“She’s not that bad,” Sophie said. “I think she’s going to miss you. I think she’s scared about you going.”
“I know,” Carrie said. “So why is she doing her best to make me so keen to leave?”
Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know, Carrie,” she said. “Your mum is even weirder than mine.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” Carrie said. “From this moment on, I’m never going to do a thing I don’t want to do. I’m never going to miss another chance, another experience or feeling. I’m going to take everything I can out of life, and whenever I forget or feel like I can’t be bothered or look like I might be turning into Mum—God forbid—I’m going to play this song to remind me. A song about living life to the fullest.”
They both paused and listened to the exhilarating guitar riff once again.
“Actually, I think it’s about political apathy and oppression,” Sophie said.
“Yeah, I know,” Carrie said, winking at her. “But it’s got a rocking good chorus.”
It took a few more seconds for the trio to repeat to fade, but when they had finished and Izzy had covered her face and giggled and Bella had kissed her grandma’s cheek with no-nonsense firmness, Mrs. Stiles did seem to be a little happier and more calm.
“You should be on TV,” Sophie said, applauding gently.
“It was Carrie’s favorite song,” Mrs. Stiles said. “A load of old rubbish, of course, but she and the girls sang it all the time.”
“Not all the time,” Bella corrected her, with her usual passion for total accuracy. “It’s our cheering up song. I don’t really know what it means but…”
“It’s got a rocking good chorus?” Sophie said. Bella nodded and smiled.
Sophie felt more or less in control as she walked the girls to the bus stop. Her equilibrium was restored after the gathering tide of feeling that had threatened to breach her defenses at Mrs. Stiles’s house. She felt as if she knew how to deal with Louis now, as if somehow Carrie had told her. She knew she couldn’t shut the door on him, because after all, she had been the one to open it. She knew that she had to let him in for the girls’ sake, and that what was best for them was what was important, no matter who else it hurt. This might be their only chance to know their father; she couldn’t stand in the way of that. But she also knew that they needed someone to guide them and support them as they got to know him and as the possibilities of a future with him opened up. They’d need someone if, as Mrs. Stiles predicted, fatherhood was too much for him and he decided he couldn’t take the children on after all. They’d need another option.
For some reason, ever since Sophie had spoken to Louis on the phone, she had felt doubly angry with him. She was angry with him for going, she was angry with him coming. It was an impossible way to feel, but she couldn’t let it go. None of this should have been her responsibility. If he had been where he should have been, looking after his family, then maybe none of this, none of this would have happened. Maybe Carrie would still be alive a few hundred miles and just a phone call away.
When Sophie tried to imagine what effect Louis’s return would have, there were all sorts of obstacles, all sorts of corners that she couldn’t see around, but she knew one thing. The girls’ atheist mother had made her their godmother for a reason, to stand by them in times of need, and Sophie was going to do it. Not because she had to, she discovered as they waited at the bus stop, but because she wanted to. And she wanted to not only for the children, whom she had gradually started to admire and even like, but for Carrie, whom she was slowly beginning to miss from the outside in, like a spring thaw. Sophie was missing her friend—fierce, strong, and independent Carrie, who had been her best friend once, on that sunny afternoon in Highbury, lying on the grass, playing the air guitar.
Carrie, who was more alive to her now that she had been for years.
It was almost dark when they got back to the flat. The pale winter sun had sunk beneath the bare tree branches that laced the horizon, leaving the cold gray sky with a faint amber glow. Sophie stopped by her much missed black VW Golf with cream leather interior and patted it fondly. And then she had an idea. She thought about the dog book and the chapter she had read on puppy car sickness. She thought about her CD collection, which was spread mostly over the floor in front of the passenger seat and contained the Manic Street Preachers’ greatest hits.
“This is my car,” she said to Izzy. Izzy looked at the car.
“She’s got a name—can you guess what it is?”
Izzy blinked and looked at it. “Car?” she said after a moment.
