FORGOTTEN

Like a refugee in his own land
A land that has forgotten him
The care child wanders with no hand…
To hold when it is cold or to stop the blows from an unseen foe that strikes! 

Strikes in the night when curled he lays… on a cardboard box
A box wet and stained with rain and tears in a lonely town on an un-named street

Forgotten

No longer remembered by “the state” his corporate parent!… (who arrived too late) 
To save him

To save him from the monsters in his head 
The monsters who used to join him in his soiled single bed 
When he was young…. 
oh so young!

Too old now
They celebrate!
they can sign him off their books
with an “almost” clean slate
Hurray!
A big fat tick in the corporate box  
(Ofsted regulated!
What a load of nobs!)
(Who regulates Ofsted anyway! He says.
Irony

He is now 21 the “job” is done
He slips into anonymity 
A nameless face in a human sea
Not so many friends

Definitely No family!

The monsters return
No longer under his quilt but still embedded in his
train wrecked head
They would not give therapy when he was 3 
too young they said 
Would not give it when he was 5, 8, 10 
Onto the tablets they said was best for him then.

The tablets that numbed the pain and gave them the excuse to release a sigh
and say…. 
Cured? 
Cured? No, repressed

Repressed by chains of numb and dead
But numb and dead he stayed 
Until the bells of age 21 sang their toll and sealed his fate…. 
Out you go they say
There’s your flat and a ton or two to see you on your merry way

The way to homelessness because he was not equipped to make the perilous journey into “adulthood”

He forgot his pills and the walls caved in 
as the monsters were not gone they were caged within

The chaos unleashed on him like bike chain whips on baby skin 

Where can he go where can he BEGIN?

So instead he curls holding a syringe as his water bottle on his cardboard box 
A box wet with rain and tears in a lonely town on an un named street

 

One day, Jamie asked himself what it was he liked about this little café. He wondered why he’d never asked that question of himself before. The first visit had been one of convenience, it was close to his house and it had been raining that day. After that, to go there had become a comfortable habit, like a favourite park bench, but with food, drink and most importantly – he now realised – warmth of a human kind.

It was the steamed windows you had to wipe if you wanted to see out, the plastic chairs that didn’t move and forced him to stay still for a while. Yes, he still fidgeted, but he couldn’t get up and pace around as he would normally do anywhere the seats weren’t bolted to the ground.

Certainly, it was Ethel, the woman who owned the place, who never smiled yet had the most beautiful twinkle in her eyes for those she liked. Her craggy, lined face was etched with a knowledge of pain that told him she understood something of his, and of course, that extra slice of cheap bacon she put in his bread roll each time he bought one.

It too, was the symmetry of the tiles on both the roof and floor, no matter how many times he’d counted those tiles, he knew he would inevitably count them again.  And those wood-chipped walls, somewhat like a hospital or government building, they were painted a glossy ‘institution’ yellow, and on cold days when the place was busy, rivulets of water ran down them to collect in pools along the battered skirting boards.

He felt more at home there than in his own cold and lonely little flat. It wasn’t posh, he knew even his threadbare clothes didn’t look out of place there. Not like those ‘trendy’ cafes in the city-centre with those tattooed ‘weekend rock-star’ waiters and their coiffured hairstyles, which left him feeling as if he didn’t belong, made him want to leave before even ordering.

He even liked the graffiti-scrawled toilet that could never look clean, even if it was scrubbed every day by Angie – the co-owner – who, when mopping the café floor, would jab at his feet with her mop and say,

“c’mon ye big lump, get those plates of meat out of the way.”

All the while laughing a laugh that was half-laugh and half-cough, brought on by years of smoking; outside doors, on her couch, at her kitchen table, and in the Black Watch club on weekends. A place where the smoke would hang in layers so thick it was as if you could cut them into chunks.

All of this he loved. He felt welcome and left alone at the same time. He could watch life pass by the window and feel removed from it all. It was as if life couldn’t touch him as it always seemed to do when he was outside on the streets. Life always seemed to have a finger ready to point at him or a hand reaching out to tap him roughly on the shoulder. Every noise was a potential intrusion, every passing person someone who could hurt him, life was scary and, to his mind, most of it was best avoided.

