unicorn with a rainbow matted mane brought for her inspection. She drank the cup of tea Nico made her, more interested in a comfortable gossip about family life than firing questions, watching the children play with a benign expression that Nico felt hid how closely she was paying attention.
‘Do you girls like drawing?’ she asked, after a while.
‘Yes!’ Josie instantly scrabbled in the kitchen drawer for a pad and a blue pencil case and bossily told Maria to sit at the table. ‘What shall we draw?’
Gloria assumed a considering air. ‘How about a picture of how you feel today?’
‘I draw,’ said Maria, and took a yellow crayon and scribbled industriously on the paper.
‘That’s lovely! Can you draw me a face?’ Gloria asked.
‘No,’ said Maria positively, changing to purple crayon.
Gloria grinned. ‘If you did draw me a face, would it be a smiley face today or a sad face?’
Maria looked at her as if she were bananas and pointed to the little unicorns dotting the pencil case and said, ‘Horse.’ Josie collapsed in fits of giggles, so Maria giggled too, screwing up her bobble nose and showing off all her pearly teeth.
It was when the girls had drifted back to the sitting room that Gloria moved into a slightly more businesslike mode. ‘Loren tells me she’s made a private arrangement with you. Children’s Services just needs to make sure Maria is safe, healthy and happy during her mum’s illness and that everyone gets the support they need.’ She talked on about ‘family and friends carers’ and advised him that he may be eligible for fostering allowance or maintenance paid from the birth parents. Foster carers could get training and professional development, too.
He listened but said, ‘It’s only for one more week. The agreement is that Loren or her parents will take Maria before Josie and me leave to visit our family in Sweden on Friday.’
Gloria tilted her head and looked at him for a long moment. Then she smiled. ‘You have my contact details anyway, if you need anything. I’ll pop in again.’ She went into a practised spiel about reports and the fostering panel and left him lots of information for him to consider. Nico thanked her, reasonably confident he was being put into the ‘OK’ category but with the knowledge that his days as a foster carer were numbered anyway.
In the afternoon he kept his appointment with the Bettsbrough solicitor who’d agreed to handle his settlement agreement from SLS. Josie entertained Maria with the iPad in a corner of the office while Mrs Ponderoy talked him through the document and he signed his part then he celebrated by taking the girls to McDonald’s.
Fast food wasn’t usually on his radar but he knew occasional treats didn’t hurt and he didn’t want the kids to grow up with his hang-ups. Also, he felt optimistic and chilled. The urge to exert unnecessary control over his eating wasn’t breathing on him as it did in times of stress.
Maria proved herself to be familiar with Macky D’s by swivelling her head to look up at Nico and piping, ‘Mydad, c’n I ’ave a ’Appy Meal?’
‘You can.’ He didn’t remind her about saying ‘please’. They were all going to have a guilt-free burger.
As they ate, Josie worked industriously on a colouring sheet from a dispenser on the wall, eating chicken with her other hand; Maria, in a high chair, ate nuggets and flung crayons around, luckily not getting the two mixed up. Then Josie concocted a game with the plush toys that had come in the Happy Meal boxes, Maria providing sound effects. Nico drank coffee and took the opportunity to telephone his dad.
‘Hej, Pappa,’ he said, when he heard his dad’s voice. ‘How are you?’
‘Good! Fine!’ boomed Lars jovially. ‘I’ll be working with the junior team at the rink this evening. Just been collecting my cones for the slalom.’
‘Makes me nostalgic.’ Nico imagined a bunch of eager schoolkids swapping from edge to edge on their skate blades as they weaved through the cones. He could almost smell the ice. ‘Maybe I’ll get some time at the rink next week.’
A staff member brought balloons attached to sticks, red for Maria and yellow for Josie and the girls began to bash the balloons together, Maria making up with enthusiasm for what she lacked in accuracy. Every time Josie bopped her on the top of her head she laughed a high baby chuckle. A woman on the next table whose kids were also in a balloon fight,