The Second Child Read online

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need you to be more explicit, Anne. If you want me to advise you legally you need to be clear.’

  Heaven forbid that he should advise me emotionally or morally, like a real friend and confidant. I wonder, not without anxiety, what the bill for these two days will come to. I clarify for him. ‘Yes or no – whatever. Meeting her hasn’t changed my initial reactions.’ Just wrenched open my heart.

  He keeps pushing me. ‘My dear Anne, I need you to articulate your thoughts for me. Brutal honesty: you are my client. I’m here to protect your and Rosie’s interests in this whole sorry affair, but I need to know exactly how you want me to play it…’ – he corrects himself – ‘approach it. It’ll be important when we get to the inevitable nitty-gritty of the “arrangements”.’ He leans back in his chair and actually steeples his fingers together, the model of an old-school lawyer.

  Brutal honesty is what he wants. Honesty, of a sort, is what I give him. ‘My priority is keeping Rosie.’

  ‘And by “keeping” you mean…?’

  ‘Just what I said, keeping her. She’s still my daughter. Not genetically, but I’ve raised her, loved her, protected her for all these years. That has to count. I can’t face the thought of life without her.’

  ‘And we will make a strong case on those grounds. As you point out, you’ve raised Rosie in a stable, loving home for the past fourteen years – that’s obviously going to be pivotal. The close bond between mother and daughter will be central to our position: a single mother and her only daughter.’ His pause is stagily dramatic, he’s obviously imagining his performance before the Family Court, but he stumbles immediately into awkwardness; his insight into my relationship with Rosie over the past couple of days seems to have called into question the strength of that bond. He hurries on, steering a path away from the murky waters of how Rosie and I feel about one another. ‘More complicated are your intentions towards your biological daughter?’

  My intentions towards Lauren are… are what?

  I look at him sitting smugly opposite me. How Teflon is he really, beneath his well-fitting, expensive clothes and his close shave? ‘I don’t know.’ He’s listening properly now. I speak slowly and quietly, making him lean forward so that he can catch every word. ‘But I want you to contact Nathan’s people and find out what he’s planning, with regard to our financial responsibilities, especially in the light of Lauren’ needs. He has a role in all this as well, whatever he may think. And he has the wealth. I’m sure he won’t object, as long as he can stay away from the actual distress and mess.’

  Callum keeps his views on Nathan to himself, as he always has done. Nathan does, after all, pay the bills. ‘And,’ Callum hesitates, ‘with regard to the involvement going forward… for both girls?’

  ‘I think, at least to start with, that it should be limited.’ Now he does falter, afraid to ask more, so I lay it out for him, keeping my voice low just in case Rosie can hear through the paper-thin walls. I need to protect what I have, and all I have is her. ‘I shall, of course, encourage Rosie to have contact with them, it would be unnatural to deny that. She has a right – a need – to get to know them.’ I actually hate the thought of her getting to know them, of her being seduced by their warmth and noise. ‘But I would prefer the contact to be, at least initially, by phone and email.’

  ‘But you envisage visits further down the line?’

  ‘Well, it will need careful planning and scheduling, given the distance and Rosie’s school work; we have to be careful not to disrupt her life too much at present. It’s a critical period.’

  ‘I still think we need to start setting some parameters before the meeting this morning. Frequency, duration, where they will stay on visits? There’s also the issue of any unsupervised access.’

  ‘They.’ He’s factoring in Lauren. The black silt in the pit of my stomach shifts. I need to focus on Rosie. She’s my priority in this. I haven’t had time to work out my feelings about Lauren. They are too complicated and too painful. ‘I feel dreadfully upset about Lauren.’ He nods. ‘It’s a huge shock, the level of her disability.’ Another nod. ‘I really need time to come to terms with it all.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Anne, but they’re going to want to know what your intentions are beyond the financial provision; indeed, if we begin by offering monetary support, they may see that as tantamount to you stepping away from any parental responsibility for her.’

  I stand up abruptly and turn away from him, going over to the window for want of anywhere else to remove myself to. ‘Callum, stop. Please, for God’s sake, just stop for a minute. It’s impossible.’ I can feel my heartbeat pulsing in my neck. He doesn’t move. In my defence, I attack. ‘What would you do if it were you? Go on, what the hell would you do in my position?’

  And he finally has the good grace to admit, ‘I’ve no idea.’

  And so we go into the meeting with very little clear, other than my conviction that the less Rosie sees of them, the better.

