After Anna

by Alex Lake

  ‘Brian!’ Julia shouted. ‘Brian!’

  She thumped on the door with the side of her fist.

  ‘Brian! Edna!’

  The door opened. Brian was standing in a small vestibule. Behind him the door into the main house was closed.

  ‘Julia,’ Brian said. ‘Calm down. You were supposed to be coming tomorrow.’

  ‘Fuck you, Brian!’ Julia shouted. ‘I want Anna. I want my daughter!’

  ‘She’s better off here,’ Brian said. ‘It’s quieter. There’s no press. And like you said, whoever took her is still running around out there. This is the best place for her.’

  ‘The best place for her is with me.’

  ‘Julia, we have to be grown up about this. We have to do what’s best for our daughter. I know you’re upset but our feelings don’t come into it.’

  ‘You took her. You kidnapped her!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Bringing her to her grandmother’s house is hardly kidnapping. And even if it is, I think the fact I told you where she is rather disproves your theory.’

  Julia could see what he was saying made sense; she also knew that, whether it made sense or not, it was just a convenient excuse for taking her daughter from her.

  And she was not going to allow that. Rage narrowed her world to one thought: get Anna.

  ‘I want to come in. I want to see her.’

  ‘No. She’s sleeping. And she doesn’t need to see this.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Us fighting.’

  ‘Then stop fighting! I’ll come in and take her home quiet as a fucking mouse!’

  ‘Julia. You need to calm down. We have guests. Don’t make a scene. Mum’ll be embarrassed.’

  Julia’s rage intensified. They had taken her daughter and she was supposed to be nice and polite and genteel because Edna had some fucking guests for Sunday lunch? And what the fuck was that anyway? In the midst of all this, Edna found time to have a nice dinner party? It was fucking typical.

  ‘You think I give a shit about upsetting your guests?’ she shouted. ‘I want to see Anna, and I want to see her now.’

  She tried to dart past Brian to the inner door, but he put his right arm out and caught her around the waist.

  ‘Let me go!’ she shouted. ‘Get your fucking hands off me!’

  She hated him at that moment, would have snapped his neck in two in the beat of a drum had she been able to. As it was, she lashed out with her right hand, her nails clawing at his cheek.

  He shrieked, a high-pitched wail that infuriated her even more, and she shoved him as hard as she could. He lost his balance and fell against the tiled wall of the vestibule, his hand clutching his cheeks. She could see the red scratch above his fingers.

  ‘You’re a piece of shit,’ she said. ‘A worthless piece of—’

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ Edna had opened the inner door and was standing there, arms folded. Behind her was a man of her age, dressed in the smart casual attire of the upper middle classes out to Sunday lunch at the home of a distinguished doctor.

  ‘Is everything ok?’ he said.

  ‘She scratched my face,’ Brian said. ‘She’s crazy.’

  ‘I think you need to leave,’ Edna said. ‘Now.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere without my daughter,’ Julia said. ‘I’ll stand here all day and all night until you let me see her.’

  Edna’s expression hardened. ‘Don’t make the mistake of threatening me, young lady,’ she said. ‘And especially not in my own home.’

  She took a smart step forward and took hold of Julia’s elbow. Her grip was strong, and as she pushed, Julia pivoted towards the front door.

  ‘Out,’ Edna said. ‘Out you go.’

  Julia twisted in her grip. ‘I’m not going,’ she said. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ Edna said. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  She grabbed Julia’s other elbow and backed her over the threshold of the front door.

  ‘No,’ Julia shouted. ‘No! Get off me!’

  She bucked violently and shoved her shoulder against Edna. Edna stumbled backwards into the door jamb, still holding onto her.

  ‘You let me see my daughter!’ Julia shouted. ‘Or I’ll claw your eyes out, you fucking bitch!’

  She felt someone grab her arms and pin them to her sides. She looked up. Brian was on one side of her, the lunch guest on the other.

