A Last Kiss for Mummy (19 page)

‘Not at all,’ I heard Riley saying. ‘It makes a lot of sense.’ She paused to speak to Levi who’d obviously come in and needed something. But then she went on. ‘You know, the bottom line is that if you love someone, you love them, and that’s fair enough, but if you want my opinion you can do much better than be with someone like him. Sure he says he loves you, but if he properly did, he’d love
you
– not some doormat who does everything he tells her. If he did, you’d feel yourself when you were with him, wouldn’t you? Tell you what, Ems, you’re so pretty and smart and strong, and being with someone like Tarim takes that away – it makes you weak.’

There was another long silence before Emma finally spoke. ‘You know what,’ she said. ‘That’s what Tash says. That’s what everyone says. And it’s like now I can think clearly and I can see why I lost Roman. Everything bad that’s happened to me lately was either because of what Tarim’s done to me or the way he’s made me react.’

‘Exactly,’ said Riley. ‘And you’re stronger without him.’

‘I know,’ Emma said. ‘That’s what Tash and I’ve been saying. I think I’m better off being on my own for a while.’

The potatoes were done, the pan filled, the gas lit. In the middle of the kitchen I raised both arms towards the ceiling, then brought them down again, fist clenched.
Yes!
I mouthed.
Result!

It turned out that they were both expecting girls. They’d both been keen to know, when they went for their eighteen-week scans – and went together, to the bemusement of the ultrasound operator. I went along too, of course, which caused some degree of consternation when we all piled in.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You have two daughters expecting at the same time, I see. Two grandchildren all at once, eh? You’ll have your hands full!’

We put her straight but, of course, she was absolutely right. There was a busy and emotionally intense time ahead. What I thought, but didn’t say, though, was that I’d been thinking about that a lot. We’d committed to keeping Emma till she was sixteen – at least – but that had been before we’d known she was pregnant. It was something we’d need to discuss with John before too long, because if Emma wanted to try and get Roman back – which she did – then she would need to convince social services that she could function independently, as a single mum, living on her own.

But that was for the future. Right now, I was just happy to see both Riley and Emma smiling, as the paddle swept over the gel on their tummies in turn and the operator said, ‘Yup, definitely a girl.’

Mike was over the moon, too, when I told him. As was Kieron. His principal concern, however, was that we mustn’t be stereotypical – she must learn to love football just as much as her older brothers, and to that end he’d be buying her the same baby football strip that he’d got for both Levi and Jackson. Which made us all laugh out loud.

But if I’d thought everything was kind-of falling sort-of into place now, I was in for a nasty shock – we all were. And from a quarter that, preoccupied with the young girl in our care, I had never once imagined it might be coming. But just over a week later, at around 10 p.m., I took an unexpected call from Riley’s David. He was so distraught he could hardly get the words out to explain. She’d had a miscarriage and had been rushed into hospital.

Just as a pregnancy is an everyday miracle, so a miscarriage is an everyday tragedy. There was no rhyme or reason behind Riley losing her baby. It was just one of those things. Some glitch in the process. And though there had been blood tests and would be an investigation into all the whys and wherefores, the reality, as the doctor pointed out the next day, was that we’d probably never know.

Riley was crushed, just as any other mother to be would be, but also stoical. As she kept saying over and over, she had her boys, so she was one of the lucky ones, and the best thing she could do now was get over the physical upheaval, let her body heal and then get on with her life.

Emma – so young, so vulnerable, so understandably empathetic – was devastated too. When we told her the news the next morning, she was inconsolable. In an adult I might have been inclined to consider her distress self-indulgent, but she was just a child and had grown so close to Riley over recent weeks that I didn’t doubt the sincerity of her feelings. She sat and sobbed for so long that she ended up puffy-eyed and exhausted, and once she’d stopped crying the smallest thing would set her off again, clutching her tiny bump and wailing till she had no tears left to shed.

I understood. I had a hunch these tears were partly for Roman, and perhaps cathartic – an opportunity to really express her sadness. Which, to some extent, I felt she’d really yet to do. Yes, she’d been low – her coming out of that was a joy for all to see – but at the same time the sense that she had brought it on herself complicated the business of grieving for her little boy. I felt strongly that she sensed she had no right to wallow in self-pity and that it had stopped her from forgiving herself.

In any event, a few days later she seemed transformed. We were well into the autumn term now, Levi and Jackson back in their usual school routine, and Emma too, albeit that it would be only temporary once again, was back in her unit, reconnecting with her education. I had obviously encouraged this, though not for the reasons usually given. Emma could finish her education at any point she chose to, truth be told – we now lived in a world where it was seen as a lifelong thing, learning – and I wasn’t unduly worried that the best time might not be yet. What was more important, to my mind, was that she get back into a routine, just like the boys had – have a reason to get up in the mornings, go somewhere, have something to achieve every day and, most importantly, be among friends. She’d also mentioned that she quite liked the idea of eventually training to do hairdressing, reasoning (with exemplary logic, I thought) that it would work well with children, as she could become a mobile hairdresser. Which thrilled me, not only because it showed she was thinking about a future, but a future that she was confident would include Roman.

