A Very Accidental Love Story (8 page)

I look dumbly up at her, dreading the next sentence. But she must realise the deep, nightmarish turmoil I’m in and second guesses me, actually coming round from behind her desk and perching right beside me, taking my hand and speaking to me quite kindly.

‘Come on Eloise, I know all of this has been awful for you to hear. It was difficult for me to tell you too, though I wouldn’t have been doing either you or Lily any favours if I hadn’t. But you have to believe me when I say that you’re not a bad mother. You’ve just been run off your feet, that’s all. And essentially, Lily is an adorable little girl who we’re all very fond of. Just remember though, these precious years with your child are very fleeting and will all be over in a blink. Before you know it, she’ll be an independent little lady who won’t need you any more. So please, before it’s too late, take this advice from me. Explain to her about her father. She’s crying out to know why her life is different from the other children’s and I know that once you do, you’ll never regret it. Otherwise, when she’s older, she might track him down for herself and possibly even end up resenting you for not being more open on the subject with her before.’

I look up at her, pathetically grateful to her for not making me feel any worse than I already do.

Miss Pettifer stands herself up straight, mercifully indicating that our meeting is over, and instantly resumes her straight-backed, sergeant major pose. I manage to stand up beside her and am just scooping my handbag off the floor with trembling hands … And then, just when I think I can take no more, comes the killer blow.

‘But you do understand that naturally you and I must put Lily and what’s best for her first. As you know, we’re completely full up here, with a very long waiting list; I was only able to squeeze her in at all because you were so very insistent.’

I nod, remembering that I practically had to donate a spare kidney just to get them to take Lily on in the first place. And even then, I could only get her in on a monthly trial basis.

‘However, it’s a strong principle of mine that if a child isn’t happy or for any reason doesn’t settle in with us, then the parent really should look elsewhere. Of course, perhaps in time we many look into taking her back here …’

‘What do you … Hang on; did you just say taking her
back
?’ I splutter, confused.

‘But you have to understand that, with regret, we just don’t feel that at the moment it’s working out for Lily here as a pupil. It’s your daughter I’m thinking of, you must understand. So I wish you and Lily all the very best in future, Eloise. But I’m afraid you have to understand that at this point in time, I’ll have to offer her place to another child.’

Ten minutes later, I swing my car into the driveway outside my house, blatantly ignoring the flashing of my mobile as yet another angry missed call comes through and remains unanswered. I glance down at the phone; thirty-five missed calls is the total to date and twenty-eight voice messages, all from the office. And that’s not even counting the number of emails that have landed in my inbox. Christ, I think impatiently, I’ve barely been out of the place an hour and now they’re acting like the whole building is about to blow up any second?

But on the principle that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, I make an executive decision to ignore each and every one of their so-called urgent calls. I’ll think of something to tell them all when I get back. I’ll improvise wildly, I’ll fib shamelessly, but I’ll wriggle my way out of it somehow. I’ll plead my hitherto impeccable record if I have do, I’ll stay there till two in the morning to make up the time … But there’s something else, something far more important I need to do first.

And so, for the first time in the best part of a decade, I’m actually home during daylight hours, pulling my car through the gates and parking in the tiny, gravelled driveway. I bought this house not long after I was made editor, thinking that I’d get to actually spend a reasonably decent amount of time in it, poor misguided gobshite that I was back then. It’s a neat, terraced little Edwardian redbrick in lovely, leafy Rathgar, two storeys over a basement, with a study that I never go into (no time, I’m only ever really in this house to sleep), a pretty, landscaped garden at the back that I’m never in (ditto) with a sunny little patio area that I once dreamt of sitting outside having a civilised breakfast in.

Breakfast? Who, may I ask, has time for breakfast?
I’m doing well if I get to stuff a banana into my face while driving to work at dawn – and that’s on a good day when I’m not driving and having to hold a meeting over the phone at the same time.

