by Casey Watson
When Emma finally surfaced I could tell she was still brooding about the events of the previous day, and that – news or no news delivered about the Tarim situation – we were in for a less than jolly day.
‘Oh, right!’ she said, slamming the fridge door shut in disgust, having ascertained that there were no bottles prepared for her. I’d normally do them, being first up, but, with my batch of phone calls to deal with, today I hadn’t. ‘So this is how it’s gonna be from now on, is it?’ she huffed. ‘Take it out on the baby, why don’t you?’
She plonked Roman down on the cold tiled floor and set about banging empty bottles around on the worktop.
‘Emma,’ I snapped, exasperated, ‘do you really think I’d be so petty? I’ve been busy. Besides, it’s not my job to make bottles up for Roman anyway, is it?’
She ignored this and scowled as she slapped the switch on the kettle. It immediately flicked off again, the kettle being empty. ‘Well, you seem to be,’ she snapped straight back, plucking the kettle from its stand and taking it across to jam under the cold tap. ‘I thought you were on my side, not theirs!’
I just about stopped myself from asking her to lift the lid up and a fountain of water sprayed all over the floor. She cursed. ‘But you’re just like the rest of them,’ she went on. ‘Trying to make my life as difficult as you can!’
Stepping around Roman, I went to get my dusting things out of the cleaning cupboard. There was no point in even engaging with her while she was in this kind of mood, much less spelling out the Tarim situation. I also had to chase away the thought that maybe I’d miscalculated in being so keen on this placement. It seemed the worst of both worlds: a teenage girl with enough attitude to headline at Glastonbury Festival and a dear little baby I had to steel myself to lose. How simple, it suddenly seemed, to have, say, a routinely challenging eight- or nine-year-old, and I looked back at previous placements – dear little Jenson, sweet little Georgie, cheeky Spencer – with glasses so ridiculously rose-tinted that they could have had a walk-on part in a Barbara Cartland novel.
I mentally shook myself. Ridiculous was about right. With hardly an exception every single child Mike and I had fostered had gone through periods every bit as grim and challenging. I was just tired, weighed down by the news (and its potential consequences) that I was all too soon going to have to impart. I gathered up my cleaning things. Tonight, that would be best. I’d save the Tarim discussion till then, I decided. When Mike was home and there to support me. Just for today, I’d had enough confrontation.
Even so, it still hurt that Emma could turn on me like this. It wasn’t about sides – that was silly – but if it had been, the same applied. I was on hers. I was rooting for her. I only wanted the best for her. And though I knew most of her ranting was down to tiredness and hormones it still felt like a slap to be treated like this. I felt relieved when, armed with a baby bottle and some porridge, she huffed back upstairs to her room.
But by the time Riley came over for a sandwich at lunchtime, I was struck by an unfamiliar and unwelcome new feeling. A kind of empty feeling – not the sort that would be accompanied by massed violins, exactly – just this sense that things weren’t quite okay.
‘Simple,’ said Riley. ‘It’s that feeling you always described as an “empty nest thing”.’
That made no sense. ‘How could it be that?’ I asked her. ‘You get that when you haven’t got any kids left. I’m flipping surrounded by them right now, it feels like.’
‘No, it is that, Mum, honest. I never really got what it meant when you said that but since I’ve had the boys I do get it. I feel like that, like, when David’s mum takes the boys out for the day or something. Just this slightly lost feeling, like something’s missing but I don’t quite know what. Bet it’s that.’
‘But why would I be feeling that?’ I persisted.
‘Durr, mum,’ she said, grinning at me. ‘Haven’t you noticed? You’ve been looking after Roman pretty solidly for something like six months now, haven’t you? Then, suddenly, the past couple of days, she’s been keeping him from you …’
‘Well, not quite keeping him from me. It’s not like that, exactly …’
‘Yes, it is. And what difference does it make anyway? You’re used to being with him all the time. Okay, so not 24/7 but most of his waking hours – and a lot of yours. Plus you’ve been looking after him while Emma’s been at school, too, don’t forget. It is that, Mum – pound to a penny. Empty nest.’
