Four Waifs on Our Doorstep (22 page)

Instinctively I put my hand up in between and it just caught her fingers. ‘No!’ I said again. ‘You do not do that to eyes.’

Simon, realising his narrow escape, started to cry. Caroline, her fury thwarted, started crying as well out of frustration. I sat down again and they each got down from their chairs and came
over to me for a cuddle. That was it – fight over.

The next day I dropped the children off at their schools as usual, and about an hour later there was a knock at the door. It was a social worker, so I showed her in.

‘Mrs Merry. Caroline has made a complaint at school that you smacked her for no reason.’

‘Really?’ I was angry. ‘Let’s call her teacher and find out what this is all about.’ I didn’t wait for her agreement. I knew all the school numbers by
heart.

Sure enough, the secretary took the phone to Caroline’s teacher, who told me that Caroline had been crying when she came into school.

‘I asked her what was the matter, and she said you had smacked her very hard and it made her cry. I asked her why you had smacked her and she said no reason. So I’m sorry, Mrs Merry,
but our school policy is to report anything like this, so I had no choice.’

‘Even if it wasn’t true? You’ve told me yourself that Caroline often tells you lies.’

‘Well, I couldn’t know for sure whether it was true—’

‘You could have rung me first!’

‘Our policy is always to believe the child, so I had no alternative.’

I thanked her coldly and put the phone down.

‘I know what this is about,’ I said to the social worker as I sat down with her in the living room. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened and you can make your own
judgement.’

I recounted the whole episode of Caroline’s finger-jabbing, describing every stage of their fight, what I said and how I reacted.

‘So you see,’ I explained, ‘I put my hand out to protect Simon as Caroline lunged at him and it caught Caroline’s outstretched fingers.’

‘Oh, right,’ was all she said. ‘I will report back to my superior and we will let you know how we will proceed.’ She got up to go.

‘When will you let me know?’ I asked, anxious that this seemed to be escalating too far, and the final stage of the adoption was only weeks away. I was only too aware how this could
impact on all our hopes and plans.

A few days later, the senior social worker called round to interview me. I went through it all with her, blow by blow, and finished with the catching of Caroline’s fingers.

There was a pause while she wrote some notes.

‘Are you aware of these children’s problems?’ I asked her.

‘Do you think you need more help?’ she replied.

What a loaded question. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. So I said nothing as I thought it through.

She just gave me a long, withering look. ‘I think you need a break, Mrs Merry.’ Another ambiguous statement. I felt a sense of dread, knowing where this could be going.

I showed her out and dropped into a heap on the sofa. This seemingly innocent accusation by Caroline could scupper everything, for her and the others. It really frightened me. I felt in more of
a turmoil than I’d ever experienced before. But then my sensible side kicked in and I realised that I could over-analyse all this. Yes, perhaps that was what I was doing.

Apparently she went back and spoke to the school again, the doctor and I don’t know who else, but it was so near the end of the adoption procedure that it was too late and the issue too
comparatively insignificant to stop it now. We were on a roll, thank goodness!

The final requirement before we could officially adopt the children was the freeing order. This is a chance for the children and their birth family to say goodbye. Normally,
it’s supposed to be done in easy stages, over as long a time as can be arranged, to smooth the process – usually a month to six weeks. But, despite it being two years since our
application, the end part of it was all so quick that the freeing order had to be done and dusted in a day.

So a meeting was arranged, to include everyone at once, even though the children hadn’t seen some of these people for a long time.

There was birth dad, birth mum, mum’s first husband, who none of them knew, their elder half-sibling Mandy, who had severe learning difficulties, their grandma and their grandad.

I had to take our four along to that meeting, stay, then take them back home again. But even more arduous was the need for me to explain all this to the children themselves, so that they all
understood what it was about, and to prepare them for the emotional impact it might have on them. I had to try to keep them as calm as possible, despite the significance of what they were about to
experience. I also had to encourage them to talk to everyone when they got there – an almost impossible task for the younger ones in such a large and daunting gathering.

In the days leading up to the freeing-order meeting, they were increasingly anxious and asked me to explain the purpose of the meeting over and over again. I’m not sure even then whether
the younger ones took in what it meant.

It was a horrendous situation and an absolutely horrendous day. I don’t think it was any easier for the adults than it was for the children, perhaps even more stressful emotionally. What
Jill’s first husband was doing there was as baffling to him as to anyone, but at least he came with their daughter Mandy, who Hamish and Anita did remember as she came to live with them for a
short while, when they were little.

What made the whole situation even more difficult to bear was that it was all these people in one small room, with no toys or play area to break the tension for the children.

It was hard for Mandy too. It was years since she had seen her mother, let alone Hamish and Anita, and she couldn’t understand what was going on.

Their birth dad came, but all he did was chain-smoke and drink his lager. He went out then back in repeatedly, smoking all the while, but never interacted with any of the children, other than
his initial ‘Hello, kids.’

Jill, their birth mum, did exchange a few words with Hamish and Anita, but would not even acknowledge Caroline, who was desperately trying to attract her attention, in all the most inappropriate
ways – ‘Here I am’ – trying to get Jill to notice her. Finally Caroline burst into tears, inconsolable. It was so frustrating to see the damage they were doing to this
little girl and be helpless to do anything.

Grandma and Grandad were there, and Grandad was going over to talk to her. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. He whispered something to her and her face froze. He took her by the hand
and led her back, stroking her hair and arms and more or less all over as he sat down, placing her in front of him, with one hand on her bottom and the other on her tummy, holding her hard into
himself, which she clearly found uncomfortable. She squirmed and he smiled. She tried to get away, but he held her even tighter, pulling her in harder. She squirmed all the more. His breathing
quickened . . .

