A Last Kiss for Mummy (10 page)

The meeting she’d had with CAMHS had gone well too. As I’d expected, but obviously couldn’t take for granted, they weren’t too worried about her, having decided that the incident had been a one-off, probably triggered by the stress of her unusual circumstances. Their feeling was that she didn’t present a danger to herself or others, so they were happy to leave it at that. They were there, of course; the door was open if we had the slightest concern about her, or felt things were going downhill, but for now they were happy to sign her off.

Which was great news. But there was still a baby-shaped elephant present in the room whatever happened or didn’t happen. And a Hannah-shaped elephant as well. And after a positive meeting with the latter on the Monday evening of the second week, everything did indeed begin sliding downhill. I didn’t know if the two things were related – perhaps they weren’t, perhaps it was just coincidence – but the day after Hannah’s visit, and the pleasure of all those lovely positive noises she was making, Emma didn’t get in from school till gone five-thirty.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ I asked her when she finally rolled up. ‘Did you have something on after school that you forgot to tell me about or what?’ Though I asked her the question, I knew very well that wouldn’t have been the case. This wasn’t a place that did after-school activities; just getting through a normal school day would be challenging enough for some of the pupils there.

Emma treated me to the traditional fourteen-year-old eye-roll – not the best start to any attempt to appease me. But it seemed she wasn’t about to try and make excuses for herself anyway. ‘God, Casey, it’s not
that
late,’ she came back at me. ‘I’ve just been hanging out with a couple of my friends. Can’t you take a chill pill?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t. You have a baby here that needs feeding and playing with and bathing and changing, and I have a meal to prepare. Honestly,’ I said, as she followed me into the kitchen, ‘I’m disappointed, Emma. And after you impressed Hannah so much yesterday, as well.’

She rolled her eyes again and this time accompanied it with a heavy dramatic sigh. ‘God, I knew you’d bring
her
up. I just knew it!’

It seemed to set the tone for the next few days. The following night – late again, even if not by quite the same margin – saw her scowling when I asked her to change Roman’s nappy and then, when I impressed upon her that I’d had a busy and trying day, got back ‘God, can’t Casey-the-queen-of-the-carers cope?’

Which was the sort of backchat that would normally be water off a duck’s back for me. Sure, I wouldn’t stand for it, and with the kids on our specialist programme it would have resulted in an immediate loss of privileges, but it certainly wouldn’t get to me, not from a petulant fourteen-year-old. But this time it did get to me – proof positive that the baby minding was exhausting me. ‘Yes, the “queen of the carers” can cope perfectly well, thank you. No, young lady, I’ll tell you what the matter is, shall I?’ I railed at her. ‘I don’t appreciate you taking advantage of me, that’s what. You have a phone, so if you’re going to be late, then I’d appreciate it if you’d use it. I look after Roman so you can get yourself some education, not so you can come and go as you please!’

I could see Roman looking anxiously at the sudden commotion from his new high chair, and made a real effort to calm myself down. This was helping no one. Even Emma now looked shocked at my unexpected tirade. But perhaps that was no bad thing. That’s what she’d lacked all her life. Boundaries. Good old-fashioned boundaries. ‘Look,’ I said more quietly. ‘Would you please deal with Roman. I have things to do, tea to prepare, calls to make.’ And seeing her assessing me and realising she might just have got away with it, I added, ‘And don’t think I’m going to put up with any more of this.’

