All
previous episodes are available in the back issues of the Webmag
- please click here.
I
soon found out, because at the Assessment Centre there was a big
tree with lights and shiny things on it and decorations all over
the place. A lot of the other kids were going home for Christmas,
someone told us, and a lot of cars kept coming and going and there
was a lot of hugging and kissing going on in the hall and out
on the front doorstep.
Someone
found time to show us our bedroom. It was a huge place with a
big bay window that looked out over the fields and on to the hills.
I had never seen so much open space. There was room enough for
all of us to have a bed and even Simon was in there with us, to
help settle us in, he said. There seemed to be a problem because
we only had the clothes we were wearing and had had on forever.
Nobody had thought about clothes when they were trying to get
us out as fast and as safely as possible – not that they
would have found much, even if they had know where to look.
I
started to cry. One of the staff came over and asked me what was
the matter. “I’m hungry”, I sobbed. “Simon
said we would get lots to eat here”. So that soon got sorted
out. We were taken downstairs and although it was not really mealtime
we had some delicious soup and lovely pie. I can still remember
the smell of it, and the feeling of eating until my little tummy
hurt. It took me some time to realise that I didn’t need
to do that, because food would come regularly and that no-one
would take it away, or throw it in the bin, if they didn’t
like the way I looked at them.
By
the time we went back upstairs part of our other problem had been
solved as well. Some clothes had appeared on our beds and there
was a member of staff wanting us to try things on. Then she said
she was going to ‘mark’ all of our things. We found
out that every kid had a special colour and all their clothes
were marked with a few strands of cotton in that colour.
Very
sensible. Except that Richard threw all the stuff off his bed
onto the floor and started shouting that he was not going to be
seen dead in this rubbish. He wanted smart gear, not this ‘divvy
trash’ and he certainly wasn’t going to go around
in ‘marked’ clothes. “My mother would not allow
this”, he stormed. This was to become his battle cry. Since
he had arrived in filthy tatters of Simon’s cast-offs and
mother did not normally have the least idea what any of us was
wearing, eating or doing I thought this was a funny thing to say.
So I started to laugh. He flew off his bed and tried to hit me,
but the staff caught him first and it all ended with someone sitting
on him on the floor, while he raved and carried on.
This
was a scene that got played out over and over as Richard railed
against the system and tried to be what he thought was loyal to
our mother. Nothing the home or the staff could do for us was
good enough for him, because according to him it always fell short
of what our perfect mother did or provided. How could he think
that? Why did he try to keep up this front? The staff all knew
exactly what our life had been like and they soon got to know
mother at first hand and certainly by telephone. She would turn
up unannounced and create a scene, but worse probably was the
way she would phone up and ramble on for hours. I don’t
know how the phone hadn’t been cut off long before.
Anyway, Paul, who had a habit of hanging around and not being
noticed, used to listen outside the office and staff room doors,
and he heard heated discussions about which members of staff had
been making long, late night phone calls. Apparently the Police
had tried a couple of times to ring in about emergency admissions
and the line had been engaged for an hour or more each time.
Somebody
from Head Office came down to investigate! When they had checked
the dates and times and the duty rota it turned out that it was
our mother ringing in, not some member of staff ringing out. When
Paul told us, we were all so embarrassed – except Richard
who claimed it just showed what a good mother she was being, checking
up that we were all OK. The fact that she never asked to speak
to us and didn’t spend much time with us when she visited
didn’t seem to count as far as he was concerned. He really
wasted a lot of energy defending her and cut himself off from
being helped or having a good time like the rest of us.
When
Simon, Paul and I discussed it a long time later, Simon suggested
that Richard blamed himself for a lot of what happened to all
of us, but to mother in particular. Richard had the wrong impression
that everything had been fine until he was born and that the rift
between ‘our’ parents had been caused by him, and
so had mother’s drinking and other self destructive behaviour.
Interestingly,
in that discussion Simon and Paul both found out that at different
times she had told each of them that they were to blame for all
the family’s ills. She had also told each of them that they
were the special one and that she could never love the others
like she loved them. They began to understand that in the language
of today she ‘had messed with their heads’, alternately
blaming and smothering and setting them against each other and
all outsiders. I missed most of that because I was too little
and by then she was too out of it to be bothered to try with me.
Simon
also pointed out that her shouting about not taking us away at
Christmas was typical. She was not going to do anything about
Christmas for us. She had long ago ceased to have any religious
pretensions. But by throwing that in from the doorstep as we were
taken out of the house achieved her objective and making everybody
involved feel bad – the neighbours, the ‘social’,
the police, the two boys old enough to know what Christmas was
and me because I didn’t know and worried about what it might
mean. But poor old Richard spent the rest of his life trying to
make it up to her, trying to be liked, trying to gain her approval
and killing himself in the attempt.
Like
any little boy, I was glad to be warm and fed and to have somebody
to spend some time with me. It started while I was crying when
Richard was being held down. Somebody brought a teddy bear. It
was another little boy about my size. He belonged to two of the
staff. He stared at me with big brown eyes. ‘This is Sydney,’
he said. ‘He’s a friend of mine, but my mummy thought
you might like him to look after you. Watch out though he’s
got scratchy little paws, because he’s a koala 
bear,
you know.’ I didn’t know, but I was glad to hug the
warm fur to my ear and try to block out some of the noise Richard
was making.
I
found some things on my bed, which the staff said were pyjamas
and I found out that the other kids wore pyjamas to go to bed
in. We just used to fall asleep in our clothes. I also soon found
out that people went to bed at regular times and got up and ate
meals together and cleared up afterwards.
With
the other kids I had exciting things to do, like messing about
in the grounds, or playing with toys, or being taken to the cinema.
I found out a bit more about Christmas too, because we went to
the local church for a carol service in the afternoon and some
of ‘our’ kids were in a nativity scene.
Some
of the people there gave packages to the staff ‘for tomorrow’
and some of them patted my head and called me ‘dear little
fellow’. Richard hated it. He tried to be rude to the people
but Simon got behind him and somehow although his mouth opened
nothing came out.
When
we woke the next morning we all had little felt stockings tied
to our beds and the staff came round early wearing paper hats
and wishing us all “Happy Christmas” and sat on the
ends of beds while we all looked in the stockings. Richard managed
to be grateful for a bit, but he could not let go completely.
We all had a lovely day, with lots to eat and new games and toys.
Somebody even put a red ribbon round Sydney’s neck and he
sat with me, watching and enjoying what the others were doing.
At
last I started to droop and somebody carried me up to bed and
sat with me until I dropped off to sleep. Simon and the other
big kids were allowed to stay up late, but I didn’t even
try. Although I did wake up in the dark and could not remember
where I was. I started to call out and then I felt Sydney’s
scratchy little paw on my face and it all flooded back.
I
was in that big room with scary shapes I had not seen in the daytime
and shadows on the walls and ceiling and outside something made
the most awful screeching noise. Later I learned that it was an
owl and I got as used to hearing it as I had been to hearing cars
in the street at our house. But on this night, with my tummy full
of rich food and my mind full of games and TV films I just felt
terrified and I bawled and shouted until Simon came. He stayed
with me and was very kind.
After
it happened on a few nights he told me the other kids were laughing
at me and calling me a baby and I should stop crying at night.
That’s when I learned to cry quietly, so that only Sydney
knew. That’s when I told Sydney I was frightened and he
never laughed at me. He only snuggled up and scratched my nose
with his little koala paws.
To
be continued next month.
