Give Me the Child

by Mel McGrath

  The coffee wasn’t yet brewed when Tom appeared, looking maddeningly sexy. He’d flung on some cargo shorts and a T-shirt and was leaning on the kitchen worktop, the lean lines of his body visible beneath the fabric. I knew he wouldn’t want to continue last night’s conversation. Not really. If I allowed it, a few days would pass and I would bring the topic up again and we’d start afresh, as though the earlier discussion had never happened.

  ‘Did you get some sleep?’ I said.

  Tom grunted.

  ‘Sorry about my fidgetiness.’

  I watched him flex his shoulders and stretch out his arms, then I bit my lip and looked away, my anger rising at what he’d done and at myself for wanting him in spite of it.

  He yawned and pulled the Weetabix towards him. ‘It’s all a bit of a head fuck,’ he said, with some understatement. I checked the clock. There really wasn’t enough time to have a proper discussion. It would have to wait. I told Tom that I had to go into the institute but I’d ask for a couple of personal days and we’d carve out a few hours to talk then.

  ‘You’ll let me know how your chat with the grandmother goes, won’t you?’ I had forgotten her name. I guessed my old therapist would have found some kind of meaning in that.

  ‘Of course. I want to sort this out as much as you do.’

  There came the sound of feet on the stairs and our daughter appeared, followed, moments later, by Ruby Winter. On any normal day Freya would have come over and given me a kiss but today she waited for Ruby to choose a seat then pulled out the chair beside her.

  ‘Morning, girls.’

  ‘Can we have pancakes?’

  I looked at Tom who shrugged a ‘why not?’

  They were getting the pancake batter together when the phone rang. I picked up. It was Shelly Frick, our neighbour. When we were alone together Tom always referred to the couple as the Pricks. Shelly Frick was one of those uptight, insecure women who spends her life competing with other women but only ever looks to men for validation. When I’d been in hospital she’d fussed about Tom as if he were a toddler, then, when I was back home again, crowed about how well she’d ‘looked after’ him. One night not long afterwards she came round to supper and expressed surprise when I flipped on a playlist that I wasn’t more into hip-hop. Because, what? I’m brown? In other words, she was a basic bitch. Nicholas we saw less often but whenever we did he was braying about the amazing deal he’d just pulled off on the derivatives markets, which made Tom want to poke out his eyes. Not our kind of people. But Charlie Frick was a sweetheart, Freya was very fond of him, and we figured it was good for her to have a younger kid to play with.

  Shelly said she’d called to warn us that the builder was about to start hollowing out their basement and also to remind us about Charlie Frick’s seventh birthday party at the weekend.

  ‘I wanted you to know that you’re all welcome. Including the new arrival, obviously.’ There was a moment’s pause which Shelly was clearly hoping I’d fill with some gossipy titbit and when I said nothing, she added, rather desperately, ‘My goodness, what amazing hair she has, doesn’t she? Just like a tiger.’

  I muttered something about seeing her on Saturday and hung up, waiting until the girls were absorbed in their pancake making at the stove before ushering Tom over to the table.

  ‘Did you say something to Shelly?’ I felt unsettled that Tom had told her anything before we’d had a chance to talk through an official story. Was it unreasonable to expect to at least have control of who knew what and in what manner?

  ‘She came over,’ Tom said flatly, as if it were of no consequence.

  ‘I wished you’d discussed it with me first,’ I said.

  Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘You didn’t return my call.’

  ‘I was busy at work.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he hissed. ‘Your work.’

  At that moment I happened to glance over at the oven and saw Ruby whisper something in Freya’s ear, before my daughter nodded and, turning to us, said, ‘Will you help us toss the pancake, Dad?’

  With an expression of enormous relief on his face, Tom got up and went towards the oven.

  ‘Of course I will, darling.’

  The heat in the office later that morning brought on an instant headache. Or, perhaps it wasn’t the heat so much as the stress – or just tiredness from two disturbed nights in a row. Whatever the cause, it left me feeling out of sorts as I sat down to my morning’s work. I’d been in the office an hour or two when my mobile started up the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, which signalled a call from my little sister. I’d left a message last night asking Sal to get back to me urgently. It was now nearly twelve hours later but in Sallyland this was what was known as an emergency response.