Who knew my daughter could be so insightful? She was probably right, too. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Emma wasn’t suddenly becoming mum of the year, admittedly, but she was trying to let me know who was in charge here; that it was her who controlled how much time I spent with her son. It was a slightly uncomfortable feeling.
‘You’re right, love,’ I said to Riley. ‘I’m my own worst enemy, aren’t I? Always way too ready to jump in, Mrs Indispensible, doing everything. And just making it more difficult for me to let go. Though there’s no doubt I should. For both their sakes. And for mine, come to that. I’m getting fed up of doing it all anyway, truth be told.’
Riley laughed. Loudly. ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘you know as well as I do that you’ll do no such thing. You’re just peeved that someone else is taking control, for once. But you should – you should leave her to it. That way she’ll soon come to realise just how much you have been doing for her. She needs you – she’ll soon come to recognise that. Just take a break while you have the chance – tell you what, let’s go shopping tomorrow, shall we? Leave her to it for a change. Do her good.’
I felt much better after Riley went, and a good deal more relaxed. And with Emma spending much of the rest of the afternoon up in her room with Roman, I enjoyed preparing a huge home-made lasagne for our tea. Nothing better on a cold, early March evening than a carb-laden plate of pasta. Not that, when it came to it, the atmosphere smelled quite as good as the food did. Roman was napping, and without the focus of having to entertain and feed him the mood round the table was sombre. It was sad; Emma had been with us for almost half a year now, but it was as if we were a trio of strangers. Even Mike, usually so good at making light, banterish conversation, had given up and had his gaze firmly on his dinner.
It was Emma, in fact, who spoke first. ‘So,’ she said, out of the blue, ‘any news from the baby snatchers? What’s the verdict? Can Tarim start seeing Roman or not?’
‘Not. That’s the short answer,’ Mike replied, equally testily. ‘At least not just yet,’ he added, his tone softening slightly. Then he looked at her again. ‘And before you start jumping down anyone’s throat,’ he said, ‘just listen to what Casey has to say first.’
Ah. Over to me, then. I duly jumped to attention. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well … first of all, they accept that you’ll want to see Tarim – if that’s what you want to do, that is. Though, I have to tell you, they don’t like it. I might as well be honest, Emma; the truth is that Maggie’s told me that they feel he’s a bad influence on you.’
‘They know hardly anything about him!’ Emma snapped.
I refrained from pointing out that they didn’t really need to, given that what they did know comprised ‘prison’ and ‘drugs’.
‘They’re just a bunch of arseholes who won’t give him a chance,’ she then told us. ‘And too right I can see him – I’ll do what I want! And that includes Roman seeing him, whether they like it or not!’
‘Well, actually no, Emma,’ I told her calmly. ‘You won’t be doing that. If Tarim wants to be part of Roman’s life he has to be assessed first, just as would anyone else who wanted to play a part in his upbringing. After that, then they will decide if he’s an appropriate person to have contact. And he might also be expected to go on a parenting course, just like you did when you were pregnant. I know you don’t like it, love,’ I finished, ‘but it’s a serious business agreeing to contact, and that’s what they’ve decided, so I’m afraid that’s it for now.’
She leapt to her feet then, knocking her chair over, and I got the impression she’d been expecting this all day. After all, she might be headstrong but she wasn’t stupid. ‘Well, fuck that!’ she screamed. ‘And fuck the two of you as well! I’m not staying in this fucking house a single minute longer!’
Mike had stood up as well now, and he righted her chair. Upstairs, I could hear that Roman had begun bleating too. Emma turned to Mike. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she spat. ‘I’ll be leaving your precious baby. Just for tonight. So make the most of it, okay!’
I breathed deeply. Only a fourteen-year-old could tell you to f*** off out of their life while at the same time pointing out you’d also be in charge of babysitting duties. Seen like that, it was even slightly amusing.
But not from where Emma stood, clearly. ‘You can stay right where you are,’ Mike snapped at her, as she headed for the hallway. He raised his voice just enough to ram his authority home. ‘We haven’t finished discussing this yet and you are only fourteen years old, young lady. You can’t just up and off every time things don’t go your way. How will you cope living alone with Roman when things go wrong, eh? Just run away then too, will you?’
