Daddy's Boy Read online

  Chapter 4

  ‘I want my army pants!’ screamed Paulie as he kicked and thrashed on his bed. It was early on Thursday morning and I’d been trying to get him into the bath for a good half hour, but he’d refused point black unless I assured him I’d found his ‘army’ pants first.

  And had been doing so ever since, increasingly hysterically. Trouble was, I didn’t know what or where his army pants even were. ‘Paulie, I told you, they aren’t here, sweetheart,’ I told him for the umpteenth time. ‘There was nothing like that in your case. Look, I’ll phone my boss as soon as the office opens – which won’t be very long now – and I’ll ask him if he can find out about getting some other clothes for you – those included – but for now, I’ve things that I need to do today, which means I need you in the bath first, okay?’

  ‘Not wearing your shitty stuff!’ he continued to rage. ‘They’re not mine, those horrid ones,’ he said, pointing to the ones I’d put out for him. ‘They’re rubbish!’ He sat upright on his bed and tried to kick out at me. ‘Go away!’ he screeched, his cheeks growing pink. ‘I hate you! You’re a big bitch an’ I don’t want to see you!’

  ‘Big bitch’? I may have been packing a few extra holiday pounds, but I was also five foot nothing, so that was a first. I tried to file away the thought – one to laugh about with Riley later – but for now I had a close-to-hysterical five-year-old on my hands and, much as I preferred not to, this was an occasion that called for only one course of action. I decided I would just shout right back at him.

  ‘Right!’ I snapped, digging my fists into my hips for good measure, in the time-honoured, power-pose, don’t-mess-with-me tradition. ‘Stop that silly shouting right now, young man!’

  To my delight and surprise it immediately had the desired effect, perhaps because he wasn’t expecting it, and I wondered if he’d had way too little parental authority in his life. It could happen so easily. Once a child is painted as a little monster (and this one was very much painted as that now) it’s so easy to forget that, actually, they’re not – it’s just the behaviour that’s monstrous, the behaviour every time – and that tiptoeing around them, as if they were dangerous sleeping dragons, was the wrong route to go down.

  Mike had been less stunned than I’d been about the rabbit. Not to mention more sceptical. ‘It’s hearsay, apart from anything else,’ he’d pointed out, once Paulie was tucked up in bed the previous evening. ‘Do we know he actually did that? I mean, know for a fact? You have to think about where the information’s coming from as well, don’t forget. Which is the mother’s sister. And has she got a vested interest in all this? She obviously didn’t want to take him in, did she? I’m sorry, but I’m not sure there can be many five-year-olds capable of doing something like that. Not on purpose. I’d like to see some hard evidence before taking it at face value. And let’s be honest, isn’t it all a bit convenient, all this stuff? Come on, love – I know he’s got a gob on him, and has picked up some slightly unsavoury attitudes. But can you see it? I’m not sure I can.’

  And, in the end, I hadn’t wanted to bother John in the evening just to go over the same questions; he might very well be of the same view as Mike anyway. The bottom line was that we had our little visitor for a week or so, and our job wasn’t to psychoanalyse him, draw up a report and make recommendations – it was to keep him safe from harm and as stress-free as possible, while the powers that be took on the business of sorting everything out.

  Including the matter of ‘army’ pants, which seemed harder to rustle up than ‘army’ eggs. Hence the firm military line I was now taking.

  And it certainly seemed to be working, because Paulie had stopped thrashing about and instead stared at me, his mouth hanging open in surprise. He soon regrouped, however – I could see his brain and mouth both kick in again, ready for another onslaught. ‘And don’t even think about swearing at me!’ I snapped at him, my tone emphasising that, yes, I could – and would – give as good as I got. Worse in fact. ‘I’ve told you about your clothes,’ I added. ‘And you haven’t listened, have you? Now, I’m going downstairs and you’re staying in this room for five minutes to calm down. And then Paulie, you will be going in the bath, even if I have to get in with you myself.’

