Allegation

by R. G. Adams

  ‘Yes, it was. Total denial. And it worked for a while; we were in a kind of bubble, now I look back on it. We kept convincing each other. And there were plenty of people around us who were willing to confirm what we wanted to believe. Proud grandparents aren’t too keen on hearing that things might not be quite as they want them to be.’ Matt gave Kit a weak smile. ‘My parents were the worst actually. Annie’s mother was a lot more practical, more accepting. My mother and father are used to being able to solve any problem by throwing money at it, and for once, that wasn’t going to change a damn thing . . .’

  He stopped again, and Kit sensed that he was looking for a way to carry on talking about his parents or Annie’s mother, or anything except Lucy. He wanted a detour. A part of Kit wanted one too. She felt so cruel. She desperately wanted to back off from this guy, and from what she had opened up. She didn’t want to watch him relive all this. But she seemed to have hit on his raw spot, and now she could see that there was more to him than she had realised.

  ‘So, when did you become aware that the doctors might be right?’ She watched his profile and was relieved to see he was composing himself.

  ‘When it got to the point where Lucy hadn’t rolled onto her side, then when she hadn’t sat up, and all the other babies in the pram group had done those things months ago. She just wasn’t reaching her milestones and we couldn’t pretend anymore. We tried. My parents got involved again, I’m afraid.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘“Your cousin’s youngest didn’t sit up until he was eighteen months old and he’s a high court judge now.” All that kind of thing. You go along with it outwardly but inside you know you’re all kidding each other. No one wants to be the one to say it first.’

  ‘Who did say it first?’ Kit asked, guessing the answer.

  ‘Annie, of course. It was Annie. She was incredibly strong, and she insisted that we needed to know. She had to deal with my parents, which I can tell you is not easy at the best of times, and she had to deal with me as well. I really didn’t want to hear it. What can I say? It was a tough time. Really tough . . .’

  His voice trailed away, and he looked down at his lap, swallowing hard. On the back of his tanned neck, thick strands of brown hair were glistening with perspiration. Kit felt a momentary urge to touch him, to give him some comfort, but resisted it. Instead, she put her pen and her papers down on the floor, then leant forward in her chair, hoping to encourage him to go on. When he looked up to meet her gaze, she realised that she had misjudged the distance, and that their faces were much too close together, close enough for her to see tears welling in his eyes. She forced herself to hold eye contact and he held it too, seemingly unable to go on, waiting for her to take charge.

  ‘Can you tell me about that, Matt?’ She slid backwards in her chair, re-establishing the distance between them.

  ‘The thing is, when they tell you the diagnosis, and you begin to realise what’s ahead of you . . . It’s just words at that point, but after a while you start to see your future. We’d see older kids in the waiting room at the clinic and how disabled some of them were, and I’d say to Annie, “Oh, that’s awful, but they must have a different disability to Lucy.” Then we’d find out they had CP too, so then we’d agree with each other that they must have a much more severe type of CP. Then you find out that some of them have got the same. You can go on like that for a while, finding different ways to deny it, but in the end, it dawns on you that you’ve got a lifetime of caring ahead. Annie and I were both ambitious; I was brought up to work hard and succeed and so was she. A disabled child didn’t exactly fit our plans.’ He glanced at her. ‘I know that sounds awful, Kit, and I hope you won’t hold it against me because it’s in the past now. We’ve achieved what we planned to after all, and we love Lucy, of course. But that’s how it felt at the time.’

  ‘I won’t hold it against you at all. I understand.’ It was the response he wanted and there was no harm in giving it. But she wondered at his slightly self-satisfied tone, his view of himself and Annie as a success story, in spite of Lucy throwing a spanner in the works. But then again, they were pretty successful. Why would he pretend otherwise?

  ‘Of course, nothing takes away how much it hurts,’ he continued, making Kit wonder whether he’d guessed what she was thinking. ‘I hear our friends moaning about their kids growing up. It can be hard to listen to at times, if I’m honest. We would give anything to have all that ahead for Lucy. To have a healthy child and see that child grow up and become independent, going out into the world – that’s a privilege, isn’t it? Excuse me for a moment.’

