A Last Kiss for Mummy (9 page)

I didn’t know quite where to start with
that
one. And perhaps I shouldn’t. Get me on that one and I could have a field day. So I didn’t. It was only another one of Tarim’s ridiculous pronouncements, no doubt. ‘Mike’s an expert,’ I told Emma firmly. ‘So don’t you worry, okay?’ I leaned across and drew an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in for a hug. ‘At this moment, the important thing is to make sure
you’re
all right, okay.’

Which only served to make her start crying again. ‘If he just hadn’t
ignored
me,’ she cried into my chest. ‘I’ve messed everything up big time now, haven’t I?’

If Emma was beginning to regret the impetuosity of her actions, I was beginning to feel a chill wind of inevitability blowing with increasing force around my plastic chair in A&E. I knew exactly what would happen now, every step of the process; and as we went straight from triage to a side room to another examination to doing the blood tests (to check her blood for toxins), I also knew the next part, given that this was a suicide attempt, would be an admission to the ward and the allocation of a kindly attentive nurse, who would gently probe Emma to see why she had done it.

In the meantime, I had left Mike with instructions to phone the crisis team at social services. The hospital would obviously be obliged to call them as well, but it was important that we make our own report, to cover ourselves legally. Then it was a case of ticking the correct boxes. After a night on the ward, with checks of her vital signs every four hours, Emma would greet the morning and a concerned team member simultaneously, and in all likelihood be immediately referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. This was not
just
box-ticking either. With social services
in loco parentis
it was vitally important that they assess her thoroughly to see how much, if any, danger Emma posed to herself. Would she need further psychiatric treatment, either as an in-patient or out-patient, or would she be considered safe to be returned to me?

But before that, I had news to impart to various people myself. When I left the hospital, at around 9 p.m., it was with the grim realisation that I would spend the next half hour on the phone to John Fulshaw, then Maggie and finally Hannah, all of whom, understandably, would be concerned.

‘So she’s being referred to CAMHS?’ asked Hannah.

‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘I think that’s the plan.’

‘Good,’ said Hannah, who had to be properly filled in, obviously. And who was currently in the middle of making an assessment of whether Emma was considered fit to be Roman’s mother.

I woke up the next morning feeling guilty. Not so much about what had happened as what I had said about what had happened. I knew this incident would affect Emma’s progress report badly and as a result I had chosen my words carefully. Her ‘cry for help’ (a clichéd expression, but an accurate one in this case) had been directed not at her mother but at her absentee boyfriend – it was him she’d wanted to punish by taking that overdose of aspirins. But that wasn’t quite how I’d described it. Even though I knew differently – or, at least, I thought I did – I’d made much more of the business of Emma having been devastated by her mother’s letter, hoping that Maggie and Hannah would agree with me that it was a terrible thing to receive and might push any already fragile teen over the edge. Perhaps then they’d feel more sympathetic. And perhaps less convinced than they might be that with Tarim pulling strings – as he seemed to be doing – Roman’s future with Emma needed serious thought.

Which put me on dangerous ground. Suppose they accepted things, and let Emma keep Roman, and then her boyfriend turned out to be the father from hell? How would I feel about everything then? That wouldn’t happen, I told myself sternly. I wouldn’t let it. If he came out of prison and I had the tiniest concern, I’d share it, whatever the consequences for Emma. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

I’d been told to call at ten the next morning, to establish whether Emma was going to be discharged, and was pleased and relieved to be told that she was. Yes, she’d looked rueful and reasonably calm when I’d left her the previous evening. She’d been seen by someone from social services and they were going to try and get her CAMHS appointment scheduled but, in the meantime, she was apparently good to go. Mike had taken the day off so we could go up and collect her together, and I was pleased. It wasn’t a big thing, but presenting a united front was just one of the ways we could show her our support. It also made it easier to bring Roman.

But though she cooed when she saw him I could tell she was preoccupied. Her eyes were red, too, from what I judged was recent crying. And a gentle enquiry, while Mike showed off Roman to the nurses, revealed she had been; she was still extremely upset about Tarim.

‘I hate it when he does this to me,’ she said, when I asked her how she was feeling. ‘I hate him!’ She pulled her few bits from the locker and threw them on the rumpled bed, where I’d placed her pink holdall for the purpose. ‘An’ I know why he does it, too. He’s such an S.H.I.T., Casey! He ignores me for ages almost as if he’s trying to push me away from him, just so that when he does get back in touch with me he can start giving me grief about what I’ve been up to.’

It struck me as a strange kind of logic, but she was obviously on a roll now. I’d barely opened my mouth to answer when she started up again. ‘I know what his game is. He’ll ring – in the end he will – and then it’ll be all “Where’ve you been going? Who’ve you been seeing?” and when I swear blind I’ve been nowhere it’ll be all “Oh, yeah, I’ll
bet
. It’s not like I’d know, is it? Stuck in here rotting.” He never believes me, Casey.
Never
.’

