“Fine, fine,” I said, trying to steady myself. Clarice Chambers gave me another sympathetic smile, and then said that I should now consider this day and hour—Wednesday, eleven AM—as my time with Jack. His father had been informed of this fact—and Jack’s nanny would be bringing him here every week. She would not be present during these visits—only myself and Clarice. However, if I wished, I could nominate a friend or family member as the supervisor for these visits—but, of course, this individual would first have to be vetted by Wandsworth Social Services to assess their suitability for this role.
“I’m still new in London, so I don’t really know anybody who could . . .”
I broke off, unable to continue.
Clarice touched my hand. “That’s fine then. I’ll be your supervisor.”
She continued, explaining how I could bring any toys or clothes I liked for Jack. I could play with him. I could hold him. I could simply watch him sleeping. I could also bottle-feed him, and Clarice would act as liaison between the nanny and myself to find out what sort of formula he was drinking and what his feeding routine was right now.
“The only thing you cannot do is leave the room with him unaccompanied. Nor, I’m afraid, can you be left alone with him at any time. Supervised contact means just that.”
Another firm we’re going to get along just fine, aren’t we? smile.
“I know that this is all rather artificial and difficult for you. But we can try to make the best of it. All right?”
I nodded.
“Right then,” she said, standing up. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
She disappeared into an adjoining room and returned a moment later, holding a familiar carrier.
“Here he is,” she said quietly, handing him over to me.
I looked down. Jack was fast asleep. But what struck me immediately was just how much he’d grown in three weeks. He’d filled out a bit, his face had more definition, more character. Even his fingers seemed longer.
“You can pick him up if you want,” she said.
“I don’t want to disturb him,” I said. So I placed the chair on the floor beside me, reached down and, using my right index finger, stroked his clenched fist. His hand unclenched, his fingers wrapped around mine, and he held on to me, still sleeping soundly.
That’s when I lost the battle I’d been waging ever since I arrived here. I started to cry, putting a hand across my mouth to muffle the sobs and not wake him up. Once I glanced up at Clarice Chambers and saw her watching me with a cool professional eye.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “This is all a bit . . .”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I know this is hard.”
“It’s just so good to see him.”
He didn’t wake for the entire hour . . . though his fist did unclutch after around ten minutes, so I simply sat by him, rocking him in his chair, stroking his face, thinking just how serene he was, and how desperate I was to be with him all the time.
Clarice said nothing for the entire hour, though I was conscious of her watching me—seeing how I related to Jack, how I was handling the highly charged emotionalism of this situation, and whether I seemed like a stable, balanced individual. But I didn’t try to play to the gallery, or put on a big maternal show. I just sat by him, happy for the temporary contact.
Then, before I knew it, Clarice quietly said, “It’s time, I’m afraid.”
I gulped and felt tears sting my face.
“All right,” I said.
She gave me another minute, then walked over to us. I touched his face with my hand, then leaned over and kissed his head, breathing in his baby powder aroma. I stood up and walked to another corner of the room, staring out a grimy window at a trash-strewn courtyard as she picked up the carrier and left. When she came back, she approached me and asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m trying to be.”
“The first time is always the hardest.”
No, I thought. Every time will be hard.
“Remember—you can bring clothes and toys for him next week,” she said.
As if he’s a doll I can dress up and play with for an hour.
I shut my eyes. I nodded. She touched my arm with her hand.
“It will get easier.”
I went home. I sat down on the bed and cried. This time, however, the crying wasn’t underscored by that physical sensation of plummeting which I so associated with the start of an extended depressive jag. This was simply another ferocious expression of grief—and one over which I had no control.
They say there’s nothing like a good cry to expunge all the pent-up sorrow you carry with you. But when I finally brought myself under control, and faltered into the bathroom to splash some water on my face, I found myself thinking: that did me no good whatsoever.
I thought: if I am permanently kept from him, will this ever stop? Will I ever come to terms with it?
The next six days were bleak. My sleep was broken—despite the ongoing use of knockout pills. I had little appetite. I left the house for the occasional foray to the corner shop or Marks and Spencer. I found myself devoid of energy—so much so that when I did go down to St. Martin’s Hospital for a consultation with Dr. Rodale, she immediately commented on my wan appearance.
“Well, it’s not been an easy few weeks,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “I did hear about the court order. I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you,” I said—though I was silently angry at her for her professional reserve, her refusal to tell me I had been so desperately wronged, especially when she knew that I was incapable of physically harming my child, and that I had been in the grip of a monstrous ailment over which . . .
No, no. I wasn’t going to play the don’t blame me card again. I was simply going to face the reality of the situation and . . .
. . . but why the hell couldn’t Dr. Rodale tell me what she must know: that the court decision was so manifestly unfair?
“And how do you feel in yourself right now?”
She had quickly moved us back into the realm of pharmacological questioning. All right then: you want straight answers, you’ll get straight answers. So I met her gaze and said, “I cry a lot. I find myself angry a great deal of the time. I think what’s happened to me is completely unjust and underhanded.”
