The Shoplifting Mothers' Club (3 page)

‘I’m on my way, but she’s by herself, is she?’ Jessica couldn’t bear the thought of her small child in a huge hospital bed, in pain and alone.’

‘No, no. The school principal is with her now. She gave us your number, and a work contact for your husband. Would you like us to call him?’

‘Yes, please,’ Jessica whispered, standing there mute until the kind woman on the other end of the phone suggested she come to the hospital immediately, as Rachel was asking for her.

Snapping out of it, Jessica slammed the phone down, grabbed the car keys and raced out to the car, leaping in and starting the engine in less than two seconds.

My baby. My darling baby.

What on earth was going on at that school?

Roaring through two sets of lights, Jessica sped along, assuming the worst and praying for the best - no long term damage and no lasting effects.

Ronald arrived just as she did and for some reason, Jessica was boiling mad at the foppish, greying man who she’d once described as the love of her life. Was he any longer? Probably not. Not since he had selfishly insisted on making them suffer for his dream.

‘What’s happened?’

‘I just got here,’ Jessica snapped. ‘I know as much as you.’ It was a lie. She assumed Ronald hadn’t asked the questions of the nurse that she had. Children were beyond him. There was love, but little understanding.

He looked hurt, but didn’t respond. Rather he shook his head in that way that indicated he was dealing with irrationality and therefore should ignore it.

Jessica raced to the reception desk, calling out Rachel’s name as she did so.

‘Paediatric ward, third floor.’

Running for the lift, she assumed Ronald was beside her, but couldn’t sense him, and couldn’t much care. When she got in, she saw he’d turned to answer his phone, and was being shooed from the foyer by the security guard. Work, she assumed. It was always work.

‘Rachel!’ Following the sound, Jessica walked into a room with two beds. Only one was occupied. Ms Scott, the headmistress of Berry Street, stood in the corner, nervously biting on a nail.

‘Mummy it hurts,’ Rachel said, holding out the one hand that wasn’t constricted by plaster.

As Jessica ran to her, she forced herself not to cry, for Rachel’s sake. Even though the sight of the huge gash which covered half her face, and was taped together with tiny white plasters, made her want to fall to her knees and weep. Rachel had one arm and one leg in plaster, the later was raised and there was blood oozing through bandages on the limbs that weren’t in plaster. But it was her daughter’s face that was the most distressing. How would that scar – through which the layers of skin were clearly visible – ever heal?

Minutes later, Ronald appeared and taking in the dreadful appearance of their daughter, immediately began demanding answers. ‘What happened?’ he asked Ms Scott, the headmistress. The woman, only fifty and extremely youthful in appearance, recoiled. The elephant in the room was the fact that Ronald was a lawyer – and lawyers could cause horrible expense to those who injured their children.

‘She seems to have decided to jump off the roof.’ The words were carefully chosen.

‘Decided? How does an eight year old have access to the roof, Ms Scott? Were you conducting a class up there, in violation of health and safety?’

The woman went white, with, Jessica suspected, concealed rage. Her voice, however, remained even. ‘No, of course not. It was lunchtime, and apparently something happened to cause Rachel to run into the art building, climb the stairs, and discover the hatch that led to the roof.’

‘That hatch shouldn’t have been
discoverable.
’ The vitriol in Ronald’s tone made the headmistress recoil. It irritated Jessica that he had failed to ask the important question.

Why? What had caused her to do it?

Jessica asked Rachel but the little girl turned away and motioned for the television to be turned up.

Ms Scott had some insight. ‘From what I can gather she’d had a discussion with some of girls and there was an altercation about the Paris trip for French class. Rachel was insisting she was going, but some of the others were equally insistent that she wasn’t.’

Exasperated, she continued. ‘There was a trip to Paris. We can’t afford it, but everyone else in the class is going, so Rachel was clearly upset about it.’

The enormity of the situation suddenly hit Jessica. What if Rachel had purposely jumped off that roof? What if she’d attempted suicide? Surely that couldn’t be the case.

‘You don’t think she actually meant to jump, do you?’ The words were whispered, so only Ronald could hear.

‘Nonsense, she must have tripped or something.’ Ronald was a typical public school boy. Chin up and keep going, no matter what the cost.

The nurse came forward and told them the paediatric consultant had requested a psychiatric consult, as well as asking for a plastic surgeon.

‘My daughter doesn’t need a psychiatrist,’ Jessica said firmly. ‘Falling off a school roof is bad enough without being interrogated by a shrink.’

‘Mrs Maroni, I really think . . .’

Ronald stepped in. ‘Nurse, I do appreciate all your help, but we can manage from here. Just the plastic surgeon, please. We’ll talk about counselling later.’

Rachel would go spare at having to talk to a counsellor. Jessica had to believe there was a logical, childish explanation as to why Rachel fell off that roof. And she was confident that once Rachel was feeling better, they would discover it was all a misunderstanding.

Wouldn’t they?

Mr Hugo Smyth frowned at Ronald and Jessica. ‘This type of gaping scar is not easily dealt with. See here, the tear is at an unfortunate angle. It requires a delicate and time-consuming procedure that, at the moment, the NHS doesn’t offer.’

