by Helen Harris
It was hard not to imagine that she was being punished for her mischief in the gallery. But fortunately, an hour later – by which time, in floods of tears, she had telephoned every London hospital she could think of but not found Ruth – Siggy rang again.
“Good evening,” he began, rather formally. “Is that Mrs Garland?” And Sylvia was so hugely relieved, she nearly shrieked, “Yes! Yes it is!”
“This is Siggy Greenborough,” he said gravely, as if she hadn’t shrieked at all. “So we meet finally on the phone, if not in person.”
“Well, yes,” said Sylvia.
“My sister is very ill Mrs Garland,” Siggy said sorrowfully. “It seems she has had a stroke. She has been taken to St Mary’s Hospital. I’m afraid she’s only barely conscious. She is in the intensive care unit. She keeps saying your name.”
“My name?” Sylvia repeated in astonishment.
“Yes,” Siggy answered wonderingly. “Your name: ‘Sylvia’. She is partially paralysed but she keeps saying ‘Sylvia’.”
“Should I come right away?” Sylvia asked. Shamefacedly, she imagined herself unsteady and smelling of drink in the intensive care unit. She imagined the baby brother looking her up and down – blotchy red face, smudged make up – and wondering what on earth his sister saw in her.
“That is extremely kind of you,” Siggy answered. “I’m not sure what to suggest. It’s terribly late, isn’t it? I don’t feel I should drag you across town in the middle of the night.”
“No,” Sylvia said firmly. “If Ruth is asking for me, of course I must come right away.” She squinted at her wristwatch. “I’ll call a taxi. I should be there within the hour.”
She washed her face and made herself a restorative cup of tea while she waited for the taxi. But when she got to the hospital, Siggy wasn’t there. The nurse on duty outside the intensive care unit passed on his message; since patients in the ICU were only allowed to have one visitor at a time, Mr Greenborough had just nipped out to get a breath of fresh air.
Although Sylvia stayed at Ruth’s bedside for nearly an hour, Siggy didn’t come back. Ruth lay with her eyes closed, her face fallen in, hooked up to a frightening collection of tubes and machines. It didn’t seem to Sylvia that she was capable of saying anything. When she finally decided to get up and leave, she patted Ruth’s cold hand gently and said to her, “So I’m off now dear but I’ll be back in the morning. Chin up.”
She realised that Siggy’s phone call and her visit must both have been based on a complete misunderstanding because Ruth stirred, one of her eyelids flickered but the name she mouthed was not Sylvia but quite clearly Siggy.
Everything just seemed to go from bad to worse. At the beginning of July, Jeremy told her that the divorce had finally come through. Sylvia imagined that a page would now be turned and the horrid interim period of wrangling over every little thing would come to an end. After all, a divorce was an agreement of sorts, wasn’t it? Now they could hopefully each go their separate way and stop fighting over every single second she and Jeremy got to spend with Anand.
What happened instead was worse than Sylvia’s worst imaginings. There had been vague discussions of summer holiday plans which she didn’t like the sound of at all; it seemed Smita was making good her threat to take Anand to Disneyland. Naisha was coming along too. Sylvia wondered desperately what on earth she could do to counteract such an intense period of exclusive exposure to Smita and Naisha. Obviously many of the experiences Anand would enjoy too: the aeroplane, the rides and roundabouts at Disneyland, the easy infantile aspects of American life. He might turn his nose up at her big garden and the aquarium when he came back. Sylvia worried but she came up with an idea which she thought might do the trick. She went and chose for Anand his own little bright blue wheelie case. It had on it the smiling face of a bottle-nosed dolphin. He would trundle it happily everywhere and it would remind him daily of his other grandma, the main one, waiting faithfully for him in London. Doubtless Smita would disapprove of the dolphin suitcase; it wouldn’t go with all her designer luggage. But Anand would cling on to it loyally and refuse to leave it behind and Smita would be stuck with it, gaudy, grinning, a doubtless infuriating daily reminder of her former mother-in-law.