The thing he liked most, above everything else, was the name, ‘HAPPY CAFE’, written in a semi-circle form around the top-half of a cup of tea with steam coming off it, one sign on each of the two windows. He wondered if it would have cost extra to add a THE in front of the word HAPPY and that it had been thought of as too much of an expense, these are the kind of question that often rattled about his head.

I’ll have to ask Ethel, he had thought.

HAPPY CAFE, a name at odds with the often unsmiling or troubled faces to be found staring out of its large windows, windows that looked out onto the busy road with the grimy busses passing in monotonous regularity, belching out visibly disgusting diesel fumes. So at odds with that seemingly perpetual blanket-grey sky that hung low, as if it was a ceiling of depressed thoughts, intent on keeping out the warmth and care of the sun. So at odds with the down-market retail shops that always seemed on the brink of closure, with their ‘discount’ offers and ‘bargain-basement’ deals, and so at odds with Jamie’s usual demeanour, that purposeful frown, his defence-mechanism, his warning, to ‘stay away’.

HAPPY CAFÉ he would think when he seen the sign, and an involuntary smile would appear, just prior to him entering through the door and scanning the place to check for Junkies or any other potential ‘vulture’, as he called those he thought might want something from him.

Up to that point in his life, Jamie believed friendship always came at a cost, usually money or belongings, but sometimes also something inside his very being, another scar on his battered and battle-scarred heart. It didn’t cost him anything here though, the owners treated him well without ever asking him for anything other than mutual respect. Indeed, they were often kind to him, he truly appreciated their unspoken, yet explicit care.

Jamie was 21, he lived alone, was generally alone, he thought he liked it this way, that it was better to be a loner in life. His existence had been hard thus far, he had endured three years of sexual abuse at the hands of a foster father who was supposed to protect him after he had been removed from his parents, aged five, due to the sexual abuse his father had perpetrated against him.

Following that, he was moved from pillar-to-post in several short-term foster placements, never receiving genuine care. When he reached adolescence, he wasn’t deemed ‘suitable’ for a foster placement and was moved around various children’s homes, those teenage years had been punctuated by episodes of physical and psychological abuse, perpetrated by both the children and adults around him. An understandable mistrust of people in general permeated his interactions, he both desperately needed and hated close relationships. He sometimes felt he was being ripped in half as the unstoppable longing for new relationships collided with the immovable pain he had went through because of previous ones.

Jamie was supported by the Local Authority responsible for his care past the age of 21 only due to the fact they had been held legally responsible for the abuse he had endured at the hands of the foster carers. They were therefore duty-bound to provide for him until he demonstrated an ability to manage his own life. Jamie had been at the court when the ruling was made, he knew that looking after himself too well would see his support cut off, whilst he blamed the Social Work department for what he had endured, he wasn’t willing to lose the only support he had ever known. At times, his behaviour was deliberately risky and self-destructive, just in case they were considering ‘removal of support’, a phrase he had been threatened with on more than one occasion. If there was one thing Jamie wasn’t, it was stupid.

On his 18^th birthday, Jamie had been placed in his own accommodation, because the Local Authority no longer wanted to keep him with younger children, ‘just in case’ where the words he’d heard through a closed door one day. His third floor flat overlooked the same busy thoroughfare to the city-centre where the ‘Happy Cafe’ sat. His bathroom window, visible from the road, had a piece of plywood in place from when he’d punched it drunk one night and the thick curtains in his living room were always drawn, he didn’t want anyone to know if he was at home or not, he knew a visible light could send the ‘vultures’ to his door.

 The social work department tendered out the support package and a local charity dealing with young people in the system deemed ‘hardest to reach’, picked up his case. The social work department would go on paying until the charity said he was capable of living independently. They would do so because if he was left to his own devices and something happened that brought his sorry story to the newspapers, then they would be rightly vilified in public for their part in that horrific story. This charity had a ‘no-rejection policy’, they were in it for the long-haul and provided support workers to attempt almost daily contact for Jamie. They knew the value of relationships and done their best to keep one or two constants in Jamie’s life.

Jamie liked weapons, especially samurai swords, he had a pair of ornamental ones on his living room wall, as well as a selection of smaller knives that he had picked up from various hunting shops and car-boot sales. He preferred ‘dark’ movies, two of his favourites being The Crow with Brandon Lee and The Matrix with Keanu Reeves, he’d even bought a long black leather jacket just like that of the main character in The Matrix and his walls were covered with posters of these and other similar movies. He also had some throwing stars that he launched at a specially made target on his wall, the target was in the form of a winged demon-like creature.

