Waiting for sunshine, p.5
Waiting for Sunshine, page 5
‘Sunny,’ Chrissie said, placing her mouth very close to the little girl’s ear, ‘Sunny Sunshine, let’s find a shop that sells cheese strings, shall we?’
Sunshine opened her eyes, and for a few seconds thought about what Chrissie had said, then she roared, ‘I want Barbwa!’ at full throttle, and then repeated it over and over again, and they felt like child abductors, they felt utterly wicked, and irresponsible. They scrambled to their feet, pulling Sunshine up with them, and the shingle was such a dreadful obstacle to their progress, so deep and slack that they waded up the slight incline like drunkards, staggering and lurching in a bid for solid ground. Stuart was holding Sunshine, but she squirmed and thrashed so that people stared, and Chrissie wondered if it was completely apparent to all that they didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and, anyway, barely knew the child.
On the promenade he put her down but she wouldn’t hold his hand or Chrissie’s, and she continued to refuse all the way back to Barbara’s street, and kept trotting ahead with a desperate urgency, so they had to jog too, to keep some semblance of control. When they reached the point where a road had to be crossed, Chrissie said, ‘Sunshine, please, hold my hand now,’ but the girl immediately tucked her left hand under her right armpit so Chrissie had nothing to hang on to but the strap of her vest. This is how they arrived at the front door, which flew open before they knocked – had Barbara been watching for them, from the bay window? – and when Chrissie released Sunshine, she rushed at Barbara as if they’d been separated for weeks.
‘Oh dear,’ Barbara said. ‘Oh, my.’ She scooped up the hot and furious little body and peppered the side of her face with tiny kisses. Sunshine pushed her thumb into her mouth and closed her eyes, and Stuart and Chrissie stood on the doorstep feeling redundant – worse: feeling utterly useless.
‘There was no cheese string in the picnic,’ Chrissie said, and although she knew this sounded banal, pathetic, certainly not an explanation for returning a child so thoroughly wrung out by distress, nevertheless she also knew it was key to this disaster. Chrissie heard her voice shake a little, and felt her eyes sting with tears, but she was determined not to shed them here, in front of Barbara, whose placid, passive enmity seemed to fill the hallway. She felt Stuart’s hand rest in the hollow of her lower back, a gesture of old, a gesture of love and partnership and support. We two stand before you as one, it said.
‘Barbara, can we come in?’ Stuart asked, for they were still just outside the house, looking in.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘My manners! I was quite taken up with this little mite.’
She moved back, and to the side, so that they could come in and close the door.
‘We need a chat,’ Stuart said, with special emphasis. ‘Why don’t you get Sunshine a cheese string, whatever that is, and then come back and talk to us?’
Barbara’s face turned from pliable dough to something like brick, red and stolid.
‘Please,’ Chrissie said, and at that, the other woman took off through the house to the kitchen, and returned a couple of minutes later without Sunshine. She stood before them, defiant enough, but perhaps a little less sure of herself than she had been, a little less certain of her ground.
‘We won’t stay much longer,’ Stuart said, speaking pleasantly and evenly, ‘but what could and should have been an important outing just now, with Sunshine, was traumatic for us, and I’m including the child in that. You saw the state she was in?’
‘Well,’ Barbara began, ‘this is a confusing situation for—’
‘It needn’t be any such thing,’ Chrissie said, picking up the baton. ‘It needn’t be confusing, or difficult and certainly it needn’t be distressing.’
‘You see,’ Stuart said, ‘Sunshine seemed sure you’d pack her favourite snack, and I wonder why you didn’t, given the importance to all of us that our first short outing be a happy occasion?’
Barbara stared. ‘I hope you don’t think I deliberately didn’t give her a cheese string? I hope you don’t think that.’
‘If you tell us it wasn’t deliberate, then of course we won’t think it was,’ Chrissie said. ‘It’s just, it was such a small and easy way of ensuring Sunshine would enjoy her time with us.’
‘Oh, there’s all sorts of things can set her off. You don’t know the half of it.’
‘No, but we hope to, in time, and we’ll need your help with that,’ Stuart said.
There was a short silence, into which the sound of children’s laughter came tumbling from the garden.
Chrissie said, ‘Sounds like all’s well again, now.’
