After Anna (26 page)

It was overcast as she pulled into Edna’s driveway: the dark clouds low and heavy. The air smelled of rain. She knocked on the door, her banging less frantic today, but her heart racing just the same at the thought of seeing Anna. She’d ask her daughter whether she wanted to come with mummy, and she was sure her daughter would say yes.

Brian opened the door. He looked relaxed, clean-shaven, and smartly dressed. Just how Edna liked him. The smart, confident scion of an important family.

There were only faint traces of her nails on his cheek.

‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

She stepped into the vestibule and then into the hallway. The dark wooden floorboards were polished to a mirror gleam. She looked around, listening for the sounds of her daughter. She’d been picturing a rapturous reunion.

‘Where’s Anna?’

‘She’s gone out for breakfast with Mum.’

Julia felt the anger ball up just below her sternum. ‘I want to see her! She’s my daughter, for God’s sake! Why are you doing this, Brian?’

‘It’s fine. Relax. She’ll be back any moment. I wanted to talk to you alone, before you see her.’

‘About what?’

He looked at the ceiling and then at the floor. His gaze remained low. ‘About custody,’ he said.

Julia folded her arms. ‘What about it?’

‘I wondered what you were thinking.’

‘I was thinking that Anna would be with me. You’d have full access. Wednesdays, and every other weekend. Maybe more. Whatever we decide is best for her.’

He looked at her with a thoughtful, slightly patronizing expression. ‘I guessed that might be your position.’

He let the words hang between them. Eventually, Julia shrugged.

‘What’s your position?’ she asked.

‘The opposite. I think she’d be better off with me. You’d have full access,’ he said, using her words. ‘Wednesdays, and every other weekend. Maybe more. Whatever we decide is best for her.’

Julia laughed. ‘What makes you think I’d agree to that? You forget, Brian, that I am a divorce lawyer. I know the law and I know how it’s applied.’ She leaned forwards and spoke in a lowered voice as though sharing a secret. ‘Between you and me, the mother always gets custody.’

‘I’d rather avoid a custody battle,’ Brian said. ‘It’ll just be expensive and difficult.’

‘Then don’t start one,’ Julia said. ‘There’s no point. You’ll lose.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Brian said.

‘Well, I am.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Fine. I guess we’ll find out. Take a seat. They’ll be back any second. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?’

‘No,’ Julia said. ‘And what do you mean, “I guess we’ll find out”?’

‘Just that. I guess we’ll find out how the court rules when we get there.’

‘So you’re saying you’re going to drag us through a custody battle?’

‘No. You’re going to drag us through a custody battle.’

‘I don’t think you get it, Brian. This is a fight you can’t win. If you start it, knowing that, then the fallout is on you. There’s no reason for you to do this.’

‘There’s every reason. I want custody of my daughter. If that’s the only way to get it, then so be it.’

Julia shook her head. ‘But you won’t get custody, Brian. You’ll lose. Don’t you see that? There’s much less heartache if we just agree it between us. You said it yourself; it’ll be expensive and difficult.’

‘I think I will get custody.’ He shrugged. ‘But you disagree. We can put it to the test.’

She found this new, calm, rational version of him infuriating. She could tell that, whatever she said, however insulting, he would not take the bait. He was so confident. The question was why. It gnawed at her.

‘Why are you so sure, Brian?’ she said, suddenly. ‘Why do you think a judge would favour you?’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘The court has to act in the best interest of the child, as I understand it.’

‘And that is almost always to stay with the mother.’

The front door opened. It was Edna and Anna, back from breakfast. Brian smiled.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Then you should be ok. Enjoy the visit.’

iv.

Anna came into the hallway. Her black shoes – new, patent leather, relics from 1970s fashion and almost certainly selected by Edna – clicked on the hardwood floors. She was smiling, happy, holding her grandmother’s veined hand with her left hand, a boiled sweet lollipop in the right.

‘Mummy!’ she said. ‘We had pancakes for breakfast! With honey!’

‘We went to the garden centre,’ Edna said. ‘They have a very good café there. The honey comes from their own bees.’

Julia ignored her. Edna’s tone was the same as if she and Julia were ancient bosom pals. It was as though there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, as though Anna’s disappearance and the divorce and the volcanic argument of the day before hadn’t happened. Well, Julia wasn’t going to play the game. She wasn’t interested in pleasant conversation with Edna. She’d had enough of this farce.

