by A. L. Bird
And so, she boils a kettle, readies a corkscrew, makes ready for anything he might desire. Well, not quite anything. Then, just a little after 8 p.m., there’s a ring at the intercom.
Ian rejects the wine and opts for whisky. He’s brought his own. Hah. The pressure must be getting to him, then.
‘So, what does she say?’ Becky asks. Because she knows this is about Kirsten, not Ian. Why hide it? ‘When do I get my daughter?’
‘She thinks we can come to some kind of arrangement,’ Ian tells her.
‘And what kind of “arrangement” is that? I don’t want to be bought off. I’m taking back my daughter.’
‘You’ve got to see it from Kirsten’s point of view—’
‘Have I?’ Come on, Becky. Cool the fire. ‘I mean, sure, of course. This must be very difficult for her.’ But Becky can’t make her voice match the words. Ordinarily, she’d at least try to empathise. Here, she can’t. She knows who is in the right.
‘She’s open to all sorts of options,’ Ian says. ‘But you need to take it slow. Supervised visitation at first, take it from there, see how we go.’
‘“Supervised visitation?” You’re kidding me, right?’ This is Becky’s own child. Harriet lived inside her for nine months, and has lived in her brain for the past five years. They should be able to live in the same house.
‘Just as a start,’ Ian tells her.
Becky shakes her head. ‘Why shouldn’t I just go to the police? Then I can have my daughter back. No terms, no nothing.’
‘Really? You sure about that?’
Becky crosses her arms. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You really think it will be that straightforward? That Kirsten won’t challenge it on grounds of Harriet’s welfare? That social services will suddenly let a woman who surrendered her child, under no legal framework, five years ago, immediately take that child back?’ He shakes his head. ‘I doubt it.’
Becky stares at him. ‘You’re bluffing. She’s shit-scared, I bet she is, of your names being dragged through the mud.’
‘She’s scared of losing her daughter,’ Ian says.
Becky sucks on her teeth. ‘Harriet is not her daughter.’
Ian swigs some more whisky. Refills his glass from the bottle.
‘She wants to meet with you,’ he says.
‘That’s not possible right now,’ Becky says. She doesn’t need to give her reasons. She knows them. The longer her identity is secret from Kirsten, the more options she has. Besides, if ‘supervised visitation’ is the only option on the table, she already has that – through school. It’s just that Harriet doesn’t know the nature of the visitation. Doesn’t know she has the luxury of being taught by her mother.
‘It’s all or nothing, Ian,’ Becky says. ‘If Kirsten won’t give me all, then she gets left with nothing.’
Ian shakes his head. ‘She won’t do it. You know that.’
Becky waits a moment. She’s thought through her game play, of course she has, but she doesn’t always want it to seem that way.
‘Tell her she has two weeks. If she doesn’t give up Harriet by then, I’m going to the police. And if that doesn’t work, the press.’
Ian raises his palms in an open-handed shrug. ‘I’ll tell her that. But you know what her answer will be.’
Becky downs her glass of wine, blinking back tears. Why does Kirsten have to make it so difficult? Doesn’t she get that she’s basically inviting Becky to take matters into her own hands? Or rather, to take Harriet.
Chapter 27
KIRSTEN
‘So she’s just not interested in meeting me, and she won’t compromise?’ Kirsten demands, summarising what Ian has told her.
They’re sitting on the sofa downstairs, Kirsten curled up with a mug of hot chocolate, Ian still holding his coat. It’s late; Ian didn’t get back from Croydon until gone 11 p.m. But Kirsten wasn’t going to be able to sleep until she’d heard what happened.
Ian spreads out his hands apologetically. ‘I’m afraid that’s about the size of it,’ he says. ‘I tried as hard as I could, but she just won’t listen to reason.’
Kirsten takes a sip of her drink and tries to hide her tears inside it. But it doesn’t work. Ian reaches over and gives her a hug.
‘Hey, we’ll work through this, OK?’ Ian says. ‘We’re in it together.’
