Blood Family by Anne Fine

from Rob’s weight as he dropped on it. ‘That’s your mother’s own granny. She’s really old now, but she sends her love.’ Wearily he shook his head. ‘Maybe one day I’ll drive you up to visit her. Would you like that?’
    ‘Up?’
    I wondered if Eddie had a vision of this great-grandmother up somewhere in a cloud, or on a star.
    ‘On Tyneside,’ Rob said. ‘Quite a long way away.’ You could tell he was dreading the drive. We sat in silence for a moment or two, and then, as if his mind was drifting far away, Rob added, ‘Her feet are terrible, she says. Like sponges.’
    I watched poor Eddie trying to imagine this. ‘Sponges?’
    ‘Never mind that,’ said Rob – a little irritably, I thought, considering that it was he himself who’d brought the matter up. ‘The other news is that the flat you used to live in has now been re-let.’
    ‘Rob!’ I protested. (I mean, a home’s a home, however grim it’s been.)
    ‘He has to know ,’ Rob muttered defensively.
    Re-let? What sort of language is that for someone of Eddie’s age? ‘What Rob is saying ,’ I explained, ‘is that the flats where you lived belong to something called a Housing Association. And since Harris definitely won’t be going back, they have decided to clear out all his stuff, paint the place till it looks new, and put another family in there.’
    ‘So will I live with them ?’
    At last, Rob was ashamed. I think he must have panicked momentarily because he said the worst thing he could say. ‘Of course not. You’ll be staying here with Linda and Alan.’
    Eddie was on it in a flash. ‘For ever ?’
    Rob looked so miserable I couldn’t even give him mysee-what-you’ve-done-now look. I had to rescue him, so I ticked Eddie off. ‘Come along, Eddie. You know better than that. Alan and I have told you plenty of times that we only look after children for a little while, till Rob here and the people he works with find them something that will work better.’
    (I won’t use their expression, ‘a for ever family’. It is such bollocks .)
    I left the two of them together for a while. When I came back, Rob was just leaving. I made some excuse to send Eddie down to Alan in the shed, and turned to Rob.
    ‘A great-granny, eh? But no one who could take the boy? No grandmother on that side?’
    ‘The police tracked down some hairdresser in Tynemouth who knew the family. She said the grandmother died some years ago.’
    ‘No father hiding anywhere in the woodwork?’
    He shook his head. ‘My money is on Harris. It seems the mum was managing fine till he showed up. My guess is that it wasn’t for the first time.’
    ‘I hope no one is going to rush to tell poor Eddie that .’ I sighed. ‘So. One great-granny. No future there, I suppose?’
    ‘No,’ Rob agreed. ‘She’s bed-bound in a home. The staff aren’t even sure she was on top of what they told her.’ He glanced around to check that Eddie hadn’t crept back to eavesdrop. ‘I have some better news, though. There won’t be a court case.’
    ‘His mum won’t testify?’
    ‘She’s quite unfit.’
    ‘What about a video link?’
    He leaned towards me. ‘Linda, she’s hopeless . Harris could come into court swinging a rusty mace, and any jury would still hesitate to convict. None of the neighbours will say a thing. And Lucy Taylor’s such a mess in the head it’s hard to imagine that she wasn’t always some sort of basket case.’
    ‘So is he going to get away with it?’
    ‘Of course not,’ Rob said hotly. ‘They’re nailing him for drugs, and common assault and stolen goods, and animal cruelty and numerous shenanigans inside that club, and God knows what else. They’ve rustled up a list an arm’s length long.’
    ‘You know as well as I do that, without bodily harm or kidnapping, the man will be out within months.’
    ‘I know.’ He studied the ends of his fingers. ‘He was a crafty sod, to take care to lay off the child. But, on the bright side,