A Dark Secret

‘So, how does the autism affect him?’ I asked her instead. I’d looked after quite a few children who were on the spectrum and, in my experience, one size certainly didn’t fit all. Each one of mine – and that included my own son, Kieron, who had Asperger’s – had been very different, with different challenges to face.

‘To be honest,’ Kelly admitted, ‘I haven’t even really had the chance to notice. Everything else is so full-on, I just … Oh, Jesus, hang on. Sam! Stop that right now!’

I waited on the line, listening to a symphony of different sounds – shouting and swearing and, at one point, high-pitched screaming. The jolly hold music of a call centre it definitely was not. No wonder her nerves were torn to shreds. Plus, it was Saturday now, of course, so both her kids would be home. And perhaps this had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back.

‘I’m so sorry, Casey,’ she said as she came back to the phone, ‘Sam’s just bitten Harvey and now he’s attacking Sienna. I honestly do not know what to do with him. It wouldn’t be so bad if Steve was home but he’s had to go into work this morning. And I’d take them out, but I – Sam! Right now! I mean it! – God, Casey. I am tearing my hair out here.’

I could tell she was, too, because she sounded on the verge of tears. ‘Look, I can see it’s a bad time,’ I said. ‘You obviously need to step in and get your own two to a place of safety. Shall I give you a call back later, perhaps when the kids are in bed?’

‘Call me?’ Kelly asked, her voice now even more desperate. ‘I was rather hoping you’d come round and take him off me. As in today. Seriously. I know it’s not the best endorsement you ever heard, but I can’t take any more of this. I really can’t.’

Knowing Kelly as I did, I knew she was telling me the truth. She was at breaking point, overwrought, and couldn’t see a way out. It tended to be hard to with all your senses on high alert. No, it didn’t sound so much, just having to oversee a naughty nine-year-old, but I knew there was ‘naughty’ and there was ‘downright demolition-mode’; if she was dealing with the latter in isolation it would be a hard enough job – just in terms of trying to keep the child safe from himself. But with two little ones in the mix – her own little ones – it could be a Herculean task. And there was a world of difference between the odd flaring of temper and what sounded like twenty-four seven all-out warfare.

I knew the drill. I really shouldn’t be making any promises. I should tell Kelly I’d speak to Mike and Christine and get back to her. But how could I? Besides, I was getting fired up now. No, I wouldn’t be diving into any phone boxes, doing a spin and donning tights. But unlike my bikini top, I knew I had the strength for a challenge. And this lad sounded as if he was the word ‘challenge’ personified.

Plus, truth be told, I still had a few demons of my own to exorcise.

‘Don’t worry, love,’ I told Kelly. ‘I’ll take him.’

Chapter 2 (#u10fc72b8-f762-5328-99ee-0081db1509d3)

No matter how diverse the types of children who’d come to us over the years, my modus operandi for welcoming them rarely differed. In the here and now, one thing took priority over all others; to provide them with their own space – a place of comfort, calm and safety.

It had been a long time since we’d opened our home up to our first foster child, Justin, and as I went through my usual mental checklist for getting Sam’s bedroom ready for his arrival, I reflected on just how much our singular job had become an everyday part of our lives. So much so that, these days, I was ready for every eventuality; stocked to the proverbial gunwales with everything I knew I’d need, or a frightened, disorientated child might want. Which meant that today it was a far cry from those anxious days before Justin was due to move in, when I’d run around like a mad thing, decorating, choosing, shopping and fussing over every detail, every imagined speck of dust.

Today, of course, I didn’t have the luxury of time, but it didn’t matter. It was really just a case of making up Sam’s bed, and making everything nice for him. And as he’d bowled in from football training just an hour or so earlier, I also had Tyler, our long-term foster son, on hand.

Though we never thought of him as that, obviously, because ‘son’ pretty much covered it. He’d been with us seven years now. He was part of us for ever.

‘Mum! Where d’you want this stuff?’ he yelled from halfway down the loft ladder. From where I was smoothing the bedclothes all I could see were his legs and feet.

‘In the conservatory!’ I yelled back.

‘What? Really?’

‘Honestly, love, where do you think I’m going to want it?’

‘Very funny. Not,’ he said, staggering in carrying a giant beanbag, which he dumped, along with the brace of cushions I’d ask him to fetch down for me, right on top of the bed I’d just made up.

‘Not on there,’ I snapped. ‘Now there’ll be wrinkles in the duvet.’

‘God, Mum,’ he huffed. ‘He’s a nine-year-old, isn’t he? You really think he’s going to care if his duvet’s a bit crumpled?’

‘That’s not the point,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s a question of standards. Besides, I’ll care. Anyway, thanks, love. Now go on down and tell your dad I’m almost finished, and that I’ll be inspecting his dusting when I get there.’

I got the usual mock salute, accompanied by the usual grin and eye-roll, and as I always did when a new kid was about to be ‘on the block’, I thought back to the circumstances that had brought Ty himself to us – as angry and distressed a kid as you could ever wish to meet. A tightly wound ball of sheer fury, in fact, who’d greeted me (our first meeting had been at the police station where they were holding him) as if I’d been especially bussed in to torment him. A pint-sized harpy, sent to further ruin his already ruined day.

His ruined life, as it turned out. Well, or so it had seemed at that point. So to have got from that to this – to this lovely young man, who made us proud every day – still felt like a minor miracle. In fact, a series of miracles which, whenever times were tough, reminded me of that old, clichéd mantra – that unconditional love and firm boundaries could take you a very long way.

It had been less than eight hours since I had even heard the name Sam, and in around as many minutes I would be meeting him for the first time, too. Starting off on another journey into the unknown. And, as was fast becoming a norm now, with another almost completely unknown quantity; other than the concerns about his behaviour and the fact that he was in care, I knew almost nothing about this child. Because no one in social services did either.

I had a final check around. For all I knew, Sam could hate the Roblox-themed duvet cover I’d chosen. The blue curtains might offend him, and the fluffy yellow cushions I’d had Tyler bring down for him might, given he was unofficially diagnosed as autistic, make him cringe to the touch. And the books and games I had selected from my ever-growing storage boxes might be way out of his comprehension zone. I really was going in blind on this one – again! – and could only hope I’d hit one or two right notes. The rest I’d have to deal with as happened.

‘Casey! Coffee ready, love!’ Mike called up. ‘Dusting done. Car pulling up. Come and join the welcoming committee.’

I closed the bedroom door and hurried anxiously downstairs. I always had butterflies in my stomach when about to meet a new child but today it was accompanied by another kind of anxiety. One that had been sparked when I’d called Kelly to tell her we were taking Sam and she had responded with such gratitude that it was almost embarrassing – as if I’d phoned her to tell her she’d won the lottery. She and her husband Steve had always seemed such capable, pragmatic carers, so I’d been surprised to hear so much emotion in her voice.

‘I cannot thank you enough, Casey,’ she’d gushed. ‘I owe you. I owe you big time.’

‘You owe me absolutely nothing,’ I’d pointed out. And was just about to add that I was only doing my job when my internal censor (not always that reliable, to be honest) shut my mouth, because to do so would be to imply that she wasn’t. At least I didn’t doubt she’d have seen it that way.

Instead I burbled on about it being easier, since I didn’t have little ones to think about, but when I rang off the intensity of her emotion still dogged me. Just how much of a challenge was this little boy going to be? Surely a child of nine couldn’t be that much of a handful?

I said as much to Mike as he handed me my coffee and we prepared, as a family, to welcome our little visitor together – something that mattered at any time, obviously, but particularly with a child thought to be on the spectrum because change can be hard for such children. So to meet us as a single smiling unit – a wall of warmth and reassurance – would be helpful in managing his inevitable anxiety. Something now made much worse, of course, by this second, sudden, unexpected move and the confusion that would inevitably accompany it.

‘Well,’ Mike said, ‘like you always say yourself, love, it doesn’t matter where they come from, it only matters where they’re going. You already knowing Kelly and Steve shouldn’t really make a difference. And it sounds to me, given the situation with his own siblings, that it might not have been the best choice of family set-up.’ He raised a palm. ‘Though, yes, of course I know there probably wasn’t a choice.’

‘What will be, will be, I suppose,’ I said, automatically checking that the kettle was filled enough to make Christine a cup of tea when she arrived. It was scalding. Mike had obviously beaten me to it, bless him.

And it was only to be Christine, which was highly unusual. A child would usually arrive with their social worker, too. But it turned out that Sam didn’t even have a social worker. It had all happened so fast that the emergency duty team (EDT) had taken care of things, and apparently the only member of staff with space on his books – a Colin Sampson – was away on annual leave till the end of next week.

Colin would be assigned to Sam once he was back, at which point we’d all meet, but, in the meantime, if I had any sort of crisis I would have to call on the duty team. I mentally crossed my fingers that that wouldn’t come to pass. Now I’d agreed to take him on, doing my best ‘knightess on white charger’ impression, I would look pretty stupid if I was calling out the cavalry within the week.

More to the point, the poor lad must be traumatised enough.

‘Mum, I see him,’ Tyler said from his station by the window. ‘Aw, he’s dead tiny, he looks really cute. Not sure what he’s up to, exactly – he seems to be marching on the spot – but he definitely doesn’t look dangerous.’

I’d given Tyler the facts, of course. It was important that he knew what we were dealing with. And following the problems our last foster child, Miller, had caused him, I couldn’t blame him for checking Sam out. Things were okay now; on Miller’s respite visits they rubbed along just fine. But every new child was a journey into the unknown for Tyler too.

And he was right. At first sight, Sam did indeed look very cute. Almost angelic, in fact, with shoulder-length, dirty-blond hair, which hung straight down over his skinny shoulders. And, as Tyler had observed, he seemed to be marching on the spot, while Christine stood by, patiently watching, holding a small suitcase. We all watched him too, till they finally set off down our front path, and I went to the front door to let them in.

Sam was shiny as a pin – Kelly had obviously bought a selection of new clothes for him – and like many a child before him, standing on this very spot, looked every bit as anxious as I’d expected.

‘One hundred,’ he announced, talking to a spot just above his feet. ‘A one-hundred-step path. One hundred steps exactly.’ He then wiped his brow theatrically, and exhaled as if he’d just climbed a very big hill. He straightened the backpack on his shoulders, and tugged on Christine’s coat sleeve. ‘That’s a very long path, Mrs Bolton.’

Though I wasn’t sure what to make of this, that was par for the course. But Christine gave me a quick glance before smiling at him and nodding. ‘It certainly is, Sam, especially when we’ve had to do eighty-five of them on the spot. Sam has a bit of an obsession with the number one hundred, Casey,’ she explained. ‘It couldn’t have been the number five or six, could it, Sam?’

I saw the trace of a smile cross the boy’s elfin features. They’d obviously discussed this. And no doubt Christine would enlighten me later. In the meantime, it had broken the ice, and I laughed as I led them through to the dining area.

Mike was already setting down the teapot, Tyler pouring milk into a mug.

‘Alright, mate?’ he asked Sam. ‘I’m Tyler. Pleased to meet you. Want a drink and a biscuit?’

Sam’s gaze darted towards him, then away again. He shook his head.

‘He’s literally just had his tea,’ Christine explained.

‘Well, in that case,’ Ty continued, as per our usual plan, ‘do you want to come upstairs with me and see your bedroom?’