The Second Child

by Caroline Bond

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant, you know it wasn’t.’

  ‘But it’s what you said.’

  ‘Rosie, please?’

  ‘Please what? I want to stay here.’ She’s like a child, defiant, petulant.

  But I can’t let her escape without a fight. I won’t. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but you can’t. I’m picking you up, as planned.’

  ‘I’m going to ask them if I can stay.’

  ‘Rosie—’ She hangs up on my objections.

  I stare at my phone, willing her to call back, but she doesn’t and after four, five, six minutes of hopeless waiting I decide not to call her. I know she’ll not answer, and I can’t face trying and being rejected for a second time. As I sit cradling my phone in my hand, I notice that I have new email from Nathan’s solicitor that I’ve not opened. I click on it, knowing before I read it that it won’t be anything good. It’s not.

  Dear Ms Elkan,

  Nathan has asked us to get in touch with you to set up a review meeting to assess your financial settlement. Nathan would like to discuss the existing terms of reference and the schedule of payments. I believe there are also some issues relating to the maintenance arrangements that may need to be amended.

  In light of the range of issues under consideration, a face-to-face meeting with yourself and legal representative[s] is required. If you could call my PA, Jackie Peyton, on 020 6780 1471, or email her on jackie.peyton@hamiltonandreynard.com, to let us know which dates you are available, that would be greatly appreciated.

  We look forward to hearing from you very soon.

  Yours sincerely,

  Chris Marfleet

  Another warning shot.

  40

  What’s Right?

  SARAH

  PHIL GOES back into work on the Tuesday, Lauren goes off to holiday club, James heads over to Ryan’s – allegedly to study, more likely just to chill out – and Rosie lies in for most of the morning. The house is blissfully quiet. I actually manage to get a few hours of work done. It’s not until lunchtime that Rosie finally appears, her face creased from sleep and her hair a shaggy mess. She offers to get us both something to eat. I watch as she opens cupboards and drawers, retrieving plates and cutlery. She knows where everything ‘lives’ now. It’s relaxed, almost normal. We listen to the radio, I work and she stirs beans in a pan. It’s only for the sake of something to say that I ask her what she’s got planned when she gets home. I immediately sense the atmosphere shift.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to meet up with your friends? You must’ve missed seeing them this holiday.’ I close down my laptop.

  She studies me, then out of nowhere she asks, ‘Can I stay? Until the weekend? I don’t have to go home.’

  I’m thrown. ‘But your mum’s coming to pick you up tomorrow.’

  ‘Please?’

  Again the sudden shift to small child unnerves me. I feel the familiar, uncomfortable rush of contradictory emotions; there’s the pleasure that she wants to be with us and the relief that we’re getting somewhere, but stronger by far is the fear that it’s all moving too fast. ‘I know it’s hard, Rosie. And I know we need to agree something more definite about how often we see you, but that’s going to take some time to sort out.’

  She isn’t listening. ‘But I want to stay here.’

  ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘You don’t understand. I can’t talk to her. I’ve never been able to.’

  ‘Rosie, you have to have some patience.’ That ignites her.

  ‘Please!’ Her ferocity has an edge of hysteria to it. ‘Please. Ask Phil. Please, ring him and ask him. Just for the rest of this week. There’s nothing for me to go home for.’ It’s such a stark statement.

  For the lack of any other solution, I do. I step into the garden to make the call, conscious that she’s watching me, pretending to wash up at the sink. I turn away to avoid her gaze. The dial tone buzzes in my ear, but Phil doesn’t answer. I leave him a message expressing Rosie’s wishes, glossed with my uncertainty. When I finish I don’t hang up; I keep the phone to my ear, faking the call, to buy myself some time. Again the sense of being pressurised by Rosie swamps me. I watch next door’s cat pick its way delicately across the weed-choked flowerbeds at the bottom of the garden and, as I stand there, the certainty grows within me that she needs to go home, that we have to stick to some sort of rules. Her life is there, our life is here, we can’t just smash the two together and expect it all to work out fine, whatever Phil thinks. It’s chilly in the shade of the house, but still I stand there, unable to face my daughter and tell her that I want to send her away because I need some space to breathe.