I folded Emma’s crumpled pyjama bottoms and added them to the bag. What I wanted to say to her – or, more specifically, have her point out to him – was
well, whose fault was that, matey
? But that wouldn’t be helpful. So instead I said, ‘Come on, now. That’s just silly, love. You should tell him that if he were to use some of his money actually phoning you, then he would know where you were, wouldn’t he?’, but as soon as I said it I realised I was actually condoning his ridiculous reasoning – more or less telling Emma that staying in and waiting for his phone calls was the answer when, actually, the reverse was true!

I zipped up the bag and rethought what I didn’t say originally. ‘Love,’ I said, ‘I know it can’t be nice for Tarim being stuck in prison, but you didn’t put him in there, did you? And he really has no business thinking the worst, or any excuse for punishing you – not that you deserve to be punished because you’ve done nothing wrong – by purposely ignoring your calls and letters.’ I looked over to where Mike and Roman seemed to be completely derailing the smooth running of the ward – there were eight or nine nurses clustered around them now.

‘Emma,’ I said, ‘Tarim needs to learn to trust you. You are doing nothing wrong, and if he loves you like you say he does, he’ll want you to have a life while you’re waiting for his release. I know you’ve got Roman to think about but that doesn’t mean you should be sitting at home every day and night; that’s no good for anyone, least of all a teenage girl. He’s going to have to learn to trust you, and you need to learn not to be so reliant on his texts and calls. That’s half the problem; he knows that’s exactly what you
are
doing, so he has you where he wants you. But is that what you really want for yourself? You need friends, Emma.
Everyone
needs friends. He might mean everything to you, but he isn’t the be all and end all, and nor should he be. And he needs to know that – you’ve got to stand up to him, be a bit more independent.’

There was a sullen silence, which I took to mean she was digesting my words, albeit reluctantly. I ploughed on. ‘What about that young girl you lived with when you had Roman? Are you in touch with her at all? Why don’t you get back in touch with her again? You must be missing her.’

Emma looked at me so intently that I thought she was going to kick off, to berate me for telling her what to do, who to see, and for ‘dissing’ her precious Tarim. But she didn’t. She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her jacket and narrowed her eyes. ‘Kemma?’ she said, laughing entirely without humour. ‘You think I want to speak to her again after she and her mum threw me out? Do me a favour! She’s no friend of mine any more.’

‘Ah, I see …’ I started saying, but she obviously hadn’t finished. ‘You know what?’ she said then. ‘You’re right, actually, Casey. Tarim really thinks I’m some kind of numpty, doesn’t he? Sat at home, bringing the kid up, while he does nothing. Well, I’m not going to be,’ she sniffed. ‘Not any more!’

And, with that, she snatched up the holdall and began heading off out of the ward, leaving a bemused Mike and Roman and me following in her wake, grabbing the CAMHS appointment letter from the staff nurse as we went.

By the time we got home, Emma seemed in a much less pugilistic mood and I was pleased to see that Roman finally seemed to be clawing back most of her attention once again. And with everything calm, Mike decided to head into work for the afternoon after all. ‘No sense in using up a half day’s holiday unnecessarily,’ he said, ‘since I’m no longer required to hold the baby.’

I kissed his cheek and said we’d see him later. No sense in jumping in and telling him that what I had in mind involved exactly that, well, sort of. Not till he’d had his tea, at any rate.

‘So, I was thinking,’ I was saying to Maggie Cunliffe, not twenty minutes later, ‘I know the plan was that we weren’t going to make one till it’s settled that Emma’s definitely keeping Roman, but do we have to wait? Because I was thinking that perhaps the sensible next step would be for Mike and me to become Roman’s official child minders. You know, just like regular child minders, looking after Roman on a day-to-day basis, so that Emma can resume her education.’

‘You two?’ Maggie said. ‘Are you sure about this?’

Emma was out of earshot, upstairs changing the baby before putting him down for an afternoon nap, but I still kept my voice low as I answered. ‘Yes, I am. I think it’s important that she gets back into some sort of school environment. I’m really concerned at how isolated she seems to be from her peers. From what she’s told me and what I’ve read, she’s not attended school properly in something like eighteen months now, which I know is partly due to the pregnancy but that
is
only a part of it. It seems to me it’s mostly been to do with Tarim telling her who she can and can’t hang out with. Which isn’t healthy, is it? She needs to have friends her own age to offload to. Not to mention needing some sort of focus and routine. If she’s to support a baby – not to mention build up her own self-esteem – then she needs a life
beyond
the boyfriend. And right now – with him out of the picture for a bit – seems the perfect time to try and set that up.’

‘Well, that does seem to make sense,’ Maggie agreed. ‘In theory, at least. But it would only work if Emma committed to it properly. Though I don’t think she’ll be able to take her GCSEs. Not in the short term. She’s missed too much schooling. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be valuable, I agree. So we could certainly look at some alternative education packages for her.’

‘That sounds brilliant,’ I enthused. ‘It’s really just what she needs, and as for the commitment bit, just leave that to me. How soon do you think you could get her in somewhere?’