Throughout his house, bags of rubbish and laundry littered the place, the kitchen was always dirty, every available worktop space piled with assorted dishes, cutlery and takeaway cartons encrusted with leftover food. Jamie kept it like this purposefully, it was another layer of protection from anyone staying too long or getting too close. He rarely washed, his skin smelled like some kind of rotten fruit, his feet were so pungent as to provoke gagging in anyone unfortunate enough to be near him if he removed the big black boots he wore on an almost continuous basis, and his breath could curdle milk such was the strength of his halitosis. Much of the abuse had happened in the bath, washing always served as a reminder and the last thing Jamie needed was,

 ‘any more fucking reminders, thank you very much’

as he’d bluntly told one of the many previous social workers who’d kept at him to ‘address his hygiene issue’.

address the hygiene issue, what with? a fucking stamped address envelope’

Jamie had a beautifully blunt way with words, if you were open enough to see the beauty.

Jamie always smiled a voyeur’s smile when a new support worker visited him for the first time, he enjoyed watching their faces as they glanced around his flat. He would watch them closely as they took in its dirty state, as they attempted to hide their discomfort at seeing the giant, dirty cage, housing his two rats, and at the aquarium for his lizard and the accompanying jars for breeding insects to feed it. To complete the scene, there was a car battery with attached wires to power the heat lamp for the reptile, for those times he had no electricity.

He took a perverse pleasure in seeing their discomfort turning to fear and alarm as they registered the collection of weapons on the walls. It was at this point, if he felt especially mean, he’d nonchalantly begin to launch his throwing stars at the target on the wall. The area around the target was a mess of chipped, holed plasterboard, from when he had missed the wooden target. Often, the support worker would quickly ask him if he wanted to go out, if he replied in the negative, they would promptly leave, offering him the next meeting at the office of the support charity. He called this his ‘endurance test’. If they couldn’t survive in his home environment for more than 10 minutes then there was no way that they would be able to build a relationship with him and therefore he would only ever meet with these workers if they promised money or food, preferably both.

One support worker, Lorraine, had known Jamie long-enough for him to accept her as someone good for him, and he generally didn’t mind her visits. Lorraine didn’t bat an eyelid at Jamie’s antics and often blitzed his flat by throwing everything dirty in the bin and spraying the place down with some strong cleaning products. Jamie accepted this with only the odd muttered complaint about an ‘invasion of privacy’, though really, he was glad someone cared enough to clean the place up for him.

 Lorraine would often remove weapons when Jamie wasn’t looking and kept on at him about the dangers of his lifestyle. Lorraine knew the full terrible history of Jamie’s childhood and she cared deeply that he could continue to maintain his own accommodation, she knew if the flat failed then he would end up in a homeless shelter where he would be exploited, and no doubt beaten for the way he was, his coping mechanisms were only understandable to those who care about why a person acts as they do and not the actions themselves. Every behaviour Jamie exhibited was a direct result of his past experiences.  

Lorraine would always accompany a new worker on their first meeting with Jamie. Sometimes, if he had been promised something he wanted, that would mean a meeting at the office, or, if he wasn’t in a sociable mood, as was normally the case, this would entail shouting through his letterbox in the hope of getting him to open his door. It was a tactic of his to try to discourage people from coming to see him, many times he had lain in bed listening to the noise of a support worker chapping at his door and shouting through his letterbox. He judged if someone really wanted him to show himself by the length of time they tried to get him to answer, he called this his ‘doorstep challenge’. Those support workers he thought didn’t care, or really want him to answer, would leave after a minute or so, this served to reinforce his belief that everyone goes away in the end, that no-one really cared about him.

A few individuals, such as Lorraine, wouldn’t give up for a long time and would go to great lengths to get in touch with him, sometimes sitting in their car outside and jumping out in front of him if he passed. These workers he tolerated, even liked at times, he thought their care came from somewhere deep inside and was therefore was real.

This was to be Jamie’s response the day after he’d first truly asked himself why he liked the Happy Cafe. The day he first met George. George was 35, a newly-qualified Social Worker, he’d recently started with the charity and was to work with Jamie as soon as possible due to a lack of male workers and the fact that some female workers felt threatened by Jamie’s apparently aggressive mannerisms, some would only work with him in pairs and that wasn’t financially sustainable for the charity.

