Breaking the Silence (8 page)

Jenson was like a cat on hot bricks the following afternoon, waiting for the social worker to arrive. He’d been so excited at the thought of seeing his mum again that he’d even been effusive about letting me know how good he’d been in not saying anything to Georgie.

‘I saw him today again and everything,’ he said. ‘Coming into the dinner hall with his special teacher woman, an’ I never said a word to him, Casey. Not
nothing
. I just turned my head away an’ ignored him.’

For all that I noted how he managed to make ‘special’ sound like a dirty word, I was really pleased to hear this. He obviously
could
be a good boy – though I pointed out that Georgie’s special teacher woman would have actually been a teaching assistant, and that lots of kids got help from these kinds of teachers, so that they could get the best out of what the regular teachers told them.

And when Marie’s car pulled up, it was all I could do to stop Jenson flying straight out of the house without a backward glance.

‘Oh, God!’ he moaned, as I clamped a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘We’re gonna be late if she starts gabbing with you, Casey!’

‘Less of the cheek,’ I admonished, as Marie walked up the path. ‘All set to go?’ I asked her. ‘I certainly know someone who is.’

Marie nodded. ‘I’ll have him back in a couple of hours,’ she promised. ‘Is that all right?’

It was more than all right. It was already Tuesday afternoon and I hadn’t yet made any preparations for Georgie’s arrival. He was due at teatime on Thursday and I’d not even made a start on his room yet. After phoning Mike and asking if he’d bring some fish and chips home for tea, I decided to go up and attack it with my Marigolds.

The pink room wasn’t ideal but, as I’d already explained to John, it would only be temporary. Once Jenson had left, I’d simply move Georgie into the blue room. Still, I did chastise myself a little for acting in such haste over the colour schemes. I thought I’d been quite clever at the time. After all, my reasoning had gone, it would always be one or the other: they’d either send me a boy – blue room – or they’d send me a girl – pink room – so at the time it seemed the perfect way to go. That it had never occurred to me that I might be sent a pair of brothers or sisters now seemed quite loopy – I’d had siblings before, hadn’t I?

But no matter, I thought, as I trotted up the stairs with my cleaning things – he’d be okay in there for a short while – might even want to stay in there, in fact. Given the way his mind worked, he might not even care about such things.

Looking at the extreme pinkness, however – particularly of the curtains and bedding – I did toy with opting for the other spare room instead. But that made no sense. It had a double bed, for starters, which was useful if family came to stay, so it would be a shame to limit that option, and it also looked a bit fusty, dominated, as is was, by a gigantic oak wardrobe that we had somehow inherited from my grandmother. My parents had stored it for us for several years (it was apparently too valuable a family heirloom to put on eBay) but since our move six months back they had decreed that since we now had room for it they could finally get shot of it, to make way for something more modern.

No, the pink room it had to be, so I set about stripping the bed and replacing the butterflies-and-daisies duvet cover with something more neutral.

That done, I then sorted out a few toys, books and games and then, after giving the room a quick buff and polish, went downstairs to print out all the information John had emailed me about Georgie, so I could have a good read with a cup of coffee while it was quiet.

While there’s no single behaviour that is ‘typical’ of autism, there are several behaviours that are more frequently found than others. And it seems Georgie had several of these. For example, he had something called echolalia. This basically meant the parrot-like repetition of words and phrases he might hear. He might come out with a string of sentences from a television programme, for example, or continually repeat something a teacher or parent might say. Almost always, these speech patterns would be non-contextual, too, i.e. they would come out completely randomly, often far removed from where he heard them, which was why – and this was true of my experience of autistic kids in school – children like Georgie would become such easy targets for bullying.

He also apparently – again like lots of kids with autism – had a marked lack of empathy. This meant he struggled to perceive the emotional state of others, which, again, made relationships with peers challenging.

Other aspects were pretty much as I’d expected them to be. A long list of likes and even longer list of dislikes. And with the latter, it wasn’t just a case of a simple dislike – if something happened or was given to him that was on the list of dislikes, it could provoke an extreme emotional reaction.