I turned to the social worker who was supposed to be leading this meeting and shot her frantic looks. She looked anxiously from me to Caroline and to the grandfather, back and forth, seemingly
incapable of doing anything to rescue the poor child.

I was desperate to stop this, but Liz, the guardian ad litem, who was sitting next to me, put her hand on my arm, as if to warn me. I was horrified, but I knew I was not allowed to intervene.
This was intolerable.

Fortunately, Jill changed places with her mother, to sit next to Grandad, and leant forward to give him a coquettish smile. My immediate thought was that there was something very wrong here. It
looked almost as if Jill was jealous of his attentions towards her least favourite child.

Grandad suddenly let go of Caroline, who ran to me, as if for safety. I gave her a hug and she clung to my sleeve. Meanwhile, Grandad stroked Jill’s cheek and her ears, gazing into her
eyes. She clearly enjoyed this, turned her body towards him and put her hand on his, directing his hand down her neck . . .

I looked at the grandmother, who was also watching them, but with what looked like a resigned expression. I wondered if perhaps I was reading too much into all this. Perhaps I’d got it all
wrong, but I couldn’t ignore the signs.

The social worker cleared her throat and asked Jill something about her journey, so the spell was broken, for the time being anyway.

While all this had been going on, Simon just sat alone in the corner, ignored, not spoken to or even picked up, now that he was no longer a toddler.

By now, with nothing to do, the other three were just bouncing off the walls. The social worker made no effort to re-engage them with the adults and the whole meeting became the nightmare I had
dreaded.

I turned to Liz. ‘Who in their right mind put this together? It beggars belief. Absolutely beggars belief.’

She nodded, turned her head away from the group and grimaced at me.

It was cruel, expecting four vulnerable, confused and emotional children to say goodbye to all those adults, lumped together, all in the space of a couple of hours, not to mention all the
complicated relationships.

And what was particularly difficult for me was that I had been helpless to do anything to improve the situation. They kept looking towards me for help, and I could do nothing. By the end of the
meeting, all the related adults were in tears and the children looked stressed to bursting point. I couldn’t wait to get them out of it and as far away as possible.

As I was driving them down the Northend Road, I remembered we’d be passing one of those ball-park places, so I turned in and parked. Whenever I had taken them there before, they had gone
wild. I thought it would be especially good for them today because they could scream, shout, jump and make as much noise as they felt like.

We went in, and yes, they were over the top in one way, but they all looked shell-shocked, in an alien environment, unable to let out their feelings. They had been cooped up in a small room,
without any food, both of which Hamish in particular does not do well, surrounded by people, some of them virtual strangers and most of whom completely failed to communicate with them, and they had
long ago eaten the snacks I had taken in the car. The four of them just stood there, surrounded by other children’s fun and noise, too traumatised to take part.

They knew it was coming up to teatime and that was now their one reference point, so we all climbed back into the car and went home.

After tea, I tried to get them talking about the meeting, because I felt it might help them to get it out in the open. I thought I had prepared them so well for this day, but it seemed to me now
that I hadn’t done nearly enough. This was the last time they would see their birth family, at least until they were adults, but I don’t think the enormity of it had really taken
root.

It was an awful situation and, as before, there was no counselling offered to them, which I felt was very harsh. It had been a significant experience for them, but in all the wrong ways, and we
were left to pick up the pieces.

18

‘C
ome on, kids. We need to have a discussion.’ I gathered them round the dining-room table one Sunday morning.

‘What about?’ asked Hamish with an anxious look.

‘Don’t worry. Nobody’s done anything wrong.’ Well, that wasn’t quite true of course, because there wasn’t even half a day without one of them messing up! But
it wasn’t the point of the meeting. ‘I want to explain to you about the last part of the adoption.’

‘When will that be?’ asked Anita.

‘I don’t know. We haven’t been given a date yet. But on that day, we will all go and see a judge, who will give each of you a piece of paper that says this is your new mummy
and daddy.’ I paused to let that sink in. ‘And that’s when you can change your name if you like.’

‘But how can we change our names?’ puzzled Hamish.

‘Well, being adopted means having a new start. And that means having new names as well, if you want. But you don’t have to. Or you could change it just a bit, so you could be Hamish
Mackay Merry if you don’t want to lose your old names.’

‘I don’t want to be Hamish and I don’t want to be Mackay.’

‘Well, what names are you going to have then?’

‘Can we choose anything we like?’

‘For your first name, yes.’

He pondered for a few moments, while we all waited with mounting interest.

Eventually I thought perhaps he might need a bit of help. ‘It’s probably a good idea to choose something similar to your old name,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be
Hamish one day and Benjamin the next!’

He looked anxious.

‘The English name for Hamish is James,’ I suggested.

‘I like James,’ he decided. ‘I could be Jamie.’

‘Yes, Jamie is good.’

He smiled.

‘What about you, An?’ I gulped, hoping she didn’t choose something too glamorous or outrageous that she might regret later.

‘I’m going to be Anastasia,’ she said, with a toss of her long, shining hair.

‘That would be fine, An. But it’s quite a mouthful. What about Anna, or Stacey?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But Anna is too much like Anita. I like Stacey.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Stacey,’ she repeated. ‘I really like it. I want to be
Stacey. And I can have Anastasia as my middle name. Stacey Anastasia.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about you, Caroline?’ I was really worried about her name. She was already called a lot of different names because of her speech problems, so if they didn’t see it
written down, one person might call her Carla, another might say Carlynne, or Colleen . . . Poor thing, she was already confused enough about her identity, with so many different names and
pronunciations. I didn’t think she would cope with a completely different name.

‘Caroline, a lot of your friends call you Carrie, don’t they?’ I said. ‘So you could change your name to Carrie if you like,’ I suggested. ‘What do you think
about having Carrie as your proper name?’