exclaimed.
‘That wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Tess said gently but firmly. ‘You’ll be seeing the children regularly at the Family Centre. It would be confusing and upsetting for them if you just appeared.’
‘But they’re my children. It’s not right. You won’t even tell me where they are staying. I should be with them when they’re ill.’ Aneta was crying again and I felt so sorry for her. Of course a mother would want to be with her children when they were poorly, but Molly and Kit were in care because of possible abuse, so she couldn’t be alone with them at all. Contact at the Family Centre would be supervised.
‘I’ll take good care of them, I promise you,’ I said to her.
‘But it’s not right. I always go with them to the hospital,’ Aneta persisted. ‘I know the staff and they know me.’
Filip now spoke for the first time. ‘Leave it, Aneta,’ he said firmly. ‘We have to do what they say now.’ There was an edge of recrimination in his voice and I assumed he was blaming Aneta for the children being taken into care.
‘Can you tell Cathy something about the children’s routine?’ Tess prompted.
Aneta shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘What time they go to bed. What they like doing during the day. When they have their meals. That sort of thing,’ Tess said.
‘I can’t remember, I can’t think straight,’ Aneta said. ‘I’m too upset.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, my heart going out to her. ‘It’s not essential.’
‘Do you know the children’s routine?’ Tess asked Filip.
‘No, I’m at work. I don’t know what they do all day. Aneta gets them up after I’ve left in the morning and they’re in bed by the time I get home. I work a lot of overtime to make ends meet.’
‘Weekends?’ Tess asked.
‘I work most weekends too,’ he said. So it appeared he had very little input in his children’s lives.
‘What sort of things do the children like to do?’ I asked.
Aneta shrugged.
‘Do they go to nursery or a pre-school play group?’ Preeta asked.
‘No,’ Aneta said. ‘I took Molly once when she was little, but she didn’t like it. All those children. She got pushed over and hurt her knee. I had to take her to the hospital. I worry about germs. They get ill so easily.’
I nodded and made a note, then asked, ‘Would it be possible for the children to have some more of their clothes and toys? I can buy new ones, but it’s nicer for them if they have what is familiar.’
Aneta was in tears again, but Filip said, ‘I’ll see to it.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Can you take them with you to contact tonight?’ Tess asked Filip. He nodded. ‘Is there anything either of you want to ask?’
Aneta didn’t reply, but Filip said, ‘How long will my children be in care?’
‘We don’t know at present,’ Tess replied. ‘If you stay behind at the end of this meeting we can have another chat.’ I was sure she would have explained the procedure to them already, but doubtless with the worry of it all Filip had forgotten. ‘Anything else?’ Tess asked, glancing around the table. ‘OK, in that case, I’ll see you at contact at four o’clock.’
I stood to leave as the others remained seated, but as I did Aneta suddenly asked me, ‘Do my children miss me?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said.
A small smile crossed her face. ‘Good. I wondered if they’d be pleased to be away from me.’
I was surprised by her comment but thought she was probably feeling sorry for herself and looking for some reassurance. Tess, however, said quite pointedly, ‘Why would you think that, Aneta?’
She shrugged and looked away, and just for a moment I thought she looked guilty. I said goodbye and left.
Chapter Five
Why would Aneta doubt her children’s love for her and think they would be pleased to be away from her? I wondered as I drove home. Could it be guilt? It would make sense. If she had been abusing them then she had reason to believe they would be better off without her. The edge to Tess’s voice when she’d asked her had suggested she thought so too. Yet Molly and Kit did miss their mother dreadfully, and she was clearly beside herself with grief at being parted from them. However, most parents are distraught if their children are taken into care whether they have been abusing them or not. In my experience, anger and grief are not indicators of the level of care children have been receiving at home. Aneta had been very upset but not angry. She appeared overprotective – not taking her children to pre-school for fear of accidents and germs. As for Filip, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He looked shattered and overwhelmed, but seemed to have had little contact with his children because of the hours he worked. Did he know what had been going on at home?
It was 2.30 when I arrived home. As I let myself in I could hear Keelie’s highly excitable voice trilling from the living room. I think most of the street could hear her. ‘Beep. Beep. Beep. Brumm-brumm. Nnneeaoowww!’ she screeched. ‘Chuff-chuff, choo-choo!’ Then what sounded like her imitating the loud wail of a siren. Strewth! I thought. Whatever was she doing?
I went through to the living room. Maggie was sitting on the sofa, watching the children play. ‘Everything OK?’ I asked, my gaze sweeping the room, which was now covered with toys, games and puzzles.
‘Nnneeaoowww!’ Keelie cried again, bringing the toy aeroplane she was holding low over the scene below.
‘Keelie found some more toy boxes in the cupboard,’ Maggie said. ‘Hope that was all right. She’s been keeping Molly and Kit very well amused.’
‘Yes, of course, thank you,’ I said.
There wasn’t space to move for the toys covering the floor, and Molly and Kit, while not actually playing, were clearly mesmerized by Keelie. The playmat that showed a busy street scene was in the centre of the room and crammed full of toy vehicles, farmyard and zoo animals, play people and buildings constructed from Lego. It wasn’t so much a busy street scene as a giant metropolis, where police cars, fire engines, lorries, tankers, ambulances, boats and cars fought for space on the roads and pavements with dinosaurs, people and tower blocks. Every so often Kellie picked up a fighter jet, space rocket, flying saucer or pterodactyl and dropped miniature barrels of hay on those below. They landed with a loud ‘Bang!’ or ‘Whoosh!’ I thought how conservative and timid my play must have seemed to Molly and Kit compared with this.
‘Very imaginative,’ I said.
‘Bang! Boom! Gotcha!’ Keelie cried, as a brontosaurus landed on a boat on the duck pond. ‘I wanted to put water in it, but Maggie wouldn’t let me,’ Keelie lamented, pulling a face.
‘You can thank me later,’ Maggie said, and I smiled.
While Molly and Kit weren’t joining in, they were clearly enthralled and couldn’t take their eyes off Keelie. As Maggie had said, she had clearly kept them very well amused.
‘How did your meeting go?’ Maggie asked.
‘OK, thanks. We’ve got contact at four o’clock.’
‘We’ll be off then. Time to pack away,’ she told Keelie.
‘Oh, do I have to?’ Keelie bemoaned