“And those ‘downward spirals’ you used to describe?”
“They’re not so frequent. It’s not that I don’t get low—I do all the time—it’s just that I seem to be able to dodge the black swamp. But that doesn’t mean I’m exactly happy . . .”
Dr. Rodale’s lips contorted into a dry smile.
“Who is?” she said quietly.
At the end of our interview, she announced herself once again pleased with my progress, and appeared even more gratified by the knowledge that the antidepressants had proved so effective.
“As I told you from the outset, these sorts of drugs take time to build up in the system—and to demonstrate their efficacy. But the fact that you seem to be avoiding the ‘black swamp’ shows that they have made considerable positive impact. You may not be happy, but at least you’re functioning again. Which is good news. So I see no need to alter the dosage for the time being. But on the unhappiness front . . . have you been in touch with Ellen Cartwright?”
Actually, she called me the day after I saw Dr. Rodale, apologizing profusely for being incommunicado when my solicitor’s assistant came chasing her for a witness statement.
“The message on my machine was a bit garbled,” she said, “so I didn’t exactly understand why she needed this statement from me. Something about a court proceeding . . .”
I informed her about that proceeding, and its outcome. She sounded appalled.
“But that’s scandalous,” she said. “Especially as I could have told them . . . Oh God, now I feel dreadful. But how are you feeling?”
“Horrible.”
“Would you like to start our sessions again?”<
br />
“I think that would be a good idea.”
“Fine then. One thing, though—you know that I just do NHS locums at St. Martin’s—and only for anyone who’s resident in the unit. So if you want to see me, it will have to be on a private basis.”
“And what’s the charge?”
“It’s £70 per hour, I’m afraid. But if you have private health care . . .”
“We were with BUPA, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been taken off the policy.”
“Well, you should still give them a call, and if you’re still covered they will tell you how many weekly sessions they’re willing to cover—and for how long. You’ll also need a reference from Dr. Rodale—but that will be no problem.”
I did call BUPA, the private health insurance company, as soon as I finished speaking to Ellen. The “customer service representative” on the other end of the line asked me for my name, my address, and my policy number. Then, after a moment, she confirmed what I already suspected: “I’m afraid your policy has been canceled. You were insured under your husband’s policy—which, in turn, is part of a group company policy. However, he left his job and the policy was canceled. Sorry.”
I did some math. Even if I restricted myself to a session a week between now and the full hearing in six months’ time, I would still end up paying £1,680 for Ellen’s therapeutic service—an impossible sum, given that I didn’t have a job. So it looked like I would simply have to make do with my antidepressants and my extended transatlantic phone calls with Sandy.
“You have to find a new lawyer,” she said the night I discovered I had been dropped from our private health scheme. “Especially as you’re going to have to deal with the house thing very soon.”
“Maybe I should just accept his offer.”
“No way . . .”
“But it’s a no-win situation, no matter what I do. Tony knows this too. And he’s got that woman behind him—with all the money they need to break me. Which is what they’re certainly trying to do. As much as I’d like to say climb-every-mountain stuff like, ‘They won’t bring me down,’ the fact is they can, and they will.”
“Whatever you do, don’t agree to anything until you get yourself another attorney.”
“I can’t afford another attorney right now.”
“You’re going to have to go back to work, aren’t you?”
“I want to go back to work. I need to go back to work. Before I go completely crazy.”
I articulated the same sentiment to a Ms. Jessica Law, the CAFCASS reporter, who visited me at home for what she described as a preliminary interview. She was around my age, wearing subdued clothes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a sensibly direct manner. From the moment I opened the door, I could see that she was sizing me up, trying to work me out and see whether all the reports she had undoubtedly read about me tallied with how she herself perceived me. Her early enforced pleasantness—a tone of voice that said, “Let’s try to get through this uncomfortable business as reasonably as possible”—hinted that she was expecting a harridan, still in the throes of a major psychological rupture. I could also tell that she was taking in everything about my bearing, my manners, my dress sense (well-pressed jeans, a black turtleneck, black loafers), and my material circumstances. She noticed my collection of books and classical CDs, and the fact that I served her real French press coffee.
She then quickly let it be known that this was business.
“Now I know this can’t be the easiest of situations for you . . .” she said, sugaring her coffee.
“No, it isn’t,” I said, thinking: just about everyone I’ve met in the social services has used that expression—“this can’t be easy for you.” Is that an acknowledgment of my so-called “pain,” or their way of informing me: but there’s even more discomfort to come?
“I plan to see you two or three times in all before I submit my report. I would normally see you on the first occasion with your husband, but given the sensitivity of the situation, I decided against that in your case. I will see him separately. What I would like to point out is that in no way should our conversations be considered as cross-examinations. You’re not on trial here. My goal is simply to give the court an overall picture of your circumstances.”
You’re not on trial here . . . it’s just a little chat. How wonderfully English. I was, without question, on trial here—and we both knew it.
