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.“It’s a bug hurdle, my dear Joanna, to fight for the custody of a child.Look at what you will be accused of if this goes the full ten rounds.You will be an unfit parent by virtue of your sexuality.This is not a heady Saturday night discussion any more, like we had with Wendy.This is the real thing.”“No, Geraldine.It won’t come to that, I’m sure.I won’t give you up.Let’s go on as we are and as we plan, but keep Lou away from them.Then, as to your options, I don’t think I’ll see them face-to-face.I’ll get a solicitor.”“You don’t have one?”“Yes.But he was Stephen’s and mine.I may need a specialist”“Why not start with the devil you know? It will be up to him to decide whether you need Council’s opinion.That will be what matters if it goes that far.But I’d be for seeing what can be negotiated away first.”“Will you tell Daniel now?” Geraldine asks after a silence whilst they each reflect on all this.She hesitates as she thinks whether that is just what she should do.But the idea of telling him in these circumstances is too dreadful to contemplate.She just shakes her head.“I won’t tell any of them, if I can avoid it.”Geraldine can see there is no room for discussion and says nothing.There is little more to say about the whole business and Joanna has to get home to let Mary away.They hold each other in the hall, Geraldine saying that she would like to be able to take Joanna’s pain for her.Joanna cannot face this particular parting, heralding as it does a return to a home that now has a major attack on it from outside.She so needs Geraldine with her.And that would be disastrous for now in terms of playing into the hands of the Rodgers.She aches with sadness as she drives home.They have had such a short time before the outside world has started to intrude.Chapter 26She wakens the next morning with the same sense of dread that she felt two years ago when she was called to the Royal Hospital.Struggling to consciousness, she groans to herself at the realisation that Lou is heading straight for the kind of conflict situation that she has watched other children suffer when she has worked with families in separation and divorce situations.She knows that grandparents have no rights to custody.But the way ahead is likely to involve weeks and months of contentious solicitors’ letters.She knows too that she is a good mother and that there should be no problem at the end of the day in proving that.But if it comes to it, how does she argue that you can be a good mother and in a relationship with a woman at the same time? In her bones, she thinks that this is going to be nasty and sordid.And the person who matters in all this, Lou, is likely to be affected by it, no matter how she tries to protect her.Even as she thought about asking Lou last night about whether Martha or Jake had put any pressure on her for information, she hung back.At seven, children pick up on questions like that and know that something is wrong.Instead, last evening, she said nothing at all.This will have an impact on her whole family, way beyond anything she can imagine.She knows it could damage them forever.‘The only good thing,’ she thinks, as she heads to the shower, ‘is that Lou rarely, if ever, asks to go and see Martha and Jake.’ Joanna will not mention their names for the time being at least.And she will use the answer phone in the house for a while so that she does not lift the phone to the Rodgers.They have had it as far as she is concerned over seeing Lou.Maybe later, she’ll think about this again, but not at the moment.At work, the first thing that she does is ring and arrange to see Ed.He has almost become a friend now, so, when she takes time out in the late afternoon and waits to see him in the reception area, she is not nervous.She is just still steamed up with outrage that this could be happening to her and to Lou.He greets her with a peck to the cheek and a shake of the hand, this tall, prematurely grey haired man in his matching grey suit and blue tie.She finds herself hoping that he will be so committed to his profession that his accumulated wealth will not see him deciding on early retirement while she still needs legal services.But she is diffident in getting to the point and she knows that she spends too much time asking about his wife and the kids.Eventually, it is he who asks how he can help and she reluctantly reaches into the bag at her feet and pulls out the letter, passing it to him without a word.He reads it silently, then pauses as he pretends still to be reading it, though she knows that he is deciding how to respond.Eventually he looks over the edge of his gold-rimmed specs and looks at her.“Outrageous.”She heaves a sigh of relief.The man is on board to help.“To try to take Lou from you, they would have to contest and prove that you are an unfit mother.There is plenty of incontrovertible evidence to prove the contrary - that you are more than fit, that you are an excellent mother and that you love your child and she loves you.I have to ask.Is it true that you are in a relationship with the woman named here?”He looks at her, waiting for her reply.“Yes.” She tries to say it without any sense of guilt and more or less pulls it off.“I see.”“Could I lose Lou?”“I doubt it.I think any court would throw it out.But we don’t want it to get to court, do we?”She hears the hint of doubt in his voice.“Are you and Ms Spence intending to live together?”“Not at the moment.Maybe later.”“Right.And who knows of your relationship?”“One of our closest friends.Jeremy.I told Lou that Geraldine is a special friend.”“Could she have said this to the Rodgers?”“Yes.She could also have told them that Geraldine is around a lot but she hasn’t seen her grandmother or Jake since … since Geraldine and I decided what we want to do.Ed, how bad could this be?”“Well, I think that it could be unpleasant.To take her from you, they would have to apply for a Residence Order to the court, under the 1995 Children Act, but you will know this from your work?”She nods, hardly crediting that this legal business, so familiar to her in the workplace, could actually be impinging on her and her family.“And to be successful, they would have to prove that you are unfit by virtue of your relationship.We are not in a position to deny the relationship, but we can argue back and forward that the claim is spurious and malicious.I’m afraid the correspondence will be unpleasant, but let’s see if we can hold it to that.We will, unfortunately have to argue that it is in Lou’s best interests not to have contact, at least for the time being.That just might be a lever to get them to drop their case - the risk of not seeing her - even if it is a bit distasteful to use her as a bargaining tool.”“Whatever it takes, Ed, just as long as she is not in the direct line of fire.I don’t want her to know anything of this.”Ed asks what counter arguments could be used, later, against the Rodgers’ ability to care for the child and they spend minutes on Martha’s age, Jake’s drinking patterns and the total disruption to a child’s life that such a change would bring
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