The Crow Trap (19 page)

“That’s all right, pet. I know we can trust you.”

At that Grace felt a pang of guilt because Maureen would inevitably find out that she had been lying. She’d feel hurt because Grace hadn’t talked to her first.

At midday, instead of queuing up to eat her sandwiches in the school hall she slipped out to the telephone box on the main road. There was a pay phone outside the sixth form common room but she was nervous to go there. The sixth formers, wearing their own clothes, talking in confident voices about music and parties, were more intimidating than the teachers.

The main road was noisy. She dialled the number she had copied from the list stuck next to the phone at home, but could hardly hear the tone. A motherly voice answered. “Hello. Social Services. Area Six.”

“Could I speak to Miss. Thorne, please.”

The social worker still called herself Miss. Thorne, though Grace thought she’d married the year before. A ring had appeared and she had been mellower since, more inclined to listen. “Who’s speaking?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear.”

“Who’s speaking?” the motherly voice yelled.

“Grace Fulwell.” It seemed very strange to be shouting her own name at the top of her voice.

Miss. Thorne came onto the phone almost immediately.

“Grace? Is anything wrong?”

“No.”

“Why aren’t you at school?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“How can I help you?”

“I want to make an appointment to see you. Will you be in the office?

Today. About four thirty.”

“I can be if it’s important. But what’s it all about?” Grace could hear panic in her voice, even with a lorry rumbling past. “I thought you were settled with Maureen and Frank.”

Grace didn’t answer. She banged back the receiver, hoping it would sound as if the money had run out.

She had been to the social services office before but only after some crisis, to hang around while Miss. Thorne tried to find another foster family to take her in. She had to look up the address in the phone book. It was a tall house in a tree-lined terraced street, close to the park. All the houses had been turned into offices. Grace passed solicitors, insurance agents and two firms of dentists on her way.

On previous occasions she sat by Miss. Thorne’s desk in the large open plan office on the top floor, but today she was taken into one of the interview rooms. It had a low coffee table and three easy chairs covered in orange vinyl. A no smoking sign was prominently displayed on the wall but Grace could see cigarette burns on the nylon carpet.

Miss. Thorne was nervous. Despite being a social worker, Grace had come to the conclusion that she didn’t like the unexpected. And if Grace had fallen out with Frank and Maureen she’d probably come to the end of the line where foster parents were concerned.

“Well, Grace?” she said. “Why the mystery?”

“It’s about my father.”

“Yes?”

“I do have a right to know him, don’t I?” She had learnt a lot by listening to other foster children.

Miss. Thorne hesitated. “Where appropriate,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s in the guidelines. Foster children should keep in touch with their natural parents, where appropriate.”

“Why isn’t it appropriate for me?”

Miss. Thorne seemed thrown by the question. Perhaps she thought Grace hadn’t heard the word before, wouldn’t understand it.

“Miss. Thorne?”

“Look.” Her voice was persuasive and Grace was immediately suspicious.

She looked at the woman, sitting beside her on the orange vinyl chair.

Her legs were folded at the knee like a man’s. She was wearing the same sort of clothes knee-length skirts and shapeless cardigans as when Grace first met her. She reached out and patted Grace’s hand. Grace made an effort not to flinch.

“Look, we’ve known each other a long time and I’m not your teacher.

Isn’t it about time you called me Antonia?” Grace continued staring. She knew she was being fobbed off with this chumminess, but she was intrigued by the exotic name. “Antonia? Is that really what you’re called?”

The woman nodded encouragingly, but Grace was determined not to be distracted again. She raised her voice and said firmly, “Tell me about my father.”

Quite suddenly the social worker gave up her resistance. She caved in.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. From the beginning. Why wasn’t he at home when my mother died?”

“Because he’d already left your mother to live with another woman.”

It seemed to Grace that she took a spiteful pleasure in the words, that she was really saying. So, you really want to know, do you? Let’s see if you can handle it.

“Is that why she killed herself?”

Miss. Thorne nodded. “She left a note saying she couldn’t live without him.”

Grace thought of the man who’d sat opposite her in the shadowy restaurant drinking coffee. She felt proud that her father could be the cause of such romantic passion. It didn’t surprise her that she hadn’t been enough to keep her mother alive.

“You mustn’t blame him,” Miss. Thorne said, in such a way that Grace knew that secretly she hoped Grace would. But blame was the last thing on Grace’s mind. She was after facts, information.

“Is he still living with the woman?”

“No. They separated soon after your mother’s death.”

“Why have you never let me see him?”

“It was never a matter of that. Of not letting!”

“What then? Not appropriate, you said. What did that mean?”

“For a long time we didn’t know where he was. Your mother’s death upset him. He travelled.”

“Where?”

“He worked as a diver for oil companies. I understand he was in Central America and the Middle East. We learnt that much from his family. They didn’t know any more.”

“Family?”

This was a potent word and Grace was jerked back to the present. She’d been imagining her father swimming through a clear blue ocean. Foster children were always talking about families. Even Maureen’s bad boys had brothers in the nick or aunties who came occasionally to take them to Mcdonald’s. Grace had always been left out.

“Your father’s brother and his mother, your grandmother. They live in a village in the country.”

“Langholme?” She had remembered all the facts passed on to her during that meeting in the restaurant. “I guessed from something Nan said.”

Grace picked some of Charlie’s hairs from her pleated school skirt.

“Why didn’t you tell me my family lived in Holme Park? You could have told me that.”

