I love a challenge. I always have. And I suspect I’m not alone in that. It’s a basic human instinct, after all. Though on this crisp early January day, challenged to find a mermaid for a five-year-old, even I was forced to admit it might be tricky.
Mike and I were on an outing with Annie and Oscar, the twins we’d fostered for a few weeks the previous year. They’d been hard work – how could a pair of lively pre-schoolers ever not be? – but also enormous fun, and uncomplicated too, because they were only in care temporarily while their parents were in hospital, having both suffered serious burns during a house fire. It was our proximity to the major burns unit where they were being treated that had sealed the deal: we were able to take the children in to visit them while they recovered.
We’d kept in touch afterwards. Lovely for us, and also helpful for the family, because it meant Mum and Dad could leave the twins somewhere familiar when they returned to the hospital. Which was something they had to do on multiple occasions, for essential follow-up work. This was one such occasion and, since Mike had managed to wangle a rare midweek day off, we’d taken them to the local Sea Life centre, out on the coast.
Where, apparently, there should definitely be mermaids. Well, according to Annie, who, despite the distractions of dancing jellyfish, bobbing seahorses, anemones, and seals and sharks, was destined to be cruelly disappointed. Not least by her brother, who felt it his duty to keep on remarking that mermaids weren’t actually real. ‘They’re just in stories,’ he pointed out with the kind of no-nonsense assurance that made it all too obvious who was going to be the one to dash another fervently held belief for her next Christmas.
But next Christmas was obviously still a long way away. And in any case, Mike had other ideas. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘didn’t you hear about the octopus?’
Annie, perched on my hip, better to see into a tank of flatfish, pouted. ‘What octopus?’
‘The famous octopus,’ Mike said. ‘The famous octopus who escaped.’
‘From here?’ Oscar asked.
‘From another place just like this. It was all in the news. Everyone thought he’d escaped all by himself – which he might have because octopuses are known for being very, very clever – but when they investigated further they found he’d had an accomplice.’
Oscar frowned. ‘What’s an accomplice?’
‘A helper. A special, secret helper. Who’d snuck in in the middle of the night – swam right up one of the big drainpipes that bring in all the sea water – and undone the latch on the top of the octopus’s tank, so they could slither back down the drain pipe and escape back to the sea.’
‘But how did they know it was a mermaid?’ Annie asked. ‘It could have just been another octopus, couldn’t it? Or a fish.’
Mike shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t have been able to undo the latch, because fish don’t have fingers. Well, that is, unless they are fish fingers. And they know it was a mermaid because they found a bit of evidence. A beautiful green scale left behind from her tail.’
Annie’s eyes widened. ‘Can we see it?’
Mike shook his head. ‘Sadly not. They have to keep it in a special box, in a special vault in a museum. If they put it in the light and air – pfff! – it will disappear. And that’s why you’ll never be able to see an actual mermaid.’ He tipped his head towards the play area and the strip of sea beyond it. ‘But that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, because they are. Now then,’ he added with a wink. ‘Who’s for lunch? Don’t know about you three but all this mermaid-hunting has made me hungry.’
‘You’re in your element,’ I teased him, once we were installed in the café and the children were colouring in the pictures in their activity books.
‘What, water?’
‘No. Being here, I mean. Out with the little ones. Having fun.’ I nodded towards the children, heads close, deep in creative endeavour. ‘You know, I miss this.’
Mike looked confused. ‘Miss what?’
‘Miss doing more of this kind of thing. Miss the children. Miss the grandchildren.’
‘Miss them? Case, we’re not exactly short of children and grandchildren.’
‘I know, but do you ever get that sense that it’s all gone too fast? That we’re spending increasingly more and more time rattling round on our own?’
‘Erm, as far as I can see, that day’s going to be a bit of a while coming. Carter’s not even three months old yet!’
Carter, Kieron and Lauren’s second child, and our newest grandson, had been born the previous October. ‘Nearer four months,’ I felt obliged to point out. ‘And yes, I do know that. I was just thinking how everything’s changing so quickly. Dee Dee in school now. The others growing up so quickly … Can you believe Levi’s going to be fourteen this year?’
He slapped a hand down on the table. ‘Ah, now I get it. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself because you aren’t in Lanzarote.’
