A New Year

The call came at eleven o’clock on the morning of Friday 2nd January.

My daughter Lucy was expecting her boyfriend to ring her, so she rushed into the hall to answer the telephone. Then, with disappointment in her voice, she called through to the lounge. ‘Mum, it’s for you! It’s Jill.’

I was surprised. This was really the first working day since Christmas Eve, as many people had tagged another day’s leave on to the winter break, giving them a full week off between Christmas and New Year. I hadn’t expected a call from Jill, my contact at the fostering agency, quite so soon. I picked up the extension in the lounge.

‘Hi Jill. Did you have a good Christmas?’

‘Lovely, thanks. And you?’

‘Quiet. Unnaturally so, if I’m honest,’ I said. ‘It’s taking a bit of getting used to. I’m almost missing all the chaos.’

Jill laughed. My previous foster placement of twin seven-year-old girls had ended on 14th December when they had returned to live with their mother, and for the first time since I couldn’t remember when, we hadn’t had a foster child with us for Christmas. I wasn’t sure whether I’d liked the quiet or not.

‘Thank everyone for the present and card,’ I added. Every year, the agency gave all their foster carers a large tin of chocolate biscuits and a Christmas card signed by the staff.

‘I will, when they’re back,’ Jill said. ‘There’s only me in today. I think I drew the short straw.’ She paused – it was the pause I’d come to recognize as heralding a possible new foster placement. I wasn’t wrong. ‘Cathy, I’ve just had a phone call from the council’s duty social worker – the placement team’s still away. It concerns a twelve-year-old boy.’ She stopped.

‘Yes?’ I prompted.

‘That’s it.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘What? That’s all?’

‘He’s twelve,’ she repeated, ‘and they’re going to court for an ICO’ – I knew that was shorthand for an Interim Care Order – ‘on Monday morning. They’ll need to show the judge they have somewhere to take him.’ ‘Yes, they will,’ I said. ‘So you must be looking for a home for him. Has this young man got a name?’

‘The duty officer doesn’t know it.’

‘So where is the child now?’

‘I don’t know.’

I raised my eyebrows. I was used to things often being rushed and confused in the world of fostering but even I was surprised by the lack of information. Jill went on.

‘Sorry, Cathy, I think the duty officer is just responding to a note left by a social worker from the Children and Families team between Christmas and the New Year. I’ll speak to the team leader first thing on Monday morning for more details.’

My twenty or so years of fostering had taught me that stopping to think didn’t gain me anything. I had to be prepared to take anyone who needed a home. ‘Yes, OK, Jill, put my name forward. Possibly it won’t come to anything, especially if it’s a minor family crisis that’s flared up over Christmas.’

‘That’s my feeling too. The chances are it will all be forgotten. Thanks Cathy. And Happy New Year.’

‘And you, Jill.’

I returned to my book, Italian Cooking At Its Best, a Christmas present from my other daughter, Paula. We had spent a week in Italy the previous October and we had all loved the local cooking, feasting on delicious pasta, grilled meat, seafood and fantastic vegetables. The children had been badgering me ever since our return to have a go at making some of the dishes they’d enjoyed so much, but my Italian repertoire comprised lasagne, spag bol and not much else. Now there was no excuse. Paula had obviously bought me this cookery book to give me some inspiration and a bit of a prod to try my hand at something a bit more exciting, and no doubt Lucy and Adrian were hoping that they’d reap the benefits as well.

I turned the pages of colourful pictures showing fresh pasta in all shapes and sizes glistening with homemade sauces, risottos studded with peas or chicken and covered in shavings of Parmesan cheese, salads of wonderful fresh vegetables in lashings of olive oil. It all looked beautiful and mouth-wateringly delicious. But where would I find the ingredients for these lovely recipes? Would I be able to find artichoke hearts, truffle oil and yellow pimentos in Sainsbury’s in the middle of winter?

My thoughts were interrupted by Lucy poking her head around the lounge door. ‘What did Jill want? To wish us a happy New Year?’

I winked. ‘She did actually, and a possible referral. A twelve-year-old boy. But I’ve got a feeling that it won’t come to anything.’

She shrugged. All my children were remarkably sanguine about the little strangers who turned up on our doorstep. Some stayed for a short time, and some for months or even years. In Lucy’s case, she’d become a permanent member of the family when I’d eventually adopted her. I was proud of the way all my children were happy to open their home to others who needed a port in a storm, and they’d certainly been tested by some of the more difficult and challenging of my foster placements, but they’d always come through. Lucy said casually, ‘Is it all right if I go out later?’

‘Yes, of course, love. Anywhere nice?’

‘Cinema, maybe, with Helen.’

‘Not David?’

She shook her head. ‘If he can’t be bothered to phone when he said, he’ll find I’ve gone out.’

I smiled. Lucy’s no-nonsense approach to life was obviously going apply to what was her first proper relationship. Poor David. I felt a bit sorry for him. Although he was seventeen, the same age as Lucy, he seemed much younger than she was, and I guessed his first foray into dating was going to prove quite a sharp learning curve. ‘OK, but don’t be too hard on him,’ I said. ‘Many boys his age sleep until lunchtime. I mean, have you seen Adrian yet this morning?’

