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That evening as I prepared dinner Dawn sidled into the kitchen, and I half-guessed what was coming next.

‘It’s Friday,’ she said looking at me carefully.

‘That’s right, love. It is.’

‘I usually go out on a Friday evening.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘Am I allowed out tonight, Cathy?’

‘No, love. You were off school today, ill.’

‘But I’m better now.’

‘I know, and I’m very pleased you made such a quick recovery. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be out when you’ve had a day off school. If one of your teachers were to see you, they might think you had been faking it.’

She looked at me and without further comment went over to amuse Adrian, maybe thinking that perhaps I wasn’t so daft after all.

When John came home I told him of my chasing Dawn up the street and he thought it was quite amusing too. After we had eaten Dawn joined us in the lounge and we watched a video together, sharing a large bowl of homemade popcorn. Had we turned a corner? I didn’t know, but having set out some ground rules, and showed Dawn that I expected her to do as I asked, at least I felt that the next challenge she threw at me might be that little bit easier.

How wrong could I be!

Chapter Seventeen

Why?

A
week passed. Dawn managed to go to school each day and return without any major mishap, although she was late for registration on two mornings, claiming she had lost her bus fare and had had to walk. I wondered if the bus fare was being spent on other things – supplementing her pocket money and replacing the clothing allowance she no longer had. I didn’t make an issue of it, but simply told her to try to be more careful in future, and that if she kept losing her bus fare then it might be prudent if I took her to school in the car.

Dawn only sleepwalked once during that week. John and I found her downstairs, on her way to the kitchen. As usual, we turned her round and steered her back to bed. We were taking Dawn’s sleepwalking in our stride now and hoping as with all her other behaviour, that it would improve as time went on and she felt more secure and settled with us.

Dawn went out on Friday and Saturday evenings and returned home just after 10.00 p.m. on both nights. I reminded her that her coming-home time was 9.30, but again I didn’t make much of it, for on the whole it had been a pretty reasonable week. On Sunday evening she left to go to her mother’s at 5.45, but she arrived home again at 7.15. She never stayed the full two hours – there was always something her mother had to do that necessitated Dawn’s visit being curtailed. But this was even earlier than usual; I’d just come down from putting Adrian to bed, and Dawn could only have been at her mother’s for half an hour.

As soon as I answered the door I knew there was something wrong with Dawn, but I didn’t know what. Her eyes appeared glazed and distant, and her pupils were dilated and staring. She was steady on her feet, and when she spoke her speech was slow but not slurred. I couldn’t smell alcohol and she didn’t seem drunk. I asked her, as I always did when she returned from seeing her mother, if she’d had a nice time and if her mum was OK.

‘Don’t know,’ Dawn said, enunciating each word carefully and separately. ‘She went out as soon as I got there.’

‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed for Dawn. ‘Well, I’m pleased you came straight home.’ For I realised that Dawn could have used the time to hang out with her old mates on the estate and I would have been none the wiser. I looked at her carefully. ‘Dawn, are you all right, love? You don’t seem with it.’

She nodded, bent forward and began retching, and then threw up all over the hall carpet. John shot out of the lounge. ‘Not again!’ he said.

‘Can you get the bucket?’ I called.

Dawn was still bent forward and now retching violently, gasping for breath as she gagged. John reappeared with the bucket, and running down the hall, placed it on the floor in front of her, just in time. She threw up into it.

‘Christ!’ he said. ‘Whatever have you been drinking?’

‘I haven’t,’ she gasped between breaths and gagging, and then she threw up again into the bucket.

I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her, for I could see she was frightened. I moved her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ears. ‘It’s all right, Dawn,’ I reassured her, wondering what on earth could have made her so ill. Unlike before, when she had vomited once from drink, this was continuous and very violent. Then as I looked in the bucket a thick white chalky substance started to appear which certainly wasn’t alcohol, and neither was it the dinner I’d given her before she’d left. ‘Dawn,’ I said, as she paused between retching. ‘Have you eaten something since dinner?’

She didn’t reply. She retched again, and as she vomited I saw a half a dozen small white partly digested pills appear in the bucket.

‘Dawn!’ I cried, as fear gripped me. ‘Have you taken tablets? Tell me quickly!’

She half nodded, and then vomited again. This time ten or more similar white pills appeared, completely undigested.

‘Oh no!’ I cried. John saw them too.

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ he said, going to the phone on the hall table.

