Playing Nice

What the child’s wishes are. Although Theo is very young, CAFCASS advisers are trained to use indirect techniques to elicit a young child’s feelings in situations such as these.

Acrimony from Mr. Riley and Ms. Wilson toward the applicants, and how it may alienate or otherwise affect the child.

The report should conclude by making recommendations to the court regarding the child’s long-term situation.

Lyn Edwards,

Family Court Adviser

74

MADDIE

THAT NIGHT, I GET drunk—properly, mind-numbingly drunk. With Theo asleep and no Pete to give me disapproving looks every time I top up my glass, I drink myself into a miserable oblivion.

I wake up next morning with a stinking hangover, made worse by having to get Theo dressed, breakfasted, and off to the Lamberts’ on my own. Usually, I slink off to the Tube in silence, leaving Pete to do all this. I hadn’t really appreciated just how draining Theo can be at this hour.

“Daddy cuts my toast inter soljers.”

“Daddy isn’t here today, Theo.”

“Daddy gets my toofbrush all ready.”

“Like I said, Theo, Daddy isn’t here.”

I miss him—not just the practical Pete, laying a precise three-millimeter fuse of toddler-safe toothpaste on a brush, but also Pete the warm presence in our bed, making room between our backs for Theo as he clambers between us. Was I too quick to let him go? Should I have fought Lyn’s monstrous proposal more fiercely? And should I have been more affectionate before he left? We’d barely spoken as he packed a bag, nor when Theo finally fell asleep, exhausted, in his arms. “Don’t forget his snack in the morning,” Pete had said as he opened the front door, and I’d simply nodded. The truth was, I didn’t know who I was saying goodbye to any longer. It was ridiculous to conflate a commonplace weakness like looking at porn with thinking he could have stolen someone else’s child, but I didn’t know what to think now. We’d become strangers to each other.

And that was how we parted, with strangers’ distant nods.

* * *

—

AT THE LAMBERTS’, THEO eagerly runs to push the intercom button, then bounds up the steps without waiting for it to be answered. I’d been expecting Lucy, or possibly Tania, so it’s a shock to be met by Miles himself, pulling open the door in a T-shirt and jeans.

“Maddie. How nice to see you.”

“Fuck off, Miles.”

Miles grins. “Please—I must ask you to moderate your language in front of the children.” Theo had briefly rugby-tackled Miles’s legs before running into the house, so there was absolutely no chance he could have heard.

He eyes me with amusement. Annoyingly, it makes him even more good-looking. “It’s fun, this, isn’t it?” he says cheerfully. “Makes life so much more interesting.”

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be at work.”

“I might ask you the same question. My answer, by the way, is that I’m taking time off to be with my children. It’s so important for both parents to be actively involved, don’t you think?”

“Again, fuck off.” I wonder if he knows Pete has been made to move out. I suspect he does—some weaselly back channel of information, lubricated by money. “And actually, I’m on my way to work now.” I hesitate. “I need to ask if you’ll have Theo until a bit later for the next few days. Say, four o’clock. I can’t really get away any earlier.”

“And if I said—how did you put it just now?—‘Fuck off, Maddie’?” He waits, but I can tell he’s only playing with me. Eventually he sighs happily. “Of course. It will be a pleasure to have my son with us for longer during the day.”

As I go down the steps, he adds, “It’ll be good preparation for when he moves in permanently. I’m sure the court will see it that way, too. Particularly when they learn that it was your toe-rag of a partner who stole him from us. Who would have thought Perfect Pete had it in him to do a thing like that, Maddie? Perhaps he’s not quite the man you thought he was.”

Again I don’t rise to it, although I’m shaking with fury. As I turn the corner he calls after me, “I’ll see you at the hearing. On Tuesday. Make sure you turn up this time, won’t you?”

* * *

—

I’D MEANT TO GO straight on to work, but I go home instead. I’m amazed by how focused I am. At the Lamberts’ house, listening to Miles’s taunts, I’d felt adrenaline coursing through me, the ancient fight-or-flight reflex prickling my skin, blood pounding in my ears.

The CAFCASS letter is waiting on the mat. I open it and read the revised list of recommendations with a mixture of anger and resignation. So now Lyn has me in her sights, as well as Pete. I scrunch the letter up and let it fall to the floor. As if in a dream, I pull two big suitcases out of the understairs cupboard where they’re kept. In Theo’s room I work quickly, transferring clothes—five T-shirts, five pairs of jeans, ten pairs of socks—into the first case. All so neatly ironed and folded by Pete, still smelling of the eco-friendly fabric conditioner he uses.

For my own suitcase, I just throw in a few things from my wardrobe.

The passports are downstairs, in the desk drawer. I check mine’s in date. The photograph shows me with long, unstyled hair down to my chest, an unflattering center parting falling around a fresh, innocent face. So innocent, from a different time. And Theo’s—he was less than a year old when his was taken. Incredible to think he’ll be eleven when this passport expires.

But of course, he won’t be. Miles will get his surname changed to Lambert; a new, British passport issued.

I check Skyscanner. There’s a Cathay Pacific flight leaving tonight via Hong Kong. One-way tickets are only six hundred pounds. In a little over forty-eight hours, I could be waking up in my old bedroom at home with Theo beside me. The sun will be shining, my parents will be overjoyed. Dad will be making plans, taking care of things. If I leave it even a few more days it’ll be too late: At the hearing, the court will undoubtedly agree to Miles’s request and issue an order stopping me and Theo from traveling.

I sit on the bed, the passports in my hands, and sob. Because I know, in my heart, that flight is not an option.

Which only leaves the other thing.

75

MADDIE

I GO TO GREG and Kate’s and bang on the door until Greg answers. Behind him I can see Pete at the kitchen table, supervising Play-Doh with Lily and Alfie. The two men, as well as the children, are wearing matching red plastic aprons, and for a moment my heart swells at the sweetness of it all.

“Pete,” Greg calls, seeing me. “Maddie’s here.”

Pete comes to the door. Now that I see him close-up, he looks gaunt. He hasn’t shaved and the whites of his eyes are pink. “Yes?” he says blankly.

“We need to fight this,” I tell him. “Properly fight it. Not just with lawyers. We need to fight it like Miles is fighting—with every fiber.”

“Come in,” he says after a moment, holding open the door.

* * *

—

“THE ONE THING THAT will make all this go away is if we can work out who did swap those babies.”

Greg has taken the children to Kidzone, to give Pete and me some space. We sit on either side of the kitchen table. Both of us, without thinking, have reached for handfuls of Play-Doh and are kneading it as we talk. Pete’s still wearing Kate’s apron, which is several sizes too small for him.

“Okay,” Pete says cautiously. “But how?”

“The way I see it,” I say, pulling a child’s pad toward me to make notes, “there are five possibilities. First, that Miles somehow swapped the babies himself.”

“But why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. But for example, what if he planned to sue the hospital all along? What if it was all some giant moneymaking scheme? After all, he knew he’d be able to use a DNA test to get his own child back whenever he wanted. He just had to make sure he exposed the swap before the children were three years old and we’d acquired parental rights.”