  I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me. As I walked down the steps I tried not to listen to the abuse that was being hurled from behind it.

  When I sat down at the dining table with a coffee in my shaking hand (shaking after a stand-off with a five-year-old!) I started to think more rationally, and put the whole rabbit business to one side. This wasn’t actually the poor boy’s fault. I tried to imagine being so young in a stranger’s house and not even having the familiarity of my own clothes. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t asked, either. John had given me the name and number of Paulie’s assigned social worker – a man called Phil Thoresby – and I’d already been on the phone to him to try to get hold of some more of Paulie’s belongings, but it seemed that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

  ‘I know it’s important, Casey,’ he’d said the day before, ‘and I have asked, I promise. But even trying to get past their front door is a nightmare. They’ve put me off twice, and when I turned up unannounced this morning I was practically shooed away.’

  ‘Because they’re worried what you might find?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s that, to be honest. More like they’ve passed the problem to us now, so job done.’

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Well, maybe not quite,’ he conceded. ‘But there is definitely a reticence. I suspect his mother worries – not to mention the stepdad – that if they let me come in, I might pressure them into having him home again.’

  ‘But surely that’s what you do want to do, isn’t it?’ I asked him, flabbergasted.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not just like that. The genie is out of the bottle now. Now Paulie is in care, we have a duty of care, don’t we?’

  It was a question I’d reflected on well into the previous evening, and as I reflected back on it again now, it still confounded me. Not so much as far as the clothes went – though I certainly got why Paulie was upset, because a child’s clothes could be so bound up with their identity – but how it could be so incredibly hard for his mum to just stuff some in a bag for him? Just how hard could that be? Or was she really washing her hands of him that thoroughly? I decided I would ask again – even though I had already been pestering Phil for answers. Did she have learning difficulties? Was she under the cosh of the step-dad? Was it that she really was struggling psychologically, and it wasn’t being picked up? What? Because how the hell did a mother – one who was fine with her four other children – discard her little boy like that without a backward glance?

  Having given Paulie what I considered long enough to make a more judicious decision re the bath – ten minutes, rather than five, in the end – I went back upstairs, ready for round two. And was taken aback to see him now kneeling on his bedroom carpet, still in his pyjamas, a colouring book on the floor in front of him, and clutching a thick crayon in his chubby hand. In every respect, what looked just like a normal five-year-old boy. As I opened the door further, he stopped colouring and smiled up at me. ‘Look, Casey! A fire engine. I done it for you! I’m gonna do Mike one next. Of a racing car!’

  Looking into those big blue eyes, I felt a prickle of emotion behind my own. ‘That’s so good, sweetheart,’ I said, smiling back at him. ‘What a clever boy you are. I didn’t realise you could colour like that.’ I leaned in closer to make a more detailed inspection. ‘Look, you’ve kept inside the lines too. All the way round. It really is like you’re six and not five. Wow!’

  His chest puffed out in pride, he threw the crayon down and scrambled to his feet. ‘Should I get my bath now?’ he asked. ‘I can finish my pictures after, can’t I?’

  Without really even thinking about it, since it was something you’d do so naturally, I held up my arms out to scoop him up and carry him. And it was on
ly when he launched himself up at me – settling against my hip like a baby panda, head nuzzling into my neck – that it occurred to me that this was something of a first; a connection. One he’d so far made with Mike, but definitely not with me.

  ‘Are you really going to get in the bath with me?’ he asked shyly, as we crossed the landing and went into the bathroom.

  ‘Not today,’ I said. ‘Today you get it all for yourself. Bubbles and all.’

  His eyes widened. ‘I can have bubbles?’

  ‘Yes, indeed you can have some bubbles.’

  He sighed happily. ‘This is the bestest place ever.’

  Because that’s just the way life works out sometimes, now that the army pants had been forgotten along came the call from Phil to let me know he’d managed to procure them. Well, the promise of them anyway. It seemed he’d arranged to visit the family again and this time he’d told them he wouldn’t leave without some more of Paulie’s clothing. ‘Though her term was “rest of”, I’m afraid,’ he added.

