Playing Nice Page 14

  “That’s terrible,” I said. Jane might have been responsible for Theo leaving the nursery, but it was impossible not to feel sorry for her. “Send her my best wishes, will you?”

  42

  MADDIE

  I’M AT WORK, REDOING the budget for a commercial—the client has arbitrarily decided it should cost 20 percent less, but is adamant it shouldn’t look 20 percent less good—when Ingi from reception calls.

  “Maddie, there are some people here to see you. From the NHS.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Is there anywhere we can talk in private?”

  “The Surfer room is free. I’ll put them in there, shall I?” All our meeting rooms are named after famous commercials, which tends to confuse the clients.

  Obviously, this must be to do with our claim. But I’m surprised they’ve come to see me without an appointment. Is it some kind of ambush, to catch me off guard? Or is this the way they do things here in the UK? Either way, I decide, there’s no point in getting worked up about it before I know what they want.

  In the meeting room, a man and a woman are waiting. Both wear suits and open-necked shirts. The man, who’s younger, has a laptop in front of him, while the woman, who’s short and stocky, is sorting through a bulging folder of paperwork.

  “Hello, I’m Maddie Wilson,” I say briskly. “I understand you want to speak to me?”

  “Yes.” It’s the woman who answers. “I’m Grace Matthews, and this is Thomas Finlay. We’re from NHS Resolution, the part of the health service that deals with litigation.”

  I sit down. “It’s regarding our claim, I assume.”

  Grace Matthews nods, causing her glasses to slip down her nose. She pushes them up with a finger. “First of all, we wanted to assure you that the NHS takes incidents like this one very seriously. We’re working with the private clinics involved to understand what happened.”

  Now it’s my turn to nod. “Good.”

  “That may take some time, so please don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a little while.”

  “Of course.”

  “In the meantime, we’ll need access to your patient records, to assist our investigation.” Grace Matthews takes a form from her folder and slides it toward me. “If you could sign this, to say you give your consent.”

  I look down at the form. “I should probably get our lawyer to look through it first.”

  “Well, of course, if you want to.” Grace Matthews sounds surprised. “It’s the standard form that anyone has to sign when clinical negligence claims are investigated.”

  I think. “I’ll just step outside and call him.”

  “Could you read me the form?” Justin Watts says when I’ve explained why I’m calling. I’ve only gotten through the first few lines when he stops me. “That’s all right. It’s standard for these cases.”

  “Does that mean they’ll see my psychiatric records, too?”

  “Yes, but since we’re claiming mental distress, those records will bolster our case, not hinder it.”

  I feel uneasy. It hadn’t really occurred to me that my psychosis might be relevant to our claim, when the truth was, I would have reacted like that irrespective of whether it was Theo or David I went home with. But we’re committed to this path now. “Okay. Thanks.”

  I go back into the meeting room. “He says it’s fine.”

  “Good. I’ve got a pen here,” Grace Matthews says. As I sign, she says casually, “Where’s Theo now, by the way? With your partner?”

  Still writing, I say, equally casually, “No, with some friends. We have a nanny share. Why?”

  Grace Matthews takes her pen back. “Just curious.”

  43

  PETE

  “HEY MATE,” MILES SAID cheerfully.

  “Miles. Hi,” I said cautiously into my phone. It was the first time we’d spoken since he left our house so abruptly that night.

  “Baby monitor working all right?”

  “Fine, thanks.” I hadn’t actually plugged it in. The thought of Theo being watched—or even more pertinently, listened to with that omnidirectional microphone—spooked me, and our house was so small, you didn’t really need a monitor to hear him crying anyway.

  “Great. Look, I’ve got a favor to ask. What was the name of the nurse who looked after Theo in the NICU, the Irish one who looked like she had the hots for you?”

  “I think you probably mean Bronagh Walsh? But she didn’t have the hots for me.”

  He laughed. “If you say so.”

  “Why do you want to know, anyway?”

  “It’s for the lawyer. He’s compiling a list of all the NHS personnel we can remember coming into contact with, for the investigators.”

  I suddenly felt apprehensive. “Investigators into what?”

  “How the mix-up happened, of course. Presumably they have procedures to stop that kind of thing, and in this instance they didn’t work. So they’ll want to try to find out what went wrong. Which is a good thing, isn’t it? Stop this happening to some other poor bastard.”

  My feeling of anxiety was deepening. “But no one’s going to try to pin this on one of the nurses, are they? Because Bronagh was fantastic.”

  “Well, if you say so, Pete. But someone cocked up, didn’t they?”

  “I suppose,” I said uneasily. “So long as they don’t try to scapegoat Bronagh.”

  “Who definitely didn’t have the hots for you, of course. Anyway, better go.”

  “Miles…” I said.

  “Yes, mate?”

  “We’re good, right? There’s nothing bothering you?”

  “Like what?”

  “Just that we haven’t seen you for a few days. And last time we spoke I probably didn’t express myself very well. I was tired, and somehow—”

  He laughed. “There you go again, Pete. Always worrying about what other people think. No, of course we’re good. I’ve just got a big push on at work. Give my love to the big man, would you? Tell him it’s a shame about Easter, but I’ll see him soon.”