‘You can’t be serious.’ Jessica felt faint. ‘She’s only eight. You can’t just leave her face like that.’ They all turned to survey the scar from the photo the doctor held up. It ran the length of Rachel’s face, from the bottom of her left eye to just above her lip.

‘No, you misunderstand. We can fix it, and we will, but in order to complete eradicate the scarring, the other procedure would be recommended – but it is new and therefore not offered by the State.’

‘Where are we, in bloody America?’ Jessica cried. The doctor looked at his feet – and she sensed he might have thought as much himself.

‘Unfortunately, I get charged for theatre time and so on as a private doctor. The operation itself requires two surgeons, as well as the anaesthetist. It all adds up.’

‘To a large wad in his pocket,’ Ronald grumbled under his breath to Jessica.

She nudged him to be quiet. The doctor was only trying to help.

Sensing the dissent, the doctor tactfully withdrew. ‘I’ll let you discuss it, shall I? If you want to go ahead with the NHS procedure, the sister can book you in.’

Ronald didn’t waste time dashing her hopes. ‘We can’t afford it, Jessica. You know that. Let’s get her some counselling – that’s on the NHS. It should do the trick.’

He was kidding, right?
‘This is our daughter, Ronald. She needs to live a full and normal life. How can she do that with a huge scar across her face?’

She grabbed his hand and he jumped at the physical contact.
Had it been that long since they’d touched?
‘We’ve got to try. You heard the doctor. She’ll be scarred for life if they don’t do something now.’

Ronald ran a hand through his untidy hair. ‘That can’t be right, can it? Surely we need another opinion?’

‘We need the NHS to pay for it. Can’t you make them, find a legal loophole? How can they allow a kid to just live with a scar across her face?’

‘I doubt the law will support us, and not within 48 hours. The doctor just said the State won’t pay for new and possibly experimental plastic surgery, I doubt he’s lying. Besides, a scar is not life threatening – getting a quick decision on this will be impossible. And costly, too.’

‘And what if it damages her psychologically? What if she jumped off that roof for some reason? What on earth might she do if she has to live with a horrible scar across her face? Are you suggesting that I’m supposed to just sit back and wait to see how my daughter feels about being the freak show of her form? If she was an adult they’d do it, wouldn’t they? But eight-year-olds aren’t supposed to have feelings, is that it?’

Ronald gently withdrew his hand. ‘That’s why she’d benefit from seeing a shrink. If there were some way around it, I would say yes to the surgery, but short of selling the house, I can’t see a way.’

‘Use the Visa. We’ll pay it off.’

‘How? We deliberately don’t use credit because we have no income to allot to repaying it.’

‘This is different. At least we can get it done. They send those cheques, don’t they, with the statements. We can write the surgeon one of those.’

‘No. We can’t afford it. And I can’t risk county court judgments and the like against me.’ Ronald’s phone began vibrating. He pressed a couple of buttons and began to swear. ‘Bloody intern. Shit, I’ve got to get to a hearing. Look, I’m sure the scar will be barely noticeable in time. Just go ahead with the NHS thing, and in the future, when we have more cash, we’ll try and sort it.’

He didn’t even wait for Jessica to answer before he was blowing a kiss to Rachel and heading out of the swinging doors of the ward.

It must have been a good ten minutes before Jessica realised she hadn’t moved, and was just staring at the doors through which Ronald had exited so quickly.

The nurse tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Mrs Maroni, would you like me to discuss Rachel’s operation options again?’ The sister, her lovely, ruddy face full of concern, waved at a small desk with two chairs by the nurses’ station.

The sister, surprise still etched on the plastered-on smile, leaned over to a shelf and handed Jessica a card. ‘That’s the number for his rooms. Contact his assistant. She’ll be able to help.’

Taking the card, Jessica walked determinedly to make the call that would have a profound effect on a number of lives – including hers.

OF COURSE, RONALD TOOK the seemingly miraculous healing of their daughter’s scar as an indication that everything had turned out for the best. Jessica, for her part, hid the Visa bills when they came in, and tried as hard as she could to squirrel money from the household budget to meet the minimum payments.

She’d contacted the bank as soon as the operation was successfully completed – it couldn’t very well be undone, could it? – and explained that they’d suddenly had a problem with their income and she wished to freeze the debt and pay it off. It was a trick she’d heard about at the local social services bureau, but had never before had to use it.

Reluctantly agreeing, because the law gave them no choice, the bank accepted Jessica’s measly repayment option of thirty pounds month, but she knew it was only a matter of time before Ronald discovered what she’d done. And then, as they say, all hell would break loose.

It was with a heavy heart, therefore, that she called her parents to ask for help. Since they’d given the money for three quarters of their house, Jessica had been hesitant to approach them for anything at all, so great had been their gift. But this was different – it was their granddaughter’s future at stake – so she figured they might have a few thousand, at least, to help.

‘I’m so sorry, darling. But you know, with your father and the dementia, we need every penny we have for care now. We might even have to sell the house to make ends meet.’

It was a horrifying thing to hear, because her father had managed to build up a small engineering firm into one of the major UK players. To think of all his hard work going to pay for people to stop him roaming the streets in his underwear was unthinkable.