She bent down and picked up Anna. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘Did you like it?’

‘I loved it!’ Anna wrapped her arms around Julia’s neck and rested her cheek on her mother’s collar bone. ‘I missed you, Mummy. Where were you?’

‘I was at home. I missed you too.’

She closed her eyes. She was not going to let this happen. She was not going to allow Edna – for it was Edna, not Brian behind this – to take Anna from her, even for however long it took for all this to settle down. Anna was her daughter, and she was going to be with Julia. She was not going to be Edna’s protégé, a shiny-shoe wearing, horse-riding, hothouse plant raised in her grandmother’s image. Never mind ‘Tiger Mums’; they had nothing on Edna.

She could just walk out of here now, right this second. Take Anna home, lock the door, and refuse to let Brian in. Plenty of marriages broke down that way, with the father’s face pressed up against the window, looking in at what he had lost. She didn’t doubt that she would get custody, in the end, but it would be easier if Anna was living with her, if she could point to the current situation and say
look, it’s working just fine
. Precedent was important. The court would err on the side of the minimum disruption to Anna’s life, and if she was already with Julia then that would be to let her stay there.

Edna knew that, of course, which was why she had brought Anna to her house. But although Julia might not have measured up to Edna in a majority of ways, she was a match for her when it came to child custody. This was her world. She knew all there was to know about it: the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, and the application of the law.

And she knew the most important thing about all of if: the mother always got custody. She knew Edna and she knew what Edna was thinking: the court will act in the best interests of the child and the best interests of the child are to be with me, Dr Edna Crowne. How could they not be? How could the best interests of any child not be to be brought up by Edna Crowne? It was a rare privilege, a blessing, a near guarantee of lifelong success and happiness. Yes, maternal bonds and familial love were important, and in most cases they would be decisive, but this was not most cases. This child had the opportunity to be raised by Edna Crowne, to attend the best schools, to enter the professions, to become rich.

But this was a perfect example of Edna’s blind spot. She was so convinced by the strength of her argument that she could not even imagine that there was the possibility of someone disagreeing with her, especially not a judge. Judges were calm and intelligent and rational, and people like that could not help but be persuaded by the force of Edna Crowne’s presentation.

It didn’t work like that, though. Mothers got custody. Perhaps it wasn’t always the best decision, perhaps it wasn’t fair, perhaps those dads with the purple T-shirts demanding
Justice for Fathers
and more rights to see their children had a point. But it didn’t matter. Because mothers got custody. They just did. It was the way it was, and even Edna Crowne could not change it.

‘OK, Anna,’ Julia said. ‘Say goodbye to Dad. It’s time to go home now.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘Bye Daddy.’

Brian was standing in front of Julia, a few feet further inside the house. He moved towards the door to the vestibule; Julia backed against it to block him off. She put her hand on the doorknob, ready to open it.

‘Don’t do this,’ Brian said. ‘It’s not a good idea.’

‘Do what?’ Julia said. ‘Take my daughter home? How can that not be a good idea?’

‘Trust me,’ Edna said. ‘It isn’t.’

Julia snapped her head around. She stared at Edna, keeping her eyes fixed on those of her mother-in-law in a deliberate challenge. ‘You,’ she said, ‘can keep your mouth’ – she glanced at Anna – ‘can remain quiet on matters that don’t involve you.’

‘It does involve me,’ Edna said. ‘After all, I’m going to have to open my house to my granddaughter when she comes to live here. I think that counts as involvement.’

‘It would,’ Julia said. ‘If it was going to happen. But since it isn’t going to happen, you aren’t involved. So kindly,’ she mimed pulling a zip across her mouth in the kind of modern, disrespectful gesture that she knew would infuriate Edna , ‘zip it.’

It had the desired effect. Edna straightened to her full height. ‘You are a—’

Julia raised her hand, palm outwards. ‘Talk to the hand,’ she said, enjoying the look of fury on Edna’s face. ‘’Cos the face ain’t listening.’

‘Be careful, young—’ Edna began.

‘Zip it,’ Julia said, performing the mime again. This was almost fun. She should have done it years ago. ‘Zip it.’

