Mira pressed her fingers around the doorstep-cold milk bottle until they were numb at the tips. She imagined the numbness spreading malevolently through her whole body; the creep to non-existence.
Smoke clung to the social worker’s greasy parting of hair. The fumes of old cigarettes were fresh from her mouth with every question. The questions had been brief. The answers fell out of Mira’s despondent mouth. Her mother’s lumpy behind was wedged into the corner bend of the worktop as she let her daughter tell convenient lies.
Ten minutes was all it took. Adoption had been agreed. The social worker was about to leave.
‘Always my little ball of trouble, weren’t you love, right from word go,’ her mother had added, smug with the achievement of the afternoon, rolling her eyes at the social worker who was packing up her things.
Another cigarette was lit at her mother’s lips. The tip burning brightly into Mira’s eyes, the second-hand smoke inhaled, down, down, deep down into her womb where the baby’s tiny lungs were forming.
Mira’s hand was around the milk bottle, squeezing it, her eyes were on her mother’s cigarette, the bottle was levitating above the table, light in her hand, lighter and lighter as it floated above her head, and moved through the air towards her mother, who ducked, holding her hand to her face, the bottle smashing into her knees; soaking, stinking, sour shock.
Triumph and disbelief danced behind her mother’s hysteria. The social worker’s long, greasy day had come alive. The baby’s fate was sealed.
Chapter Forty-One
Rosie sloped down to breakfast, rubbing her eyes, coming in for a cuddle, just as she always had. I tried to act naturally while I bustled around – filling their water-bottles and wrapping their cucumber snacks in foil – while I formulated sentences in my head, working out the best way of telling them about the changes to their afternoon routine, the changes to their lives.
I lent my elbows into the breakfast bar opposite them.
‘Guess what, guys?’ I said, cheery and full of enthusiasm.
They both continued eating their cereal.
‘Daddy’s going to be taking you into school again today.’
They both grinned through mouthfuls.
‘And Grandma Helen’s picking you up.’
‘Again! But why can’t we go by ourselves like normal?’ Rosie cried.
‘What about Harriet?’ Noah asked, as if she might feel left out.
‘Grandma Helen doesn’t like Harriet, you know,’ Rosie interjected.
‘That’s not true. They’re just different,’ I said.
Noah piped up, through a mouthful, ‘It’s true, Mummy, she told me she thinks she is a huber-less.’
Trust Mum, I laughed to myself, to be competitive with Harriet by bad-mouthing her to the children.
‘Humourless, not a huber-less, you idiot,’ Rosie jeered.
‘Don’t be mean, Rosie,’ I snapped, before remembering our new circumstances. ‘We knew what he meant. And don’t worry, Harriet is going to take a little holiday for a few weeks and Grandma Helen is going to stay with us for a while.’
Rosie stopped shovelling cereal into her mouth for a split second and eyed me suspiciously. ‘Why?’ Rosie asked.
‘Does there need to be a reason?’
I was working on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. There was too much for them to take in for now.
‘Last days Harriet sent us a postcard when she went on holiday,’ Noah said.
‘Yes, last summer. But I’m not sure you’ll get a postcard this time, she might have a lot of college work to do.’
‘But we didn’t get to say goodbye!’ Rosie cried.
‘Don’t worry, she said she’d pop in this week to see you.’
‘And Grandma Helen is looking after us when you and daddy are at work?’
‘Yes, and to help me,’ I added, wondering if they would notice that my mother was to become my shadow, and Rosie’s covert protector for the other side.
‘That’s good,’ Rosie said, smiling and continuing to eat her breakfast.
‘And,’ I said, pausing, to keep their attention, ‘there’ll be another visitor this afternoon.’
Rosie scraped her bowl and the sound of silver spoon on porcelain screamed through the kitchen. ‘Who?’
‘Well, because of everything that’s happened,’ I began, glancing over at Rosie, ‘a lady is coming over to have a chat with us, just to make sure we’re all okay.’
‘What lady?’
‘She’s a social worker.’
Rosie’s spoon clattered into her bowl. ‘Like in Tracy Beaker?’
‘Not exactly like in Tracy Beaker,’ I said, thinking, yes, exactly like in Tracy Beaker.
‘What’s a social worker?’ Noah said.
‘They take children away from their mummies,’ Rosie said, pushing her chair back from the table, ready to bolt.
Noah’s eyes widened.
‘No, no, stop it Rosie, you’re scaring Noah, they don’t do that.’
‘Are you saying that Jacqueline Wilson is a liar?’
‘Tracy Beaker is fiction, darling, you know that,’ I said, evading the very good point she was making.
Rosie stood up.
‘Rosie, sit down. A social worker’s job,’ I said authoritatively, ‘is to make sure children are safe.’
‘But we are safe!’ Rosie cried.
‘Yes, but they don’t know that, so we have to tell them that you are.’
‘I’ll tell them I’m safe,’ Noah said proudly.
‘Yes, darling, of course.’
‘Me too,’ Rosie said, her bottom lip wobbling. ‘I really will this time.’
The ‘this time’ sent a shiver down my spine.
‘Of course you will,’ I said, hugging her, feeling a frisson of hope.
After they had left for school, I headed straight up to Rosie’s bedroom. Her diary was not in its usual place in the drawer of her desk by her bed. I looked under her duvet, in her sock and pants drawer, under things, on top of things, in the toy boxes, in the nooks of her cupboards, in rucksacks, behind her books, everywhere. It was nowhere. She had taken it to school. She didn’t trust me. She had been right not to.
* * *
Before Miranda Slater was due, Peter, my mother and I tried to continue a normal routine as much as possible, but as soon as the children were out of the room, we fell stony silent with nerves.
When the doorbell rang, my mother said, ‘You know where to find me.’ And she moved regally up to the spare room, as though she was quite above such an insult of a Social Services visit.
While Peter waited in the kitchen, both Rosie and Noah hovered behind me as I opened the door. I could hardly breathe I was so worked up.
The children were exceptionally polite, shaking her hand, with brief, timid eye contact.
‘You two can go upstairs and play your games if you like, just while I talk to Mrs Slater.’
I was skittish and over keen to please and I barely made eye contact or registered any detail of her appearance or mannerisms in those first ten minutes, seeing only the generic features of an unfamiliar human being, for whom I had to project the image of our perfect family life. All of my concentration was taken up with this main objective.
When she had called me earlier in the day to warn us of her visit, she had been matter-of-fact in her tone. To her, her visit to our home was business as usual.
While I made a pot of tea, and fanned some digestives onto a plate, she had brought out her notebook and asked Peter and I some basic, seemingly innocuous questions – for example, whether Rosie dressed herself or whether she had any medical conditions – and then she explained the safeguarding agreement that they would draw up and sign. Once we agreed to this – although I was secretly hoping that it would be obsolete quite soon – she had suggested she talk to Rosie alone and ‘look around your home, if that’s all right by you.’
Downstairs, filled with apprehension, and clinging to the possibility that Rosie would confess, I had boiled the kettle to make another cup of tea for Miranda Slater, who liked two sugars.
Peter and I did not dare talk to each other. He pretended to read the newspaper while I cleaned the already clean kitchen. Both of us must have been thinking the same. What would Rosie say? Would she put me in the clear? Was this nightmare about to be over?