Playing Nice

by Delaney, JP

  “Our baby was in one of those,” I interrupted. “I remember because it was so unexpected, seeing him inside a bag like that.”

  “Well, there you go. And then they either pop the tag inside, or—more likely, because they don’t want to unzip the bag and let the heat out—just put it inside the mobile incubator, next to the baby. This is a paper tag we’re talking about, not the electronic ones we have, because different hospitals have different systems. So when a baby arrives, we transfer it from the mobile incubator to one of ours, and transfer the tag information to our software at the same time.”

  I thought. “And if there were two loose paper tags like that, they might have gotten mixed up when the mobile cots were next to each other on arrival.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then you’re in the clear, surely?”

  Bronagh shrugged. “It all depends when the electronic tag got put on, doesn’t it? If I put it on as soon as the baby was stable, I followed protocol. If I had a cup of tea and did it at the end of my shift, they’ll try to hang this whole thing on me. I’m already looking at a disciplinary for not reporting every tag-off incident, so if they choose to decide I left it too long, I could be out on my ear.” She sighed. “And I bet there’s plenty of high-ups who’d prefer it to look like a mistake by an individual who didn’t follow proper procedures, rather than admit their whole expensive tagging system is shite in a bucket.”

  “Ah,” I said, thinking through the implications. “Because St. Alexander’s has been downgraded, you mean? Management wants this done and dusted and swept under the carpet. Don’t worry, we’ve fired the person who messed up. Lessons have been learned, et cetera. Nothing to see here anymore.”

  She leaned forward, her blue eyes fixed on mine. “The thing is, Pete, they’re obviously going to ask you for your recollections of that day.”

  “I guess so, yes.”

  “If you could…I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but…” She stopped. “Sorry. Bad choice of phrase. And I’m absolutely not saying that you should do it as a favor because of…you know. Just that the earlier you saw that tag on Theo’s leg, the less this shitestorm is going to fall on me. Or Paula, for that matter.”

  “I understand,” I said slowly. “The fact is, it was all such a muddle that day…I don’t know exactly what I’ll say yet. But I’ll work something out. And whatever happens, I’ll try to make it clear it couldn’t have been down to you.” After all, I reasoned, if it was me who put Bronagh in the firing line, the least I could do was to get her out of it.

  “Thanks Pete. You’re massive. Oh Jesus, there I go again.” Bronagh blinked back tears. “I could tell you were a good’un as soon as I saw you with Theo. I see a lot of new dads, you know, and I can always tell.” She gently touched the top of my finger with hers. “I hope Maddie knows what a lucky woman she is.”

  55

  MADDIE

  I GET THE CALL from CAFCASS while I’m at work. There’d been an automated text earlier, saying a family court adviser would call me at three unless I replied to say it’s inconvenient. It is inconvenient, very, but I feel an obscure urge to comply, to be a model respondent, even though the call is clearly being arranged by a computer and changing the time can’t possibly make any difference.

  At quarter to three I find an empty office and set out a bottle of water, a pen, a stack of paper, and a list of pertinent facts. At two minutes past, my mobile rings, the ID listed as UNKNOWN NUMBER.

  “Hello, Maddie Wilson,” I answer formally.

  “Maddie, it’s Lyn from CAFCASS here. Is now a good time to chat?” The voice is soft, with a slight Welsh lilt to it.

  “Of course.” I note that word “chat.” Somehow I doubt we’re going to be having a cozy natter and a gossip.

  Lyn has clearly been trained to use a gentle, soothing voice. She explains that this call isn’t about the issue the courts are dealing with, only to establish whether the child—“Theo, is it?”—is at any risk of harm. “That could be physical harm arising from abuse or domestic harm, Maddie. Or it could be emotional harm arising from the behavior of the adults. It could even be neglect, do you see?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Basically, I have a checklist here I’ll go through, and then at the end I’ll make sure you’ve had time to cover the issues you want to raise. There are no trick questions, so it’s best just to answer honestly, Maddie. Because if you weren’t completely honest, and we found out about it later, we would have to tell the court, and then the court would have to take that into account, Maddie, do you see?”

  “Right,” I say, wondering how many times Lyn is going to say “Maddie” and “do you see.”

  “So I’ve run your name through the police database and social services, and I’m pleased to say there’s nothing there. But is there anything we might have missed, Maddie? Have you or anyone in the family had any contact with police or social care before now?”

  “No.”

  “Rightio. Has there been any domestic violence at all?” Lyn might have been asking whether I’d prefer to pay by direct debit or card.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever taken any nonprescription or illegal drugs?”

  “No, never.” Obviously I have, but the last time was three years ago, in Australia, and there’s no way they can possibly find out about it.

  “Do you drink alcohol?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “How often?”

  “I sometimes have a glass of wine in the evenings.”

  “And how many units would you say you drink a week? If a bottle of wine is, say, ten units?”

  “Twenty units?” I know I’m grossly understating, but I suspect that if I tell the truth it might count against me.

  “Has any family member been convicted of violence, or had an allegation of child abuse made against them?” Lyn’s questions are speeding up now.

