Circle of Doubt

by Buchanan, Tracy

  ‘Thank you, I’ll look into it.’ Tatjana turned to Isla, a big smile on her face. ‘Your hair looks fab, Isla! You’ve been using the oil I gave you, haven’t you? And you watched those YouTube videos, I can tell!’

  ‘Did I do it right?’ Isla asked, shyly patting the top of the sleek bun she’d spent ages on that morning.

  ‘Perfect. Absolutely perfect.’ Tatjana placed her palm on top of Isla’s hair, the large diamond on her engagement ring shining in the morning light. ‘Unbelievable, how she was able to do her hair like that from a YouTube tutorial . . . all at the age of ten! Must be those clever genes of hers.’

  Emma gave her an uncertain look. What a strange thing to say!

  The school bell went and Tatjana waved goodbye, taking her son to his queue.

  ‘Right, you,’ Emma said, giving Isla a kiss on the cheek. ‘Have a good day!’

  When she was out of earshot, Shawn turned to Emma. ‘Funny one, isn’t she?’ he said as he looked at Tatjana. ‘She definitely seems to think Isla’s the best thing since sliced bread.’

  Emma followed his gaze, watching as Tatjana’s dark eyes tracked Isla as she walked into class.

  She did seem a bit obsessed with her.

  Chapter Seven

  Welcome to the Mums of Forest Grove Facebook Group

  Wednesday 16th September

  6 p.m.

  Tatjana Belafonte

  Hello everyone! The fabulous Kitty Fletcher and lovely Lucy Cronin recommended this group to me. I’ve just moved to Forest Grove and am already in awe of what a wonderful community this is. Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far. I thought I’d remind all the primary school mummies in the group of the Design Divas after-school club I’m running every Thursday at the Forest Grove Community Centre from 4 to 4.45 p.m. You should have received a leaflet in your children’s school bags. Just PM me if you’re interested in your child joining us. We start tomorrow!

  Kitty Fletcher

  What a wonderful initiative! And can I be the first to welcome you, Tatjana, and say what a delight it was chatting to you at the cafe at lunchtime, clearly a woman after my own heart.

  Tatjana Belafonte

  Thank you, Kitty! I’ve already ordered your book and can’t wait to get stuck in.

  Lucy Cronin

  Kitty’s book is wonderful. We all follow the Kitty Fletcher way around here . . . well, some of us do.

  Myra Young

  This is my first time posting too and I want to say I devoured your book in one day, Kitty! It really is wonderful.

  Kitty Fletcher

  How kind of you, Myra!

  Malorie Cane

  I thought this post was about Tatjana’s little fashion club, not the Kitty Fletcher appreciation club.

  Rebecca Feine

  Oh Malorie! What are you like?

  Ellie Mileham

  My daughter Zoe would absolutely love this club, Tatjana. Will you be considering running some at the weekend? I pick Zoe up from her after-school club at 5.30 p.m.

  Tatjana Belafonte

  I’m so sorry but I wouldn’t want to take time away from the kids at the weekend, especially now my oldest is at school. I miss him sooooo much. We plan to have lots of outdoor fun at the weekend, no work for me!

  Kitty Fletcher

  What a marvellous attitude!

  Samantha Perks

  It’s a shame this isn’t open to older kids. My daughter would absolutely love this. She’s planning to study fashion at uni.

  Tatjana Belafonte

  It’s on the cards, Samantha, I just need to find the time.

  Malorie Cane

  Isn’t fashion design a bit of a narrow subject? My grandson likes cars, what about car design?

  Samantha Perks

  Boys are into fashion design too, you know, Malorie.

  Tatjana Belafonte

  Quite right! Myra has already signed her son up for it, haven’t you, Myra?

  Myra Young

  Absolutely! There are plenty of male fashion designers around.

  Malorie Cane

  Oh really? Name one boy you know who’s into fashion design!

  Tatjana Belafonte

  Alexander McQueen?

  Lucy Cronin

  Karl Lagerfeld?

  Vanessa Shillingford

  Ralph Lauren?

