Mummy’s Little Helper: The heartrending true story of a young girl secretly caring for her severely disabled mother

So they had noticed something. ‘So why didn’t the school get in touch with her mum?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, believe me, we have. I can think of at least half a dozen letters that have gone home – by post, this is. Not to mention countless phone calls as well. But you know, there’s always been a response from Abby’s mum. And with a plausible excuse as to why, as well. We just – well, I hesitate to say it to you now – but we just thought she was a slightly introverted, slightly difficult child. Only child, of course, and sometimes they can have their own challenges, can’t they? You know – with sharing and so on – connecting with their peers. Oh dear …’ he tailed off. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

I wasn’t about to engage in a debate about only children. I’d dealt with children from all sizes of family in my past career, and if I knew one thing it was that you couldn’t make blanket judgements about why children were the way they were. Some only children thrived, some kids from big families didn’t. But, to be fair to Mr Elliot, he was somewhat on the spot, and probably feeling awful about not picking up on all this before.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but I can see how it happened. And you’ll have only had her in your class for a term and a bit, anyway, wouldn’t you?’ He agreed he had. ‘And from what I’ve seen so far, I think her mum’s been very keen to be self-supporting. It’s just that perhaps she was being unrealistic about just how sick she was. The collapse has at least brought things out into the open. Perhaps now she’ll get some proper help and support. Anyway,’ I finished, ‘I’m glad I’ve been able to put you in the picture. Let’s hope that between us we can help Abby through all this. School’s an important routine right now for her, of course, and she does have a need to keep to routines. Just one last thing –’

‘Of course,’ Mr Elliot answered.

‘Friends. Abby’s adamant she doesn’t actually have any. Is she really that isolated from her peers? Only she has her birthday coming up and I wanted to arrange something for her, but without some friends to invite I don’t know if it’s even feasible.’

I heard a sigh. ‘I’m afraid she’s telling you the truth,’ Mr Elliot said sadly. ‘I mean she mixes okay in class – well, up to a point – as best as can be expected. But, well, between you and me, she has something of a temper. Very easily irritated. She does tend to turn other kids off. I’ve not had a parents’ evening with her mother yet, to be honest. But it would definitely be something I’d be mentioning to her. It’s not that she’s bullied or anything. Just that, well, as I say, she doesn’t seem to want friends. She really is a loner, I’m afraid.’

And now I knew that Sarah always had answers to the school’s concerns, I could see how easy it had been for Abby to remain under the radar.

Schools were busy places, and this one was a large one. And there were likely to be all too many kids constantly above the radar and causing a whole lot more grief.

Kids like the ones I generally fostered myself.

I called John afterwards, both to update him on things generally and to fill him in on school and pass on the message that Abby’s teacher had been completely in the dark. And then I put the whole thing out of my mind and decided to get on with my day. After all, my role in all this was simply to take care of Abby for as long as was needed – not concern myself with whatever was going on with her mother. Of course I couldn’t know then just how dramatic the consequences of ‘concerning myself with Sarah’ would be.

But for now, it was just a small itch of curiosity, easily put out of sight and out of mind. I did my housework with my mind on my own family, mostly, happy that Riley would be over with the little ones the following day. I adored my grandsons as much as any self-respecting nanna, and time spent with them was always very precious.

It would also, I thought, be nice for Abby to meet them, and something of a distraction for a little girl who had way too much of the weight of the world on her shoulders and not a soul – from what Mr Elliot had said – to support her. That she was feeling it was growing ever more obvious as well. When Abby arrived home from school I’d intended to sit her down and see if we could make a little progress with that, at least in relation to school. Once John had fed my news through to Bridget, and she’d been in touch with them herself, perhaps they could start taking measures to keep a closer eye on her and help her through this difficult period.

I made some pancakes, which I could microwave for when she got in, and pondered this odd little girl. Because she’d come to us so suddenly we still hadn’t really had a chance to get to know all her likes and dislikes. As this obviously hadn’t happened, filling it in with Abby now might be the perfect way to get her to open up a little about herself and give me an opportunity to probe a little deeper into school and friendships.

But I was unprepared for how strung out she clearly was. She’d come in from school pale and drawn-looking, and with half her packed lunch uneaten. And though she accepted a hot chocolate, she refused anything else, adamant that she wasn’t hungry. I didn’t press it. I had a feeling it would just stress her more, and at a time when she had more than enough to contend with. And not just with her mother – though she was co-operative enough about answering my questions (even a little animated describing the things she most enjoyed on TV, however unusually adult her choices), as soon as I mentioned having spoken to her teacher her eyes immediately filled with tears.

‘It’s all right, sweetie. You’re not in any trouble,’ I reassured her. ‘I just needed to have a chat with Mr Elliot this morning, so he knows who I am and that you’re staying here, that’s all.’

‘But I couldn’t help it!’ she spluttered, as if she wasn’t even taking in what I was saying, the tears now spilling onto her cheeks. ‘I couldn’t!’

I felt mortified. The last thing I wanted was to upset her. But upset her I clearly had. She was looking really distressed. ‘Couldn’t help what?’ I asked her gently, getting up from the kitchen table and returning with some tissues. ‘Sweetheart, you’re not in trouble, I promise,’ I said. ‘What is it? What couldn’t you help?’

‘About the rota for the beans! And I said I was sorry!’

I had no idea what she was talking about, and gently said so. Upon which she explained, juddering, through both tissue and tears now, that she’d been supposed to be the one watering some bean seeds her group had been growing for an experiment, and how she’d come into school late and forgotten and she’d already been told off, but how someone’s bean had died now and they were all saying it was her fault and someone had been really nasty and called her names and how everybody hated her. And so on. This had been on Monday – so before everything had happened with her mum – but the girl, who was apparently called Hayley (I made a mental note: not one for the party list, then), had got everyone to gang up on her and how it was just horrible.