  “No.”

  “Is the child exhibiting any concerning behaviors, such as poor performance at school, bedwetting, sexualized behavior, or being clingy?”

  “No. Well,” I clarify, “there have been a couple of occasions where he’s been a bit rough with other kids—grabbed their toys, that kind of thing. But he’s two, so it’s to be expected to a certain extent. And he’s the very opposite of clingy.”

  “Of course. These are just standard questions, do you see, so I have to ask them all. Has the child ever reported any abuse or harm to you personally?”

  “No, never.”

  “And finally, what do you think the child’s wishes are in this situation? Do you think he would rather stay with your partner or yourself?”

  “I don’t think you understand,” I say, baffled. “Pete and I aren’t separating.”

  “Are you not?” Lyn sounds surprised.

  “No, it’s much more complicated than that.” Briefly I explain what’s going on.

  “Well, that does sound tricky,” Lyn says when I’ve finished. “And yes, I see it does say something about that here, but I must have missed it.”

  Or didn’t bother to read the paperwork properly in the first place, I think cynically.

  “But I have to ask the question anyway,” Lyn continues. “What do you think Theo’s wishes are in this situation?”

  “Well, he’s two, so we obviously don’t want to frighten him by telling him he might be forcibly taken away from the people he thinks of as Mummy and Daddy and handed over to another family,” I say patiently. “To that extent, he doesn’t even know there is a situation. And we’ve been careful to keep things with the other family as cordial as possible, so as not to upset him.”

  “That sounds sensible. Let me just check I have everything…Oh yes. Do either of you have any mental health issues?”

  “No,” I say. I take a deep breath. “Tha
t is, not recently. I had a brief episode of postpartum psychosis shortly after Theo came home from hospital. But that was two years ago and it resolved with treatment.”

  I can hear Lyn’s keyboard clicking as she writes all this down. “It can’t affect this case, can it?” I add.

  “Did it involve any harm or neglect to either the child or yourself, Maddie?”

  “No. And in any case, it was triggered by my premature baby being in intensive care for five weeks. It’s relatively common after childbirth and there’s absolutely no possibility of it recurring. I’m not even Theo’s primary carer, for Christ’s sake—” I stop, conscious of the importance of not getting worked up. “Sorry. I mean ‘for goodness’ sake.’ I just don’t see how it can possibly be relevant to what’s happening now.”

  “I don’t suppose it is. But I still have to write it all down, do you see? And are you still taking any medication for that condition?”

  “No,” I say firmly. “I was prescribed antidepressants but I came off them over a year ago. I’m absolutely fine.”

  “Would you have any objection to me contacting your GP for a copy of your medical notes? Just to confirm what you’ve told me? I can ask the court to make a formal order for them, but really, it’s so much easier if we’re all working together, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course,” I say. Just for a moment, I feel dizzy. How did an ordinary professional couple come to have so many court cases going on simultaneously? Fighting for Theo, fighting for David, suing the hospitals…It feels like each one is a separate series of plates spinning on sticks, a forest of toppling, precarious crockery that has to be kept from smashing to the ground.

  You can do this, I tell myself. After all, it’s no more complex than a major TV production, and I do a dozen of those every year.

  Lyn is saying, “And is there anything you’d like to tell me, Maddie, about how you got into this situation, or how it might be resolved?”

  I look down at my notes, all the pertinent facts I’d intended to work into the conversation. Suddenly they all seem irrelevant, a catalog of failed attempts at being reasonable in a situation where reason is redundant. “Yes,” I say shortly. “A man turned up on our doorstep one day with the intention of taking our son. How would you react to that? We didn’t want to end up here, but it was probably inevitable. And there’s only one way to resolve it. We need to beat him. He needs a court to tell him he’s lost and that he can’t have Theo, not ever. Otherwise, he’ll never stop trying.”

  56

  Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 29: statement by Reverend Sheila Lewis, The Vicarage, Willesden Green, NW10 1AQ.

  My name is Reverend Sheila Lewis and I am the vicar of All Souls’ Church, Willesden Green. I have been asked by Miles Lambert to write a brief note describing an incident that took place at Theo Riley’s baptism service.

  From the start, Theo seemed agitated and was disruptive, hurling books at a side chapel and cheering when he succeeded in hitting the cross. We are accustomed these days to children being noisy during services and to some extent we tolerate it, but this went far beyond what I would have considered normal. I tried pausing in my liturgy and giving a meaningful glance in Theo’s direction, but the parents—that is, Peter Riley and Maddie Wilson—were slow to take the hint. When they did intervene, it became clear why this was: They had almost no control over Theo whatsoever. Theo then burrowed under the pews, a situation from which Mr. Riley seemed powerless to extricate him. When a member of the congregation finally apprehended the child, Mr. Riley was visibly angry and, under the guise of sitting Theo on “the naughty step,” pushed him down forcibly by the thighs. I am told by Mr. Lambert that this produced bruising on Theo’s legs, which is certainly consistent with what I saw. I understand Mr. Lambert has obtained phone footage of this incident from another member of the congregation.

