Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

But of course she wouldn’t.

If she told her, Pam wasn’t going to nod sympathetically and say ‘But you’re not that person any more.’ She was going to be straight on the phone to Social Work.

They’d take Beckie away.

Or Alec would leave her and take Beckie with him.

Pam was looking at her now with comically wide eyes. ‘ Really ?’

‘As soon as he saw Beckie, of course, that was it. Adoration at first sight.’

Pam scrunched up the telltale empty bag and shoved it in her pocket. She linked her arm through Ruth’s. ‘Who could help but adore Beckie?’

Who indeed?

She’d been such an adorable little thing, standing there in the middle of a roomful of toys looking so lost and scared, dressed in a green and pink smock and white tights, a wooden train clutched in one plump little hand. Deirdre had warned them that Bekki might not respond to them at this first meeting and that they shouldn’t be downhearted or alarmed if they ‘failed to engage’ or Bekki appeared ‘distressed or fearful’. For all her training and experience with children, Ruth had frozen, a fixed grin on her face, and it had been Alec who’d hunkered down to Bekki’s level and given her a quick, easy smile before turning away to pick up a wooden carriage.

‘Now then Bekki, I think I’m going to need some help here. Does this fit onto… this?’ And he’d picked up a Duplo brick.

Bekki had just stood there.

Alec had tried fitting the brick onto the carriage. First one way, then the other. He’d sat down and frowned, not looking at Bekki, speaking as if to himself. ‘Hmmm. This isn’t going too well. It’s got a little hook on it, so it must attach to something… Something must go on here…’

‘Thith one,’ Bekki had finally whispered, squatting down next to Alec and holding out the train.

And Alec had turned and smiled at her and said, ‘Oh, thank you, Bekki. Just right!’

Just right.

Pre-Beckie, the idea of Alec running about a field with a pony and two little girls would have been laughable. The idea of Alec at a Family Fun Day at a National Trust for Scotland property, or at a pantomime, or in a soft play area, or doing anything at all, frankly, involving children would have been something Ruth struggled to imagine.

But he was a great dad. The best. It had brought out a whole new side to him she hadn’t even suspected was there. He just loved being with Beckie. He loved everything about her. He even looked forward now to Strictly and Bake-Off , programmes on which he’d previously heaped vitriol, because he loved watching Beckie watching them.

And who knew he was so good at stories?

Ruth couldn’t help being a little bit jealous of this. It was hard not to feel rejected when Beckie sleepily requested ‘a Daddy story’ in preference to the book Ruth had selected. Her favourites were Alec’s stories about the Wanderers, a family who lived on a boat in Viking times. It was, Alec assured them, based on fact, or at least on stories handed down through the generations on the west coast, and from his grandma to Alec and Pippa, and now to Beckie.

‘And I’ll tell my children if I have any,’ Beckie would promise, snuggling down with an anticipatory smile as Alec started the next instalment with a recap.

‘So last time, Fiona and Donald were sheltering in the cave on Wild Dog Island. Left behind when the others set sail.’

‘Their mum thinks they’re asleep in the cabin, but they’re not!’

‘Yep, and Fiona’s really angry with Donald now.’

‘But it’s Fiona’s fault too! She should have said No, it’s really dangerous and stupid. We mustn’t .’

‘Mm. Probably if she had, Donald wouldn’t have gone sneaking out to the cave on his own, you reckon?’

‘No. He wouldn’t. He’d have been too scared.’

Beckie loved playing Wanderers whenever they went to the Loch, pretending that she was Fiona and one of her toys was Donald, and Alec was maybe a Viking chasing them, or their dad, or their annoying older brother Kenneth. She wanted nothing more than to be allowed to have sailing lessons so she could be like the Wanderers. This was good leverage to encourage her to keep attending her hated swimming classes – you can only have sailing lessons, Alec and Ruth had told her, when you can swim well enough for it to be safe.

In the oral histories of the west coast, the Wanderers were families displaced by the Vikings, running from them, or rather sailing away in their boats, but never settling on other shores, always hankering after their own beach, their own turf house, their own lost lives. Their homes had become their boats. They might land on a lonely island or come in to a harbour for a day, a week, a month, but sooner or later they’d be back in their boats and away. Everything had happened in those boats: babies were born, young folk were married, old folk sickened and died and were buried at sea.

Alec had never told Ruth any of his grandmother’s stories.

He had never told her a lot of things – although those omissions hardly even registered on the scale compared with hers. Alec’s weren’t really omissions at all. It was more as if Beckie had made him more completely himself, as if the complete Alec – the whole, rounded, wonderful man he was always meant to be – was only now emerging.

It helped, of course, that Beckie was Beckie. She had proved Alec wrong in his stereotyping of adopted children in that she was very bright, with a particular aptitude for puzzles and games – even chess, at the age of seven! – and shared Alec’s curiosity about life, the world and the Universe. And she was very sweet and good, although Ruth worried a little, still, that she was too eager to please.

She worried that, with her compliant nature, she might be a target for bullies. But so far so good. She loved school, and her little group of close friends were cheerful, easy-going girls Ruth trusted. That being said, Emma could be a feisty little thing, especially in the face of a perceived injustice, but this was a positive in Ruth’s opinion: Emma could be counted on to protect Beckie from the other children if need be.

‘I don’t want to ride,’ Beckie was insisting now, even though riding Hobo was her favourite thing in the world. She was leaning back on the fence getting her breath, one arm hugging a post, as Emma, Hobo and Alec trotted up.

‘Are you sure?’ said Emma.

‘Uh-huh.’ Beckie undid her pink riding helmet and balanced it on the fence post. ‘Absolutely sure.’

Absolutely was a new favourite word.

Ruth looked at her daughter, drinking her in, feeling her stomach plummet and a shiver run through her. It was as if love for your child was a terrible physical force that swept through you and left you weak, frozen on the edge of a terror you couldn’t name.

Sara had been right – Ruth had never felt love like this before.

Or hatred.

How could those people have hurt her? How could they?

‘Aren’t you tired out?’ Alec asked, doing a comical stagger. ‘Personally, I’m knackered.’

Beckie laughed. ‘We can have a rest if you want? I’m not, like, really tired. But my head’s hot. I don’t need to wear my helmet if I’m not riding, do I?’

‘Yes you do, Beckster.’ Alec picked it up and plonked it back on her head. ‘What if you tripped up and Hobo stood on your head?’

Both girls for some reason found this scenario hilarious. For several minutes all they could do was laugh, Emma staggering to the fence and supporting herself on it and then on Beckie, the two girls clutching each other as they shook, eyes streaming.

All three adults laughed with them.

Then: ‘Now, come on, girls,’ said Ruth when it had gone on long enough and showed no signs of abating.