‘What is it like?’
‘I think you’re under a lot of pressure and I think it’s getting to you.’
‘Peter, how many times do I have to tell you, she rolled away from me. I didn’t push her that hard.’
‘Listen to yourself. You didn’t push her “that hard”? You shouldn’t have pushed her at all.’
‘Fuck you, Peter.’ And I hung up.
Peter had turned against me. I couldn’t comprehend it.
I was still shaking violently when Lisa came in to tell me I was late for my one o’clock meeting.
Peter called me again and again that night, and I ignored his calls. If he was against me, if he had turned my mother against me, he could fuck off and leave me alone. If they thought I was the bad guy, then fuck them.
Chapter Fifty-Two
TOP SECRET
* * *
Dear Mummy,
* * *
It is 7 days after you left. Granny Helen comes into my room to wake me up every morning but she doesn’t know that I am already wide awake. I wake up early to look outside to see if your car is home. Daddy says that you are not feeling very well and that you need to get better before you come home. Did I make you ill, Mumma? I miss all the voices you use when you read to me at bedtime. Granny Helen sounds like the Sat Nav, all robotic and boring and she only reads three pages! Can you believe it? She gets really grumpy if I don’t eat my supper. She shouts much more than you do. You shout more louder than her, but only when I’m really, really, really naughty and if I have a tantrum. I would NEVER EVER EVER have a tantrum with Granny Helen. I think she would send me to boarding school or something. You would never send me to boarding school.
* * *
Here are the things I promise cross-my-heart-hope-to-die-stick-a-cupcake-in-my-eye to do if you come home: - I promise to brush my teeth the very first time you ask me to. (The toothbrush is DRY!!! HA HA. Remember?) - I promise to be good all the time.
- I promise I won’t cry when I do my homework (even when it is maths and even when I am mega tired).
- I promise never to eat chocolate again.
- I promise never to have another tantrum ever.
- I promise to find all my cardigans from lost property.
- I promise not to fight with Noah (I love Noah).
- I promise not to chat-back to you and be rude.
* * *
INVISIBLE INK ALERT: Mrs E sent me a note in the blue bucket to come to her shed tonight after lights out and I sent her a note back to tell her not to forget the hot chocolate. I want to tell her all about Miranda coming round after you left and all the horrible questions she asked me about my head. Like, seriously, Miranda’s teeth make me feel a bit VOMITTY. They sit on her bottom lip like they are growing out of it and she breaths really loudly. Sometimes I want to stick her dangly pen up her nostrils. Mrs E would NOT laugh about that. She would say I was being mean but Mrs E listens to me, like more than any other grown-up ever. Miss Porter in Literacy says we have two ears and one mouth, that means we should listen twice as much we talk. She says a famous writer said that. But Miss Porter never listens. She just shouts just like all the other grown-ups. In The Little Prince that she reads us, the main character thinks he can’t draw very well because when he draws a Boa Constrictor snake that has eaten an elephant the grown-ups think that the picture looks like a hat (it does a bit!) but now every time I see a hat I think of a Boa Constrictor eating an elephant. How upside down is that? Do you think I will see a hat as a hat when I turn grown-up? Answers on a postcard!
* * *
Love,
Rosie.
* * *
P.S. Daddy never laughs at my jokes anymore and I have to ask him ten times about everything until he hears me. I think I know how you feel when you ask me to brush my teeth, like TEN MILLION TIMES. #thetoothbrushisdry.
P.P.S. I think daddy misses you.
Chapter Fifty-Three
I felt cold and sick as we sat around the large oval table in an institutional grey room to hear the experts decide whether my children were at risk: in my hands, under my care. My children. My children.
Everything rested on this meeting.
Philippa had advised me not to speak. That was okay by me. If anyone had asked me to speak I would have vomited. My mother held my hand under the table. Peter sat on the other side of Philippa and he would not look at me. Dr. Isobel Frayn spoke first. ‘I found a bruise on her left arm, which Rosie informed me was the result of falling off the trim trail in the playground.’
DC Miles checked her notes. ‘The playground monitor, Annie McLean, confirmed that a fall had occurred on November the second.’
I wanted to tell them how long it had taken me to dress Rosie when she was a baby, how gently I had pushed her chubby fists into her sleeves. I wanted to tell them how many kisses I had planted on her face when she fell as a toddler, when she had run ahead before her legs could carry her. I wanted to tell them how I, too, was winded when I saw her fall from a tree onto her back last summer. Why wasn’t I allowed to tell them that?
Miranda Slater spoke next, while she flicked and dangled her smooth grey mane. She had serious concerns about the ‘instability’ caused by my ‘alleged mood swings’ and ‘sudden departure from the home’ coupled with Rosie’s ‘recent head injury and suspected concussion.’
She had rolled away from me. Hadn’t she? Who could I ask to replay what had happened? Peter? What had he seen that I hadn’t?
Philippa Letwin responded in measured tones. ‘Gemma absolutely refutes the allegation that she has in any way harmed Rosie at any point, including that of the incident mentioned, but she feels strongly that the logistics of parenting under the levels of scrutiny and supervision drawn up in the written agreement was stifling and unsettling for the children. Quite selflessly, she believes that Rosie and Noah are now in a stable and secure environment until the hearing, dependent upon Helen and Peter’s continued care.’
But I want to go home now. I have so much to say. Could they see me? Was I invisible?
Miranda nodded, of course, and shared a sideways glance with DC Miles, before adding that ‘consideration should be given as to whether to hold a child-protection conference prior to the child’s birth.’
I clutched my stomach as if she had the power to rip my baby from my womb.
The peripheral view of Peter’s face began to blur, the whole room began to fizz around the edges as my heart leapt haphazardly in my chest.
‘No!’ I cried out, but Philippa held my arm and shot me a warning glance. ‘No, no, no,’ I muttered, under my breath, digging my nails into my thighs.
You’ll never take my baby. Never. Never. Never.
My mother spoke up. I recognised her outrage. Her palm sweated through my trouser leg. Peter spoke. Or mumbled, waffling sheepishly. ‘...wonderful mother... under a lot of stress.’ Numbness spread through me. His regretful ramblings about my ‘uncharacteristic’ behaviour made me cringe. Who was this man who said he loved me?
Philippa said, ‘In terms of her unborn child, with all due respect, I suggest we wait upon the outcome of the ongoing assessment, pending the CPS hearing on December fourth.’
I’ll die if you take my children away from me. Don’t you understand?
Philippa must have seen the horror that had drawn the blood away from my face, for she scribbled on a notepad that she pushed in front of me. Hang in there. It’s almost over.
I was drenched in sweat. I felt it rolling down my back, under my arms, between my swollen breasts. The breasts that had fed my children, that would feed the baby that grew inside me. My role as a mother was being rubbed out, but I held the sensations and memories in my body like painful reminders of the mother I would always be.