‘Do you want to go and say goodbye?’ Barbara asked.
They did. They went, just the two of them, through the kitchen and out the back. The cool bag was open on the patio, the remains of the beach picnic spread about it. Carl was pushing Kevin in a wheelbarrow, charging in a loopy figure of eight around the lawn. Sunshine, now clutching a bright-orange stick of cheese, was squealing with merriment, and when Chrissie and Stuart emerged, she turned her glowing face upon them and said, ‘I do has a cheese string!’, and held it up for them to admire.
‘Lucky you!’ Stuart said. ‘Hey, we’re going now, we’ll see you again soon, but can we have a hug, to say goodbye?’ and Sunshine dipped her head in gracious acquiescence, so Stuart first, and then Chrissie, stooped down to encircle the child in their arms, and each of them felt her lean in, a compact, resilient, and – for the time being – self-possessed small girl. She smelled sweet and salty, fresh as the breeze. She was perfect.
4
On a blessedly warm afternoon in May, Chrissie and Kim sat together in the small patch of garden behind Stu and Chrissie’s flat, where the scent of lilac and the heavy buzz of a drunken bee lent a bucolic air to the scene, although they were surrounded on all sides by Edwardian red-brick dwellings, exactly like their own. Stu was occupied in the kitchen, preparing a celebratory Sunday lunch, because there were three good things to toast: the Labour landslide ten days ago; Chrissie being thirty-three today; and a firm date for Sunshine to come and live with them, permanently, if not quite yet officially, one month from now to the very day. This last fact, in truth, eclipsed the significance of either the fatal wounding of the Tory government or the dawning of Chrissie’s birthday. Sunshine was coming, and in the heavenly calm of the sunny little garden, Kim clinked her glass of cold rosé against Chrissie’s and said, ‘Cheers, my darling, here’s to two becoming three,’ then leaned in and wiped away the imprint of scarlet lipstick she’d left on Chrissie’s cheek. Rocco was coming along soon, with Julia and Sol, but Kim’s early arrival had been a treat, because these two women were rarely together alone; their friendship was long-lived and solid, but it seemed bound by the rules of the pack – or possibly, thought Chrissie now, the rules of Julia.
Chrissie had met Kim when Rocco did, at an early Lineman gig years ago, in the Union Chapel in Islington. Kim was writing it up for the Guardian in a piece about emergent bands, and she and Rocco had had a kind of epiphany when their eyes met, which was weird they all said, because although Rocco was a great drummer, he was such a runty little bloke, skinny in an undernourished way, with the pale skin of a nocturnal stoner. But there it was, love at first sight, and Kim let him continue to be himself, but somehow made him better at the same time. She’d reined in his worst excesses and encouraged his best ones. Rocco adored her, and so he should, they all thought. She was a clever, kind and funny friend, phenomenally well-connected in the industry, and also raven-haired and red-lipped, wore velvet coats and leopard-print trousers, and ankle boots with stiletto heels in which she walked with remarkable ease, as if she’d been born wearing them. Chrissie was longing for Sunshine to meet her, and she said this now, and Kim said, ‘Oh, me too her; she sounds so much like my kind of kid.’
Chrissie smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking of Sunshine with a small pulse of anxiety, wishing she could press a fast-forward button to a time when she knew precisely what kind of kid she was.
‘I never wanted babies,’ Kim said. ‘Well, you know that, right? Me and Rocco, I dunno, there’s already so many people on the planet, and anyway we just got really quickly into a way of only pleasing ourselves.’
‘I know, you do it in fine style,’ Chrissie said, and they both laughed, and then Kim looked serious and said, ‘But adopting this little girl – it’s the coolest thing you could do, Chrissie, it’s completely right.’
‘Thanks,’ Chrissie said, lightly.
‘No, seriously—’ Kim leaned forwards, and slid her shades down the bridge of her nose to see Chrissie more clearly ‘—it’s an astounding thing, I keep thinking about it, about her, and what her life could have been, and what it will be, with you and Stu. It’s a generous, humane, incredibly cool thing to do.’
Chrissie nodded, but said, ‘Y’know, don’t you, that I desperately wanted to get pregnant? I’d have certainly had my own baby, if I could have done. Makes me feel awkward, accepting all your praise.’