  Theo is a charming little boy who does not seem in the least malevolent or ill tempered, merely boisterous. I suspect he would simply benefit from a more consistent parenting style. This is an opinion I have formed over several visits by him to my church, as Mr. Riley and Ms. Wilson have become regular members of my congregation.

  I have also been made aware by Mr. Lambert why this may be. The vicar here at All Souls’ is able to make available to long-standing churchgoers a small number of places at the local Church of England primary school, which has been rated Excellent by school inspectors. Mr. Lambert tells me that Mr. Riley used the phrase On your knees to save the fees in this context. While I have no way of knowing if this was indeed what Mr. Riley said, and would in any case encourage people to come and worship with us whatever their true purpose, it saddens me to learn that some members of our community may have a cynical motive for doing so.

  57

  PETE

  “IF YOU COULD JUST tell us in your own words what happened that day,” Grace Matthews said.

  Resisting the urge to ask who else’s words I might be tempted to use, I said, “You have to understand, it was all a blur. I’d had to abandon Maddie after an emergency operation. It was clearly touch and go whether our baby would live, and if he did live, whether he’d be brain-damaged. I had no idea what was going on or how I could help.” I looked over at Maddie. “To be honest, I was in a complete panic.”

  We were in an interview room at NHS Resolution, a surprisingly striking modern office building in Buckingham Palace Road. Grace Matthews had asked us in for what she described as an evidence-gathering meeting. We wouldn’t be discussing any potential compensation, she emphasized, merely contributing our recollections to the initial investigation.

  The lawyer Justin Watts had told us this was normal. “At this stage, they simply want to find out what happened. There’s no arguing with the fact that a swap did take place, but from their perspective, finding out how it occurred is the most urgent priority.”

  “Will you be there?” I asked.

  “I really shouldn’t need to be. And I’m trying to keep our time costs down as much as possible.”

  Now Grace Matthews nodded in response to my explanation. She looked more like the floor manager of a midlevel department store than a high-flying investigator—dumpy, wearing an ill-fitting suit and matching skirt, with boxy glasses that kept slipping down her nose. “But at some point, you presumably became aware of the tag on Theo’s leg. That is, on the leg of the infant you thought was Theo.”

  “I suppose so. But there were so many things on him by then—intravenous lines, an oxygen sensor, the cooling suit…The security tag was the least dramatic of them all.”

  “Can you say when you did first notice it?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Not really. When we got to St. Alexander’s, I went with the paramedics who were wheeling the portable incubator. We shared the lift with two more paramedics who also had a mobile cot with them—I suppose that was the one with Theo in, although of course I didn’t know that at the time. Then they were both rushed into the NICU, where the doctors were waiting. I got pushed out of the way—”

  “Where was Mr. Lambert at this point?” Grace Matthews interjected. “Had he been with you in the lift?”

  I shook my head. “I’d have remembered if there was another dad in there. I don’t think I saw him at all that day.”

  Grace Matthews made a note on a lined yellow pad, even though her male colleague was silently transcribing everything I said on his laptop, his fingers flying across the keys without him needing to look at either the keyboard or screen. Grace had a proper pen, I noticed, an old-fashioned one with a nib, which somehow seemed out of kilter with her dowdy appearance. Perhaps it was a present from someone. “Sorry for interrupting,” she said as she wrote. “Go on.”

  “And then they worked on both babies simultaneously. I think the first thing was getting the umbilical lines in. The ambulance staff were doing their handover reports, and people were coming and going—it was pretty chao
tic, and the doctors and nurses were turning from cot to cot, doing whatever it was they needed to do. I couldn’t get close—I didn’t really try to, in case I got in the way. Then there was a bit of a lull, and when the medical team was happy, they took Theo’s mobile incubator over to a much bigger one in the corner and transferred him. That’s when I met Bronagh—the main nurse responsible for Theo. She looked after the incubators in that area, so she hadn’t really been involved before.”

  Grace Matthews nodded. “And you got a pretty good look at Theo then, presumably? When all the initial interventions were done?”

  I thought back. “Yes. I remember thinking I hadn’t really been able to see his face before.”

  “And can you recall seeing a tag on him at that point?”

  “I think so,” I said cautiously. “I mean, I couldn’t absolutely swear to it, but when I try to picture it, it seems to me he had the security tag on his right ankle.” I nodded slowly. “In fact, I’m sure that’s right—that Theo had a tag on when I saw him in the larger incubator.”

  A frown touched Grace Matthews’s face. “But you didn’t actually see the nurse put it on?”

  “No. But…” I stopped. “This is hard for me to admit. But the moment I found myself in a quiet corner and it felt like the immediate emergency was over, I broke down. I was crying for several minutes. She must have done it then, as soon as she took over. But I literally couldn’t see in front of my own nose.”

  “Of course,” Grace Matthews said. “I do understand, Mr. Riley. Seeing your child—or rather, the child you think is yours—being admitted to intensive care is obviously very stressful.” She pushed the cap onto her fountain pen and placed it on her yellow pad. “Thank you for speaking to us today.”