I now had my hands on Dawn’s shoulders, steadying her, as her body shook and she continued to retch, then vomit, and more pills appeared. She was bent double, with her hands clutching her stomach as she threw up, over and over again. Each time she vomited, a few more white pills appeared. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I could feel her growing weak from the exertion of retching and vomiting. ‘Sit down,’ I said, trying to stay calm and hide my fear for Dawn’s sake. I guided her the couple of steps to the bottom stair and pulled the bucket after us. She sat, leant forward, gagged repeatedly and was sick again. Another six or more pills appeared. She was gasping for breath now and panicking. ‘Take slow deep breaths,’ I said, and my voice trembled. I heard John on the phone giving our address, telling them to hurry and confirming she had taken pills.

Dawn collapsed against me, exhausted, then leant forward and began retching again. More whole pills appeared, again completely undigested. I put my arm around her shoulders and held her as she was sick again. There was nothing I could do but comfort Dawn and wait for the ambulance. I felt hot and cold at once.

‘It’s on its way,’ John confirmed, putting down the phone and coming over. ‘They said ten minutes.’

I nodded and held Dawn. ‘I’ll go with her to hospital, if you stay with Adrian.’

John stared in horror at the contents of the slowly filling bucket. ‘How many tablets have you taken, Dawn?’

Dawn was too weak to answer; she had her head on my shoulder, only raising it to vomit. There were fifty or more tablets in the bucket, and the ones that were now appearing were still whole and undigested, but they appeared slightly bigger than some of the others, so I thought she must have taken a mixture of tablets. Dear God, why?

The periods between her being sick slowly began to lengthen, and I willed the ambulance to hurry.

‘What were the tablets?’ I asked her, as her eyes closed and her head lolled on to my shoulder again. She didn’t answer. I wondered if we should keep her awake by trying to get her to stand and walk, but she was a dead weight and it would be impossible to keep her upright.

Five minutes later, when Dawn had been sick twice more, we heard the ambulance siren in the distance. Dawn was still collapsed against me. She hadn’t moved since the last time she had been sick and I wondered if she was lapsing into unconsciousness. I shook her. She groaned, but didn’t open her eyes. Terror gripped me as I pictured her in a coma from which she never recovered. I shook her again and her eyes briefly flickered open. ‘Hurry up!’ I willed the ambulance again as John hovered by the door.

The siren grew louder as it entered the top of our road, then louder still as it approached the house. We saw the blue light flashing through the glass in the front door, and the siren stopped. John immediately opened the door as I held Dawn. She raised her head at the sound of the door opening, but her eyes were still closed. She groaned, and was sick again. Two paramedics appeared in the doorway, stepped round the vomit on the carpet and came over to where Dawn and I sat at the foot of the stairs.

‘What’s her name?’ One of the paramedics asked, kneeling, and opening his bag.

‘Dawn,’ I said.

‘Hello, Dawn. Can you hear me?’ He spoke to her loudly, and took a pen torch from his bag. ‘How old are you, Dawn?’

She groaned but didn’t open her eyes or say anything. ‘She’s thirteen,’ I said, ‘and she’s taken tablets, lots of them.’

The paramedic glanced in the bucket. ‘Do you know what she’s taken?’ he asked, lifting Dawn’s eyelids and shining the torch into her eyes.

‘No. She’s just come home from seeing her mother. She started being sick as soon as she came in.’

‘You’re not her parents?’

‘No, foster parents,’ John said, coming to stand beside us.

‘And you’ve no idea what she could have taken?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The tablets couldn’t have come from here. We’ve only got a small bottle of paracetamol, and that’s in a locked medicine cabinet.’

‘Dawn?’ the paramedic who was examining her said, now taking her pulse. ‘What have you taken, love? Can you remember?’

Dawn groaned, raised her head and retched, but wasn’t actually sick.

‘She’s taken a lot,’ I said again. ‘And it must have been since six o’clock – that’s when she left to go to her mother’s.’

‘OK, let’s get her into the ambulance. You can come in with her. We’ll take the bucket in case we need to identify what’s she’s taken.’ Please God, I said silently, make everything all right.

The paramedic who had examined Dawn took my place on the bottom stair next to Dawn, while the other paramedic went to the ambulance and came back with a wheelchair. John and I stood to one side as they manoeuvred Dawn into the chair, talking to her and reassuring her the whole time. Dawn groaned and her eyes flickered open. She looked at me, afraid. ‘It’s all right, love,’ I soothed. I took a step forward and patted her hand. ‘I’m coming with you. We’re going to hospital.’

‘Phone me as soon as you know anything,’ John said. ‘And take your bag: you’ll need money for the phone.’