  ‘Hey, Cat, sorry, late night. What’s up? I’m in a cab.’ She sounded her usual upbeat, flirtatious self. Since starting in fashion PR six or seven years ago, Sal had stopped going anywhere. Instead, she nipped and popped and Ubered her way around the most stylish parts of the capital, looking fresh and straight out of the box. Living with our lush of a mother and the great disappearing act that was our father had left her fragile, but she made a spectacular show of hiding it and for that I loved her. Of all the responses among friends and family about the news of Ruby’s arrival, Sally’s was the one I dreaded least. She might say something flaky and funny but she wouldn’t judge and I could at least rely on her not to be horribly earnest.

  I recounted how it had happened, at least in Tom’s version, then described how Ruby had arrived in the middle of the night after her mother’s death. When I’d finished, Sal gave a low whistle.

  ‘God, Cat, I bet you’re raging at Tom. Except you don’t do rage. Smouldering, then. I bet you’re smouldering at him.’

  ‘I could bloody murder the bastard, but I’m not going to let the kids see that.’

  Sal absorbed this for a moment. Then she said, ‘A whole girl, though. Is she cute?’

  I laughed. ‘Since you ask, she’s, well, quirky. Loads of red hair. Nothing at all like Tom.’

  There was a pause while Sal thought this through. ‘And sooo…?’

  ‘This isn’t really the time to start asking for DNA tests. Tom’s on the birth certificate and he seems a hundred per cent sure.’ I had wondered why, if Tom was listed as Ruby’s father on the birth certificate, the authorities hadn’t been in contact with him about child support, but I didn’t really know anything about the rules. Maybe Lilly Winter had wanted to go it alone?

  Sally piped up: ‘How is darling Freya?’

  ‘She seems fine. Well, fine-ish. A bit in awe. Her half-sister’s big on street smarts. There’s something slightly odd about her.’

  ‘Poor girl, though. To find your own mum like that.’

  For an instant I saw Freya walking into a room where I lay, dead, and felt winded, so tried to put it out of my mind.

  ‘She doesn’t seem upset, particularly.’

  ‘Were you upset when Mum died? I mean, really?’

  ‘That was different. We were older and…’ I tailed off. Sal had a good point even though it was painful to concede it. After Heather died all I felt was relief.

  ‘Once things have settled down a bit Ruby’s going to live with her grandmother so that will take the pressure off us.’

  ‘That’s probably a good thing. I’ll bet Tom’s creeping around like a whipped dog, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes and no. He sent roses to work like that was going to make everything just fine. We haven’t really talked about it, not properly.’

  ‘You were a bit of a nightmare. At the hospital, I mean.’

  ‘I was ill. And apparently no one wants to let me forget it.’

  There was a pause. ‘You won’t leave, will you?’

  ‘Do you think I shouldn’t?’ Even as I asked the question, I realised that I wasn’t so sure what my answer would be. There was Freya to think about and, besides, Tom wasn’t the only one with a spotty record. Tom’s infidelity was all out in the open and u
ndeniable. But Tom knew nothing about mine.

  ‘It’s just, well, for the last four years Tom’s been the stay-at-home dad and…’ Her voice tailed off but I knew exactly where she was heading. The D word. Which led to the C word. If divorce led to a battle in the courts over our child, would someone like me, with my history, get custody? The thought had occurred to me too, but the possibility of losing Freya was too awful to think about for long.

  Just then Claire appeared and stuck a Post-it note on the computer: An audience with MacIntyre at 2 p.m. I gave her a thumbs-up and waited until she had closed the office door then finished up the call with my sister and rang off.

  The remainder of the morning was busier than I’d anticipated. Ayesha had attacked a therapist and there was no time to think much about the situation at home. By one thirty I was back in my office, which was now wonderfully cool, with an air conditioner humming in one corner. As I was angling my chair to take advantage of the air, Claire popped her head around the door.

  ‘You’re a genius,’ I said, meaning the air con.

