Between You and Me

by Carol Mason

  Joe goes over and kisses him. ‘Mummy had to go to court today so she’s going to come and see you later.’

  His gaze slides past his dad’s head – to me – and I wonder if the sight of me is going to make him cry, but instead he says an upbeat, ‘Lauren!’

  The nurse tells us she’ll be back in a bit, and leaves the room.

  ‘Godfrey says hi!’ I wave the leg of his favourite toy at him.

  ‘How is Russell Crowe?’ he asks, as I set Godfrey down beside him.

  ‘Who’s Russell Crowe?’ Joe sounds puzzled.

  Toby rushes out the story.

  ‘Wow!’ Joe sends me a brief look. ‘Interesting what you two get up to when I’m not around!’ But it’s fake joviality, put on for Toby’s benefit. His eyes are devoid of any affection when they look my way.

  ‘Russell is actually doing well!’ I say. ‘I bet he’s going to be back with his family in no time! Maybe we can check up on him again when you come home.’

  He turns a little downcast. ‘When can I go home? I don’t want to be here anymore.’

  ‘Soon, little man.’ Joe tickles his cheek. ‘Keep your happy face on, buddy.’

  Toby peppers him with questions about how long his bandages will have to be on. Meanwhile I find my eyes being drawn to the foot of Toby’s bed, to his medical chart, and my hand instinctively reaches for it.

  I first scan the results of the bloodwork, then the scribbled notes: partial thickness, superficial, irregular margins, non-uniform depth . . . non-intentional injury. Then I go back and reread, process it better.

  ‘Can we go to the park when I come home so we can see if Russell’s family is still waiting for him?’

  I distantly hear him ask me a question, but I just keep staring at the page before me.

  ‘Lauren . . .’

  It takes me a moment to snap back. ‘Yes, Toby!’ I plaster on a big smile, put the notes back where they came from. ‘I’m sure we can do that when you come home.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Toby says, his left arm drawing Godfrey in for a hug.

  I sneak a glance at Joe, noting the tender way he gazes at his son. He is sitting in the chair next to him, his index finger stroking Toby’s bare knee. I am deeply moved by the sight of them – and troubled at the same time.

  Toby is sent home. His injuries – mercifully – won’t be any worse than blistering and discomfort. For the next few days Joe drives over there in the afternoon to take him to get his dressing changed when Meredith has to be in court. I put in a couple of long shifts at the hospital, still utterly cheerless in the wake of all this, dragging it all around with me.

  Joe and I don’t say much about the accident. There are no sharp words or remonstrances. But when we go to bed he doesn’t hold me. When he speaks he looks several inches past my head.

  On my last night shift we are insanely busy, which fortunately keeps my mind away from my marriage, my mistakes and other troubling things I know. But as I take an old man’s HR, temperature, BP and SATS, as I remove a chest drain from a middle-aged manual worker, insert nasal packing in a teenager and review the gastroscopy of a patient with oesophageal cancer, I don’t feel my normal confidence and connection to the tasks at hand.

  On the Tube home at 8 a.m., as the train flashes through the tunnel, I don’t know if I’m too exhausted to feel overwrought anymore, but one comforting thought does occur to me. If Meredith was going to report me, I’d probably have heard something by now. Silence can only be a good sign.

  Buoyed by that thought, I walk out of the lift at the underground, when my phone rings and I see it’s Joe.

  ‘I’m just coming out of the station right now,’ I tell him. ‘Almost home . . .’

  There’s a brief pause, and then he says an uneasy, ‘Okay . . . Good.’

  ‘Do we need any groceries? I can pop to the shop.’ I vaguely recall us being low on milk.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Don’t pop to the shop. Come straight home.’

  There is something in his tone that unnerves me. ‘Is everything all right?’

  Silence again. And then, ‘Not exactly.’

  My walking slows to a halt.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  I hear a slight sigh. And then he says, ‘There are some people here. From Social Services. They’d like to talk to you.’

  FORTY-ONE

  When I walk into the flat, everything is quiet. At first I think, That’s odd! Maybe they’ve gone. But as I close the door behind me, something in the hollow of silence, in the subdued way the dog comes to greet me, tells me otherwise.