Kirsten doesn’t say anything, just sits there, brooding.
After a while, she draws herself off the sofa. ‘We should head up to bed. Another day tomorrow,’ she says.
Ian reaches out to take her hand, but she ignores him. How can he give her something so precious, yet so tainted that it has to be taken away?
In bed, Kirsten undresses as usual, slips under the duvet, and gives Ian a customary peck on the lips before turning off the light. Turning over onto her right side, facing away from Ian, she keeps her eyes open in the dark.
How convenient it would be if Becky wasn’t here.
She won’t accept money.
She won’t accept dialogue.
She just wants ‘her’ daughter.
How convenient it would be if something happened to Becky.
Could Kirsten make it happen?
Failed brakes (but does Becky even drive)?
An assigned target to a contract killer (but what does Becky even look like)?
An innocent party-girl cocktail swapped for a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs (but where does Becky even go to drink)?
Kirsten just doesn’t know enough about her target. And she can hardly Google – the first thing the police now do, it seems, in a murder case (Christ, murder? Why is she even thinking about this?) is to search suspects’ internet browsing history. Besides, she doubted that contract killers ran paid Google ads, or that there was a neat sign saying ‘Dark net? Click here.’
But in an alternate world, where she could be forensically undetectable, and had the right murky underground contacts, it would be ideal, wouldn’t it? To bump off Becky, by proxy. Throw some money at the problem, hope it landed where it needed to.
In this world, it is just something she will have to do herself.
* * *
The next morning, Kirsten is horrified at herself. Was she genuinely considering murdering her child’s biological mother? Christ. She slips on a black silk shift dress, its funereal darkness reminding her, intentionally, of the seriousness of life. Of the consequences of death. And of being caught. Imagine, robbing Harriet of two mothers. Because there was no way, in this age, to murder someone without being caught, was there?
Ian gives her a kiss before he leaves for work. Harriet is searching round for a book in her room. ‘We have to read to Maya today!’ she is saying. ‘She’s coming to breakfast club!’
Kirsten has no idea who Maya is, but assumes she is some kind of teaching assistant. Kirsten has bigger problems to deal with. If they weren’t going to run away to live in a remote barn, and if she wasn’t going to start murdering people, then she needed to work out how to secure a sensible future with Harriet.
Sleeping on it, the next best step was this: finding Becky and talking to her. Ian had tried his best. Of course he had. But this girl needed confronting. Whether or not she wanted to talk was irrelevant. They needed to. For Harriet’s sake.
So, Kirsten resolves, as she drops Harriet with Ms Robertson at breakfast club, she needs to find Becky. And then they will have it out.
‘Look after her well, won’t you?’ she calls over her shoulder to Ms Robertson, as she leaves the school hall.
‘Like she was my own,’ Ms Robertson calls in response.
Chapter 28
BECKY
Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to invite Maya to breakfast club. The slightly unstructured, chaotic atmosphere of parents dropping kids off whenever it suits them isn’t perhaps best for getting a shy girl to speak.
Not that she speaks English, yet, anyway. There is an interpreter sitting on one side of her, and her foster mother sitting on the o
ther side. But speaking at all would be good. Apparently that hasn’t happened since her voyage across the sea either.
‘Maya, we’re so happy to welcome you to our school today,’ Becky says to her, speaking slowly for the benefit of the interpreter. ‘This is a special club where children who need to come early can have breakfast, and bring along their favourite books. I want to make a safe haven for everyone.’ Becky smiles round the room, trying to catch Harriet’s eye. ‘Do you have a favourite book, back home, Maya?’
Becky smiles encouragingly when the interpreter has finished that sentence.
Maya stares back, wide-eyed.
Poor kid. That question must evoke so much. Who knows what home looked like by the time she left, whether it was still standing, what it must have been like to have Mummy and Daddy read to her and now be so many worlds apart from them.
‘It doesn’t matter, Maya. Maybe you’ll like some of the books here. They’ve all got lovely pictures in them!’