Sophie shook her head. “It’s Phoebe,” she said. Of course the car hadn’t ever had a name in its life. Sophie loved her Golf because it went very fast on the highway and still felt like it was cruising. “She told me last night that she’s lonely, and she knows you don’t want to go for a ride in her or anything like that, but she wondered if you fancied just sitting in her for a bit because it would really cheer her up.”
Izzy’s face became deadly serious. “No thank you, Phoebe,” she said.
The main difference between three-year-olds and dogs, Sophie realized, was that three-years-olds-talked back. “Never give up until you’ve cleared that first hurdle,” the dog book said, so Sophie persisted. She opened Phoebe’s rear passenger door and nodded at Bella to get in. “Well, how about if Bella sits in the back and I sit in the passenger seat here, like this”—Sophie opened the front passenger door and perched on the seat sideways—“with my feet on the pavement, and you sit on my lap? That would cheer Phoebe up no end.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bella said, climbing in and sitting on the edge of the seat, her legs dangling over the side. Izzy remained motionless on the pavement, and although she was less than a foot away, she suddenly seemed almost out of reach.
“I was in the car with Mummy,” Izzy said in a low voice. “And there was a big bang and I was a bit shaken up, wasn’t I?”
Sophie bit her lip. “I know,” she said.
“And Mummy went out of the car,” Izzy said. “And she hasn’t come back yet. Is she coming back?”
Sophie felt the waters close over her head and suddenly realized exactly what the expression out of your depth really meant. She had been prepared for crying and tantrums and holding of breath, but she hadn’t been prepared for this. She looked over her shoulder at Bella, who sat perfectly still, her mouth and chin tucked into the neck of her coat, her eyes downcast.
“No, Izzy,” Sophie said after a moment, because there was no other answer. “Mummy isn’t coming back. Not because she doesn’t love you or Bella or want to be with you but because she’s gone now to be in the sky and the stars—” Sophie stopped, because she realized that Izzy took everything she said quite literally. She was now squinting up at the sky, looking for stars that had been blotted out by the city’s orange glow.
“But I know one thing,” Sophie said, regaining Izzy’s attention. “Mummy wouldn’t want you to be scared of anything, because you are such a very brave girl, and I know you don’t want Phoebe to be sad, do you? So why don’t you come and sit on my lap, and we’ll sing ‘Motorcycle Emptiness,’ okay?”
Izzy looked confused.
“She means the little car song,” Bella said out of the half dark. “We used to sing it a lot in the morning in our Mini on the way to school.”
“The little car song,” Sophie repeated.
Izzy took a step forward and climbed awkwardly onto Sophie’s knees, winding her fist into Sophie’s hair for support. She looked around the interior or the car. “Ready, Phoebe?” she asked the car.
“Vroom, vroom, ready,” Sophie said in a gravelly voice out of the corner of her mouth.
Izzy started humming first, and then Bella, who was the only one who knew all the words—or at least Carrie’s version of the words—chimed in. Awkwardly at first, Sophie joined in here and there. Gradually the mumbles and humming grew louder and louder until they finished the song on a rowdy
crescendo.
“Yay!” Sophie said, applauding with her arms still around Izzy’s middle.
Izzy smiled. “Did you like that, Phoebe?” she said. “Do you feel all better now, Car?”
“Vrooom, yes I do,” Sophie said in her newfound car voice. And to think only a few weeks ago she was chairing meetings of international import in boardrooms. Still, you did what you needed to do. “Do you want to come for a ride with me next time? Um…vrooom?”
Izzy climbed off Sophie’s lap and hopped back onto the pavement. “No thank you, Phoebe,” she said. “But I will come and see you again soon. I promise.”
Sophie’s downstairs neighbor emerged from the communal front door and walked briskly down the steps just as Izzy chimed, “Please let us go in now, we are ever so cold,” with Dickensian feebleness. The neighbor cast Sophie a chilly look over her shoulder and headed off to her Saturday night yoga class.
