I called at Tesco’s on my way back, filled a trolley and wrote out a cheque which cleared out any money I’d made on the case so far. I just had time to unpack the shopping, put on a load of washing and tidy the kitchen before collecting Maddie from Nursery School. She was tired and bad-tempered. We argued about who would fetch her coat, then about who would carry her lunch box and the letter notifying me of another outbreak of head-lice. I began to itch. I pulled her, sobbing, to the car. A couple of other parents flashed me sympathetic smiles.
It’s not far to the Social Services nursery where Tom goes. The places are like gold dust, but Tom qualified as Ray is a single parent on low-income. It’s a lovely place and Tom thrives on the contact with other children. He wandered out to meet me, clutching a thickly-daubed painting.
‘Mrs Costello?’ The woman who addressed me was new on the staff and hadn’t worked out the relationships yet. Maddie sneered.
‘Hello, I’m Sal Kilkenny, I share a house with Tom and his Dad.’
‘Right.’ She didn’t let it throw her. ‘We’ve a trip planned next week, to the museum at Castlefield, if you could fill in the slip and return it.’ She handed me the form letter.
‘Thanks.’
Once home, Maddie headed straight for the television. Tom followed and within seconds the squabbling started.
‘Be quiet!’ Maddie’s voice was loud enough to wake the dead. ‘I can’t hear, be quiet.’
I rushed into the lounge.
‘He’s brumming too much,’ she complained, her face pure outrage.
‘Come on Tom.’ I scooped up his cars and took them into the kitchen. Tom followed, dragging the battered Fisher Price garage after him. He brummed happily away. I watched him for a while. At what age do kids get labelled? When does a quiet child become chronically shy? Had Martin Hobbs played happily like Tom, absorbed in an imaginary world? Had he hated school, shrinking from other children? And what about Barry Dixon? When had he developed his strange quirks and mannerisms? Had his mother noticed? Had she encouraged his clever ways with words, or feared them? Would Tom and Maddie turn out happy, at ease with other people, leave home when the time was right, or were either of them already heading for troubled times, loneliness, rebellion?
I scoured the house with a black bin-liner, collecting rubbish. I left it by the back door and put the kettle on. I never drank the tea. Kids seem to be born with an innate instinct for knowing when you’re about to start a hot drink. Since Maddie’s arrival my tea-drinking had been transformed from a revitalising ritual to a series of lukewarm or clapcold disappointments.
