Freeing Grace (27 page)

We followed her linen trousers up the stairs and past a cupboard that was trying to be a kitchen. Deborah was staring straight ahead with a glassy expression, like a sleepwalker in a play. Eventually Imogen held open a door, and we trooped in.

The room was obviously intended for meetings—oblong table, whiteboard and a general air of underuse. A couple of cardboard files were stacked on the table. Facing the door, wearing a ghastly smile, was the weirdest-looking woman I have ever seen. This raven-haired creature would have been well cast as the housekeeper in a spooky nineteen forties film set in a sinister Estonian castle. She might have been fifty, or sixty, or eighty. It was hard to tell under all that makeup.

She stared, wide-eyed, before extending a bony hand. ‘Mrs Harrison? I’m Lenora Blunt, team manager.’ She had a limp voice, as though she were about to swoon, with an accent I couldn’t quite place. I think it might have been eastern European, which fitted, somehow.

Deborah introduced me, and Blunt looked me up and down.

‘I won’t say a word,’ I promised, and pinched my lips together with my fingers.

Blunt nodded with bad grace and gestured towards the table. We sat around it, and I tried to be invisible.

‘It’s very good of you both to fit me in like this,’ said Deborah, politely.

‘We’ve had to shuffle things.’ The Estonian housekeeper waved an impatient arm; she was wearing a charm bracelet, and it jangled. ‘This couldn’t wait. We’re working to a strict timetable, set by the court.’

‘You’re extremely late in the day,’ scolded Imogen. She sounded like a plumber tut-tutting over your pre-war hot-water tank. I hate plumbers.

They always make me feel less than a man. ‘It’s eight months since we discovered Cherie was pregnant. We’ve been planning for Grace ever since. And you turn up
now.

’ ‘How did that poor child manage to become pregnant,’ Deborah seemed to be recovering her usual composure, ‘given that she was in your care at the time?’

Lenora Blunt flushed. ‘We can’t fit them all with chastity belts,’ she snapped, defensively. ‘We haven’t the budget.’

There was a brief, incredulous silence. Imogen threw her manager a look of pure contempt before turning back to Deborah. ‘We’ve tried hard to find a place for Grace within both her birth families. No one came forward. Meanwhile, she’s starting to bond with her foster carer. Adoption is tricky, Mrs Harrison. The younger the child, the better. Grace needs to move on.’

‘I see,’ said Deborah. ‘Well, I can take her home today if you want.’

The social workers both shook their heads, with identical patronising smiles.

‘You haven’t been assessed,’ said Imogen, and she almost waggled a finger.

Deborah looked unimpressed. ‘No one assessed me when I had my own children.’

‘We’ve found a match,’ wailed Blunt, fingering a glass bead necklace the size of a small chandelier. ‘It’s an outstanding placement.’

‘Lovely people.’ Imogen tapped a blue file marked
Grace Serenity
King
. ‘Mixed race, of course. He’s a vicar.’

I saw the steel shooting into Deborah’s backbone.

‘That’s all very wholesome. But Matt is actually her
father
,’ she reminded them sternly, folding her arms. ‘You’re not supposed to be social engineers. It isn’t your job to churn out babies for childless couples, even nice middle-class Christian ones. Babies don’t just grow on trees. They have families, with whom they belong.’

‘Matt couldn’t cope,’ insisted Imogen. ‘His heart’s in the right place, I’ll grant you. He’s lovely with Grace. But he couldn’t look after her.’

Deborah nodded. ‘I agree. But
I
can.’ She was magnificent, she really was; I wanted to applaud. ‘Look, Imogen, Lenora. I’m truly sorry I haven’t been here for your assessments, but I knew nothing about any baby.’

‘You haven’t kept in touch,’ said Imogen, her sharp eyes flicking inquisitively from Deborah to me. ‘Why not?’

‘I was in a remote area. No internet.’ Deborah put on a super-honest face. ‘And my mobile phone was stolen.’

She caught my eye, and I gave her a schoolmaster frown—I mean, what a couple of monumental whoppers. Then the outer corners of her eyes lifted, and I forgave her.

‘But I did write,’ she said. It sounded a bit thin, frankly. She bit her lip ruefully. ‘I know, I
know
. I’ll admit I had my head buried in work.

But the moment I understood the situation I took the first flight back. And I’ll undertake to give up my work immediately. That’s because I am absolutely, fundamentally committed to caring for this little girl.’

Blunt was trying to get a word in, neurotically spinning her bracelet. ‘I wonder whether you appreciate the difficulties.’