  ‘Should I call the police?’ the man said.

  Edna stared at Julia. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. I think Julia is about to leave.’

  Julia felt the rage drain from her like air from an untied balloon. She didn’t reply.

  ‘Julia?’ Edna said. ‘Should Michael call the police? Or will you go of your own accord.’

  Julia let her head fall forwards. ‘I’m going,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Good,’ Edna said. ‘Let her go.’

  Brian and Michael released their grip on her, and she turned to walk back to her car. As she did so, she heard Edna call out to her.

  ‘I suggest you come by tomorrow. We need to talk.’

  It was not a talk that Julia was looking forward to.

  iii.

  Julia was up early, unable to sleep. Her mind was stuck in a loop in which variations of the previous day’s events played out. In the end, she gave in and slumped in front of the television, a mug of tea cradled between her palms, the base balanced on her stomach. It was the way her dad had sat when he watched Match of the Day or Grandstand, before the evening came and he pulled on his weekend shoes and coat and left the house.

  Just off out early doors, love, he’d say, before kissing his wife, always on the lips and often more than once. Julia had grown up thinking that all parents kissed each other hello and goodbye and danced around the kitchen to the radio and cuddled on the couch like teenagers to watch whatever film the Beeb was showing. It was only when she was a little older that she realized that her mum and dad were the exception; that the fruitful, abiding love at the heart of their marriage was an island in an ocean of desiccated, hollow relationships.

  I’ll be back in a while, he’d say. You get your dancing clothes on while I’m gone.

  And he’d be back an hour or two later, smelling of cigarette smoke and beer, to take his bride for a meal or to the movies, or, in later years, to the wine bar that had opened in the village. Sometimes he’d sit with Julia while he waited for her mum, and he’d talk to her, share his thoughts about the world, his mood opened by the beer he’d drunk. She remembered these times well, remembered the advice he’d given her:

  You can spend a long time listing out all the things you’ve not got, Julia; so long, that you never find time to enjoy the things you do have.

  Most people are all right, at heart, but never forget that there’s some buggers in the world who’ll do things you’d never dream of to get what they want.

  And her favourite, the one that summed up her mum and dad and their marriage:

  A man can count his friends on the fingers of one hand, and one of them’s his wife.

  They would never have divorced. The thought would never have entered their minds. Theirs was a love story, and Julia missed both it and them.

  She fell asleep in the armchair. When she woke up it was nearly eight. Brian was expecting her at nine, so she went to shower and dress and see what exactly he had to say.

  It was overcast as she pulled into Edna’s driveway: the dark clouds low and heavy. The air smelled of rain. She knocked on the door, her banging less frantic today, but her heart racing just the same at the thought of seeing Anna. She’d ask her daughter whether she wanted to come with mummy, and she was sure her daughter would say yes.

  Brian opened the door. He looked relaxed, clean-shaven, and smartly dressed. Just how Edna liked him. The smart, confident scion of an important family.

  There were only faint traces of her nails on his cheek.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

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nbsp; She stepped into the vestibule and then into the hallway. The dark wooden floorboards were polished to a mirror gleam. She looked around, listening for the sounds of her daughter. She’d been picturing a rapturous reunion.

  ‘Where’s Anna?’

  ‘She’s gone out for breakfast with Mum.’

  Julia felt the anger ball up just below her sternum. ‘I want to see her! She’s my daughter, for God’s sake! Why are you doing this, Brian?’

  ‘It’s fine. Relax. She’ll be back any moment. I wanted to talk to you alone, before you see her.’

  ‘About what?’

  He looked at the ceiling and then at the floor. His gaze remained low. ‘About custody,’ he said.

  Julia folded her arms. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I wondered what you were thinking.’

  ‘I was thinking that Anna would be with me. You’d have full access. Wednesdays, and every other weekend. Maybe more. Whatever we decide is best for her.’

  He looked at her with a thoughtful, slightly patronizing expression. ‘I guessed that might be your position.’