  When I step back into the kitchen, Rosie immediately drops whatever she’s washing in the sink and comes towards me. ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s in an office full of people, so we couldn’t really talk, but we will tonight when he gets home, I promise.’ It’s enough to placate her.

  She comes closer and reaches out towards me, putting her hand palm-flat against my sleeve. It’s an odd, awkward gesture. ‘Thank you,’ she mumbles. When she steps away, I look down and see the faint print of her hand outlined on my shirt.

  Our ‘talk’ that evening is an uneven, unresolved thing. Rosie grows increasingly adamant. ‘But I can’t think of her as my real mum any more, so why do I have to live with her?’

  We acknowledge all her arguments and listen to her confused emotions, and I ache for the loneliness that lies behind everything she says, but I still try and get her to think about her life and how she can’t just walk away from all the things that support her, without there being a cost. Phil keeps talking about it in terms of the end goal. ‘It can’t all be straight away, Rosie. Like Sarah said, school – especially this year – is important. And there’s your football and all your friends.’ There’s the implication, however, in everything that he says that she will, eventually, somehow, be with us.

  As we stumble around what could or might be possible, I’m conscious of the empty seat at the table. Anne. The presence of three unanswered texts on my phone from her is a reminder, should I need one, that she has as much riding on this conversation as anyone. It seems wrong that we’re even talking about this without her having a voice, but when I mention her, Rosie grows even more emotional and irrational, and Phil is brutally indifferent. But it nags at me. We can’t just take Rosie away from Anne. It’s too cruel. I can’t let it go. I push for us trying to arrange things in agreement with her and I stress, over and over again, how much better it will be if we can sort things out amicably and fairly. It’s only when I argue that it will be much quicker to deal direct with Anne, rather than having to go through the lawyers, that I get a more conciliatory response. The threat of Callum getting involved seems to hit home. Phil and Rosie share a deep dislike of him, but my motives are complex and conflicting. We finally agree to start by asking Anne for regular, scheduled weekend visits across term time, and longer stays in the holidays, and Phil promises Rosie that we will raise the possibility of joint custody.

  By 8.30 p.m. we’ve talked ourselves out of words and compromises and emotions. Phil takes Lauren up to bed, late, and I take the house phone out into the garden. I sit on the bench and try and compose myself before I make the call. The sound of my mobile vibrating rattles me. I stare at it, acutely conscious that Anne is on the line, no doubt wondering why we’ve left it so late to contact her about the arrangements for tomorrow. I listen to her message. She sounds understandably anxious about the lack of contact from us, and from Rosie. I steel myself and call her back.

  And it goes okay, or at least as well as it could have, given that I’m effectively telling her that her daughter is refusing to go home, for now. I expect anger, but when Anne eventually speaks, her voice is thick with sadness, not bitterness. I apologise, more than once, and I try and make amends. I try and reassure her that we’re not encouraging Rosie, that we are trying to get her to take things slowly, think things thro
ugh, not rush into any big changes when everything is still so raw and new and confusing. How much that is true, I’m not sure, and how much these are my feelings rather than Rosie’s, I’m not ready to acknowledge, but somehow the empathy between us is enough to help us stumble our way around the mess.

  ‘When can I come and fetch her, then?’ I can hear the hurt in Anne’s voice.

  ‘Friday, maybe?’ Rosie can’t have everything that she wants.

  There’s a long pause. ‘Well, if you can cope with her being with you, I suppose it’s okay. I can’t force her to come home, can I?’ I don’t know what to respond. I just want the conversation to end. Then Anne says, ‘Sarah, do you think we could perhaps meet up? To talk? Just the two of us?’ she asks, meekly.

  ‘Of course,’ I say, though there’s no ‘of course’ about it.

  ‘Thank you. I think it would help. Perhaps if I came up to Leeds, on Thursday? I’ll book into a hotel. I wouldn’t want to impose on you. We could try and see if we can agree how to handle Rosie. Sorry, I don’t mean “handle”, but you know what I mean. Maybe we can work something out between us.’

