that needed doing in those precious few pockets of time.
Riley brought the drinks in then and said her goodbyes for the moment, and as she left it occurred to me that Roman, in his car seat, was still on the floor at Maggie’s side, rather than with Emma. I also realised, as Maggie started chatting about the placement, that Emma didn’t as much as glance in his direction. Which perhaps should have rung alarm bells as well but didn’t, not really – she was so young and so shell shocked, after all.
And that state of affairs continued all through Maggie’s initial briefing; while she explained that Hannah – Roman’s social worker – would be joining us shortly, just giving us time to get the handover documents sorted. This was usual. There were all sorts of different forms that needed going through, including risk assessments, medical consent forms and so on.
‘Tell you what,’ Maggie said to Emma as she began sorting bits of paper. ‘While we get on with the boring stuff why don’t you get Roman’s hat and coat and things off? He’ll be due a feed by the time Hannah gets here, won’t he?’
As if to prompt Emma, she pushed the car seat over to where Emma was sitting and I watched as Emma pulled it close enough to start unbuckling the seat straps. She turned to look at me. ‘Hannah’s just a nosy cow,’ she said to me, entirely without prompting. ‘She just wants to catch me out doing something wrong.’ I was slightly shocked; it seemed quite a forward thing for her to say. And she wasn’t finished. ‘Make sure you take notes, by the way. Because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing as well.’
I didn’t rise to it. Instead I put my pen down and smiled at her. ‘I’m sure Hannah’s just doing her job, Emma,’ I said levelly. ‘But I can assure you – cross my heart – that I’m not here to try and catch you out. I’m sure you’re going to do just great, I really am. And I’m here to help. Help when you ask me to, okay?’
Emma snorted then. ‘Yeah, right!’ she said, her voice full of venom. ‘That’s exactly what Hannah said to me when she first came. Trust me, lady,’ she went on, ‘she’s just looking for the first excuse she finds to take my kid!’
I was saddened, rather than shocked, by the tone of Emma’s voice. Just a few weeks into motherhood, which was destabilising enough already, and she was living in such an uncertain world. And a scary one, too. For all that it was not the desired outcome, there was a kernel of truth there – if she ‘failed’, social services would indeed take her kid. And she was just a little girl herself. A frightened little girl with no one to turn to. And fear can make anyone lash out.
By now Emma had unbuckled the seat and pulled the baby onto her lap, and right away I felt my own fears subside a little. In contrast to her demeanour earlier, now she actually had her baby in her arms she had eyes for no one but him. She also seemed confident, if understandably careful, supporting his head the way she needed to and gently rocking him back and forth. It was only when Hannah herself arrived that her expression was once again stony. ‘Oh, look, Roman,’ she said, as I showed his social worker into the dining area, ‘it’s the kiddie collector, come to check I haven’t poisoned your bottle.’
Now I was slightly shocked, because she’d said this to Hannah’s face. But Hannah just smiled. Like Emma, she was blonde, with her hair corralled into a neat ponytail, and perhaps in her late twenties, I guessed. She had the no-nonsense air of a capable big sister, and I was sad that so far she and Emma obviously hadn’t bonded. Not that they didn’t have a bit of repartee going on. Or a semblance of it, at least – though maybe it wasn’t that. Perhaps it was all one-way traffic on Hannah’s part to try and jolly Emma on. I hoped their lack of closeness wouldn’t affect how things played out.
‘Ah, I see you’re on form today, Emma,’ she said mildly. ‘That’s good. I think I’d start to worry if you actually let up a bit!’ She began unbuttoning her coat, a fur-trimmed khaki parka. ‘I would properly introduce myself,’ she said to me, ‘but I see my reputation precedes me!’
It was an interesting dynamic and I was anxious to take it in. So while Hannah began outlining her role and how she and Maggie would work together, I kept an eye on Emma too, and what she was doing. And what she was doing was calmly getting on with the business of feeding Roman, holding him snugly in her left arm while reaching into her bag to retrieve his bottle.
‘Do you have a microwave?’ she asked me politely, when there was a lull in the conversation.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, pointing out where to find it in the kitchen. I then watched as she stood up and, with Roman still in her arms, went and used it, returning and sitting down again with baby and bottle and giving him his feed.
‘Right,’ she said amiably, as the tiny child began sucking lustily on the warmed milk. ‘Where were we? Oh, yes, the kiddie collector was about to tell you how best to spy on me, was that it?’ She met Hannah’s eye then. ‘Carry on.’
All very curious. And should alarm bells have been ringing? I had absolutely no idea.
Emma’s possessions – which had been lugged in by her and Roman’s long-suffering social workers – came in four bulging and already torn black bin liners. This was nothing new to me; in my time I’d seen it all. Some kids came with almost nothing and some with loads of possessions, and it was often the ones who’d been the longest in care who had the most stuff to lug about. Similarly, some children had a variety of robust cases, while others – as in this case – just had good old bin bags. But in those cases you expected to find them filled with rags and rubbish – and invariably you weren’t disappointed.
It was always a bit of a guessing game when new children came to stay as to what their possessions might be. Some had plenty of clothes, shoes and trainers, favourite toys, games and books, right down to nightwear and their own toiletries and toothbrush. Others had barely more than the clothes they stood up in. No toys, no nice things, not even a single family photo, and when that happened it really broke my heart. I just wanted to scoop them up and promise them the world, though, ironically, that was usually the last thing I could do. These tended to be the kids that had been profoundly damaged by the adults around them, and the sad fact was that the children who needed the most loving always seemed to be the ones who needed you to keep your distance – in the early days, at least, until they’d begun the lengthy process of learning to trust again.
Emma and Roman, thankfully, didn’t seem to be in this category. Although, judging from my first impressions, Emma had plenty of emotional issues to overcome, she wasn’t in need when it came to material possessions. ‘Good grief!’ I said, once we’d seen off Maggie and Hannah. ‘What on earth have you got in all these?’
She laughed as we hefted a pair each up the stairs, which was good to hear. Now we were alone – and unscrutinised – she seemed in better spirits. ‘Oh, just my clothes and make-up, and my CD player, and Roman’s stuff and everything. Tell you what,’ she said conversationally, ‘social services may be arseholes, but they’ve spent loads on me. Literally. Like, loads.’
That was true enough. We’d already taken delivery of a pristine new cot, which Mike had toiled to assemble the night before Emma came. But I was struck by her choice of language for them – and not in a good way. I was about to answer, not least to pull her up on her choice of words, when she turned, having reached the top of the stairs. ‘And they’re going to buy me a laptop – can you believe it? Long as I go back to school, that is. Can you believe that?’
I could believe that, of course, because, these days, a computer was fast
