Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new) (38 page)

              I felt a pang of fear as I realised that Charlene was obviously intending to get put on
basic
for some reason.  Was she planning to do something to me with her newfound power and support?  She glared over at me at lunch with evil intent in her eyes and the food stuck in my throat as I realised that she clearly was plotting something – something she was even prepared to lose her liberty and privileges for. No doubt hurting me would earn her even greater acumen amongst her peers.

              After lunch I was handed a note from an old boyfriend from school days who had cycled up to the prison and left his phone number for me.  He clearly wanted me to put him on my telephone list, but as I really only used my time to ring M and Dad, I couldn't take him up on it.  I sat down and wrote him a letter instead as I appreciated the gesture and marvelled at how much support I had outside.  Much of it came from people I hadn’t seen for many years but had heard of my plight and friends who had been in my year at school, who all rallied round who I marvelled, still supported each other through difficult times.  My friend Mags, in particular, was fantastic and sent me a card almost every day with a carefully chosen picture on it to brighten my cell.  It was gestures such as these that got me through the darkest times and reminded me how much love there remained on the outside.

              Mags came in with Dad to see me on one occasion, as did another friend from school who had also been very supportive and there were many others who wanted to, but with the strict three people limitation and only one hour a week, I had to keep it to letters with most of my friends.

              At Meds the following morning, I tried again to reach out to Charlene in the hope of avoiding any trouble that might be brewing.  We were alone in the holding area awaiting our medications – mine being tame by comparison to most of the girls who were on mood stabilizers, tranquilisers and sleeping pills – but if Charlene was anything to go by, they weren’t helping them much.  It seemed crazy to give drug addicts- addictive drugs rather than counselling, but at times I even felt faintly envious that some people were given things that could transport them from the reality of this world into the hypnotic state that sleep provided but these moments were far- outweighed by a fear of anything that altered the mind and I certainly didn’t want to go that route.

              There were times at night that my fear of enclosed spaces really took hold and I would become anxious that I was somehow locked in forever.  I wondered what might happen in a fire.  Some years later, I would meet Terry Waite and ask him how he had coped with solitude and captivity for so long.  His response to me, was that he had used his mind to transport him from the reality of what was happening to him and keep it as occupied as possible.  My plight was minor compared to his, but I certainly knew the importance of distracting oneself from the irrational fears that could creep up on you like a monster through endless night and the sense of isolation.

              Knowing Charlene was suffering from an exposed nerve in a tooth, I made the mistake of asking her how she was feeling.  She gave me a grunt and then began banging on the holding area door demanding to be let out.  She couldn’t bear to be within yards of me and I wondered what was at the root of such hostility and aggression or was it just a habit.  I knew jealousy was much behind it but I guess even Charlene did not really know what she was angry about.  She was a person with no emotional intelligence or ability to rationalize anything she felt. I realised with a heavy heart that she was determined to hold onto what was really self-hatred.  I was just the chosen target on which she projected it – her unhappiness, self-loathing and anger.  She no doubt had an extremely damaged childhood, but any attempt to try befriend her, only made her despise me even more.

              Whilst I had survived the weekend fifteen and a half hour lock-ins so far, I still found that time the hardest.  Shut in my cell with the demons of my past descending and overwhelming me and faced with the grief of losing my precious son.  I knew that he was now almost permanently with his father and the Department were pushing harder and harder for him to be given into his full-time care.  I feared that I may soon be out of M's life altogether.  It was a frightening and terrifying thought that I could lose all contact and even more so because of what M had told me his father had done.  

              M's father lived on a remote farm and I feared that once out of the spotlight of the Court, he would re-enact the things that he had done before.                At times, I was still consumed with anger towards my father and cursed him for giving us up, but I knew that was pointless too.  There was nothing I could do about it now and I loved him far too much not to forgive him.

              It seemed likely that even had he not broken his silence, we would still have been brought back from the States. I had recently read in the paper, of one mother  who had also fled to America and had managed to stay underground for three years with her daughter in similar circumstances to mine. Nonetheless she had eventually been found.

              Daily the papers were reporting women being charged with child abduction and the lengths and expense local authorities would invest in bringing them back.  It seemed there was an epidemic of mothers running from Social Services, the common denominator being, having been failed by the authorities to whom they had turned for help. In nearly every case there were allegations of emotional abuse and/or coaching against them and I realised that what had been set up as an institution to protect children, was now the seat of more harm than one could imagine.

              I had even turned in vain to the NSPCC for help, but all that had happened was, despite offering me complete confidentiality, they had instead contacted Miss Whiplash and passed my emails onto her, whilst fully accepting her word over mine.

              More and more extreme and ridiculous cases were being reported.  Parents losing children because they themselves had grown up in care, so may in the future harm their kids.  What better formula than to take the child and put him or her in care?  It was insane.  It was a chain that would not be broken, but at least the press were putting it into the public domain and the more public awareness was raised, the better the chance of change. 

              On Sunday mornings I was allowed my ten minute call with M.  The minutes always ticked by too fast, but at least I could hear his voice.  The important thing was to keep reassuring him how much I loved him and that I was fine so he would not worry.  I tried with increasing difficulty, to always sound as bright and cheerful as I could, knowing that my internment was equally hard for him and wanting to detract from it as much as possible.