Izzy was already in bed waiting for Bella to tell her the next part of her story when Bella came into the kitchen with her glass for some fresh water. Sophie took it, tipped the old water away, and refilled it.
“That was a good idea today, Aunty Sophie. With the car, I mean. I think you helped Izzy a bit,” Bella said.
Sophie looked at Bella and, with a surge of newfound confidence concerning child/dog psychology, asked her a question. “Listen—are you okay? Because, you know, if you wanted to talk about your mum…or your dad even…”
“I’m fine,” Bella said, taking the glass carefully out of Sophie’s hand, her expression completely neutral.
“Look, Bella,” Sophie began. “All I’m saying is that—”
“I’m fine, Aunty Sophie,” Bella said, smiling just to prove it, with a wide-toothed mirthless grin. “Come on, it’s the pen-ult-i-mate part of my story tonight.” Bella used the word she had heard the BBC announcer use about half an hour before with considerable care.
“Okay.” Sophie said. “That sounds exciting.”
Later, thrilled and relieved that Blossom the fairy pony looked like she would make it back to her home with the mermaids by the sea after all, Sophie went back into the living room and fished the dog book out from underneath some cushions. Artemis came out of the kitchen and gave her a passing glance before curling up on her chair and turning her back on Sophie just to make sure she didn’t make any more reckless stroking attempts.
“What do you reckon, Artemis.” Sophie asked the cat’s back as she flicked through the pages. “Do you think there’s anything in here about telling your abandoned puppy that Daddy’s coming back?” Of course there wasn’t, so Sophie threw the book on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. He was coming, so she had to tell them. But how? Then Sophie had, in her opinion, a quite brilliant idea.
Tess could tell them.
When that was settled, Sophie began the chapter on nutrition. It told her that chocolate can be fatal to dogs.
“Thank God we’re not dogs, hey, Artemis?” she said to her cat.
Artemis did not dignify the comment with a response.
Twelve
Tess sighed and looked out the window. Sophie, who usually enjoyed the winter because it was much more sensible than the summer and gave a girl opportunities for much better clothes, was not enjoying the end of January because the sun persisted in shining in crisp blue skies day after day. Sophie was not a fan of sunshine. It seemed to give usually normal people an excuse to wear far fewer clothes than suited them, turn up late for work, take weeks and weeks off, and dawdle about being wistful over some romantic liaison or another. She had hoped for a typical wet and gloomy English winter. But no, the sun kept shining, interfering with people’s moods and, worse still, their daytime TV viewing. Sophie was glad she had blackout curtains, because she didn’t know what she would have done without the TV in the last few weeks. TV, Sophie had decided in the small dark hours of the night, was the world’s greatest invention, superseding the wheel, antibiotics, and, yes, even the open-toed sandal.
Tess sighed again.
“You seem a bit pissed off to be here, actually,” Sophie said with an edge of recrimination.
Tess pursed her lips. “Well,” she said, “it is Sunday. A day recognized in many cultures to be one of rest. But as the many messages you left me were so adamant that you had to see me, here I am. At your service.” Tess was making no attempt to hide the irritation in her voice, which frankly, Sophie thought, was just plain unprofessional.
“Yes, well, you want to try having two kids in your house. Rest? What’s rest? There are no days of rest around here,” she said, raising a now rather bushy eyebrow. She backoned Tess into the kitchen and closed the door.
“So you’ll want to know why I’ve asked you here today,” Sophie said.
“I can hardly bear the tension,” Tess replied dourly. “Look, if you want to tell me you’ve changed your mind about keeping the girls until we get Louis, then just tell me. That foster place has gone now, so I’ll need all the notice I can have to—”
“How long did you say it would take your lot to find Louis?” Sophie asked, regretting the absence of a spotlight to shine in the social worker’s eyes.
“Well, you know.” Tess looked uncomfortable. “A couple of weeks—three or four at the most.”