  ‘The old lady I had to trample to get it didn’t think so.’

  I waved the Post-it note. ‘Did the Master of the Neuroverse say what he wanted to see me about?’

  ‘Nope.’ Claire checked her watch. ‘But you’ve just got time for a sandwich before you find out. Shall I get you the usual?’

  As was befitting for the director of a high-profile pubic institution, Sir Gus MacIntyre was half gatekeeper, half cheerleader. Staff called him, variously, the Master of the Neuroverse or simply Emperor Gus, though never to his face. His bald dome and jaunty bow tie were a regular feature on the late night and Sunday morning current affairs shows and it was his media appearances, almost more than his undoubted brilliance as director, which had kept him in the public eye long enough for him to have made it onto the Queen’s Honours list and secured his place in the Establishment. He could have easily sat back on his heels in the comfort of his club but a restlessness, or maybe some chink in the armour of his ego, necessitated a continued starring role in the constant drama of busyness and hustle. His family had been big in the Colonial Service and it was a running joke that he ruled the Institute of Neuroscience as if it were an empire over which the sun never set. I liked him well enough and, as long as I continued to produce major grant-attracting, cutting-edge research, I was confident the feeling would be reciprocated.

  When I landed in his office fresh from a quick do-over in the ladies’, MacIntyre was on the phone and looked up only to wave me into a chair with an exaggerated swing, as though directing traffic in Kolkata, before returning to his conversation. He made no effort to cut short the call but the moment he put the phone down it was as if it had never happened and his attention was immediately all on me.

  ‘Ah, Caitlin,’ he said. ‘All well?’ His tone suggested a subtext. I outlined the latest at the clinic, but MacIntyre was only half listening.

  ‘We are, of course, primarily a research institute,’ he said finally, as if I needed reminding.

  ‘Is that what you wanted to see me about?’

  ‘Ah, yes, well, not quite.’ MacIntyre pulled up something on his screen and peered at it for a moment.

  ‘Are you familiar with James White at the Herald? Apparently you told him “We get the kids we deserve”.’ He looked up, adjusted his glasses, and went on, wearily: ‘That’s a little incendiary, wouldn’t you say?’

  I felt affronted. ‘At no point did I say that.’

  MacIntyre swung the screen around and there it was, in bold, stomach-turning letters on a subheading, attributed to me.

  ‘Since the other matter, I thought we both agreed that you’d keep a low profile with the press?’ MacIntyre said.

  The ‘other matter’ had begun on a cold January night fifteen years ago when a disturbed twelve-year-old named Rees Spelling had taken his sleeping brother Kai from his cot and left him under an upturned dustbin on a patch of woodland not far from his flat. The mother, who had been out scoring heroin at the time, finally realised the baby was gone, seven hours later, and questioned Rees, who denied all knowledge of his whereabouts. By then Kai was probably already dead but it took the police dogs till the following afternoon to find him. CCTV footage recovered later showed Rees carrying the baby through a nearby alleyway.

  My own dealings with Rees Spelling came a few months later. He was being kept at a secure unit in a secret location a couple of months before going to trial. The CPS had decided to charge the boy with murder and try him as an adult. I’d been called in by his defence solicitor, Dominic Harding, to decide whether or not the boy had legal capacity. Had Rees understood that by leaving his brother out in the open and covering him so that he would probably not be found, Kai would likely die? Dominic also wanted to know if, in my opinion, Rees Spelling was an ongoing danger.

  I was young then, newly qualified as a forensic psych and full of the certainties of youth. I interviewed Rees three or four times. The kid had the kind of childhood nightmares are made from. His brother, Kai, had been a colicky baby and his mother had told her elder son on many occasions that Kai was ‘doing my head in’. She’d taken to spending more and more time away, leaving Rees to look after his little brother. When Rees took Kai into the woods to die he knew that what he was doing would probably end his brother’s life but he did it in some mistaken belief that this would please his mother. I considered it unlikely that Rees posed any danger to the public in the future and I didn’t want to see the kid locked away in a young offenders’ institution, too many of which are hatcheries for career criminals. He was disturbed and needed psychological help. I said this in court and on the basis of my assessment Rees Spelling was detained in a secure psychiatric unit for a few years, then, at the age of eighteen, quietly released. Not long afterwards he abducted eighteen-month-old Kylie Drinkwater from outside a branch of Asda and abandoned her in remote woodland. A dog walker found the body weeks later.

