She Chose Me

by Tracey Emerson

  Fiona Braithwaite appointed Chief Officer for Child Protection Services

  The accompanying photograph confirms that this Fiona Braithwaite is the social worker assigned to me twenty years ago. Her profile contains a link to her council office’s contact details. I try the number given. The thought of speaking to her again scares me, but I have to do it. There must be a way of tracking my daughter down, and she might be able to help me.

  My call goes through to a voicemail message informing me the office is closed until after New Year. A helpline number is offered for emergencies.

  I hang up. What now?

  ***

  Aroma is packed, a queue at the counter and every table full. Ryan is nowhere to be seen. I stop one of the self-important waitresses as she weaves her way around the tables, holding aloft a plate of sourdough toast.

  ‘He’s here somewhere,’ she says, when I ask if Ryan is working today. ‘Check at the counter.’

  I join the back of the queue but can only see another young guy with a dark beard manning the coffee machines.

  ‘Two lattes, one flat white,’ he calls and the queue edges forward. I take my phone from my coat pocket and check the screen in case I’ve missed a call from Birch Grove. Nothing so far.

  Ryan strides through the door next to the coffee machines, a bulky hessian sack on his shoulder.

  ‘Ryan.’ I push my way to the counter, ignoring the tuts and sullen glances that come my way.

  ‘Hey, Grace.’ He dumps the sack on the floor.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Mate, I really need that coffee done,’ insists the bearded barista.

  ‘It’s urgent,’ I say.

  ‘Hang on a second, Grace.’ Ryan opens the sack and scoops coffee beans into a machine that emits a deafening crunching sound when he switches it on. ‘Won’t be long, mate,’ he promises his flustered colleague, as he slips out from behind the counter.

  ‘Do you know a girl called Emma?’ I ask.

  He shrugs. ‘I know a few girls called Emma. Why?’

  ‘Does one of them live on Highbury Terrace?’ He frowns. ‘I think I saw you there yesterday,’ I add.

  ‘Yeah. I went over there in the afternoon.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Visiting my girlfriend.’ He grimaces. ‘Ex-girlfriend.’

  My heart thumps. ‘Emma?’

  ‘Cassie.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Or psycho-bitch, as my mates call her.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s her name?’

  ‘Course I’m sure.’

  ‘Do you have any photos of her?’

  He glances back at the counter and the static queue. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Please, Ryan. It’s important.’

  ‘I’ve deleted most of them.’ He takes his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Hang on.’ He scrolls through the images on the screen. ‘That’s a fairly recent one.’

  A close-up of Emma’s face looks out at me. Her eyes are blue, not brown, yet I’m sure it’s her.

  ‘I know this girl,’ I say. ‘She’s a care worker at an old people’s home in Brentham.’

  ‘Her gran lives in Brentham,’ he says. ‘Cass has been down there a couple of days a week to look after her, but she’s not a care worker.’

  ‘She’s employed at a nursing home called Birch Grove.’

  Ryan laughs. ‘I doubt Cass has ever done a day’s work in her life. She’s a rich, spoiled girl with a ton of issues.’

  ‘Has she ever mentioned her mother?’

  ‘Her mother’s dead.’

  That ties in with what Emma told me.

  ‘Not her real mother,’ Ryan adds. ‘I thought she meant her real mother but then she goes and tells me she’s adopted.’ He sighs. ‘To be honest, I don’t know how much of what she told me was true.’

  I feel faint. The chatter of the café swims around me.

  ‘She’s pissed at her real mother, that’s for sure,’ Ryan says. ‘Weird how someone so bright can be so nuts.’

  My hands reach out to steady myself on the counter.

  ‘Hey?’ Ryan’s hand on my arm. ‘You okay?’

  I nod. Cassie. Is she my daughter?

  ‘Grace.’ Ryan gives my arm a gentle shake. ‘Your phone’s ringing.’

  So it is. Chirping away in my coat pocket. I pull it out and see the Birch Grove number on the screen.

  ‘Grace,’ Kegs says when I answer.

  ‘You got my message? Thanks for calling back.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’ He sounds hassled. ‘Listen, we’ve had a bit of an incident here.’ His next words get lost amidst the hissing of the coffee machine and manic laughter from the table behind me.