Sylvia took comfort in the suitcase. She had no idea what she herself would do during the long month of August when they would be away. She still visited Ruth from time to time but you couldn’t really have a proper conversation with her anymore, poor dear. These days, Heather was often not much better. As for Jeremy, they still couldn’t spend more than twenty minutes together without getting on each other’s nerves. How had it come about that the only person in the world with whom she really wanted to spend time was less than five years old?
A week before Anand and Smita and Naisha were due to leave for Florida, Jeremy turned up on Sylvia’s doorstep one night, unannounced and in the most pitiful state. His hair was a mess, his clothes were scruffy and when he came through the dark hall into the living room, she could see that he had been crying or maybe drinking.
“Smita has just told me the most horrible thing,” he burst out. “I don’t know, I don’t know –”
He sat down heavily on the sofa and covered his face with his hands.
“What?” Sylvia cried out. “What? Tell me. Is Anand alright?”
Jeremy nodded, without taking his hands away from his face. “It’s not that.”
“What?” Sylvia gibbered. “What?” She longed to say, “For goodness’ sake, Jeremy, pull yourself together, sit up straight and spit it out” but he was obviously too far gone for that.
She sat down beside him and, very gingerly, laid her hand on his arm. “What’s the matter?” she asked gently. “Tell me dear.”
Slowly, Jeremy lifted his head. He looked at her as if she were a ghost. He opened his mouth once and then shut it again before he spoke. “Smita wants to go and live in America,” he said.
The room seemed to darken. Sylvia thought she gasped but she couldn’t hear anything beyond the ringing in her ears. For a few seconds, she teetered on the edge of a black void until Jeremy yanked her back by putting his hand on her shoulder and saying “Mum? Mum?”
Sylvia summoned all her failing strength. “You have to stop her,” she said. But, even as she said it, she knew it was no good; when had Jeremy ever managed to stop Smita doing anything? He would fail this time the way he had failed every single other time. Smita was all-powerful and Smita would get her way.
Exactly as she feared, Jeremy shrugged. “How can I stop her?”
“Well,” Sylvia said sternly. “Isn’t there something in the divorce, surely?”
“No,” Jeremy said. “No, there isn’t. She’s been very clever. As you would expect. She’s managed to keep all this under wraps until the divorce went through. Otherwise I might have been able to do something, stop her taking him out of the country or something. But she kept the whole thing secret until it was too late.”
Sylvia asked uneasily, “What thing?”
Jeremy grimaced. “Oh, she’s got it all worked out. Apparently, she’s been having a thing with this guy in her New York office for the past year or so. Maybe even longer; how would I know? Anyway this guy, he’s her boss, he’s divorced too, he’s got a little girl a bit older than Anand. She’s got this idea they could be a perfect ready-made family. They have so much in common, she says.”
Sylvia tried to control her rising panic. She bitterly regretted her gift of the little blue suitcase with which Anand would trot happily aboard the aeroplane which would carry him away. She quavered, “What if they don’t come back from Florida?”
“Oh, there’s no danger of that,” Jeremy answered. “Smita never does anything which she hasn’t thought through thoroughly beforehand. The whole trip’s a trial apparently. He’s coming to Florida with his little girl and they’re going to see how the children get on together and how they both react to their parent’s new partner. That’s why Naisha is going along too; she wan
ts to look over her prospective new son-in-law.”
Sylvia felt a sharp pang of jealousy; how long had Naisha been in the know?
“Well, I think the whole thing sounds like an absolute nightmare for Anand,” she pronounced. “How can Smita think of inflicting such a thing on her own child?”
But even as she asked the question, of course she knew the answer. In Smita’s life, Smita came first. Everyone else, her husband, her mother, even her own son could only ever be a close second. If this move was good for Smita, it would go ahead, whatever the cost to poor little Anand. Besides, how often had Sylvia heard Smita praising the US? It was apparently light years ahead of Britain which Smita found increasingly grubby, run down and frankly past it. In her heart of hearts, Sylvia had to admit Smita had a point. Smita doubtless envisaged a better brighter future for Anand as well as for herself in New York. Of course, this person was her boss too; that could only help her on her way.
