For His Little Girl

'It's very late and you ought to go to bed,' Frank said firmly. 'Come along now.'

Josie's eyes filled with tears, and she looked at Luke, silently pleading.

Please, please Luke… don't fight over her.

He didn't know where the voice had come from. He could almost have sworn it was an external sound, but perhaps it had only echoed in his heart. Whatever the truth, it told him what he must do.

'On second thought, I'm going back to the guest house,' he said. He turned to Frank and Elly. 'Maybe we all need to be together.'

It felt strange to be returning after all these years. The inside had been made over to look cheerful and modern, but basically it was the same place where he and Pippa had lived and loved, and lost each other.

Susan, Pippa's assistant, was in charge now. She frowned when she saw Luke. 'I'm afraid it's full up.'

'What about the room just down the corridor?' Luke asked.

'That's a storeroom.'

'Can I see it?'

'But it's full of sheets and pillows,' she insisted.

'I'd still like to see it.'

He found himself counting the steps down the passage to the room that had once been his and Pippa's. There were exactly eight if you took large strides, or twelve if you took short running steps because you were trying to undress each other at the same time.

The room came as a shock. The walls were now lined with deep shelves on which were the house supplies, bedding, tins of food, detergent. The iron-ing board leaned against the wall, and a large sack of potatoes stood in a corner. Everywhere he looked he saw neatness and order.

'It's very-tidy.' It was all he could think of to say.

'Ms. Davis is particular about tidiness,' Susan assured him. 'She says otherwise we'd never find anything.'

'If I can have a few cushions and borrow some blankets, I'll sleep here.'

'There's no need. You can have the sofa in the-'

'I'd rather be here,' he said quietly.

Josie, who had slipped in after him, now darted away and returned with the sofa cushions, which she arranged on the floor. Then she took some blankets down and began to arrange them, too. From a cupboard she took a hanger, and indicated for Luke to give her his coat. Together they arranged it on the hanger, and he put it up on a peg.

'Susan's making something to eat,' she said.

'I don't think I could-'

'I'll bring you some here, shall I?'

'Thanks,' he said, gratefully. She'd known he wanted to be alone. Was that because of an instinctive understanding between him and his child, he wondered? Or because even she felt that he couldn't face things?

She brought him some food, and watched while he ate it. He had no appetite and would have left some, but she said, 'Finish everything. You've got to keep your strength up,' sounding like a wise little adult. He did so.

'Why did you want this room?' she asked.

He smiled and stroked a stray lock of hair away from her forehead. 'Guess.'

'You and Mommy?'

'Yes. We lived in here. We used to pay part of our rent by doing some of the cooking. That was the only way we could afford to live. We didn't have anything-but we had everything.'

Then he broke completely, putting his head in his hands and sobbing without restraint. Pippa, who had made everything right, was no longer there, perhaps would never be there again. But there was someone else, someone who stretched small arms around him as far as they would go, and kissed him. He put his arms around her, and they clung together, saying nothing, because it was too terrible for words.

At last Elly came to put her to bed, but Josie set her chin. 'I want to stay with Daddy,' she said.

'Why doesn't Daddy come and put you to bed?' Elly suggested.

She agreed to this compromise, and they all went up to the room Josie and Elly were to share, with Frank in a Box room across the corridor. The events of the past hours had left the little girl worn-out. Despite her fear for her mother she was half-asleep by the time she was ready for bed. She kissed Elly, but it was Luke's hand she clung to until she fell asleep. He gently disengaged his fingers and leaned down to kiss his sleeping child. When he looked up, he found Elly watching him kindly.

'Thank you,' he said, and she nodded.

Back in the storeroom the night seemed to close in on him. Restlessly he began to rearrange his few items of furniture. He couldn't put the makeshift bed in the same place as the old one, because the shelves were in the way, but he managed to get it at the same angle. He didn't quite know why he'd done that, except that anything else seemed wrong.

He lay down and closed his eyes, and at once she was there, snuggling up against him, her tousled head on his shoulder, one arm about his neck. He opened his eyes again and sat up. Why had he returned to this room, where so much had once been his, so much that he'd thrown away? It was filled with Pippa, with her love, her joy, her passionate, selfless giving.

You're very good at holding off, aren't you Luke?

He got to his feet and switched the light on. The room seemed to mock him.

Just here had stood the table where he'd first fed her and been enchanted by her wacky nature. Over there had been the sofa with the creaking springs where she'd first kissed him and demolished all the defenses he'd thought he'd put up against her magic.

In that corner had stood the rickety chair that had collapsed beneath her, and she'd lain amid the ruins, laughing too much to move, until he'd pulled her up and into his arms, kissing her madly, adoring her because all life and warmth was in her, as though she'd found the secret of the world. But secretly afraid, too, because to love someone that much was like putting chains on your soul.

That's how you survive, isn't it? By never getting too close to anyone.

'No,' he shouted. 'No!'

But for all his denials, what they'd had back then had ended in this room where everything was neat, functional, dead. And it was his doing.

They were all there in the corridor again next morning, even the boarders who knew that they wouldn't be allowed into Pippa's room. They were her friends and they cared about her. Luke tried to think who would do the same for him. His family, of course, and Claudia, but not troops of unconnected people. Getting hundreds of hits on your Web site wasn't the same, somehow.

More waiting. More hours crawling by. The doctors had begun to lift the heavy sedation so that Pippa could regain consciousness. But she didn't, which, Luke could tell, worried them more than they wanted to admit.

Frank looked to be at the end of his tether. Luke regarded him with pity, feeling the old antagonism die. Josie made a movement toward him and Elly, but stopped, glancing quickly at Luke, as if torn between them. He touched her gently, whispering, 'Go and talk to them.' Watching her go, Luke found himself talking to Pippa in his head.

'You see? There'll be no tug-of-war on my side. That's what you wanted, isn't it? Where are you? Do you know?''

His life had contained little that could be called spiritual, but now he tried to believe that Pippa was there, watching him even while she slept in the next room. He had to believe that she knew.

More waiting. Why hadn't she come to? What weren't they telling him?

At last the door opened and the doctor beckoned, standing back for Luke and Josie to enter.

'She's beginning to move,' he said.

They went quickly to either side of her bed. Pippa was stirring, muttering inaudibly. The next moment she had opened her eyes, looking directly at Josie.

'Hallo, Mommy,' the child said joyfully.

'Hallo, darling.' She managed to move her arm a few inches in invitation, and Josie laid her head against it. Luke stood back, willing to wait for his moment.