  ‘Hang on, Kegs.’ I leave the café and stand on the pavement next to the steamed-up window. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘We’ve had a fire,’ he says, ‘a small one. The fire brigade have been and it’s all contained but we’ve moved your mum to hospital, just to—’

  ‘Is she hurt?’

  ‘She inhaled a tiny amount of smoke while Emma was getting her out of there. She’s in a stable condition, but the smoke hasn’t helped her breathing.’

  ‘Emma?’

  ‘Luckily she was nearby when the alarm went off. She put your mum into a wheelchair and got her out of harm’s way before going back to help the other residents.’

  That sounds like the kind of heroic thing Emma would do. But Emma isn’t Emma.

  ‘I don’t think she’s who she claims to be,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Emma. I think she’s someone else.’

  ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘Is she still there?’

  ‘Yep. The paramedics are checking her out.’

  ‘She lied about her identity,’ I tell him. ‘Her name’s Cassie.’

  ‘Emma’s middle name is Cassie,’ he says, not bothering to mask his impatience. ‘That must be where you’re getting mixed up.’

  In the background, a deep male voice interrupts us.

  ‘Just a minute.’ Kegs proceeds to talk to the man, their conversation muffled, as if Kegs has his hand over the receiver. ‘Listen,’ he says when he returns, ‘I’m up to my eyes in it here. Can we talk later?’

  ‘But I’m not sure if Emma and Cassie are the same person. I mean, they are, but—’

  ‘Sorry, Grace,’ he says, ‘I’ve got to go.’

  57

  Wednesday, 30 December 2015

  The charred taste of smoke lay heavy on my tongue and my chest hurt each time I took a breath. The paramedic, an efficient woman with icy hands, removed the arm cuff from my right bicep and packed away her blood pressure gauge.

  ‘Does your throat feel burned?’ she asked. I shook my head.

  ‘Tried not to inhale,’ I said, my voice hoarse. She pressed two fingers against my wrist and took my pulse.

  ‘Do you feel dizzy?’

  ‘No.’ My eyes wouldn’t stop stinging though. I longed to take my contact lenses out but couldn’t risk anyone seeing me with blue eyes. My arms and back ached already from the strain of getting Grandma into a wheelchair.

  When I swallowed, my pungent saliva almost made me gag. I imagined particles of Len’s mattress swirling round in the smoke. Atoms of his skin and urine.

  Brenda hurtled into reception, stopping short when she saw me occupying the chair behind her desk.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’ she screeched. The fire and the ensuing drama had left her more hyper than usual.

  ‘I’m only borrowing your chair,’ I explained, but she’d shifted her attention to the firemen swaggering through the main door. With all the people coming and going, poor Brenda couldn’t keep up. Once the immediate danger had passed, we’d herded most of the residents back inside to the TV and activity rooms. No one seemed to know what was happening. Could the residents go back to their rooms? Would all ground-floor residents be moved to other care homes until the fire damage had been repaired
?

  ‘You should come to A&E with us for a proper check-up,’ the paramedic said.

  I declined the offer, despite wanting to be near my grandmother, who’d left in an ambulance earlier. Best to stick around and find out what the fire brigade had to say about the blaze. I wondered where Len had left his smouldering cigarette butt this time—under his bed, behind the curtains, next to that stack of old newspapers?

  ‘Here she is.’ Kegs appeared beside me with one of the firemen. ‘Our hero.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The fireman settled his bulk on the edge of the desk and removed his helmet. ‘You showed some quick thinking.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ I said.

  He introduced himself as Olly and said he had a few questions for me. ‘Seeing as you discovered the fire.’

  Vera scurried up and asked the paramedic to come and take a look at Len.

  ‘Probably just stress,’ Vera said, ‘but he’s complaining of shooting pains in his arm.’ She avoided my gaze. No wonder. If she’d followed up on my information earlier, none of this would have happened.

  ‘He should be bloody stressed,’ Kegs muttered. Vera and the paramedic headed for the TV room. Kegs excused himself, saying he had to start phoning the relatives. ‘I’ll ring Grace first,’ he said, ‘let her know Polly’s in hospital.’