  Perhaps we can. Because whatever Phil feels, and whatever Rosie thinks she wants, Anne is a mother struggling with her daughter, and that I can identify with. In the end we agree to meet at her hotel to talk properly. Disloyal as it is, I know it will be better if Phil and Rosie aren’t there. I say goodbye and end the call, feeling hollow, but at least we now have a plan.

  We go to bed late and tired. I’m relieved to switch off the light, welcoming the thought of sleep or at least a respite from thinking, but Phil isn’t finished. ‘Do you think that joint custody is enough?’

  I’m so tired of it. ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’

  ‘Well, you can’t sit down with Anne unless we’re clear about what we want.’

  ‘Precisely,’ I snap.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, yes, I will need to be clear before I sit down and talk with her. Before I try and come up with some sort of compromise that is bearable for all of us.’ He’s silent for a few seconds and I regret my sharp tone. ‘Phil, please. I just think it’s too much to tackle Anne with, all at once.’

  ‘I don’t understand you sometimes, Sarah.’ His voice contains genuine bewilderment.

  I don’t think I can make him fully understand, but he’s waiting, so I try. ‘I just don’t know what’s right.’ I push myself up against the pillows, accepting that I’m not going to sleep anytime soon, and we whisper to each other in the dark.

  ‘What do you mean, “right”?’

  ‘I mean right for us, and for Anne, and for Rosie. And that means I don’t think we should just agree to everything Rosie wants. We’re her parents. It’s up to us to make the right decisions for her. She’s not really in a stable enough frame of mind to know what’s in her own best interests at the moment, is she? She’s a teenage girl, a very confused teenage girl, with so many conflicting desires and emotions running through her. We don’t want her deciding something that she later regrets.’

  ‘But she’s our daughter and she’s unhappy.’ It’s that simple to Phil.

  ‘I know. And I want her be happy, but that can’t be at the cost of everyone else. We owe Anne that much, at least. She has let us keep Lauren without a fight. That has to count for something. We can’t take Rosie from her as well.’

  I wait for his response, but it doesn’t come. We sit in the dark, separated by our differences, while the house creaks and shifts around us, our battered old house that is having the stretch and expand to accommodate so much. Loneliness seeps into me, a faint but frightening echo of the bad days when the chasm between Phil and me was too wide to breach. I can feel us straining apart again and it scares me. Phil shifts position, away not towards me, and the gap tugs wider.

  41

  Talking

  ANNE

  THERE’S NOWHERE lonelier than a big hotel, if you’re checking in alone. The lobby of the place I’ve booked in Leeds is big and flashy and full of the twanging voices of a group of American tourists. The receptionist doesn’t pause in tapping away at her keyboard as she takes my credit card, checks me in and exhorts me, above the cacophony, to Enjoy your stay. My room, on the sixth floor, is perfectly nice, perfectly bland and imperfectly quiet. It takes me four minutes to unpack and three to freshen up. By 12.24 p.m. I’m sitting on the bed listening to the muted sounds of the city beyond my double-glazed window. wondering what I can do to occupy myself until 6.30 p.m., the agreed time for Sarah’s visit. I click on the TV and watch a fruitless antique hunt and the news. By 1.30 p.m. I can’t face it any more. I grab my bag and my jacket and I head back downstairs. The lobby is now empty, the sound of piped harp music audible alongside the relentless tap-tap of the receptionist. Through the revolving doors I can see the rush and blur of people on the streets. I consider joining them, but the effort is beyond me.

  The barman is polite as he pushes a single glass of red wine across the counter at me. The bar itself is quiet, just me and a scatter of businessmen. They glance up from their phones and laptops as I pass, but their cool scrutiny quickly turns to disinterest. I retreat into a corner, place my solitary drink and my phone on the table in front of me and bide my time. My phone doesn’t make a sound. I’m not in demand, not required to mutter urgent instructions to some colleague in the US or bash out terse emails to keep the wheels of commerce turning. I take slow sips of my thin wine and hope that the alcohol will relax me.