How is this going to work? The little girl is just going to have to sit there, listening to books not in her language. And the other kids won’t have the patience to wait for a translator, will they? Becky bites her lip. She should have organised some special textual translations. Or just have saved Maya’s slot for the classroom later.
‘OK, who’s brought a book in for today?’ Becky asks the rest of the group.
A couple of kids stick up their hands. One is waving a Peppa Pig book, the other The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Becky chooses the second one. You can’t go far wrong with that, can you?
As she reads it to the group, listing out the delicacies that the caterpillar eats, children get up from their seats and wander back to the breakfast table to collect more food. All except Maya, who continues to look round her, wide-eyed. She doesn’t have any food on her plate.
Becky breaks off from her reading.
‘Maya, please, help yourself to some more food if you’d like some.’
She nods to the interpreter, and then to Maya.
Maya’s foster mother turns to Maya and gestures to the table as well.
Maya sort of shrugs into herself.
Becky holds out her hand encouragingly, as if to lead Maya to the table.
If Maya had any intention of going to the table, she seems to have withdrawn from it now. She shrinks back into her seat and curls her knees back up to her chest. Maybe Becky’s offer of a hand was one thing too many. Each hand offered, each act of kindness must take her further away from her real father and mother. Becky blinks back a tear, feeling oddly put out that her overture was rejected. A stupid, self-centred way to react, she knows, but she can’t help it. Is this how it would be with her and Harriet, when Becky finally had her to herself? A failed relationship with a little girl traumatised by separation from her ‘mummy’?
Becky carries on reading about the caterpillar. It’s gone into its chrysalis now, waiting to transform. Then, hey presto, it becomes a beautiful butterfly. Becky looks at Harriet, who is smiling benignly at the book while sucking on a piece of toast. A chrysalis into a butterfly, that’s what it would be like, Becky decides; even if Harriet went into a little cocoon initially, at the shock of a transfer from her fake mummy to her real mummy, she’d soon emerge resplendent from the transition.
Unlike poor little Maya. Her foster mother is trying to persuade her to eat some toast, but she’s shaking her head, tears rolling down her face. Perhaps it will just take Maya longer to emerge from her chrysalis. Maybe she thinks if she stays in there long enough, all this will go away. Mummy and Daddy will come back, and she can go home. The truth is tough at that age. At any age.
After breakfast club, Becky has a quick chat with the foster mother, Mrs Reynolds.
‘It was too much for her, I’m afraid,’ says Mrs Reynolds.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Becky replies. ‘We should just have waited until the classroom session later.’
Mrs Reynolds shrugs. ‘I don’t think that would have gone much better. It’s a shame. I was hoping her being here, seeing some other children, would sort of normalise things a bit?’
Becky nods. ‘Will she still be able to come along to the classroom?’
Mrs Reynolds looks over to Maya, still sitting hunched in her chair. She shakes her head. ‘Not today, at least. I’m sorry. I know the kids will be disappointed, but my first duty has to be to little Maya.’
Damn. Becky has really messed up. Upsetting Maya and depriving her class of their planned event, which would have broadened their horizons so much. ‘Of course, I totally understand.’ So much for a safe haven.
That’s going to be a tricky conversation later, with the head. Becky explaining how she managed to make a young refugee girl cry away breakfast, and ruin a great educational opportunity for her class. Poor judgement on her part, Mrs McGee will most likely think. Well, she’ll just have to play the compassion message, invite the head to think of the bigger picture.
And it will come up at parents’ evening, too, she bets. ‘Oh, little Angelica was so disappointed …’ But it’s not show and tell; it’s a little girl’s life. Becky’s sure once they get on to Angelica’s excellent progress in violin lessons, little Maya will be forgotten.
How good it would be for all the parents here if they could step away from all these ‘privileges’ and focus on the one main privilege: their child being with them at all.
Probably not a great line for parents’ evening. But there’s only one interview Becky is interested in on parents’ evening, and it’s with Kirsten and Ian. Because painful though it might be, if Ian hasn’t managed to convince Kirsten that the way forward is with Becky, then ‘Miriam’ will do her best to persuade her.