  He got up and left the room quickly. Kit heard a door close in the hallway. She guessed he had gone to the bathroom to pull himself together. A few minutes passed, during which Kit tried to work out what she thought about what had been said and where she could take this next. She realised that her own throat had tightened a little while he’d been talking. This was as close as she was likely to come to an emotional reaction. Kit never really cried herself, so she usually regarded crying as being fake and manipulative. But Matt Cooper’s words had affected her deeply, and she knew for the next day or two, her mind was going to be full of the picture he’d painted of Lucy’s early years, and what Matt and Annie had faced. She had no idea really, she realised. She felt exactly like the young, naive kid Annie had said she was.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just needed a minute.’ He sat down. His face was dry and his eyes just slightly reddened. He had another mug of coffee with him and he sipped at it before continuing. ‘Anyway, look, Annie and I went through the stage of wanting to run away, but we were lucky, it didn’t last long for either of us. We’re both tough people, and we saw it the same way. We were going to make it work. We wanted more children and a nice life. I provide the money, Jean’s organised some of the care and my parents have helped us a lot financially as well. They came around, in time. My father dotes on Lucy actually. And Annie makes everything run smoothly at home. That’s the deal. We are living proof that you can have a good family life with a severely disabled child. Of course, we’re luckier than most. We’re affluent and I know that gives us an advantage,’ he added, seeming to have read Kit’s mind again. ‘But still, the point I’m making is our life is great, including Lucy’s. And then all this comes along, and it’s threatening everything we’ve got. You can’t really expect any of us to welcome you with open arms, can you?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘I could have walked away. I guess some men might have. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d left Lucy. She was my little girl before the diagnosis and she still was after it. To be honest, a lot of men don’t feel that way. And it’s all turned out fine. More than fine. I am quite proud of that. Then this happens. It just seems so unfair. I miss being with my family so much, Kit, and I worry about how they’re coping. I appreciate what you did at the legal meeting, making it work so that I could see the children with Annie supervising. I’m not being ungrateful for that, I know things could have been so much worse without your help. But it’s just not the same as living in my home with all of them, you know? And we’ve got no idea how long this could go on for.’

  Kit found herself once again struggling to stifle the impulse to say or do something to make him feel better. To make up, somehow, for the damage that she had done to his family and for making him trawl back through Lucy’s early years.

  ‘I can’t put myself in your shoes, so I’m not going to pretend that I can.’

  ‘No, you’re right. You can’t imagine what this is like from the outside. I could lose everything. My job, my home, my family. It’s all hanging by a thread right now.’ His words were coming quickly and his voice was louder. His hands clenched together, kneading each other. ‘And it would affect my parents, too. You know what this town is like, everyone’s connected, and the fact is that everyone knows us. Our businesses are a big part of keeping Sandbeach afloat, and the town needs people like us if
it’s going to get the regeneration finished. But you and I both know all that will count for nothing if I get charged and this gets out, even if I’m cleared in the end. “No smoke without fire,” and all that. We’d all have to move away, I guess, start again somewhere new.’

  He stopped and looked at her, and his voice softened. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to rant at you. You’ve made this as easy as it could be and I’m chatting to you, telling you all sorts of things, but then I have to keep remembering that I can’t relax, because if I say the wrong thing, if I slip up, you could take my children away from me.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, I couldn’t. The court could.’ It sounded just as defensive as she felt. His words had put her on edge. It was almost as though she might be personally responsible for bringing the economy of Sandbeach to its knees.

  ‘But that’s just words really. It’s you that the judge would listen to. You, the police, the CPS – you could tear my whole life to pieces and destroy everything that Annie and I have worked for. It’s a hell of a responsibility for you, isn’t it?’

  Kit bit her lip, feeling again that she was too young, too inexperienced, to have this much power. She decided that the best thing she could do was to leave him alone now. She put her pen and papers together to signal that she was bringing things to a close.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know how it feels from this side. I hope that I’ve helped, though?’ he asked her.

  ‘You have. Shall we leave it there now?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘It might be just as well. My parents are due back pretty soon and I wouldn’t want to expose you to them.’

  She put her things away in her bag and stood up, and Matt led the way out of the room and into the hallway. Halfway down, he stopped at a door.

  ‘This is the room that my parents had fitted out for Lucy.’ He opened the door for Kit to step inside. The room contained a bed, complete with hoist, and another bed for whoever was sleeping in with Lucy. There was also all the usual furniture and the same sort of posters that she had seen at Matt and Annie’s house.

  ‘We made it as similar as possible to home so that Lucy would feel more settled. She loves coming here for weekends.’

  ‘Do her carers come with her?’ This arrangement was news to Kit. She cursed Jean Collins yet again.

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just the records don’t show anything about her staying over at your parents’.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s lovely for her to have the change. I was just wondering why Jean didn’t allocate some of Lucy’s care hours to her weekends here – it could have helped them with the overnights?’

  ‘There was no need,’ Matt said. ‘My mother sleeps in with Lucy. She manages everything at night.’

  ‘How often does Lucy come?’

  ‘Every couple of weeks usually. But she hasn’t been for a month or two actually.’

  ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

  ‘She decided she didn’t want to. It might surprise you to know that she can be quite stubborn. It’ll pass.’

  Kit glanced around the room again. It was immaculately tidy, but it smelt musty. She saw that Len and Jackie, too, seemed to know all about what Lucy liked. On the wall near Lucy’s bed, a calendar showed Taylor Swift, posing next to a Christmas tree, wearing tiny red shorts and a sparkly jumper. On the floor underneath it, this year’s Taylor calendar stood neatly propped up against the skirting board, still in its shrink wrap.

  Matt had moved out of the room and was waiting for her. As Kit followed him towards the front door, she saw a large display of photos that climbed up the wall to the side of the staircase, ending in a beautiful studio portrait of Matt and Annie with the three children.

  ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ Matt’s tone was warm again as he took a few steps back to stand beside her.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ It really was stunning, with Matt and Annie looking photogenic behind Lucy’s chair and Chloe and Cameron on either side of their sister, one blond head leaning on each of her shoulders, all three of them giggling over a shared joke. There were other family groups, too, showing Matt at various ages along with a younger girl and a couple who must be the infamous Len Cooper and his wife. The photos of the girl seemed to peter out in her late teens, but there was photo after photo of Matt – holding up sporting trophies, graduating, relaxing on beaches and by swimming pools, and marrying Annie. The couple looked so outright beautiful in their wedding photos that Kit found it hard to stop staring at them. A row of smaller pictures had been cut out of newspapers; they showed Matt and Annie in full evening dress, snapped as they arrived at various functions and clapping in the front row at local award ceremonies and prize-givings.

  Matt saw her looking at the newspaper cuttings. ‘My mother, I’m afraid,’ he said, with a sheepish smile. ‘She’s rather proud of us. It’s a bit embarrassing really.’

  Kit’s eyes moved across the display and she caught sight of another framed newspaper cutting. This one showed Len Cooper, in a suit and tie, cutting a ribbon that was stretched across the door of a building. He was surrounded by a crowd of people in the midst of a round of applause, one of them a portly middle-aged man wearing the mayoral chains. Something about the photo jarred in Kit’s mind. She knew Sandbeach like the back of her hand, so could see the photo had been taken from the far side of the bay, up high on the road that went out towards the west. The sea formed a gleaming backdrop in the lower part of the picture, only partially hidden by the ugly squat building Len Cooper was presumably opening. But the building itself wasn’t familiar to her at all. Then she remembered what Vernon had said about Len building a residential home for older people. It certainly had that institutional look about it, single-storey and nondescript, and she realised it must have been built in the last few years, while she’d been out at Cliffside. She scanned the cutting, but before she could draw close enough to read the print underneath, Matt was clearing his throat loudly and she saw that he had moved away and was holding the front door open.

  The sound of crunching gravel filled the hallway. A dark maroon Mercedes swept across the drive and pulled up in front of the door. A man got out, instantly recognisable from the family photos. He was uninteresting to look at, with Matt’s lanky build and thick hair but none of his chiselling. He was dressed in nondescript casual trousers and a checked shirt. A small woman got out of the passenger side. She was wearing a black and white floral dress and sunglasses. Kit took in her slim build and glossy blow-dried hair and admired her expensive-looking black suede sandals. The whole effect was to make her look much younger than her husband, until the sun fell unkindly on the marionette lines that rucked up the skin of her lower face. Something about that face seemed familiar to Kit. Even under the thick make-up, it was obvious her skin wasn’t good. Kit could make out an uneven surface, a bumpy criss-cross over the cheeks and the slightly thickened nose – facial veins, she’d know them anywhere, through any amount of slap. Mrs Cooper was a drinker, Kit would have bet her job on it. Len Cooper locked the car and walked around to the door, and Kit waited, curious to see how this scene was going to play out.

  ‘Kit, this is my father, Len. And my mother, Jackie. This is Kit, the social worker.’

  ‘So it’s you we’ve got to thank for what’s happening to my family?’ Len Cooper spat. ‘Right, well, I’m glad to see you here, girl, because I’ve got a few things to say to you.’

  Kit felt her confidence rise instantly in the face of this. Girl indeed.

  ‘If you’ve got something to tell me for my assessment, then yes, of course, that would be very helpful.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this for your assessment. I want my son back home with his family where he belongs. So, let’s hear what you are going to do about it.’

  ‘Your son is facing serious allegations. We can’t have him around his own chi
ldren until we know he’s completely cleared.’

  Len Cooper had moved close to her now, so close that she could see flecks of spit on his thin, pallid lips.

  ‘So, what you say goes, is it? Because of something that’s been said by some little slag? Let’s see how long she keeps her story up. You are going to be sorry you ever believed a word that came out of her filthy mouth.’

  ‘Dad, leave it.’ Matt was suddenly in between his father and Kit. He put a hand up to keep Len Cooper back and allow Kit out onto the drive. Jackie Cooper slipped past in the other direction, taking her husband’s arm on the way, ushering him into the house.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Matt said. ‘My parents are very upset, I’m sure you can understand why. He didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘He didn’t scare me.’

  ‘I’m glad he didn’t. Look, Kit, I know you can’t do what I want. I want you to promise it’s all going to be all right and of course you can’t. But for what it’s worth, I think you have a very difficult job and you do it very well.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matt Cooper’s hand moving upwards. She put her own out to meet it, thinking that he was going to shake hands. But his rose higher, as if he was going to touch somewhere around her shoulder. She looked at him, knowing that her face showed her surprise. His hand dropped immediately to his side.

  ‘Thank you again, Kit. Goodbye now.’ He stepped back and closed the door.

  Chapter 8

  Kit drove away in the direction of the office, but after a few minutes she changed her mind and headed for the promenade. She parked and bought a coffee from the van on the front. She felt cold, so she went back to her car and got her hoody from the back seat before finding her usual bench. Under a flat metallic sky, the sea was grey and lifeless and seemed so low down that Kit felt closed in and breathless when she looked at it. A storm couldn’t be far away now.