Part 2: Foster Care & Maureen
Separation: The System Divides
Part 2 opens with the event that defines the rest of the novel: Leon and Jake are separated. Jake — white, a baby, and therefore ‘more adoptable’ in the language of the system — is placed with a middle-class adoptive family. Leon is placed with foster carer Maureen. The separation is presented as a bureaucratic decision, made in an office, without Leon’s consent or understanding.
Jake is adopted quickly because he is white and a baby — the two characteristics that made children most ‘placeable’ in the 1980s care system. Leon is older, mixed-race, and emotionally damaged. The system sees Jake as an easy success and Leon as a difficult case.
De Waal presents the separation without melodrama. Leon is simply told, in careful language, that Jake is going to live with another family. He doesn’t fully understand that this is permanent. The restraint of the prose makes the scene more devastating — Leon’s silence and confusion speak louder than tears would.
Maureen: Warmth and Stability
Maureen is a white British woman who has fostered many children. She is warm, practical, and loving — the opposite of the cold institutional world Leon has just experienced. Her home smells of cooking. She feeds Leon properly. She calls him “sweetheart.” She cannot give Leon a link to his Black heritage, though. He finds that later, with Tufty and the men at the allotments — the diaspora community the white care system never offers him.
Sensory language: Maureen’s home is presented through warmth, food, and colour. De Waal uses the semantic field of nourishment — both physical and emotional — to contrast with the deprivation of Leon’s previous life.
Cultural identity: Maureen is white, so she cannot give Leon a link to his Black heritage. De Waal makes that gap deliberate. Leon fills it later at the allotments, with Tufty.
Patience: Maureen doesn’t push Leon to talk or perform gratitude. She allows him space to grieve. Her parenting style is instinctive and community-based, contrasting with the social workers’ procedural approach.
Limitations: Despite her warmth, Maureen cannot fix the fundamental problem — Leon wants Jake, and she cannot give him that. This creates an ongoing tension: Leon loves Maureen but cannot let go of his brother.
Leon’s Internal Conflict
Part 2 is dominated by Leon’s struggle between two impulses: settling into Maureen’s home and refusing to accept the loss of Jake. He begins to form attachments — to Maureen, to the garden, to routines — but guilt pulls him back. Accepting Maureen feels like betraying Jake and Carol.
De Waal presents Leon’s internal conflict through behaviour rather than explicit thought. He acts out, tests boundaries, and oscillates between warmth and withdrawal. His anger is never fully explained to other characters because he lacks the vocabulary to articulate his grief.
Leon’s behaviour in Part 2 includes stealing, lying, and occasional violence. De Waal never presents these as moral failings. Instead, they are shown as the logical responses of a traumatised child trying to regain control over a world that has taken everything from him. The reader is positioned to understand what the system might label as ‘difficult behaviour’ is actually trauma response.
The allotment where Leon meets Tufty and Mr Devlin becomes a central symbol. Leon works there, planting seeds and watching things grow. The garden represents nurture, patience, and the possibility of putting down roots. It offers Leon a form of agency — he can care for something and see results.
However, the garden is also temporary. Leon knows he is in foster care, not adopted. Everything he plants could be taken away, just as Jake was taken. De Waal uses the garden to explore the tension between hope and impermanence that defines the foster care experience.
Contact Visits and Diminishing Hope
Leon is allowed contact visits with his mother Carol, but Carol often does not come. Contact with Jake stops at the adoption: Leon is promised he will see his brother again, and the promise is not kept. The visits are supervised, timed, and controlled by adults. Leon has no power over when he sees his family or for how long.
De Waal uses the missed and dwindling visits structurally: as contact fades, the reader feels Leon’s grip on his family loosening. The system is slowly, bureaucratically erasing the sibling bond — not through cruelty, but through process.