Lorraine had met George at the office to brief him on Jamie’s situation, she gave him enough details regarding his past to ensure he was up to speed as to the reasons for his behaviour, though she always retained many details until she knew whether Jamie would accept the worker in the long-term. On the way from the office to Jamie’s flat she gave George a rundown of the likely behaviour Jamie would exhibit on meeting him for the first time, giving warning of the smell and the presence of animals and weapons. George had been around and was someone who had experience of being in a children’s home as a child, he wasn’t easily shocked, he knew that behaviour of this kind was usually the result of some negative experience,

“lord knows, I acted out often enough as an adolescent,” he’d said.

Jamie spent a lot of time in bed, especially if he had run out of money, which, given his inability to budget, was most of the time. His lack of budgeting skills would include not buying any electricity tokens, resulting in him often living in the cold and dark. On the day his unemployment cheque was to be delivered, Lorraine would try to arrive with the postman, so she could march him to the shops, to ensure he bought some basic foodstuffs and a supply of electricity for the two weeks until his next cheque arrived. She would put the electricity tokens in herself after previously realising that he had just kept them in his pocket and later sold them on to a local drug dealer, at half their value, for a small piece of poor-quality hashish.

On arrival at the flat door, Lorraine first checked through the kitchen window to see if she could catch Jamie unawares. However, Jamie had taped a poster to the window. Lorraine then banged hard on the door, after several thumps she began to bellow through the letterbox,

 “Come on Jamie, you know me, I ain’t leaving till you show yourself!”

After two minutes she switched tactics and began to bribe him with offers of food at the local cafe. Eventually, they heard a grunt emanating from inside the flat. Lorraine turned to George and smiled,

“hunger usually gets the better of him when he has no money and he likes going to the happy café down the road, the women there are really good with him.”

George made a mental note of the successful strategy for future use.

The key turned in the lock and Lorraine pushed open the front door, various stuff lay along the wall, an assortment of worthless bits and pieces, some of it broken, all of it fit for the bin. George caught a glimpse of Jamie up ahead as he turned the corner, clad in boxer shorts and black t-shirt, dark hair covering both his head and most of his face. As they entered the house Lorraine shouted up the corridor,

“make yourself decent,”

The smell hit George straight away, it was so strong he almost retreated into the relative fresh air of the piss-stained tenement stairwell. Lorraine headed straight towards the kitchen and opened the window before then heading into the living room, throwing the curtains open and opening both windows wide, the noise of the busy street rushed in with the cold air. George followed and scanned the room, he had known what to expect and therefore didn’t react at the sight of the swords, living creatures, and various other bits and bobs that many a support worker had been visibly affected by.

‘I can handle the debris but that disgusting smell, jeezo!’ he thought to himself.

Jamie sat scrunched up on the couch, hugging his knees, he looked at George and said,

“Have you got a cigarette?”

“sorry, I don’t smoke,” said George.

George did smoke occasionally when he socialized, but never in front of someone he worked alongside, not only was it forbidden, he subscribed to the pro-social role modelling theory, act as you wish others to act. Some staff did smoke with young people as a way of gaining acceptance – complicity is not a good strategy thought George.

Lorraine introduced George then fired questions at Jamie as she started to tidy up, she pulled a bin liner and pair of latex gloves from her pocket and began ramming anything she considered to be rubbish into the bin liner,

“Have you got any money left?”

“Has that drug dealer been bothering you again?”

 When did you last see your Social Worker?”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Jamie didn’t reply other than to say he was hungry and wanted a bacon roll. Lorraine bargained that if he washed his face and brushed his teeth she would take him to the cafe. Jamie smiled to himself as he picked up his throwing stars and began launching them at the target on the wall, which just happened to be near where George was standing.

“Jamie, enough of that,” said Lorraine.

 George picked up two of the sharp metal spiked stars and handed them back to Jamie and said in a matter of fact way,

 “You should really learn the correct throwing technique if you want to do it properly, that way you won’t hurt anyone or make such a mess of your wall.”

Jamie put down the stars and headed off to get his clothes on, he was hungry, he hadn’t eaten anything other than Weetabix spread with margarine, washed down with cold tap-water for two days.