‘No.’

‘Exactly, and he’s nineteen. Actually, Lucy, if you’re going back upstairs, could you knock on his door and wake him? He wants to go shopping for some things he needs for uni.’

‘OK, Mum. And if David phones, tell him I’m in the bath.’

I turned the page of my Italian cookbook, found a recipe that looked reasonably straightforward and jotted down the ingredients on a scrap of paper. I was thrilled that the family still had fond memories of our week in Italy. We had taken the twins, and although I’d worried about how they would fare with a foreign holiday, especially one without a beach, they’d enjoyed themselves as much as we had. By then they were six months into the placement, well settled, and Paula and Lucy were still enamoured enough of the novelty of twins to keep the little girls amused. That meant I could have a real break and had also given me a chance to spend some time catching up with Adrian after his first few weeks away at uni. Fortuitously he’d had a week’s study leave which had coincided with half term, so he had been able to come away with us. I had been reassured to learn from him that he did know how to open a can and work a washing machine, although judging from the amount of drinking that appeared to have gone on, I think the cans he opened were mainly cans of lager.

Remembering the holiday, I wondered what sort of Christmas the twins and their mother, Sashi, had enjoyed. Sashi had given birth to the twins when she was just sixteen. She had been dabbling in drugs at the time and by the age of twenty-three she was a crack-cocaine addict. The drug was so cheaply available that it could be bought for as little as ten pounds a rock, and Sashi was able to fund her habit on Income Support and still manage to take reasonable care of her daughters. The twins hadn’t been badly neglected or abused, and a drug habit alone wasn’t grounds for taking a child into care, rather the standard of care-giving when the parent is under the influence. Sashi had actually requested that her children be brought into care. With no family support network and after struggling alone for seven years, she’d reached the point where she’d felt she could no longer cope so she’d asked her social worker if the twins could be looked after so she could sort out her life and get off the cocaine. The girls had been placed under what is known as a Voluntary Care Order, and Sashi had brought them to my house with her social worker, spending the rest of the day with us and helping them settle in. The media image of heavy-handed social workers snatching children from their beds in the middle of the night is, I’m glad to say, usually a far cry from the truth. Whenever cooperation with the parents is an option, it’s always the method chosen as it’s clearly in the best interests of the child for them to see everyone working together in harmony for their benefit.

The aim of this placement had been respite for Sashi and the eventual return of the twins. I was wary at first, because I’d known plenty of cases where the mother fully intended to turn her life around but in the end, she wasn’t able to and couldn’t have her family back. This time, however, it worked like a dream. It was a shining example of good textbook social work practice (and – dare I say it – good fostering practice). The twins suffered as little disruption as possible; they were able to attend the same school, and their mum visited them at our house three times a week. Because there had been no concerns surrounding her treatment of the twins, Sashi was allowed to take them out on her own. When she returned them to us she often stayed for dinner, and sometimes helped put them to bed, and we got to feel that she was part of the family too. During this period she received counselling and began a programme to wean her off the crack-cocaine.

I had wanted her to come with us to Italy, for she needed a holiday as much as anyone, but she’d said she was petrified of flying. She was happy for the twins to go though as she didn’t want them to miss out on such a wonderful opportunity. We’d phoned every night from Italy and the twins had loved chatting excitedly about what they had done that day.

On our return we had begun the process of rehabilitating the twins back to live with their mum: as well as continuing to visit during the week, Sashi had them to stay on Saturday nights for four weeks, then the entire weekend for another three. All of this culminated in my packing up all the twins’ belongings and moving them back home on 14th December. With hugs, kisses and promises to keep in contact we’d said our goodbyes – but the onus was now on Sashi as to whether she wanted to stay in touch. Some parents do, but, in my experience, the majority do not. They want to forget the episode of having their children in care, and concentrate on the future. I had great hopes for Sashi: she was nearly off the crack-cocaine, and with the package of support the Social Services had put together for her, I thought she could make it, and I hoped she would phone occasionally to tell me. She loved the twins more than she loved herself, which was a sad reflection on her own upbringing.

* * *

‘How about this then?’ I said proudly, as I presented the homemade Toscana with ciabatta bread. I’d spent a happy hour that afternoon messing around with ingredients and I had to say that the result didn’t look too bad at all.

There was a round of applause as I started dishing it up.

‘That looks excellent, Mum. It really makes me think of Italy,’ said Paula nostalgically, sniffing the air. ‘Remember all those gorgeous meals?’

‘I wonder how the twins are,’ said Lucy. We couldn’t help thinking of them whenever we recalled our holiday.

I raised my glass of water. ‘Here’s to Sashi and the twins.’

‘To the twins,’ repeated Adrian, Lucy and Paula.

Then they tucked in. And judging from the speed at which my offering disappeared, Paula’s investment in a cookbook had already proven its worth.