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nodded, smiling. ‘Absolutely, yes, she’s gorgeous.’

      Her jawline softened and she turned her face towards me again, leaning closer. ‘Ain’t nothing wrong with her, ’cept for that gap in her lip and loads of babies have that. I keep telling them she’s all right but they don’t wanna listen. All babies puke, it ain’t just Megan. She’s got it a bit worse, probably ’cos of the butter.’

      I frowned. Opposite me, Peggy gave a sigh of exasperation.

      ‘What’s that face about? I ate a load of butter when I was pregnant. It was like one of them cravings or something. That’s what did it.’

      ‘Is that what they’re calling it these days?’ Peggy mumbled.

      Christina cut across the social worker with a contemptuous look, turning her attention back to me. She looked worn out, which wasn’t surprising considering she’d recently given birth, but there was sharpness in her face too, in character rather than features. She looked knowing somehow, as if she’d gathered more experience through the years than most other twenty-somethings.

      Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and watery, shadowed with heavy greyish pouches, and her irises were bloodshot and dull, as if she hadn’t slept in days. In some ways her appearance was a surprise; apart from looking extraordinarily tired and laid low with an apparent heavy cold, she was actually quite attractive, her dark blonde hair fluffy around her face and no trace of the wizened, emaciated look you expect of an addict. Without looking at Peggy she jabbed a thumb fiercely over her shoulder. ‘This is the sort of shit I get every time I come here. Nazis, the lot of them. They’re all the same. I don’t get told nuffink about my own baby. All they do is pick holes all the time.’

      ‘Well, it would help if you’d turn up on time,’ Peggy pointed out. ‘If you’d arrived at ten when the meeting began you would have heard all about how Megan is doing. We’ve discussed her care plan, daily routines, contact arrangements,’ she said, tapping each one off on her fingers with the forefinger of her other hand. ‘I can recap now, if you’d like? You have contact this afternoon as a matter of fact. You’ll be hosting, Rosie. I presume that’s OK?’

      My eyes widened. Peggy had summarised contact times about twenty minutes earlier, but said nothing about me hosting the event. She had also emailed a copy of the contact schedule through to me a few days earlier, but no venue had been stated. ‘Uh, I –’ I floundered. Since the demand for supervised contact at family centres was high, social workers were often keen for foster carers to cover sessions in their own home, provided there was no threat to their personal safety. Issues surrounding contact were usually discussed at the beginning of a placement, when plans for the child’s care were set out by the social worker. Peggy hadn’t said a word about it, so I had naturally assumed the contact would go ahead without any involvement from me. It was typical of her to spring the idea on me.

      ‘We’re at full capacity our end,’ Peggy said firmly. ‘We’d appreciate it, Rosie.’

      ‘Of course,’ I said, trying not to grimace.

      Christina’s mobile wobbled and pinged. She swiped at it and then stared down at the screen, her expression going blank. Peggy cleared her throat noisily and pushed a sheet of A4 paper across the table. Christina snatched at it, the scrunching noise as she screwed it up in her palm clearing the glaze from her eyes. She stared at it for a full two minutes and then looked up at Peggy, her expression agog. ‘Ten?!’ she cried, waving the paper around, although she seemed to be responding to Peggy’s earlier comment about the start time of the LAC review. ‘I was told eleven, not ten. Who can get anywhere by ten o’clock? What am I, a fucking owl?’

      ‘The rest of us managed to get here punctually,’ Peggy said wearily, as if she’d said the same thing time after time. ‘And I haven’t the faintest idea where you got 11 o’clock from. I sent a letter with the time clearly stated to the manager at your refuge three days ago, along with a voucher to claim back any transport costs. A copy was sent to your solicitor and I also sent you a text-message confirmation, an email and I called your mobile this morning and left a voice message.’ Peggy clasped her hands together and rested them on the thick file in front of her. She leaned forward, staring hard at the young woman. ‘What else would you have me do, Christina? Arrange for a butler to wake you? Tea, croissants and the morning paper perhaps?’

      I sank back, cringing inwardly, though I couldn’t help feeling a flash of admiration for Peggy at the same time. It was refreshing to hear her challenging Christina’s attempts to shirk responsibility, though I feared the young woman might explode in response. She did colour slightly, but then all she did was give a slow roll of her eyes. ‘Yeah, well, people like you don’t have to get buses everywhere, do you? You don’t have a clue what it’s like in the real world. The buses don’t run that regular where I am.’

      ‘Twaddle,’ Peggy scoffed. Christina stared at her, wide-eyed and adamant, but she didn’t say anything in defence. ‘It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you were only released from police custody this morning, I suppose?’

      Christina sniffed briskly, her eyes flicking over to me and then quickly away again. ‘Yeah, well, might have been that an’ all.’ She rolled her shoulders, quickly recovering her dignity. ‘I wanted something to wear to the meeting today, didn’t I? I need to make a good impression so you give me my baby back. What was I supposed to do? Turn up naked?’ She looked back at me, garnering support. I tried to keep my expression non-committal.

      Peggy adjusted her glasses and consulted the thick wad of papers in front of her. ‘Let’s see. Ah yes, here we are. I’m told you stole five pairs of trainers and 19 liquid eyeliners.’ She turned back to Christina and fixed her gaze keenly. ‘Who exactly were you trying to impress?’

      Christina’s mouth opened and quickly closed. She examined her nails, which were short and jagged, and then turned back to me. ‘Fucking police state, that’s what this country is. I might as well pack up and go and live in Russia. Even they don’t dish out this sort of crap. In fact I’d go today if it weren’t so fucking cold over there. More cameras than rats where I live, there are.’

      ‘Hmmm, evidently,’ Peggy snorted. ‘A dearth of buses but no shortage of cameras.’

      Christina’s jaw fell slack. ‘What you on about now?’ She looked across at me again. ‘I only get about half of what comes out of ’er mouth.’

      Peggy scratched her short grey hair with sudden vigour. ‘All I was trying ’a do was make myself presentable,’ Christina continued. ‘Make a bit of an effort, you get me? What’s wrong with –’

      ‘What you need to do is get yourself clean,’ Peggy cut in matter-of-factly, whipping her glasses off and waving them in the air to punctuate her point. ‘There’s no benefit in prancing around in fancy trainers when you’re rotting away from the inside out, is there?’ Her tone was flat with no room for negotiation and, aside from muttering something crude under her breath, Christina didn’t bother trying.

      My head was spinning. Christina was antagonistic and outrageous and she seemed to have a completely distorted idea of how the world worked but, in spite of a lingering resentment towards her for the harm she had caused Megan, I actually found myself liking her. I wasn’t sure if it was her Geordie accent, which seemed to make the most fearsome people sound friendly, or her complete lack of any artifice, but there was something about her that was genuinely disarming. I shook my head and blinked a couple of times, tuning back into the conversation. ‘– and we want to secure Megan’s future while she’s young enough not to know too much about it,’ Peggy was saying. ‘We know from studies that the sooner babies are settled, the easier –’

      ‘But I love her,’ Christina burst out, her lips puckering. Her legs were jiggling up and down so violently that one of her kneecaps hit the table. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she growled, wincing. ‘That’s what you lot don’t understand. I love her to bits.’ The muscles beneath one of her eyes began to twitch. I could tell she was close to tears. ‘God, don’t you get it? I just wanna hold her without ten thousand people standing around,

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