Happy Families

Answer: (If this looks upside down, you’ve drunk too much already.) You are a rubbish parent, regardless of whichever one you picked.

Chapter 14

VANESSA

SHE SHOULD HAVE come clean tonight. Why hadn’t she had the guts to stand up in class and say, ‘Look, everyone, I’ve got a real problem. My granddaughter has turned up to live with me and I’ve completely forgotten how to bring up kids. I made a hash of it with her mother anyway so it’s not as though I’ve got much experience to go by. Sunshine – funny name, I know – seems to have settled, but recently she’s started to have nightmares in her sleep. Now her father, or at least that’s what he says he is, has turned up out of the blue. I’m scared he’s going to try and take her away from me. My friend Brian used to teach him and says he’s bad news. Oh, and I still don’t know where my daughter (Sunshine’s mother) is.’

Then again, thought Vanessa, would they have understood? Everyone else in the class had normal problems like trying to get their children to go to bed on time or making them eat their vegetables. How she wanted to tell them that none of this was important! The only really crucial bit about parenting was to keep talking. To communicate. To make sure that they didn’t run away when they were sixteen.

When Brigid had walked out all those years ago, Vanessa had been convinced she would come back just as she had done before. Every time the phone rang, Vanessa would dive for it, desperately hoping it was her daughter. Each day the postman came up the path, she fell on the post in case there was a letter in familiar handwriting. But there never was. And although the Salvation Army, as well as the police, had put up Missing posters, showing a sullen Brigid in her Goth stage, there had been no response.

‘You might have to prepare yourself for the worst,’ said one of the police counsellors who had tried to help.

‘She’s not dead,’ Vanessa retorted. She tapped her chest. ‘If she was, I would feel it here.’

Then nearly a year after Brigid had left, an envelope bearing that distinctive swirly writing fluttered through the door with an indecipherable postmark, Vanessa had seized it, fingers trembling as she tore it open. A photograph fell out. Just a small one. A baby. A tiny baby, lying on a blanket from what she could see.

Feverishly, Vanessa had turned the photograph over. This is the granddaughter you wanted me to get rid of. Don’t try and contact us.

That wasn’t true! She hadn’t wanted Brigid to have an abortion. She’d merely pointed out that it was one option. But her daughter had misread her reaction. Vanessa comforted herself with the thought that at least Brigid still cared enough to send a photograph. Maybe she would ring next time or send another picture.

But as the weeks and then the months and then the years went by, Vanessa reluctantly accepted the fact that her daughter was never coming back. She would never be allowed to see her granddaughter whose photograph she kept by the side of her bed; whose little face she kissed every night.

Now, however, even worse was the uncertainty. Why had Brigid sent her daughter here with some scruffy stranger who had just vanished into thin air? Was her daughter ever going to turn up to get Sunshine? And if she did, would she just whisk her off again?

Vanessa couldn’t bear the idea of that. Sunshine might not have been with her for very long but, already, she couldn’t imagine life without her. Yet it was that horrible ex-boyfriend of her daughter’s who really worried her. That was the most important thing to deal with right now. She needed to find out – fast – whether he had any legal rights to her granddaughter.

‘There’s a solicitor on the high street who’s quite good,’ Brian told her during one of their late-night telephone conversations. ‘He’ll tell you the score. Might cost you, mind, but I could help out if you’d like.’

‘I can afford it, thanks,’ Vanessa had said hurriedly. Brian was a good man – she was pretty certain of that – but she didn’t want to be indebted to anyone.

‘Anyone claiming paternity rights has to be able to prove it,’ the solicitor told her. ‘Has this young man suggested a DNA test?’

Vanessa shook her head, her mouth dry. Sunshine was sitting on the floor beside her, quietly reading one of her books, oblivious to the fact that her future was being discussed. Bobbie’s son would be jumping up and down and touching those legal files. Sometimes, Sunshine was unnerving. ‘He hasn’t been in touch since.’

The solicitor raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘That doesn’t mean he won’t. The best advice I can give you is to try and get hold of your daughter. You say you’ve contacted the Foreign Office?’

She nodded.

