I hoped now was the right time for Oliver to get allWell, technically, because he had thatWell, technicallyvibe. “Etonis a charity case,” he replied, and I silently congratulated myself for calling it. “If it’s okay for a school full of rich men’s rich sons to accept help when it’s offered, it’s okay for you too.”
Maisie looked deeply, deeply suspicious. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying”—Oliver spoke very carefully and very softly—“that the system could work better for you than it currently is. I don’t know exactly what you need to do to get Jaz back, but I know a lot of people whoshouldknow. Several of my friends are family lawyers. I don’t want to overstep, but…but I think I can help. And I’d like to. If that’s what you want.”
That was a lot. It was especially a lot because this wasn’t something we’d particularly talked about, and while it was probably the right thing to offer, I didn’t entirelylikethe idea of workingtowards a post-Jaz future, as inevitable as it was. But, given the choice between an Oliver who was kind without consulting me and one who was an authoritarian dick without consulting me, I liked the first one way, way more.
Jaz and her mum just kind of stood there, notquiteknowing how to respond. Honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed either of them for telling Oliver to fuck off because while the system had put him and the Johnsons together, he was still near as damn it a stranger to Maisie. And Jaz still, as far as I knew, thought he was a prick.
But theFuck offnever came.
Instead, Maisie, in the cagey tones of a woman who has been let down way too often, just said, “Keep talking.”
And Oliver did.
He was cautious, because of course he was cautious. And he didn’t make any guarantees, because of course he didn’t make any guarantees. But hecared. And I loved that he cared. And I loved that he could show he cared through the highly specific language of being able to navigate the British legal system because, fuck me, was that useful sometimes. And as I listened to him talking through the Children Act 1989 and evidence-informed frameworks for return home practice with the Johnsons, I was struck with a clear, bright-light certainty that this would work. That I was watching the start of something that would, at some point, end with Jaz getting taken away from us.
I don’t think I ever really understood the wordbittersweetuntil then.
Chapter 43
“What,” said Priya. “The fuck. Is this?”
What the fuckwas me, Mum, Judy, a trailer filled with professional-grade music-performing shit, an open-topped car that had been built in the last century, and a ditch.
“I blame the dogs,” Judy insisted.
Oh yes, me, Mum, Judy, a trailer filled with professional-grade music-performing shit, an open-topped car that had been built in the last century, a ditch, and all of Judy’s dogs. I should have seen this coming. Or should I have seen this coming? I’d offered to arrange transportation to CRAPPstonbury, and when Mum had said Judy was taking care of it, I’d assumed she was going to take care of it by literally any other method other than hitching a large wagon to the back of her tiny car and driving it too fast down roads that were too narrow on surfaces that were too skiddy around corners that were too tight. After ten minutes of that, the ditch had come almost as a relief.
The window of the truck rolled down, and Jaz stuck her head out. “Why did you even bring the dogs?” she asked.
“Never mind the dogs.” I glared at Priya. “Why didyoubring my foster daughter?”
“She wanted to come,” Priya told me. “Said she could help.”
“I wanted to see how badly you’d fucked this up,” Jaz clarified. “I think the answer isloads?”
Walking the fine line between parental and professional, I approached the truck. “Jaz, you were meant to stay with Oliver and your mum.”
“I know. But it’s really boring right now. It’s just portaloos and people setting stuff up.”
I felt a weird tug of pride that, in the last few months, Maisie’s visits had got routine enough that Jaz felt comfortable bailing in the middle of one to watch me humiliate myself.
“For your information,” Mum was saying, still in the ditch, “this is not afuckup. The legends of the rock ’n’ roll, we do not havefuckups. We havestories.”
Jaz jumped down from the truck and ran to help Mum back onto solid ground. I, meanwhile, did my best to wrangle dogs and instruments and bits of cable I didn’t understand out of the half-overturned trailer pile and into a more sensible vehicle.
“You know,” I told Jaz as she and Mum took charge of kit-shifting, leaving me with just the dogs, “I didn’t want you down here for a reason. You helping with my job, my actual job I get paid actual money for, is really…child-labour-y. It isn’t going to look good at our next review meeting.”
She didn’t seem especially impressed at that. “If they was going to take me away, they’d have done it by now. Reckon you’re stuck with me.”
“Okay, but it’s also probably, like, exploitative and shit.”
Priya dumped the remains of a broken guitar into the flatbed. “No, she’s earning valuable work experience. This right here”—she made an expansive gesture covering the chaos around us and the idyllic, if lightly manure-scented, countryside around that—“this is a future in events management.”
“I mean,” said Jaz, “ifhecan do it.”
“Hey. I worked very hard on this and used a lot of valuable skills I’ve earned over my years as a professional fundraiser.”
