Silent Voices

a clue what it was like.
    At first during supervision Jenny said all the right things: ‘Sounds as if you’ve developed a really good relationship with that mum, and a great idea to go with her to the toddler group.’ And: ‘Absolutely right to insist on talking to the class teacher.’ So Connie would come out, high on caffeine and approval. Later, though, Connie’s caseload increased and the visits to families became more routine, so the clients sometimes blurred in her head – was Leanne the one with the headlice or was that the flat with the Rottweiler chained in the kitchen? Then Jenny frowned more often, and Connie found herself on the defensive. She always made sure her notes were in order – she’d been a journo, hadn’t she? She could tell a good story – but sometimes, visiting the flat where the teenage mother had moved in with that aggressive bloke with the weird stary eyes, she was overwhelmed with relief when there was no answer to her knocking. And even though she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a woman’s face at the bedroom window, she jotted No response in her diary and moved on to the next call of the day. She wasn’t paid enough to put up with a load of abuse. On this estate even the cops hunted in pairs.
    It had been a relief when she’d found out she was pregnant with Alice. Had she become pregnant just because it gave her an excuse to have a break from work? Frank hadn’t been overjoyed when he’d first heard the news. She’d cooked him a meal, lit candles, bought flowers and all he could say was: ‘Hardly brilliant timing, babe.’ He’d just taken over as artistic director of the theatre, had taken a pay cut when he gave up his work as a lecturer at Newcastle College. Perhaps he’d already started to screw his new little woman. Perhaps that was why he’d looked so uncomfortable.
    She’d supported his decision to leave the college, even though it meant she’d have to stick at the social work, even though the thought of going into work every day, climbing the concrete steps to the bare and mucky flats, facing pathetic mothers and slobby fathers made her feel ill when she woke up every morning. She’d understood what it was like for him to do a job he hated. And she hadn’t had the courage to scream: ‘What about me? How do I escape?’ Had she guessed how close she was to losing him, that one more demand would send him into the arms of the skinny designer about whose work he raved? But at least the pregnancy meant she could take maternity leave, catch her breath. Push the panic away for a while. She could order her world, buy a pram and lay Babygros out in a row on the painted white chest. Frank had felt obliged to spoil her, had become attached, despite himself, to the baby kicking inside her stomach.
    When she returned to work, Jenny had been solicitous. She’d cooed over the pictures of Alice. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Lots of new mums find it too stressful, too close to home. There are other branches of the profession, just as satisfying, but not so demanding.’ Incontinent old ladies. Care in the community.
    Connie had refused to take the offered escape route. Why? Pride, and because the alternative would be even worse. Because she thought motherhood had given her an insight, an empathy she’d been lacking before. She’d explained this to Jenny, in a stumbling, halting way, and got a huge smile as a reward. ‘Fine then. Let’s just go for it.’ And the following week Connie had been introduced to Elias’s mum.
    Mattie had been frail and screwed up. She’d spent most of her life in care, rejected apparently by her student single mother, surviving temporary foster parent after foster parent. Never, for some reason, placed for adoption. It seemed none of the breakdowns in placement had been down to Mattie; from all accounts she was pliable, eager to please. At sixteen she’d been found a flat. Not on a brutal estate, but in a small new housing-association development. That had been down to Saint Jenny, who’d fought Mattie’s corner from the start. At seventeen the girl discovered she was pregnant. When Connie first met her, Elias had been six. Totally gorgeous to look at. Obviously mixed-race with coffee-coloured skin and black hair. It wasn’t tousled, but very curly; still, he was the child of Connie’s student fantasies, the child she would rescue, whose saviour she would become. The boy’s father played no part in the story.
    Mattie