  Kitty Fletcher

  Wonderful examples, ladies! Right, I’m off to London to deliver a seminar. Once again, welcome to the community Tatjana, I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful asset and role model for the young children of Forest Grove!

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday 17th September

  4.45 p.m.

  Look at him, standing there in his hipster clothes with that ridiculous leather bag over his shoulder like he’s one of the mums. I thought Emma was bad, but now I see Dele Okoro the way he is now, I realise you really are living in hipster-snowflake hell, my poor love.

  What did the report say he did? Editor, that’s it! Now a bookshop manager after he couldn’t even hold down his job. Average man on an average wage doing an average thing. It pains me to know you have to endure this mediocrity. That you have no idea of the spirit that runs through your blood, a spirit that’s had me dragging myself up by my fingernails the past few years to get where I am now.

  Would the people who claim to be your parents have achieved all I have if they’d been born in a tower block like me? I doubt it. I very much doubt they know what it’s like to fight for what you want. Emma, for example, has been given everything on a plate, judging from the look of her mother. As for her father, he wasn’t always a pathetic drunk. There was a time when he was a so-called upstanding member of the community, a police detective!

  What happened to him? What made him turn to drink and allow his marriage to collapse? Was it a weakness that Emma inherited? A weakness she will try to instil in you too, Isla.

  At least my parents had some fire in them, even if they used it in the worst possible way. It’s all about how you use that fire.

  What chance do you have of doing something exciting with your life? Who will teach you how to strive?

  Dele doesn’t look anything like you, either! I know what those useless social workers would have thought: Oh, look, he’s black, he’ll do! But it’s clear to anyone that the two of you look nothing alike. And it isn’t just about how you look. I can tell you’re a creative like me. My girl will most certainly not be selling books or doing PR when she grows up.

  Won’t be long now, Isla, not with what I’ve got planned . . .

  And luckily, thanks to you attending Design Divas tonight, that plan has just officially begun.

  Chapter Nine

  Thursday 17th September

  5.30 p.m.

  When Emma walked into the kitchen after work on Thursday evening, the first thing she heard was Isla’s gushing voice.

  ‘. . . so cool, she’s even cooler than Miss Morgan.’

  ‘Who’s cooler than Miss Morgan?’ Emma asked as she walked into the room. ‘Is that even possible?’

  ‘Tatjana Belafonte,’ Dele said with a wry smile.

  Emma ignored him.

  ‘You’re early,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yep, I finally got the proposal off.’ She’d been working on a new business proposal to run the social media for a chain of coffee shops all week and she’d finally got it into a state she was happy with.

  ‘So Design Divas was good, was it?’ she asked Isla.

  ‘It was awesome!’ Isla enthused. ‘We’re designing costumes for the Halloween party.’

  ‘What Halloween party?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Apparently the Belafontes are holding a big Halloween party when their house is ready,’ Dele said with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘It’s going to be for the whole village,’ Isla said. ‘How cool is that?’

  ‘Don’t we have a community centre for that type of thing?’ Emma asked. She kissed Isla on the head. ‘Guess what I got for dinner?’ />
  ‘Pizza?’ Isla asked hopefully. Pizza was her most favourite meal in the world.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Yay!’ Isla declared as Emma revealed the large pepperoni pizza box she’d been hiding behind her back. The local pub, Neck of the Woods, did lovely wood-fired pizzas to take away.

  ‘Let’s eat it outside,’ Emma said. ‘Make the most of the sunshine before it leaves us for autumn and it starts getting dark early.’

  ‘But it’s cold!’ Isla said.

  ‘Not really. Wear your coat if you have to.’

  Truth was, it wasn’t just the sunshine that appealed. The house seemed so gloomy now the window was boarded up. It made Emma feel uncomfortable.

  They went out into the garden, sitting at the wooden table as Emma laid plates out. It was a little chilly, but the sun was shining bright above and Emma felt fine in her cardigan.

  She liked being outside, hearing the rustle of the forest leaves in the distance, watching the birds and squirrels root around the various bird feeders she’d hung in their trees at the back of the garden. It was especially gorgeous at this time of the day as the sun began to set. Leaves were turning copper, so it created a stunning orange halo in the distance and gave the light in the garden a strange quality.

