery and subservience. When she performed a task her manner was so servile it was uncomfortable to watch. However, Donna wasn't ready to let go of this role yet, and in order to exorcise her compulsion she discovered a new behaviour which was quite bizarre.

I went up to her bedroom one day to find the whole room littered with hundreds of tiny bits of paper torn from old magazines, which she had bought with her pocket money.

‘That's a right mess,’ I said, not best pleased. ‘And I've only just vacuumed.’ The tiny bits of paper were everywhere — all over the floor, the bed, the bookshelves and every available surface.

‘I'm going to clean it up,’ she said laboriously, and immediately dropped onto all fours and began steadily picking up the tiny scraps of paper. Half an hour later the room was spotless again.

After that it became a regular pursuit: Donna spending thirty minutes tearing up the paper and then another thirty minutes clearing it up. When she had exhausted her
own supply of magazines or drawing paper, she asked me if she could have the old newspapers, which I reluctantly gave her. I wasn't at all sure I should be encouraging this, for it seemed it could be reinforcing exactly the behaviour I was trying to persuade her out of — cleaning. I talked to Edna and Jill about it and they both thought that it was a pretty harmless way of her acting out her role from the past, and as long as it didn't escalate, to let her continue. They said that it should slowly disappear over time, but that if it didn't then it could be addressed at therapy when it was started after the final court hearing in May. I asked them if I should let her do more in the house, as it seemed to me that I might have caused this new development by stopping a lot of her ‘housework’, but they said no, it would be a retrogressive step, and I was handling it correctly. I told Adrian and Paula not to say anything or laugh if Donna's bedroom door was open and they saw her tearing up or picking up the paper for this was her way of dealing with her past.

‘She can clean my room,’ Adrian said to me with a cheeky grin.

‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘That's your job.’ But I knew Donna would have done it if he'd asked.

Apart from the times when Donna tried to tell Paula what to do or chastise her, she remained very quiet and compliant — too much so, I thought. Her voice was always flat and expressionless, even when there was a treat to be enjoyed, as though she didn't dare express any excitement or pleasure. I was sure, as Mary had been, that Donna was internalising a lot of her pain, frustration and anger, and that at some point it would explode.

I was right, and it happened in October, during the week's half-term holiday from school.

Donna's contact continued during half term, so I had to make sure that when we went out for the day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we were back home relatively early. On Tuesday, when we weren't constrained by contact times, I took the opportunity of having a full day out, and we visited a theme park, which was about an hour's drive away. It was an excellent day, and I knew that Donna had enjoyed it as much as she could enjoy anything, although she hadn't said much and had needed a lot of persuasion to go on the rides.

On the way home Donna reminded me that she had contact the following day. ‘I know, love,’ I said. ‘Don't worry, I won't forget.’ She then said that her dad would be going and that he had been there on Monday. Her father had made intermittent appearances at contact, about every fourth one. I had never met Mr Bajan, but I knew he was the only one in the immediate family who hadn't abused Donna, and that his illness — paranoid schizophrenia — prevented him from taking a more prominent role in her life.

‘He hasn't been taking his medication,’ Donna said reflectively a short while later. ‘I told him on Monday to take it. Otherwise Edna will have him locked up.’ Donna was referring to her father being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, which seemed to happen a couple of times a year when he stopped taking his medication and began behaving irrationally and sometimes violently.

I glanced at Donna in the rear-view mirror. ‘Edna doesn't have him locked up,’ I said. ‘When your dad doesn't take his tablets he can't cope, so he is taken into hospital. The doctors make sure he has his medicine and then he is well
enough to go home again. Don't you worry: I'm sure Edna or your mum will tell him.’

Donna didn't say anything more in the car, but having been responsible for making sure her dad took his medication when she had been at home, she had clearly recognised the signs of him not having taken it, and this was proved the following day.

On Wednesday I took Donna to contact at 5.00 p.m., and I had just returned home when I got a phone call from Edna saying she was terminating contact immediately, and could I collect Donna straight away? Edna spoke quickly and anxiously — a sharp contrast to her usual calm and reassuring manner. She said she'd called the police and an ambulance for Mr Bajan, and that I should wait in the car outside the social services offices and Donna would be brought out to me. I told Adrian and Paula that Donna's father had been taken ill at contact, and we were going to collect her early, and to put on their shoes, which they had only just taken off. With mounting anxiety and no idea what to expect, I drove back to the offices in Belfont Road. As I turned into the road I saw two police cars and an ambulance parked on the forecourt at the front of the building. I pulled into the kerb a little way back and turned off the engine.

‘Why are the police here?’ Adrian asked.

‘I think it's in case the ambulance crew need help,’ I said, leaving it at that. I knew that sometimes schizophrenics could suffer from delusional hallucinations and become violent, but to talk about that to the children would have been frightening.

We sat in the car for about ten minutes, and I was expecting to see Donna appear at any minute with Edna.
Instead, after another few minutes the front door of the building suddenly burst open and, as we looked, two uniformed police officers came out, followed by another two, with a man I took to be Donna's father struggling between them. They were holding an arm each. He was a large man and appeared to be very strong. He was shouting and struggling, and trying to fight off the demons that clearly plagued him. ‘Fuck off ! Fuck off ! I've told you! I'll have you crucified like him!’ he yelled. He pulled and wrenched from side to side, and it was clear that it was all the officers either side of him could do to restrain him and stop him from breaking free. The officers were talking to him quietly, perhaps trying to reassure him, but I doubted he could hear over the noise of his shouting and wailing.

Behind them came the ambulance crew: two paramedics, one male and one female. There was no sign of Edna, Donna, Rita, Chelsea or the boys, all of whom had attended contact. Adrian, Paula and I watched, mesmerised and horrified by the scene. The female paramedic opened the ambulance doors and lowered the steps.

‘Oh no! On no! Oh no!’ Mr Bajan wailed. It was truly pitiful and frightening to watch. He struggled and cried out, pulling back from the steps of the ambulance. I thought that when he was well he would have the same dignity as his mother, for despite his illness he seemed a proud man and was smartly dressed in grey trousers and an open-neck shirt.

Adrian was at his side window, enthralled and appalled by what he was witnessing. Paula had slunk low in her seat with her hands pressed over her ears. ‘He'll be all right. Don't worry,’ I said, trying to reassure them, although I could feel my own heart racing; it was very upsetting. A
young couple walking along the street hesitated, and then ran past the end of the forecourt.

Mr Bajan continued shouting as the two police officers guided him to the foot of the ambulance steps, ready to climb up, and then he set up the most dreadful wail. I could see his face contorted with pain and anger as he tried to fight off his internal tormentors. His skin ran with sweat and his eyes bulged. No wonder in bygone days it was thought the mentally ill were possessed. The poor man looked as though he was at the mercy of some unseen evil spirit that was hell-bent on destroying him and would stop at nothing to achieve it.