Then there’s a lovely, sash-windowed, high-ceilinged dining room that I never entertain in.
Entertain? Are you kidding me? When, exactly?
Not only that, but I forked out a small fortune for a stunning Victorian dining table and chairs that comfortably seats twelve and to date, has only ever been used once. I’ll never forget it; for a mortifying attempt at a dinner party that I gave as a house-warming, where the guest list included a few of the T. Rexes and their wives, plus one or two from the office, that, if not actual friends, were at least people who seemed not to actually despise me. And of course in the end, it was one of those awful, excruciating nights where no one really had a non-work related thing to say to anyone else and where everyone started asking me for the name of a good local taxi company … at half ten. Anyway like I say, I’m rarely home before the wee small hours and as I trip up the stone steps to the front door, stick my key into the lock and kick my way inside, the first thing I’m instantly hit by is the sheer state of the place. Now, I fork out good money for a cleaning lady to come in every morning, but never in a million years would you think it if you saw the manky hellhole I’m looking at right now. My jaw physically dangles open with the sheer astonishment of it.

A box with a half-eaten pizza in it lies plonked on the bottom of the stairs, like someone was eating it there, then decided they’d something better to do and just abandoned it and walked off. Meanwhile, a big pile of washing lies abandoned outside the living room door, with loose, dirty knickers strewn all round it, none of which are mine and certainly not Lily’s either. Then just as a stale stench hits me I realise I’m standing beside two stuffed-to-the-brim black binliners just inside the hall door, miles away from the outside bin where, judging by the stink off them, they should have been dumped hours ago.

Not unlike the
Marie Celeste
, there’s no one in sight. No one hears me, no one knows the boss has unexpectedly come home on a stealth mission. Slowly I make my way down the hallway, to the soundtrack of Adele’s
Someone Like You
blasting out loud and clear from the very top of the house.

Elka.

But I let that slide for the moment and on I go, on what’s now become something of an evidence-gathering mission, down the elegant cream-carpeted staircase at the very back of the hall that leads down to the basement. I’ve converted the whole downstairs area into one supersized family room, kitchen at one end opening out onto the patio, family room at the other. Which, needless to say, I neither cook in, eat in, nor get to see my family in, but there you go.

I see Lily before she sees me. She’s all alone, plonked on a bright pink bean bag in the family room right in front of the TV, still in her little pinafore that she wears to preschool and twisting one of her strawberry-blonde ringlets round a pudgy finger, with the same pasty, expressionless face of someone who’s been listlessly watching telly for God knows how long. And as ever, I almost well up at the sight of this precious bundle that’s mine, all mine.

In a million years though, you would never put Lily down as my daughter, nor me as her mother. Because she and I are absolutely, one hundred per cent, nothing alike; in fact, there’s not the slightest scrap of a single physical resemblance between us. Whereas my build is wiry and lean, Lily is chunky and cuddly, with thick strawberry blonde, almost reddish, curly locks and bright blue eyes, in total contrast to my thin, dark hair and black eyes. Then, whereas my skin is grey and pasty looking most of the time, Lily has freckles all over her full little round face; cuteness personified.

I neither look nor have ever felt particularly Irish, ever once in my life. My skin doesn’t go bright red after thirty seconds of sun exposure (mainly because when am I ever in the sun?), nor do I drink Guinness (eughhhhh …), enjoy GAA (oh please … do I look like a culchie?), vote Fianna Fail or go to Mass (perish the thought). But looking at Lily, with her reddish curls, freckles and plump, potato-fed little body with chunky white legs, there’s no nationality that the child could possibly be, other than Irish.

In fact, she and I are so physically unalike that way back in the early days when I could snatch a bit of time to take her for strolls outside in her buggy, no one ever assumed she was my daughter. ‘What a gorgeous little girl,’ people would tell me as I’d swell up with maternal pride. ‘Who are you babysitting for?’

A box full of expensive educational toys from the Early Learning Centre – toys that Elka is supposed to be playing with alongside her – lies untouched and ignored, while Lily gazes listlessly at the screen ahead of her. The same TV which I explicitly told Elka was barred and banned during daylight hours in this house.

My heart physically twists in my ribcage at the sight in front of me.

