Given that Sam Burdett would be on our doorstep in less than half an hour, I broke with protocol and volunteered to give Seth his bath so that Jenna could concentrate on feeding Tommy and getting him ready for bed. In the big scheme of things it was hardly a criminal offence, I reasoned. She’d had a long and stressful day and the last thing I wanted was for him to turn up on the doorstep and see us all frazzled. He was the one who’d chosen tonight to turn up, after all.
It also meant Mike could enjoy a precious half hour watching the news uninterrupted, which felt only fair. And Seth, perhaps knowing he must rise to the occasion (or perhaps just because there was a pizza carrot being dangled), behaved in an exemplary fashion, chatting away to me about all his PJ Masks superpowers, and sniffing all the lotions and potions along the side of the bath, putting them in categories of ‘nice’ and ‘ugh-disgusting’. I’d never known a kid, I mused, with such a sensitive nose. And when I brought him down again, clean and fragrant in his hero’s pyjamas, he even went over to Mike, without prompting from me, and apologised a second time for kicking him.
So, it seemed the stage was set for at least a civilised encounter, and when Jenna emerged from the conservatory, having put Tommy down, she too seemed a great deal more calm. Still, when the doorbell rang, I felt the same sense of foreboding. There was little doubt in my mind that Sam would know all about today’s debacle, and trying to convince him that we mustn’t completely give up on Jenna just yet felt like one heck of a mountain to have to climb.
Jenna decided to settle Seth in the conservatory with Tommy, out of earshot of any discussions we’d be having but with the door slightly ajar, so still in sight.
‘Just keep calm, love,’ I told her, before I went to let him in. ‘Remember, losing your temper is going to count against you so, even if you feel like it, bite your tongue, okay? This is just a stat visit – a legal thing. A box-ticking exercise. And if Sam wants to discuss anything about what happened in court today, keep your cool. You have a new date and a new chance to go before the judge, and, remember, you didn’t do anything wrong today.’
But then I clocked Sam Burdett’s expression. I barely knew the guy, but some expressions are universal. This guy had the bit very much between his teeth and for reasons that I’d have loved to be able to sit down and discuss with him, looked like he was keen to be out of the traps and cantering down the home run. Could it be something as simple as him having made up his mind from the outset that he didn’t like Jenna?
Needless to say, when I ushered him into the living room you could almost hear the atmosphere crackle.
‘Jenna, Mr Watson,’ he said, nodding as he greeted them, then casting his eyes around as if wondering what we’d done with the children. Which might not have been the case but Jenna picked up on it immediately.
‘They’re in there,’ she said, swivelling to gesture to the conservatory. ‘Tommy’s asleep and Seth’s watching the television. Is that good enough for you? Or do you need to go in and check they have pulses?’
Her tone wasn’t lost on him – just as I imagined she’d intended. And no amount of me counselling calm and restraint was going to stop this angry young woman making her feelings clear. And perhaps in cautioning against that I had in fact made it worse. I hoped not.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Sam said, a flat tone to his voice now. ‘Now, if we can get started.’
‘Right,’ Mike said, ‘I’m going to leave you all to it. Unless you need me, that is?’
‘No, no,’ Sam assured him. ‘Just Casey will be fine.’
I was pleased about that. I didn’t want Mike to be part of it. Yes, he’d made his feelings clear about the toll things were taking, but equally, he’d always had a strong nose for bullies, and I could already sense he was sniffing the air.
Perhaps, being fair, it wasn’t all Sam Burdett’s fault. He’d been passed on information about the debacle in court, and could only respond to what he’d been told. But right away it was clear that this was going to be no normal statutory visit. Stat visits were usually upbeat and positive – a chance for the social worker to touch base and have a catch-up, and to discuss anything that might need discussing. But there was no getting away from the fact that in this case Sam wasn’t seeing the two children who formed part of his caseload but the mother who he’d already made clear – even if not explicitly – that his department felt not up to the job of looking after them. Perhaps that was at the heart of it; that social services were having to manage a situation that, had the judge not intervened in the first place, they would not have to be managing.
I’d also done my sums and wanted to put my marker down. Was this a stat visit or wasn’t it? ‘Sam, it’s not quite six weeks yet, is it?’ I asked him. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you till next week.’
‘Not quite,’ he replied, ‘but six weeks is the minimum. And I had to come over anyway. Because of what happened in court today.’ He smiled humourlessly at me. ‘Two birds with one stone. And yes, I know I wasn’t there.’ He glanced at Jenna as he said this. ‘Unfortunately I had too many prior commitments, but my colleague Lizzie has debriefed me about it, and –’
‘What prior commitments?’ Jenna asked. ‘Why am I not a priority? This date was set weeks ago, wasn’t it? And how could someone who doesn’t know anything about me speak up for me?’
At which point I caught Sam’s expression and I knew I must brace myself for the worst.
‘Jenna,’ he said, sounding horribly patronising, ‘it wouldn’t have mattered who was there from our side, to be honest. Because, as you already know, as does Casey, because you were told this from the outset, we are all of us singing from the same song sheet.’
I felt the temperature of the room, already chilly, plunge to freezing.
‘What does that mean?’ Jenna asked. ‘What’s he trying to say, Casey?’ she added, turning to me now.
Sam immediately raised a hand to stop me from answering. ‘It means, Jenna, that our position hasn’t changed. It’s up to you to prove to us that our preferred course of action isn’t the right one. Up to you. And what happened today was, well –’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong! I showed up, I dressed smart, I was ready to answer questions. It wasn’t my fault what happened. It wasn’t me who kicked off!’
Her voice was becoming shrill, so I put a hand on her arm to try and centre her. The last thing we needed was for Seth to barrel in, and if she raised her voice any further, I felt sure that would happen.
