The Second Child Read online

  It takes an age before the shot of me holding Rosie appears within the cycle of photos. As I look at it, I realise that I’m more than a little drunk, more than a little tired and not altogether sure that having Rosie back in in our midst is such a good thing after all.

  28

  Journeys

  SARAH

  THE FOLLOWING morning the house is full of noise and activity and I’m too busy getting everyone breakfast to speak much to Anne or Rosie. I confess I’m glad that they’re setting off early. By the time everything is sorted, Lauren is settled and the kitchen is straight, they’re ready for the off. Phil loads their bags into the boot, then there’s a pause. We all shuffle around the car, uncertain of the farewell etiquette. ‘Let’s hope the traffic isn’t too bad.’ Phil bangs the boot shut. Anne smiles wanly. Phil breaks the awkwardness by shoulder-barging Rosie. She responds by shoving him back into the hedge; both of them laugh. ‘You need to use your body more. Less chance of a booking.’ Yet more bloody football talk. Somehow his tackle morphs into a bear hug, and this forces us all into brief, much less spontaneous goodbye hugs. Anne is rigid in my arms. She looks shattered; a lot of her surface shine seems to have worn off, a con-sequence of spending time with us, perhaps? Rosie is equally stiff and unyielding when I hug her. I’m no closer to her now than I was at the start of the visit. She is still resolutely not my daughter. Rosie gives James a goodbye thump on the arm, climbs into the front of the car, pulls the door shut and immediately puts in her earbuds. I feel irritation with her and sympathy for Anne. The whole weekend has been on Rosie’s terms. It’s worked out fine for her and the boys. They’ve hurdled straight over all the problems and done nothing but talk and play football. The house has been full of noise and thudding about and in-jokes about players I’ve never heard of. There’s even been talk of Phil and James going down to see Rosie play in a tournament in a few weeks’ time. Anne and I, and Lauren, have been resolutely excluded from this new alliance, left to try and unpick the snares. We’ve been forced to watch from the sidelines as they’ve sailed past the embarrassment and all the spiky, unsaid differences and simply got on with each other. Ali has tried to help, acting as a go-between, talking to Anne – despite her instinctive dislike of her – pitching in with the meals and, as always, helping me with Lauren. It’s been scant relief, but I’m grateful she’s been around.

  All in all, it’s been a dispiriting weekend.

  As we wave them off, I feel another tug of sympathy for Anne. She has a long drive ahead of her and Rosie looks set to ignore her all the way home. As the car turns at the end of the road and disap-pears, neither of them waves.

  ANNE

  On the drive home Rosie sleeps for the first couple of hours, but just before Leicester she wriggles upright, pulls out her earbuds and asks, politely enough, if we could stop for a break. At the services I wait for her outside the Ladies, watching a stream of mothers and daughters coming and going. She takes her time, but when she finally emerges I spot her immediately, my dark, wary, beautiful daughter.

  ‘Do you fancy a drink, there’s a Costa?’ I say, fully expecting her to say no.

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  I have a black coffee and she orders some iced whipped-cream and mint concoction. Watching her dig her spoon into the creamy mess with such pleasure reminds me that she’s still a child, at least occasionally.

  I risk a question. ‘You seemed to get on well with James?’

  ‘Jim? Yeah, he’s okay.’

  ‘It’s good you have football in common.’

  ‘Yeah. Phil used to play. He’s still not bad.’ Her focus on Phil is understandable, but troubling. Nathan did so much damage when he left, to her and me. She doesn’t look up from her drink. ‘Were you all right?’

  Her concern catches me off-guard. It’s the first time for quite a while that she’s expressed any interest in my feelings. Our late-night chat, snuggled in our respective beds, certainly didn’t materialise. ‘Yes. It was difficult, but like you said the first time we met them, they’re nice people.’ I am, after all, talking about her parents.

