small arms clasped about her thighs.
‘Please don’t leave me here,’ sobbed Josiah, ‘you have to take me to my father’. This was as long a sentence as he had ever uttered.
‘Your father?’
‘I want my Daddy’, he whimpered.
‘You want to see your father?’ Had they ever seriously considered that old sullen man that hung about in the shadows while Eve performed her circus tricks for them? So even he could inspire love. And why shouldn’t he, for God’s sake? Tracy turned to Josiah and knelt on the gravel in the drive so that she could take his small hands in hers.
‘Josiah,’ she said, solemnly, ‘I promise you, cross my heart and hope to die, you’ll see your father soon.’
However, June Briggs didn’t care two hoots about Tracy’s promise. She shouted, ‘Are you mad, Tracy? What did you say you’d promised him?’
Tracy held her ground. ‘Do you understand what we’ve done? Do you understand that we’ve just fucked up big-time? It’s our moral duty to mend what we’ve broken.’
‘Oh yes, and you think a little trip to Fulbright hospital to visit a man who’s so sedated he probably wouldn’t even recognize him, you think that’s going to do the trick, do you?’
‘June, he’s his father.’
‘We don’t even know that, do we?’
‘Well, he’s been a father to him, and that’s what matters. Josiah needs to see him! And even if Eve doesn’t come back, it’s ten timesbetter to have Gibson and Josiah living together again than the awful, awful situation we have now!’
‘Tracy, you know what? You’ve become too emotionally involved with this case. I’ve told you before, social work is a profession, and I expect you to behave as a professional.’
Shortly after this, Tracy resigned. And as Tracy could no longer do anything for him, Josiah had to take matters in hand himself. One evening he sidled up to Mrs Leatherpot while she was watching TV. There was a moment, just a moment, when Sylvia fancied he was showing her that much yearned-for affection, and she didn’t even resist it when Josiah took her hand in his own. Josiah then proceeded to cut off one of her fingernails with the kitchen scissors he was hiding behind his back. The ensuing drama was their last as a little foster family in Cambridgeshire: he was picked up by Social Services within the hour, ‘for his own safety’ as Mrs Leatherpot put it.
There were now so many people looking after Josiah that he couldn’t remember which was which. There was the magisterial June Briggs herself; there was a friendly old lady in charge of adoptions who gave her opinion; there was a younger lady in charge of foster placements but who was new and who needed the older lady to advise her. June Briggs decided Josiah needed a man, firm and consistent, in fact the most reliable social worker in her team, but the man in question already had a caseload of over eighty, and at least four cases which were equally pressing. None of the above loved Josiah or took up his cause, and his first few placements ended before the first week was out.
His placement after the Leatherpots was, in fact, with one of his teachers, who was a curious woman in both senses: she was both strange and nosy. The teacher had been asked to help out in suchemergencies before (she had earned herself the reputation of being a ‘safe house’). Josiah would come home from school only to be mercilessly cross-examined over half-moon spectacles about his first memories of his mother et al. Josiah naturally stayed mute.
In his next placement he shared a bedroom with a three-year-old boy who bit him. As the child had never bitten anyone before, his parents naturally blamed the interloper and ten days later he was gone. Two further placements later there was a flurry of activity to find him a relation who might look after him. The first port of call was obviously his grandmother. Mrs de Selincourt said she would think about it, and the foster lady told June Briggs
‘Please don’t leave me here,’ sobbed Josiah, ‘you have to take me to my father’. This was as long a sentence as he had ever uttered.
‘Your father?’
‘I want my Daddy’, he whimpered.
‘You want to see your father?’ Had they ever seriously considered that old sullen man that hung about in the shadows while Eve performed her circus tricks for them? So even he could inspire love. And why shouldn’t he, for God’s sake? Tracy turned to Josiah and knelt on the gravel in the drive so that she could take his small hands in hers.
‘Josiah,’ she said, solemnly, ‘I promise you, cross my heart and hope to die, you’ll see your father soon.’
However, June Briggs didn’t care two hoots about Tracy’s promise. She shouted, ‘Are you mad, Tracy? What did you say you’d promised him?’
Tracy held her ground. ‘Do you understand what we’ve done? Do you understand that we’ve just fucked up big-time? It’s our moral duty to mend what we’ve broken.’
‘Oh yes, and you think a little trip to Fulbright hospital to visit a man who’s so sedated he probably wouldn’t even recognize him, you think that’s going to do the trick, do you?’
‘June, he’s his father.’
‘We don’t even know that, do we?’
‘Well, he’s been a father to him, and that’s what matters. Josiah needs to see him! And even if Eve doesn’t come back, it’s ten timesbetter to have Gibson and Josiah living together again than the awful, awful situation we have now!’
‘Tracy, you know what? You’ve become too emotionally involved with this case. I’ve told you before, social work is a profession, and I expect you to behave as a professional.’
Shortly after this, Tracy resigned. And as Tracy could no longer do anything for him, Josiah had to take matters in hand himself. One evening he sidled up to Mrs Leatherpot while she was watching TV. There was a moment, just a moment, when Sylvia fancied he was showing her that much yearned-for affection, and she didn’t even resist it when Josiah took her hand in his own. Josiah then proceeded to cut off one of her fingernails with the kitchen scissors he was hiding behind his back. The ensuing drama was their last as a little foster family in Cambridgeshire: he was picked up by Social Services within the hour, ‘for his own safety’ as Mrs Leatherpot put it.
There were now so many people looking after Josiah that he couldn’t remember which was which. There was the magisterial June Briggs herself; there was a friendly old lady in charge of adoptions who gave her opinion; there was a younger lady in charge of foster placements but who was new and who needed the older lady to advise her. June Briggs decided Josiah needed a man, firm and consistent, in fact the most reliable social worker in her team, but the man in question already had a caseload of over eighty, and at least four cases which were equally pressing. None of the above loved Josiah or took up his cause, and his first few placements ended before the first week was out.
His placement after the Leatherpots was, in fact, with one of his teachers, who was a curious woman in both senses: she was both strange and nosy. The teacher had been asked to help out in suchemergencies before (she had earned herself the reputation of being a ‘safe house’). Josiah would come home from school only to be mercilessly cross-examined over half-moon spectacles about his first memories of his mother et al. Josiah naturally stayed mute.
In his next placement he shared a bedroom with a three-year-old boy who bit him. As the child had never bitten anyone before, his parents naturally blamed the interloper and ten days later he was gone. Two further placements later there was a flurry of activity to find him a relation who might look after him. The first port of call was obviously his grandmother. Mrs de Selincourt said she would think about it, and the foster lady told June Briggs
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