‘No,’ Sam acknowledged, ‘but the man who did, and is only just out of prison, is your boyfriend, and you don’t need me to tell you that your relationship with him is the single biggest factor against you right now. You were told not to contact him. That was something you agreed to.’ (Another thing, I noted, that I’d not been made aware of. There had definitely been no ‘Jenna must not contact Jake’ on that sheet we’d been given. No mention of him at all. Talk about going in blind.)
‘I didn’t ask him to go there and there is no relationship! Or are you saying I’m not allowed to send a text message to anyone, ever, for all time – is that it?’ She was getting really angry now.
San shook his head. ‘Jenna, please don’t be flippant.’
She leapt from her chair then. ‘Flippant? You think I’m being flippant?’
‘Sit down, Jenna,’ I said levelly. ‘Come on. Please. Just sit down.’
Thankfully she did so, though Sam didn’t help his cause any by adding, ‘That’s better.’ But perhaps his real cause was being served all too well.
Visibly deep breathing now, Jenna then turned to face him. ‘Why don’t you stop pussyfooting about and tell me the truth?’ she said calmly. ‘Go on, spit it out. What are my chances of leaving here with my kids? Do I have any chance at all?’
Sam Burdett cleared his throat and sat a little further forward in his seat. ‘If you really want the truth, Jenna, then here it is. Our intention – that is, the local authority’s intention – is to apply for both children to be adopted, not fostered.’ I gaped at him. Why had I not been told this? But he ploughed straight on. ‘Because that’s what we feel is in their best interest. Given that there are no suitable family members who we could place them with long-term, we believe that placing them with a loving adoptive family is the only suitable option now.’
I watched Jenna’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Are you serious?’ she said. ‘Are you fucking actually serious?’
I was stunned. Not by Jenna’s reaction – boy, I could well understand that – but by the matter-of-fact way that a qualified social worker had just delivered that kind of news. And he was a social worker, so of course Jenna was going to believe every word of it. But I knew, or at least I was pretty sure I knew, that he was wrong, utterly wrong, to make such claims.
I glared at him, and at the same time gripped Jenna’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s all just calm down for a minute. Sam, I’m sorry but I’m quite sure neither you nor social services are the ones with the power to make that kind of decision. Not in this case. Not when it’s already been agreed that it’s a judge who is the one who is going to decide on the outcome of this case. I also think it’s important’ – I glared again at him – ‘that Jenna knows this.’
He had the grace to look down then, and start shuffling his papers. ‘That’s as may be –’ he began, but now it was my turn to stop him.
‘Jenna, love,’ I went on, ‘it doesn’t matter what recommendation social services put forward. Because that’s all it is. A recommendation. The judge has all kinds of options at her disposal, not just adoption, and it is she who will make the decisions here. Please don’t get upset. After the day you’ve had,’ I added, as much for Sam Burdett’s benefit as hers, ‘this is the last thing you need to hear. And remember what I said: it’s the judge who will decide. Anyway,’ I added, letting go of her hand and returning my gaze to Sam, ‘if there’s nothing else, I think we should draw this stat meeting to a close so we can start thinking about having some tea.’
Sam clearly agreed. ‘Yes, we’re done,’ he said stiffly, gathering his paperwork and standing up, too flustered himself now to meet my eye as he did so, while Jenna, across the table, just sat and stared at him.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be in touch in due course. In the meantime, I’ll keep filing my reports.’
He couldn’t get out of the door fast enough after that, only pausing on the doorstep to turn around and frown at me. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I should have handled that better. I can see things are a little bit unsettled here at the moment –’
‘Yes, you should have,’ I said.
He didn’t stop to argue.
I went back into the living room, seething. A little bit unsettled? Zero points for insight. He’d come in like a one-person wrecking ball!
‘Well,’ I said to Jenna, anxious that damage limitation was the order of the day now, ‘I’m glad I never offered him any of your coffee and walnut cake! I’m so sorry, Jen, he should never have said all that to you, even if he does think that himself. Like I said, he can write as many reports as he likes, but it’s the judge who decides. Only her.’
Jenna sighed, heavily. ‘I know. I do know that. But what chance have I got if that’s how that bastard feels?’ She checked herself then. ‘I’m sorry for swearing, but he really upset me. Adoption? I mean, seriously? They mean to put my babies up for adoption? No chance for me to get them back ever? God, I can see it all now. This whole mum and baby placement, this “golden opportunity”, is just a joke. It always has been, from the get-go. It’s just so they can say they tried it – that’s the truth of it, isn’t it?’
Mike appeared then, in the living-room doorway. ‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘He left in a hurry.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t worry, I heard most of it. Couldn’t not.’ Then he grinned. ‘But it sounded like you girls handled it pretty well.’
It was the best thing he could have said and the right time to say it, and even better that he mouthed a choice expletive at Jenna – which looked suspiciously like what I would have called Sam Burdett myself, had I not been such a consummate professional. It broke the tension, too, and enabled Mike to add his own reassurance – that the fight was not over – and she went back off into the conservatory to check on the little ones with at least something approaching a smile on her face.
‘Anyway, let’s order that pizza,’ Mike finished. ‘I’m ravenous.’
‘So are we,’ came a voice from behind him, in the hall. Mike spun around, to see Tyler walk into the living room, home from work. And behind him, smiling shyly, stood Naomi. ‘Did you not read my text?’ he added, seeing my shocked expression.
‘No, love,’ I answered, trying to rally at warp speed. We. He’d said we. So had he brought her round for tea? As in today, of all days? Oh, God.
I smiled back. ‘But how lovely!’ I chirruped.