curtains are a necessity for anyone running from someone.
‘Do you want something to eat?’ I unlock the front door. ‘I bought some biscuits. You can have a snack and I’ll take your temperature.’
‘I don’t want a snack,’ says Tom, heading straight through our messy living room and throwing his coat and bag over the bannisters. ‘Biscuits are too brown today.’
Too brown.
He hasn’t mentioned colours since we left London …
‘I just want to sleep,’ says Tom.
‘Can’t we just have a little chat?’
Out of the blue, Tom snaps: ‘Leave me alone! I hate the new school, okay? And I hate you.’
I stare at him, utterly stunned. He’s never talked to me like that. Ever.
‘Maybe you should go upstairs and rest,’ I say sharply.
‘That’s what I just said,’ he retorts.
Clump, clump, clump.
Tom stomps up the stairs, head bowed. Then his bedroom door slams.
I follow him upstairs and find him sitting on his bed, playing with his Clarks shoes. He pulls the Velcro back, then sticks it down. Rip, rip. Rip, rip.
‘Tom? Please let’s talk. I know this is hard.’
Tom looks up, and as he does his head begins to loll around.
Then my little boy slides to the floor, his body totally rigid, twisting, biting, drooling.
‘Tom!’ I stare, terrified, as he snaps his teeth at thin air. One hand is still locked to the Velcro on his trainer, his body a stiff crescent, fingers refusing to yield. ‘Tom!’
I see the whites of his eyes as he shouts, ‘School grey.’
‘I’m phoning an ambulance,’ I shout, dashing downstairs two steps at a time.
My fingers are shaking as I dial 999, my words rushed when the operator comes on the line. ‘Help, please,’ I sob. ‘My son is having some sort of fit. Please send an ambulance. Hurry!’
I have nausea – the sort brought on by overwhelming fear and anxiety.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Tom lies on white cotton sheets. They’re the same sheets I used to strip down in hospitals before I got pregnant. They should feel familiar and safe, but today everything is wrong.
My eyes are wide, barely blinking. ‘Why did this happen?’ I ask the doctor. ‘He’s a healthy child. He’s healthy.’
Tom stopped convulsing when the ambulance came. He is now drowsy and confused, barely conscious. A seizure – that’s what they’re calling it. Nobody knows why it happened.
‘Could he have taken anything he shouldn’t?’ the doctor asks. ‘Medication, anything like that? It’s quite unusual for this to happen with no history.’
‘No. We keep paracetamol, cough syrup. He has painkillers for migraines … but Tom wouldn’t take anything without asking. He’s very sensible for his age.’
‘Normal painkillers wouldn’t have caused something like this.’
‘Tom,’ I whisper.
‘Mum,’ Tom says.
‘Sweetheart.’ I stroke his forehead.
Tom murmurs, ‘I want to sleep. Please, Mum.’
‘You haven’t eaten. The sooner you eat, the sooner we can get home to your own bed. With all your Lego.’
‘Red Lego. Want to … sleep.’
‘Tom, the doctor wants to know if you took anything. Medicine – anything like that.’
Tom shakes his head, eyes bobbing closed.
When the doctor leaves, Tom sleeps until teatime.
He wakes to eat three forkfuls of hospital meat pie and one spoonful of strawberry yoghurt.
While I’m clearing Tom’s dinner tray, a nurse says: ‘You’ll be discharged later. Just as soon as the doctor comes back.’
I nod, shelving the empty tray in a metal trolley.
‘Tom will be in his own bed tonight,’ the nurse continues. ‘And back at school tomorrow. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’
‘Yes.’
But actually, the thought of school … it frightens me.
What’s the time? My watch hands point to 7.10 p.m., but the computer says 7 p.m.
The computer is right, of course – I always set my watch ten minutes fast. Col calls this my mega efficiency.
I see Tessa in her office, stuffing Nespresso capsules into her handbag.
‘I need you here first thing tomorrow,’ she commands, striding past me. ‘Did you get the Kinnock file closed down yet?’
‘Tom Kinnock’s mother still hasn’t replied to my letter. She’s had it over a week now. I need to pencil in an unannounced visit. See how Tom’s settling into his new school before I close the case down.’
‘Don’t forget your twenty-nine other children.’
‘Thirty children now, Tessa. And yes, I know.’
‘Don’t cancel anything you shouldn’t.’
There is a secret code in social services. Some appointments absolutely can’t be altered. Some shouldn’t be altered, but have to be.
It all comes down to greatest need.
‘Okay, listen. Why not forget about Tom Kinnock for the time being?’ Tessa suggests. ‘You have a cast-iron defence if anything goes wrong – blame Hammersmith and Fulham. They should have passed it over sooner.’
‘I need to make a start,’ I say. ‘Get some sort of order. The file has passed through ten different social workers – the notes are an absolute mess. Pages and pages of reports, everything out of order. It needs straightening out.’
‘Hammersmith and Fulham sound worse than this place,’ says Tessa. ‘Can you imagine? Somewhere more chaotic than here?’ She snorts with laughter and heads towards the swing doors. ‘Well.