  ‘So what costume are you designing then?’ Emma asked Isla as she handed her a slice of pizza.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ Isla said, tapping her nose. ‘Honestly, Mum, Tat is so talented,’ she continued, brown eyes sparkling.

  Tat? Emma mouthed to Dele as he smiled.

  ‘She showed us how to sew super quick,’ Isla continued, ‘and literally, in like five minutes, she’d sewn a whole sleeve on to a top.’

  ‘Talent indeed,’ Emma said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Dele’s smile widened as he looked down at his plate.

  ‘She’s super creative,’ Isla said. ‘She told me after I was her best student.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be choosing favourites,’ Emma said.

  ‘She probably couldn’t help herself,’ Dele said. ‘I mean, this is Isla we’re talking about.’

  Emma nodded. ‘Very true.’

  ‘Aw shucks, thanks!’ Isla said. She took a bite of pizza and carried on talking, mouth full. ‘And oh my God, she is so pretty! Her make-up is flawless,’ she said, flicking her hand up dramatically.

  ‘Don’t eat with your mouth full!’ Emma said, catching sight of her reflection in the glass of the French doors as she spoke. She was anything but flawless, strands of her red shoulder-length hair escaping the clip she’d pulled it up in, smudged eyeliner and a poorly concealed spot developing on her chin.

  Dele squeezed her hand. ‘Hey, beautiful.’

  She smiled at him, squeezing his hand back. He knew her so well.

  ‘Anyway,’ Isla continued, ‘Tatjana said if I want, I can go to her house and have extra lessons!’

  Emma put down her slice of pizza. ‘Whoa whoa whoa! I think not.’

  ‘But why?’ Isla whined.

  ‘Your mum’s right, Isla,’ Dele said. ‘It’s just a bit . . .’

  Weird, Emma mouthed to him.

  Dele nodded slightly.

  ‘Fine,’ Isla said. ‘I can just be bored all weekend like normal.’

  Emma looked at her daughter in surprise. ‘Bored? So the cinema is boring, is it?’

  ‘I want to do creative stuff.’

  ‘You have tons of creative stuff,’ Dele said, gesturing to the room that was to the side of the kitchen, full to the brim with Isla’s kits. ‘Bracelet sets, paints, even that weird glow-in-the-dark sand thing your grandparents got you for Christmas last year, which you still haven’t touched.’

  Isla scowled. ‘It’s not the same as fashion design.’

  Emma bit her lip. She could do fashion! All she needed was some material, a few gems . . . surely it couldn’t be that hard?

  In fact, didn’t she have that old sewing machine her mother had given her in the loft?

  After they finished eating, Emma headed up to the loft and searched in the semi-darkness, eventually finding the sewing machine in the corner. As she walked towards it, she noticed the other box next to it, which was labelled ‘Isla’s old stuff’.

  She paused, going to that box instead and opening it. Inside was everything they’d collected during the adoption process, including the small items Isla had come with when she’d moved in: a soft yellow duck toy and a pastel-green blanket. Emma reached in, pulling out the huge folder she’d put together during the process. It hadn’t taken as long as she’d been warned it would. When she made the initial nerve-wracking call to register their interest, an event was taking place for prospective adoptees that very weekend. Though the social workers there had been careful to paint a realistic picture of how things happened and how challenging it could be to adopt a child, for Dele and Emma the positives outweighed the negatives.

  They came away with an initial application form, and a few weeks later a social worker was visiting their house to chat to them. The next few months passed in a blur of various events and interviews. By the end, Emma felt their assigned social worker knew more about her and Dele than anyone.

  Well, she knew about most of Emma’s life, anyway. There were some things best left unsaid.

  Nearly six months after first applying, they went to an adoption panel and were approved. Three months after that, their social worker got in touch to tell them about an eighteen-month-old girl who’d been living with foster parents the past six months after being taken from her seventeen-year-old birth mother.

  They were not shown a photo of Isla then, just some brief details, but Emma knew, she just knew, this little girl was their daughter!