Once they’d both gone upstairs and I’d got the kitchen straight I felt a little less frazzled. Though it occurred to me that perhaps we had only just begun to get to know the real Emma, that the traumatised, shy and vulnerable child-mother we’d taken in was only that as a result of her circumstances. In reality, this was a youngster who’d been at the receiving end of a very patchy and damaging childhood and who, as a consequence, had probably become a very different animal – a girl used to having no one particularly mind, or care, what she got up to. Not until Tarim had come along, at least. It was ironic, I thought, as I beat Mike’s potatoes to a mushy pulp, that with Tarim in prison and my enthusiasm for getting Emma to reclaim some of her childhood, she was potentially going right back to what brought her to us in the first place, a girl who was used to being her own boss, answerable to no one – least of all a drink- and drugs-addicted mother. So having someone like me in her life, expecting her to toe the line, was a novel and unwelcome development. No wonder she balked at it. No wonder it caused friction. No doubt there would be further fun and games …

I would have that confirmed, as it turned out, only a scant couple of nights later, when she rolled up from school at 6 p.m. Worse than that, though, was that there was something new and unsavoury in the equation: the unmistakable smell of alcohol on her breath.

‘Have you been drinking?’ I asked her as she walked past me to get a glass of water. She didn’t answer. She merely grinned and shook her head.

‘I’m serious, Emma,’ I told her, following her to the sink to study her better. She had a slight sheen of sweat about her and looked generally a bit off-colour. ‘Have you had a drink?’ I demanded. ‘Truth now.’

‘Oh, so what if I have,’ she said. ‘Don’t I deserve one after all the shit I go through? Anyway, please don’t start all this tonight. I’m
really
not in the mood.’

I was struck by her choice of words as much as her tone when she said them. Pound to a penny, I thought, her mother had said exactly that to her, and more than once. But now the tables had turned. And how appalling would it be if she jumped with both feet straight into her mother’s shoes now. I had no choice but to give her both barrels. ‘Emma,’ I said levelly. ‘How
dare
you speak to me like that. All I do is look after your baby all day long for you, and –’

She looked at me over the glass she was now drinking from, her eyes narrowed. Then she lowered it. ‘I didn’t ask you to do that, did I? You offered!’

‘– and look after
you
,’ I continued over her, ‘from the minute you get home. Look after
both
of you. And I will not have you drinking while you’re under my roof.’

‘Well, it wasn’t under your roof, was it?’ she retorted. Then she laughed, but without mirth. ‘And why you off on one anyway?’ She was slurring, I could see it now. ‘You get paid for doing it, don’t you? ’s not like you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart!’

I was that cross with Emma now that I needed something to fix on, so I went and plucked the baby from his high chair. My hands were shaking, I realised. And I could hardly bring myself to even look at her.

‘Get upstairs and go to your bedroom,’ I told her. ‘You’re obviously in no fit state to see to Roman. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Go on, hop it.’

She looked befuddled for a moment, but then her expression hardened, and she carried on drinking. And in that one instant I could see the depth of the damage in her innocent little girl’s eyes. This was her territory. Drunken, vicious mother. Spiteful tongues. Casual cruelty. This was definitely her territory and I wanted no part in it.

‘Go to your room, please,’ I repeated, slowly and quietly.

She drained her glass. ‘Suits me fine!’ she barked at me, slamming it down on the draining board. ‘You think he’s your kid anyway! An’ you better make the most of it, hadn’t you? Because little d’you know that’s all about to change. Yeah,
that’s
right,’ she said, as I cradled Roman’s head against my neck. ‘Cos his daddy’s out any day now and he’ll soon put a stop to all this “taking my fucking baby away” crap.’

And with that she practically staggered out, slammed the door, and lumbered heavily up the stairs, where hopefully she’d stay till she’d at least slept some of it off.

I stroked Roman’s head absently as I stared at the kitchen door. Out of prison? If that were true then she was right. Things
would
be about to change. But there was something more pressing: how the
hell
didn’t I know about it?

Emma, that night, had been contrite. She came downstairs again, at around 8 p.m., puffy-eyed and pale, having presumably had a nap and (with the alcohol slowly wearing off now) a feeling of remorse beginning to wash over her. She apologised profusely, told me she wished she could take back all the nasty things she’d said to me, and then tearfully attended to Roman’s needs for the rest of the evening and night. I didn’t know if it was partly motivated by the report she knew I’d have to write for Hannah – which must have been on her mind – but when Saturday came, and Sunday, and she seemed to be making a real effort to make amends, I allowed myself to believe she really meant it.