  * * *

  —

  “SO WHAT DO YOU want to do for Easter, now we’re not spending it with the Lamberts?” Maddie asked that evening.

  I opened the fridge and took out a beer. “I think an Easter egg hunt is more or less mandatory, isn’t it? They’re doing one on Hampstead Heath. And there’s a lambing weekend at Forty Hall—it’ll be good for Theo to be around some animals. We should probably put in a couple of appearances at church, too, while we’re still fresh in Reverend Sheila’s memory.”

  “What about getting some friends over on the Saturday?”

  “Good idea. We haven’t seen Greg and Kate for ages.”

  “And they know Sophie from work, don’t they? I’ve been trying to arrange something with her and Richard for a while. Shall we do supper?”

  “Blimey. Who’s cooking?”

  Maddie stretched. “I’ll do dessert if you’ll do the main.”

  “Deal.”

  “God, it’ll be nice to have some time off. It’s been so full-on recently, hasn’t it, what with all the Miles and Lucy stuff? We really need some time to ourselves.”

  44

  MADDIE

  IT’S GREAT TO HAVE friends around. Sophie and Richard have booked a babysitter, but Greg and Kate bring Lily and Alfie with them, putting them down in our bed while Pete cooks. Then we all squeeze around the table and drink wine and eat and talk. About our kids, mostly. Kate’s like me—she went back to work while Greg stayed at home, so it’s nice not to feel judged for once. At one point, when Pete and Greg are getting all competitive about what they cook with their charges—“Well, last week we made arancini balls from panko breadcrumbs and some leftover risotto, and we didn’t skimp on the chili flakes, either”—she gives me a sideways glance and rolls her eyes
comically, which makes me snort into my wine.

  Greg sits back. “I meant to ask you, Pete—you posted something on DadStuff a while back, about some kind of inspiring story you were involved with?”

  “Oh yeah.” Pete looks at me. “We can talk about this now, right?”

  I shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

  So Pete—keeping his voice down, in case Theo is still awake—tells the story of how the babies got swapped, and how we’re dealing with the fallout. He’s a good storyteller—that’s the journalism, I suppose: He knows how to structure facts succinctly and not go off on tangents. But they’d be spellbound in any case. Hearing him relate the whole thing from start to finish, and seeing our friends’ stunned reactions, brings it home to me all over again just how extraordinary this whole situation is.

  “And what are they like?” Kate asks when Pete’s finished. “Do you get on?”

  “Well,” Pete begins, “that’s where we’ve just been incredibly lucky. They’re very nice. And really, really committed to making it work.”

  “They’re a bit weird,” I say.

  Pete shoots me a look. I realize I’ve spoken a little thickly, but sod it: It isn’t as if I’m driving anywhere.

  “I mean, Pete’s right,” I add. “They are committed. But it’s a relief to have a break from them, actually. They wanted us all to go away together over Easter. I managed to get us out of it, but—put it this way, they’re hard work.”

  “It’s a bit like nature versus nurture, this situation of yours, isn’t it?” Richard says thoughtfully.

  Pete nods. “That’s what Miles said, too.”

  I give him a look. “When was this?”

  “When we went out for a drink.” Pete looks surprised. “I thought I told you. Miles said, it’ll be interesting to see if Theo turns out as successful as him, or whether being with us will make him less competitive. Or words to that effect.”

  There’s a short silence. “That’s actually quite insulting, though, isn’t it?” Sophie says.

  Richard frowns. “He sounds a bit of a prick.”

  “Well, we have very different ideas of what success looks like,” Pete begins, just as the doorbell rings.

  For a moment, I think, It’s him. Then I relax. Of course, it can’t be—the Lamberts are 250 miles away in Cornwall, and in any case, Miles comes earlier than this when he wants to see Theo. “I’ll go,” I say, getting up.

  It is Miles. And Lucy, both of them smiling expectantly at me as I open the door. Miles is wearing a dark blazer and faded blue jeans. In one hand he has a bottle of expensive-looking wine, in the other a shopping bag.

  “Thought we’d come and introduce ourselves,” he says cheerfully. I’m so dumbfounded, I let him step past me into the house. He looks around the full room. “Quite a party you’ve got here.”

  Pete finds his voice. “Miles. We thought you were in Cornwall.”

  “Didn’t fancy it on our own.” Miles waves at the table. “Greetings, one and all.”

  “Right.” Pete nods, a bit too vigorously. “Miles and Lucy, everyone.”

  “I’m guessing you must be Maddie’s brother,” Miles says to Richard, extending his hand across the table.

  “I’m Richard,” Richard says, confused. “My wife works with Maddie.”

  Miles turns to Greg inquiringly. But then a kind of shadow falls across his face.

  “We know Pete and Maddie from the NICU,” Greg says.

  Miles looks at me. “Where are your brother and his family?” he asks quietly. There’s a strange, pale light in his eyes, like a big cat’s.

  “They’re not here.”

  “Why not?”

