A Dark Secret. Casey Watson

side-and-do-a-windmill thrust, my all-singing, all-dancing, shimmering gold bikini had unclasped with a ping, giving me no choice but to do a duck dive, and leaving me scrabbling around under the water, trying to regain both the shreds of my bikini top and my dignity. But not before the whole class, including the instructor, had witnessed it. I was going to have to seriously rethink how I approached this whole ‘me time’ malarkey.

      ‘Okay, okay,’ I called out from my own changing booth. ‘I’m so happy I’ve brightened up your morning. And I’m so happy that mobile phones aren’t allowed in the frigging pool, either, because I can only imagine the pleasure you’d have all taken in capturing it for all time.’

      Amid the ensuing laughter, as if I’d summoned it, my own phone started to ring. Delving into my changing bag – one that would put Mary Poppins to shame, obviously – I found it and saw it was a call from Christine Bolton, my still relatively new fostering link worker.

      Had she called to tease me too? If so, news travelled fast. Quickly drying one side of my face, I put the phone to my ear, first explaining where I was, so she’d understand all the cackles, bumps and bangs.

‘I’m surprised to hear from you again so quickly,’ I added, as I parked my damp bottom on a towel slung on the wooden-slatted bench. I’d only spoken to her the day before and I knew there was nothing on the horizon. Though there had been – up until a few days ago, we’d been earmarked for a particularly difficult teenager badly in need of a calm, stable home. But as often happens in fostering, there was a game-changer. Just a day before all concerned were due in court, a grandparent had kindly stepped forward to offer to take the child in and so the case had been dropped. And to the great relief of all concerned. So we were expecting a lull now – hence all the ‘me-time’. Till another long-term placement came up we were only really doing respite, and that mostly for our most recent child, Miller, who was now in a residential school and with a new primary carer, Mavis.

      ‘I know,’ Christine replied, ‘and I’m so sorry to bother you in the middle of your swimming, but that mini-break you said you and Mike were hoping to jet off on – have you booked anything yet?’

      I immediately wished we had, because I had a hunch I knew what was coming. A lull in the world of fostering was never guaranteed to be anything more than twenty-four hours, and more often than not it wasn’t. I suspected this was the situation here – that an urgent case had presented itself. I wasn’t wrong.

      ‘No, not as yet,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t I?’

      ‘Possibly not. At least, if you’re up for taking a child on. D’you know Kelly and Steve Blackwell? Live out in the sticks and have two small children?’

‘Indeed I do,’ I said. ‘And pretty well. I was Kelly’s mentor for a year.’

      Mentoring had always been the unofficial practice in fostering, but over the last couple of years it had become an even more important part of the process. One in which longer-term, more experienced carers were expected to take on the role of mentor to new carers just coming into the field. In my case, this meant Kelly, who I’d met up with fairly regularly, to discuss any problems she might be having and exchange ideas on the best strategies to deal with them. We’d also swapped numbers and email addresses so that we could be on hand in an emergency. It was yet another item on our ever-expanding job descriptions, but I didn’t mind. It built relationships, and up to now it had worked well.

      ‘Ah yes, of course you were,’ Christine went on. ‘I remember seeing it on your file, now I come to think about it. Even better then. Because it’ll give you some context. The problem is the young lad they have in at the moment. The top and bottom of it is that they can no longer hold on to him, and we were wondering if you might be able to help out. Either for the short term until we find another long-term carer, obviously, or longer term, if that’s something you’d want to think about.’

      But I was thinking more about calm, capable Kelly. Both she and her husband seemed pretty good carers to me. ‘Kelly can’t take care of him?’ I asked, surprised. She wasn’t usually fazed by much. ‘Why? And how old is he? What’s his story?’

Christine laughed. ‘You remember telling me about how your son can ask twenty questions in the same sentence? Well, now I know where he gets it from, don’t I? Okay, well first of all you should know that had we not been thinking about you for that teenager that didn’t materialise, we would have asked you to take on this one in the first place. He’s a little lad called Sam Gough – he’s nine, and has an unofficial diagnosis of autism. He was only removed from his mother just over a week ago – a single mum, mental health issues – along with his two siblings, who –’

      ‘Just over a week ago? So Kelly’s only had them for a matter of days?’

      ‘Not them. Only Sam. His siblings have been fostered separately.’

      This was highly unusual. ‘Because?’

      ‘Because they’re very frightened of him, apparently. And yes, just the week. He has a number of issues. It could just be the shock of being taken from his family. Could be something completely different. But either way, he’s been bullying Kelly and Steve’s young children, and it’s really impacting on the family.’

So, bad. Bad enough to be separated from his siblings, and bad enough that Kelly wanted him removed after only a week. Which was pretty bad. Pretty challenging. I eyed my sopping bikini. Reflected that aqua aerobics really wasn’t for me. Not least because I already knew what my answer would be. However, protocol dictated that I think about it, and discuss it with my husband before agreeing, so I said what was expected of me and added, as an afterthought, ‘as well as speaking to Mike, I’ll finish dressing and nip into the canteen to give Kelly a quick call. It’s always worth getting things from the horse’s mouth, isn’t it? Plus she’ll be able to enlighten me on the day-to-day business of taking care of him.’

      ‘Good idea,’ Christine said. And I could tell by her jaunty tone that she knew she’d get her ‘yes’. ‘Oh, and one other thing,’ she said. ‘I know this will probably make you roll your eyes, but from the little I’ve heard about him, he does seem a perfect candidate for the type of programme you used to run – the behaviour modification thing that everyone was raving about a couple of years ago? Anyway, just a thought.’

      A thought, or an extra inducement to be sure I didn’t change my mind? If that was the case, then perhaps this little lad was even more challenging than I suspected. Because it was no secret that Christine, having hailed from Liverpool, where our particular programme hadn’t been rolled out, had made it clear at the start of our working relationship that what she thought about the programme I thought so much of was that it was yet another new-fangled bit of nonsense that wouldn’t bear fruit.

And she hadn’t been the only one. In fact, the funding had been pulled after only four years. This was mostly due to tightening of government purse strings, but also – in my humble view – due to a lack of commitment to a philosophy the benefits of which might take a number of years to assess. So while it was true that fostering services were no longer training new carers in how to deliver the programme (and, as a consequence, children were no longer being hand-picked to receive it), those of us who had seen first-hand how effective it had been still used the model, and the principles, whenever we were fortunate enough to foster a child who looked like they might benefit. And here was Christine, the unbeliever, suggesting that Sam might be one such. She obviously needed to find a place for him, and fast.

      Half an hour later, finally presentable, and having waved off my still-chuckling tormentors, I was sitting in a booth in the leisure-centre coffee shop, latte in one hand and mobile phone in the other, the not-so-sweet tang of chlorine still clinging to my hair.

      ‘Oh, Casey, I feel soooo bad,’ Kelly said, after I’d explained what the call was about. ‘I had no idea it would be you they’d ring. You must think I’m such a wuss!’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ I reassured her. ‘Honestly, we’ve all been through it. Sometimes