Free Shtum by Jem Lester

be traced, all we have to do is set a date and time to talk. They’re untraceable.’
    ‘You said that already.’ She looks weary. ‘This is not some covert MI5 mission. Come on, get a grip.’
    ‘I need to be able to talk to you, Emma.’
    ‘Stop wasting your money on toys and take them back to the shop.’
    I try to hide the shaking – and my face – as I fake a gulp from my large Americano. I’m behaving like an insecure teenager.
    ‘I had a meeting at the school. They’re still going on about Maureen Mitchell, Jenny Porter won’t back us. Even if she agrees with us, she’s just toeing the party line. I went to see it. It’s no good.’
    She reaches into her briefcase and passes me a large buff pocket file.
    ‘You’ll need these – every document about Jonah from his birth until last week. They’re in chronological order and I’ve made notes, so don’t lose them. And anything else that’s generated you must keep and you must file – do you understand? There’s also a document providing you with temporary custody. You need to sign it and return it. I’ve already signed.’
    ‘Keep and file, sign and send. I think I can manage that.’
    ‘Now, phone the barrister, I’m told she’s the best. You’ll need to have detailed reports on Jonah from a speech therapist, educational psychologist, occupational therapist, child psychiatrist, and anybody else that can add to the case. I know this is not your forte …’
    ‘But you’ve already been away for a month.’
    ‘I just can’t do it. Not now. I’m already under huge pressure.’
    ‘They on your case at work, then?’
    ‘More than you could know. They have me working all God’s hours, meetings every night. I don’t have the headspace.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Ben, you’ll just have to cope for once.’
    She stands and pulls on her navy coat and picks up her case. I move round the table and reach for her. She kisses me tenderly, but not, it feels, without an invoice.
    ‘You’ll have to lay out the money.’
    ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Surely we don’t have to pretend you’re broke as well?’ I stare into her eyes as she answers.
    ‘About six months ago I put my available cash into a high-yield bond. It doesn’t mature for another year.’
    ‘I don’t understand. Why would you do that when we’d decided to go to tribunal?’
    Emma picks at her cuticles. ‘It was earning nothing where it was, I couldn’t let it just sit there.’
    ‘But you knew we were going to need it.’
    ‘I thought the council might buckle,’ she says.
    ‘Really? That’s not like you. Not your way of planning. What’s going on, Emma?’ Her eyes wander, I’m conjuring visions of dashing international lawyers and luxury hotel suites. ‘What happened in Hong Kong?’
    She sits down again and her anger sharpens my sordid vision. ‘I worked and I worked and I slept and I missed home. That’s all,’ she says. ‘Do you think I was having fun? I can promise you I wasn’t.’
    I feel my face set into a Pierrot frown.
    ‘What?’ she stabs. I back down, as I always do in the presence of her irritation. We both stare at the table until the air between us cools.
    ‘The money?’ I remind her.
    ‘Around thirty thousand pounds.’
    ‘What! You know I haven’t got that kind of money.’
    ‘I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.’
    ‘It’s not that, I just don’t know where I’ll get it from.’
    ‘Ask your father.’
    I imagine Dad’s twitching fists. ‘Emma, come on, that is not going to happen.’
    ‘Why? You keep telling me that he owes you.’
    ‘Yes, but he doesn’t agree – there’s no fucking contract, after all. It’s not written on paper, it’s written in years of psychotherapy and washing-up. I am not asking him.’
    ‘For Jonah, you won’t ask him?’
    ‘That’s low.’
    ‘No, it’s just the truth …’
    I’m wounded and my head drops. ‘He doesn’t want Jonah to go. He says you don’t give up your children. Which is a bit rich