  Unfortunately everyone else in the room, including Rosie, seems to have the opposite desire. After an unstoppable couple of hours we have somehow agreed protocols for Rosie to communicate directly with the whole Rudak family, and we have pencilled in another get-together, this time unsupervised, in a mere two weeks’ time, at their home. That way, I can see how they’ve adapted the environment for Lauren and I will have a chance to get to understand her far better in her home setting. Callum makes ineffective forays into slowing things down, but Daniel frustrates his interventions with the force of a man on a mission. Somehow it’s the informality of the meeting that defeats Callum, that and their sheer numbers, because this time the flamboyant sister and the boy join in and, to everyone’s surprise, Rosie speaks a few times and each time she does, she agrees with everything that is suggested. I notice, with profound unease, how often she glances at Phil for support.

  It’s all moving too fast for me. I end up as a bystander in my own life, with decisions being forged and bound together into a firm plan because I simply do not know how to articulate ‘no’ in the face of such moral and emotional compulsion.

  26

  The Home Visit

  ANNE

  A FORTNIGHT later I pull up outside their house and put the handbrake on. I’m just about to warn Rosie about rushing things, when she yanks open the door, hurries round the car and up the path. I have literally delivered her to them. Before she has a chance to knock, the door swings open and I see Phil welcome her in. I sit for a few seconds composing myself, before I realise that he has come out of the house and is waiting to say hello. He takes the bags from the boot. ‘Decent trip? You found us okay then? It’s great to have you here.’ This is what it will be like all weekend, awkward niceties and endless cups of tea.

  It’s a small terraced house on a nice, tree-lined street. Leading up to the front door is a metal ramp that slices a pretty front garden in half. Phil is still talking. ‘Come on through. Sarah’s got the kettle on.’ As I follow him in, carrying my gift, I wonder what he’s really thinking, behind his breezy welcome. We each have our own purgatories to get through over the next two days.

  PHIL

  Rosie is here, but within ten minutes of setting foot in our house I can see that the pressure of being trapped under everyone’s watchful eye is too much for her. She keeps glancing at the back door as if she’s plotting an escape. I feel the same, but as I’m an adult I don’t have the option to leg it. When I suggest that I show her up to her/James’s room so that she can unpack, she leaps up and follows me.‘You’re in here.’ I push open the door, and panic. Sarah spent the whole morning trying to make it acceptable, cleaning and polishing and stuffing as much of James’s crap out of sight as possible, but it still looks a bit of pit – a pit made even smaller and more cramped by the addition of a spare mattress on the floor. I’m guessing it’s nothing like her room at home. ‘Sorry. James has a lot of stuff and, what with the other bed, you and your mum are going to be clim
bing over each other, I’m afraid.’ Rosie’s expression is unreadable, which I find quite impressive in the circumstances. ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you to get settled in. There’s no rush to come down, but we’re planning on going out later, if you fancy it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She drops her bag on James’s bed, which has not been transformed by the addition of a floral duvet and a cushion from the front room, and flops down beside it.

  ‘See you when you’re ready.’

  I make myself re-join the welcome party in the kitchen, though there’s nothing festive about the atmosphere. Talking to Anne is like pulling teeth. Thankfully, it appears to be Ali’s turn to play dentist. When I walk back into the room Ali’s trying to get a conversation going, but Anne just smiles and nods and volunteers very little. It turns into a peculiarly dull, one-sided interview, with Anne ever so politely deflecting Ali’s questions, and Ali doggedly lobbing more across the table at her. It’s like watching someone with a vicious serve, but no groundstrokes, battling against a consummate touch player.

  The last fortnight has given me a new appreciation of my sister-in-law. Ali’s stubbornness has always irritated me; that, and her ever-presence in our lives, forever popping round, having an opinion, always late, always hungry, but I acknowledge that we’d have struggled without her. She’s come to our rescue over and over again with Lauren, and with James and, as I watch her bat against Anne, I feel a sneaking admiration for her. Tenacious, with just a hint of mad bitch, it’s not such a bad combo in some circumstances.

