The lawyer’s letter was short, and dripped with honey. It thanked Winnie and George effusively for their willingness to foster Yoyo’s daughter Mary during her mother’s illness. Yoyo, it claimed, had now recovered sufficiently to care for her daughter, and was naturally most eager to do so. Winnie and George were requested to deliver the child to Margaret Smythe-Collingsworth’s home by Friday at 4 p.m. Since it was likely that an affectionate relationship had developed between foster-parents and child, Yoyo was more than willing to negotiate a visitation schedule, whereby either Winnie or George (one at a time, please!) would be welcome to visit Mary at Promised Land occasionally. A sentence confirming Yoyo’s deep gratitude for the service rendered.
There was one sentence containing a veiled threat. Should the child not be delivered as requested Yoyo would have no option but to seek a judicial order.
And that was it.
I held a weeping Winnie in my arms as we waited for George to arrive.
‘I should have listened to him. I’m such a fool! Why did I trust her? We should have adopted her properly when she was a baby. I’m a fool, Mama, the biggest fool on earth!’
I rubbed her back and said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She was correct. She had acted foolishly, and all in the name of trust. Sometimes Winnie was too kind for her own good, and this was one of those times. Trust Yoyo? Speaking as her own mother, I would rather trust a snake. I had always advised against trusting Yoyo, as had George. But Winnie had insisted that trust was the foundation of all that was meaningful between humans. She wanted to trust her sister. She needed to.
And now this.
George burst through the door.
‘Show me the letter!’
Winnie waved it in his direction, her face buried in my shoulder. George grabbed it, scanned it and bounded to the phone.
‘Who’re you calling?’
‘Who do you think? Andrew Stewart, of course. Best lawyer in Georgetown.’
But as it turned out, not even Andrew could save Grace from Yoyo’s claws. Winnie and George did not have a leg to stand on. Not even the fact that George was Grace’s biological father helped; Clarence’s name as the child’s father was on the birth certificate – a copy of which was enclosed in the lawyer’s letter – and that, it seemed, sufficed. Biology did not count.
But everyone can see that Clarence is not the father!’ fumed George. ‘Just look at her! Everyone knows that we…’ He glanced at Winnie and left the sentence unfinished.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Andrew, who had rushed over the moment he finished work. We were all sitting in the gallery discussing the way forward. Winnie, thank goodness, had managed to calm herself. Grace herself was out in the backyard with the boys. ‘Clarence was the legal father, as Yoyo’s husband. He didn’t contest fatherhood, so there’s nothing we can do.’
‘But we have raised her for two years!’ Winnie wailed. ‘Surely that counts for something!’
‘As foster-parents. Foster-parents know that they are not the real parents and must sooner or later return the child. That’s what fostering means.’
‘But she gave Grace to us! Gave, not lent! Mama knows – Mama is the one who tried to persuade Yoyo to keep her!’
‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘I didn’t like the idea from the start. I begged Yoyo to reconsider, to wait a few days. But Yoyo insisted. “Give her to George,” she said.’
‘It’s your word against hers,’ said Andrew. ‘Yoyo will argue that “give her to George” meant a temporary arrangement. And since nothing is in writing’
‘But we have a witness! Nurse Prema was there – she heard everything. She saw that Yoyo rejected the child.’
‘That was then. The fact of the birth certificate remains. I cannot argue against that. There’s nothing I can do, unfortunately.’
‘I’m not handing her over. I’m not.’
And Winnie didn’t. It was a declaration of war, and Yoyo responded swiftly with a slash of the sword: early on Saturday morning, someone knocked on the front door.
Humphrey ran to open it and called out: ‘Ma, it’s the police!’
We were sitting at the breakfast table; immediately, all the adults leapt to their feet. We hurried towards the front door. Humphrey had already let them in: two police officers, one with a paper in his hand. He looked at George.
‘Court order, sir. We have come to collect the child Mary Smedley-Cox.’
‘Well, you can’t have her!’ cried Winnie. She turned on her heel and rushed back to the dining table, where she scooped Grace from her high-chair and ran towards the back door.
The next minutes were dreadful, among the worst of my entire life. The staid and thickset policemen proved more agile than they looked. They ran in pursuit of Winnie and cornered her. One of them held her, gently but firmly, and while she writhed and struggled the other pried a shrieking Grace from her clasped arms.
Winnie screamed. George yelled. The boys all cried out their protest; Gordon flung himself against the officer who was gradually winning the fight for Grace and pummelled his back. Will climbed the back of the other officer as if he were a tree. The other boys hopped and yelled and screamed. Even the baby, Freddy, in his downstairs cot next to the table, wailed in terror. As for me – I was the only one not screaming, the only one trying, at least, although failing, to remove the boys from the commotion. I managed to grab the twins, one with each hand, and took them into the kitchen. This was not a thing they should be witnessing. I closed the door and went back for Will and Leo. By this time Grace was in the officer’s arms and he was heading for the door with his colleague, Winnie behind him screaming and tearing at his clothes. All in vain.
George, finally, was the one to admit defeat. He pulled Winnie back, held her in his arms, where she broke down in the most heart-rending sobs I have ever heard. Worse than at the loss of Gabriella Rose. Worse than my own sobs at the loss of Edward John.
The boys said nothing; they only stared. I shepherded them away. George simply held Winnie and let her cry, stroking her back.
The last thing I heard as I herded the boys into the kitchen was Winnie’s anguished cry: ‘I hate her! Oh, I hate her! I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!’