“Yes, that is what you told me,” Sophie said. “Funny that, because you told Mrs. Stiles it would take months.”
Tess was momentarily flustered. “Ah well, yes. Because that was what she wanted to hear. I promise you, we have done our best,” she protested feebly. “As much as resources and time will allow. And you know…” She faltered under Sophie’s stony glare. “I can assure you that every possible undertaking has been…er…undertaken to—”
“So,” Sophie interrupted her. “You are in the business of telling people what they want to hear instead of the truth, are you, Tess? You tell Mrs. Stiles it will take months so she doesn’t have to worry about Louis stealing her grandchildren away and me that it’s a matter of days so I’ll be your free babysitter. How is that ethical?”
“Look…,” Tess began. “It’s a question of priorities, and I genuinely did think it might be very quick to find Louis—but all things being equal, allowing for administration difficulties and intergovernmental authorities’ communication—”
“It’s all right. You can cut all the social worker speak. You don’t have to look for Louis Flipping Gregory,” Sophie said, enjoying her moment.
“I don’t?” Tess asked, blinking.
“No, you don’t, because I found him. Or rather, a private detective I hired did. It took two weeks. It was easy, actually.” Sophie found that she had to press her lips together in order to prevent herself from sticking her tongue out and going “na-na-na-na” at Tess, Izzy style. “He’s coming back to ‘get his girls’ apparently.” Sophie did a passable impression of his deep and slightly gruff voice. “As if he owned them or something.”
“Oh,” Tess said again, sounding ashamed. “Well, that changes things.”
“Yes, it does a bit, doesn’t it? So do you want to tell me now why you lied about finding Louis, or shall we save it for another time? Perhaps for a formal complaint hearing?” she said icily. “Because I don’t mind telling you I thought you were supposed to tell the truth. I thought it was in your job description?”
Tess screwed up her mouth into a tight knot. “I did tell you the truth, mostly. Look, they needed a place to stay and you seemed to think it was important that Louis might be back on the scene soon—so I let you draw your own conclusions. The point is—”
“My own conclusions!” Sophie raised her voice and then, remembering the children in the room next door, took a deep breath and forcibly lowered it again. “You lied to me. That’s misconduct probably.”
Tess paused before answering. “The point is I did what I thought was best for Izzy and Bella. And I didn’t lie. Not exactly.” She tested a half smile on Sophie. “Look, I know you want what’s best for those children as much as I do. Do
n’t you?”
Sophie considered the question and found somewhat to her surprise that she did. “Of course I do,” she said, glancing out the window and over the row upon row of rooftops and TV antennae that made up the cluttered horizon and wondering exactly when that had happened. She looked back at Tess and gave her a conciliatory half smile. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s forget that—for now. What is important is that you do your job.”
“Of course it is,” Tess said, sounding mildly offended.
“You have to vet Louis, make sure that he’s fit to be father to those girls. You have to check and double-check everything he’s been up to for the past three years.”
“Of course,” Tess said. “It goes without saying.”
“And what if they don’t like him—what then?”
Tess didn’t waver. “We have to try our best to reconcile them, we will reconcile them.”
Sophie nodded. There it was again—that absence of a decent Option B.
“And I thought it would be better coming from you,” she said quickly, breaking eye contact.
“What would?” Tess asked her.
“The news—you know, about Louis coming home.” Sophie glanced sideways at her. “You’re trained to do that kind of thing, aren’t you? Explain stuff like absent fathers and all that.”
Tess sighed. “Right,” she said. “Will you be there too?”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Obviously.” Admittedly, it had only just become obvious to her.
A strange thing had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours, something she hadn’t expected. When she thought about the girls and what the future might hold for them, her stomach churned and she felt a deep sense of unease, as if the world she had once stood so firmly on was tilting and swaying. She wondered if for the first time in her life she was having an actual gut feeling, about Louis Gregory. If her rarely utilized woman’s intuition existed deep within her after all, and now it was kicking in, telling her to be cautious.
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