Casey Watson - Nowhere to Go - The heartbreaking true story of a boy desperate to be loved

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

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First published by HarperElement 2014

FIRST EDITION

© Casey Watson 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

Cover photograph © Mohamad Itani/Trevillion Images

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007543083

Ebook Edition © October 2014 ISBN: 9780008113100

Version 2014-10-06

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

A Note to the Reader

Exclusive sample chapter

Casey Watson

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About the Publisher

Dedicated to all those in a position to help our children lead productive and fulfilling lives, and to those children who have lived through dark days and find the strength to make it.

I would like to thank my agent, the lovely Andrew Lownie, for continuing to believe in me; Carolyn and the wonderful team at HarperCollins for their dedicated and hard work; and as ever my very talented friend and mentor, Lynne, for always being there. A special mention this time to Vicky at HarperCollins, who is taking some special time out for a while. I wish her all the very best and look forward to hearing from her soon.

It’s so easy to take your parents for granted, isn’t it? Not consciously, maybe, and not in the sense that you don’t value them. Just in that perhaps it goes with the territory that you try not to spend too much time thinking ahead to a time when they won’t be there, do you? But not today. Today I had no choice in the matter. So I was doing exactly that, and it was scary.

I was scared because I had just taken my father into hospital to have major surgery on his bowel. It would be straightforward, they told us, and we should try not to worry, but how can you not in that situation? Mum was terrified he might die under the anaesthetic – i.e. before they even started – and for all my reassurances and positivity, she had so many ‘what if?’ scenarios (all of them negative, obviously) that it had been a real job to try and keep her calm.

As it was, I’d left her there with her knitting – she was busy making a cot blanket for her newest great-grandchild – and the promise that I’d be back as soon as Dad was out of theatre, after which, assuming all was well, I’d bring her home.

And it had been fine. Well, at least until I walked back out through the double doors, when it was all I could do not to burst into tears, run back inside for a cuddle and have them both do what they always did whenever life got tough: say ‘Don’t worry love, it will all be okay.’

It had been seeing Dad in the hospital bed that had been the worst. Never a big man – it’s from him that I get my five-foot-nothing stature – now he looked painfully small. Not frail, exactly, but definitely diminished. Weakened, as you’d expect in a man in his seventies who’s been struggling with an illness for a long time.

Stop it , I told myself sternly, blowing my nose. Get into the car, take yourself home, go and see your daughter, drink coffee, but most of all stop it. He’ll be fine.

And I had very nearly talked myself into believing he would too, except perhaps not as completely as I’d kidded myself I had, because when my mobile phone rang, just as I was coming off the dual carriageway, my first thought was Oh, God, what’s happened?

Nothing, you stupid mare , I told myself as I took the first left turn and found a safe place to pull in. He’d barely even have had his bloods taken yet, would he? So perhaps it was Mum, with some last-minute anxiety-reducing request or other – like spare hankies or Dad’s second best set of pyjamas or the current week’s copy of The People’s Friend .

But it wasn’t Mum, and I found myself smiling as I read the display; it was a missed call from my fostering link worker, John Fulshaw. We’d not spoken for a while, as I’d been having a bit of downtime from fostering; we’d come out of a long placement, which had finished the previous summer, and with my daughter Riley pregnant, and Dad having been so poorly, we’d made a decision as a family to take a bit of a break. We’d only done a little respite care since.

But now it was late May – almost a year since our last child, Emma, had left us, and with Riley’s daughter Marley Mae having arrived safely in April, and Dad finally getting his date for surgery, I’d already spoken to my husband Mike about suggesting to John that, come summer, we’d be back in the game.

I touched the call button, thinking how mad it was he should call at that moment. What was he, psychic or something?

Possibly. ‘Ah, Casey!’ he greeted me, as if I’d just returned from Mars. ‘Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly. I was worried you were on holiday –’

I laughed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing, John.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘ Good . Well, not in that sense, of course, but good that you’re around. Are you free?’

‘Well, Mike and I were only recently saying …’

‘No, no. Now . I meant “now” as in are you free right this minute? Only we have a bit of a situation.’

‘Well, I was just heading home, actually.’ I explained about Dad.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Casey – this really isn’t a good time for you, is it? No, look, sorry – I’ll have to see if I can rustle up someone else.’

He sounded crestfallen. ‘No, no, John, go on. Tell me. What is the situation?’

‘Really, Casey? You really want to know?’

‘ Really ,’ I confirmed, conscious of the new tone in his voice, which, after our many years of association, I had already analysed as the verbal equivalent of him crossing both his fingers and his toes. ‘John, if I can help at all, I will. You know that. And to be honest, this is a good time because it’ll take my mind off things – I’d only be pacing up and down, fretting about Dad, wouldn’t I? So, go on – what is the situation?’