  ‘White caught me at a bad moment, it won’t happen again,’ I said now. I didn’t want MacIntyre to know that White had found out about the clinic until I was sure of the source of the leak.

  MacIntyre listened then smiled and shifted in his seat. ‘Let’s try not to have any more bad moments then, eh?’

  When I arrived home later that afternoon, Tom was in his study with the door shut, a ‘do not disturb’ sign over the door. I called up the stairs and the cat appeared but there was no reply from either of the girls so I left my bag on the hook in the hallway and went into the kitchen. Through the window I saw two coltish figures on the trampoline, their laughter skipping across the patio and down the steps to the French windows.

  How could I resent Freya for liking the sibling I’ve never been able to give her?

  I found some lemonade in the fridge, poured three glasses and walked out onto the patio. Ruby was leaning up against the trampoline frame now, taking in the sun. Her hair had been bundled into an inefficient ponytail from which long auburn trails escaped like fireworks. She was barefoot and wearing what looked to be a newly purchased T-shirt and shorts. On the ground beside her lay a bright pair of trainers. They’d been shopping. I was glad of that; the stuff I’d fetched from the flat was old and tatty. I watched her for a moment. She seemed oddly at ease, as if, after some long journey, she had finally arrived at her destination. Behind her, oblivious to me, Freya carried on performing flips and rolls.

  ‘Hey, I brought lemonade.’

  Freya gave a little whoop and, steadying herself to a standstill, waved, clambered from her perch and ran over. I put the glasses down on the grass and opened my arms. She grasped me around the waist. I planted a kiss on her brown hair. She was sporting a new, unfamiliar hairstyle, which made her look more vulnerable and, I thought, younger, but the moment I laid a hand on the plait, she pulled away. ‘Don’t muzz it up, Mum. Ruby helped me plait it. She says it looks fuzzy wuzzy when it’s loose.’

  ‘Well, I think it looks brilliant both ways,’ I sa
id, alarmed that the words ‘fuzzy wuzzy’ might have some racial overtone.

  Freya picked up a glass of lemonade and handed it to Ruby. Changing the subject, I said, ‘Did you have a nice time today?’

  ‘We went to the park and the lido. Then some boring people came to talk to Ruby, so I went next door and played with Charlie. After that it was OK, though. Dad took us to the shops and for ice cream.’

  In the twenty-four hours since Ruby’s arrival the dynamic of the household had shifted. A new routine had emerged, and I wasn’t part of it. I wasn’t surprised but I wished I felt less left out.

  Freya pointed to the dark patch on my running shirt and said, ‘Mum, you need a shower.’

  ‘I do. Have you two thought about what you’d like for tea?’

  Freya shrugged but it was Ruby who answered.

  ‘Chicken McNuggets.’

  Tom was keen to go to McDonald’s but I resisted. I’d spent the best part of five years flipping burgers there while trying to get an education and support myself and Sal, which left me loathing everything about the place. We settled on a regular favourite, Hoopoes, not only because the chicken was great, but also because there was an enclosed garden at the back that the owners had made into a little playground where the girls could muck about when they got bored inside.

  Tom drove. The girls tumbled out and went off hand in hand so Freya could show Ruby the play area while Tom and I grabbed a table. I waited until they were out of earshot.

  ‘Doesn’t Ruby seem a bit odd to you?’

  Tom frowned, not pleased by the question. ‘Odd how?’

  ‘It’s like her mother’s death hasn’t really impacted on her.’

  ‘It probably hasn’t yet. You of all people should know that.’

  Our usual waiter, Eddie, came over with menus, took our drinks order and offered to go and call the kids. Tom thanked him and said he’d do it. I sensed, as I always did with Tom, that I was going to have to drag him into having a conversation he didn’t want to have, but I was absolutely determined so, as he got up, I held out a staying hand.