              M plied me with questions about my new life.  He wanted to know how I was eating and whether I could get my “funny milk” in jail.  I suffered from dairy and wheat intolerance but had long since given up on any special diet.  It was just too difficult in jail.  They did get me some rice cakes and wheat-free bread, which again angered the others, so now, in an attempt to blend in, I not only took all my meals to my cell, but ate what the others ate in the hope of appeasing them.  It only angered Charlene more.

              Each time I stood at the serving hatch, Charlene would watch me like a hawk. "That’s got wheat in it." She spat, the first time I took a piece a piece of apple pie.  I had only intended to eat the filling, but to her, I was now a fraud.  I said nothing, took it back to my cell, vowing to stay out of her way as much as possible. Charlene was short and very overweight and I suspect that my being slim annoyed her as much as anything. 

              Along with being warm, I had to admit to missing the occasional glass of wine that I could have at home, for no other reason that it had helped me to get some sleep.  I was always careful not to over drink because I could see how easily someone in my situation might succumb to dependency, knowing too that any suggestion of this, would be something else to use against me.  However, a small spritzer on a Saturday night had, on occasion, given me some much needed rest.

              There was no means of blocking out the emotional agony and torment of my separation from M.   I sometimes wondered if sleep had ever brought any comfort really - my dream state bore little difference to my waking hours, seeming to merge into one endless nightmare.

              “I went to contact on Friday Mummy, but Granddad wasn’t there.”  M told me that Sunday on the phone.  It seemed the Social Workers hadn’t let my father know that they had agreed to let him have my contact slot, but I also wondered if my father who had become so vague under the pressure, might also have forgotten or not read an email correctly.  He had mentioned to me the day before that he was now getting weekly contact, but seemed to be under the impression that it was beginning the following week.

              I felt a pang of anger that M had been let down both by the Department and my father.  Whoever was responsible, M had suffered and again I could do nothing to change it.  I knew how much seeing my father meant to M and I  often wished Dad would be more proactive in his dealings with the Department.  He seemed to have lost any fighting spirit he might have had and was constantly down and despondent.  I wanted him to fight for M’s right to see his family, when I couldn’t, but I sensed Dad was intimidated by the cruel bullies from the Department and being a vital man who had led a very successful business in the past, he was not used to having to answer to anyone else.

              Rightly or wrongly, at times I felt a sense of frustration that whilst I had to be strong and keep fighting, my father just couldn’t get the same determination to stand up to them.  Would it have made any difference?  Probably not, but it would have helped me to know that he was doing all he could and I believe it would have helped him to feel less powerless.  But we are all different and all a product of life’s circumstances.  Dad had always been in control, in charge of the company, respected as a member of the community who contributed much and now he found himself demoralized and bullied by people who were so far out of his experience, he had almost shut down to protect himself. 

              Having always seen him so commanding and vital, I forgot at times that he was now in his eighties and had had three heart attacks - quite naturally it was harder for him to be forceful.  It was a time in his life that he should have been able to enjoy, playing golf, seeing his grandchildren, relaxing after years of hard graft.  Instead he was under more stress than he had ever been in his life. 

              Unfortunately Dad’s evidence at trial had not helped us either.  He had kept referring to a Plan B of running, when in fact there really had been no plan to go until the night we fled.  My lawyer had often suggested we would never get justice in the Island’s courts and he had said as much, many times to Dad and I, often encouraging us to fleeing the jurisdiction and it was to this that Dad had referred, but it had not even come close to a reality until the night before we went. 

              It is not as easy to run as people might think.  It is a terrifying action that takes you away from all that is familiar and puts you into a life of constant vigilance and it is a decision that no-one takes lightly – the situation has to be so hopeless that you are ready to risk all for the safety of your child and as I had so many times, I likened it to fleeing the Nazis - we had certainly run from an oppressive regime .

              I still couldn't reconcile the Jury's guilty verdict, but I suppose it is not so easy so show courage and go against the party line, when you have your own children and grandchildren to consider.  The last thing any of them would have wanted was for Social Services to come after them and I knew only too well, the consequences of not toeing the party line.  I often wondered if I had been made an example of, to warn others that the System would not be disobeyed.  Certainly our case had been high profile enough to serve as a warning to anyone who might consider taking the same course.

              The faceless, nameless seven who had sent to me jail, were no doubt getting on with their own lives now without a thought for what they had sentenced me to – relieved that jury duty was over – glad to be back in their normal routine without a moment of concern for my innocent child. 

              I still remembered the look on the face of one of the three women on the Jury – a largish lady with brown curly hair and glasses whose eyes had caught mine for just a moment with a flicker of compassion in them and I wondered if she had been the reason it had taken three hours to convict me, rather than one.

              Disbelief was a permanent shadow and had been since the fateful day the Judge had found for "No Abuse."  I could not come to terms with the fact that the police had even considered that my father, a pillar of the community or myself with absolutely nothing to gain by it, to have coached my son into saying what he did.  There wasn’t one scarp of evidence to support it, in comparison to the wealth of testimony and medical evidence that substantiated the abuse, and yet it seemed they needed only supposition - for although the Judge had not found for abuse, he had made no clear finding of coaching either.  I still hold that the main factor was down to the initial Educational Psychologist who had seen R privately before the case began and had been persuaded that I was a vindictive mother who sought to exclude him from my son’s life, when nothing could have been further from the truth. 

              It was Armistice Day whilst I was inside which seemed apt. I  felt like a Prisoner of War myself – our own private war – M’s, Dad’s and mine.