  I barely hesitate. “Their flight was delayed.”

  “Which airline?” Miles’s voice is soft.

  “We didn’t fancy coming to Cornwall,” I say defiantly. “It was a white lie, okay?”

  There’s a long silence. Miles shakes his head. “No. It is not okay, Madelyn. It is not okay at all.” He speaks in the same distant voice I heard last time he was here, eerily calm.

  “Mate—” Pete begins. Miles turns.

  “I’m not your mate, Pete. Though God knows I’ve tried to be, for the sake of my son.” He looks at the table. “Well, budge up. Two more for dinner, now.”

  Another silence. There is clearly no way anyone can squeeze up any further.

  I take a deep breath. “Miles, Lucy. It’s always great to see you, but this isn’t a good time. As you can see, we’ve got guests.”

  “Guests,” Miles repeats. “And they’re more important than the mother and father of that little boy upstairs, are they?”

  “It’s not like that—” Pete protests.

  “We’re not good enough for you, is that it?” Miles says. “Because we don’t work in the media or take drugs or read the fucking Guardian?”

  “Jesus,” Sophie says nervously. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “You should go,” I say firmly to Miles.

  “Yes, Miles.” Lucy’s voice is little more than a whisper, and when Miles turns toward her, she flinches. It’s a tiny movement, barely more than a twitch, but with a sudden flash of intuition I think: She’s scared of him. “Let’s go home.”

  “Give this to Theo,” he says to no one in particular, pulling a box out of the shopping bag. It’s an Easter egg, a huge one. He puts it on the table.

  I suddenly realize that Pete and I should have gotten something for David. We should have investigated low-protein eggs, or thought of a non-chocolate alternative. But it hadn’t even occurred to us.

  Miles puts the wine on the table as well. “Come on,” he says to his wife. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”

  45

  Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 23, email from Peter Riley to Miles Lambert.

  Miles,

  After a day’s reflection, it seems to Maddie and I that none of us handled yesterday evening very well. Certainly, we shouldn’t have told that white lie about Maddie’s brother coming over from Australia. Please understand that we only did so out of a desire to spare your and Lucy’s feelings. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of you recently, which has been on the whole a great pleasure, and we just wanted a little time to ourselves.

  Also on reflection, it was remiss of us not to sit down with you both much sooner and work out some ground rules for how this is going to work. Clearly, the effort we’ve all been making to keep it friendly and informal is going to have to be supplemented by some agreements about visiting times, responsibilities, how much input we should each have into each other’s parenting styles, things like that. And we are all going to have to be very clear about what is and isn’t acceptable language to use with each other.

  In many ways we think it’s a good thing that harsh words have now been spoken and the air has been cleared. That’s what happens in families, isn’t it—a row, followed by reconciliation. And we definitely are a kind of family, even if it’s an unconventional one.

  What do you say—shall we agree to put last night behind us, for the sake of our children, and take it from there? There are so many positives to be had from this situation, even if it is going to take effort and commitment on both sides to make it work smoothly.

  Best wishes,

  Pete and Maddie

  46

  MADDIE

  PERSONALLY, I THINK THE email is way too conciliatory. I’m still furious at the way Miles and Lucy ruined our evening, and it’s taken all Pete’s powers of persuasion to convince me that the future relationship with them is worth swallowing my anger for.

  “Think of David,” he said quietly. “Think of our biological son, sitting in that huge house with a father who virtually ignores him because he’ll never make the first eleven. Are we really going to walk away from our son just because Miles is turning out to be
trickier than we first thought? David needs us to be bigger than that, Mads.”

  At which, I burst into tears and told him to write whatever he liked. I haven’t told Pete this, but sometimes at work I get up that Facebook video of him reading to David on the play mat and watch it over and over. That’s the family I could have had. Should have had, even. And—much as I adored the family I did have—I didn’t find the idea off-putting. Pete just looked so right with David, so natural. So if he’s correct, and a mollifying email is what’s now required to reset the relationship with the Lamberts, it’s a price worth paying.

  Our friends, of course, had been stunned by what they’d witnessed. “A nutter as well as a prick” was Richard’s assessment, and it did seem apt. As usual, Pete tried to see both sides—“He’s just like that. He blows his top, and then it’s all forgotten”—but even he had to admit that Miles’s behavior had been downright weird.

  And besides, Miles hadn’t blown his top. That was one of the things that was so strange about it—the eerie calm with which he’d hurled his insults at us.

  I made Pete take out a bit in the first draft where he apologized more profusely for not going to Cornwall, though. It might have been our suggestion to spend the day together, I pointed out, but we’d never signed up for a long weekend, let alone a whole week. If we implied we were in the wrong about that, Miles would simply walk all over us.

  It was me who insisted on the bit about unacceptable language, too. Because I’m not having some rich entitled pom thinking he can walk into my home and call it a shithole.

  * * *

  —

  WE FINALLY SEND THE email at four P.M. Miles doesn’t reply. Not that evening, or on Easter Monday.

  “What do I do tomorrow?” Pete says over supper. “Take Theo to the Lamberts’ as usual, or keep him here?”