  All three of us jump when the door bangs open and Lauren crawls in, followed by Sarah. If it’s possible for Anne to look any more uncomfortable, she does. I stand guard as Lauren awkwardly but effectively levers herself up onto her chair, using the table edge and the chair arm. I know not to help her; she’s fiercely independent about the things she can do. Sarah puts a plate of toast, cucumber and small cheese squares in front of Lauren and is rewarded with a big grin that is immediately replaced by a mouth full of cheese. Lauren loves cheese. I catch Sarah’s eye and we smile as she scoffs her lunch, but as Sarah turns away to make more tea, I catch sight of Anne, and for an unguarded second, I see the look of distaste on her face, a glimpse of her real feelings behind the fixed, anodyne smile? Sarah puts the mugs down and joins us at the table, talking quickly like she does when she’s nervous. ‘It’s lovely having you here. Thank you. I know it’s a long way.’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’ Anne can suck the oxygen out of a room faster than anyone I’ve ever met.

  ‘Will you and Rosie be okay in James’s room? I’m sorry, I know it’s a bit of a squeeze.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

  Another lumpy silence settles at the table. Ali has finally conceded defeat and is texting, furiously. Jess, I’m guessing. I’m in no mood to take over, preferring to watch Lauren stuff bread and cheese into her mouth, at speed, which leaves Sarah to try and resuscitate the conversation. ‘We thought we’d maybe take a walk to the park this afternoon. Get some fresh air. It’s not far.’ Anne nods and smiles. The toaster ticks noisily as it cools on the side. I’m on the verge of talking about the weather when, before I can stop her, Lauren crams the last piece of bread into her already-full mouth, picks up her plate and skims it, Frisbee-style, across the room. The plastic plate bounces off a cabinet door and rattles to the floor. Cucumber slices fly everywhere. Anne flinches.

  ‘You know we don’t do that. That’s naughty!’ Sarah scolds. Lauren’s speed-eating and random plate-throwing are habits that Sarah has been trying hard to discourage, but they make me smile; they’re a show of will, proof of her personality and her dislike of cucumber. Lauren is unfazed by her telling off and merely signs for her tablet, or it could be a cake – sometimes it’s hard to distinguish her requests. ‘No! If you throw things, you can’t have it,’ Sarah tells her. This is met with a sulky expression and defiance. Lauren then decides that sliding dangerously down in her chair might get her what she wants. Sarah leaps up to intervene and a tussle ensues. I can see that she’s struggling, both with Lauren and with embarrassment. Anne’s carefully averted eyes do nothing to lessen the tension.

  ‘Lauren,’ Ali steps in to help before I do. ‘Sit up properly. If you’re a good girl and sit nicely you can have my phone, but you have to sit up properly, right this minute.’ Ali knows that firmness, repetition and a decent bribe normally work. Lauren pushes herself upright and settles down. The tension ebbs. Ali passes Lauren her phone, relinquishing her lifeline.

  ‘I’m sorry, she’s testing her boundaries a bit at the moment,’ Sarah says. ‘She’s normally very well behaved. She’s a happy child…’ – she stumbles – ‘teenager.’ The correction is for Anne’s benefit; before all this started we thought of Lauren as a child because in everything, other than her age, she is.

  Anne stirs herself. ‘Rosie can have her moments, as well.’ But plate-throwing and sliding off chairs aren’t, we all suspect, among them. Lauren has obviously found what she wants, because she starts chuckling. Then Sarah does something that surprises me. She pushes her mug aside, reaches across the table and lays her hand over Anne’s. ‘I know this must be hard for you. We’re used to Lauren, it’s normal for us, we’ve had years to get used to how she is; you haven’t. You’ve had to arrive in the middle and it must be difficult. I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted if I’d known from the beginning what she – what we – were facing. But we didn’t. We just brought her home as a baby and went from there.’ She keeps her hand over Anne’s as she makes her speech.

  Anne unbends a little. ‘Thank you. I am struggling, if I’m honest. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive. I just don’t know how to be with her. I feel so inadequate, and I’m finding not being able to talk to her so difficult. It’s the communication, the not knowing how to…’ The sentence trails away. Sarah lifts her hand to push her hair out of her eyes and Anne abruptly stands up. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I might just go for a lie-down for half an hour, if that’s okay? It was a long drive. Let me know if you do decide to go to the park, I’d like to come along.’ And she walks out, deftly avoiding the cucumber still stuck to the floor.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Ali’s pent-up frustration explodes, the second Anne’s out of the room, but, I suspect, not out of earshot. Again a flush of affection for Ali catches me off-guard.

  Not so Sarah. ‘Ali! Give her a break… And you can pack it in as well.’ I wasn’t conscious I was pulling a face until Sarah chides me.

