think we had better get you changed first before we talk,’ I said.
She shrugged.
I reached out and took her hand, and she allowed me to lead her from the wet and slippery floor of the kitchen, across the carpet of the annexe and into the hall. I let go of her hand as I led the way upstairs. Adrian and Paula were still asleep — it was just before 7.30 a.m. I went into Donna's bedroom, took a set of clean clothes and underwear from her wardrobe and laid them on the bed. ‘Get dressed, please,’ I said. ‘I'll be back in a minute. Leave your nightdress in the laundry basket on the landing.’
Donna didn't say anything but made a move towards the clothes. I came out, pulling the door to behind me. I went to my bedroom, where I quickly dressed and ran a brush through my hair. My morning routine having been disrupted, I would have to shower later, after I had spoken to Donna. What had been going through her head to make her rise at the crack of dawn and creep downstairs with her bag of rags and start the ritualised cleaning, I couldn't begin to guess. It hadn't been proper cleaning, as if she had wanted to make a difference; nor had it been a small task, as Adrian and Paula sometimes performed, which I would have to admire with great delight — ‘Look, Mum! We've tidied the toy box!’ No, Donna's work had been a frenzied attack, almost as if she was acting out something, which hadn't been aimed so much at accomplishing a task as releasing something in her. Edna's almost throwaway comment came back to me — ‘Mary thinks she might have OCD.’ I knew very little about OCD, other than that it was an obsessive need to do something over and over again; was this how it manifested itself ?
I went round the landing and knocked lightly on Donna's door. ‘Are you dressed?’ I asked quietly, not wanting to wake Adrian and Paula.
Donna's small voice came back. ‘Yes, Cath-ie.’
I went in. She was sitting on the bed, hunched forward, arms folded into her waist and head down. The colourful beads from her bracelet were now strewn across the floor.
‘Oh dear, have you broken your bracelet?’ I asked, wondering if this had anything to do with what had just happened in the kitchen.
She shook her head, and in that movement I saw a small guilt. I was almost certain that the two incidents were somehow connected, and that she had possibly broken the bracelet on purpose.
‘Donna,’ I said, sitting next to her on the bed, ‘can you please try to tell me what's going through your mind?’ It was at times like this that I really wished I was a psychiatrist, with a better understanding of what made children tick, rather than a mother and carer who had to rely on intuition, some training, and experience from looking after children.
Donna shrugged again.
‘When we were in the kitchen, why did you think I was going to hit you?’ I asked gently, taking her hand in mine. She didn't resist, and I stroked the back of her hand and waited.
She shrugged again.
‘Come on, love. I want so much to understand and help you. But I can't unless you try to tell me. Why were you cleaning? You didn't accidentally spill something, did you?’
She shook her head.
‘So why did you think I was going to hit you? That worries me.’
Her mouth opened and closed before she spoke; then eventually she said quietly, ‘My mum did. If I didn't clean well.’
‘Your mum hit you for not cleaning properly?’ I asked.
She nodded.
Good grief! I thought, but I kept my voice steady as I asked, ‘How often did that happen, Donna?’
She shrugged again, then after a moment said, ‘Lots. It was my job to clean the house for when Edna came. Mum said if I didn't keep the house clean Edna would take us away.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Thank you for telling me.’ The logic of trying to clean the house before the social worker made her visit had a dismal ring of truth about it. Edna had said she thought Donna had felt responsible for them being taken into care, and Donna had admitted to me the night before that she blamed herself, but I doubted Edna knew the extent of Donna's sense of responsibility, or that her mother had made her clean, and had hit her for not doing the job properly. I would have to remember as much as possible of what Donna was telling me so that I could write it in my log notes, then tell Edna when I spoke to her. ‘Donna, when you say your mother hit you “lots”, what do you mean? Every month? Every week?’
‘Every day,’ she said in a small voice. ‘With a coat hanger.’
‘A coat hanger?’ I asked, horrified.
‘A wire one. She unbended it so it was long. It hurt.’
I inwardly cringed and gently rubbed the back of her hand. ‘I'm sure it did hurt, sweet. That was very, very wrong of your mother. No adult should ever hit a child. A mother shouldn't, and I certainly won't.’ Obvious, but not necessarily to Donna, who — from what she was telling me — had been beaten on a daily basis.
‘The boys used a skipping rope,’ she added matter-of-factly.
I stopped rubbing her hand. ‘Your brothers hit you too?’
She nodded. ‘With the skipping rope. It had a wooden end on it.’
I stared at her, aghast. ‘Why did they hit you?’
‘When I didn't do the cleaning as good as I should. Mum said they could. And they liked it.’ I felt such a surge of anger towards Warren and Jason at that moment that had they been in the room I would have given them a good telling-off, although in reality they were probably as much victims as Donna was, having learned their behaviour in a household that appeared to survive on perverted discipline.
‘Donna, love,’ I said, ‘that was so very wrong of them. People don't hit each other, and certainly not members of the same family. Brothers and sisters, mums and dads should take care of each other, not bully them and cause them pain. I will never hit you,’ I said, reinforcing what I had said before. ‘Neither will Adrian or Paula.’ The notion of which seemed slightly ludicrous, given that Adrian and Paula were much smaller than Donna, but then Warren and Jason were only six and seven.
Donna gave a faint nod, and I continued to look at her downcast profile. ‘What about Chelsea and your dad? Did they hit you?’
‘Chelsea did, but not Dad. I looked after him when he wasn't well. I tried to get him to take his tablets, so that he would be well. He was kind to me.’
Well, at least that was something, I thought. Donna had one ally in a house of abusers, as long as she reminded her schizophrenic father to take his medication. What a horrendous way to live! ‘Did your mother hit your brothers and Chelsea?’ I asked. All the information I gathered would help Edna, and ultimately the judge to decide the long-term care plans for the boys and Donna.
‘Sometimes Mum hit my brothers,’ Donna said softly. ‘But not often. Only when the boys were really getting on her nerves. Sometimes Chelsea and Mum had an argument and they hit each other.’
‘The boys didn't get hit for not doing things like cleaning?’ I asked.
Donna shook her head. ‘Mum only hit them when she had been drinking and they got on her nerves. She loves them.’