‘Oh piss off, Mike,’ she said. ‘I’m off and you can’t stop me. And don’t bother looking for me because Taz’ll come and pick me up in his car.’ She grabbed her phone then, and I heard the swish of her raincoat being swept from the banister. ‘I’ll be back for Roman tomorrow,’ she shouted back, as if her baby was no more going to keep her there than if he’d been her hamster. ‘And by the way,’ she added, as she yanked on the door handle, ‘I’m nearly fifteen, if you don’t mind!’
And with a slam of the front door – her speciality – she was gone.
I felt sick to my stomach, and wished I hadn’t already eaten most of my lasagne. I slid the plate away crossly. ‘Now what?’
Mike scowled. ‘Don’t blame me, love!’ he said. ‘You heard her! I know what’s happened here – she’s already arranged to go and meet the little … hmm, yeah, that’s what’s definitely happened. Of course. She was angling for that row just to give her the excuse to get out of here.’
‘I’m not blaming you,’ I retorted. ‘But we can’t just leave it, can we?’
‘What, the rest of our dinner?’ He sighed heavily and rasped a hand across his chin. ‘For the moment we can,’ he said. ‘For the moment. Yes, I think we should just leave it.’ He nodded towards the ceiling. ‘You going up for that little man up there or am I?’
We agreed that we would give Emma a couple of hours to cool off. It was still only six – not even dark yet – and if we phoned the emergency duty team at this point we’d just look like idiots. But I didn’t want to just leave it so I called Maggie on her mobile to ask her advice. She felt the same. No point in causing even more of a drama. ‘Leave it a bit longer,’ she counselled. ‘I don’t doubt she’ll come back of her own accord before too long, but, if she doesn’t, call her mobile, and only if she doesn’t answer would I go to the next step.’
In the end, we gave it till 8.30 before trying to get hold of her, and when we did she didn’t answer her mobile. That was it for me. ‘Mike,’ I said,’ I want to ring EDT now. And the police –’
‘Steady on –’ he began.
‘No, I’m going to,’ I told him. ‘I just have this feeling and I really don’t like it, Mike.’
He got up from where he’d been sitting, half watching the television, and switched it off with the remote.
‘I know you and your feelings, love, but I have one idea I think we should try first.’ He pulled the blind up and peered out, then put it down again. ‘You wrap the baby up nice and warm and let’s drive to that girl’s house. Tash, was it?’ I nodded. ‘Let’s go and see if she can help us. She might have gone there again, mightn’t she? And even if she hasn’t, she might be able to throw some light on where she is. What do you think?’
I thought it was a brilliant idea. Despite knowing I must, I was still reluctant to call out the emergency duty team – it would take things to a whole other level to do that, and perhaps to a point where things couldn’t be undone. It would be in black and white on Emma’s record: immature and irresponsible. I flew upstairs to wake and dress Roman, remembering to grab his teething gel as I went.
We drove slowly round the estate we’d come to on our previous excursion, Mike up front, looking like a cabbie, and me in the back seat, nursing Roman. He was grizzly now, both from being woken and from the teething, and for a moment or two I regretted our impetuosity in bringing him out. Perhaps the better thing would have been for just one of us to have come out looking, but as we’d already decided, Mike alone might not be able to persuade Emma to come back with him, and there was no way he’d have let me go instead.
We passed numerous groups of teenagers, who all eyed us in different ways, some incuriously, some suspiciously, some openly stopping to look and scrutinise. It wasn’t a nice place to be with a baby at approaching ten at night.
Mike was more bullish than me, and twice, when we saw groups that seemed to be of girls around Emma’s age, wound down his window to ask them if they knew of or had seen her. I wasn’t surprised to note that both groups seemed to know of both her and Tarim, but if they knew where either of them was they weren’t saying.
Eventually we found our way back to the house we’d collected Emma from the previous time, and I stayed in the car with the baby while Mike went to the door. It was a forlorn-looking place; the external plaster chipped and stained, the tiny strip of front ‘garden’ no more than a scrubby and neglected place to keep the various recycling bins.