I was on surer ground with all his rituals – since, to a lesser degree, that was something important to my Kieron – but I sighed to see it emphasised how much he found human contact painful. This would be a child who’d react adversely to that most basic human drive – to cuddle, to hold hands, to be kissed better.

It was all quite sobering food for thought. When I had worked with kids like Georgie in the past, it had been in a school setting; a place consistent in its own rituals, rules and routines. Which made it straightforward, and also, in terms of human contact, not all that stressful – in school there was a distance; a fair degree of personal space. But in a home setting – a place of warmth, spontaneity and affection – such boundaries would feel very strange.

At the bottom of the notes were some contact details for Georgie’s social worker – a Mr Harry Bird. And also a note to say he’d be getting in touch by phone on Thursday morning, just to talk through final details, answer any of my questions, and tell me what I could expect when Georgie first arrived.

‘It all sounds terribly serious,’ I told Mike over the promised fish and chips an hour later. ‘Like we’re taking temporary responsibility for some rare species of animal, or a crucial component for some space rocket or something.’

Mike laughed. ‘It’s just a child, Case,’ he said. ‘Just another kid. You’ll be fine …’

‘I’m not so sure,’ I said, dousing my chips in vinegar. ‘I think it’s going to be a lot more difficult than we imagined. It’s certainly going to take a lot of patience.’

‘Calm,’ Mike said.

‘Calm?’

‘Calm – that was our watchword, remember? When Kieron was little. D’you remember how we used to say it all the time? Like the paediatrician told us?’ He chuckled again. ‘Though, fair point – there
is
young Jenson to consider. I’m not sure Jenson knows the meaning of the word calm.’

I acknowledged this with a frown. Of course Jenson didn’t do calm. My impression, brief though it was, was that calm was a commodity in short supply in his life. If we were choosing ‘c’ words, chaos seemed to fit better.

‘Impossible,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Mike.’ Not impossible, love. Not for a super-mum like you. Just challenging. And how many times have you told me how much you relish challenges?

He was grinning. ‘Shut your face,’ I told him sharply.

When Jenson arrived home he was full of smiles and full of beans. Which was gratifying to see. You never knew with parental contact visits. Sometimes they panned out. Very often they were a disaster. And given that there was still no date fixed for him and his sister to return home, seeing his mum might have actually proved distressing.

But this was evidently not the case. He just seemed genuinely thrilled to have seen her. ‘She’s got a right tan on, Casey. You should see her! An’ guess what? Her an’ Gary only got engaged when they were in Spain! She said he fell for her hook and line and what’s the other thing, Marie?’

‘Hook, line and sinker,’ Marie finished for him. Then glanced at me. ‘So all’s well in Karen-land …’

‘Karen-land,’ Jenson quipped. ‘That’s cool that is. I’ll have to remember that for next time.’

I looked at Marie enquiringly.

‘Which will be Saturday,’ she clarified. ‘If that works for you. Pick him up around nine thirty. The plan at the moment is to go bowling. Then lunch – I think we decided on pizza, didn’t we, Jenson?’ Jenson nodded. ‘And then back to you around three, I imagine.’

I agreed that would be good for us – mainly it would give me a big chunk of time alone with Georgie – and while Jenson went off upstairs to change out of his school uniform I took the opportunity to ask Marie if he’d mentioned anything about the fact that Georgie was moving in.

‘Not a word,’ she said. ‘To be honest, he wouldn’t have had much of a chance anyway. That woman can talk for Britain – and it’s all about her, of course. How great her holiday was, how excited she was about her engagement … And you should have seen her – done up as if she was planning on going straight on to a night club. Skirt up to here, enough make-up to restock Boots – honestly, I know it’s unprofessional to judge by appearances, but between you and me I wasn’t very impressed. Barely a word about what the kids had been up to, or how sorry she was about the situation …’ She sighed. And, mentally, I sighed with her.

‘So sad, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You’d think, given the little time she had to spend with him, that she’d at least have made the effort to make a bit of a fuss.’

‘I know,’ agreed Marie, ‘but what surprised me most was that Jenson didn’t seem in the slightest bit bothered by it. He was just over the moon to be even in her company.’

