A Last Kiss for Mummy (16 page)

It was left to me to explain, as Emma cried for the duration, and when the policewoman asked about her facial injuries and I urged her to explain them she refused, saying that it was just a bit of horseplay that had got out of hand and that she wouldn’t be pressing any charges.

‘It’s up to you, lovey,’ the policewoman said, flipping her little pad closed, ‘but I can assure you, if he’s hit you once, then he’ll hit you again.’ She paused and glanced at me, then back at Emma. ‘It never, ever stops at “just the once”, love. Ask anyone who’s been there.’

But her words were falling on deaf ears and both of us could see that. So she left, and as soon as she was walking down the path Emma rounded on me, teary-eyed, again. ‘If he ends up back inside,’ she said, jabbing her index finger towards me, ‘and leaves Roman without his daddy, then I’m holding you responsible, because it will all have been your fault!’

Yes, I was angry. Yes, I was aghast. Yes, I was traumatised by what had happened, but at the same time I could so clearly see her pain. She just didn’t get it. This was par for the course, this was normal, this was the way it was in relationships. And it was that which was set to be her downfall. I sighed and walked back outside to check again on Roman. He had slept through everything. The whole sorry business.

‘Look, I’m sorry, love,’ I said, as she followed me into the garden, ‘but he has to learn that he cannot treat people like that. You, me or anyone. Ever, you understand? Because you need to realise that too.’

‘Don’t you fucking patronise me!’ she screamed, running past me to pick up Roman. Now he did wake, with a start. God help the poor tot. ‘This is my baby, you understand me? My baby, so just butt OUT!’

She hauled him up and flew from the room, the blanket trailing behind her.

I sat down then and gave up with thinking how best to proceed. I was shot, and needed Mike home to help us find a way forward. Till then I just cried. Cried very hard.

I had probably been too optimistic, that was the crux of it. Too
ideal
istic, as well. What had happened – well, how earth-shattering a development was it really? Underage mum, difficult background, boyfriend known to social services … Throw in a bit of sexual jealousy, some mischief-making – for goodness only knew what juvenile reason – and you had the recipe for what happened next right there. Which was just so depressing, and it gnawed at me with a furious insistence. And more than that, with a sense that I should have expected it to happen. Which in turn made me cross with my cynical alter ego – what was so wrong with hoping for the best outcome, anyway?

But for all that I’d pinned my hopes on Tarim getting his act together, what were the chances of that happening in reality? That was Mike’s take on things when he got back and got his update, and the rest of the weekend played slowly out.

Emma barely spoke to me, except in sullen monosyllables, and I despaired of finding a way to get her to understand that her loyalty to Tarim was so misplaced. But I knew I must. I had seen enough to absorb the whole chilling picture. There were clearly two sides to Tarim and, dispiriting though it was to think it, where Emma was concerned, anyway, there probably always would be, too.

It was Monday now – a drizzly day to match the prevailing mood – and I was just wiping mushy rusks from Roman’s chubby cheeks when the doorbell rang. I knew who it would be – Hannah and Maggie. After I made the call to John he’d filled both women in, and this morning’s meeting had been convened as a matter of priority. The plan was that they’d come out to give Emma a ‘wake-up call’. Whatever that was. I still wasn’t clear what would actually happen now. And Emma didn’t even seem to care. When I’d explained to her on the previous afternoon that they were coming over for a chat with her, her only comment had been a sour-faced ‘whatever’.

Popping Roman down in his playpen – Emma was still upstairs, showering – I had a glance round to check the house was at least reasonably presentable, then went out into the hall to let them in. I opened the door to find two faces professionally arranged into ‘now it’s time we got serious about things’ masks.

Which was fine – they were right. Getting serious was what was needed here. But at the same time I felt a slight frisson of defensiveness on seeing them, as if, while my head said we were batting for the same ‘welfare of the child’ team, my heart was resisting the idea.

I pushed it aside as I led them both into the sitting room, and Roman, as if schooled by a drama coach, pulled himself up onto his legs and grinned and bounced excitedly as the two of them went over the better to fawn at him.

‘Oh, he’s just adorable!’ Hannah cooed as she smoothed her hand over his inky curls. She turned then. ‘You’re doing a great job with him, Casey.’

‘Me?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, yes, I do play a part obviously, but, you know, despite her – ahem – poor choices when it comes to boyfriends, Emma’s actually turning into a lovely little mum.’

It had come out unthinkingly, but seeing the look Hannah and Maggie had exchanged when I’d spoken made me feel suddenly wary. ‘She is,’ I persisted. ‘You should see the two of them together. She dotes on him, she really does. You must have seen for yourself, Hannah …’ There was no response, other than another surreptitious look passed between them. I felt my stomach plummet to my toes. ‘Anyway,’ I finished lamely, ‘who’s for coffee?’