  I swivelled my chair round to get a view of him through the open office door.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Olly said, running a hand through his thinning ginger hair.

  ‘It was all so fast,’ I replied. Kegs had the phone to his ear and was chatting away. Fingers crossed he’d tell my mother everything I’d done.

  Olly nodded. ‘These things get out of control so easily.’

  Memory lumbered into reception from the direction of the TV room and glared at me.

  ‘There was so much smoke,’ I said. Memory sidled closer, eavesdropping as I described the smoke billowing out of the room when I’d pushed Len’s door open. ‘It was everywhere.’

  Memory shook her head. ‘In fire training, they tell you don’t open the door if you think there is fire behind it,’ she said, ‘everybody knows that.’

  ‘I thought Len was in there. What was I supposed to do? Leave him to burn to death?’

  ‘It’s okay, Cassie,’ Olly said, ‘the real thing is nothing like training. Everyone panics.’

  ‘You’d just given Len coffee in the TV lounge,’ Memory continued, ‘how could he have walked all the way back to his room so quick?’

  ‘I was trying to save the residents,’ I said. ‘I got Mrs Walker out as soon as I could.’

  ‘I know,’ said Olly, ‘you did a great job.’

  Memory snorted with disbelief and shuffled off, but I had other problems to contend with. Kegs still had the phone to his ear but was gazing at me with a perplexed expression. Perplexed and irritated. Or was I just imagining that?

  ‘Excuse me.’ The fireman hauled himself off the desk and strode over to speak to one of his colleagues who’d just emerged from my grandmother’s corridor. The two of them interrupted Kegs, who hung up on my mother to confer with them.

  ‘What did Grace say?’ I asked Kegs as he and the two firemen walked past.

  ‘Later, Emma,’ he said, as he hurried away. What had my mother told him?

  The paramedic reappeared, pushing Len in a wheelchair.

  ‘Don’t you blame me,’ Len shouted. ‘It’s not my bloody fault.’

  I had to get away. As the paramedic approached, I bent over coughing. ‘I’m having trouble breathing,’ I gasped.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  ***

  Casualties of all sorts filled the emergency ward at Brentham General. A young boy with a sling on his right arm and a fat man with bandaged eyes and a spider’s web tattooed on his neck. A teenage girl vomited into one of those grey cardboard bedpans while her mother gave her a loud, overdue lecture on the dangers of recreational drugs.

  At least the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth kept the odours of the ward away, and the cool air pushing into my lungs was not unpleasant. I couldn’t stay long though. Not after the way Kegs had looked at me. What if he turned up here asking questions I didn’t want to answer?

  My backpack lay on the chair beside my bed. I’d managed to grab it from the office along with my coat before getting into the ambulance. Taking out my phone, I checked the time. 12.43 p.m. I sat up and removed the mask.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ A nurse with hair that matched the blue of her uniform ordered me back into bed.

  ‘What happened to Polly Walker?’ I asked when she handed me back the mask. ‘The old lady in the care home fire. She’s one of my favourites.’

  ‘Put your mask on and I’ll see what I can find out,’ the nurse said. I obeyed and she returned five minutes later to inform me Mrs Walker now occupied a side room in the Stroke Ward. ‘That’s all we had free for her,’ she said.

  The man with the bandaged eyes shouted for assistance and the nurse hurried over to him. As soon as she had her back to me, I pulled off the mask, picked up my coat and bag and crept out of the ward.

  I set off down a long corridor, the overhead signs with their blue arrows guiding me to the main stairwell. The ward directory next to the lifts instructed me to go to the second floor for the Stroke Ward. Once there, I attempted to enter unnoticed, but the officious nurse behind the reception desk stopped me.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m here to visit Polly Walker.’

  ‘Family only at this time,’ he said. I longed to tell him of my relationship to Polly Walker but decided against it.

  ‘I’m the person who saved her life,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry.’ He tucked a pen into the breast pocket of his white tunic. ‘Her daughter rang and said no visitors.’

  Typical of my mother. Ruining everything. I couldn’t shake the fear she was closing in on me. Surely she should be grateful for all I’d done?

