The phone went off at half past six in the morning, while Imogen was still standing in the hallway with one shoe in her hand. On the screen — “Tracey.” She didn’t answer until she’d pulled on the second shoe, and then she pressed accept and held it to her ear with her shoulder.
“Imogen, I really need four hundred quid. Alfie’s going to that camp, you know, the language one, and there’s the maths tutor too, and you know what prices are these days.”
No “hello,” no “how are you.” Straight to four hundred quid and Alfie.
“Morning,” said Imogen.
“Yeah, morning, morning. So can you transfer it today? He’ll lose his place at the camp otherwise.”
***
Alfie had been brought round to hers in winter, when he was two years and three months old. Tracey stood on the doorstep with a bag over her shoulder and a pram with her nephew asleep inside, talking quickly, as if worried someone would interrupt.
“Imogen, it’s only for a couple of months. I can’t manage right now. Darren’s gone, there’s no money, I need to find a job, and where am I supposed to take him? Mum said you’re free, so it’s easier for you.”
Free. That word had stuck to Imogen in their family like a sticker you can’t scrape off. Thirty-one, her own one-bedroom flat in Peckham, an accountant at a building firm, not married, no children. So — free. So — easier.
“Tracey, I’ve got work. I leave at six, I get back at eight.”
“Well, there’s nursery! I’ll send you money once I get sorted. Oh, Imogen. Come on.”
Their mother rang that evening.
“You’re not going to put your own sister and child out on the street, are you? Her husband’s done a runner, she’s not herself. And you’re on your own, it won’t kill you. God never gave you any of your own — so at least help your nephew.”
God never gave. That had been said too, as casually as the weather.
Imogen took Alfie for a couple of months.
The couple of months stretched until Imogen lost count. First Tracey was “looking for work.” Then she found some, but it “didn’t work out with the manager.” Then she went to Benidorm “to clear my head, I was going out of my mind.” From Benidorm came photos — her on a boat, her with some tanned bloke, her in a restaurant. No money came with them.
Alfie started at the nursery near Imogen’s flat. Imogen got up at five to get him ready, drop him off, and get to work. He was ill a lot, as nursery children are, so Imogen took unpaid leave or did spreadsheets at night so that she could be with him during the day. She bought him a cot, and later converted the sofa, because the cot had got too small. Shoes, coats, hats — they all got bought somehow, without much counting, because you can’t send a child out in ragged things.
Tracey appeared every couple of months. She brought a toy, squeezed Alfie, cried, “oh I’ve missed you so much, my little sunshine,” and two hours later she was gone — she had “errands,” a “meeting,” “a new bloke, honestly Imogen, you wouldn’t believe.”
“You could at least leave something for nappies,” Imogen said once.
“Imogen, I’m really skint at the moment. Once I get a job, I’ll pay you back every penny.”
Alfie called Imogen “Mummy Imogen.” He did it on his own; nobody taught him. She corrected him at first, saying, “I’m your auntie,” but he didn’t understand, so she stopped.
He fell asleep on her shoulder while she read him stories about Paddington. He knew all his letters by the time he was four, because Imogen laid them out with fridge magnets. He cried when she went to work, and met her at the door when she came home.
Five years.
Tracey took him back in the summer, before school started.
She arrived as a different woman — plumper, in a good coat, with a new husband in the car called Kevin.
“Right, Imogen, I’m ready. Kevin earns well, we’ve got a flat, I’m putting Alfie into a proper school, there’s a lovely academy near us. Thanks, you really saved me.”
“Tracey, he’s seven. He’s lived here his whole life.”
“Well, he’s my son. Don’t be like that, you’re not a stranger. A child belongs with his mother.”
Alfie didn’t want to go. He clung to Imogen’s cardigan and howled so loudly the neighbours came out to look. Tracey peeled his fingers off, annoyed.
“Alfie, that’s enough, stop making a scene. Come on, we’re going to Mummy’s, it’ll be lovely, you’ll have your own room.”
Imogen sat on the hallway floor while they went downstairs. She heard Alfie crying on the landing. Then the front door banged shut, and it was quiet.
She gathered his fridge magnets into a shoebox. Put it on the top shelf of the wardrobe.
