A Last Kiss for Mummy (3 page)

‘Wow,’ I said quietly, as it sank in how much this period mattered. How much my input or otherwise might affect things. ‘Does this happen with all underage mums or just those in care?’

‘In theory, all of them,’ Maggie explained. ‘When a young girl like Emma becomes pregnant, it doesn’t matter what her background is. The midwives are obliged to inform social services. They also have to record how responsible the teen is; whether she attends appointments, takes advice, eats healthily, plans properly for when the child is born … And, because of this, social services are alerted where it appears help may be required – and that’s whether the child’s in care or otherwise.’

I nodded my understanding. ‘So,’ John said, picking up his pen, ‘do we know who the baby’s social worker is?’

Maggie rustled through her paperwork. ‘Hannah Greenwood. She’s visiting three times a week at present, but if Casey and Mike take Emma on we’d probably cut that down to two, then after a while, if things are going okay, one.’

‘And how long is all this for?’ Mike asked.

Maggie shrugged. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ Then she grimaced. ‘Sorry – that’s not very helpful of me, is it? But, in truth, it’s impossible to say. In some cases it’s evident in a matter of a few weeks that the mother’s capable and has a strong attachment to her baby, whereas in others – well, sometimes, it takes longer to tell.’

I looked at Mike. It was really sinking in now that this was a lot to take on. We weren’t just providing a place of safety, a warm and loving home. We would be part of the process. There was also the small matter – no, the
huge
matter – of our own attachments. It wouldn’t just be Emma who’d be forming a bond with her baby. We would be too. We’d be fools to think otherwise.

And I knew how I was around babies. It would be impossible for me to see this as just a job, and Mike knew that. But at the same time I knew that I wanted to accept this placement, even knowing that the end of it would probably break my heart. ‘What happens at the end?’ I asked Maggie.

She glanced at John before answering. ‘It depends on the outcome, Casey. If all goes well, Emma and Roman will move on to a sort of halfway house; in a unit with maybe one or two other young mums and their babies until she’s legally old enough to live on her own. We’d assist her then, obviously, with getting a place to live. But if things don’t go to plan, then we’ll have to think again, obviously. But let’s not dwell on the bleak side just yet, eh? Hopefully we’ll get a happy ending out of this.’

Happy endings. You didn’t hear of them so often in this game. Sometimes, yes, and we’d had our share of them, even if ‘happy’ was always qualified – those damaged pasts couldn’t just be spirited away that easily. But if we could have a happy ending for this child-mum and her baby, that would be fantastic.

I was still musing on just how fantastic it would be when Mike did something entirely out of character. Coughing slightly, to get my attention, he looked pointedly at me. ‘I think we’re of a mind about this,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we, Casey?’ He then looked at John and Maggie. ‘We’d like to give it a shot,’ he said, before I’d even opened my mouth to answer. ‘That is, if you two think we’re up for it.’

Well, I thought, having to haul my jaw back into position. Now, that was a turn-up for the books.

In the normal course of events before taking on a new foster child, the next few days (following Mike’s jaw-dropping but very pleasing agreement to us having Emma) would involve a meeting between the three of us – us and the child, so that we could see if we all felt we clicked. This was obviously sensible; for all the discussions over coffee and plates of biscuits, meeting the child who was potentially going to share your home and lives for several months was an essential part of the process. Suppose she hated us on sight? Suppose we felt we wouldn’t be able to bond with her? It hadn’t happened yet – well, not from Mike and my point of view, anyway – but that certainly didn’t mean it couldn’t. And better to say no than to get a placement under way and then terminate it. For a younger child, in particular, this could be extremely emotionally challenging. The children we fostered had already known so much rejection that to inflict more, by getting their hopes up and then deciding we didn’t want to have them, would be nothing short of cruel.

But in this case we were happy to go with Maggie’s instinct.

‘She’s so excited,’ she said. ‘I’ve told her all about you and the family, and she really can’t wait to move in.’

I took this with a slight pinch of salt. I didn’t doubt Emma would be happy to get settled somewhere – anywhere – but I didn’t imagine for a moment that ‘excited’ would be her principal emotion. I also wondered if there was pressure being brought to bear on the situation by the mum of the girl she was currently staying with. If so, better she come straight to us than have the upheaval (a new baby is upheaval enough anyway) of having to move somewhere else as a temporary measure.

And, well, a bit of me was pleased to hear she was pleased. We’d be fine together. I didn’t doubt it for a moment.

Over the past few days my house had been a hive of activity, and I had taken no prisoners. It was all hands on deck and, boy, did the family know it. No stone would be left unturned in my quest to seek out dust and destroy.

‘Honestly, Mum,’ Riley had said to me, exasperated, when I dispatched her into town to get a new duvet set, ‘the house is already perfect as it is! You have the beige bedroom all ready and you have the blue bedroom all ready. Which covers both bases. If she has the cot in with her – which she probably will – they can both go in the beige room and, if not, Roman can go in the blue room. Why on earth,’ she asked pointedly, ‘do you need new bedding?’

She was right, of course. She generally was in such matters. It was just my natural urge to do something extra to make them welcome. And it was an urge that had backfired with the last kids we’d fostered. It had seemed such a great idea to decorate one room pink and one room blue (all fostering eventualities catered for – ta-da!) till John Fulshaw gave us two unrelated nine-year-old boys, who could no more have shared a room when they arrived than fly.

Which was also why the pink room was now, in fact, the beige room, because it just so happened that the second boy, Georgie, was autistic, and as soon as he saw the pink room he freaked out (to use the professional term) because pink really, really upset him. So the moral of the story is don’t assume
anything
. Don’t prejudge what a child might or might not like.