Chapter 29
KIRSTEN
Kirsten sits in her car outside Becky’s block of flats in Croydon. She’d got the address from the letter to Dr Clare. Now all she needs to do is wait for some kind of movement. A girl Becky’s age, she’ll have a social life, won’t she? Won’t just sit inside at 8 p.m. on a Thursday evening? Kirsten told Ian she was at an important networking meeting (which is kind of true) – and made him be primary carer for Harriet, for once.
Kirsten knows there’s a flaw in her plan. She’s never seen Becky, so how will she know what she looks like, even if she does leave or enter the building? And what will Kirsten do even if she does work out who she is?
But she feels that she will somehow sense Becky. The right demographic. The right type. Plus, although she doesn’t want to think about it, Becky should look like Harriet, right? And Kirsten thinks she’s managed to figure out which flat it is – there, on the third floor, with the lights on. She tries to imagine Becky wandering round in there. Maybe she’s pacing like a caged animal, ready to pounce. Maybe she’s thinking constantly about their daughter (because Kirsten is beginning to realise that neither woman has the full claim). Perhaps plotting how she can take her back. Or maybe she doesn’t care at that deep level – maybe she just has a sense of entitlement, and wants back what’s ‘hers’.
First nine o’ clock, then ten o’ clock draws on. Figures have come and gone, but none of them look right. There was one person in a hoody, who excited Kirsten’s interest for a few moments, but they turned out to be a man.
Finally, at 11 o’clock, very aware she has to drive back to Islington and be up for breakfast club tomorrow, Kirsten decides to ring the buzzer. She doesn’t need Becky to let her in – doesn’t quite know what would happen if she did – but Kirsten needs a sense that she’s got something out of this evening, other than a numb backside.
So she gets out of the car and crosses the street. She puts her gloved hand to the buzzer. She tries to hear where in the building it’s sounding, but she can’t. No reply. She tries again. Nothing. Kirsten stands back into the road a bit, to see if her buzzing has elicited some kind of curtain-twitching response from any of the flats. But nothing. The curtains that are open stay open, and the ones that are shut stay shut.
Sighing, Kirsten
goes back to her car. What a wasted evening. She could have been playing with Harriet or putting her feet up on the sofa. Or even attending an important networking function. Plus, she’s starving. She knows surveillance workers are supposed to eat donuts or bacon sarnies or something in their cars, but she didn’t have the foresight to bring any. What business has Becky got going out at night, when she’s supposed to be pining after Harriet? A sudden thought makes Kirsten shiver: maybe Becky is even now standing outside their house, looking in on Harriet.
Back home, Ian has already retreated upstairs by the time she returns. The bedroom light’s on, though, so she’ll have to make up a whinge about the non-existent networking event (prime target didn’t show up, too few canapés – bit of truth in that). For now, she needs something to eat. Famished, she polishes off the remains of some hummus and pitta bread, with a glass of milk for extra lining for her grumbling stomach.
She feels bad misleading Ian, not telling him what she was doing with her evening. But he wouldn’t understand. And he’d think she doubts his ability to sort out the Becky situation. Which she sort of does. But maybe for good reason? Besides, the most important thing is to keep Harriet safe.
Chapter 30
BECKY
Maybe it’s not normal, as a teacher on the morning of parents’ evening, to find yourself evaluating your own daughter. How perfect she is. In class yesterday, she had been the brightest, most biddable child there. She sat so neatly on the carpet at story time. Becky bet she’d never had a tantrum in her life, unlike most of the children. Plus she’d answered all the questions about the story with the sweet little homeless cat correctly and was the only one who’d linked it to the Maya theme of her own accord. She was so clever, and so pretty. That hair … she could just stroke it endlessly. They needed to spend more time together, as mother and daughter. Imagine the fun they would have on days out. Will have. Soon, now. Unlike with Kirsten, cooped up in that unhappy house in Islington.