‘Difficulties?’

‘Yes. You’re the grandmother, not the mother. You’re
not
of dual heritage, which puts all sorts of cultural and practical barriers between yourself and the child. Hair care, for instance. It’s completely different.’

‘
Hair care
?’ Deborah stared, in disbelief. ‘You’re not seriously putting that forward as a reason for the permanent removal of a child from her family?’

Blunt blushed. ‘Well, but it’s a part of her cultural roots.’

‘We
are
her roots! That’s the point, Lenora. I’m trying to save her from becoming root
less.

’ Imogen leaned closer. ‘The thing is, though, Deborah,’ (first-name terms, I thought. We
are
getting chummy) ‘that this will be more complicated than bringing up your own family. And you’re . . . older, too.’

I had to chuckle at that.

‘I’m thirty-seven!’ Debs looked genuinely aggrieved. ‘Nowadays lots of people
start
their families at my age. Lots and lots of people.’ She pointed at me. ‘Jake hasn’t even found a mother to bear his children yet.’

‘Look, Deborah,’ insisted Imogen. ‘Think about it. It will take so much commitment.
So
much.’

Deborah nodded. ‘A baby is for life, not just for Christmas. I know that, Imogen.’

Or perhaps, I thought disloyally, a baby is for about seventeen years?

‘I’ve done it twice before, remember?’ said Deborah. ‘Matt’s sister, Lucy, wasn’t mine, but I brought her up just as if she was. I’ve got buckets of commitment. That’s why I’m here.’

Imogen narrowed her eyes. ‘What about Mr Harrison? Why hasn’t he been in to see Grace?’

‘That’s easy.’ Deborah laughed gaily. ‘Perry’s agoraphobic. He’s
longing
to meet her but he just can’t travel. He’s very competent with babies, actually. Come to our home and talk to him.’

‘We have. He didn’t tell us what you just have.’

‘Of course he didn’t. It’s a feature of the condition. The shame, the secretiveness. Surely you know this? People sometimes go for years, hiding it even from their own families.’

Imogen nodded, thinking. ‘That explains a lot,’ she said slowly.

‘So.’ Lenora obviously wasn’t giving up without a fight. ‘The upshot is that you have a husband with mental health issues, a son with behavioural problems, and you saw fit to leave home for several months. Yours is a dysfunctional family, Deborah. How can we place a baby with you?’

I saw a flash of triumph cross Deborah’s face. She leaned forward and looked Blunt square in the eye. ‘My husband has a
condition
. A disability. Surely, Lenora, you aren’t going to write him off on that ground? I don’t think you’re allowed to do that, are you? You’ve got to assess him like anyone else.’

There was a nasty silence. Blunt flared her nostrils. ‘I’m just trying to—’

‘Look.’ Deborah had the ball now and she was sprinting away towards the line. ‘We’re her birth family. It’s not a conventional nuclear family—whose is, these days?
But she will know exactly who she is.
You have a duty, don’t you, to achieve that if you can? Right. Well, here I am: willing, healthy and able. You can’t just shut the door on me. You aren’t allowed to, and you know it. You have to assess me, properly and fairly.’

The social workers exchanged glances. Lenora had red spots on her cheeks, like a sulky doll.

‘All right then,’ sighed Imogen, and she opened a blue file.

Score!

‘But we can’t lose any more time, so we’ll be taking a twin-track approach. We’ll carry on with our adoption procedure while assessing you.’

Deborah had won. She could collect the cup and do a victory lap. And yet I saw her shoulders slump. A phone on the table trilled, and the sinister housekeeper answered it. She listened for a moment, whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and turned those anguished eyes on us.

‘Grace has arrived,’ she announced.

Deborah immediately stood up. Blunt swung her arm out in front of me like a lollipop lady.

‘Just you, Mrs Harrison. Your, er, support person can’t have contact with Grace. I’m sure you’ll understand that.’ She spoke to my left ear lobe. ‘If you’d come back in an hour?’

Deborah gave me a faint smile. ‘Go on home, Jake,’ she said. ‘Take my car. Here are the keys. I’m going to walk Matt back to school after this, and have a talk with his headmaster.’

Then she let them lead her away to become a grandmother.

Chapter Twenty

Leila’s future was changing shape. It was like an animated piece of plasticine: unrolling, opening its eyes, squeezing itself into a bustling landscape of colour and fulfilment. Nothing looked the same.