Over the next few months, George met with Jamie several times a week, Jamie always tested a new support worker to the max, after meeting with them initially, he would then embark on a mission to get them to disengage with him by displaying oppositional behaviour and emphasising his many repulsive habits, he called this his ‘testing test’.

For his part, George had seen it all before, he had been in various children’s homes from the age of eleven until his sixteenth birthday, he had witnessed and endured several forms of abuse as well as both witnessing and taking part in a range of negative and destructive behaviours, he allowed Jamie to act out his ‘welcome routine’ and turned up regardless.

Slowly, Jamie began to accept George, he appreciated that he didn’t try to tell him what he ‘should’ or ‘must’ do all the time, as did most other workers. George told Jamie he had the right to choose his own path, then went on to explain the options available to him and the potential consequences to each choice, saying which one he would choose himself and why.

Jamie also enjoyed listening to George give examples of ‘someone he knew well’, ‘someone’ who had been involved in a number of situations that had seen him make the wrong choice at the wrong time or indeed the right choice at the right time. Jamie was a sharp individual, he knew George was most likely speaking about himself as well as friends he had had, he felt that this gave them a sense of shared history in some way. Further to this, George always took Jamie to the happy cafe.

George had realised early on that Jamie felt most at ease when sitting in that run-down little place with the dingy toilet and the two down-to-earth women who owned it. The food was basic and low-quality, but they made a right good cup of tea and George was happy enough to down cup after cup as Jamie munched on a bacon roll or two. It wasn’t long before George felt right at home and was on good terms with both Ethel and Angie. He found that if he could get the corner seat beside the window, and if both he and Jamie sat in the two chairs facing the half-frosted pane of glass, so that they could watch the many people and the constant stream of traffic passing by, then Jamie was at his most relaxed and would be open to both talking and listening.

Other than Lorraine, this was more than any other support worker had managed, because Jamie was adept at speaking about some aspect of his life just to the point that he had secured either food or cigarettes and then the monosyllable responses would return. After a few weeks, George would nip into the cafe to give either Angie or Ethel a couple of extra pounds to keep their preferred table free for half an hour, to give him enough time to get Jamie out of his bed and down there.

Their little corner trysts continued for some 18 months or so, during which time Jamie managed to keep his self-destructive and risky behaviour to a minimum, he even got a cleaning job at the Happy Cafe three morning a week. This had been organised by George and paid for by the charity. George had told Ethel and Angie that Jamie had had,

a right bad time as a child,

this was enough for them, they knew it anyway, and had no need for other details. They were caring individuals and helped more than a few poor souls in the area with a free bite to eat or a hot cup of tea every now and again. They agreed to take the time to encourage Jamie to develop some sort of responsibility and routine, the extra twenty pounds per day they received was welcome given the struggle they had keeping the café in profit. After an initial few false starts, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Jamie felt positive and useful, he wondered when it would all go wrong, he’d long ago accepted that all good things come to an end.

It was at this point, George had persuaded Jamie to get involved in helping to train the constant stream of new support workers that came to begin their careers at the charity. He surmised that Jamie could build on the stability he had achieved by taking on this opportunity, that it would be both character-building and therapeutic at the same time. George knew that Jamie was well-placed to give new workers an insight into the job and could benefit himself from explaining what he believed a worker should provide, he laughed to himself,

well, those things other than money for cigarettes.

 There was always an initial induction period for new workers and George suggested to the board of directors that some of the young people supported by the charity could come in to speak with new workers and tell them their thoughts as to what a ‘good’ worker should consist of. The board agreed, and George developed a training day that entailed an initial meet-and greet session, followed by some group work and finishing with a question-and-answer session. At first, Jamie refused to become involved, but George negotiated a daily rate of pay for participants after some of the young people (rightly) pointed out that everyone else involved would be paid. This had been enough to see Jamie agree to commit, for at least one day.

The training days became a monthly event and Jamie revelled in the attention, and in trying to shock the new workers. He had developed a ‘what would you do if…?’ Series of questions, which made George laugh as he watched the new staff try to come up with answers they thought would be acceptable to both the young people and those senior staff observing. 

After three months, he was given the title of ‘senior training assistant’ and seemed to love wearing his badge, he led some of the discussions during the group work and took his role seriously. He had even started to clean himself up for these days, appearing with freshly-ironed clothes and a manicured beard. George then discovered that Ethel had been taking Jamie’s dirty clothes home with her on the Monday, washing and ironing them,  then returning them to him when he came to work on the Friday.