  She smiles. ‘I said I’d send Phil my fixtures. They might come down for the Watford tournament and we were thinking, if I get picked to play at Aces…’ I must look at her blankly. ‘The one that’s near here, in June. I did tell you about it. Anyway, if I could get a lift up, they could come down, watch and then take me back up to theirs for a few days afterwards. It’d be half-term. I could get the train back.’ There’s a buzz about her at the thought of it, her face animated and unguarded. I hadn’t realised how much they’d talked, while kicking a ball around in the back garden. Again I have the sense of everything accelerating away from me. I reach for the only brake I can think of.

  ‘Would they bring Lauren down with them?’

  Her expression immediately becomes guarded. ‘I don’t know.’ She pushes her drink away. ‘Sarah would probably stay and look after her. I can’t see them dragging her all the way down south or to Leicester.’ ‘Her’. I notice how unconsciously Rosie avoids using Lauren’s name.

  I ignore the rejected drink and the sudden, twitchy desire to leave, and sip my coffee. ‘Did you get much of a chance to talk to Sarah?’ I immediately know I’ve pushed things too far.

  ‘You know I didn’t. So why are you asking?’ She stands up. ‘I’m going to look in the shop, I’ll see you in there.’ And with that, she walks off.

  ROSIE

  On Monday at school I just can’t concentrate. At break time I dodge Kennedy and go up to French early, on my own. Luckily the room is unlocked. It’s hard to find anywhere quiet around school. I won’t go in the girls’ loos. They stink.

  I emailed Phil my fixtures as soon as I got home, but there’s been nothing from him, not last night or this morning. I’ve checked, loads of times. He normally messages me straight away, or at least faster than this. At last there’s something from him in my in-box. He sent it at 10.13 a.m. It’s a long email with attachments. I skim-read it. He is coming to my tournament, with Jim and Sarah. I feel a bubble of happiness. I can show them what I can do, that I’m good, that it’s not all talk, and I can wipe the smirk off Jim’s face. For the first time ever I will have my dad watching me play football. After years of everyone else having their dads there, I will have someone there for me. What should I say to the girls? I’ll have to start telling people now. Now that they’re in my life. Despite how screwed up it all is, I think it might feel good saying that my real dad is coming to watch me. And that I have a brother, and an aunt, and a grandfather, and Sarah.

  I reread the message. There’s lots about how much they enjoyed me staying with them at the weekend, how they loved getting to know me a bit more, that I’m always welcome at theirs, but it doesn’t say anything about Leicester. The bubble pops. If they can come all the way down to Watford, why can’t they come to Leicester, it has to be closer? And if they don’t come to Leicester, then I won’t be going back up to theirs for half-term. It’s probably something to do with Lauren. Everything revolves around her. I don’t know how Jim stands it. Meal times, where they can and can’t go, even what time everyone goes to bed. It’s like having a baby, except she’s not a baby, she’s a big lump of a teenager. I click on the attachments. Phil has sent some pictures from the weekend. There’s a few with everyone together at the dining table, Mum looking uptight and Sarah fussing over Lauren like she always does, but the best pictures are the ones Ali took in the back garden. There’s a great one of me skinning Jim, and a funny one of Phil skying a shot over next door’s fence. Ali has even managed to get the ball in the shot. The last one is of the three of us, grinning like idiots. It’s a really happy picture: me, Phil and Jim.

  I hear shouting outside in the corridor, people starting to move to their next lessons. I save the picture as my new screensaver.

  Me, my dad and my brother.

  29

  Watford

  SARAH

  ALI AND Jess come over to look after
Lauren, as planned. Ali still has pillow creases on her cheek it’s so early, but Jess, as always, looks fantastic. They wave us off – the perfect odd couple.

  The trip down to Watford feels quite liberating. It’s such a break from the routine. The fry-up at Nottingham services takes on a giddy air. It’s so long since the three of us did anything without Lauren. There’s no trawling for a disabled space in the car park, no division of labour at the food counters, no weight-lifting Lauren in the loo. It’s relaxed. With bellies stuffed full, we slide back onto the motorway. Phil drives and bickers happily with James about music, while I sit and watch the fields and pylons whizz by. I know better than to express any opinion about the playlist. My eyelids flutter and close.

  ‘It was never only twenty minutes. You were snoring all the way to Northampton.’ James is adamant.