But now it was the following Friday, and almost 7.30 in the evening, and once again she wasn’t home from school. And as I jiggled a disconsolate Roman around on my shoulder and tried to do everything one handed, I reflected that the city of Rome wasn’t built in a day any more than its tiny namesake.

I was disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised by Emma’s intermittent progress. In my line of work you would have to be extremely naïve to think that torn childhoods could be stitched back together quite that easily. It was mostly one step forwards then two – maybe even three – steps back with these children, till the happy day dawned when the numbers began reversing. And I was well aware that the one subject that Emma had skirted around most deftly since the previous week was that of Tarim. Yes, he was due out of prison fairly soon, she’d confirmed, but no, she didn’t know quite when – he didn’t either, apparently – she’d just said ‘any day now’ for effect. I had no choice but to accept that, whether I believed her or didn’t. And my plan, given that I was next scheduled to speak with Maggie the following Wednesday, was to ask her what, if anything, she knew in that respect.

Rightly or wrongly, what I didn’t want to do was act too hastily. Emma had spent most of her life, it seemed, being told by her mother that she was a piece of rubbish, so I knew that if I didn’t accept both her apology and her assurance that I could, from now on, trust her, I would just be adding to the weight of worthlessness she already felt – a sure-fire recipe for reversing such progress as we’d already made.

But that required Emma not to abuse the trust I’d placed in her, didn’t it? I glanced at the kitchen clock again and sighed heavily. And here she was doing just that.

‘So, how long do you think we should give it before calling out the cavalry?’ Mike asked, coming back into the kitchen with the last of the washing up. We’d gone ahead and eaten – Mike’s job could be very physical, and he needed his dinner – and as he slid the last bits of crockery into the soapy water I put a plate over Emma’s meal for when she did deign to roll in – though when she did, I mused, her tea would be the last thing on her mind, because I’d be filling it up with a large piece of mine.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, as Mike took Roman from me. He was getting heavy now, and my back was really beginning to notice. ‘There’ll be no one in the office,’ I said, ‘and I’m really loath to call out the EDT only to have her waltz in here five minutes later. Quite apart from anything else it’s not fair on them, is it? “Fourteen-year-old girl doesn’t get home till eight in the evening” hardly constitutes an emergency, does it?’

‘No, it’s doesn’t, to be fair,’ Mike agreed. ‘But you do have Maggie’s mobile number. And, love, at some point soon you are going to have to call her. At the very least to see if she has any useful numbers – that friend, for instance; the one Emma was living with? She might be with her, mightn’t she?’

I shook my head. ‘They’re not speaking,’ I reminded him. ‘Remember? Emma holds her responsible for putting her in this position in the first place. Well, she says she does. I’m not entirely convinced. Pound to a penny, she’s actually just on Tarim’s blacklist.’

I frowned as I said his name, and at the thought that came with it. ‘D’you think that’s it? That he’s come out? D’you think that’s where she is?’

Mike pulled a face at Roman, who tipped his head back and got a real case of the giggles. We were all he knew, and the thought struck me forcibly. Home for him was Emma, yes, but also Mike and me – we were his constants, his security, his significant others. And Kieron and Lauren, and Riley and David … I pushed the thought away, because it was becoming an increasingly unpalatable one. That Roman knew nothing of the upheaval that he was soon to be at the centre of; that, whatever the circumstances – whether he stayed with Emma or got shipped off to another foster family – his routine, the voices he was used to hearing, the sights, the smells, the touch. Almost all of that would change, and change abruptly.

Mike was still gurning at Roman as he answered. ‘I’d say if the answer to the first question’s yes, then the answer to the second will be too.’ He turned to face me. ‘Don’t you, love? You know I think it’s time we gave Maggie a ring.’

And we would have done. Except that in the time it took me to finish the drying up, dig out the file, riffle through the papers to find Maggie’s mobile number and punch the details into my phone contacts list, my own mobile buzzed into life in my hands. It was Emma’s number.