Edna nodded slowly. She shrugged. She turned to Brian. ‘Do you want to tell her, or should I?’

‘I will,’ Brian said. ‘If you want.’

‘Tell me what?’ Julia asked.

‘In fact,’ Edna said, still looking at Brian, ‘
I’ll
tell her.’

‘Tell me what?’ Julia asked, again. She did not like the narrow-eyed smirk on Edna’s face. It looked suspiciously triumphant.

‘Why your confidence in the outcome of any custody battle might be a little misplaced.’

‘That old chestnut,’ Julia said. ‘I don’t think it is. But enlighten me, nonetheless.’

‘You might prefer it if Anna doesn’t hear this,’ Edna said. ‘It won’t be very pleasant for her.’

‘Right,’ Julia said. ‘I’ll put her down then you’ll throw me out. You must think I fell out of the tree yesterday, Edna. Go ahead. Say your piece.’

Edna shrugged. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘if that’s how you want it.’

Brian was impassive. When Edna began he looked away, almost as though he was ashamed.

‘As I understand it,’ Edna said, speaking slowly and taking care to enunciate every word, in the same deliberate way that someone might eat a meal they wanted particularly to savour, ‘the courts main – if not only – concern is the welfare of the child.’

‘Which they normally conclude lies in granting custody to the mother,’ Julia said. ‘Unfortunate for fathers, but just the way it seems to be.’

‘They do,’ Edna said. ‘Unless the mother is incapable of taking care of the child. Say, for example, if she is unstable. Or depressed, or suicidal. Or has a drinking problem. Or an anger management issue.’

Julia opened her mouth to speak, but she did know what to say. Her tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of her mouth.

‘I see that you understand what I am saying,’ Edna said.

Julia did, but she couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t quite grasp how serious the situation was. Grasping at straws, she shook her head.

‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘I don’t think I am. I have taken counsel on the matter and, if a judge thought that a mother – say you, for example – had some issues to work through, then they might well award custody to the father.’

Julia stared at Edna. ‘Are you saying you’re going to lie about me in order to get custody?’

‘No,’ Edna said. ‘Not at all. The facts are what they are, Julia. Now, let’s think through what a court might see when presented with this case.’ She gazed at the ceiling, as though deep in thought. ‘First, you don’t show up to collect your daughter, who is then abducted. Then, second, it comes out in the press that you were planning to abandon her anyway—’

‘I wasn’t!” Julia said. ‘You know that! I might have wanted to leave Brian, but that did not mean I was going to abandon Anna! The press made all that up!’

Edna held up her hand, palm facing outwards. ‘I’m just telling you what might be presented in court. And as far as I know, you were planning to abandon Anna. If asked, I would say it seems precisely the kind of behaviour I might expect from you.’

‘I don’t believe you’re doing this. Even you, Edna. I can’t believe you would stoop so low.’

‘Who’s stooping?’ Edna said. ‘These are just the facts.’ She smiled. ‘And there are more. I’ll go on, shall I?’

Julia lowered Anna to the floor. She’d changed her mind. She didn’t want her to hear whatever was coming next.

‘Go and play in the sunroom,’ she said. ‘I’ll just be a minute or so.’

After Anna left, Julia turned to Brian. ‘Are you going to let her do this?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to be part of this? Because if you are, then it’s on your conscience.’

‘I have to do what’s best for Anna,’ Brian said, unable to meet her gaze. ‘And that means she stays with me.’

‘I have some more facts, if you’re interested,’ Edna said. ‘Ready?’

Julia didn’t reply; Edna cleared her throat theatrically. It was her turn to enjoy herself.

‘Third, you are mentally unstable. A few days ago you attempted suicide, which is not the action of a well person.’ She was holding out her fist and extending one finger for every point she made.

‘I did not!’ Julia said. ‘You’re lying! You know you are!’

‘But would a court know that, Julia?’ Edna said. ‘That is what you must ask yourself.’ She extended a fourth finger. ‘Fourth, there are signs that you have a drinking problem, a problem which may have played a part in your failed suicide. Fifth, and finally, you appear to be unable to control your anger, something that may also be a result of your alcohol abuse. The gentleman who was here yesterday happens to be a magistrate, and he was appalled at your behaviour. I am sure he would have no problem describing it in court.’