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘No, but it’s written all over your face.’ Ali and I exchange a conspiratorial look.

  ‘Well! Retiring upstairs for a lie-down, like some Victorian lady. And it’s ironic that she thinks that communicating with Lauren is the problem, when she barely says anything herself.’ Ali humphs.

  ‘She’s stressed,’ Sarah counters.

  ‘So everybody keeps saying.’ Ali’s not buying it.

  ‘Please, Ali, not now.’ Sarah warns. They stare at each other for a few seconds before Sarah has the last word. ‘I’m really not in the mood. We need to make this weekend bearable, so can we please all just try. Okay?’ Ali backs off, but not down. It’s the same old sisterly dynamic of skirmish and truce that they’ve been playing out for years, but this time it feels different, because this time I’m on Ali’s side.

  ANNE

  There are very few places to escape to in such a small house. I head upstairs to our designated room, James’s den. Apparently Rosie and I are sharing. I could tell that Rosie was silently horrified when Sarah explained the sleeping arrangements. It’s been a very long time since we shared a room together, but I was pleased. Perhaps the enforced proximity will do us good, give us a chance to talk. Maybe, when the light goes out, we’ll find a way of getting back to the closeness we used to have. Or maybe not. Because just as I reach the top of the stairs, Rosie appears out of James’s room. She brushes past me and heads downstairs, preferring their company to mine.
On the landing I pause. Lauren’s bedroom is at the back of the house next to the bathroom. The door has one of those plastic plaques that you get at the seaside stuck to it, with Lauren picked out in pearly seashells. Depressed by the thought of hiding away in James’s room, I venture inside.

  Like so many things about Lauren, it’s disorientating. It’s a child’s room for a teenager. There’s a pile of soft toys on the floor and a mobile suspended from the ceiling. The slowly rotating grey and black whales drift in the breeze from the open window. There’s a star night-light screwed to the wall beside the bed and fairy lights pinned around a mirror. It’s pretty, but very childish. There’s no make-up, no hair straighteners, no jumble of iPod and phone leads. On a shelf, out of reach, are some medicines and creams and there are wipes and nappies stacked in the bedside cabinet. I sit on the bed, taking in my surroundings. Underneath the bright, patterned duvet it’s the type of bed you’d find in an old people’s home; it has a remote control for raising and lowering the mattress and sides that can be pulled up. The whole house is full of these reminders of her disabilities.

  But at least it’s quiet in here and I’m unobserved.

  The sister, Ali, is relentless. Sarah and Phil have been careful around me, sensitive to my feelings, but the sister is a bulldozer, digging aggressively into our lives and my intentions. She even asked about Nathan. Sly questions about what he does for a living, when we got divorced and how much contact he has with Rosie. I really don’t think I can bear the scrutiny. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, a pale-faced middle-aged woman, hiding in a child’s bedroom, and feel a profound sense of shame and weakness. I still can’t think of Lauren as my child. I reach for my bag and unzip the inside pocket. I allow myself one more pill. I need to stay calm, but I also need to concentrate. I wait for the Fluoxetine to take effect, soothed by the quiet of being alone. From the pile of soft toys on the floor I extract a toy, a rabbit. It’s made of some sort of plush velveteen, the colour of brown sugar, with floppy ears and heavy paws. I run my fingers across the fabric, soothing myself. Rosie had a dog that was very similar, a present from me the year she started nursery. She carted it everywhere for a while: to school, in and out of the car, to the shops, into bed every night, even into the bath on one occasion. I used to read to her and her ‘puppy’ every evening before she settled to sleep. She had a habit of sucking its long ears, making them damp and unpleasant to touch, when she was anxious, which was, sadly, fairly often. She adored Nathan when she was small. Her little soul struggled badly with his sudden disappearance from her life. I didn’t handle it well. Not at all. I wasn’t in a fit state to cope with her pain as well as mine, though I know that’s a poor excuse. A good mother would have been put her child first. I’d forgotten about the dog and its importance to Rosie around that awful time. One night, after a particularly bitter conversation with Nathan on the phone, and the subsequent lonely battle to calm myself down, I went up to bed feeling defeated. I lay down on top of the covers fully clothed, too beaten to get undressed and washed. I remember that I pulled the top cover over me and rolled onto my side, wanting nothing more than to disappear; and there, propped between the pillows, was Rosie’s dog.