Jamie flourished in the café, he became a real help to Ethel and Angie, he loved to jokingly point out things they had missed and made sure they filled in all the health and safety sheets that they never seemed to remember. He became friendly with some of the regulars and his sense of self-worth markedly improved. It certainly was a happy café for the three of them and he seemed to bring a smile to the faces of some customers due to his idiosyncratic, but ultimately caring, way of being. George would smile on seeing the three of them gently chastise each other about all manner of small things, they were genuinely happy together and it gave him immense pleasure to see this newly-formed ‘family’ interact.

Things continued to improve for Jamie over the next months, he stopped smoking cannabis, this made him less insular and paranoid, he was more able to communicate with people outside of his close circle. The training days continued to go well, and George encouraged him to join a group for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. He also began to write poetry, he was surprised to find that it served as a kind of self-administered therapy, it seemed to help him process his feelings. At times, he still felt angry and sad and there were days when he just couldn’t face the world, but the poetry was a way to channel those feelings without resorting to the self-defeating behaviour of the past. It was at this point that two things happened that would change his life forever.

The first thing was that George announced he was leaving the charity, he’d been offered a senior position in another organization and was moving lock, stock and barrel some 200 miles to begin this new challenge. He announced this news one day as they relaxed and chatted in the Happy Café. There was to be no ‘long goodbye’, George was to leave his job and the city the following month. He had planned it this way, he wanted the end of the way things were to be relatively quick, so Jamie did not dwell on it too long, just in case he reacted by changing his behaviour. He felt a month was enough time for them both to deal with ‘moving on’ and aimed to frame it as the positive development he believed it to be.

Jamie was at first shocked, he hadn’t thought of not seeing George, which was strange given he usually counted the time a relationship with a worker lasted. Though, when he thought about it, he had hardly seen George in the preceding two months. This was also intentional on the part of George, who had started a process of withdrawal some weeks previous. Jamie was doing well and didn’t really need George to be around, he just needed to know he (or someone he trusted) was there should he need them. In recent weeks, he had hit it off with a support worker called Alistair, they had developed their relationship after meeting at one of the training days, so George knew Jamie had someone who would be ‘there’ for him in a professional sense, if he needed them.

 In a frank discussion at the Happy Café, with Ethel and Angie in the background, George told Jamie he would miss him and that he had learned a lot over the last couple of years thanks to their relationship,

“I truly believe you are going to keep on doing well and I’ll always think good things about the times we have shared, especially here. I’m going to miss these cups of tea!”

He turned and beamed a smile at the two women hovering around behind them.

“And anyway, you’ll have my number if you want to phone me up and remind me how great you think I am” he said with a wink.

Smiling, George again looked over his shoulder, he was sure that twinkle in Ethel’s eye had turned into a tear. Jamie turned his head sideways to look at George, narrowed his eyes, smiled, and said,

“don’t you worry, I don’t need you and I’ll easily find someone else to pay for food, Oh, and I’m never going back to the darkness.”

It would turn out that they would never see each other again, though each would think of the other often.

The second major event to happen at that time was that Jamie met a woman and embarked on his first-ever intimate relationship. They had met at the survivors group and he had been starry-eyed ever since their first introduction, though it would take some weeks for him to ask her out and it took some prompting from Alistair to get him to act. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Shona had immediately said yes, she had felt protective of Jamie from the outset, she felt his vulnerability, she had wanted to put her coat round him, to keep him close, to protect him. They laughed a lot together. Shona was painfully quiet in front of strangers yet had a great sense of fun and was always teasing Jamie when they were alone, or when she thought no-one was looking. Jamie loved the attention, he clearly adored Shona and admired her for coming through all that she had as a child whilst still managing to remain positive and believe that people were generally good.

Jamie would write her poems, some terrible and romantic, others beautiful and heartfelt, most a mixture of both. Shona loved them all, no-one had ever written her poetry before and she knew millions would go through their lives without ever receiving even one poem written especially for them. Their eyes would shine at the sight of each other and they were soon inseparable. George was fortunate enough to have met Shona before leaving for his new job and he logged it as another protective factor in Jamie maintaining the progress he had made thus far,

even if it eventually fails, at least he is really living, he thought.

