He pushes a book on to my chest.
I close my eyes.
He taps on my face again.
I open my eyes.
It’s Bobby, in his blue pyjamas.
I’m on the settee in the front room, the radio on in the back, the smell of breakfast in the house.
I sit up and pick up Bobby and his blue pyjamas, put him on my knee and open his book.
And Bobby’s got his hands up, pretending they’re rabbit’s ears.
And Bobby’s making a telescope out of his hands, turning round to stare up at me, hands to his eye.
And suddenly Bobby jumps down from my knee and runs to the lounge door, arms flapping in his blue pyjamas, shouting, ‘Mummy, Mummy, Magic Rabbit, Magic Rabbit!’
And Louise is standing there, behind us, watching, and she says, ‘Breakfast’s ready.’
I sit down at the table, the neat cloth and three places, Bobby between us, and look out on the back garden.
It’s seven, and the sun is on the other side of the house.
Louise is pouring milk on Bobby’s Weetabix, her face fresh, the room slightly cold in the shadow.
‘How’s your Dad?’ I say.
‘Not good,’ she says, mashing the cereal for Bobby.
‘I’m off today. We can go up together if you want?’
‘Really? I thought they’d have cancelled all days off.’
‘They have, but I think Maurice must have swung me a day’
‘He was at the hospital Tuesday’
‘Yeah? Said he was going to try and get up.’
‘John Rudkin and all.’
‘Yeah?’
‘He’s kind, isn’t he? What did your Uncle John buy you?’ she asks Bobby.
‘Car, car,’ and he tries to get down.
‘Later, love,’ I say. ‘Eat your Weetabix first.’
‘Peace car. Peace car.’
I look at Louise, ‘Peace car?’
‘Police car,’ she smiles.
‘What’s Daddy’s job?’ I ask him.
‘Peace Man,’ he grins, a mouth full of milk and cereal.
And we laugh, all three of us.
Bobby’s walking between us, one hand for Mummy, one for Daddy.
It’s going to be really hot and all the gardens on the street smell of cut grass and barley water, the sky completely blue.
We turn into the park and he slips out of our hands.
‘You’ve forgotten the bread,’ I shout, but he just keeps on running towards the pond.
‘It’s the slide he likes,’ says Louise.
‘He’s getting big, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah.’
And we sit on the swings among the quiet and gentle nature, the ducks and the butterflies, the sandstone buildings and black hills watching us from above the trees, waiting.
I reach across and take her hand, give it a squeeze.
‘Should have gone to Flamingo Land or somewhere. Scarborough or Whitby.’
‘It’s difficult,’ she says.
‘Sorry,’ I say, remembering.
‘No, you’re right. We should do though.’
And Bobby comes down the slide on his belly, his shirt all up and his tummy out.
‘Getting a paunch like his dad,’ I say.
But she’s miles away.
Louise is in the queue for the fish stall, Bobby tugging my arm to come and look in the toy shop window, to come and look at the Lone Ranger and Tonto.
All around us, a Friday.
And the sky is still blue, the flowers and the fruit bright, the telephone box red, the old women and the young mothers in their summer dresses, the ice-cream van white.
All around us, a market day.
Louise comes back and I take the shopping bags and we walk back up Kingsway, Bobby between us, a hand for both of us, back home.
All around us, a summer’s day.
A Yorkshire summer’s day.
Louise cooks the lunch while Bobby and I play with his car and bricks, his Action Man and Tonka Toy, his Lego and teddies, the Royal Flotilla coming down the Thames on the TV.
We eat fish in breadcrumbs, drenched in parsley sauce and ketchup, with chips and garden peas, and jelly for pudding, Bobby wearing his dinner medals with pride.
After, I do the dishes and Louise and Bobby dry, the TV off before the news.
Then we have a cup of tea and watch Bobby showing off, dancing on the settee to an LP of Bond themes.
On the drive over to Leeds, Louise and Bobby sit in the back and Bobby falls asleep with his head in her lap, the sun baking the car, the windows open, listening to Wings and Abba, Boney? and Manhattan Transfer.
We park round the back and I lift Bobby out and we walk round to the front of the hospital, the trees in the grounds almost black in the sun, Bobby’s head hanging over my shoulder.
In the ward we sit on tiny hard chairs, Bobby still asleep across the bottom of his Grandad’s bed, as Louise feeds her father tinned tangerines on a plastic spoon, the juice dribbling down his unshaven face and neck and over his striped Marks & Spencer pyjamas, while I make aimless trips to the trolley and the toilet and flick through women’s magazines and eat two Mars Bars.
And when Bobby wakes up about three, we go out into the grounds, leaving Louise with her father, and we run across the bouncy grass playing Stop and Go, me shouting, ‘Stop,’ him shouting, ‘Go,’ the pair of us laughing, and then we go from flower to flower, sniffing and pointing at all the different colours, and when we find a dandelion clock we take it in turns to blow away the time.
But when we go back upstairs, tired and covered in grass stains, she’s crying by the bed, him asleep with his mouth open and his dry cracked tongue hanging out of his bald shrunken head, and I put my arm round her shoulder and Bobby rests his head upon her knees and she squeezes us tight.
On the drive back home, we sing nursery rhymes with Bobby and it’s a pity we had fish for lunch because we could have stopped at Harry Ramsden’s for a fish supper or something.
We bath Bobby together, him splashing about in the bubbles, drinking the bathwater, crying when we take him out, and I dry him and then carry him up to our room and I read him a story, the same story three times:
And half an hour later I say:
