Skin Deep: All She Wanted Was a Mummy, But Was She Too Ugly to Be Loved?

Neither, it seemed, did those very same grandparents – well, at least according to the most recent note about it, which was a few years old now. This was another sad state of affairs. They had apparently tried hard to help out their daughter when Flip had been a baby, but when they practised tough love and stopped helping Megan financially her retaliation was swift and decisive. She refused to have anything more to do with them, in protest.

And it seemed that they’d long since given up on both daughter and grand-daughter – washed their hands of the pair of them, despite entreaties by Megan’s then social worker to try to build bridges. ‘It’s difficult,’ she’d noted in an email to her manager, ‘because Flip has so little in the way of attachments; with the best will in the world, it’s hard to appeal to their better natures when Flip herself seems to have not the slightest affection for them, while professing to love people she has only just met. One of the many frustrations of dealing with FAS! Will just have to keep trying …’

I recalled Flip’s last words to me when I’d kissed her goodnight; a hug and then a completely guileless and affectionate ‘I love you, Mummy.’ What a complicated business her disability was, I decided, making a mental note to find time for a session at the computer the following morning, just to gen up on things more comprehensively.

I closed the file, dropped it on the rug and switched the bedside light off. Still, I thought, as I wriggled down and put my head gratefully on the pillow, at least she was whacked out and sleeping soundly, and tomorrow was another day – one which I was actually rather looking forward to. Get a plan going, get a chart going, start getting to know our new charge a little better. First, however, sleep. A good solid eight hours till the alarm.

Though it turned out to be only two till her ear-splitting scream.

Chapter 4 (#u81e70186-59ed-5c0d-a807-33f5f39c13ac)

‘What the hell?’ Mike said, shooting bolt upright in the bed just as I was leaping out of it.

I switched on the bedside light and checked the time. It was just after half past one in the morning. ‘I’ve no idea, love,’ I said. ‘But you try and get back to sleep. I think Flip must be having a nightmare or something.’

Mike sighed and snuggled back down under the duvet as I grabbed my dressing gown and left the room to investigate. The door to Flip’s bedroom was ajar and as I approached I could already see her, sitting crouched at the top of her bed with her back to me, holding on to the headboard, still screaming.

‘Shhhh,’ I soothed as I rushed to sit with her and stroked her back. ‘What is it, sweetie? You had a bad dream?’

Flip recoiled from my touch and shrieked even louder as she squashed herself further against the headboard. It seemed clear she didn’t know where she was or who I was.

‘It’s just me,’ I said softly. ‘Casey, you remember? Mummy.’ She twisted her head; her eyes were like saucers. I didn’t touch her this time. I just smiled and hoped that she’d recognise me enough to calm down. She really did look terrified and I imagined she’d had a nightmare. Perhaps reliving the terrifiying events of the last few days. I’d also heard about night terrors in toddlers and very young children, and as she seemed unable to regain full consciousness and shake off whatever had terrified her, I decided to add some research on that to my ‘to do’ list.

In the meantime, however, she needed to wake up. It seemed nothing else was going to stop her screaming. I cast around, my eye fixing on Pink Barbie, still on her pillow. ‘Flip,’ I said in a voice that I hoped was akin to that of a diva like the eponymous Barbie, as I held the doll close to her face. ‘Flip,’ I said again, moving Barbie’s head to suggest she was the one talking. ‘New mummy is sad because you’re screaming, and you’re making me scared now as well.’

The effect was almost instantaneous. The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had apparently begun. And much as I was concerned about this vulnerable little thing apparently deciding I was her new mummy, my hunch at that moment was that it was the right word to choose. I continued in my Barbie voice. ‘Oh that’s much better, Flip,’ I trilled. ‘Now, why don’t we tell this new mummy what’s wrong?’

To my surprise, Flip immediately launched herself straight into my arms, and with such force that I nearly fell backwards on the bed. More bizarre was that she giggled then, all fear forgotten. ‘It’s you, Mummy!’ she said. ‘I forgotted what you looked like an’ I was frightened.’ She raised her eyes towards mine. ‘I am a silly sausage, aren’t I?’

I laughed, more out of sheer surprise than seeing any humour in the situation. ‘Yes, you are a bit of a silly sausage, sweetie,’ I agreed, stroking her hair. ‘Did you have a nasty dream?’

Flip lifted her head again, and shook it. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, seeming to be struggling to remember. ‘I know,’ she said brightly. ‘I need a picture by my bed, don’t I? Could I have a photo picture of you? In a frame? So I can put it by my bed? Then I’ll remember.’ She paused. ‘And a mirror? Can I have a mirror as well?’

‘What, now?’ I asked, bemused by this unexpected shopping list. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, gently disentangling her from me and passing her the doll. ‘If you and Pink Barbie get back into bed and go back to sleep, I promise I’ll get you those things tomorrow for you, okay?’