For three years, Tracey barely rang. At Christmas, a dutiful “Merry Christmas”; on Imogen’s birthday, sometimes remembered, sometimes not. Alfie wasn’t brought to her. “Imogen, it’s not convenient, dragging across London, and he’s busy, he’s got clubs.”
Imogen went herself. She took presents, took him to the park near their house at weekends, when Tracey allowed. Alfie had grown; he was embarrassed about hugging in the street, but in the park, where nobody could see, he still held her hand.
Then those visits faded away too. Tracey had “gone to the caravan with Kevin,” or “Alfie’s at the tutor’s,” or she simply didn’t answer.
And then — half past six in the morning. Four hundred quid.
“Tracey, hang on. Four hundred quid for what?”
“I told you. The camp, the tutor, and he needs a new school uniform, he’s grown like anything. We’re a bit tight right now, Kevin’s restructuring the business, everything’s tied up. But you love him. You brought him up. You won’t miss it.”
That “you brought him up” was the first time Imogen had heard it in three years. Before, it had been “he’s my son” and “a child belongs with his mother.” Now that money was needed — brought him up.
“What about Kevin? You said he earns well.”
“I’m explaining — it’s all in the business. And anyway, what’s Kevin got to do with it? He’s not Alfie’s dad. Darren is. I mean, he’s mine.”
“And Darren? It’s his son. Get child maintenance from him.”
There was a heavy, wounded sigh.
“Imogen, are you having a laugh? I haven’t seen Darren in years, where am I supposed to find him? I’m asking you, woman to woman. Sister to sister. You’ve got a salary, a career, you live by yourself, you only spend on yourself. I’m a mother, I’ve got a child.”
“You’ve had a child for ten years. Alfie wasn’t born yesterday.”
“So? Children cost money all the time! You wouldn’t know, because you haven’t got any!”
There it was. Imogen wasn’t surprised. She had known it was coming, she had waited for it, and it still stung like hot water.
“Haven’t got any,” Imogen repeated. “That’s why I spent five years bringing up yours.”
“Oh, don’t start that old story! That was ages ago! You keep going on — brought up, brought up. Did I force you? You took him in yourself!”
Imogen was late for work that morning. She sat in the hallway on a stool, in her shoes and coat, and did the sums.
She had never counted before. She hadn’t wanted to. But now she took the piece of paper with a prescription from the GP on it, turned it over and started writing on the back.
Nursery — she had paid for it herself, no discount, someone else’s child with no paperwork in her name. One. Clothes and shoes — every season. Two. Toys, books, activities. Medicine — Alfie had pneumonia at six; she’d taken unpaid leave. Teeth — she’d gone private, because the NHS dentist had a month-long waiting list. Cot, sofa, bedding, children’s crockery.
When she finished, it came to more than enough to live on for a year without working.
And Tracey had never given a single pound. Not once. Not for nappies, not for a coat, not for medicine.
And now she wanted four hundred quid. Today. So the place at the camp wouldn’t go.
Imogen folded the paper into four and put it in her bag.
In the evening Tracey rang again. This time she was calmer, edging in from the side.
“Imogen, have you thought? I’m not fixed on four hundred. Even three hundred. Even two-fifty, just for the camp.”
“No, Tracey.”
A pause.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Exactly no. Not four hundred, not two-fifty. You’re his mother. You took him back when it suited you. Now pay for him yourself.”
“Imogen!” The voice shot up. “How can you say that! It’s Alfie! You carried him in your arms!”
“I did. For five years. For free. While you were on a boat in Benidorm. I asked you to leave money for nappies then — remember what you said? ‘Once I’m sorted I’ll pay you back.’ Where’s my money, Tracey? Every penny, you promised.”
“You’re bringing up old things? I had other things to deal with then! My life was falling apart!”
“And mine wasn’t? I got up at five in the morning. I did reports at night so I could be with him in the day. I didn’t marry for three years, because what bloke wants a woman with somebody else’s child — a child she can’t even adopt, because the mother’s alive and well and off sailing about the seas?”
There was crying at the other end. Whether it was real or not, Imogen had long since stopped being able to tell.
“I thought you loved him,” Tracey said thinly.