  He let the words hang between them. Eventually, Julia shrugged.

  ‘What’s your position?’ she asked.

  ‘The opposite. I think she’d be better off with me. You’d have full access,’ he said, using her words. ‘Wednesdays, and every other weekend. Maybe more. Whatever we decide is best for her.’

  Julia laughed. ‘What makes you think I’d agree to that? You forget, Brian, that I am a divorce lawyer. I know the law and I know how it’s applied.’ She leaned forwards and spoke in a lowered voice as though sharing a secret. ‘Between you and me, the mother always gets custody.’

  ‘I’d rather avoid a custody battle,’ Brian said. ‘It’ll just be expensive and difficult.’

  ‘Then don’t start one,’ Julia said. ‘There’s no point. You’ll lose.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Brian said.

  ‘Well, I am.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Fine. I guess we’ll find out. Take a seat. They’ll be back any second. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?’

  ‘No,’ Julia said. ‘And what do you mean, “I guess we’ll find out”?’

  ‘Just that. I guess we’ll find out how the court rules when we get there.’

  ‘So you’re saying you’re going to drag us through a custody battle?’

  ‘No. You’re going to drag us through a custody battle.’

  ‘I don’t think you get it, Brian. This is a fight you can’t win. If you start it, knowing that, then the fallout is on you. There’s no reason for you to do this.’

  ‘There’s every reason. I want custody of my daughter. If that’s the only way to get it, then so be it.’

  Julia shook her head. ‘But you won’t get custody, Brian. You’ll lose. Don’t you see that? There’s much less heartache if we just agree it between us. You said it yourself; it’ll be expensive and difficult.’

  ‘I think I will get custody.’ He shrugged. ‘But you disagree. We can put it to the test.’

  She found this new, calm, rational version of him infuriating. She could tell that, whatever she said, however insulting, he would not take the bait. He was so confident. The question was why. It gnawed at her.

  ‘Why are you so sure, Brian?’ she said, suddenly. ‘Why do you think a judge would favour you?’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘The court has to act in the best interest of the child, as I understand it.’

  ‘And that is almost always to stay with the mother.’

  The front door opened. It was Edna and Anna, back from breakfast. Brian smiled.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Then you should be ok. Enjoy the visit.’

  iv.

  Anna came into the hallway. Her black shoes – new, patent leather, relics from 1970s fashion and almost certainly selected by Edna – clicked on the hardwood floors. She was smiling, happy, holding her grandmother’s veined hand with her left hand, a boiled sweet lollipop in the right.

  ‘Mummy!’ she said. ‘We had pancakes for breakfast! With honey!’

  ‘We went to the garden centre,’ Edna said. ‘They have a very good café there. The honey comes from their own bees.’

  Julia ignored her. Edna’s tone was the same as if she and Julia were ancient bosom pals. It was as though there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, as though Anna’s disappearance and the divorce and the volcanic argument of the day before hadn’t happened. Well, Julia wasn’t going to play the game. She wasn’t interested in pleasant conversation with Edna. She’d had enough of this farce.

  She bent down and picked up Anna. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘I loved it!’ Anna wrapped her arms around Julia’s neck and rested her cheek on her mother’s collar bone. ‘I missed you, Mummy. Where were you?’

  ‘I was at home. I missed you too.’

  She closed her eyes. She was not going to let this happen. She was not going to allow Edna – for it was Edna, not Brian behind this – to take Anna from her, even for however long it took for all this to settle down. Anna was her daughter, and she was going to be with Julia. She was not going to be Edna’s protégé, a shiny-shoe wearing, horse-riding, hothouse plant raised in her grandmother’s image. Never mind ‘Tiger Mums’; they had nothing on Edna.

