“Poor little mite,” said Tina.
“Don’t worry,” said Karl, who’d read on. “He came round after a bit. It says he got fond of them.”
I was already reading about the monthly contact the boy had with his mother and sister—when his mum turned up, which she didn’t always do. How both these contacts stopped when he was adopted. The case study finished by saying the boy had now reached many of his developmental targets and, despite being a handful at times, was happy in his new home, generally responding to clear, firm boundaries.
“Ah, he came good in the end,” Tina said with satisfaction.
Clare, the social worker, had joined us while we were reading. “What do you think the issues were for this little boy?” she asked now. “The things that might have affected what the adopters had to deal with?”
“Well, he can’t have known whether he was coming or going, can he?” said Tina. “It’s awful how some people can stay in situations that are harmful to their children.”
“Did the brother and sister really have to be separated?” I asked. “And the grandfather—couldn’t he keep seeing him? It seems very harsh for them all to be separated like that.”
“None of these situations are straightforward,” said Clare. “There are always difficult decisions to be made where adoption is concerned. I’m not personally familiar with this case, so I can’t give you any more details. But it’s possible that making a complete break in this way was felt to be the best way for both children to settle into their new families. And I’m sure that annual letterbox contact will have been in place.”
“It’s being cruel to be kind,” said Karl.
“I’m sure social services would never knowingly be cruel, Karl,” said Tina.
Clare said something in response. I don’t know what. I’d pretty much tuned them out by then. I couldn’t stop imagining the boy and his sister hiding somewhere together to try to escape the shouting, maybe seeing the father hit the mother. Hugging each other for comfort. How it must have been for the little boy after his sister had gone and he was all on his own. The bewilderment of suddenly being uprooted from everything familiar.
In a way it reminded me of myself, after I’d moved to Ely, having been used to the bustle of cosmopolitan London. Which was ridiculous, of course. Me relocating to Cambridgeshire was nothing like a child being removed from his family.
“What’s going on in your mind, Beth?” Clare asked.
I blinked when she spoke, so caught up in my thoughts I had to wipe my eyes on the back of my hand. “I was just imagining all that little boy must have gone through. Thinking how it must have stopped him trusting people.”
“Yes, indeed,” Clare said. “And that lack of trust has a knock-on effect on a child’s behaviour and development.”
“Trust can grow back, though, can’t it?” asked Tina.
“Sometimes, yes,” said Clare, but she said it in a way that made me supply the rest of the sentence: But sometimes it doesn’t.
And then I thought of myself at nine years old, both of my parents suddenly gone. What would have happened to me if Aunt Tilda, Sylvia, and Richard hadn’t been around? Would my story have ended up as a case study for potential adopters?
17
On the Saturday after the session, I went to Enfield to help Sylvia do some jobs in the garden. Richard had always done the majority of the gardening, but occasionally he and Sylvia did it together. Now it was all left to Sylvia. Mark had suggested she employ a gardener, but Sylvia didn’t want to, and I didn’t blame her. A stranger being there would have emphasised Richard’s absence. Besides, I was more than happy to help out. Working on the borders Richard had dug and fertilised so carefully was like paying tribute to him. And anyway, it was good to see Sylvia.
We worked together companionably for an hour or so, talking about this and that, our conversation occasionally dwindling into a relaxed silence, the way it can when you’re with those you’re closest to. A tame robin made us smile when it hopped onto the garden fence, completely undaunted by our presence. And when we heard the tinkling music of an ice-cream van driving down the road, we both laughed out loud.
“He’s hopeful in December,” Sylvia said, laughing.
“Mark and Rosie would have been up for it,” I said, and she laughed again.
“They would. You, not so much. They always had a sweeter tooth than you.”
I pictured the three of us on hot summer days—seated in a line on Sylvia and Richard’s front garden wall, Rosie and Mark finishing their ice creams in record time and me making mine last until it dripped down my arm.
“What was I like after Mum and Dad died?” I asked, my thoughts drifting back to the little boy in the case study and forward to my first social worker home visit, due to take place on Tuesday evening.
Sylvia straightened, pushing her blonde hair back from her face, leaving a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “Oh, darling, you were lost. A little lost soul. You’d be playing with Rosie one minute, all smiles, laughing about something together—you remember how you two used to get the giggles? You only had to look at each other, and you’d be off. But after your parents died, you’d suddenly go all quiet and creep up on the sofa next to me for a cuddle. You never wanted to speak about it. You just needed a cuddle. We did a lot of baking together, remember?”
“Chocolate muffins.”
“Chocolate muffins, ginger biscuits, cheese straws . . . Richard used to say he had his own private baker’s shop right in his own home.”
We shared a smile. I remembered those days, Sylvia letting me scrape out the mixing bowl. Chocolate all around my face, a measure of comfort in my heart from the deliciousness of the smells in the kitchen and the magic of having created something so wonderful from such unpromising ingredients.
“Yum!” Richard would exclaim when he came into the kitchen, making me laugh when he closed his eyes in exaggerated rapture.
“How are you doing now?” I asked Sylvia, drawing her in for a hug.
“Oh, you know, jogging along,” she said, hugging me back. “Sometimes I’m just like you were back then—I get absorbed in whatever I’m doing and think to myself, That’ll make Richard howl when I tell him, and then I have to remember he’s gone all over again.”
“I know,” I said. “I do that too.”
We gave each other a final squeeze and got on with our weeding.
Sylvia sighed. “I do worry about Mark, you know. Rosie’s okay, I think. Have you seen her lately?”
“We’re meeting up on Monday night to go and see the Christmas lights.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Anyway, as I say, she’s all right, I think. She’s been letting her grief out. But I get the feeling Mark’s been bottling his up, what with getting his business up and running.”
“How’s that going, d’you know?”
“I’m not sure. He and Grace aren’t likely to tell me if anything’s wrong, are they? Wouldn’t want to worry me. And he has got Grace to talk to. The thing is, he’d probably have spoken to his father, too, if he’d been here, what with Richard being self-employed for most of his career.” She sighed. “I don’t know, love. I’m probably worrying for nothing. You do when you’re a mum. You’ll find that out yourself soon enough.”