  Phil just smiles. ‘Leave your mum alone.’

  We get slightly lost trying to find the pitches, but, as we set off before the crack of dawn, we still arrive in plenty of time, for a change. Finding Rosie amongst the sea of ponytailed footballers is less easy. There seems to be hundreds of fit, tall, long-haired teenage girls. Thankfully, Phil and James remember that her football strip is blue-and-white stripes. James spots her team and we head over, threading our way alongside the pitches, past the groups of supporting families with their gazebos and monster picnic boxes, and the piles of girls strewn on the grass, lacing up boots and rooting through kit bags. As we approach, Rosie sees us and starts waving. For the first time I feel a ripple of pleasure at seeing her.

  ROSIE

  Megan’s dad gives us a lift to Watford. There are five of us squashed in his Golf. I make sure it’s Holly who’s pressed up next to me. Stacey’s kit never smells too fresh. We let her have the front seat.

  ‘Are you excited about them coming?’ Stacey sticks her head through the gap between the front seats, desperate to get the lowdown.

  They all look at me, waiting to see my reaction. ‘A bit.’

  ‘God, it must be sooo weird! Do you think we’ll recognise them – like, you know, do you look like them?’

  ‘Stacey!’ Holly bops her on the head. ‘You can’t say things like that.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’m starting to get used to it.’

  ‘Is your brother coming?’ Beth asks, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How old is he again?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Does he play?’ Beth asks, all fake innocence, and that sets them all off cackling.

  Megan’s dad pleads, ‘Jeez, girls, could you possibly make any more noise?’ But he’s joking and the mood in the car bubbles round me. He puts on the radio and the girls start screeching along to the music. I lean my head against the car window, happy that my mates are going to meet them. Phil will be okay, friendly with them, but not OTT, nothing creepy. And Beth will bust a gut when she sees Jim, because I suppose he is quite fit. Finally the two bits of my life feel like they’re coming together.

  SARAH

  I needn’t have worried about how it would be with Rosie, because we barely have time to talk to her between the matches. The most awkward ten minutes are at the beginning.

  She looks different in her football kit and, with her hair pulled back off her face in a simple ponytail, she looks younger. She smiles and hugs Phil, does some kind of awkward arm-slap thing with James, then gives me a brief hug. I feel her bony shoulder blades beneath the slippy material of her football shirt, and the brief pressure of her hands on my arms. Behind us an audience of her blatantly curious teammates look on. Rosie then surprises me by turning to the other girls and, with manners that Anne would be proud of, introduces us as ‘My mum and dad, Phil and Sarah, and my brother Jim.’ With a curious sweetness, they all chorus back ‘Hi’ and wave, then Rosie drags Phil off to introduce him to their coach, leaving James and I standing there.

  A leggy blonde girl quickly scrambles to her feet. ‘Hi, I’m Stacey. Centre-mid. Rosie says you play?’ James looks both horrified and flattered, but confirms that he’s in a team. One of the other girls toes a ball towards him, which he duly kicks back. Two more girls get to their feet. The pretty brunette says, ‘Fancy a kickabout?’ He glances at me for permission, but I know I’ve already lost him. As stealth flirting goes, it’s all fairly impressive. By the beginning of the second match James is ensconced as the team mascot, with the more confident girls taking it in turns to laugh at everything he says and share their Haribos with him. He’s in his element.

  The matches are swift and surprisingly furious. It’s very physical. Some of the tackles make me wince. Rosie’s team seems to be doing quite well, though their coach spends most of the time yelling and gesticulating wildly at them. The other parents, mostly dads, smile at us, but say very little. There’s a tea round mid-morning and I offer to carry supplies back with a bloke who turns out to be someone called ‘Megan’s dad’. No reference is made to the peculiarity of our situation, but as we walk back, slopping tea out of the overfilled paper cups, he says, ‘She’s a great little player, your Rosie. Trains hard. Listens, unlike a lot of them.’ His kindness is just one of the high points of the day. During the lunch break the sun comes out and some of the parents and girls troop off to the barbecue, and come back with piles of cheeseburgers and cans of Coke. These are wolfed down alongside a selection of random food contributions: iced buns, veggie samosas and Ritz biscuits. How they can eat so much grease, then kick a ball amazes me. Rosie drifts between her friends and us, talking tactics to Phil and studying the fixture list. The whole day has an ease and normality that’s lovely. I text home more than once. Ali texts straight back to say everything is fine at home and to quit worrying.

