Once again the door was already open, but this time Thomas stood on the doorstep, a controlled explosion of blonde hair behind his shoulder. She’d washed it and let it dry curly and natural, and I knew there was a reason for that but could not think what it might be. Was she unwinding follicle by follicle or simply trying to make us feel more at home? Both?
‘Hello, Darling! And here’s super-Stevie …’ said Thomas.
This for his daughter’s benefit. Stevie the Wonderboy, I wanted to correct him but I didn’t. Let them get to know him in their own time.
Then I saw her face.
Her father’s shoulder and shadow could not hide her. There it was, the spark of disgust, swiftly snuffed out, when she looked down at my boy. This is why I needed to protect him, right there, in that look.
‘Stevie, Thomas, remember? And this is Lola.’
When I turned the spotlight on her she sprang into action:
‘Ah, OK, would … you … like … to …’
I had to jump in: ‘It’s fine, it’s only in his body. He’s a smart boy, aren’t you, Stevie?’
A squirming, wide-eyed nod.
‘That’s good,’ said Lola, looking at her feet.
Young. She would learn.
Morning unfolded into afternoon with an unhurried Saturday vibe; we were all to hang out together and enjoy the blueberry bran muffins that Lola, Thomas swore, had insisted on baking all by herself in Stevie’s honour.
Stevie winced at the murky sponge and the berries that bit back, but I caught his eye in time; good boy. Lola sat with him for over an hour after lunch and left Thomas and me to chat, mostly about surviving the summer and binning off the school run.
Lola had finished now, but Stevie had another week to go until he got his end-of-year medal. I was so proud of him. Once, home-schooling had appeared to be the only way, but he had been a true lion as ever:
‘I want to play with my friends, Mummy!’
I could not hold him back, I would never do that. So off he went to High Desford’s best primary, no trouble at all. Lola had gone to that nicety-nice girls’ place up the road, of course. Lovely blue uniforms, but – la! – they all wore them so short. My mum would have slapped me upside my head if I’d tried that on.
From the kitchen we could hear them discussing favourite cartoons. That was kind of her, helpful; good to see.
Meanwhile, I twitched. I had vowed not to smoke, in honour of us all. I would end those dashes into the en suite to brush my teeth before kisses, before talking, before breathing; the dashes out of the door to top up on nicotine; the miserable yellow-toothed excuses to the one person who wanted to see me happy. Straight-up cold turkey quitting. No fags, no patches, no nicotine chewing gum, no sugar-free mint chewing gum, nothing but the taste of Thomas. Who needed cigarettes when we had us? Lips were for lovers; from now on I would practise full oral fidelity.
More than the urge to smoke, the blueberry muffins had set off in me a strange urge to bake. It was Stevie’s birthday in a few weeks and I figured I could whip up a dozen or so soppy little chocolate frosted cupcakes with those silver balls.
I am not a natural baker. I like preparing things with skin and bone, skimming fat and salting sauces. But this afternoon something made me want to try. Maybe it was a faint hope that Lola might sniff out a mother figure. We needed a crumb of that sticky stuff. She was embarrassed: we both knew, from as soon as the actual dust settled, that we both knew she had locked me in the cellar. But I was an adult; I had moved on. Just a little kick-out at the nasty ole lady who was kissing her daddy, all pretty textbook. More than that I was a nurse: caring was my life and so was understanding. I got it. And I never planned to try to be ‘Mum’; that would have been wrong, insensitive, futile, crazy. I would simply, as people liked to say, be there for her.
It took me a moment to realise that Stevie had walked in, holding something.
‘Put that down, Stevie! That’s not yours …’
I could not hide the panic in my voice. Dark red-pink and orange in his hands: he had walked in holding a Bright New Britain flyer, snatched up from the hallway. What words – incomprehensible to us both – might he try to read?
‘Come and see our garden, Stevie,’ said Lola, taking the leaflet from him and placing it on the side. ‘Can he …?’
‘He’ll be fine, he can get around with his sticks, just watch him a little.’
‘OK.’
Thomas pulled me to him as we watched them disappear up the garden.
‘We can go and see the pond!’ The small voice drifting over the lavender.
‘Sure,’ said Lola.
The girl didn’t go outside much. A gorgeous garden, but she preferred Facetiming her friends all day. So many friends too; Ellie seemed to be the closest at that time, but it changed from week to week. Girls were strange, these days; I had either had someone for good, or not at all.
I lifted the leaflet from the work surface:
BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH
We are taking back:
Our borders
Our jobs
Our NHS
Our streets and our kid’s futures … today!
‘What the hell is this?’
‘We never used to get them but they come every few days now. They must be targeting the area …’
‘Oh God, we—’
‘No, sorry, ignore me. We get all sorts of crap through, every day.’
‘And what about my kid’s future? Are we no longer British?’
‘Just ignore it, Darling, please.’
‘I was British, apparently, when I was cleaning up their wasted kids’ fluids and saving their bleeding lives in A&E. Or when I spoon-fed their grandmas. Or when I—’
He pulled me into a hug, into that compelling, hard-won privacy that only parents could know. ‘Time is short,’ he said. ‘Too short,’ I said. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Me you,’ I said. The urgency of our kisses became uncomfortable.
Hands on cheeks, hands on shoulders, at my waist, his hands …
‘Dad!’
Lola running up, nearly at the door, no Stevie. No Stevie. Blood? A forever loss, a fall, a drowning – I sprinted, seeing it all already. My boy. I raced past the flowerbeds and bench and vegetable garden, far to the back, by the chestnut tree where the pond hid, dank and gorge deep, skulking away from our eyes. So wide and deep: with those things strapped around his legs he would sink to the bottom. Stevie was nowhere, no Stevie.
‘Darling! What’s wrong?’
A bewildered bass; Thomas running behind me.
‘Stevie,’ my voice snagged. ‘Where’s Stevie?’
Thomas held up his arms, shrugging his whole body. I wanted to punch him in the chest.
‘Stevie! Where?’
‘He’s—’
‘Dad!’
We both spun. Lola was ambling up towards us. I could have flown at her, tugged answers out of that tousled hair. She could see it.
‘He’s fine, Darling, he’s just on the swing.’
‘What?’