Skin Deep. Casey Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ lifted her head again, and shook it. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, seeming to be struggling to remember. ‘I know,’ she said brightly. ‘I need a picture by my bed, don’t I? Could I have a photo picture of you? In a frame? So I can put it by my bed? Then I’ll remember.’ She paused. ‘And a mirror? Can I have a mirror as well?’

      ‘What, now?’ I asked, bemused by this unexpected shopping list. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, gently disentangling her from me and passing her the doll. ‘If you and Pink Barbie get back into bed and go back to sleep, I promise I’ll get you those things tomorrow for you, okay?’

      But she clearly wasn’t ready to hop back into bed yet. ‘Could you just take me to the toilet then?’ she asked. ‘Just to look in the mirror?’

      What, now? I thought. This was something I’d never come across before, and I was intrigued. What on earth was wrong? I stood up, holding my arms out to her. ‘Come on then, miss,’ I said, ‘But quietly. And then straight back to bed, before Tyler wakes up.’

      Indeed, it was a miracle he hadn’t already, I mused, as Flip threw herself at me, this time straight onto my hip, curling her legs around my waist like a little koala bear. She planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘Thanks, Mummy,’ she said.

      Once in the bathroom, and with the door closed so the light wouldn’t spill out into Tyler’s adjacent room, I held Flip in front of the mirror above the sink. What struck me most forcibly was the intentness of her expression as she traced a finger around both her eyes, then down her nose and then around the curve of her narrow chin. I then had to struggle with my own troubled expression as a single tear fell from her left eye and slid noiselessly down her cheek. She turned away from the mirror then and buried her face into my neck. ‘I’m still ugly, Mummy, aren’t I?’ she said.

      I continued to hold her where she was. ‘Flip, you’re not ugly, not at all, sweetie. You’re very, very pretty. Look. Look at your beautiful wavy hair. It’s just like Pink Barbie’s, isn’t it? And those lovely lips – just like a rosebud – they look just like Barbie’s too.’ I kissed her forehead, thinking wryly how this was so entirely off message. Girls, in the main, needed to know that beauty was only skin deep; that being beautiful on the inside was the only thing that really mattered. But not in this case. This was something different. This was a deep-rooted canker. I wondered where – or whom – she’d absorbed it from. ‘Now,’ I whispered, ‘one thing I do know for sure is that pretty girls need their beauty sleep. Have you heard about beauty sleep?’

      Flip shook her head. ‘Is it a special sleep that makes you pretty?’

      I nodded. ‘Even prettier. You are already very pretty. But a good night’s sleep makes you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and that is especially beautiful. Now, then. Are we ready to go back to bed?’

      Flip’s mouth bloomed into a smile. ‘You mean like a squirrel? Now you’re the one being a silly sausage, Mummy, aren’t you?’

      Quite possibly, I thought ruefully, as I slipped back under my own duvet some ten minutes later. Mike was fast asleep, and, having looked in on him en route, I could see why Tyler hadn’t woken up; he’d fallen asleep with his earphones in, listening to music, as per.

      It took me a good while to get back to sleep myself, my head full, as it invariably was when we took on a new foster child; of all the questions that popped up about the multitude of whys and wherefores and how we’d go about unlocking the mystery behind whatever psychological muddles lay behind her challenge in living an easy life. And, in this case, physiological muddles also. That much about FAS I already knew. But what, if anything, could be done about it?

      Over the next few days I began to at least gain more understanding about the problems our latest foster child was facing. Night terrors and what seemed to be unfathomable bouts of screaming seemed to be as much a part of Flip as was her ADHD; another common manifestation of her FAS.

      All these letters, I thought, lined up like ducks in a row, but where the numbers were concerned things were rather less tidy; there seemed no clear consensus on either the quantity or timing of the medication she’d arrived with, and it seemed to me that nailing that was a priority.

      ‘Definitely,’ Ellie agreed when she made her visit the following Friday, by which time Flip had been with us for ten days. ‘You’re currently giving her two a day, right? First thing and teatime?’

      I agreed that I was. ‘Not that it seems to have much of an observable impact on her mood or behaviour, I have to say,’ I added. ‘Or maybe the impact of her FAS overrides all that?’

      Ellie frowned apologetically. She clearly knew as well as I did – or at least thought I did – that the pills should have some effect, and fairly quickly, too. Most people who spent time around kids with ADHD knew that. When they didn’t have their meds the term ‘all hell broke loose’ had serious resonance. ‘It’s still early days with the meds,’ she said. ‘Or so I’m told. And I’m really sorry it falls on you and Mike, Casey. But it’s really a case of trial and error till a routine is re-established. School will help with that, won’t it? And everything, you know, settles down after a bit …’

      ‘Settle’ and ‘down’ being the operative words. Because it seemed the night terrors weren’t confined to the night-time. Flip could ‘lose it’ – and properly lose it – seemingly without warning in the daytime too. Only the previous day she’d gone into some sort of major meltdown in the living room, leaving both Tyler and me dumbfounded.

      ‘They’d been sitting there watching TV, not six feet from me,’ I explained to Ellie. ‘Weren’t even talking to each other; just sitting there, opposite ends of the sofa – watching a nature programme, I think it was – when suddenly she was screaming at the top of her lungs.’

      ‘Something she saw on the screen?’ Ellie suggested. ‘A big spider, perhaps? Something like that?’

      I shook my head. ‘Not a spider. It was a lion that set her off, apparently. A lioness, actually, carrying a cub in her mouth. Which completely freaked her out. And I mean freaked her out; it was almost as if she was having some sort of fit; she’d thrown herself on the floor, still clutching her doll, thrashing about, limbs flailing, the lot. And she was really thrashing about, too – took me a good while to get a proper hold of her, let alone calm her down. And even she couldn’t articulate quite why it had set her off the way it had. So it’s not like a phobia, nothing like that. It can come out of nowhere.’

      And could do so at school, too, I reflected gloomily. Ellie shook her head and sighed sympathetically. ‘Well, there’s nothing in her notes, as you know,’ she said. ‘So perhaps this is a new thing. You know, with all the upheaval. And being separated from her mum, of course. Or perhaps it’s just a new manifestation of the ADHD. I guess all you can do is keep on recording everything; see if there’s any pattern to it, any obvious triggers.’

      Along with the episodes of soiling, the night waking, the obsession with being so ‘ugly’, the myriad little ways the strangeness of our little house-guest was becoming ever more apparent. I was at least forming a picture of sorts, however dispiriting the colouring-in part. ‘Will do,’ I said. ‘Early days. I’m sure there’s a lot still to learn. We’ll get there – try our best to, at any rate.’

      ‘And you’re doing a great job,’ Ellie reassured me, smiling a bright, encouraging sort of smile, which couldn’t help but remind me of just how young and inexperienced she was, even as she affected the role of sage supporter. ‘Casey, I know you’ll do your СКАЧАТЬ