I had thought that it would be best if I stayed out of the way while Hannah and Maggie spoke to Emma, so, after calling her down and then delivering coffee and biscuits, I went to take Roman out of the room and leave them to it.

‘No, no, stay, Casey,’ Maggie urged. ‘This obviously concerns you as well.’

So I stayed, entertaining Roman while the two of them berated Emma, telling her how irresponsible she’d been and how much she’d let them down. They also told her that what had happened between her and Tarim – both the violence and the drunken visitation – had set things way back in terms of them trusting him with Roman. Emma had remained silent throughout but now looked directly at Hannah.

‘With Roman? What’s that supposed to mean? That was nothing to do with Roman.’

Maggie patiently explained that, because of the aggression Tarim had shown towards Emma, contact would continue to remain supervised for the foreseeable future and she wouldn’t be allowed to go to either Tarim or his dad’s house with the baby for at least the next few weeks.

‘It all depends on Tarim,’ she finished, ‘as I’m sure you can appreciate, Emma. He’ll be starting from scratch again, given the way he’s behaved. And he won’t be getting any further chances.’

Emma’s mouth had been set in a thin line as she listened to this. ‘You can’t fucking do that,’ she said now, making me wince. ‘You can’t make promises and then break them whenever you feel like it! This is you lot all over, this is – you make your fucking rules up as you go along! Great,’ she said, ‘this is just fucking great!’

‘Emma,’ I began, anxious to at least bring the bad language under control. But Hannah spoke over me.

‘Emma,’ she said sharply, ‘are you aware that your baby is right here, in his playpen, and that you’re shouting and swearing in front of him?’

Emma looked at her witheringly. ‘He’s eight months, not eight years. I’m not an idiot! He doesn’t understand.’

‘He can hear your tone of voice, though,’ Hannah persisted. ‘And it’s upsetting him. Can’t you see that?’ She was right. Roman was indeed looking anxiously at his mum now. I resisted the urge to pick him up, and instead let Hannah press her point home. ‘And getting back to what you said, actually, we can change the rules, Emma. We can change them whenever we feel we need to, to protect Roman. I’m sorry, but you and Tarim have brought this on yourselves. You are lucky to have Mike and Casey fighting your corner for you, actually, because believe me, in other circumstances, you might have lost more than you bargained for.’

There was a silence then, as we all took this in. Then Emma spoke. She was shaking and I could see tears pooling in her eyes. ‘Well, fuck you!’ she shouted. ‘Fuck you!’

Maggie flinched, Hannah looked stony and now Roman responded, bursting into the sort of wail that meant I could no longer ignore him. And since I was closest, I plucked him from his play pen.

‘You see?’ Hannah said, her patience by now clearly frazzled. ‘Is this what you want for your child? To feel constantly anxious and upset like this? To see his mummy swearing, and with her face black and blue, and letting the man who did it get away with it? Do you think that’s fair on him? Do you think that’s what he wants? To be so scared? To feel you care more for some low-life boyfriend than your own little boy’s welfare?’

The words had come out, I could see, without Hannah really thinking. And she meant well. She just wanted to make Emma
see
. So I felt a little sorry for her as Emma squared up to her, finger raised and trembling. Glancing at me, as if to acknowledge that she really needed to do this, she scowled at the startled twenty-something in disgust. If looks could have killed, she would have floored her, for sure.

‘You really
don’t
have a clue, do you? Welcome to
my
world,’ she said.

For a time after the meeting, I felt hopeful for progress. After the two social workers had gone – Emma had already fled the room, distraught, by then – I had put Roman down for his nap on a makeshift bed within the playpen and gone upstairs to see how she was doing.

And she was crying, curled up foetally, clutching a pillow to her chest and weeping into it. And I knew why, too. She was crying for the childhood she’d never had. For the mother who had always put her men before her little one. Had put the drugs and the alcohol before her too. Oh, it wasn’t that simple – I knew that – these things were always complicated. There was no simple ‘bad person’ tag you could affix. Who knew what demons caused Emma’s mum to fail Emma so badly? Who knew what injustices and cruelties had been visited on her?

But for a child there is no room for excuses, justifications. The best that could be hoped for, long term, was that, at some point in adulthood, she would come to understand why her mum had failed her and learn to deal with it. And I knew why she was so upset, hearing those few words from Hannah – it was because, despite her attitude, she desperately didn’t want to repeat the cycle with Roman. She wanted the best for him. I truly believed that.

I sat down on the bed and stroked her back, and she seemed happy enough to let me. And after a time the crying quietened and she lowered the pillow enough to speak.

‘I fucked up again, didn’t I?’ she said quietly, wiping her good eye with a corner of the pillowcase. The swollen one I noticed she left well alone, so it was obviously still sore, even if less swollen. ‘I’ve just made everything worse for us now, haven’t I?’ she finished. ‘I just get so angry with them. They just don’t understand.’