Kim sat back again, pushed her sunglasses into place, took another deep drink of wine. ‘Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve,’ she said, waving a manicured hand, dismissing Chrissie’s protest from the space between them. ‘Don’t underrate your motives, sweetheart. I’m so looking forward to watching this girl grow up with you as her mum.’
And then the others arrived. Chrissie and Kim heard the doorbell ring, heard Stu call to them – unnecessarily, because they weren’t moving from their sunny idyll – ‘I’ve got it, girls.’ They heard laughter and chat and then Kim said, ‘I give her twenty seconds,’ but it was slightly less than that before they heard the unmistakable sound of Julia’s heels moving smartly through the flat to the garden. The glass doors were propped wide open, and they framed her as she stood and surveyed the scene, wide-eyed, as if it beggared belief that they’d dared start without her.
Julia, Chrissie’s oldest, though not always best, friend from their Liverpool days, was possessive of their friendship, yet sometimes careless of it. Now, for example. Annoyed by Kim’s early arrival, certain she’d missed something important, Julia directed her ice-blue gaze at Chrissie and said, ‘There you are,’ as if she’d been looking for an hour, then, ‘We need to talk, I think. Happy birthday, by the way.’
Chrissie and Kim exchanged a quick look, which further maddened Julia, then Chrissie said, ‘Talk about what? Come and sit down, Jules, there’s a glass for you here,’ and Julia trip-trapped in her lovely silver sandals across the small area of decking and down towards the sunny spot under the lilac tree, where Chrissie stood to receive two glancing Gallic kisses – the hallmark of her Frenchness for as long as Chrissie had known her, along with the shrug and the occasional, usually strategic, lapse into French.
Kim remained seated, but she raised her glass and said, ‘Hey,’ and the two women looked at each other through the dark amber lenses of their sunglasses, and smiled. Kim liked Julia, but didn’t love her. Chrissie loved her, but didn’t always like her. This was the difference. She pulled the wine from the ice bucket on the floor and poured a glass for Julia, who lifted it, and held it up for the others to reach forwards and clink.
‘Santé,’ Julia said.
‘Santé,’ said Chrissie.
‘Cheers,’ said Kim. ‘So, Jules, just hazarding a guess, but do you need Chrissie to yourself for this chat?’
‘Oh, I’m sure not …’ Chrissie began, but Julia said, ‘Well, it is about Sunshine, and it might be confidential,’ which was only her way of asserting pre-eminence over Kim, as First Friend, but alarmed Chrissie enough for her to say, ‘Oh God, what?’
‘Chérie,’ Julia said, patting Chrissie’s arm, ‘what I mean is, I have a question, and your answer might be confidential.’ She looked regretfully at Kim, who said, ‘Sure, whatever, I’ll go join the boys,’ and she gave Chrissie a friendly wink, and said, ‘See you soon, darling,’ and left them at the table.
Chrissie said, ‘Jules, for God’s sake, was that necessary?’ and Julia gave that small, pretty shrug of the shoulders and said, ‘You made me and Sol referees, not Kim and Rocco.’
And of course this was true, because Julia and Sol were parents themselves, and as such had seemed better qualified to answer the myriad questions that had to be asked by Nancy Maitland and Angela Holt; rigorous, probing questions about their friends’ habits and histories and their likely ability – or otherwise – to cope with the pressing needs of a displaced child. Chrissie had never asked Julia about the specifics. It would have been intrusive, not to say paranoid. And anyway, she’d trusted her friends to give a good account, and clearly had been right to, for here they were, on the brink of parenthood. ‘So?’ Chrissie said now. ‘Shoot.’
‘Well, it’s a phrase Angela once used on us,’ Julia said. ‘“Sunshine and her little suitcase full of problems”.’ She drew speech marks in the air and pulled an ironic expression.
‘Oh, right,’ Chrissie said. ‘Yeah, she can be really patronising, but Stu always tells me she means well.’
‘Well anyway,’ Julia said, ‘I find it goes through my mind, that phrase, and Angela asked us things such as how we thought you’d cope, and whether you’d turn to your friends for support, y’know, and I presume she meant when the suitcase gets opened and the problems spill out.’
