Our small red dog was indiscriminate with his affections, although in these hot summer days he showed a definite preference for the builders that thronged the city because they were often wearing shorts, and a pair of bare legs always had Stan’s nose twitching with interest.
He perked up the moment the woman from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service appeared on our doorstep.
‘Mr Wolfe? Ms Vine.’
She was not wearing shorts but had on a long, swishy skirt above stout walking sandals but it was enough to have Stan’s nose testing the air and his tail wagging. He padded out of Scout’s bedroom, where he had been napping, crossed the room and delicately inserted his nose just under the hem of the skirt. All I could see of him were his ruby-coloured hind legs and that feathery tail swishing like windscreen wipers.
I said what I always said when Stan was thrusting his attentions on someone.
‘I hope you like dogs.’
She froze, looking down at the creature that had inserted itself under her skirt.
‘Not really,’ she said.
She was a large woman in layers of vaguely ethnic clothing – a flowing scarf, peasant blouse, that long hippy skirt that had enveloped Stan. He took another tentative step inside and she jerked away.
Stan blinked with surprise in the sudden sunlight.
‘Could you?’ she said. ‘Bit allergic.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
I picked up Stan, carted him to Scout’s bedroom, shut the door and returned to the loft.
The woman from Cafcass was staring out of one of the big windows.
‘Coffee?’ I said.
‘I’m good.’
As we settled ourselves awkwardly on the sofa, half facing each other, I realised that our conversation was being conducted in monosyllables.
But then Ms Vine began to speak.
‘As you probably know, my department looks after the interests of children involved in family proceedings,’ she said. ‘We interview the concerned parties and then advise the court on what we consider to be in the best interests of the children.’
She had a thin green file in her hands.
I stared at it.
Was that it? This thin green file? Were our lives in there?
Scout. Me. Anne.
The old life. The new life. The future life.
Did something as big as all that really fit into such a thin little green file?
Ms Vine seemed to take my lack of response as a sign of incomprehension. And perhaps she was right. The man in front of her did not have a clue what was happening to his family.
‘So my role,’ she said, speaking slowly to help me get it, ‘is to look out for the child’s interests in care, supervision or placement proceedings.’
Is that what this was – a placement proceeding?
I thought we were talking about Scout’s life.
‘So are you a social worker?’ I said.
She bridled at such a prosaic description.
‘When working on care cases we are known as a “children’s guardian”. It’s my role – as children’s guardian – to be the independent voice of the child in court. Do you have any questions, Mr Wolfe?’
‘I don’t really understand what’s happening,’ I said. ‘What exactly you’re trying to find out. What might happen next. I know there has to be some kind of court hearing—’
She cut across me, pursing her lips with impatience.
‘You haven’t been advised by your solicitor?’
I shook my head.
‘I am here to ensure that a court makes decisions that are in the child’s best interests,’ she said.
She still had not said my daughter’s name.
I waited.
She peeked at the thin green file.
‘Scout,’ she said. A smile of recognition. ‘Like the little girl in To Kill a Mocking Bird. The guardian’s job is to be Scout’s voice in court. I’m on her side.’ She patted her thin green file. ‘Scout’s side. Usually there’s mediation in a case like this before we get to a family court hearing, but because of the special circumstances, there will be no mediation.’
‘Hold on. What special circumstances?’
She met my gaze levelly. ‘Because of the violence.’
‘What? There’s never been any violence! I would never hurt Anne! I would never hurt any woman! That’s not the way I was raised. That’s not who I am.’
‘You didn’t assault Oliver Lewis?’
The husband.
The bloody husband.
I laughed.
She sat up straighter, her mouth flexing.
‘You find me amusing, Mr Wolfe?’
‘I find you misinformed, Ms Vine. There was nothing resembling violence between myself and …’ The new guy, I thought. ‘Mr Lewis,’ I said. ‘Some voices may have been raised. A chair may have been knocked over. But it was all handbags – sorry, man bags – at ten paces.’ I shook my head. ‘I was never arrested, never charged and never found guilty of harming a hair on this gentleman’s moisturised head.’
We stared at each other for a bit.
‘The law,’ I said. ‘It’s sort of what I do.’
‘Yes, Mr Wolfe,’ she said. ‘Me too.’
She got down to the heart of the thing.
‘It’s unusual for a daughter as young as Scout to be living alone with her father.’
I waited. I didn’t feel like telling her my life story.
She was still waiting.
‘Families come in all shapes and sizes,’ I offered.
‘Hmm,’ she said, as if we might have to come back to that one. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me something about Scout’s current arrangements at home? Childcare and so on. Your network of support. That’s a question, Mr Wolfe.’
‘I have a lady called Mrs Murphy who helps me. She lives on the other side of the meat market. Very close. Mrs Murphy loves Scout.’
There was a notebook in her hands.
‘So this Mrs Murphy is a relation?’
‘No.’
‘Employee?’
I shrugged. Mrs Murphy was so much more than that. ‘She is,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t cover it. You see, Mrs Murphy has a big family and they—’
‘Your parents? Do they help with Scout?’
‘My parents are dead.’
‘Siblings? Do you have brothers and sisters, Scout’s aunts and uncles, who help you?’
‘I’m an only child,’ I said.
She wrote for a while. Her eyebrows arched at this strange man who had so few people in his world. As she jotted down these details, I thought I should make some point about how well we were doing, Scout and I, how it had been desperately hard at first but now we were doing fine. But I said nothing. I was afraid of what was going to happen next.
‘And how – in your opinion – did the current arrangements come about, Mr Wolfe? Why – in your opinion – is Scout living with you and not her mother?’
‘It’s not my opinion,’ I said. ‘It’s what happened. My ex-wife left the family home. She had a new life with a new man who is now her husband.’
‘The man you didn’t assault.’
We stared at each other. The man I didn’t assault. That was a good one.
‘That’s the guy,’ I said. ‘My wife – ex-wife – Anne – was busy with her new life. I don’t know how else to explain it – to excuse it. I think when people start a new life – new home, new partner, new children – there’s not enough space in their life for the old life. The life they left behind.’
I looked towards the big windows of the loft, the July sunshine streaming down as if from heaven.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few years,’ I said. ‘Trying to understand it. Trying to make sense of what happened. And that’s the best I can come up with. There is only so much room in someone’s life. And I know men do that sort of thing all the time.’ I looked back at the woman from Cafcass. ‘But women do it too. My daughter and I were left to get on with it. And that’s what we did.’
‘Your ex-wife maintains that you froze her out.’