I told her everything would work out, that all she had to do was keep doing what she was doing with Roman and prove to social services she was a good, responsible mother. I told her that she was a good mum – anyone could see how much she loved Roman. It was just that Hannah and Maggie had to know she was prepared to put him first – and that Tarim understood that if he wanted to play a role then he had to grow up, mend his ways and show he cared for them.

Emma sat up. ‘Casey,’ she said. ‘Would you speak to him, please? He wanted to call you, but I told him best not till I’d asked you. He’s just, like,
so
sorry. He’s been crying and everything – he
knows
he did wrong. An’ he’ll do whatever it takes – you know, the family centre and shit, basically – like, everything it takes. He’s so sorry. He just lost it, and he knows he did and he wants to put things right again. Casey, he’s not like you think he is. He really
isn’t
.’

I patted her. This was not the time to dredge the whole thing up again, even if the image of Tarim crying – hot, self-pitying tears, I didn’t doubt – stuck in my craw. ‘I know,’ I soothed, ‘I know. Let’s just give it a couple of weeks, eh?’ I smoothed a finger across her brow, just above her swollen eye socket. ‘If I speak to him now I might feel much too inclined to give him a piece of my mind, Emma. No, let’s leave it a couple of weeks. Let everything calm down. Let him
show
that he means it as well as tell us he does, eh?’ I smiled. ‘And I’m not talking flowers here, okay?’

A week passed. Ten days. A run of blistering ones. There was one meeting with Tarim at the same family centre, and though all I saw of him was a glimpse when we picked up Emma and Roman he was at pains to wave manically as we left. He clearly wanted us to like him – to accept him and forgive him – and, in that sense, I did believe his feelings for Emma were genuine. It was just the small matter of leopards and spots. The world was full of men who loved their women to distraction; trouble was that a few of them also saw their women as possessions and, if challenged, saw physical aggression as their right. Was he one such? I really wished I didn’t think so.

In the short term, however, I had a new period to look forward to. It was almost the start of the school summer holidays, which meant no school for Emma and much less baby minding for me, which I didn’t feel disloyal for telling Riley I really welcomed; treasure though Roman was, looking after babies all day was time-consuming. And also limiting – when you had to have a baby in tow at all times, there were lots of small freedoms that had to be curtailed.

No, I was looking forward to being able to spend much more quality time with my grandsons, not to mention my pregnant daughter, and the rest of the family too. I was also pleased that there would be lots of opportunities to do some fun things with the little ones, which would very much include Emma and little Roman.

I was just thinking this, while peeling potatoes for chips, when I heard my mobile chirrup in my bag. It was just after three, which meant Emma should be home within the hour. It was the last day of term, though, so perhaps she’d stay on a bit – bond with her friends, perhaps make plans for some outings.

I quickly wiped my hands and grabbed the phone from the pocket. It was Tash, I could see – Emma’s friend.

‘Casey?’ she said, and I could tell right away that there was something to be concerned about in her voice.

‘Tash?’ I said. ‘What is it? Are you at school?’

‘We didn’t go in,’ she said. ‘We – um – well, a few of us didn’t, actually. It was, like the last day, an’ – well, we went to this flat, an’ well, she got pissed and – I don’t think she
meant
to, but – oh, Casey, I’m –’

She was stumbling over her words. She was clearly worse for wear herself. ‘Tash,’ I said, ‘where are you? Where is Emma?’

‘I’m at the hospital –’ she started.

‘
Hospital
?’

‘Casey, I
know
she didn’t mean to. She’d just had all this cider. And then some shots, and – then, well, she had like this
massive
row with Taz then, and –’

‘Tarim? Tarim was there?’ Visions of further violence flooded my brain now.

‘No, no,’ Tash reassured me. So that was something to be grateful for. ‘It was on the phone,’ she went on, ‘but, like, really, really bad. I think he dumped her. An’ she was like “I’ll show him”, and so in the end we called an ambulance and –’

‘Show him by doing what, Tash?’

‘She took some pills, so –’

‘Oh my God. Look love, I need to get down there to you, don’t I? The general hospital? Right. I’m on my way.’

I ended the call and tried to get my head together. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe she would do this again – what about Roman? Shit, I thought. What
about
Roman?

I grabbed my phone again, pressed some buttons and connected with Riley, who was thankfully in. That done – and thank goodness, she was round to me in minutes – I hot-footed it over to the hospital.

On the way there I felt uncharacteristically frightened. I was a born optimist, hard-wired to look on the bright side, but right now I couldn’t seem to grab a single positive thought. They were all crowded out by so many negatives. Chief among them, of course, was the daddy of all the bad ones I could imagine – that Emma would this time have succeeded where last time she failed.