  I’ve received nothing from Rosie since our row. I’ve texted her, repeatedly, and have left her a number of messages, all of them light and airy and non-demanding, letting her know that I love her and that I understand. That’s all I can do: hide my own feelings, tiptoe around her and pray that the bond between us is stronger than it looks. Just like the old days with Nathan… and I’m fully aware of how that played out. I take another sip. The wine tastes metallic and sour in my mouth. I know that she’s drawn to their sloppy warmth, that she likes that there are five of them reflecting and deflecting each other’s energy. I know our lovely, large, but empty house is no competition. And there is Phil, the real prize for her, a fully functioning, loving father. The opposite of Nathan.

  Nathan and I were together for seven years. That’s all. But his mark is imprinted on me. I’m still a version of the woman that he wanted, moulded, then discarded. My actions are still being dictated by his desires. He still has control. Why else would I be here, alone in a hotel, cringing and placating the Rudaks, for fear of what they might do or say? Why aren’t I fighting, screaming and shouting that Rosie is mine and they cannot have her.

  It’s because I know the truth about myself. I don’t deserve her. I am not enough on my own. I never have been and I never will be. Rosie, like Nathan, can see through me and she knows there’s something missing.

  I am not a good mother.

  I drain the dregs of my wine, run the gauntlet of male eyes and go back up to my room, where I lie on the bed and await Sarah and my fate.

  SARAH

  I’m anxious about my meeting with Anne, it hangs over me, a dark shadow that chills only me. Phil sees Anne as nothing more an obstacle. I see her as my mirror.

  I call Phil. It’s a short conversation. He’s driving, it’s not a good time to talk. I hang up, feeling adrift. I ask Rosie to keep an eye on Lauren and go out into the garden, where I ring Ali, feeling the need for some moral support. She’s her usual brutal, uncompromising, loving self. ‘Don’t let the Wicked Witch of the South screw with you. Remember she’s the one who’s turned her back on Lauren, so you don’t owe her any favours over Rosie.’ It’s odd how the same deed can be judged so differently, depending on your point of view. Ali asks, ‘When are you seeing her?’ When I tell her, she immediately insists on meeting me at the hotel. ‘It’s round the corner from work. We can go for a drink afterwards, to celebrate the slaying of the witch.’ I barely protest; the thought of having Ali as my wingman is reassur
ing.

  Phil comes home early and follows me around as I get ready to go, reminding me about what we want to get out of the conversation. In the end it’s a relief to get out of the house, away from his instructions and from Rosie’s imploring silence.

  The Metropole has been done up since I was last inside it. It’s now all polished wood, new upholstery and huge flower arrangements, the upmarket ambience is completed by the plinking of harp music. The lacquered receptionist rings up to Anne’s room. ‘I have a guest at Reception for you, Ms Elkan.’ Pause. ‘Yes, of course.’ She puts the phone down, with her immaculate talons. ‘She asks that you go up. Room six-four-nine. Sixth floor. The lifts are just to your left through the doors.’ She smiles for a fraction of a second, then returns to tapping at her keyboard. Ali says she’ll go into the bar and wait for me. It’s a comfort to know she’s there.

  It’s a quiet walk down the corridor. I don’t see any other guests. I knock and wait, feeling uncomfortable; it’s like the setting for an assignation rather than an awkward, impossible conversation about the fate of a child. The door opens quickly, almost as if Anne’s been standing right behind it, and she gestures me in. She points me towards the only chair. The room is unnaturally tidy. She seems to have eradicated all evidence that she’s staying there. There are no clothes in sight, nothing on the bedside tables, I can’t even see her handbag. The bed is pristine. Anne herself looks as smart as ever, overdressed for the occasion, in a skirt and a silk top, but on a closer look I can see that her make-up is a little too heavy. It gives her face an oddly rigid look. The powder has gathered in the creases at the corners of her mouth, and her colour is sickly beneath her blusher. As she settles herself on the edge of the bed and crosses her ankles, I see that her hair at the back is flattened, as if she’s been lying down. But she seems as composed as ever. ‘Thank you so much for coming. I think you were right to suggest that we got together, on our own, to talk things through.’ I remember it being Anne’s suggestion, but I let it go.