  She could just walk out of here now, right this second. Take Anna home, lock the door, and refuse to let Brian in. Plenty of marriages broke down that way, with the father’s face pressed up against the window, looking in at what he had lost. She didn’t doubt that she would get custody, in the end, but it would be easier if Anna was living with her, if she could point to the current situation and say look, it’s working just fine. Precedent was important. The court would err on the side of the minimum disruption to Anna’s life, and if she was already with Julia then that would be to let her stay there.

  Edna knew that, of course, which was why she had brought Anna to her house. But although Julia might not have measured up to Edna in a majority of ways, she was a match for her when it came to child custody. This was her world. She knew all there was to know about it: the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, and the application of the law.

  And she knew the most important thing about all of if: the mother always got custody. She knew Edna and she knew what Edna was thinking: the court will act in the best interests of the child and the best interests of the child are to be with me, Dr Edna Crowne. How could they not be? How could the best interests of any child not be to be brought up by Edna Crowne? It was a rare privilege, a blessing, a near guarantee of lifelong success and happiness. Yes, maternal bonds and familial love were important, and in most cases they would be decisive, but this was not most cases. This child had the opportunity to be raised by Edna Crowne, to attend the best schools, to enter the professions, to become rich.

  But this was a perfect example of Edna’s blind spot. She was so convinced by the strength of her argument that she could not even imagine that there was the possibility of someone disagreeing with her, especially not a judge. Judges were calm and intelligent and rational, and people like that could not help but be persuaded by the force of Edna Crowne’s presentation.

  It didn’t work like that, though. Mothers got custody. Perhaps it wasn’t always the best decision, perhaps it wasn’t fair, perhaps those dads with the purple T-shirts demanding Justice for Fathers and more rights to see their children had a point. But it didn’t matter. Because mothers got custody. They just did. It was the way it was, and even Edna Crowne could not change it.

  ‘OK, Anna,’ Julia said. ‘Say goodbye to Dad. It’s time to go home now.’

  ‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘Bye Daddy.’

  Brian was standing in front of Julia, a few feet further inside the house. He moved towards the door to the vestibule; Julia backed against it to block him off. She put her hand on the doorknob, ready to open it.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Brian said. ‘It’s not a good idea.’
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  ‘Do what?’ Julia said. ‘Take my daughter home? How can that not be a good idea?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Edna said. ‘It isn’t.’

  Julia snapped her head around. She stared at Edna, keeping her eyes fixed on those of her mother-in-law in a deliberate challenge. ‘You,’ she said, ‘can keep your mouth’ – she glanced at Anna – ‘can remain quiet on matters that don’t involve you.’

  ‘It does involve me,’ Edna said. ‘After all, I’m going to have to open my house to my granddaughter when she comes to live here. I think that counts as involvement.’

  ‘It would,’ Julia said. ‘If it was going to happen. But since it isn’t going to happen, you aren’t involved. So kindly,’ she mimed pulling a zip across her mouth in the kind of modern, disrespectful gesture that she knew would infuriate Edna , ‘zip it.’

  It had the desired effect. Edna straightened to her full height. ‘You are a—’

  Julia raised her hand, palm outwards. ‘Talk to the hand,’ she said, enjoying the look of fury on Edna’s face. ‘’Cos the face ain’t listening.’

  ‘Be careful, young—’ Edna began.

  ‘Zip it,’ Julia said, performing the mime again. This was almost fun. She should have done it years ago. ‘Zip it.’

  Edna nodded slowly. She shrugged. She turned to Brian. ‘Do you want to tell her, or should I?’

  ‘I will,’ Brian said. ‘If you want.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Julia asked.

  ‘In fact,’ Edna said, still looking at Brian, ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Julia asked, again. She did not like the narrow-eyed smirk on Edna’s face. It looked suspiciously triumphant.

  ‘Why your confidence in the outcome of any custody battle might be a little misplaced.’

  ‘That old chestnut,’ Julia said. ‘I don’t think it is. But enlighten me, nonetheless.’

  ‘You might prefer it if Anna doesn’t hear this,’ Edna said. ‘It won’t be very pleasant for her.’