  I explained what I thought Paulie must mean – ‘You know, camouflage trousers, probably’ – and, true to his word, Phil had called again just as we were sitting down to lunch to let me know that he had another bag of stuff and that, assuming it worked for me, he could drop them round in 20 minutes.

  ‘Not that man!’ Paulie said, looking up at me fearfully as I ended the call and put the phone back on the counter.

  I turned around, surprised. I hadn’t even thought he’d been taking any notice. I’d popped the television on and as far as I’d known he’d been eating his spaghetti hoops while engrossed in the antics of four teenage turtles.

  ‘That man?’ I asked.

  ‘That man. That man on the telephone. He’s a bad man an’ he’ll tell you about the rabbit.’

  ‘About the rabbit?’ I asked, sliding into the chair across the table from him and trying to keep my expression neutral.

  Paulie put down his spoon and pushed his bowl away, tears running down his cheeks now. ‘Don’t let him come! Not that fucking Phil man!’

  I spent half a second wondering if I should point out the ‘F’ word, but decided to let it pass. He seemed genuinely upset. And, naturally, I was keen to hear what else he might have to say. I pulled my chair round so I was closer to him, and stroked his head.

  ‘Sweetheart, Phil’s one of the good guys,’ I told him. ‘He wants to help you. He’s the one who’s got your clothes for you, isn’t he? And you know what else he just told me? He’s bringing your Power Rangers too. So you see,’ I finished, ‘he is a nice man.’

  Paulie shook his head violently. ‘No, he’s not! Don’t let him in! Just get my stuff and bang the door shut! He made me tell him lots of stuff and I don’t like him!’

  He pushed his chair back from the table and, once he had sufficient room, wriggled down from it. Then he ran off into the hall and up the stairs.

  I followed. ‘Paulie, sweetheart, don’t get upset,’ I soothed as I went. ‘He wants to help you. There’s nothing to be frightened of, I promise you … He’s going to bring your favourite clothes, so you can start wearing them – your army pants, remember? I bet you can’t wait to put them on again, can you?’

  By the time I’d reached his room – only a scant few moments behind him – he’d already dived for his bed and burrowed right under the duvet. All that was visible was a hump in the bed. In this, I thought, my heart going out to him, he did seem like a five-year-old. If he couldn’t see the nasty social worker man, then the nasty social worker man unquestionably couldn’t see him either.

  I sat down on the bed and tried to tug the duvet from what I assumed was the head end.

  ‘Go away!’ came the response. So I had the ends right, at least.

  ‘Silly monkey,’ I said gently. ‘Social workers have a job to do, sweetie, and part of that job is to talk to girls and boys about their life.’ I tugged at the duvet again, and this time he let me reveal his head and shoulders. ‘That’s all it is, love, I promise,’ I said, reaching to stroke his hair again.

  He brought his arms out as well and rubbed his eyes with his fisted hands. Then his nose. On the sleeve of his jumper. Then he sniffed what was left up and sighed heavily. ‘It wasn’t s’posed to happen.’

  This threw me. ‘What wasn’t s’posed to happen?’ I asked, thinking I might be about to hear the truth now. Perhaps Mike had been right. Perhaps it hadn’t been on purpose.

  Paulie’s chin was wobbling again now, as if the enormity of his situation had just struck him anew. ‘I told him about the rabbit. I told everyone about the rabbit. And they said –’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘Everyone!’ he huffed at me. ‘They said if I ’fessed about it – about deading it – everything would be okay. But it’s not, is it?’ Then he burst into tears again.

  With impeccable mistiming, the doorbell then rang. Damn. The shortest 20 minutes in the history of the world. Perhaps Phil Thoresby had miscalculated the distance to where we lived. Paulie flung the duvet back over his face again. ‘Send him away! Don’t let him take me!’ he sobbed from beneath it.