  We – that is, Rosie’s team – play the last group game fairly soon after lunch. It’s a tough match against an opposition that Phil keeps telling me ‘are very organised’. My eyes track Rosie as she runs back and forth on the pitch. She’s one of the quieter ones on the team, which surprises me. At one point she makes a run down the wing in front of us, and for a split second she catches my eye as she powers past. I’m shouting along with the rest of them, and I can see in her eyes that she’s happy.

  We scrape a 0–0 draw, then the huddles and arguing start.

  ‘We’re out.’

  ‘No, we’re not, it’ll come down to goal difference.’

  Fifteen minutes later we seem to be playing in a semi-final, so it must have gone Rosie’s team’s way. The match has only been going five minutes when someone smacks a ball really hard. It flies down-field and catches Rosie full in the face, just as she turns round. I hear the sickening thwack and see her neck snap backwards. The referee blows his whistle and for an instant it goes oddly quiet. All the girls stop running. Rosie doesn’t fall down, but you can tell that it’s nasty. Watching the ref and a few of her teammates gather round her makes my stomach feel watery. When they wave the coach on, I start thinking about concussion and ambulances. The coach walks her off the pitch, his arm around her, shepherding her back to us. There’s a deep-red welt on Rosie’s face and she’s obviously struggling not to cry.

  ‘Just come off for a few minutes.’ The coach is already looking past Rosie, summoning her replacement.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘You’re not. It’s a blow to the head. We have to have you off.’ The coach appeals to Phil.

  ‘Rosie. Come here. Let me see.’ He holds her face gently in his hands and studies it. She stands perfectly still, her head tilted, sniffing back tears of pain and frustration, but obviously calming down. ‘Well, it’s a good job you were plug-ugly before you started. No one will ever be able tell the difference.’ For a second I think he’s completely misjudged it, then she laughs and he drops his hands onto her shoulders. I stand back, uncertain of my role.

  The match restarts and attention returns to the game. Even Phil seems to forget Rosie’s injury within a few seconds, caught up, as they all are, in the football. But I’ve lost inte
rest. We score and everyone leaps about a bit, but not Rosie. She looks pale and I can see she’s shivering. I remember that somewhere in the mountain of boot bags and kit is her top. I go over and start digging through the pile. Coats, fleeces, hoodies, it’s a great stew of discarded clothes, most of it an identical dark blue. I can see Rosie hugging herself on the touchline, her slender back to me. Number 12. I keep pawing through the pile until I find her top. When I pass it to her, she glances down and smiles when she sees her number. She pulls it over her head. As her marked face emerges, she says, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You still look pale.’ I can hear that I’m fussing.

  ‘I’ll be all right. I’ve got a hard head.’

  ‘If you feel sick you will say, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d tell you. Don’t worry, I was just a bit cold.’

  ‘Okay.’ She turns her attention back to the match. It’s a small crumb, but I cherish it, she said she’d tell me.

  ‘Maybe Gary’ll let me back on in the final.’ Another goal goes in. The shouting this time comes from the other side of the pitch.

  I get my secret wish. They lose the match, which avoids any possibility of Rosie playing again. One girl on the team bursts into tears, another has a temper tantrum, but the rest seem remarkably sanguine. There’s a raid on the tuck shop, more sugar is consumed and the mood immediately lifts. It feels like a team effort as we carry all the stuff back to the car park. As the girls hurl their bags into Megan’s dad’s car, we stand a little way off, ready for our goodbyes.

  ‘You will tell your mum you had a bang on the head, won’t you, Rosie?’ She half-nods, but it doesn’t fill me with confidence. ‘It’s been a lovely day. I’ve really enjoyed it.’