THE PHONE RANG in the middle of the night. In his sleep-befuddled state Russell heard Alice’s panicked voice.
“It’s Rosa. She’s in the hospital. Overdose.”
“What! How, what happened? How is she?”
“She’s okay, she’s fine, they pumped out her stomach, I got to her in time, she made sure I noticed, left the empty pill bottles where I was bound to see them, she wasn’t serious, just another bloody cry for attention…”
“Jesus, Alice, she’s fifteen years old and she took an overdose and you’re trying to minimize…”
“I’m not minimizing anything!” Alice’s voice rose and she started to wail. “You just don’t know what it’s like trying to manage her, all on my own…”
And whose fucking fault is that, he thought furiously.
In her hospital bed, his daughter looked like a little Gothic wraith. Pinioned beneath a white cotton blanket, with her black hair startling against the crisp white pillow, her face was almost as pale as the bed linen. He pulled up a chair beside her bed. She looked at him and started to cry. He put his arm round her and she clung to him with surprising force.
“Don’t give up on me! I don’t want you to leave me again!”
He was perplexed.
“Hey, I’m not leaving you. What makes you think I am?”
He could hardly hear her between sobs.
“She’s gonna stop me seeing you.”
“What, Mum? She can’t do that. Anyway, why would she want to after all this time?”
“She’s gonna take you to court…”
“What?”
“…and say you’re an unsuitable parent and can’t be trusted to be with me. Says it’s child abuse.”
He was startled. Despite everything, Alice had never used that trick of making false allegations of sexual abuse against him in order to deny him contact with Rosa.
“Says you’re a bad influence, that you’ve helped me get brainwashed by Rabbi Daniel and she’s stopped me seeing him and Udi and now she’s saying I can’t change my name and it’s all your fault because you’re harming my human rights…”
“What rights?”
“…my right not to be brainwashed by religious nutjobs which is what she calls them.”
Russell was almost speechless. It was hard to say which was the greater, Alice’s stupidity or her wickedness.
“But Udi’s not even religious. Is he?”
“She says he’s a child-killing apartheid Nazi. ’Cos he’s Israeli.”
“But isn’t he still at school?”
“William Ellis.”
“Is all this why you…?”
She nodded imperceptibly.
“Dad, I hate her, she’s crazy, I wanna live with you. Can she do it? Can she get a judge to stop me seeing you?”
There was a fresh burst of sobs.
He hesitated. The truth was, he just didn’t know what she was capable of doing. In any sane world she wouldn’t be given the time of day. But then he thought about Michael Waxman and his assault.
There was something else he had to tell Rosa. He sat on her bed and took her gently by the shoulders.
“Now listen to me, munchkin. Your mother is not going to stop you seeing me.”
She brightened. “Promise?”
He took a deep breath.
“Promise. I just won’t let her do it. This whole thing is ridiculous. I will put a stop to it as soon as I can. But first I have to go on a trip.”
“A trip? Where? How long?” Rosa became alarmed.
“Israel. A few days, maybe a few weeks. I’m not sure.”
“Take me with you! Please, please!”
Of course he had been expecting that.
“Can’t do that, munchkin. I’ve got a job to do. And you’ve got to get back to school. But I will bring you back something nice from there, if you promise me you won’t do anything like this ever again. Because if you do, then we really won’t be able be together, will we. And when I come back, I’ll settle all this nonsense once and for all. Deal?”
Rosa hesitated. She looked at him. Then she made a face and put up the palm of her hand.
“Deal,” she said.
They smacked palms together.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“You haven’t called me munchkin since I was, like, five. Before…before everything went bad.”
He stroked her hair. “But I’ve never stopped thinking of you like that.”
She smiled sleepily.
When he left her, he sat for a long time in the reception area. He stared unseeing at the melee of visitors and patients coming and going. Then he took out his phone and punched in a number.
“It’s me,” he said. “For once, just shut the fuck up and listen to what I am about to say. I have just visited our daughter. It is clear to me that you drove her to try to take her own life. If I hear that you have forbidden her to see anyone or change her name, or if I hear you have either taken action to stop her seeing me or threatened her that you will do so, I will personally ensure that you are publicly exposed for the child abuser that you are so that no human rights litigant will henceforth touch you with a ten-foot pole. As no decent person should. Unfortunately, you happen to be our daughter’s mother. For once in your selfish, narcissistic life, behave like one.”
Next, he called another number.
“Of course we’ll keep an eye on her while you’re away,” said Rabbi Daniel. “Sam will visit her this afternoon.”
He punched in another number.
“Hold on, I’m coming straight round,” said Damia to the weeping man at the end of the phone.