He passed me my handbag, and I picked up the bucket; then I waited while the paramedics lifted the wheelchair over the step and on to the front path. ‘Phone as soon as you can,’ John called again before the doors closed.

‘I’m Dave,’ the paramedic who was with us said in the ambulance as he worked on Dawn.

‘Cathy.’ I looked at Dawn’s colourless face. ‘She is going to be all right, isn’t she? She must have brought up most of the tablets – there are loads in the bucket.’

‘There are certainly a lot,’ he said, fitting electrode pads to Dawn’s chest. The wires ran to a portable heart monitor, which he placed on the bed beside her.

I sat in silence, looking at Dawn, as the monitor bleeped and the ambulance siren whirred as we pulled away. Dawn’s eyes were closed, but when we went over a bump in the road she groaned and her eyes flickered.

‘Has she done anything like this before?’ Dave asked.

‘No, not as far as I know. God knows why she did it. She didn’t seem unhappy, and she’d had a good week at school. I don’t know why she can’t talk to me. I keep asking her to and she says she will, but it seems she can’t. It must all build up inside her and then …’ I stopped, feeling tears welling in my eyes. Dave nodded and concentrated on Dawn and the heart monitor.

Ten minutes later we pulled into the hospital grounds and the flashing light and siren stopped. As soon as the ambulance came to a halt, the rear doors opened from the outside, and a nurse was waiting with a gurney.

Dave roused Dawn again. ‘Come on love, let’s get you out.’ He eased her into a sitting position and the nurse came forward and helped him manoeuvre Dawn out of the ambulance and on to the gurney. Dawn’s eyes immediately closed again as she lay down. ‘This is Dawn,’ the paramedic said to the nurse. ‘She’s thirteen and has taken an overdose. Tablets not identified, but we’ve brought the bucket she’s been sick in. This is her foster carer, Cathy.’

I took the bucket with me as I left the ambulance; then I followed Dave and the nurse as they wheeled the gurney through the double doors of the Accident and Emergency entrance. Dave then disappeared as another nurse took over, and we went into a curtained cubicle where a doctor was waiting.

‘Could you come and give me a few details?’ the nurse who had just joined us asked me. I glanced anxiously at Dawn, who was now being transferred from the gurney to the bed. The doctor was placing his stethoscope in his ears. ‘It won’t take long,’ the nurse reassured me. ‘She’s being well looked after.’

I went with the nurse, back along the corridor, where she stopped outside a door. ‘I’ll take the bucket,’ she said. ‘We’ll send a sample for analysis if necessary.’ I passed her the bucket and she disappeared through the door, reappearing a moment later. I then went with her into the main waiting area, where she went behind the reception desk and logged on to a computer. My head spun and I felt pretty nauseous. I leant on the edge of the desk as I answered her questions. She asked for Dawn’s full name, and then her date of birth, which I now knew off by heart. I gave her our address and telephone number. She wanted details of Dawn’s parents and I could only give her what I knew, which was her mother’s name.

‘We’ll contact her social worker,’ the nurse said, tapping the keyboard as she spoke. I gave her Ruth’s name.

‘Reasons for admittance,’ she said, reading the next question off the screen. ‘Overdose,’ she said and typed. My eyes started to moisten and I felt peculiarly distant – I simply couldn’t take in what was happening. The nurse then asked the name and contact details of our GP, and if Dawn was on any medication, and I said she wasn’t.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You can go back to Dawn now.’

I turned and retraced my steps; my head was light and my breath was coming fast and shallow. As I approached the cubicle, a nurse came out and held the curtain aside for me. I went in. The doctor was on one side of the bed and another nurse was on the other; they glanced up as I entered. Dawn was wired to a monitor and I assumed the lines I could see on the screen were readings of her heart rate and blood pressure. Her eyes were flickering open and closed as she tried to answer the doctor’s questions.

‘You’re Dawn’s carer?’ the doctor asked me.

‘Yes. She is going to be all right, isn’t she?’

‘Dawn told me she’s taken a lot of tablets. We’re going to irrigate her stomach to make sure there aren’t any left. Stomach pump,’ he qualified. ‘The fact that she has taken so many may have saved her life. Her stomach couldn’t cope, and she has vomited most of them up. Had she taken a smaller number, or had you left it longer before seeking help, more of the tablets would have been absorbed. Without doubt they would have killed her.’ His face was stern as he said this and he looked at Dawn. It was a dire warning and, although it was intended for Dawn, I felt responsible.

He nodded to the nurse and she left, presumably to get what was needed to pump Dawn’s stomach.