The Last Weekend Read Online Free PDF Page A

The fifteen-year-old addicted to stealing BMWs. The fourteen-year-old who fed her crack habit through prostitution. And those were just the older kids.
‘I lay awake half the night thinking about her,’ she said.
Please spare me the detail, I wanted to say. But the earlier row made me conciliatory.
‘I’m all ears,’ I lied, and tried to pay attention.
Magda was a twenty-year-old from Lithuania, now living in Derby, it seemed. She had turned up at Em’s office with a split lip, bruised cheekbone and black eye. Em’s speciality is kids on probation. But she was duty senior that day and Magda’s appearance was so vulnerable (not just the injuries but the torn jeans, flimsy T-shirt and nylon jacket) that Em — overhearing her broken conversation with the reception clerk — invited her into one of the ‘consulting rooms’ (a windowless cell with bulletproof glass). It was only then that she realised the girl had a baby with her, silent in a pushchair. Em was struck by how well dressed the baby was, unlike its mother. How well cared for, too. What’s she called? Em asked. Anna. How old is she? Seven months. She’s a beautiful baby, Em said. Yes, but I need fossilhelp. Fossilhelp — what do you mean by fossilhelp? To have my baby. To have your baby? To take from me. You want someone to take your baby? Yes. You want to place your baby for adoption? I do not understand.
Nor did Em understand, but over the next hour — between tears and cups of tea and nappy changes and mangled syntax – she slowly got there. It was a complex story involving a baby whose arrival made Magda’s boyfriend angry and violent. Distressed, Magda had gone back to Lithuania for a month, but her family didn’t want to know. Reunited with the boyfriend in Derby, she tried to make a go of things but then …
It was hot in the car and to be honest I dozed off, though I did hear the explanation of fossilhelp.
‘Foster care,’ Em said. ‘Someone had told her about it. So I explained about a child being placed in care and how in time it might be returned to its mother, but there was no guarantee, and so the best thing Magda could do was …
The next thing I knew was Em prodding me.
‘Completely unprofessional of me, right? Ian? Ian? ‘
I sat upright and rubbed my eyes.
‘Like I say,’ she said, ‘I’m in the leaving care team, not the fostering department: I should have referred her and let them deal with it. Instead of which I scrambled together fifty quid of emergency funds, got her a place in a hostel over the weekend, handed her an extra twenty quid out of my own pocket, gave her my mobile number so she could call me any time, and told her to come back and see me on Tuesday.’
Handing out twenty quid was certainly unprofessional – and generosity we couldn’t afford. But this wasn’t the time to say so.
‘You did the right thing,’ I said. ‘You helped her.’
‘I could see she loved the child and shouldn’t be rushed into something she might regret.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, stroking the back of Em’s left hand as it rested on the gear lever. I was wide awake now andwondered, since I’d listened nicely, would she let me take over the driving again.
‘And the story of the rape was appalling,’ she said. ‘Her parents accused her of bringing shame on the family but, Christ, it was hardly her fault. You suffer one kind of nightmare and then the bastards put you through another.’
Was the baby the product of a rape, then? I’d been asleep for that bit.
‘You were moved by her story,’ I said. ‘That’s understandable.’
‘I hear terrible stories all the time. Usually I’m detached. Why wasn’t I this time?’
The lanes had narrowed and we were stuck behind a lorry carrying sand. The tailgate was loosely bolted, so that every time the lorry hit a bump the flap tipped open and spat out sand grains.
‘Stop beating yourself up about it.’
‘I asked a question, Ian.’
She kept her eyes on the road rather than look