Since Jeremy seemed incapable of speech, Sylvia declared, “We have to fight this Jeremy. We can’t take it lying down.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Well,” Sylvia began. “Well. I think first of all you need to speak to your solicitor, don’t you, and see what he has to say. There must be some sort of order or injunction, mustn’t there, to stop this kind of thing happening. Why, it’s practically kidnapping.”
Jeremy sat looking anguished but didn’t answer.
Furiously, Sylvia scolded him. “Jeremy, this isn’t a time for hanging back and dithering. We need to act – and quickly.”
Jeremy sighed. “You can tell me to do whatever you like. You know perfectly well there’s no point; what Smita wants, Smita gets. It’s always been that way as long as I’ve known her.”
Sylvia wanted to shake him. As long as she’d known Jeremy, he’d always been the most hopeless, spineless, useless individual. And now, when he was faced with the crisis of his life, he was going to fluff it. In that instant Sylvia decided to take the law into her own hands. Jeremy might be a wet blanket but she was not.
Anand and Smita and Naisha left for Florida as planned at the beginning of August. To Sylvia’s surprise, the month didn’t drag at all. In fact, she found herself busier than she had been at any point in the past five years. She got up early and went briskly to the library. She read up on divorce and custody and so-called international “tug-of-love” cases. She made three separate appointments at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau where a spotty young solicitor called Toby with a disconcertingly frivolous eyebrow piercing advised her on the insubstantial rights of grandparents and cautioned her against taking the law into her own hands. She got in touch with a grandparents’ pressure group who were equally wishy-washy and encouraged her to lobby for reform of the law. She was so busy, she barely noticed the month passing nor the glorious August weather. She had no time to sit out in the gardens feeling sorry for herself as she usually did in the summer. For the first time in years, maybe for the first time ever, she had a mission.
She had not expected a postcard from Anand. After all, he was only four and Smita certainly wouldn’t spare a moment of her holiday to send a card to Sylvia. But a card came, written in Naisha’s extravagant handwriting and signed in outsize letters by Anand. It said only, “Dear Grandma Sylvia, We are having a brilliant time in America. Love Anand” and, rather than giving Sylvia any pleasure, it merely served to turn the knife in the wound. In fact, it was on the day she received the postcard that Sylvia, having come to a dead end with all the official channels she had explored, decided to find a solution of her own to the desperate situation.
When Anand and Smita and Naisha returned, she breathed a little easier. Her little boy was at least back in the country now and she calculated that she had a few months to work out a plan. Anand was starting school in September and Smita would certainly not do anything to disrupt the start of his education. Sylvia guessed that she had at worst until Christmas to achieve what Jeremy could not. At best, she might even have the whole school year ahead of her, assuming Smita would make her move during the long summer holidays.
She got to spend an afternoon with Anand ten days after he came back. He had grown visibly during the month he had been away and it seemed to be a sturdier, less infantile child whom Jeremy delivered proudly to her door. He was browner too.
Sylvia dropped awkwardly to her knees to hug him. “Darling! I’ve missed you so much! Did you have a wonderful time?”
She sensed Anand was a little stiff in her embrace, a little resistant, as if a month was long enough for a four year old to have lost some of that day to day familiarity. She held him close anyway, relishing the feel and the smell of him. But Anand burst out of her hug, as if she were smothering him and declared, “No, I didn’t have a wonderful time. I had a weird time.”
Sylvia looked up enquiringly at Jeremy who rolled his eyes and drew his forefinger across his throat behind Anand’s back.
Anand ran into Sylvia’s living room to reacquaint himself with his toys and Sylvia, accepting Jeremy’s helping hand, clambered stiffly to her feet to follow him.
“Surely you enjoyed Disneyland?” she asked, falsely cheerfully. “All those whizzing rides?”
“The rides were fun,” Anand said solemnly. “But not the people.”