  Outside the ward, I removed my contact lenses and dumped them in a nearby bin. I needed to get out of the hospital. I needed to walk in the fresh air and think. On my way to the main entrance, I spotted a sign that enticed me to take a detour. Obeying another set of blue arrows, I ended up at the hospital’s neonatal unit.

  The entry doors were sealed, both for security and to prevent infections from harming the newborns. A buzzer sounded from inside and the doors opened outwards. A nurse strode out of the ward, cheery in her pink smock and trousers. Just before the doors swung shut, I caught a glimpse of the world beyond them. The long glass that shielded the hissing, beeping incubators. Inside those machines, puny bodies would be swithering between life and death. A waiting game. Waiting to see which babies were too damaged to survive and which would emerge as miracles.

  58

  Wednesday, 30 December 2015

  I arrive at Brentham station just before one-thirty, half an hour late thanks to signal works outside Stratford. Throughout the delay, I stood by the carriage door, heart and nerves jumping, willing the train to start moving again.

  Outside the station, I head for the taxi rank and clamber into the car at the head of the line.

  ‘Priory Road,’ I say, ‘anywhere near the bus station will do.’

  The glum driver pulls away without speaking. As we surge onto the roundabout at the station exit, I almost change my mind and ask him to go to Brentham General. When I phoned the hospital from the train, a nurse from Mum’s ward assured me she is stable and safe, but I still need to see her.

  The taxi takes the second turnoff towards town, and I decide to stick with my plan. Before visiting Mum, I need to find out the truth about Emma. Cassie. Whoever she is.

  We skirt the town centre on the ring road and are soon on Priory Road. The driver lurches to a stop.

  ‘Six pounds, please,’ he grunts. I hand him a tenner and jump out without waiting for the change. A short walk past the bus station brings me to the street with the sex shop on the corner. E
mma’s street.

  As soon as I see her tall, white building, a hot ball of panic lodges in my chest. If she’s back from Birch Grove, I’ll confront her. If not, this might be my chance to find out the truth. In the litter-strewn passageway at the side of the house, the hot ball of panic sends out a flare and coats my palms with sweat.

  I press the buzzer on the bottom left of the panel. No reply.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ barks a man’s voice when I hit the buzzer on the right.

  ‘Got a delivery. Can you—’

  He buzzes me in without a word.

  A hallway with three doors and a narrow staircase. Grimy beige carpet beneath my feet as I ascend to the first floor. A rank smell emanates from an overflowing rubbish bag outside one of the flats. Carcass bones poke out of the black plastic, and the torn skins of Christmas crackers have spilled to the ground.

  Ryan said Cassie was angry with her mother. She must be if she’s willing to live here. I remind myself her anger is my fault. She is my responsibility. I hurry up to Emma’s floor. Cassie’s floor. Comparing this place to the grandeur of Highbury, it seems impossible that Emma and Cassie could be the same person.

  A lone door greets me. Scuffed white plywood in a splintered frame. Heart struggling against my ribs, I rap on it three times. No answer. I listen for signs of her presence but hear nothing. My right hand curls around the doorknob.

  With the first push, splinters of wood flake away from the frame, confirming the door’s flimsiness. I place my shoulder against it and heave. The door shifts, but the lock holds fast. Another heave, and the door yields a little more. After one final push it gives way, but a door chain stops it opening. I wriggle my hand around the door but cannot slide the chain free. Frustrated, I yank it downwards. It comes away from the door with a loud cracking sound.

  ***

  The door refuses to close again, so I leave it ajar. I take my phone from my coat pocket and switch it to vibrate.

  ‘Emma?’

  The cramped room offers no hiding places. I take in the messy sofa bed and the small pair of pink slippers askew beside it. The galley kitchen is a disaster—dirty plates and plastic tumblers spread across the work surface. The door next to the kitchen leads to a bathroom so small that the side of the toilet touches the narrow bath. Bargain-size bottles of cheap shampoo and body wash cluster on the shelf above the taps. Pink, purple and white candles in decorative tins line the side of the bath. I shiver. The bathroom is freezing, just like the other room, but the smell of damp is stronger here. Black spots of mould pattern the grouting between the grubby white tiles.