But she clearly wasn’t ready to hop back into bed yet. ‘Could you just take me to the toilet then?’ she asked. ‘Just to look in the mirror?’

What, now? I thought. This was something I’d never come across before, and I was intrigued. What on earth was wrong? I stood up, holding my arms out to her. ‘Come on then, miss,’ I said, ‘But quietly. And then straight back to bed, before Tyler wakes up.’

Indeed, it was a miracle he hadn’t already, I mused, as Flip threw herself at me, this time straight onto my hip, curling her legs around my waist like a little koala bear. She planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘Thanks, Mummy,’ she said.

Once in the bathroom, and with the door closed so the light wouldn’t spill out into Tyler’s adjacent room, I held Flip in front of the mirror above the sink. What struck me most forcibly was the intentness of her expression as she traced a finger around both her eyes, then down her nose and then around the curve of her narrow chin. I then had to struggle with my own troubled expression as a single tear fell from her left eye and slid noiselessly down her cheek. She turned away from the mirror then and buried her face into my neck. ‘I’m still ugly, Mummy, aren’t I?’ she said.

I continued to hold her where she was. ‘Flip, you’re not ugly, not at all, sweetie. You’re very, very pretty. Look. Look at your beautiful wavy hair. It’s just like Pink Barbie’s, isn’t it? And those lovely lips – just like a rosebud – they look just like Barbie’s too.’ I kissed her forehead, thinking wryly how this was so entirely off message. Girls, in the main, needed to know that beauty was only skin deep; that being beautiful on the inside was the only thing that really mattered. But not in this case. This was something different. This was a deep-rooted canker. I wondered where – or whom – she’d absorbed it from. ‘Now,’ I whispered, ‘one thing I do know for sure is that pretty girls need their beauty sleep. Have you heard about beauty sleep?’

Flip shook her head. ‘Is it a special sleep that makes you pretty?’

I nodded. ‘Even prettier. You are already very pretty. But a good night’s sleep makes you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and that is especially beautiful. Now, then. Are we ready to go back to bed?’

Flip’s mouth bloomed into a smile. ‘You mean like a squirrel? Now you’re the one being a silly sausage, Mummy, aren’t you?’

Quite possibly, I thought ruefully, as I slipped back under my own duvet some ten minutes later. Mike was fast asleep, and, having looked in on him en route, I could see why Tyler hadn’t woken up; he’d fallen asleep with his earphones in, listening to music, as per.

It took me a good while to get back to sleep myself, my head full, as it invariably was when we took on a new foster child; of all the questions that popped up about the multitude of whys and wherefores and how we’d go about unlocking the mystery behind whatever psychological muddles lay behind her challenge in living an easy life. And, in this case, physiological muddles also. That much about FAS I already knew. But what, if anything, could be done about it?

Over the next few days I began to at least gain more understanding about the problems our latest foster child was facing. Night terrors and what seemed to be unfathomable bouts of screaming seemed to be as much a part of Flip as was her ADHD; another common manifestation of her FAS.

All these letters, I thought, lined up like ducks in a row, but where the numbers were concerned things were rather less tidy; there seemed no clear consensus on either the quantity or timing of the medication she’d arrived with, and it seemed to me that nailing that was a priority.

‘Definitely,’ Ellie agreed when she made her visit the following Friday, by which time Flip had been with us for ten days. ‘You’re currently giving her two a day, right? First thing and teatime?’

I agreed that I was. ‘Not that it seems to have much of an observable impact on her mood or behaviour, I have to say,’ I added. ‘Or maybe the impact of her FAS overrides all that?’

Ellie frowned apologetically. She clearly knew as well as I did – or at least thought I did – that the pills should have some effect, and fairly quickly, too. Most people who spent time around kids with ADHD knew that. When they didn’t have their meds the term ‘all hell broke loose’ had serious resonance. ‘It’s still early days with the meds,’ she said. ‘Or so I’m told. And I’m really sorry it falls on you and Mike, Casey. But it’s really a case of trial and error till a routine is re-established. School will help with that, won’t it? And everything, you know, settles down after a bit …’

‘Settle’ and ‘down’ being the operative words. Because it seemed the night terrors weren’t confined to the night-time. Flip could ‘lose it’ – and properly lose it – seemingly without warning in the daytime too. Only the previous day she’d gone into some sort of major meltdown in the living room, leaving both Tyler and me dumbfounded.

‘They’d been sitting there watching TV, not six feet from me,’ I explained to Ellie. ‘Weren’t even talking to each other; just sitting there, opposite ends of the sofa – watching a nature programme, I think it was – when suddenly she was screaming at the top of her lungs.’

‘Something she saw on the screen?’ Ellie suggested. ‘A big spider, perhaps? Something like that?’