“I understand,” I said.
“Very good,” she said. She bit into a stem ginger biscuit, contemplated it for a moment before swallowing, then asked, “Marks and Spencer?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“I thought so. Delicious. Now then . . . I note from your file that you moved to London just under a year ago. So I suppose a reasonable first question might be: how are you finding life in England?”
When I recounted this question to Sandy later that night, she said, “You’ve got to be kidding me? She actually asked you that?”
“And they say Americans are deficient in the irony department.”
“Well, did you furnish her with the appropriate ironic answer?”
“Hardly. I was very polite, and moderately truthful—saying that it hadn’t been the easiest of adjustments, but that I had also been ill for the past few months and therefore couldn’t really judge the place from the standpoint of someone who wasn’t yet a functioning part of it. Which is when she asked me if it was my intention to become ‘a functioning part of England,’ to which I said, ‘Absolutely’—reminding her that I had been a journalist before coming to England, and had also been a correspondent here until my high blood pressure bumped me out of my job.
“ ‘I should be able to find work here,’ I said. ‘Because there’s so much journalistic work in London.’
“ ‘So, should you regain custody of your son,’ she asked, ‘or should the court agree to shared custody, you would plan to raise him in England?’
“ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that would be the plan—because he would then have access to both parents.’ ”
“Smart answer,” Sandy said. “Did your interrogator approve?”
“I think so. Just as I also think she doesn’t disapprove of me. Which is something of a start. Still, the critical thing now is to find work—and show that I can once again be a functioning member of society.”
“But do you think you’re actually ready for work? I mean—”
“I know what you’re about to say. And the answer is: I have no choice. I need the money, and I also need to show the powers-that-be that I can work.”
But finding a job proved to be a complex task. To begin with, my professional contacts in London were nominal—two or three newspaper editors whom I’d met during my short stint as correspondent here, and a CNN producer guy named Jason Farrelly, with whom I had become moderately friendly when he did a four-month stint in Cairo around two years ago. He had since been downgraded to the business news ghetto in the London bureau. But he was the senior producer of CNN Business News Europe—which meant that making telephone contact with him wasn’t easy, as all senior news producers in big bureaus make it a point to be too busy to return your calls. So after leaving five messages, I decided to try my luck with one of the newspaper editors I’d met a few months earlier. Her name was Isobel Walcott. She was the deputy features editor of the Daily Mail. I’d taken her out to lunch when I was working on a piece about the decline and fall of London manners, as she had written a jokey little book on the subject. I remembered her as someone who combined a cut-glass accent with a propensity for dropping the word “fuck” into casual conversation; who drank about five glasses of sauvignon blanc too many, but who also told me toward the end of the lunch, “If you ever have a feature idea that might work for the Mail, do give me a bell.”
Which is what I decided to do now. I even managed to dig out the business card she’d given me, and found her direct number. But when she answered and heard my name, she asked curtly, “Have we met?”
“I was the
Boston Post correspondent who took you out to lunch a couple of months ago, remember?”
Suddenly, her tone went from abrupt to dismissive.
“Oh, yes, right. Can’t really talk now . . .”
“Well, could I call you later? I have an idea or two for a feature, and as you did say that if I ever wanted to write for the Mail . . .”
“I’m afraid we’re rather top-heavy with features right now. But tell you what . . . email me the ideas and we’ll see. All right? Must dash now. Bye.”
I did email her the two ideas, not expecting to hear from her.
I expected right.
I also tried phoning someone who worked on the Sunday Telegraph magazine—a guy named Edward Jensen, whom I remembered as friendly—and had known Tony when they were both doing journalistic stints in Frankfurt. Once again, I had his direct number. Once again, I wasn’t received well. Only, unlike Walcott, he wasn’t curt—rather, somewhat nervous.
“You’ve caught me at a bad time, I’m afraid,” he said. “How’s Tony?”
“Well . . .”
“Oh, God, how foolish of me. I had heard . . .”
“You’d heard what?”
“That the two of you . . . uh . . . dreadfully sorry. And I gather you’ve been unwell.”
“I’m better now.”
“Good, good. But, uh, I’m due in conference any moment. Could I call you back?”
I gave him the number, knowing he wouldn’t call me back.
And he didn’t.
Judging from his embarrassed tone, it was clear that word had spread through Media London about our breakup. As Tony was the man with all the connections, the world was hearing his side of the story. Which meant that Edward Jensen had evidently been informed that I had gone ga-ga and threatened the life of my child . . . and should therefore be dodged at all costs.
At least, Jason Farrelly finally returned my calls. And, at least, he was outwardly friendly . . . though he made it known pretty damn fast that (a) he was super-busy, and (b) there was absolutely no hope of any work at CNN right now.
“You know the cutbacks we’ve suffered since the merger. Hell, I’m lucky to be still in a job . . . and, believe me, business news is not my idea of a good time. Still, so great to hear from you. Enjoying London?”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 95
