Crying for Help: The Shocking True Story of a Damaged Girl with a Dark Past. Casey Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ finger,’ he continued.

      Linda, unsurprisingly, jumped straight to her defence. ‘I know it seems that way,’ she said. ‘But try to look beyond her behaviour, please. Underneath the front, she’s feeling lost and abandoned and alone. She’ll settle down, I promise. Give it a couple of days. Things will be fine. Honestly they will.’

      But her tone belied her words. She knew no such thing. This wouldn’t be a team I’d be getting much support from, I decided. Once again, as had been the case with our last child, bar John, we’d probably be on our own. Was that how it worked with our kind of specialist ‘extreme’ fostering? That Mike and I were considered so able they could throw anything at us, secure in the blind faith that we’d cope?

      But before I had a chance to say something regrettable, Mike himself walked in, having come back from work. ‘Morning all!’ he said cheerily. ‘Everything okay here?’ The three of us seemed of like mind. End of conversation. We all got our heads down and ran through all the paperwork.

      It was only once John and Linda were finishing up and I cleared the mugs that I could have a word with Mike on our own.

      ‘What’s up, love?’ he asked, once we were both in the kitchen. ‘You could cut the atmosphere in there with a knife!’

      ‘Oh, just more of the same. Our little madam’s been busy being one again. And it seems no one in her “team” has got the confidence to take her on. I just had a bit of a moment, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. She’ll find things rather different now, starting today. And none too soon, because that lot seem to be creating a monster.’

      But once back in the living room I had cause to eat my words. Sophia and Sam had come down from upstairs now, and Sophia was visibly and genuinely distressed as she hugged both the women and said her goodbyes. I felt a pang of guilt. This was a desperate 12-year-old girl, trying to make sense of an appalling situation. Perhaps Linda had been right, and I’d been wrong. I must learn, I decided, that my usual acuity re character wasn’t quite as infallible as I thought. I also knew nothing about the emotional toll of being the victim of an incurable disease. Sophia had perhaps been right in that, too. I did have a lot to learn this afternoon. Speaking of which … ‘Look at the time,’ I said. ‘We really need to get off.’

      ‘Right,’ said Sam, disentangling herself from Sophia. ‘And we’d better leave you all to it. I’ll phone you in a day or so, Sophia, okay? And come to see how you’re doing in a week or so.’

      I moved closer to Sophia as everyone trooped back out of the door, automatically putting an arm around her waist. She needed affection, I thought. Physical contact. Even though her manner so often seemed to suggest otherwise, the child inside needed love more than anything.

      We waved them off, Sophia rubbing at her tear-stained cheeks with her other hand. Then she turned to me. ‘Where’s your son? Didn’t you say you had a teenage son?’

      Her voice was completely different now. As light and sunny, suddenly, as the day was dark and cold.

      ‘Kieron?’ I said, shocked. ‘Yes. He’s at college today. You’ll meet him tonight. When we get back from your doctor’s –’

      ‘Okay!’ she said brightly. ‘Coats on then, is it? As you say, it’s a long way. Time to go!’

      It was a very, very long three hours, that journey to hospital, as all three occupants of the car – Mike, myself and Sophia – retreated into their own minds and thoughts. I tried several times to start conversations with Sophia initially, all of which were mildly, but decisively, rebuffed by her lack of interest in giving me more than one-word responses. I then tuned the radio station to one I thought she might like, but this, too, was pointedly rejected. She simply pulled an MP3 player from her pocket and plugged herself into that. ‘I think that’s you told,’ whispered Mike.

      She’s 12, I kept telling myself, locked alone with my anxieties. (I couldn’t talk to Mike, of course, because she wasn’t six inches from us.) She’s 12. Think back, Casey. That’s what 12-year-olds are like, even 12-year-olds with the most benign of families and backgrounds. She’s on the cusp of adolescence, too; no, that was wrong. Physically at least, she was well into it. So perhaps I was reading too much into things. She’d also been overindulged and was clearly using her disorder to manipulate the adults around her. She just needed guidance, support and that healthy dose of discipline. That, I decided, would help her immeasurably. And as a virtual orphan in the world, boy, did she need help.

      But I couldn’t help but wonder at these extreme swings in behaviour: one minute full of herself, the next happy-clappy, and then, out of the blue, appearing really upset. What mood would be on offer when we arrived at the hospital, I wondered? I was beginning to realise that we just couldn’t second-guess her.

      ‘Happy’, as it turned out, just as soon as we got there. The sullen mask was stashed away along with the earphones for her iPod, to be replaced by what I could only describe as the sweetest, friendliest expression imaginable.

      ‘Follow me,’ she commanded, though in the nicest of manners. ‘I know this place like the back of my hand! Casey,’ she turned to me, ‘you are so going to love my doctor. He’s called Dr Wyatt, and he’s absolutely gorgeous.’ She was so excited, she was practically squealing.

      ‘Right behind you, love,’ said Mike, as we both hurried along in her wake.

      Less inclined to stampede down the corridor than Sophia was, we kept her in sight but still failed to keep up, and by the time we reached the correct clinic’s reception she was already charming the receptionist.

      ‘Ah, you must be Mr and Mrs Watson,’ the young woman said. ‘I’m Wendy, by the way. Me and Sophie go back a long way, don’t we, honey? Do take a seat. Dr Wyatt will be with you very shortly.’

      Mike and I sat down on the leather sofa we’d been assigned to, leaving our young charge gaily chatting to the receptionist. But we didn’t have to wait for very long. After only about thirty seconds a man emerged from behind a door, and promptly bellowed ‘Sophie!’ as if greeting a dear friend who’d been thought lost at sea and had unexpectedly fetched up. I noted that he, like Wendy, hadn’t called her Sophia. They were obviously all very close. Very close.

      Sophia’s response was equally enthusiastic. ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see you!’ she cried, leaping upon him, and so forcefully that I thought she might topple him over, or, even worse, jump up into his arms and swing her legs round him. Thankfully, neither happened, but most astonishing to my mind was that the doctor didn’t even seem to flinch. ‘Nice to see you too!’ he said, when she finally put him down. ‘I’m Steve Wyatt,’ he then said to us, coming to shake our hands. ‘Paediatric endocrinologist. Very nice to meet you both as well.’

      Mike and I began to rise, but he flapped a hand to indicate we should stay where we were. ‘No, no. You can sit a while longer,’ he explained. ‘Sophia likes to have her consultation in private – just myself and her nurse, if that’s okay?’

      He could probably tell from our expressions that this seemed a little irregular – after all, we were in loco parentis. ‘I know it seems a little strange,’ he added, rather less confidently, ‘but it’s what Sophia wants and we have to accept her wishes. But it should only take around fifteen minutes and then of course you can come in so we can go through the management and so on. Okay?’

      ‘Well, if that’s the way it has to be …’ Mike answered. ‘Is that okay with you, Sophia?’

      ‘Well, I do СКАЧАТЬ