Clicking on an element sets focus but not cursor?

I have an html page where I set the focus on the first input element on load. I can see that the focus is set because I ask the background of the element to go orange and I can see the orange backgrou开发者_如何学Pythonnd. However, the cursor is not shown in the element.

Then when I click on the other input elements, I can see the focus move to them but still no cursor is shown. The cursor only appears when I use the tab key.

Please could someone explain to me why this happens and how I can make this cursor appear without having to use the tab key?

This is for IE8 only. (It's an intranet site)

Code as requested for how I'm setting focus:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $('#rachel').focus();
});

EDIT

I didn't think to mention that the problem is happening on a popup window that looks to be implemented like a layer. Is it possible for layers to block the cursor?