‘Then I don’t know what else to suggest, to be honest.’ There was a sympathetic look. ‘I feel for you. I’m a grandfather myself.’

It wasn’t sympathy she wanted, it was practical help!

That had been a few days ago. Since then, Vanessa had been trying to distract herself by concentrating on her granddaughter. ‘How about a game of Snakes and Ladders? Mummy used to like that at your age.’

But Sunshine seemed quite happy to sit and play her flute with a haunting foreign melody. Then one morning on the way to school, she began jumping up and down and pointing at a teenager whizzing past wearing a silver and red safety helmet. ‘Look at that bike,’ called out Sunshine excitedly. Her face was shining in a way she hadn’t seen before. ‘It’s like Mummy’s! We used to ride together!’

‘Really?’ A picture of her daughter and this little mite, cycling through some mud village in Goa, formed in Vanessa’s mind.

‘We can ride too!’ Sunshine was still jumping up and down. ‘You and me!’

Vanessa roared with laughter. ‘I don’t think so, poppet. It’s been years since I was on one.’

‘Yes, Van Van. Yes.’ Sunshine was tugging her hand. ‘We can get them now instead of going to school.’

She was serious too! ‘Tell you what. I’ll try and find you a second-hand bike and we’ll go for a ride in the park another day. How about that?’

In fact, it only took her a few hours to find one; it turned out that the woman over the road still had her daughter’s blue and silver Raleigh in the garage. Vanessa got it checked over by the local bike shop where she also bought a helmet, and before she could say, ‘On you get then,’ her granddaughter was off, screeching with laughter, down the cycle lane in the park with Vanessa running after her, flapping her arms and calling at her to come back. The message was plain. If Vanessa wanted to keep up, she needed to get a bike of her own.

It was the perfect weather for it. This year’s spring, as everyone was remarking, was more like summer with warm balmy days that were just right for cycling to and from school through the park. Vanessa hadn’t laughed so much in her life: she felt like a teenager again. And, even better, Sunshine was giggling like a normal kid. ‘Faster, Van Van!’ she kept saying. ‘Faster!’

There was only one problem. Great as it was to play with her granddaughter, she also needed to be in the shop. Kim wasn’t going to be there much longer and Vanessa needed help fast. She’d have to ask around. The business needed more than one pair of hands if it was going to carry on being successful and goodness knows, she needed the income. New shoes and school uniform and all the other expenses soon added up. Still, what was that compared with having her granddaughter?

One evening, as Vanessa sorted through yet another bag of designer cast-offs in the shop while Sunshine curled up quietly at the back, reading an eight-year-plus book, her mobile went.

‘Brian!’ she said, feeling her spirits soar. He hadn’t called for a few days and she couldn’t help thinking she’d put him off with her constant excuses about being ‘busy’. But Sunshine had to be her first priority. Besides, part of her was scared. Much as Vanessa liked Brian, she didn’t want him to creep through the armour she’d built up; she couldn’t afford to let anyone hurt her again.

‘It’s good to hear your voice, Vanessa.’ That might have sounded smarmy coming from someone else but the way he said it made her feel like a million dollars.

‘What have you been up to?’ she heard herself saying like a nervous adolescent.

‘Hanging around the stables. That’s why I’m ringing actually. Upper Cut is running at Ascot next Thursday. Want to come?’

She’d have loved to. But who’d look after Sunshine? Vanessa felt a twinge of frustration. She’d been so used to doing what she wanted, when she wanted. But she had responsibilities now.

‘I understand, Ness. How about tonight then? I could come round with a bottle.’

‘That would be lovely!’

It would too. Some men might have been put off by Sunshine’s arrival. It wasn’t every man who could cope with another woman’s child, let alone a grandchild. The ‘Ness’ bit made her feel rather warm inside. He’d called her that when they’d been … well … together and, to her surprise, she’d quite liked it.

‘What time does little one go to bed?’ he asked.

‘Any time after the sun has set! I’m not joking. From what I gather, that was the kind of life my granddaughter has been leading.’