“We didn’t want to raise expectations which couldn’t be met.” Grace wasn’t sure what that meant but ignored it. She had a more important question.

“Why didn’t I ever see them, my gran and uncle? You took me to meet Nan.”

“They didn’t want to see you. Nan did.” As soon as the words were spoken Miss. Thorne seemed to regret them. Perhaps even for her, even provoked by this stubborn and demanding child, they were too hurtful.

But Grace considered the idea seriously.

“They didn’t know me,” she said at last.

“They felt you were your father’s responsibility,” Miss. Thorne said more gently. “They never found it easy to get on with your father.” Grace understood. “Oh,” she said. “They didn’t want to be lumbered.”

They looked at each other and shared a rare smile of understanding.

“Is my father still abroad?” She turned away as she asked the question, casually. Of course she knew he wasn’t abroad, but it would be a betrayal to let on to Miss. Thorne. Besides, it was a sort of test, to see whether or not she was lying.

“No. He came back a while ago.”

“Where does he live? With his family?”

“Different sorts of places. With friends. In hostels. He moves around a lot. He’s found it hard to settle.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps because he’s an unsettled sort of person.”

“Like me.”

“In a way.”

Grace rubbed her finger and thumb together, releasing dog hairs which floated to the floor.

“I want to see him.”

“That might be possible. But he has problems.”

“Problem’ was a euphemism much used by Maureen and Frank. Gary was a glue sniffer. Matthew took smack. Both had problems.

“Does he take drugs?”

“Not in the sense you mean.”

“What sense?”

“He’s probably an alcoholic. Do you understand that?”

“Of course.” Gary’s mam was an alcoholic and Grace added, “It doesn’t stop Gary seeing his mam.” “I’ve said it might be possible.”

“When?”

“When I’ve talked to him again. And to Maureen and Frank.”

“Again?” “I have been trying to arrange it,” Miss. Thorne said defensively. “Your father isn’t always an easy person to deal with. He has his own way of doing things. I didn’t want to build up your hopes only to have him disappear again!

“I understand,” Grace said. “Thanks.” And she did feel grateful.

She’d never expected Miss. Thorne to make any effort on her part.

“And you mustn’t expect too much,” Miss. Thorne went on. “He wouldn’t, for example, be able to have you to live with him.”

“That’s all right.”

She was perfectly happy with Maureen and Frank.

And Charlie would miss her. She didn’t want a change in her circumstances, just to know her father, to see him occasionally. To find out more about her family.

It took three weeks for Miss. Thorne to arrange a meeting between Grace and her father but Grace was patient. She was enjoying school and concentrated on her work. In Biology they gave chloroform to fruit flies so they remained still long enough for the pupils to count the vestigial wings. Grace was fascinated. The girl sitting next to her was heavy-handed with the chloroform but returned the dead flies to the jar, hoping no one would notice.

Grace knew the social worker’s promise hadn’t been forgotten because at home Maureen and Frank discussed her father. They were very impressed that Edmund Fulwell’s family lived at Holme Park. Apparently it had come as news to them too. Perhaps the social worker had remembered Dave’s awkwardness, his feeling that Grace was in some way different, and thought she’d be better accepted if her wealthy connections weren’t known.

“We’ll have to take you there one day,” Maureen said. “They do guided tours and there’s a lovely tearoom.”

Grace and her father met at last, not in the tearoom at Holme Park, but in the front room of 15 Laurel Close. Maureen and Frank had taken the bad boys out, the ones which were left. Gary was back in the Young Offender institution. Maureen had cried when the police came to take him away.

Antonia Thorne waited in the house with Grace. Edmund Fulwell was late. Miss. Thorne didn’t mention that to Grace, but she could tell because the social worker looked at her watch every now and then, with resignation as if it was just what she expected. Grace, waiting, didn’t feel anger or fear. She was numb. She thought this must be what it felt like to be dead, then wondered if this was how her mother felt before she killed herself. Perhaps she’d been waiting for Edmund to leave his lover and come back to her with just this sort of numbness. Perhaps she’d decided she might as well be dead.

The doorbell rang. Miss. Thorne gave a start and frowned. Grace thought she was annoyed because Edmund after all hadn’t fulfilled her expectations. She would have preferred it if he hadn’t turned up.

“I want to go,” Grace said.

She opened the door and he was standing on the doorstep, pulling a strange face so his eyebrows did definitely meet over his nose. His hands were in his overcoat pockets. It was late afternoon in October, almost dark, with a gusty wind which blew litter and dead leaves into the doorway. He stooped so his face was almost level with hers.

“So,” he said, ‘ must be my lovely daughter.” And he continued very quickly so she understood again that the previous meeting was a secret between them.

Antonia Thorne shouted in a jolly, primary school teacher’s voice, “Come along, Grace. Don’t keep your father standing in the cold.”

And he came in, just as if she were the teacher and he was doing as he was told. Shrugging out of his overcoat he seemed to take up all the room in the corridor though he couldn’t be much bigger than Frank.

The social worker left them together in the front room, though she said pointedly that she would be in the kitchen making tea if Grace needed her. She didn’t close the door behind her.

“Anyone would think she didn’t trust me,” he said. He laughed, then when Grace didn’t join in he muttered, “I suppose you can’t blame her.”

He seemed less comfortable than when he was waiting for her outside school, more uptight. Grace, who had seen Gary’s mam in various states of inebriation, thought he was probably sober today. Last time he’d had a few drinks.

“You said you’d be in touch,” she whispered.