Which was perfectly natural but felt even more sad. No child should feel so lacking in maternal love that they had to cling on pathetically for ever tiny morsel of affection that was on offer.

But both in my current job and also in the one before it I had come across a depressingly large minority of mothers who were so wrapped up in their own lives that they couldn’t see for looking where the trials of their children’s lives were concerned. It wasn’t rocket science to work out that there was generally a reason for kids displaying challenging behaviours.

Still, I thought, Jenson was in a good place at the moment, which was all we could ask for. I just hoped it would last.

Mike was able to leave work early in preparation for Georgie’s arrival the following afternoon, which I was grateful for. He’d worked for the same company for years, and had always been loyal and hard working, so, since we’d begun fostering, they’d always been great about those times when he needed a little flexibility. Which he did, as even though the house was entirely shipshape he knew I’d have my usual last-minute flap about dust. But when he walked through the front door I could see something was missing.

‘Mike,’ I groaned, ‘don’t tell me you forgot to get the flowers.’

I had texted him earlier to get some from the supermarket on the way home, but it seemed he’d forgotten.

‘Love, this is a 9-year-old boy,’ he argued reasonably. ‘You think he’s even going to notice whether there are flowers in the house?’

‘But they make the house smell nice,’ I whined as I followed him into the kitchen. ‘And, besides, I’ve never met this new social worker, have I?’

Mike laughed then. ‘Ah, of course,’ he said. ‘That’s what this is all about then, is it?’ He glanced out of the patio doors. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You put the kettle on. I’ll go down the garden and see what I can find.’

In that respect, we’d been lucky. We’d moved into the house just before Christmas, with little idea what surprises lay ready under the ground. And we’d been rewarded, by first crocuses and daffodils and tulips, and now a wonderful array of perennial flowers – including peonies and lupins – and best of all, a couple of elderly but healthy rose bushes, all of which, by some miracle, had managed to avoid being beheaded by flying footballs.

I had just grabbed a vase for the half a dozen lemony roses he’d cut for me, when I spied a man and a boy coming up the path. The man – Harry Bird, I assumed – seemed exactly as I had pictured him: mid- or late fifties, greying hair, unfussy glasses, well-worn suit. He’d already called me that morning, just as he’d promised, with the reassuring news that Georgie seemed reasonably understanding of what was happening and had apparently taken great interest in the photographs. He’d been particularly mesmerised, Mr Bird had told me, with my black hair. The boy himself, who was wearing the same school uniform as Jenson’s, was clutching a round silver tin. He looked about average height and build for his age – a little more robustly built than Jenson – though I couldn’t see his face as he had his chin tucked firmly into his chest. I couldn’t miss his hair, though. He had the most beautiful, shoulder-length mass of blond curls. I’d never seen anything quite like it – well, apart from on rock stars. It was stunning.

Still holding the vase of flowers, I opened the front door to greet them. Harry Bird grinned and extended a hand to shake mine. As my right arm was still wrapped around the vase, I made a quick transfer. ‘Casey Watson,’ I said. ‘Sorry – excuse the roses.’

The little boy up to now hadn’t looked anywhere other than down, where he now seemed to be making a close inspection of my gravelled front garden. But now he raised his head and, looking at no one in particular, said: ‘Rose Marion Tyler, species: human, home planet: earth, 48 Bucknall House, the Powell estate, London SE15 7GO.’

I smiled at Georgie, feeling glad that I’d been prepped about this. And was careful not to touch him as I ushered them both inside. No pat on the shoulder. No ruffling of that gorgeous hair.

Hmm, though, I thought as Mike led them into the kitchen diner. Rose Marion Tyler. Where had I heard that name before?

Harry Bird supplied the answer to my unspoken question. ‘
Doctor Who
,’ he said, putting down his tatty leather briefcase. ‘Georgie’s a big fan, aren’t you, lad?’

There was clearly a rapport between the two of them, I noticed, because he then leaned towards Georgie and, in an almost faultless replica of the fabled killing machines, stuck an arm out and growled, ‘Ex-ter-min-ate!’

Georgie looked up and then back to his palms, which he’d cupped, as if holding an imaginary crystal ball. ‘Dalek,’ he said. ‘A mutated organism with a polycarbide mechanical casing. Seeks universal domination. Ex-ter-min-ate.’