But I never learn, and Riley knew that, and she duly went off to find a cheap and cheerful duvet set, as instructed, if only in the cause of calming me down.

Today, though, I was all of a flap again, as usual going through my lists – I’m at the age when I can’t function without my lists – for the umpteenth time. Riley had come over again, having dropped Levi at school and Jackson at nursery, just to help me finish off and to say hello. As a young mum herself, I knew Riley’s presence would be a positive one for Emma; one that wouldn’t smack so much of being faced with a posse of know-all middle-aged women, but more of introducing a like-minded friend.

‘Right,’ she said, as the time for them to arrive grew ever nearer. ‘Put that list away, and that’s an order, Mum. You’ve gone through it countless times already and you have everything you need.’

‘But what if she hasn’t got any baby milk or something?’

Riley shook her head. ‘Mum, you don’t live in Antarctica, you know. If she needs milk, then you can pop out and get some. Anyway, you don’t know what type she uses so it would have been pointless to stock up anyway. And, trust me; she will have enough milk. That also applies to the steriliser, the baby bath, the cot mobile, the muslins and all the other silly things on your list.’

‘It’s a very sensible list,’ I huffed as I walked to the window to look out for them. ‘Oh shit!’ I added, seeing a car pull up. ‘They’re here!’

I had a room spray in my hand, so I chucked it now at Riley. ‘Have a quick spray around with that, will you, while I let them in?’

She didn’t grace my order with a reply. Instead she just calmly put the aerosol in the dining-room cupboard. ‘Mum, you know something?’ she said finally. ‘You are just a teensy bit cuckoo. Go on, let them in. I’ll go and pop the kettle on.’

I took a deep breath, as I always did, before opening the front door, ready to see what sort of child might be on the other side. My first impression – my gut instinct – was something I had learned to trust over the years. You could tell so much about a child from that first sweep of information gathering; from the basics of what their clothes and accent said about the sort of world they’d come from, to the less obvious pointers, such as how they responded to you, and what that said about their personality and confidence. Were they frightened? Full of attitude? Traumatised? It wasn’t quite Sherlock Holmes territory, but it was an inner voice that had rarely been wrong.

‘Well, hello!’ I said, beaming at the little congregation on the doorstep.

I didn’t immediately take stock of Emma, however, because my eye was drawn to the car seat that was hanging from Maggie’s elbow, and the well-wrapped and fast-asleep bundle it contained. I dragged my gaze away, however, to greet the person I knew must be my main focus – his mother.

‘You must be Emma,’ I said, taking in how slight she was, how young-looking, how not at all her fourteen years. She was tiny, with blonde hair tied back into a side ponytail and enormous blue eyes. Ironic, but she looked the picture of chaste innocence. ‘Oh,’ I gushed, ‘and your baby is just gorgeous. Come on. Come on in. Follow me.’

Now, I’ve met some reluctant-looking kids in my time, obviously, but it had been a long time since I’d seen an expression quite as defiant and disdainful as the one etched on this particular teenager’s face. As I ushered the three of them in, I made my smile all the wider to compensate. Hmm, I thought. Whatever happened to the ‘oh, she’s so excited’ line from Maggie?

Still, this was probably par for the course, I decided, as I showed them into the dining area. It was the kind of attitude that was commonly seen in lots of teenagers, that whole scowly, cocky attitude thing she had going on. Standard teenager-ese, as portrayed in many a TV programme, and which reminded me that being a mother doesn’t stop a girl being a typical fourteen-year-old; it might eventually, and probably would, by sheer force of circumstance, but right now this was a teenager who just happened to have had a baby. Which didn’t stop her looking and acting like a teenager.

Riley, who was finishing off preparing refreshments, stood in the kitchen archway and beamed too. ‘Hi everyone!’ she said. ‘Drinks orders, please!’

I was pleased to note a slight but perceptible softening of Emma’s features on seeing my daughter. She’d obviously been told about Riley and now I could see her wondering how this young, cool and clearly more on-her-wavelength kind of person might fit into her life while she was with us.

‘That’s my daughter,’ I said to her as we all sat down at the table. ‘She doesn’t live here but she visits all the time. She has boys too – two of them. Levi and Jackson. I expect Maggie’s told you about them, hasn’t she? You’ll get to meet them in the next few days.’

This seemed to spark a return to the previous scowl. ‘If I’m here in a few days,’ she was quick to point out. ‘I told her,’ she said, glancing across at Maggie pointedly, ‘that I’m going to have to see how it goes first.’

Okaaayyy, I thought. I’m getting the real picture now, which is fine. I was just about to answer – with something agreeing that that was a perfectly reasonable point – when Maggie, looking apologetic, spoke first. ‘Sorry, Casey,’ she said, looking equally pointedly at her young charge. ‘But Emma’s having something of a stroppy day today, aren’t you? Didn’t much like getting up at six to get here, did you?’

Had I paid more attention to that I might have had more of a clue about the shape of things to come, but of course I didn’t. I just brushed over it and tried to jolly things along. ‘Six in the morning?’ I exclaimed. ‘That would be enough to give anyone a bad case of the grumps. But at least you’re here now, and I’m sure you’ll get a chance to catch up on a bit of sleep later.’

And I did feel for her. A new baby was exhausting. And though I’d forgotten quite how exhausted I’d been with my own two newborns, I’d certainly been reminded when Riley had had hers. That old ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ mantra was all very well in theory. But in practice there always seemed to be a million things 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.’