  And then I hear the low rumbling of Joe’s voice – and others. A steady, serious quality to their tone.

  ‘Lauren.’ Joe gets to his feet the moment he sees me. Sitting on the sofa, side by side, are a lanky young man in a severe grey suit and an older woman in an olive-green pencil dress.

  The woman stands first and tells me she’s Audrey Richardson from Children’s Services. The young man follows her lead, less confidently, tells me he’s Trevor somebody – I don’t catch the last name. He doesn’t meet my eyes.

  Joe asks me if I’d like some water.

  The woman says a perky, ‘Or a cup of tea?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I think I’m okay.’

  Audrey asks me to sit down. As I do, she adds, ‘I’m sure that as a doctor you must get tired of being on your feet.’

  I tell her she’s right. The dog comes and lays his chin on my lap, and when I happen to glance at this Trevor person, he is watching Mozart like someone who isn’t particularly a pet-lover but needs somewhere to put his eyes.

  Audrey gets down to business. She tells me there’s been a report to their department – concern for the welfare of my stepson, raised by the child’s biological mother. She goes on to give me a few more details, setting it all out, most of which I don’t hear except for a few key terms.

  Accident.

  Toby’s well-being.

  Child endangerment.

  As I swallow and try to unclench my clasped fingers from the backs of my hands, she asks if I can explain to her exactly what happened in the kitchen when Toby was scalded.

  And so I do. I tell her everything I am sure I’ve recounted half a dozen times before.

  She doesn’t speak when I finish. Trevor addresses me instead. ‘You were celebrating your birthday, were you not?’ He glances up from his notes, looks like he’s trying really hard to not appear as uncomfortable as he’s feeling. Instead of meeting my eye, his gaze settles an inch or two to the right of me. ‘I believe you had a bottle of champagne. You served some to your fourteen-year-old stepdaughter apparently. Is that right?’

  ‘To Grace,’ I say. ‘Yes. A small glass.’ I glance at Audrey, who is looking at me with an expression that borders on sympathetic.

  There is a suspenseful silence, then Joe fills it. ‘Sorry . . . I’m not sure what the point of this question is – or how it’s relevant. It’s not a crime to give a minor a glass of bubbly in your own home, is it.’ There is no question, no uncertainty in his tone.

  ‘Not a crime,’ Trevor says. ‘No.’ He returns his attention to his notes. ‘So your stepdaughter was on the sofa here with Toby while you were cooking, is that right?’

  ‘She was, yes. She and Toby were playing a ventriloquist game.’

  Audrey smiles.

  ‘And when did Toby start running around the kitchen exactly?’ Trevor asks.

  ‘He didn’t,’ I tell him. ‘He came and stood by the breakfast bar at some point. He wasn’t running, though. He was playing with his Godfrey the Giraffe.’

  He looks unconvinced. My heart flares.

  He then asks me some other questions about our family’s practices. Whether I am regularly alone with the children, if I generally prepare all the meals for them, take them to and from school or to extra-curricular activities . . . how I discipline them. I realise he’s not as green or as awkward as he first looked. He almost looks like he’s enjoying himself no
w.

  ‘Discipline?’ I frown, the word conjuring school mistresses and corporal punishment, a cane cutting the air, landing on the palm of a hand. ‘I wouldn’t say I ever discipline them, as you put it. That’s not really my role.’

  Joe says, ‘What my wife means is that we haven’t been married all that long. Lauren tries very hard to have a positive relationship with my children. And while there really hasn’t been any incident where she would have been required to correct their behaviour, she would likely not feel comfortable doing so at this stage, I don’t think.’ He looks at me. ‘Right?’

  ‘That’s right.’ I send him a flicker of a smile.

  The young man, who is getting into his stride now, says, ‘So your relationship with your stepchildren could be described as positive, could it?’ He finally – properly – meets my eyes and I have a sneaky feeling he’s setting some sort of trap.