‘Wow,’ said Mike, as he switched on the kettle. ‘Impressive! I used to love
Doctor Who
when I was a kid too. D’you want to take your coat off, Georgie?’

Georgie nodded, though, as we’d been led to expect, he didn’t make eye contact with Mike as he removed it. He then carefully folded it and scanned the room for a place to put it down.

‘Over there, love,’ I said, pointing to the slim cupboard in the kitchen. ‘That’s where we keep all our everyday coats and shoes. And while you’re doing that I’ll make you a glass of juice, shall I?’

Again, there was no direct response but as Georgie walked across to put his coat away he began shaking his head from side to side.

‘Milk, please, for Georgie,’ Harry quickly translated. ‘If that’s okay … Georgie likes to drink milk. He doesn’t like juice. In fact he … well, once we sit down for a chat it will all be a bit easier. That okay?’

‘Of course,’ I said, feeling pleased that – from first impressions anyway – here was a social worker who knew his charge well. As he would; he might have been with him from the outset – probably had. Which was a big plus. Because right now I was bewildered. So having someone on hand who really knew what made him tick would be a huge benefit for all of us.

‘You seem to know him extremely well,’ I said. ‘It’s good that we’ve got someone who has a handle on all the ins and outs. Makes a refreshing change, in fact.’

‘Not for long, I’m afraid,’ Harry said with a sigh. ‘I’m due to retire soon, and Georgie is the last child on my case load. I’d have gone already, between you and me, but I agreed to wait until we had him settled before I hung up my briefcase.’

So that was that bubble burst right away. Harry went on to explain that a new worker would be assigned in due course, but that it might take a while as they would need to get the match right. It obviously needed someone who was conversant with the type of problems Georgie faced, which wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world.

But it would be silly to stress about the future at this point. All that mattered was what was happening now. And that meant the business of Georgie living with Mike and me, and Jenson, who, as if on cue, chose that precise moment to come in. He greeted us, rather charmingly, with a huge belch.

‘Jenson!’ I admonished, mortified.

‘Pardon me!’ he said, grinning. ‘All right there, Georgie Porgie?’ he asked. ‘You see me in school earlier? I seen you. Seen you coming out of your
special
room.’

He’d managed to load the word ‘special’ with all the sarcasm he could muster, and once again I winced.

‘Jenson,’ I said again, ‘if you remember, I did ask you to give us a bit of privacy while we got all this sorted out. So would you please either go back into the living room or upstairs to your bedroom. I’ll call you down as soon as we’re done, okay?’

But before he could answer, Georgie – who’d now walked back to where Harry was – was once again shaking his head and cupping his hands. ‘He kissed the girls and made them cry,’ he said. ‘Not Georgie. Georgie did not do this.’

I glared at Jenson, who quickly scarpered, his bit of mischief over with, while Mike set a tumbler of milk down on the table for Georgie.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said to Harry, as he passed round all our coffees. ‘They know each other from school – as you probably know.’ Harry nodded. ‘So it’s obviously all a bit “I’m the top dog here because I got here first” right now. Nothing to worry about, though. We’ll soon have that sorted. It’ll be okay, mate,’ he finished, looking at Georgie.

‘No worries at all,’ Harry said cheerfully, directing Georgie to his drink. ‘Actually, if it’s all right with you two, I think now might be a good time to get Georgie settled in front of the telly. There’s a quiz show on shortly that he’s rather keen on –
Countdown
. Aren’t you, mate?’ he said to Georgie. ‘And he’s cracking at it, too. Certainly seems to beat most of the contestants. And he’s particularly quick at the conundrums.’

Again, he looked at Georgie, and I saw the merest hint of a smile cross Georgie’s lips. But, just as was sometimes the case with tiny babies when it came to smiles, was I just seeing what I wanted to see? For this kid was a conundrum himself. He was clearly aware of his environment – taking in, and responding to, what was going on around him – but he seemed reliant upon others taking control. I realised I had barely scratched the surface with my research into autism, and something else – that I really liked Harry Bird. I loved this gentle, down-to-earth kind of social worker, period. The kind that was motivated by a genuine love of kids; the roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-on-with-it kind of social worker.

