Valerie
has just met a woman who was at an Assessment Centre with her when they
were both in care, and this brings back memories of her childhood. If
you want to read the first episode, click
here.
In
the end it was one of my father’s friends who unwittingly helped
to get me out of my ‘family home’. He had moved in because
my parents always welcomed extra cash. One Saturday night I was in on
my own with the little kids and everyone else was supposed to be at the
pub as usual. The lodger came back early and started to be nice to me.
I knew all about sex. My mother and father were never discreet and I had
a pretty good idea where this was leading.
I
pushed him off a few times and he grabbed me by the arms and slapped me
about and tore at my clothes. I got into the bathroom, rammed a chair
against the door and climbed out of the window. I half scrambled and half
fell into the garden, getting tangled up in an old pram and bits of a
bicycle as I hit the ground.
Jack,
the lodger, came roaring out of the back door, but fortunately for me
the next-door neighbours had called the police and Jack walked straight
into them. They took him off in a van and me in a car, but not before
I had made sure the other kids were all right. When they found out I was
on ‘home leave’ from the Assessment Centre they arranged to
take me back there once I had made a statement.
Once
everything came out, the drudgery, the stealing food for them, them taking
my pocket money and clothes, the unfit home and the attempted rape by
the lodger the weekend visits were stopped to my great relief and plans
were made to allow me to move away and start again, which is what I wanted.
The
foster parents could not have been more different from my ‘real’
parents. They were well educated and gave me every encouragement. Thanks
to them I went to university and started on a very good career in financial
services. They supported me in my marriage. That was marvellous when we
had the opportunity to travel around on postings, but devastating when
it ended on a cold wet night with a car bomb in Belfast. They helped me
to pick up the pieces afterwards and encouraged me to go to the States
to study for a doctorate.
Now
they were in a hotel a few miles away, waiting until I had finished the
business that had brought me back here after all this time.
My
mother had died and I had been contacted by a local firm of solicitors
to come to help sort out things and to meet my brothers and sisters again.
My father had walked out some time ago and everyone assumed he was dead.
But my mother had hung on in the old family home, with each child in turn
taking over my role until she became too ill and had been moved into the
hospital and the last of them had gone into care.
Like
me they had found a new way of life and loved it, although they were still
near enough to visit her in the hospital and smuggle in the odd bottle
of drink, which they felt forced to steal for her. Fortunately that was
now over before any of them got caught for it.
We
had sat round in the solicitor’s office, feeling very stiff and
awkward. There had been a bit of money from some insurance policy, which
she had obviously forgotten about and we all agreed that it should be
used to pay for books for the youngest who was going to college. Mostly
the rest of us were OK and didn’t need money. What we had needed
was love and comfort and care in the past. The others said nice things
to me about how I had looked after them and how they remembered this or
that. I liked that, but I would have preferred to have had somebody looking
after me before I got to nearly fifteen.
Then
we had gone to the house together. Everybody had chance to look through
the rubbish that seemed to be everywhere and pick out bits they wanted.
I found one photo of Mum and Dad together when they were young and looked
normal and healthy. I slipped it into my handbag. If I ever met anybody
else and had children that would be the picture I would show them of their
grandparents and pretend the rest had never happened.
When
I had said goodbye to the rest of the kids I had wandered round the town
for a bit, not yet ready to go back to the love and warmth of my foster
parents. I did not want to burden with everything that was in turmoil
in my head. I had been surprised to see the old Sun Rise Café still
in business. Same name, same colour paintwork, same net curtains I think.
I popped in for old times’ sake and got more than I bargained for
when I met Janine.
All
I wanted to do now was extricate myself, without giving her cause to start
a shouting match, which I knew she would do if I just tried walking away.
I did not want her to know where I was going to meet my foster parents.
I did not want her to have any trail to follow, because I just knew she
would if she got the slightest clue.
So
I did a callous thing. I pulled a £20 note out of my purse. I saw
her eyes popping as she tried to guess how much else was in there.
‘Look’, I said ‘It’s beginning to rain. Why don’t
we get you into a taxi to go home with the kids?’ The money was
gone from my hand before I had finished the sentence and I waved and turned
away, heading back to my other life with relief.