“I do. That’s why I won’t give you the money. Because it won’t go on the camp. I know your camps. Find Darren, put in for child maintenance — that’s legal, that’s fair. Or ask Kevin, since you’re married. But I’m not a cash machine that opens when everything’s tied up.”
Their mother rang two days later. Imogen knew she would.
“Imogen, what do I hear? You refused your sister?”
“Hello, Mum.”
“Don’t ‘hello’ me! Answer! Tracey is in tears, her child’s going without a camp, and you, his own aunt, begrudged her a few quid! Aren’t you ashamed!”
“Mum. I spent five years bringing up Alfie. Where was Tracey?”
“She had a hard patch! Stop acting like some sort of prosecutor, adding everything up! Blood is thicker than water, and you’re behaving like a stranger.”
“Blood is thicker than water. And when it was too late for me to have kids, and I sat at home with someone else’s child instead of living my own life — what kind of blood was that?”
Mum paused for a second.
“Well, you agreed. Nobody forced you.”
“I agreed. Because you said ‘God never gave you any of your own, so help your nephew.’ Remember? Help. I helped. For five years. And now Tracey wants more, and I’m the bad one again.”
“She’s not demanding, she’s asking!”
“She’s demanding, Mum. With ‘you should’ and ‘you haven’t got any of your own.’ That’s not asking.”
“I’ll tell you this, Imogen.” Mother lowered her voice, and Imogen knew the verdict was coming. “If you don’t give her the money, then don’t come at Christmas. Seeing as you’re so distant from the family.”
“Fine,” said Imogen. “I won’t come.”
She put the phone down first. Before, she had always waited for Mum to finish.
A week later Tracey played her last card. She sent a long message, half a screen long.
The meaning was simple: “If you’re going to be like that, I’ll tell everybody that the child’s own aunt refused to help him. That she dropped him, threw him out of her life once he wasn’t needed. We’ll see how people look at you then.”
Imogen read it standing by the stove. Read it twice. Then she typed back slowly, choosing every word.
“Go on, then. And I’ll show the receipts. I’ve kept them — nursery, doctors, all of it. Five years. And I’ll tell everyone how you couldn’t leave money for nappies while you were in Benidorm. And how you took Alfie back when it suited you, and then kept him away from me for three years. Let’s see who people judge, Tracey.”
Of course she didn’t have all the receipts. Some things had survived — invoices from the private dentist, the nursery contract. But Tracey didn’t know that. And Tracey went quiet.
For good.
Spring passed, and summer began. For Mum’s sixty-fifth birthday, Imogen wasn’t invited. She found out when a cousin posted photos of the party — everyone was there: Tracey, Alfie in a new shirt, Mum at the head of the table. Without her.
Imogen looked at Alfie in the photo. He had shot up, all gangly and teenage, but his eyes were the same — she would have known them anywhere. The same eyes that had looked up at her while she read about Paddington.
The call came in June, late in the evening, from a number she didn’t recognise.
“Mummy Imogen?” The voice cracked between low and high. “It’s me, Alfie. I’m on a friend’s phone. Mum won’t let me call you. She says you left us.”
Imogen sat down on the stool.
“Alfie, love. I didn’t leave you. Do you hear me? I never left you.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I remember you putting letters on the fridge. I remember everything. It’s just that Mum says something different.”
They talked for about ten minutes. About school, about how he was into robots now, soldering things together. Imogen listened and was afraid to breathe, in case she scared him off. At the end he said:
“I’ll call you again. Just don’t tell Mum, all right? Or she’ll take the phone off me.”
“I won’t tell,” Imogen said. “Call me, love. Whenever you want.”
The line went dead.
He called twice more. Then he stopped — maybe the friend’s phone ran out of credit, maybe Tracey found out. Imogen didn’t know. The number he’d called from no longer answered.
She got the shoebox down from the top of the wardrobe. Opened it. Fridge magnets — a blue “A,” a red “B,” a yellow “C.” The letters he had learned to read with, lying on her shoulder.
Imogen put them back on the fridge, one by one, as she used to. A-L-F-I-E. She stood back and looked. Then she took her phone, found the last number he had called from, and saved it. She wrote “Alfie.” And put the phone on the table, screen up, so she would see it if it lit up.