On Tuesday she dropped in at work to explain the situation to her manager. Then she had an appointment with Linda Hooper, the social worker. Afterwards she met Maggie in a department store for coffee, ostensibly to brainstorm the Defibrillators’ repertoire but really to discuss far more pressing matters. By the time they’d got up the escalator, Leila had relayed the gist of her conversation with the social worker. More meetings, more formalities, more proving themselves. But there was to be a baby at the end of it all.

‘So.’ Maggie slid their little plastic tray along the counter. ‘You’re a mother-to-be.’

Leila grabbed a blueberry muffin from the glass shelves. ‘Eating for two,’ she said.

‘Quite right, love. Got to keep your strength up.’ Maggie chose an alarmingly sticky jam doughnut, and got out her purse. ‘Two large lattes, please. No, put away your massive sparkly handbag, woman. This is on me. Celebration time!’

They found a table under a potted palm. ‘How d’you feel?’ asked Maggie, unloading the tray.

Leila draped her coat over the chair back. ‘I feel . . . ooh. How
do
I feel?’ She sat down, scratching her head thoughtfully. ‘I feel like the happiest woman in the world. I feel as though the clouds have rolled away from the sun and it’s a brilliant blue-sky day, with . . .’ She paused for a moment, and then finished with a lyrical flourish of her hands: ‘With glittering frost on the grass and joy in the air.’

Maggie waited. She seemed to be expecting more.

‘But there again . . .’ Leila dipped her head as she broke up her muffin. She was wearing a midnight-blue cloth around her hair, and earrings the same colour. ‘If I’m really honest with myself, I am sometimes a teeny bit scared.’

‘Because?’

‘First, because I’m waiting for the blow to fall.’ Leila held up two sets of crossed fingers. ‘Maggie, Maggie! Heaven doesn’t come to earth.’

Maggie took a bite of sugar-laden delight, and her wispy locks fell dangerously close to the jam. ‘Yum . . . they do the best doughnuts in here. Relax, Leila. Babies aren’t heaven. They squawk all night. They whine all day. They vomit down your clothes and they trash your house.’

‘Rubbish.’ Leila picked up her coffee. ‘Your Toby is tidier than you are
.

’ ‘Well, that’s true. But sorry,’ said Maggie. ‘I shouldn’t have interrupted. I know this is serious. You said that was the first thing. What’s the second?’

‘Well . . .’ Leila’s brow crinkled. ‘It’s all a bit like collecting a kitten or something. I’m not pregnant and bloomingly hormonal. My hair isn’t shining, my bust isn’t three times its normal size. I’m not sure I feel like a real mother would.’

‘Mm, I’ve got you. You don’t have heartburn, your ankles aren’t swollen, your back isn’t killing you, and your stomach doesn’t enter the room three minutes before the rest of you.’

‘Well, no,’ Leila agreed. ‘The social worker’s talking about parenting classes. Preparation work. I’m happy to do it, of course.’

‘Ooh! How d’you stand it? They are so bossy!’

‘They
are
very bossy, but we’re in no position to argue. David and I will do anything they say, anything at all, and be top of the class. But I reckon that’s all window dressing. I can manage the practicalities, I think . . . We’re adults, aren’t we? But that’s not the issue. What really matters is, will I be a proper mother to this little girl? Will I be able to replace her real mother? What if I’m just plain useless at it? What if . . .’

‘Yeah? What if
what
?’

Thinking, Leila retied the blue band around her head. ‘My body isn’t set up to reproduce. It doesn’t work. Agreed?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Okay, take it a step further. What if that means my
mind
isn’t, either? I’m not like other women physically, so maybe I’m not like them mentally or emotionally.’

Maggie looked at her, fondly. ‘Well, you do stand out from the crowd. That’s why I like you.’

‘Maybe I’m not capable of true maternal feelings,’ fretted Leila. ‘I mean, how would I know?’

Maggie reached across and tapped her friend on the head. ‘I come across many, many
real
mothers, Leila Edmunds, who are total bitches to their children. You don’t want to know what savagery real mothers are capable of.’ She shuddered. ‘Sometimes I want to slap ’em.’

‘And fathers too, I daresay.’

‘When a child is killed, it’s normally one or both of the parents. Did you know that? Parents can be very dangerous.’

Leila didn’t answer. She was still fiddling with her hair.

Maggie burst out in exasperation. ‘For goodness’ sake, this is such total hogwash, Leila! You’re a genius with kids. Much better than me—I’ve got no love for other people’s. I hate it when Toby has a friend over. Whining and whingeing and blackmailing me into producing chocolate fingers. But you’re so much fun with them. Toby thinks you’re the best thing since Lego.’