Which made it doubly sad that he’d be leaving so soon. But not that much of a shock, once I thought about it. His type of social worker was such a rarity. And, currently, as well, a dying breed. The case loads social workers were expected to deal with these days meant that it was really hard for them to get to know the children in their care. They knew them superficially, of course – and perhaps sufficiently to do their best for them – but a bond such as I was witnessing between Georgie and Harry was a rare thing, and would only become rarer.

But there was nothing we could do about it, so it was silly to be sentimental. And with both boys sorted, Mike and Harry and I went back to the kitchen and got down to business. The tatty briefcase (another mark of a career social worker of long standing) was opened to reveal what was probably the fattest manila file of case notes I’d yet seen. Which wasn’t that hard, given we so often seemed to be going into placements half-blind – but even so, for a kid who’d spent almost all his life in one care home, there were screeds and screeds of notes.

And I made more of them, scribbling furiously on my usual pad as Harry went through Georgie’s routines in detail – adhering to these was key, he said, to avoiding too many ‘freak-outs’. It was also interesting to note that, unusual for a child in care, Georgie had almost no belongings.

‘He can’t handle too much choice,’ Harry explained, which took me straight away back to Kieron, who would also ‘freak out’, albeit mostly quietly, if bombarded with too much choice. ‘So we’ve learned over the years that it’s best to keep things simple,’ Harry explained. ‘For example, he has just the seven sets of winter clothes and the seven sets of summer clothes – any more than this and he’ll simply refuse to get dressed. Same goes with footwear; one pair of indoor shoes, one pair of outdoor shoes, one pair for special occasions – no more, no less.’

‘What about toys?’ I asked. ‘Does he have a special one? And are there any particular games he likes playing?’

Harry shook his head. ‘Georgie doesn’t really do toys, Casey. Never has. What tends to happen is that he’ll develop attachments. Could be anything – and it’s usually something completely random and obscure. When that happens, he becomes completely absorbed in whatever it is. Right now it’s stones.’

‘Stones?’ Mike asked.

‘Stones,’ Harry confirmed. ‘Stones of all sorts. Pebbles, bits of brick, rough, smooth, whatever. And we can’t pinpoint what the attraction is because his collection is so varied. Shiny stones, smooth stones, rough stones, chipped stones … All different colours and textures – who knows what’s going on?’

‘He has a collection?’ I asked, remembering the small silver tin, which Georgie had taken with him into the living room.

But it wasn’t the tin, apparently. That was just for the most special stones. The main collection was still in the car. ‘Shall we go out and get his things in?’ Harry suggested. ‘Mike, perhaps you could give me a hand with his cases. And I’ll show you his collections box as well.’

We filed outside. ‘Like I was saying,’ Harry said, as he clicked the remote to release the car boot, ‘it’s stones at the moment but it could change at any time. Last year it was labels off of food tins – he had hundreds of the bloody things.’ He chuckled. ‘You can imagine how well that one went down at the home, can’t you? He’d go on these sorties into the pantry and strip them off all the cans. Poor cook never knew what she’d be dishing up for tea till she’d opened one …’

We both laughed but, as Mike helped Harry in with Georgie’s things, I felt a twinge of apprehension about what we were taking on. Memories of Kieron’s childhood flooded my mind now – all those little things I’d all but forgotten, like how upset he’d get when we’d go to a shop and he’d want to spend his pocket money, yet would be paralysed by indecision and distress. He’d invariably end up just copying Riley and spending his pennies on whatever she did, whether it was something he liked or not. What a learning curve that had been. And how much of a bigger one might
this
be? Once again I felt relieved to have someone like Harry on hand to advise us, but even so this really felt like a journey into the unknown.

Georgie’s collections tin was a large silver one, embossed with leaf shapes; it was the kind of speciality biscuit tin the supermarkets liked to bring out at Christmas, and I could see straight away why a child would think it special. Harry opened the lid and quickly showed us the contents which, as he’d said, were essentially a random pile of stones. ‘Mustn’t touch, of course,’ he said, closing the lid again carefully. ‘There’ll be some very important order in this seemingly random pile, and if it’s disturbed he will not be happy …’

I nodded, thinking of Kieron and how nobody messed with his various childhood collections. That one I completely understood.