Lily looks tired, bored, neglected; enough to make any mother want to crawl into a hole and die quietly of guilt before social services come to take the child away. But instead, a white-hot anger starts out as a swell inside my chest, then spreads over my body till my fingers tingle with pure, undiluted rage. Now ordinarily, I have a good, clear brain that can be relied on to filter the emotion out of anger, but not here and certainly not now.

I shell out a fortune for Elka to take proper care of Lily during the day; she’s
supposed
to take her out for walks and fresh air, she’s
supposed
to take her to the park to feed the ducks or else stay home with her, keeping her engaged, amused and entertained at all times, always. She’s meant to be working on Lily’s reading with her and developing her vocabulary, while feeding her healthy, organic food and most importantly of all, never ever letting the child out of her sight. And if she looks as washed out and tired as she does right now, then Elka is under strict instructions to put her down for an afternoon nap; pretty much the only time she’s ever allowed to leave the child alone.

But that’s not all. What’s making me physically see stars in front of my eyes with near-blinding rage is that this is what Elka has been
telling
me she’s been doing all day, every day with Lily.

On my father’s grave, I will strangle that lying, conniving, over-paid and under-employed little chancer when I get my hands on her; I will physically do harm to her. Right now I’m in danger of crippling her.

Sweet Jesus, if social services saw this, they’d take one look and throw away the key.

‘Mama!’

Suddenly Lily looks up and my heart almost breaks at the sight of her little pink face lighting up with pure, undiluted joy as soon as she sees me. A second later, I’ve scooped her up in my arms, marvelling at how heavy she’s got and clinging to her so tightly that I think I might squeeze the air out of her tiny lungs.

‘Mama, you home!’ She squeals delightedly and buries her tiny white freckly face into my shoulder, fat little arms tight locked round my neck.

‘Yes, I’m home bunny …’

Then suddenly, her expression changes in a nanosecond, from pure joy to shifty, shame-faced guilt.

‘Is it ’cos I was naughty in pwe-school?’

I pull her down on the sofa beside the TV and sit down beside her, arm still tight around her.

‘Well, partly pet.’

‘I HATE pwe-school. NEVER going back. I’m never going back and you can’t make me!’

And seeing how her expression goes from remorseful to thunderous with such sudden ferocity makes me almost want to laugh. She’s folded her arms now and jutted out her bottom lip and is glaring at me defiantly, heels dug in.

Did she get that stubborn streak from me? Is that the only characteristic of mine she did inherit? I think, guilt suddenly magnified tenfold.

‘Now Lily, you know I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, love …’

‘Miss Pettyfour is mean and I hate her too but the one I really HATE more than vegetables, more even than bwoccolli is …’

‘… Let me guess … A little boy in preschool called Tim O’Connor. Would that be right, love?’ I say softly.

An angry, furious nod, then suddenly she starts to wriggle awkwardly beside me, like she knows what’s coming next and is physically trying to get out of it. Such, it would seem, is the cognitive reasoning process of a small child; run away from the confrontation and it’ll just go away all by itself.

‘You know Lily,’ I tell her, gently pulling her back then folding my arms around her so she can’t toddle off. ‘I’ve just been to see Miss Pettifer and she told me all about what happened.’

The blue saucer eyes look worriedly back up at me, like a little puppy that’s just weed on the carpet, and knows right well it’s in trouble and there’s no backing out of it.

‘So honey, would you like to tell me your side of it? Don’t worry, Mama’s not angry,’ I tack on, pulling a stray, scraggy red hair back off her freckly face and biding my time, waiting for her answer.

‘Tim said I had no daddy,’ she eventually tells me sheepishly. ‘He said every other kid had a dad ’cept me. He said all I had was a mummy and a minder who collected me. So I smacked him and he cried and cried and then Miss Pettyfour made me go on the naughty step till bweak time …’

‘Lily,’ I say gently, ‘you know it’s very wrong to smack anyone, especially other children?’

A small, guilty nod.

‘I’m sowwy Mama.’

‘I know you are bunny.’

‘Won’t do it again.’

‘There’s a good girl.’

Then the little arms fold defiantly and the chin thrusts out.