  As soon as they said yes, they got more details. Insights into Isla’s first year with her mother and grandmother. Some of it good – you could see Jade tried her best; some of it bad. They learnt that when Jade had discovered she was pregnant with Isla, she’d taken real steps to kick her addiction to heroin, getting a place on a well-regarded programme where expectant mothers got the chance to live together in a house with specialists who helped them wean themselves off the drug.

  From what Emma read of her records, Jade had remained drug-free for the first six months of Isla’s life. It wasn’t an ideal environment for a baby to be brought up in. Jade’s mother Evie struggled with mental health issues and had a fierce temper, too, the two women often coming to blows. But compared to the way Jade’s life had been before Isla came along, it was certainly calmer, safer. It must have been for social services to think it was fine for Isla to remain with her mother.

  But after six months, it became clear that Jade had fallen into her old ways. Isla would be left alone with her grandmother, who struggled to cope, and Isla was once left completely alone in the house when her grandmother went out shopping. The final straw came when a social worker visited to find Isla playing next to a used hypodermic needle – one of Jade’s new boyfriends sitting nearby, smoking a joint. By then, even Jade knew in her drug-addled mind that Isla would be better off away from that environment. It must have been heartrending for her, though. She’d tried so hard to be a mother.

  When Emma and Dele decided they wanted to adopt Isla, they met her several times over at her foster parents’ in the coming months, just so she could get used to them and they to her. When the day came to bring her home and Emma fed Isla her bottle, sitting by the cot she would now be sleeping in – the same cot she’d watched Dele put together – she felt a strange mixture of contentment and nerves.

  Up in the loft, Emma ran her fingers over the soft blanket that Jade had given to her baby. Isla had slept with it each night after she came home. Then, when she turned three, she decided she didn’t like it any more and instead wanted to sleep with the little pink blanket that Emma had got her. It had felt bittersweet for Emma, putting Isla’s old green blanket away. Sweet because it meant Isla had fully embraced Emma as her new mother after a rocky few months of tears and attachment issues.
Bitter because Emma couldn’t help but imagine how Jade would feel if she’d known that the blanket she’d sent with her child was now being packed away. But as Dele had reminded Emma, Jade had had the opportunity to maintain letterbox contact with them, so she could watch Isla develop over the years through photos and letters, and yet she’d never once picked up the letters they had sent via the social worker’s office.

  Emma sighed and turned away, picking up the old sewing machine. A few moments later, she came down armed with the ancient machine, some needles and thread and some old scarves.

  She laid it on the kitchen table, and called Isla and Dele in.

  ‘Who said we can’t do fashion design here?’ Emma said.

  Isla’s eyes lit up at the sight of the sewing machine. ‘Why didn’t you tell me we had this?’

  ‘It’s your Nanny Blake’s old one.’

  ‘Oh my God, Mum, it is so cool!’ Isla skipped over and ran her hand over the smooth black metal as Dele and Emma exchanged smiles.

  ‘It’s a proper old-school sewing machine,’ Emma said proudly, ‘so we need to be careful. If you like it, we can look at getting you a new one for Christmas.’

  ‘Yes!’ Isla said, jumping and clapping her hands together. ‘What shall we make first? I know, I know! Let’s make a purple dress from this scarf,’ she said, grabbing an old silk scarf, ‘with, like, a jagged skirt and long sleeves which turn up at the bottom and—’

  ‘Whoa,’ Emma said, laughing. ‘Calm down. Let’s start small, okay? Maybe a skirt?’

  Isla thought about it, then shrugged. ‘Sure, a skirt.’

  ‘I think I’ll leave you two to it,’ Dele said, giving them both a kiss on the forehead. ‘If it’s okay with you, I might go for a run. I’m hoping to see an epic costume made by the time I come back.’

  The costume, however, was anything but epic by the time Dele returned home an hour later. In fact, Isla was upstairs in her room watching her iPad as Emma shoved their attempts at a skirt in the bin.

  ‘Oh,’ Dele said when he walked into the kitchen. ‘That bad, was it?’

  ‘Terrible,’ Emma said. ‘I don’t know why I bothered.’

  ‘Ah, the life of a high-end fashion designer. What happened?’