He chuckled, the nice warm chuckle that made Vanessa feel things weren’t so difficult after all. ‘Not a bad way of doing it, if you ask me. Early to bed and all that. Shall we say 8 p.m. then?’

Vanessa felt something tingle inside. That evening in bed with Brian, on the night that Sunshine had come into her life, still gave her the shivers in the nicest way. He’d been what some of her romantic novels described as ‘masterful’ but ‘considerate’ at the same time. Nor had he seemed repulsed by the neat scar where her right breast used to be.

Eight o’clock! Vanessa smiled to herself as she went about Sunshine’s bedtime routine; a routine which was now becoming strangely familiar. She couldn’t wait!

They’d been lying next to each other for about half an hour in that lovely post-lovemaking glow when Brian heard it. ‘What’s that noise?’ he said, sitting bolt upright so that her head, which had been nicely positioned on his broad shoulders, fell on the pillow.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ she murmured sleepily, still aware of his imprint inside her. For the first time in years, Vanessa felt beautiful. At least, that was one of the words that Brian had murmured while they were exploring each other’s bodies. It wasn’t true, of course, but it had been a lovely thing to say.

‘A chanting noise. There it is again. Hear it? It’s getting closer.’

‘Quick!’ Instantly, she pushed him off the side of his bed and threw his trousers at him. ‘Get into the wardrobe. Now!’

He’d only just closed the doors behind him – the type with slats in them so he could breathe – when Sunshine wandered in. Her eyes had a strange glazed look to them and Vanessa knew she was sleepwalking, while chanting that low ‘ummm’ sound at the same time. She was heading straight for Brian’s side of the bed as though she knew exactly where to go. ‘It’s all right, Sunshine,’ she whispered, holding out her arms. ‘I’m here.’

‘Mummy!’ The word came out as clear as day. Sunshine was looking straight at her with that weird expression as though her eyes belonged to an old china doll Vanessa had once owned. ‘Mummy!’

She thinks I’m Brigid! realised Vanessa with a start.

Then the child’s eyes snapped shut and she curled up in a ball, her back facing the wardrobe. Vanessa waited a few minutes until she was certain that Sunshine really was asleep. ‘You can come out now,’ she hissed.

Slowly the wardrobe doors opened and a somewhat dishevelled Brian emerged, bare-chested and still in his underpants (maroon like that flipping jumper!), clutching his trousers. Vanessa, trying hard not to giggle, held a ‘sshh’ finger to her lips.

‘I’ll give you a ring, shall I, Ness?’ he whispered.

She nodded, hoping that he would. Lying there, stiff with nerves, she waited for the click of the front door. Then she glanced down at Sunshine, noticing that her hand was, as usual, firmly clasped round her flute. How she loved her: this mini version of her daughter who was so much more biddable. Yet clearly, she wasn’t adapting as well as Vanessa had thought. Sleepwalking was usually a sign of inner turmoil. She’d have to book an appointment at the doctor.

In the morning, she woke to find Sunshine wide awake, looking at her in a strange way. Suddenly, Vanessa realised that her nightdress, which she’d slipped on just before her granddaughter had come in, was open at the chest.

‘You have a scar!’ Sunshine was tracing it with her finger, her eyes soft with sympathy. ‘Poor Van Van. Did you get a nasty cut?’

‘Not exactly,’ Vanessa started to say but Sunshine was nodding her head.

‘Yes, nasty cut. Like Mummy.’

She was talking baby language; something that she did when upset about something, Vanessa had noticed.

‘Like Mummy?’ Vanessa repeated faintly.

But the child was still tracing the scar with her finger. ‘Make better,’ she said, smiling up at her. ‘I’ll make it better now.’

‘Sunshine!’ Vanessa was sitting upright, every nerve in her body on fire. ‘What did you mean about Mummy? Has someone hurt her?’

But the child’s face had clamped down now. She started to play the flute: a jolly, familiar tune about ten little ducks which Vanessa hadn’t heard her play before. A tune she had taught Brigid to sing when she’d been very small and one which her daughter must have taught her own child.

‘Please tell me,’ whispered Vanessa. But Sunshine carried on playing. What on earth should she do now?