In the meantime, however, she had other plans. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said to me when she got home from her unit one afternoon, ‘that I need to spend more time with Riley.’ It was just a week after the miscarriage and I’d taken her round to see her twice, and she’d clearly been mulling things over.

‘Ri-ight,’ I said, anticipating there was still more to come. ‘And?’ I patted the sofa, beckoning her to come and sit with me.

‘And I was thinking that, just for the moment, I need to be spending less time at school and more time helping her out. Not stopping school, exactly –’ she was quick to reassure me. ‘Just going in a bit less so I can be there to help Riley in the daytime. Like taking the boys to school and picking them up for her. I could do that for her next week, at least, couldn’t I? I mean, she’s still supposed to be taking it easy’ – she was impressively well informed – ‘and David’s got work, and it would be a big help to them, wouldn’t it, if I did that?’

I resisted the urge to point out that these were all things I’d done before, was still doing and would continue to do, as long as was necessary, because that was of no consequence. She was so anxious to help out, bless her. And why shouldn’t she? ‘And then there’s the cleaning,’ she went on, causing me to blink back my surprise. ‘I could go round and do that for her, couldn’t I? Help keep the place straight. And it would be company for her, wouldn’t it? Take her mind off things.’

I agreed that it would. And that perhaps I could have a word with the head at the unit and explain that, for at least a couple of weeks, she’d be in rather less. Frankly, the whole thing was a revelation. She seemed so grown up, all of a sudden, as if overnight someone had come in and swapped the demanding teenager for a more sensible girl, much older than her years. And it was irrelevant that this might well be as much about her own loss as Riley’s. What mattered was that she wanted to help and that she felt Riley’s pain. That was what counted. I reached out and gave her a big hug.

‘That’s so kind of you, love, but you know, you don’t have to do all that. You’ve got school and your friends to see and, well, you’ll want to make the most of having fun with your mates while you can, won’t you? And’ – I paused, unsure whether to broach it – ‘you’re still hurting too – hurting for Roman – and you need time to get yourself together too.’

Roman was very much the elephant in the room. Emma had been twice to see him now, at the same family centre she’d visited with Tarim, and on both occasions had come home pale and drawn and uncommunicative. It was the one area in which even Riley couldn’t make headway, Emma telling her, as well as me, that it was something she just didn’t want to talk about. That she’d feel better if she didn’t. It was the proverbial closed book. We had to respect that, obviously, but I hated to see this outwardly functional, mostly chirpy teenager keeping so much hurt locked inside her, out of reach.

But then I hadn’t had her upbringing, had I? Perhaps that was a defence mechanism that worked for her – perhaps she was right to keep Roman in a tightly closed emotional box. She had probably spent most of her life doing that, in any case, the pain of her mother’s repeated rejections being a definite case in point. She hardly spoke of her, and that was fine – again, she must deal with things her own way. And perhaps this was the same; only when and if she knew she could allow herself to believe they might be reunited would she allow herself to share how she felt.

She shook her head now. ‘You’re wrong, Casey,’ she said, and she looked like she meant it. ‘This isn’t about me, this is about Riley. She was there for me when I felt like there was no point going on, and now I want to be there for her.’

All the same, I felt I’d better run Emma’s ideas past Riley first. In my enthusiasm for encouraging Emma’s emotional development, I didn’t want to add to her misery by forcing Emma’s pregnancy in her face. While Emma was out with Tash for a bit, after tea I phoned Riley to run it by her – explain what Emma wanted to do, and share my reservations.

‘Oh, Mum, don’t think like that,’ she said. ‘You really mustn’t. Yes, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, and yes, I do keep feeling teary, but it’s like the doctors said – these things happen to women everywhere, all the time, and I’m lucky. I already have a family to cherish, so I’ve no business moping and feeling sorry for myself. Well, a bit sorry for myself’ – she laughed, and my heart really went out to her – ‘but not for too long, and Emma will be the best tonic imaginable. I’m not going to sit there distraught because she’s having her baby and I’m not. And, actually, she’s right. She will be a great distraction, and, you know what, I like her. She’s a sweetheart. She’s been to hell and back and she’s there worrying about cleaning my skirting boards? Bring it on – she is my kind of gal.’

So Riley and Emma had spoken and I was only too happy to listen. No matter that their combined ages didn’t even add up to my one, their combined wisdom belied their tender years, and over the next couple of weeks I could see the benefits in both of them, with Riley taking on the mantle of Emma’s pregnancy guru – demanding to know her vegetable intake and whether she was getting sufficient exercise, and Emma parrying by giggling and pointing out that she didn’t need any more exercise than she was getting by scrubbing filthy football-boot marks off Riley’s kitchen floor.

It was a tonic for all of us and we’d frequently be reduced to fits of the giggles as if, having rediscovered laughing, we couldn’t work out how to stop.

And I was to see another heartening development just a few days later, when I asked her about celebrating her fifteenth birthday. It seemed hardly possible that she had been with us almost a year now, yet she had. And she was finally that magical ‘fifteen’ she’d been so keen to tell us she ‘nearly was’ for much of the last six months.

