finger on. That was until I stopped outside my bedroom and pushed open the door, so Aimee could see where I slept if she needed me in the night.
‘Do you have a man?’ she asked, peering in.
‘No, I’m divorced,’ I said.
‘So who gives you one?’ she asked with a knowing grin. It was then I knew that Aimee, like Jodie, had a sexual awareness well beyond her years: a knowledge she should not have had, and which could only have come from watching adult films or sexual abuse.
I ignored Aimee’s remark, as did Kristen and Laura, and we made our way downstairs, but Aimee’s words worried me deeply, as I knew they would the social workers. Kristen and Laura returned briefly to the sitting room for their bags, and then unhooked their coats from the hall stand and slipped on their shoes. Aimee was by my side, watching them. I knew it would be difficult for her as the social workers said goodbye and left. Then reality would hit her: that she was now in foster care and living with me, not with her mother or father. For no matter how bad things are at home children usually do not want to be parted from their parents, whom they have known all their lives and love despite everything that has happened.
‘Well, goodbye then,’ Kristen said to us both.
‘Goodbye,’ Laura said, then added ‘Thank you’ to me.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Kristen said.
‘Where you going?’ Aimee asked.
‘To our office,’ Kristen said. ‘Then home.’
‘Am I seeing me mum tonight?’
‘No, you saw her after school,’ Kristen said. ‘It’s evening now. You’ll see your mum again tomorrow after school.’
‘What’s tomorrow?’ Aimee asked, confused.
‘After one sleep,’ Laura said, using an explanation one would normally use with a much younger child.
Aimee looked blank.
‘You’ll sleep here for one night,’ Laura explained. ‘That is tonight. Then in the morning you’ll go to school and after school you will see your mum.’
Aimee nodded, although I wasn’t sure she understood. I’d explain again later. Clearly she had a poor grasp of time, well behind the understanding an average eight-year-old should have.
As the social workers left I reached for Aimee’s hand to offer comfort but she snatched it away. I noticed the social workers hadn’t tried to hug her as they’d said goodbye, as social workers often did, and I could understand why. Aimee wasn’t a child who seemed to want to be hugged, held or even touched. There was a sense of ‘keep away’ in her body language, as though an imaginary line had been drawn around her, over which you wouldn’t dare step.
As the social workers left, Lucy appeared.
‘Hi,’ I called as she came down the front garden path. ‘This is Aimee.’ Then to Aimee: ‘This is my eldest daughter, Lucy.’
‘Hello, how are you?’ Lucy asked Aimee as she came in and kissed my cheek.
Aimee shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘Welcome to the world of foster care,’ Lucy said brightly. ‘Your life just got so much better.’
I smiled, grateful for Lucy’s positive approach. Having come to me as a foster child herself, she knew what it felt like to be in care. But Lucy’s welcome didn’t touch Aimee and she just stared blankly at Lucy.
‘We’ll be eating a bit later tonight,’ I said to Lucy. ‘I need to get the lotion on Aimee’s hair first.’
Lucy knew what I was referring to, as she too had been plagued by head lice before coming into care, as had many of the children we’d fostered. There seems to be an ongoing epidemic of head lice in England, with many school-age children affected. And while not life-threatening they’re very unpleasant.
‘You’ll feel much better once they’re all gone,’ Lucy said to Aimee. ‘All that nasty itching will stop.’ For even in the few minutes since Lucy had come in Aimee had been scratching her head, as she had been doing on and off since arriving.
‘Me mum didn’t do it properly,’ Aimee said to Lucy. ‘The social worker gave her the bottle but it didn’t work.’
‘Don’t worry, mine always works,’ I said positively, aware that the most likely reason for the lotion not working was that its application had been interrupted by Aimee kicking her mother, as had been stated in the referral.
‘See you later, Aimee,’ Lucy said, disappearing up to her room to relax after her day at work.
‘Come on,’ I said to Aimee. ‘Let’s get rid of those nasty lice. The lotion smells but it won’t hurt you.’
As I led the way upstairs I wondered what plan B would be if Aimee refused to have the lotion applied or if she got angry, as she had done with her mother, and kicked me. Clearly I couldn’t forcibly apply the lotion, but nor could I not apply it. A bad infestation of head lice requires more than combing or brushing to get rid of it – not that she’d allowed her mother to do that either. Adopting my usual approach of being so positive that there was no room for refusal I went into the bathroom, took down the bottle of lotion, unscrewed the cap and then turned to Aimee, ready to apply the lotion.
‘Good girl, lean over the sink so it doesn’t run in your eyes,’ I said. ‘We’ll soon have you feeling better.’
There was a moment’s hesitation when Aimee looked at me, clearly deciding if she was going to do as I’d asked or not. ‘Come on, be quick,’ I encouraged. ‘Then we can have our dinner.’
There was another hesitation before Aimee took the couple of steps to the basin and bent her head over. ‘Good girl,’ I said. ‘Now stay as still as you can while I put on the lotion.’ I began separating out the hair at the back of her head and on her crown and liberally applying the lotion.
Quite often the only indication a child has head lice is the minute white eggs that are glued by the adult head lice to the root of the hair, close to the scalp, where they incubate and hatch; very rarely does one actually see head lice, as they fix themselves to the hair and camouflage themselves. But now as I massaged the lotion into Aimee’s hair and scalp head lice began appearing, drawn out by the toxic lotion. There were dozens and dozens, grouped in clusters, large adult lice that had been allowed to breed untouched for months. It was disgusting and my stomach churned. There were so many that they were crawling over each other in the thickest parts of her hair. It was one of the worst cases of head lice I’d ever seen and must have caused her untold misery. There were sores and scabs on Aimee’s scalp where she’d been scratching and had broken the skin. I thought the lotion would sting the open sores but she didn’t complain; she just stood with her head bent over the sink, quiet and still. ‘Good girl,’ I said repeatedly as I continued to apply the lotion. ‘This will feel much better.’
‘It