‘Oh, and as I was just explaining to Mike,’ Harry added, ‘we still need to cover food. About which he’s particularly pernickety.’

I grabbed my pen once more. ‘No juice,’ I said, as I began to write it down.

‘And that’s just the tip of the iceberg,’ Harry commented. ‘At the moment – and this has been the case for about a year now – I’m afraid Georgie will only eat white food.’

‘
Really?
’ Both my and Mike’s eyebrows made a bolt for the ceiling. And remained aloft as Harry nodded his confirmation. ‘Afraid so.’

‘What, as in
all
white?’ Mike asked. I could almost see his brain whirring.

‘As in rice?’ I said. ‘That’s the only white food I can think of.’ I noticed my voice had become something of a plaintive squeak. How on earth would I cater for
that
?

‘It’s not quite that extreme,’ Harry reassured us. ‘He calls it “white” but perhaps a more correct word is “light”. He is keen on “light” generally. And where food’s concerned that means things like pasta in cheese sauce, for example. Most cereals, cheese on toast, macaroni cheese … actually, I’ve said that already, haven’t I? Don’t look so alarmed,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Cook’s put a list of “safe” foods in the folder for you, and, honestly, it’s not as short as you might imagine. And he gets by at school, so there must be a reasonable amount of regular stuff on there …’

Oh, dear God
, I thought.
This just gets better and better
. And just to prove me right, Jenson chose that moment to make his second appearance.

‘Am I okay to come down now?’ he asked from the doorway. ‘I wasn’t taking the piss earlier, honest. Where’s Georgie anyway? You want me to show him his new room?’

Great, I thought, conscious of Harry sitting with us. Making such a wonderful impression. ‘Language, lad,’ Mike checked him. ‘You know the rules well enough. But, yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s all take him up, shall we?’

So that’s what we did, trooping single file up the stairs with Jenson, as the official ‘room shower’, taking the lead. And for reasons of his own, it seemed – reasons for which we should perhaps have been prepared. ‘Ta da!’ he announced, swinging the bedroom door open. ‘Georgie gets the girly room!’

I glared at him and pulled him away from the doorway. ‘Stop being silly, Jenson. And don’t worry, Georgie,’ I added, making space so he could see it himself. ‘It’s only for a few days, love – after that you’ll be in a different room, okay?’

Though I hadn’t actually stipulated how
many
days – that would, of course, depend on what was going to happen with Jenson – it seemed even a few minutes were going to prove too much, because Georgie looked as if he was facing the jaws of death. Then, without warning, he let out a scream that was so ear-splitting that I actually clamped my hands over my ears.

Harry was quick to try and console him – though again, I noticed, this involved no physical contact. ‘Shh, lad,’ he soothed. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay … Casey didn’t know, you see. That’s all. She didn’t know. It’s okay …’

But Georgie carried on screaming, until, abruptly, he spoke. ‘Imagine what you all look like to them,’ he said, staccato-style. ‘All pink and yellow. Episode 2. Imagine. All pink and yellow.’

Mike and I exchanged helpless bewildered looks as this continued, then it finally hit me – how dozy was I? – that I should shut the bedroom door. And once I did so the screaming and rambling stopped instantly, though I noticed Georgie was now physically shaking.

‘My fault,’ Harry said. ‘I’m so sorry – completely slipped my mind, that. It’s pink. Georgie hates pink – pink and anything pinkie-red, as well, to be exact about it. What a thing for me to forget.’ He looked sheepishly at me. ‘I don’t suppose you have another room free, do you?’

This was beginning to feel surreal, and now everyone seemed to be looking in my direction, as if I could magically snap my fingers and whistle one up. Jenson, in particular, had a distinct ‘I hope you’re not thinking what I think you might be thinking’ face on. But he needn’t have worried. Though Georgie’s needs were many and very evident, there was no way I’d add to Jenson’s more subtle woes by evicting him, however much he’d wound the other boy up.