But Emma didn’t want to celebrate her birthday.

‘It doesn’t feel right to,’ she said when I suggested we do something – even if just a quiet family dinner. ‘What with Riley losing her baby, and me losing Roman. It just doesn’t feel right to. You don’t mind, do you?’

I was so touched. And also saddened, when she went on to explain that she didn’t set much store by birthdays anyway.

‘I got used to it,’ she said, ‘because Mum only remembered half the time anyway. One year it would be, like, nothing, because she’d be out of it and couldn’t care less, then one time she would remember, or she’d remember it the wrong month or something and she’d like buy me shed loads of rubbish that I didn’t even want and we’d have no money for the electric or food and stuff. No,’ she said, ‘let’s not. Let’s just concentrate on Riley. I mean it would be nice to get a few bits from Primark or something – actually, I’d really like that because none of my skinny jeans fit me – but, nah. Let’s not bother. Not this year.’

It was all I could do not to weep right there in front of her. And give thanks that whatever her mum was or wasn’t, with her multiple rejections, her capriciousness, her unpredictability, ‘not around’ was a state of affairs that suited me – and Emma’s precious emotional health – just fine.

There was still one particularly persistent fly in the ointment, however – one I realised I’d forgotten about only when the house phone rang one evening, and when Mike went into the hall and answered it, he followed up by saying, ‘Hello, Billy.’

It took a second or two for me to work out who Billy was, but Emma was all ears in an instant. ‘Tarim’s dad,’ she mouthed at me as we sat and waited for what might be coming next. I picked up the remote and lowered the soap opera we’d all been glued to, the better to hear. I hoped this wasn’t about to become one as well.

‘No, I’m sorry, she can’t,’ we heard him say. There was a pause while Billy spoke again. ‘Because I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ Mike said, ‘that’s why.’ And then another. And then ‘Hang on.’

There was another pause and next thing Mike was in the living-room doorway. ‘Love, it’s Tarim’s dad,’ he said. ‘Says he wants to speak to you. You don’t have to. But I said I’d ask –’

I glanced at Emma, willing her to tell him where to go. She wouldn’t cave in now, would she? Please not. Not now. But I needn’t have worried. Emma was already shaking her head. ‘No, Mike. I don’t want to speak to him, thank you. I don’t ever want to speak to him,’ she added, chin tipped up. ‘That’s it.’

Mike winked at her and walked back into the hall. ‘Well, that’s up to you,’ we heard him say. ‘But that’s something you’ll have to speak to social services about. It’s up to them now … No, it doesn’t involve Emma. Not at all. Roman’s in care … yes, that’s right. You’ll need to call them. It’s really nothing to do with us now …’

When he came back we were both poised to hear the details of the rest of it. There was no raised voice, but that didn’t mean there was no potential for trouble. Putting two and two together, it seemed they wanted access to Roman. Which was rich given that the last time we’d had dealings with Tarim he’d been mouthing off about how he was disowning them all.

Mike confirmed it. ‘They’re after contact,’ he said. ‘Want to know how Tarim can get to see Roman.’

Emma looked horrified. ‘They won’t actually let him do that, will they?’

I didn’t know what to say to her. In fact, all things being equal, they couldn’t not. With Tarim confirmed as the father, they had no grounds to refuse him contact, provided he kept his nose clean. As a child in care, Roman had as much right to contact with his father as he did his mother, who was looking at me now, open mouthed.

‘I don’t know for sure, love,’ I answered truthfully, ‘but even if they do decide to allow it, one thing I do know is that it would be supervised – no question of that – and that he’ll have a long way to go before they put anything in place anyway – even a short visit at the family centre.’

She looked even more anxious. ‘What, with me?’ she squeaked. ‘He’d be allowed to just come and join in?’

I shook my head. ‘Heavens no. You never have to see him again, ever, love. Don’t worry about that. No, it would be entirely separate.’ I squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Has he been in touch with you about this already, love?’ Mike asked as he sat down again. ‘Funny them calling us on the house phone.’

‘No, not at all,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t, ’cos I blocked his number yonks ago. I know he was bothering Tash for a bit, but she blocked him as well in the end. So that’s probably why. God, I wish he’d just sod off and leave us alone.’ Then she blushed. ‘Sorry. But, I do, I really do wish he’d go away. Find some other girl – I wish I’d see that. Wish I’d see him with another girl, ’cos then I’d know he’d finally decided to let me go.’

For myself, I decided wishing wasn’t quite good enough. So the next day I called John so I could establish more in the way of facts. If Tarim was serious about shaping up and being a father to Roman, so be it. Every child deserved the love of the people that made them – that was never a bad thing. And the first image I ever had of Tarim was also a very powerful one. No one was black and white and, however corrosive and aggressive his relationship with Emma, it was not for me to decide he should have no role in his infant son’s life. But, tender though the moments with his son had been to witness, I had a hunch that this was perhaps more about Emma than about Roman. It was a thought that had taken root as soon as she’d told us that she’d blocked Tarim from calling her mobile.