‘Huh,’ Chrissie said. She blew a strand of damp hair from her hot face, then pushed it all back, a tousle of blonde, and stuck her Ray-Bans on her head to hold it in place. ‘It’s so warm! I feel like having all my hair cut off.’
‘Do not do that,’ Julia said, very gravely.
Chrissie laughed. ‘So, yeah,’ she said. ‘I think Angela uses the suitcase analogy on everyone, to be honest. It’s only her way of saying we might be in for a rocky ride.’
‘So-o,’ said Julia, ‘now that Sunshine is actually coming, I think you and I can talk about the problems in the suitcase, oui?’
Chrissie looked at her. ‘No,’ she said, and then more firmly, ‘Julia, no.’
Julia pouted like a spoilt child, then said, ‘I don’t see why. I’ve always told you everything.’
‘Oh, come on! This is totally different.’
‘How is it different? You know something that I don’t. If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d tell you.’
‘Julia, listen,’ Chrissie said. ‘I’ll never tell you what Sunny’s file says. Never. It’s her story to tell, if ever she wants to.’
‘Pah,’ Julia said. She downed her wine and held the empty glass out for more.
‘Pah?’ Chrissie reached for the dwindling supply of rosé and topped her up. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means, what new-age twaddle! “It’s her story to tell” – give me strength! Whose line is that? Because it’s not yours.’
Chrissie smiled. ‘Well, yeah, OK, I’m only quoting Angela. But, look, it’s true – it is Sunny’s story, and it’s private.’
‘I just think,’ Julia said, swirling her wine, gazing into the whirlpool, ‘that sharing Sunny’s story with your closest friend would be a help, to me, as well as to you and Stu.’
‘How would it help you?’
‘I mean, help me understand Sunshine.’
‘That’s the thing though, we don’t want her defined by a list of issues outlined in a Manilla file.’
‘But aren’t there things we should know?’
Chrissie stared. The penny dropped. ‘For your own safety, you mean?’ she said, flatly.
Julia returned the stare. ‘Maybe. I’m thinking about Juno, she’ll be her new playmate, and if we knew Sunshine’s history, maybe we could avoid, y’know, flashpoints.’
Chrissie was silent. Julia, who for all their friendship had never known when she’d gone too far, said, ‘I mean, has she witnessed violence, and will that make her violent? Has she witnessed abuse? Cruelty?’
Chrissie took a long breath. ‘Sunny is a little girl who’s had a difficult start, but for the past year she’s been in a loving foster home, with John and Barbara. They might not be my cup of tea, but I can see they love Sunshine, they really do.’
‘Ah, but they don’t want to adopt her, do they?’
‘Enough, Julia.’
‘No, seriously though, why don’t they want to keep her?’
‘Jesus, Jules! They’ve fostered for ten years now; it’s an income stream for them, it’s a way of life. And anyway, you can’t just decide to keep a foster child; that’s not how the system works. I’m just saying, John told me they haven’t been able to love all the children who’ve passed through, but they do love Sunshine. Anyone would, is what he said. No one who knows her can fail to love her.’
She’d enjoyed her talk with John. They’d met in Highgate Wood, Barbara and John having driven up from Whitstable with Sunshine to spend a Sunday afternoon with them. On their own turf, Chrissie had discovered she felt less self-conscious of how little she knew about being a mother. Also, she’d found, in John, some wise and patient counsel. They’d sat on a bench and watched Barbara and Stuart coach Sunshine as she navigated the wooden jungle gym in the playground, and Chrissie had said, ‘How long did it take them to love each other?’
‘Ah, now,’ John had said, ‘I don’t think that’s a useful line of questioning, my dear.’
‘You did say, ask anything.’
He’d smiled. ‘I did, and what I can say is that Sunny is completely lovable, and so are you, and any early difficulties will be ironed out quickly enough.’
Chrissie had said, ‘I want her to love me like she loves Barbara.’
‘She’ll love you more. You’ll be her mummy.’
‘Is it going to be tough, saying goodbye?’
‘Oh, well, you always hold a bit of yourself back, I suppose. We’re doing a job, caring for these kiddies. Barbara can be a bit possessive now and again, she finds it hard if a child stays with us a while, like Sunshine has. And you can’t not love Sunshine, when you get to know her.’