  ‘Take you? Paulie, he’s not come to take you anywhere. He’s come to bring you …’

  But there was little point in finishing the sentence because it was drowned out by the volume of his screaming.

  Chapter 5

  There’s nothing normal in what most foster carers do. And that’s understandable. Because there’s little that’s ‘normal’ in many of the situations that mean kids need to be fostered in the first place. Even in the most loving, committed, fully functional families, it’s invariably a sudden crisis – the antithesis of normality – that leads to a child having to be looked after by the state, even if only for the shortest of periods. A parental car accident, perhaps, where there’s no friend or relative to take the child in, or a sudden serious illness that means hospitalisation. Though much more frequently (in Mike’s and my experience, anyway) it was one of the side-effects of a breakdown of some kind or other; be it the breakdown of the family unit, a breakdown in relations between child and step-parent or, as in the case of so many of the kids we fostered, a simple breakdown in any fragile, optimistic, hopeful progress made by parents locked into a world of substance abuse.

  So the events that happened next, though certainly a first for me, were in hindsight just another reminder (as if one were even needed) that our fostering always has the potential to take us into very abnormal, and often challenging, situations.

  Right at that moment, however, I patted the hump in the bed again, oblivious to what was coming, and simply went down to answer the door.

  I had a good feeling about Phil Thoresby straight away. In his mid-thirties, or so I guessed, he looked professional and smart. Although his shirt sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows – as to be expected on such a hot day – it was a pristine white shirt, worn with smart black trousers, which, along with the leather messenger bag over his shoulder, lent an air of authority and confidence to his warm smile and firm handshake.

  He’d also come prepared, having had the foresight to bring a ‘play worker’ with him, a similarly aged woman who introduced herself as Cathy. Not that I’d heard of a play worker before, so while Cathy took the bold step of going straight up to Paulie’s bedroom (which I was more than happy to sanction, since they were apparently already acquainted) I asked Phil if hers was a newly created role in social services.

  ‘No, not at all,’ Phil said, as I ushered him to a seat at my dining table and put down the large refuse sack of Paulie’s stuff that he’d brought with him. ‘They’ve always had them – well, all the while I’ve worked for them, anyway. Ah, but, you might not have needed them, I suppose. You usually foster older children, don’t you?’

  ‘That would explain it,’ I said, feeling a little silly. ‘But, listen, while they’re still upstairs, can I ask you about something?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘It’s abo
ut the family rabbit,’ I said.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘John Fulshaw emailed me about it yesterday, and I assume you probably know more about it than I do,’ I added. ‘And it’s just that Paulie was talking about it himself, just before you arrived. Anyway, it’s true, then, is it? He did kill it?’

  Phil had already pulled the messenger bag from over his shoulder and now delved into it, pulling out the obligatory A4 manila file, which I could see had little in it. Well, as yet.

  ‘I’m afraid it seems that way, Casey.’

  ‘Only seems?’

  ‘Well, pretty much. I mean as in, yes, the rabbit is dead and, yes, Paulie was out in the garden directly before the pet was found. But it’s also true that everything other than that is a little bit “he said, she said” – you know, circumstantial evidence rather than “caught red-handed” stuff. Both he and the rabbit were found by the stepdad, who demanded to know what had happened, and by all accounts – and this is the one thing everyone seems to agree on – Paulie didn’t waste a lot of time in coming clean and confessing to what he’d done.’

  ‘He’s just said as much to me. That he killed it – and told everyone about it – so that “everything would be okay. Except it’s not.” Those were his exact words, and I can’t for the life of me work out what they mean. I thought you might be able to?’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘Well, only in so much as perhaps he thought they’d be more likely to forgive him. You know, more likely than if he tried to deny it, anyway. And it was a pretty elderly rabbit … I don’t know. Perhaps he got rough with it? Maybe in a temper about something? They don’t have the strongest hearts, do they, rabbits?’

  I agreed that they didn’t. ‘But everyone’s pretty sure he definitely did it? As in killed it intentionally?’