Maggie laughed. ‘You do sound keen! Soon, perhaps. It wouldn’t be a regular school, but there is a unit I know of, quite local to you, actually, and I know they usually have a couple of places up for grabs. Tell you what, let me go and make a phone call or two. I’ll get back to you in a bit. That sound okay?’

It sounded perfect, and the more I thought about it, the more keen I was to get it sorted, because it seemed to me that Emma’s best shot at making a go of things with Roman would be rooted in her having that all-important independence from her ever less inspiring-sounding boyfriend. And the unit Maggie had in mind was one I already knew of. It was a place that took in ten or twelve teenagers at a time, kids who, for all sorts of reasons, had been excluded from mainstream school. Which didn’t make it sound brilliant – that emotive word ‘exclusion’ covered many bases – but it wasn’t just there to mop up the ne’er-do-wells. Kids came out of mainstream education for all sorts of reasons, and one of the common ones was because they had become teenage mums. And though it wasn’t the ideal (that would have been going back to a regular comp and syllabus, obviously), it was definitely way better than nothing. I so wanted her to have a chance to spend at least a little more of her short childhood continuing her education and interacting with friends. It would stand her in such good stead in the long run and – most importantly – help to guide her towards making some better choices.

And to my surprise, Emma was very definitely up for it, even if not for the reasons I’d hoped.

‘Result!’ she whooped when Maggie called back a couple of days later with the news that, commencing the following Monday, she could attend the school for four days a week. I knew she was already upbeat because Tarim had finally deigned to text her, but her happy grin was really gratifying to see. ‘Yes!’ she said, punching a fist into the air, and scooping up Roman for a quick 360-degree spin-around. ‘Now I get my laptop, don’t I? Plus – woo hoo! Four days a week free of nappies and baby sick and free to be me again! Oh, thank you, thank you, Casey. Oh, let me hug you!’

I let her hug me – baby included – reflecting that even if her reasoning wasn’t to be encouraged – particularly within earshot of Hannah – her enthusiasm definitely was. ‘Hold up, though,’ I said, as she released me and I took hold of Roman. ‘Not so fast, missy. You’ll be home at four, at which point you will be taking over full responsibility for your baby. Much as I love this little man, and I do –’ I paused to tickle him – ‘I will be very definitely handing him
back
.’

Emma nodded happily. ‘Oh, course,’ she said. ‘Oh, you are such a star, Casey!’ Then her brow furrowed. ‘That’s a thought. Is there a uniform?’

I shook my head, which had the effect of returning the grin to her pretty face. ‘So I’ll need clothes and that, won’t I? So can we go shopping?’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, laughing at her newfound enthusiasm for education. ‘I might be able to stretch to a couple of tops and a pair of jeans come Saturday, but right now you are a mum, dear, so here – can you grab Roman? Because I have to set about organising tea.’ I laughed again as I watched Emma waltz off into the living room with the baby, and gave myself a mental pat on the back. At least I seemed to have cheered her up a bit.

‘I think you’re mad,’ Mike had said when I finally fessed up to the plan I’d quietly hatched for us. And I knew he was probably right. The actual child-minding bit would be down to me completely; he’d be at work as per usual.

And it took all of seven days for me to realise he might be right. At the end of that first week – a week in which Emma had skipped off full of the joys of spring every morning, which was a complete turnaround – I was shattered, both physically and mentally. Despite my confident assertion otherwise to Riley, just a scant couple of months earlier, I had forgotten just how draining small babies could be. I lost count of the number of occasions, by the time the fourth day drew to a close, when I made a silent vow of solidarity with forty-something mothers. I was shattered. Not to mention mentally a bit numb. It didn’t help that Roman was now becoming more demanding. Not only was he sleeping less and craving stimulation so much more; he was now really active in the daytime. And being almost five months old, he could now roll over on the carpet, so the days when he could be left in his chair playing with his feet were definitely over. He was also becoming inquisitive about the world around him and would get frustrated easily, so I was constantly having to find new ways to entertain him, in between feeding him and changing him, of course.

And my lovely home was suffering every bit as much as I was. It no longer looked much like the pristine place I took so much pride and joy in; it was beginning to resemble a very busy nursery, having been taken over by the triffid-like spread of baby paraphernalia. It was also killing me not to clean round Roman all day long, killing me. I could almost hear my marigolds crying out to me from the kitchen cupboard.

For Emma, however, school was manifestly a good thing. She was back engaging with the world – something she hadn’t done in a long time; not without her child in tow, at any rate. And for that first week she was also sweetly grateful for what I was doing for her. Coming home and immediately taking over Roman responsibilities, she would talk animatedly about the school work she was doing and how much she was enjoying it, along with all the usual fourteen-year-old ‘he said, she said’ kind of gossip. It was good to hear, and I was really pleased for her; it was exactly what she should be doing, after all, and sitting at the kitchen table with her rabbiting on was just so nice, bringing back dearly cherished memories of when Riley and Kieron had been that age.