Casey Watson - Skin Deep

‘She’s certainly one of a kind,’ Mike agreed, diplomatically. ‘And I’m sure she’s going to keep us all on our toes.’ He turned his gaze away from the television and leaned forward so he could look at Tyler properly. ‘But you and me are well up to that job, aren’t we, kiddo? Because I think Casey here’s going to have a lot on her hands, don’t you?’ He accompanied his words with a wink and raised a hand, with the palm towards Tyler. ‘Deal, kiddo?’

Tyler slapped the palm with his own and grinned. ‘ Deal !’

I could have kissed Mike for that. There I’d been, getting increasingly stressed about whether Tyler potentially might find it all much too difficult to handle, and with a scant half dozen words Mike had him completely on side: we were Team Watson and we were in this together. I knew there would be flashpoints and disaffections – I’d be mad not to expect that – but I also felt confident we could rise to them; especially if Flip went to bed at a reasonable time every night, giving us all that precious space to recharge.

And we would need to recharge, if today had been indicative. Ellie had assured me Flip had been given her morning Ritalin by the respite carer, and I’d given her a dose at teatime, but if that was her dosed, I could only wonder incredulously what she might be like unmedicated. She was like a Duracell bunny as it was.

‘You’re telling me I’ll need back-up,’ I confirmed, nudging Tyler and grinning. ‘She’s only got one speed setting, hasn’t she, Ty? Billy Whizz.’

He looked confused. ‘Who’s Billy Whizz?’

‘He’s out of a comic,’ I explained. ‘One I used to read when I was Flip’s age. It’s called The Beano and Billy Whizz was a boy who went everywhere super-fast. You’ve heard of Dennis the Menace?’ Tyler nodded at this one. ‘Well, he’s a character from the same comic. I’ll have to pick you up a copy some time.’

Mike chuckled. ‘And with a bit of Minnie the Minx thrown in for good measure, by the sound of it.’

‘Or Flip the Fast and Furious,’ Tyler suggested, pretty sagely.

Later, once we were all in bed and Mike was snoring under the duvet beside me, I sat up and properly read the notes John had left for me, which fleshed out the picture he’d already sketched. It was the same depressing scenario as I’d come across many times before, both as a foster carer and, prior to that, running a behaviour unit in the local comprehensive school. Little Flip (little Philippa ; how had the name Philippa come about, I wondered) had her potential in life stunted before she’d even been born, due to being born brain damaged as a result of her mother’s addiction.

I thought back to Tyler, whose early life had been so tragically blighted by his own mother’s addiction to heroin, and sent up a silent curse to the forces, and in Tyler’s case more specifically to the dealers, that saw young women trapped in that same desperate downward spiral that not only meant their own lives were blighted, often permanently, but that also led them to the reckless sexual behaviours that saw them bring children into the world.

It also struck me that, in one sense, Flip had had it tougher. Though Tyler’s mum’s poison had killed her when he was a toddler, it had left no long-standing physical mark on him. Yes, he’d suffered horribly, psychologically, in a zillion other ways, but he was young, fit and strong now. He could grow up and be and do anything he wanted.

There would be no heady potential for Flip, as far as I could tell, because – damningly and cruelly – alcohol had poisoned her too. And once I’d refreshed my knowledge of the damage FAS could wreak, I was reminded that there were things that could not be reversed; that the damage to her brain was going to be permanent.

I tried not to judge. To be a foster carer and be judgemental is a fool’s game, and often inappropriate, as well. Though revulsion at abusers is a normal human reaction, there are many cases where the parents who’ve had their children removed from them are very much victims themselves. But as I read, I still felt a stirring of something like anger. There were apparently grandparents. There was a brother. This was a child who did have family. Just a mother unwilling or unable to conquer her addiction and an extended family that didn’t seem to want to know her.

I read the previous social worker’s lengthy set of notes with care. John had been right when he said mother and daughter had been known to the authorities for some time; the notes went back to when Flip had been little more than a baby, one who hadn’t been reaching her developmental milestones.

There was no father’s name recorded on Flip’s birth certificate, but it seemed social services had had some contact a long time back with the maternal grandparents, who were both in their seventies, and apparently not in the best of health. Their daughter Megan was the younger of two children – there was also a brother, but he was a soldier who lived in Germany and was recently divorced. Hardly knowing his niece in any case, he apparently wanted no involvement.

Neither, it seemed, did those very same grandparents – well, at least according to the most recent note about it, which was a few years old now. This was another sad state of affairs. They had apparently tried hard to help out their daughter when Flip had been a baby, but when they practised tough love and stopped helping Megan financially her retaliation was swift and decisive. She refused to have anything more to do with them, in protest.

And it seemed that they’d long since given up on both daughter and grand-daughter – washed their hands of the pair of them, despite entreaties by Megan’s then social worker to try to build bridges. ‘ It’s difficult ,’ she’d noted in an email to her manager, ‘ because Flip has so little in the way of attachments; with the best will in the world, it’s hard to appeal to their better natures when Flip herself seems to have not the slightest affection for them, while professing to love people she has only just met. One of the many frustrations of dealing with FAS! Will just have to keep trying … ’

I recalled Flip’s last words to me when I’d kissed her goodnight; a hug and then a completely guileless and affectionate ‘I love you, Mummy.’ What a complicated business her disability was, I decided, making a mental note to find time for a session at the computer the following morning, just to gen up on things more comprehensively.

I closed the file, dropped it on the rug and switched the bedside light off. Still, I thought, as I wriggled down and put my head gratefully on the pillow, at least she was whacked out and sleeping soundly, and tomorrow was another day – one which I was actually rather looking forward to. Get a plan going, get a chart going, start getting to know our new charge a little better. First, however, sleep. A good solid eight hours till the alarm.

Though it turned out to be only two till her ear-splitting scream.

‘What the hell ?’ Mike said, shooting bolt upright in the bed just as I was leaping out of it.

I switched on the bedside light and checked the time. It was just after half past one in the morning. ‘I’ve no idea, love,’ I said. ‘But you try and get back to sleep. I think Flip must be having a nightmare or something.’

Mike sighed and snuggled back down under the duvet as I grabbed my dressing gown and left the room to investigate. The door to Flip’s bedroom was ajar and as I approached I could already see her, sitting crouched at the top of her bed with her back to me, holding on to the headboard, still screaming.

‘Shhhh,’ I soothed as I rushed to sit with her and stroked her back. ‘What is it, sweetie? You had a bad dream?’