One of the last occasions George saw Jamie, he had left him with Shona at the ‘reserved’ table in the happy café, he had turned to look back through the window as the two of them smiled and waved him off. George noticed the bounce in his step as he headed down towards the office,

‘love conquers all’ he thought and quickly called his wife to tell her he loved her, to catch the moment and share it, to spread the love.

Some months later, Jamie was offered a part-time position with the charity, he had started a social care course at the local college and was managing his studies well. Shona had moved into his flat and the difference was amazing to see, gone were the dark posters and Alistair Crowley books, they had been replaced by bright, cosy furnishings which seemed to reflect the warmth of their relationship. The swords had been banished to the cupboard at the bottom of the corridor, along with his throwing stars and collection of knives. The rats and reptile were still there but in much-improved living conditions, the meter always had electricity and the kitchen was hygienic if not always tidy. It looked like the regular set-up of any young couple.

The biggest step by far, was that Jamie now bathed regularly. When, in the survivors group, Shona had first heard him mention the bath as a place of particularly bad memories relating to his abuse, she immediately understood his aversion to washing. She had then initiated their first shared bath, setting the scene with lots of bubbles, a few candles and their favourite singer – Van Morrison – on the iPod, delivering a heart-felt rendition of into the mystic.

Jamie was panicked at first, however, his desire to please Shona was stronger than his aversion to the bath, and they then shared an hour of such intense intimacy that he could no longer associate the bath with only negative thoughts, the cycle had been broken. They would go on to share many a bath after that, rubbing each other’s feet, washing each other’s hair and having more than the occasional water fight.

After an initial induction period of training (whereby the tables were turned, and Jamie got to feel exactly what it was like to be quizzed by a group of young people), he was to meet his first young person.

Wow, he thought, as he ventured down the path of the children’s home where he was to have the first contact,

 here I am going to meet a kid in in a children’s home, can I actually do this?

He felt the urge to do an about-turn and head back up the driveway, but he knew he had to keep going, he wanted to help other children if he could, he knew exactly how important good support was.

The young person’s name was Billy. Jamie didn’t get a chance to meet him properly that day, on seeing him walking up the driveway, Billy had decided to run out of the home and launch stones in his direction from some distance away. Jamie laughed when this happened, he recalled throwing his CD collection out of a window when he was in a similar-type children’s home, he had barricaded himself in his room and decided to throw them out of the window at the Social Worker in her car below, so she couldn’t get out of it. Jamie spoke with the staff member on duty, saying he would come back the next again day and to let Billy know he would be wearing a helmet next time!

Billy had noticed Jamie laughing when he had thrown the stones at him and this little fact had sparked enough interest for him to want to discover more about this man,

maybe he’ll be ok, or take me bowling or something, he’d thought.

The next day, Billy stood waiting at the door for Jamie, who, when walking up the drive, pulled a bicycle helmet from behind his back and shouted,

“Should I put this on to protect my head?”

Billy laughed and shook his head. Jamie walked up, introduced himself, and asked,

“Do you want to go to a wee café where they sell the best cakes in the whole town.”

Intrigued, Billy had nodded, they said goodbye to the member of staff, then walked off up the drive together. First contact had been achieved.

Jamie had popped into the Happy Cafe earlier that day and asked Ethel to reserve ‘the table’. When they walked in, Ethel’s eyes were twinkling brightly, and Angie had an enormous smile on her face, as they walked towards the counter, Jamie greeted a couple of regular customers, they too were obviously pleased to see him.

“So, Billy, which of these fine cakes would you like and what do you want to drink?”

Billy chose a huge chocolate éclair and a fruit juice. When Jamie went to pay, Ethel refused the money, telling him,

 “get away with you, you’ll never pay for a cake in here again ye big lump.”

As they walked towards the window seat with the ‘reserved’ sign sitting on it, Billy thought to himself,

what is it about this guy that everyone seems to like?

That first experience was enough for the relationship seed to take root and it wasn’t to be the last time they ate cake and watched the world go by in the Happy Cafe. Some negative cycles and patterns of behavior need broken whereas others, the positive ones filled with love, are best continued or passed on to those who may benefit from them.

 

Care fails too many it is true

Fob off letters prove

Words on barren wasteland fell

Policy dictated

Wrong, doing remains unrepented

The system failed me too

 

Amanda Knowles MBE