‘But I couldn’t help it!’ she said again, distress morphing into indignation. ‘I have to go to the post office on Monday!’ she sobbed. ‘To get mummy’s money. And they don’t open till nearly school time and if there’s a queue I have to wait!’

‘You do this every week?’ I asked her.

She looked surprised at the question. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Monday is money day. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t have anything to eat, would we?’

Which was a valid enough point. And there was no point in my asking if the teachers knew about this, because I already knew the answer to that one.

‘And I just get so tired,’ she said, her shoulders slumping. She began turning the half-empty chocolate mug around in her hands. Round and round it went, in slow, precise circles. ‘That’s why I forget things,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t mean to forget. I just get so tired when I’m in school.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘What with all the things you do for Mummy. I’d be tired too. And forgetful. But that’s one of the reasons I needed to speak to Mr Elliot,’ I added slowly, keeping an eye on her expression, in case something I said unleashed another flood. ‘Because if they know, they can help you better, and make sure the other children –’

‘How can they help me?’ she wanted to know. ‘I shouldn’t be made to go to school, even. Least, not that much. I have too many more important things to do at home. And what if Mummy falls over? She falls over and she can’t get back up again. What if that happens when I’m at school? An’ she can’t get to the toilet, or anything?’

There was something about the way she said this that made me prick up my ears. ‘Has that happened, Abby?’

I could see her chin dimpling and her eyes filling up again. She didn’t answer. Which I took to mean yes. On both counts. What an image. How on earth did she deal with something like that? She was so slight, for one thing, so, physically, it would be a struggle. And what about psychologically? And there being no one to tell. No one to share it with. How could any mother consider that an acceptable state of affairs? I got out of my seat and squatted down beside Abby’s. Unlike many of the kids I dealt with, she didn’t seem to have any attachment issues, at least; as before, she seemed happy enough to let me pull her into my arms. I could feel her sobs against my chest. ‘I just want Mummy back,’ she mumbled brokenly into my sweatshirt. ‘I just want my mummy back. I want to go home. Please. When can I go HOME?’

‘I know, my love.’ I said, rubbing her back and hugging her. ‘I know.’

I just didn’t know when I could give her an answer.

Chapter 7 (#ufa41eb4c-5d98-5c52-909f-581fdc2a7e00)

‘Listen, winter,’ declared Riley, peering miserably out of the kitchen window. ‘We’ve had enough of you now. Go AWAY!’

It was Saturday lunchtime and the rain was coming down in stair rods, bouncing off the garden furniture that sat huddled on the patio, and turning the whole of our pretty new back garden into a bog. Right now there was such a big pond on the sagging trampoline that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find ducks sitting on it. Not to mention frogspawn and a pair of koi carp.

I didn’t mind the rain myself – it was what made Britain so green and pleasant, after all – but if there were two things that were often incompatible as bedfellows it was rain and stressed mothers with under-fives to keep entertained.

‘It’ll stop,’ I reassured my scowling daughter, as I joined her at the window. ‘You wait. Look. That’s a patch of blue up there, isn’t it?’

Riley snorted. ‘Mother, what are you like? Blue? Come on – that’s just a very slightly different shade of grey. Even your positive mental attitude doesn’t have the power to change that.’ She turned around. ‘So, what shall we do then? Play shops? Make some fairy cakes? Take to the bottle …?’

‘Er, go down to the woods?’

‘What, as in swim there?’

We might have moved house, amassed two grandsons and taken on a new foster child, but some things in the Watson family never changed. Riley and I tended to spend our Saturdays together, while Mike and Kieron did their weekly bit of father–son bonding. Of all the routines Kieron loved (and he loved his routines) having his dad watch him play Saturday league football was his favourite. If Mike wasn’t on the touchline it would thoroughly spoil his day. So, come rain, shine or hurricane, Mike would always be there.

Though one thing, it occurred to me, had changed. Now Kieron was living with his girlfriend Lauren, in a self-contained flat above her parents, I was at least spared the Herculean task – and it would be Herculean, on a day like this – of trying to get the mud out of my son’s kit. And we’d half-planned, Riley and I, to take the little ones on an adventure. It had been such a whirlwind moving into the house, and what with Christmas and New Year, there’d been little opportunity explore the place yet. And it was an area I hardly knew, so I’d been itching to get out and about to investigate our surroundings properly. I’d also spotted that there was a footpath off the green in front of the house, which the lady in the shop had said led down to a little patch of woodland. Perfect for little ones, she’d said (I’d been in there at the time with Levi), as it even had a little stream, where we could go pond dipping.

I’d also fancied getting out because I thought it would be good for Abby. The weekend had started badly, with the early morning news from John Fulshaw that Sarah had contracted some sort of viral infection. We had planned to go and visit her again early evening, but this was now out of the question, both because she was too poorly, and because of the risk of spreading the infection. John could only pass on the news that they’d update us on Sunday.

With her mum already so unwell, I knew Abby would be really traumatised about the news and I’d dreaded having to tell her. Once she’d got over her upset after school the previous evening, she’d talked of little else other than seeing her mum again, and making sure the hospital were looking after her properly.

She’d reacted as I’d expected, her eyes filling once again with tears, and I felt dreadful that I couldn’t even promise her she’d see Sarah on the Sunday either, because, no matter how much I reassured her and plied her with that positive mental attitude of mine, I knew all too well the sort of thoughts that must have been going through her mind.