It wasn’t Emma on the end of the phone, however. It was a girl who introduced herself as Tash, one of Emma’s new friends from the school, and who wondered if I would be able to go and ‘fetch Ems home’ from hers, as she was ‘proper out of it, like’, and she wasn’t allowed to stay there because of the rules.

‘Hey ho,’ said Mike, as we jumped in the car and sped to the address we’d been given, having had Riley leap into action and take Roman for us, bless her. ‘I didn’t want to watch that episode of
Lewis
anyway.’

I laughed despite myself. After all, he’d recorded the whole series. He could watch it any time he liked, truth be known. But it was the sort of laugh that came when you were trying to do that whole anxious ‘got to laugh or you’d cry’ thing. And I
could
have wept. Not for me and not even for Emma. Just for the sheer frustration of having this whole thing playing out exactly as any cynic about ‘Broken Britain’ might expect it to.

As was the scene that greeted us when we got to the address we’d been given, which was what looked like a shared house on the edge of a big estate; the sort of supported set-up Emma herself might move to with Roman. The girl, who had a pretty round face and was dressed from head to toe in black, was apologetic, shy and also heavily pregnant, which would presumably account for her own sobriety. Which, in itself, made me warm to her immediately. She was obviously a girl with a sense of responsibility. She was also, understandably, a little wary, particularly when I asked her if Emma had been with her the whole time.

The answer to my question was no, apparently, though Tash was reluctant to be more specific. She would only tell us that Emma had been with her earlier, then gone off with some ‘other friends’, and that she’d come back with a plan to sober up before getting the bus home to ours, except – ‘Well, as you can see,’ Tash explained, with a world-weary air, ‘it’s not gonna be happening any time soon, is it?’

Indeed it wasn’t. We went into Tash’s small and impressively unscruffy living room to gather up her errant friend, and found her slumped on a little sofa, eyes shut. There was a plastic mixing bowl on her lap and a roll of toilet paper at her side, and I was glad to see that though much of the latter had been used up and scrunched around her, the former was empty, because if it hadn’t been I’d have felt compelled to clean it up. Emma was properly drunk this time – properly out of it. And, though conscious and otherwise seeming okay (she had apparently stopped being sick now), she needed one thing above all others – to sleep it off.

‘I’m sho shorry I’m wasted,’ was all she could manage as we manhandled her into the car.

As at this time – and with her in this state – there really was no sense in trying to have a post-mortem with Emma, when we got her home we just made sure she drank a large glass of water, then I helped her undress and put her to bed. Mike, meanwhile, drove round to Riley’s to pick up Roman, then, while I dealt with him, went up into the loft to get out the travel cot we’d bought for when the grandchildren were babies – there was no way we could let him sleep in with Emma tonight and it would be too much of an upheaval to try and manhandle his cot out of her room. And, since Roman wasn’t used to sleeping by himself yet, we took the view that a better night’s sleep might be achieved if we just had him in our room with us.

‘So what d’you think will happen now?’ Mike wanted to know when we came back down. Little Roman, bless his heart, had gone out like a light, at least – he’d probably decided that the best refuge from all the commotion was sleep.

I rolled my eyes. ‘What, you mean before or after I throw the frigging book at her?’

‘I mean about this Tarim. I was talking to Riley about it – it’s a point, isn’t it? I mean, if he
is
sniffing around – and that was definitely the impression I got; that girl was very evasive, wasn’t she? – then will they fix up regular contact, d’you think? Expect us to have him in the house? What? Because if he was with her tonight, and thought it was acceptable to leave her to get herself home in that state …’

He didn’t need to say any more. I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe they’d do that, would they? I mean, she’s denying he’s the father specifically to protect him from social services. And that means he has no official rights in the matter. And as she’s underage, what we say goes, pretty much, I’d say. So, no. I don’t see why we’d have to have anything to do with him. I certainly hope not, in any case.’