Which was, I had to concede, partly true. Riley and David and our three eldest grandkids had jetted off for a bit of winter sun just after Christmas – a trip I’d have dearly loved to join them on, except I couldn’t countenance leaving my own mum and dad when they were both getting so frail, not in the depths of winter, anyway.
And my decision had been the right one, because they’d both gone down with nasty colds over Christmas, which could easily have turned into something worse. But for all that I was busy burnishing my dutiful daughter halo, at the same time, Mike was right – naked jealousy about all that sunshine Riley and co. were enjoying couldn’t help, from time to time, but raise its ugly head. I just had to whack it down again, like stuffing a mole back in a hole. We’d promised ourselves we’d get a few days away, late spring. There was just the interminable business of winter to get through first.
Riley was due back in a couple of days, in time for the new school term, and I couldn’t wait to have a catch-up, but actually, though Mike was correct about me being envious of the temperatures they’d be currently basking in, it definitely wasn’t the whole picture. It was more that I increasingly had ants in my pants; too much time on my hands and not enough family to fill it. And much as I doted on our newest family member, I couldn’t monopolise him, because he had other doting grandparents too. One of which – his other gran – was currently looking after him, as she would be doing two days a week now, while Lauren was at work. Which was lovely – they’d moved up here to be closer to them, precisely so she could do so. Which I couldn’t resent, and absolutely didn’t, but even so …
‘Well, yes and no,’ I admitted, ‘but I think we’ve been on a break long enough, don’t you? I mean, I know we needed it –’
‘And how,’ Mike interrupted, with evident feeling. And not without good reason. Our last placement had been a suicidal teenager, and though it had all worked out okay in the end, the stress of it all had taken quite a toll on us both. My nerves still jangled sometimes, recalling some of the things that had happened. The whole family’s did, truth be told. Looking after her had been a particularly distressing and sobering experience, and our need for a long break from fostering had felt very real.
‘And I know we said we were in no rush to take on another child just yet,’ I conceded, ‘but I’m beginning to feel antsy – like I need something to do again. It’s probably just empty nest syndrome, I know, but –’
‘Empty nest?’ Mike spluttered. ‘Our house is always bloody full! And – point of order – Tyler’s still there. Least he was as of this morning.’
‘Yes, and going away for a week in two days, remember.’
‘Yes, on a training course with work. It’s not like he’s off backpacking round the world, love.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ I said, adding in my head, if not my words, that the time might soon come when he’d want to do exactly that. ‘But he’s an adult now. He’s got his own life to live. And with the grandkids getting older –’
‘And us getting older.’ Mike narrowed his eyes. ‘Ah! Is that what this is about?’
‘Yes and no,’ I said again. ‘I mean, I absolutely don’t want to plunge into another full-on placement like the last one – at least, not right now. But –’
‘Not ever was what I seem to remember you saying at the time,’ Mike pointed out.
‘I know. But that was then. And I can’t just do nothing. It’s okay for you – you’ve got your work to keep you busy. And look how much fun we’re having today with these two little ones … Admit it, we are, aren’t we?’
‘A lot more fun that all those sleepless nights worrying about what Harley was getting up to, that’s for sure,’ he conceded. He leaned over then, and fondly mussed the wayward curls on Oscar’s head.
Which I noted. To use to my advantage. ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘So I was thinking I should call Christine. Let her know I’m up for doing respite again or something. Nothing too stressful. I’ll be clear about that.’
‘So, do it,’ Mike suggested. ‘Can’t have you moping your way through January. Anyway, you’re too young to retire. And I can’t see you taking up knitting. Ah, and that’s our food order,’ he added, as a number was bellowed from the kitchen. ‘Clear the decks, kids. Grub’s up!’ He grabbed the chit and stood up.
And that was my principal thought as I watched him walk away across the café, as tall and fit and strong as ever. That we were too young to retire. That I was too young to retire. That I was young, full stop. Well, not exactly young. I wasn’t in that much denial. But not old. Not decrepit yet. Not ready for – that dreaded term – ‘slowing down’. And that taking on a little one – maybe a brace of little ones, just like dear little Annie and Oscar – was exactly what I ought to be doing. What I was made for. What I was good at.
Which was probably the reason I reacted as I did when I spoke to Christine Bolton three hours later. Either that, or I’d gone stark staring bonkers.