Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [26]
I cried as I left the house and climbed into their waiting car. Normally I would be brave in front of Mum, but she wasn’t there. And the realization that she wasn’t there made me sob even harder. Wave after wave of questions flooded my head. What had I done wrong? Where was I going? And why?
The two grown-ups in the car with me had the answers. They had briefcases and a file about me and everything. As much as I hated them, I could tell they thought they were doing the right thing. But how wrong they were. They were taking me away from the home where I felt so safe, from the person I loved more than anyone in the world, and replacing it with what? I soon found out.
Whatever the social workers thought I was exposed to at home, they were about to subject me to something far, far worse.
They kept saying it was Mum’s fault, but that’s not how it felt. If they had such a problem with her behaviour why was I the one going to prison?
No, I decided, they want to punish me for some reason. And, boy, did they succeed.
We pulled up outside a large detached house and one of the social workers asked me what I thought of it. I just shrugged. I wasn’t going to make this any easier for them.
Actually the house looked nice enough. It stood on the corner of the street and had a garden stretching all the way round. The turf was looking a bit worse for wear during the scorching August of 1976, but the space was large enough for some decent games. There was even a park across the road. In theory, then, it had everything to suggest a very welcoming home.
One step inside, though, and I knew something was wrong. On the way over the social workers had gone to great lengths to explain how special you have to be to be a foster parent. It takes a special person to step in and care for a stranger. It sounded like I was going to meet Jesus himself. In fact, the couple who owned the place were both fat and grubby-looking. I was probably seeking anything to complain about, but for some reason their appearance really offended me.
They look worse than Mum ever has. Why are they allowed to have kids?
There was something about the way they spoke over my head to the social workers that told me it wasn’t going to be the most loving of homes. I didn’t know how long I was meant to be there, but I already knew that every minute with this pair would feel like an hour.
Of course, they said all the right things to the social workers and even told me how much they’d been looking forward to meeting me. At least, that’s what their mouths were saying. Their eyes, on the other hand, looked like they already wished I was out of their sight.
Then I got the tour. I’d almost believed the spiel about foster parents being a special breed, but as soon as I saw the bedrooms I changed my mind. In fact, they weren’t so much bedrooms as dormitories, with two sets of bunk beds squeezed into each. It wasn’t a haven for the disadvantaged; it was a conveyor belt, one big sausage machine, with children going in one end and money from the local authority churning out the other. There’s no way these people were doing anything for the love of it. You could see it in their eyes.
Proof of how little they cared about any of us came when I was shown my bunk. I was sharing a room with another girl and two boys. It didn’t bother me – I was too young to be worried about undressing in front of the opposite sex – but I did think it was odd. Then one of our hosts explained everything to me.
‘Different ages in different rooms.’ Didn’t matter if you were a boy or a girl, that was the system.
That wasn’t all. Not only did age denote your dorm, it also dictated your bedtime. Seven-year-olds at seven, eight-year-olds at eight, etc. I think there was a cut-off at ten, but either way, what a weirdly regimented set-up.
Coming from an environment where almost anything went, being confronted