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down on it. I felt shattered, both physically and mentally. Which was unlike me, as were the tears I felt prickling at the back of my eyes. I could cry for Britain, definitely, in all sorts of situations. I was as soft as they came when it came to kids, always had been. But the tears that threatened now were different; they were tears of sheer exhaustion – the result of taking on too much baby care as well as our errant teenager. The sort of tears that made the point that you were getting too strung up and should try to do something about it.

‘But you know what really upsets me?’ I said to Mike. ‘That if he
is
out, and she
did
see him, that she couldn’t just do that one thing. Just tell me, ask me, discuss it with me. Let me help her work something out, you know? After all those promises she made me. It’s like it’s all been thrown straight back at me. All of it. And when I really thought we were at last becoming close.’

Mike sat down beside me and put a strong arm around my shoulder. ‘Hey, don’t start,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t you go off on one, beating yourself up, you hear? She’s a teenager, plain and simple. And not just a normal teenager either, don’t forget. Remember those things you always bang on about – boundaries? Of course you do. And she’s had none of them, and she’s hooked up with the first guy who’s shown her any affection, by the sound of it, and had a baby, don’t forget – all of which is a lot to deal with, by anyone’s standards … love, even
you
are no match for all that.’ He squeezed my shoulder.

‘Yes, I know, but –’ I began.

‘And our job,’ he continued, ‘is simply to care for her and try to guide her – well, as best we can, anyway – till they decide what’s going to happen to her next.’

‘I know,’ I said again, ‘but if by “they” you mean social services and all these flipping assessment people, then we might as well hang up our gloves right now, because she seems determined to wreck it for herself, doesn’t she? It’s like she’s on self-destruct autopilot. God, how have we so totally lost control?’

I was being a bit melodramatic, I knew, but even so this was a serious downward slide. I said so.

‘No, it’s not,’ Mike said. ‘This is just a blip. To be expected. It’ll all seem a lot more manageable when we sit down and talk rationally about it tomorrow. I’m sure Emma will be mortified –’

‘She was mortified last time …’

‘No, this time,
really
mortified. And we can sit down and see exactly where we are with this Tarim, and how best to go forward from here.’

He was right. Everything would seem so much more manageable in the morning. Except perhaps for Emma, who would no doubt have one hell of a hangover, though perhaps that in itself would help concentrate her mind. I checked the time. Not quite ten. Much too early for bed.

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘So, how about that
Lewis
after all? Nice relaxing murder. What d’you think?’

If I thought that was the worst that could happen, I was soon to be proved wrong. The following morning, just as Mike had predicted, Emma was once again full of remorse. I’d been up a good while by the time she surfaced (I’d forgotten just how many hours a teenager could sleep at a stretch), had fed, bathed and played with Roman, and by now put him back down for his morning nap.

I was in the middle of preparing her a bacon sandwich when she finally shuffled, dark-eyed and pale-faced, into the kitchen. I remembered teenage hangovers, even if not with Emma’s evident regularity, and how something hot and greasy always seemed to do the trick.

The minute I smiled at her she burst into tears. ‘Oh, Casey, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did it, I really don’t. I just … oh, God. If it helps any, I feel like utter crap.’

‘It doesn’t help, love, but I’ll just tell you what my mum used to tell me – and that you’d do well to remember.’ I waggled my fish slice in her direction. ‘That you brought it on yourself.’ I laughed then at the sight of her wan, miserable face as she gingerly pulled out a chair and lowered herself onto it. ‘Come on,’ I said, placing the plate in front of her. ‘This’ll help, I promise. As will this.’ I popped a steaming mug of coffee down beside it. ‘So do your best with it. Then you and I need to have a chat. Ideally before Roman wakes up again. So chop, chop.’

This made her blink back even more tears. ‘I feel so bad that you had to have him all night, I really do,’ she said, before taking a tentative nibble. Then she put the sandwich back down and pushed the plate away from her. ‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can eat this. I feel really sick.’