  My mind immediately goes to the forum. What Meredith – or Grace – might have told them. ‘Positive might be a stretch,’ I say, and I give Joe a look that says, Sorry. I have to be honest. Then, directing my comment to Audrey, perhaps for no other reason than she’s a woman, I add, ‘It hasn’t always been easy. Grace and I don’t always get along. But we are trying – all of us.’

  She gives a short nod. ‘Tell me about it, love! I’ve got teenagers and I hardly ever get along with them these days. Most of the time I can’t say a right word.’

  I smile, feeling a degree of relief.

  The guy asks if they can take a quick look around the flat. I realise that since I moved on from wringing my hands, I’ve been clutching handfuls of my skirt just to stop my hands sweating.

  Audrey says, ‘Perhaps Lauren could show us where Toby sleeps.’

  So we walk down the hall to Toby’s room. I hang back while they have a little look around – briefly glancing in his wardrobe, taking in his vast collection of toys on the small window seat and his train set on the desk.

  ‘He’s the little boy who’s got everything, isn’t he?’ Audrey catches my eye.

  ‘He doesn’t want for toys,’ I say, ‘nor for love and attention.’

  She studies me a moment, then skims through a pile of his books – his vintage Ladybird collection that I bought for him shortly after the book debacle in the hotel.

  ‘Bedtime reading,’ I tell her.

  ‘These are almost collector’s items!’ She seems nostalgic.

  ‘I know. I found them online. They were a big part of my growing-up. I thought it might be nice if they were part of Toby’s.’

  She regards me with kindness. ‘Do you read to him or does his dad?’

  ‘Both of us,’ I say. ‘But I suppose mostly me . . . Joe says Toby finds a female voice soothing.’

  She nods, seems to like this.

  ‘Soothing or not, they don’t always put him to sleep.’ I try a smile.

  ‘And what about you? Do you like reading to him?’

  I suddenly feel desolate, a sense of all that being past tense now. ‘Actually, yes. I love it. I didn’t really grow up around younger kids. It’s been my favourite thing about being a stepmum.’

  Audrey smiles, glances at his toys again, and then we leave the room.

  I go back into the living room while the two of them chat in low voices at the end of the hall. After a while, Audrey pops her head around the half-closed door.

  ‘Thank you for answering our questions.’

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Trevor says. ‘Before we go . . . Were you at a petrol station a few weeks back, and did you happen to lock Toby in the car?’

  My heart skips a beat.

  Joe says, ‘That’s not strictly accurate. She didn’t lock him in the car. Her key fob failed.’

  ‘But the upshot was he got locked in and you couldn’t get the door open, right?’

  I can’t believe Meredith would have told them this! Now I wonder, did she also bring up the fact that he fell on the slide? That Grace said there was practically a man-hunt for him in Marks & Spencer?

  ‘It was minutes,’ I say.

  ‘Minutes. But you had to wait for help.’

  I shake my head. ‘There was a man there. It was sorted quickly.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Audrey is the one to bring the interrogation to a close. On their way out she adds, ‘If we need anything else we’ll be in touch.’

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘I’ll talk to Meredith again,’ Joe says, shortly after they’ve gone. ‘Try to get her to see sense.’

  Their questions, their implications, cling to me like some sort of vile contamination.

  ‘I’m going to see what I can do,’ he says, but I wish he sounded more infuriated, more impassioned, on my behalf.

  In the night I can’t sleep, and decide there’s no point in just lying here, wide awake, blinking at the ceiling. I drag my feet into the kitchen and sit at the breakfast bar with my laptop. I find myself doing random google searches, combing through websites for the Met police, Citizens Advice, the NSPCC . . . I read about child protection law, what happens if you get charged with child neglect, as well as countless personal cases – horror stories, more like – in the Guardian, Daily Mail and Mirror – which leave me more panicked than ever.

  Joe wanders into the kitchen, places a hand on my shoulder. I nearly jump out of my skin.

  ‘I want to see her,’ I say, after he’s made coffee, poured me a mug and sat down. I’m not convinced he’s going to make a good enough case for me to get her to back off. I peer at the time at the top of my computer. Only 5 a.m. ‘First thing. I want you to call her and tell her I’m coming over. We need to have this out.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he says, rather disengaged. ‘I’ll call her in an hour or so when she’ll be up.’