He busied himself with his rediscovered belongings and refused to say anything else.
In the kitchen, in an undertone, Jeremy explained. “Smita hasn’t said much. But apparently he and the little girl didn’t hit it off at all. According to Smita, she’s a real little primadonna.”
Sylvia raised her eyebrows and Jeremy gave a rare harsh laugh. “I know. It takes one to know one.”
“So,” Sylvia asked eagerly, “is the whole thing off?”
“If only,” Jeremy said. “No, it’s very much on apparently. Remember, the little girl lives with her mother so she’d only be with them from time to time. I think Smita is hoping that if she and this guy get married, then his ex-wife will restrict his access to the little girl even more. Which would suit Smita to a T.”
“Oh!” Sylvia exclaimed. “How nasty.”
Jeremy shrugged. “It’s a nasty business.” He added, “I’ll scoot off now. I’ll come and get him at six so please make sure he’s here and ready. Smita is picking him up from my place at seven.”
After Jeremy had left, Sylvia went and sat in the living room with Anand. She didn’t want to deluge him with difficult questions but she longed to hear all he had to say. She was a great believer in “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings”; she still remembered the shock and thrill of little Jeremy saying to his father all those years ago: “I saw you playing with Nikki Palmer in the swimming pool. Why was she laughing so much?”
Anand appeared absorbed in his game. He had poured all the plastic animals out of their container and seemed to be sorting them into some kind of categories. Sylvia watched him quietly for a little while and then asked, “So what did you like best about America?”
Anand considered her question. “I liked the ice creams and I liked the sea.”
Sylvia was overjoyed; their things, he had singled out their things, seaside and ice creams, both of which he had discovered with her. But then she wondered if he was maybe just saying those things in order to console her. “Not Disneyland?” She asked. “Not all those whizzy rides?”
Anand frowned. “Disneyland is hot and smelly,” he said scornfully. “There are queues for everything. But we got to the front of the queues because Grandma Naisha felt faint every time she had to stand in one.” He grinned cheekily.
Sylvia would have stood it out in the queue of course. She changed the subject. “Where else did you go darling, apart from Disneyland?”
Anand looked rather vague. “We went to the hotel. We went shopping. We only went to the beach a few times.”
Sylvia wondered how to steer the conversation round to the two invisible members of their party whom Anand wasn’t mentioning:
the bossy little girl and her father. She asked brightly, “Did you meet any nice people in Florida?”
Anand shook his head.
Stumped, Sylvia went into the kitchen to get them some tea. When she came back, Anand had incorporated her oriental metal bird with the bent beak into his game; the animals were grouped in a circle around it and when Sylvia asked him what the bird was doing there, he answered, “The animals are praying to it” and queasily she wondered whether she detected Naisha’s influence.
Anand said nothing about Smita’s new boyfriend or his daughter the whole afternoon and it upset Sylvia that he was withholding something so significant from her. He was such a thoughtful little chap; maybe he worried it would upset her. But she was frightened to ask anything about it in case it upset him. This was awful; she had to get out of this impasse if she was to get anywhere at all.
At a quarter to six, finally, she tried one more time, “Did your Mummy and Grandma Naisha enjoy America, do you think?”
Anand considered. “Mummy liked it,” he said, “but Grandma Naisha was pleased to come home. She said America was too big and too fast for her and she didn’t like the food; she said it tasted like cotton wool.” He giggled.
Sylvia risked one small step closer. “What did your Mummy like?”
But Anand frowned and caused a diversionary commotion by flapping around the room with a toy owl, hooting and he didn’t answer.
When Jeremy came back, Sylvia cornered him again in the kitchen. “He hasn’t said a word about the new boyfriend or the little girl,” she whispered urgently. “It’s not natural. He’s bottling it up.”
Jeremy said in alarm, “Please don’t get involved in all that, Mum. It’ll only cause more trouble.”
Sylvia bridled. “Why on earth shouldn’t I get involved? It’s my business too.”