But when Tash came to the door I remembered the neat, cosy interior and was reminded that what you saw on the outside of these places didn’t necessarily reflect what was going on inside.
Mike chatted with Tash for a minute or so, then someone else appeared at the door. It seemed to be an older woman – one of the staff whose job it was to keep an eye on the teenage mums there, probably, or an older relative – and I could tell from her arm movements that she was now directing Mike somewhere else.
He was back soon after, rubbing his hands together before gripping the wheel and starting the engine. ‘Brrr, it’s cold out there,’ he said. ‘You know, you’d never think that was a kind of hostel, would you? Be great if Emma can go to a place like that, wouldn’t it? Anyway,’ he continued, turning the ignition key, ‘I bring good news. I have an address.’
‘Thank God for that,’ I said. ‘She’s seen Emma tonight then, has she?’
‘Apparently not actually seen her. But it does seem that they’ve texted. That was the on-call social worker I was talking to, by the way,’ he added. ‘Thank goodness she was there still. Don’t know if I would have got it out of Tash otherwise. She’s obviously fiercely loyal to Emma –’
‘Which is a good thing, on balance.’
‘Exactly. Though if I was being less charitable I might be tempted to think it’s more to do with her being scared of Tarim, don’t you think?’
God, this boy – no, grown man – was really getting to me. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to meeting him exactly, but I was certainly keen to, just to put a face to his already extremely tarnished name.
We pulled out into the main road that ran through the estate again. ‘It’s going to be a bit of a doss house, by all accounts,’ Mike warned, looking at me via the rear-view mirror. ‘Bit of a meeting place, apparently – when lots of the local kids go to chill. And drink. And smoke dope. And other unsavoury things, no doubt. Sounds like our Tarim’s a real party planner, eh?’
‘Lovely,’ I said, glancing at his son.
Mike painted a pretty unappetising picture, but it paled into insignificance compared to the sight that greeted us round the next corner. We had arrived, it seemed, but not to a doss house – not in the bricks and mortar sense. It was actually a group of four high-rise flats, their tops reaching dizzyingly high in the night sky, most of them liberally pepp
ered with smashed windows, no windows or boarded-up windows and graffiti liberally sprayed on most of the vertical surfaces. Around them all lay a large expanse of weedy, fractured concrete, and the whole thing was finished off with a community of various wheelie bins, accessorised by split and spewing rubbish bags.
Mike leaned forward in his seat, the better to peer upwards and take in the view.
‘I think you’d better come with me, love,’ he said, ‘and bring the baby, too. It’s up on the third floor and I’m not happy about leaving you both down here.’
Roman had just dropped off to sleep and I was loath to disturb him. ‘Go on, love, I’ll be fine,’ I told him. ‘In fact,’ I said, opening the rear door, ‘I’ll pop into the front. Leave the engine running and I’ll have the radio on. I’ll be fine.’
He looked around. ‘I don’t know, love …’
‘Mike, there’s nobody around. I’ll be fine.’
‘Nobody you can see,’ he corrected. ‘This looks like the sort of place where there could be all sorts, all lurking in the shadows.’
‘Mike, will you just get up there, please?’ I said, transferring to the front passenger seat. ‘I’ll lock myself in, and if anyone comes out and starts looking suspicious I’ll put my hand on the horn and leave it there, okay?’
So Mike did, albeit reluctantly, and as I watched him go through the splintered front door I shuddered. I didn’t feel quite so brave now he’d disappeared from view. I ticked myself off, telling myself not to be ridiculous – out loud, too. I’d seen worse, been to worse places, dealt with some pretty frightening scenarios. There was nothing to scare me here but fear itself. Heebie jeebies. Still, I was glad, as the minutes ticked slowly by, that I didn’t actually see or hear anyone.
In fact, the next person I did see was Mike once again, coming through the doors fifteen minutes later, to my great relief. I’d been through a process – when he hadn’t come out straight away I’d been worried, and then, as the time passed, was reassured by his continued absence – she must obviously be there – and then, as more time went on, began imagining different scenarios. She wasn’t there at all. He’d been mugged, he’d been beaten up, perhaps drugged … I was just giving myself another stern talking to when he appeared – and more importantly, appeared fit and well.