  He doesn’t say, I’m coming with you.

  Her house is an elegant, white stucco-fronted, Grade II-listed, mid-terrace on a quiet, leafy avenue a short walk from the charming, understated, picture-perfect Primrose Hill village. Joe said they paid two million pounds for it fifteen years ago, and while it’s worth more than double that now, Meredith preferred to buy Joe out and stay in the low-key, celebrity enclave she’d come to love, while he moved a couple of miles up the road – close enough for shipping the kids back and forth, but far enough away to not be running into each other in the coffee shop.

  Now that I’m here, my stomach pitches with dread. It’s hard for me to think this was once Joe’s home too. That he walked these streets, ate at that cafe in the village, lived a life behind that royal blue front door. A life that might never have changed if Meredith hadn’t cheated. I have never stopped to wonder if he compares and contrasts his marriages. If, cheating aside, he would rather have still been with her than with me.

  I understand I have about twenty minutes before she has to get into work.

  I intend to have a rational, unemotional conversation, but the second we come face to face my resolve crumples, and my blood boils. ‘You called Social Services on me!’ I try not to sound borderline hysterical. ‘You reported me for child endangerment?’

  I don’t know what I’m expecting. To appeal to her humanity? For her to regret – even for a millisecond – taking us down this path?

  But those big soulful brown eyes hold mine, their expression quickly turning into a look that could sever bone. ‘You’re not fit,’ she says.

  In the background – down a long narrow hallway with blank cream walls and dark, imperfect wooded floorboards – I see Grace lurking in the shadows.

  Indignation pulses in me. ‘It was an accident, Meredith! An accident. It could have happened to anyone. You or Joe could equally have been in my situation. Only you weren’t, were you? Because neither of you were there.’ I point a finger into my own chest. ‘I was there.’

  She looks me up and down again, two spots of colour blooming on her cheeks. I’m still conscious of Grace watching, taking it all in.

  And then I hear Grace say, ‘Lauren is right, Mummy. It really was an accident.�
�� She walks down the hallway in her pyjamas and stands beside her mother.

  Meredith throws her a look. ‘Grace, you need to stay out of this.’

  She directs her attention to me again. ‘Lauren, we make judgement calls every day. Risk assessments. Most of them are subconscious. Many are basic common sense. Even if I put your feelings for my children aside, what does this say about your judgement? In fact – let’s face it – what does any of your behaviour to date say about it?’

  She holds my gaze. I can’t look away from this horrible picture she’s just painted of me. Before I can say anything in my own defence, she presses on. ‘You’re so damned untrustworthy! I don’t know if it’s your age, or your lack of life experience, or just the fact that these are not your children so you don’t really care, because even if you actually liked them, you don’t love them . . . You can’t love them like a mother.’ She pauses, draws breath. Her gaze is unflinching. Her tone has gone from mildly sympathetic to indignant again. ‘You are honestly not cut out for the position you’ve found yourself in, and the thing is, I think you know it.’

  All I can focus on is her saying that even if I liked them, I can’t love them like a mother. This unbearable feeling of inadequacy and exclusion, of staying a course that gets us nowhere in the end.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I suspected it from day one. I never thought you were cut out for this. And that’s got nothing to do with your age, or any feelings about Joe remarrying on my part . . . It was just a sense I got from you. And I’m sorry to say you proved me right.’

  I listen to this character assassination, my brain scrambling back over it. Grace is staring at the ground, her face ablaze with colour. She will not meet my eye.

  ‘That’s very unfair,’ I manage to say levelly, though it takes a degree of self-control I never knew I possessed. ‘You have no idea what I think or don’t think, or what I feel.’

  She doesn’t even blink. ‘Be that as it may, that’s not really the issue here. This isn’t about you. It’s about my children. And the reality is – like I said – you are not fit to be responsible for them. Or anyone’s children. And I cannot allow mine to be left in your care anymore.’