I shook my head. ‘Not a spider. It was a lion that set her off, apparently. A lioness, actually, carrying a cub in her mouth. Which completely freaked her out. And I mean freaked her out; it was almost as if she was having some sort of fit; she’d thrown herself on the floor, still clutching her doll, thrashing about, limbs flailing, the lot. And she was really thrashing about, too – took me a good while to get a proper hold of her, let alone calm her down. And even she couldn’t articulate quite why it had set her off the way it had. So it’s not like a phobia, nothing like that. It can come out of nowhere.’

And could do so at school, too, I reflected gloomily. Ellie shook her head and sighed sympathetically. ‘Well, there’s nothing in her notes, as you know,’ she said. ‘So perhaps this is a new thing. You know, with all the upheaval. And being separated from her mum, of course. Or perhaps it’s just a new manifestation of the ADHD. I guess all you can do is keep on recording everything; see if there’s any pattern to it, any obvious triggers.’

Along with the episodes of soiling, the night waking, the obsession with being so ‘ugly’, the myriad little ways the strangeness of our little house-guest was becoming ever more apparent. I was at least forming a picture of sorts, however dispiriting the colouring-in part. ‘Will do,’ I said. ‘Early days. I’m sure there’s a lot still to learn. We’ll get there – try our best to, at any rate.’

‘And you’re doing a great job,’ Ellie reassured me, smiling a bright, encouraging sort of smile, which couldn’t help but remind me of just how young and inexperienced she was, even as she affected the role of sage supporter. ‘Casey, I know you’ll do your best,’ she said. ‘You and Mike both.’ She grinned. ‘Trust me, you came highly recommended. So we have no concerns. None. And Flip seems to love it here. You all got a very big thumbs up, I can report. As did your cooking. And her room. So that’s positive, isn’t it?’ she finished brightly.

I couldn’t help but laugh. This, too, was a part of the process. The business of ‘bedding in’ – with both the child and the social worker that came with her. And one of the key things that happened during every home visit was that the social worker spent time alone with the child privately. This was a necessity, obviously, because it gave the child a voice; a chance to share their own thoughts about the place where they’d been billeted – to comment on how they felt about aspects of their care.

It was a dialogue that invariably had to be adapted to a child’s age and stage. An older child might well be able to articulate their feelings easily, but a little one might need a simpler schema to work with; a question-and-answer format that could elicit, say, a thumbs-up or thumbs-down response. And it wasn’t just valuable for the child. As a foster carer myself I knew what many of us were like. If given a thumbs-up, thumbs-down or halfway-between selection, we’d err towards the ‘up’ almost every time. That was the nature of the job – and perhaps the psychological make-up of the majority. You didn’t go into fostering if you were generally beset by negativity; that a person tended towards the positive was probably an essential to do the job. You definitely had to see hope where others didn’t.

Which made us unreliable witnesses. Given the opportunity to tell it like it was, I knew for a fact that the majority of us didn’t. We’d make light of problems if we could, wanting to try to deal with them ourselves, and only when things got really bad did we want to ask for help. Silly, really, and definitely not in anyone’s best interests, but definitely also par for the course.

Which meant that social workers, who didn’t always get a chance to see the extent of a child’s idiosyncrasies for themselves, sometimes failed to hear the full extent of them either. Today, however, Ellie was in luck because just as she was preparing to leave, having given me my pep talk, Tyler blew into the kitchen like the proverbial East Wind.

‘Casey, you best go outside,’ he said. ‘Go and see to her. I think she’s going Loony Tunes again.’

‘Tyler!’ I admonished, while Ellie slipped her files into her bag. ‘What have I told you about using expressions like that in this house? What do you mean, exactly? What’s Flip actually doing?’

‘Three guesses,’ he suggested as we both followed him out into the back garden. ‘Only much worse,’ he threw over his shoulder.

He wasn’t wrong. Flip, who as far as we’d known had been playing in the garden with Pink Barbie while we’d chatted, was squatting on the grass, holding the doll above her, swooping it back and forth like a boy would do with an aeroplane. She was also singing. Singing lustily, at the top of her voice. But it wasn’t the song – ‘Under the Sea’, from The Little Mermaid – that stopped me in my tracks. It was the fact that her hair and face, and that of the doll, were covered in what looked like something I hoped that it wasn’t but which I feared, from Tyler’s tip-off, that it more than likely was. ‘Flip!’ I shouted. ‘Is that poo that you’re covered in?’

Flip looked up as if surprised and then smiled and waved at me. She then put the Barbie – and I cringed – close to her ear. Then she spoke. ‘Yes, it’s Mummy, Barbie! Look! Wave to Mummy.’

Barbie waved. Tyler wrinkled his nose. Ellie tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Erm, Casey,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a meeting I really shouldn’t be late for. So unless you need me – and just say, because it’s absolutely no problem – I think I’d better get going and leave this to you.’