The men running the fair seemed flabbergasted to have a customer, and looked at Molly as though she might be a mirage, until she jumped onto the bumper car track hard enough to make the whole structure shake. She galloped to the helter-skelter and flapped at me to come and pay. When I handed over the fifty-pence coin the helter-skelter ruler shook his head.
“She’s too little to go on her own,” he said. “You’ll have to go with her. It’s a pound for two. You get three rides.”
Molly put her palms flat on my front and patted me lightly. “You come, you come,” she said. “You’ll like it. It’s really fun.”
I gave the man another coin and he handed over another mat. Molly was already disappearing above me, up the snaking curl of steps. They were built from metal mesh, and looking through them made me feel ill. By the time I got to the top the hessian weave of the mat was scratching my ankle where it bounced. Molly was waiting, hopping and twisting as if she was about to wet herself. I let her show me how to lay the mat with the pouch upturned, where to sit, and where to put my feet.
“Now you have to wait,” she said sternly. “You have to not push off yet, because I have to get on too. So don’t go yet. Okay?”
She maneuvered herself between my legs and pushed back against my chest. She felt very warm, very living, a thing made all of blood and skin and nerves. It didn’t fit with what I had seen on her X-ray: the black around her bones.
“In a second. You have to wriggle your bum forward. So we go down,” she said. She was so excited she had to stop in between clumps of words to breathe. “It will go very fast. But you don’t have to be scared. I know how to do this. I can look after you.”
She put her hands next to mine on the rope handles and shouted, “Go!” and then we were spiraling toward the ground, bodies flush, salt on our cheeks, and there wasn’t space to think or scream or cry.
We went down the helter-skelter nine times, and then the helter-skelter emperor said we could have another three turns for free, “seeing as she likes it so much.” I had to hold on to the back of Molly’s coat to stop her kissing him. I wanted to hit him. The fairground smelled of onions and petrol, and I felt green with sickness.
Twelve helter-skelter rides were enough even for Molly, and when I gave her my last pound coins she spent them on a Prize Every Time stall and a cloud of pink candy floss. We took her Prize Every Time (a blue stuffed animal of indeterminate species) and candy floss onto the beach, where we sat with wet sand soaking into our bottoms. The damp underneath and the swish of the sea gave me the feeling that everything was liquid.
“I’m going to take this toy for my show-and-tell,” said Molly. She had candy-floss spit in a sticky ring around her mouth.
“Are you?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t really want something from that other place. I actually wanted something from here. I like here way better.”
“Okay,” I said. The toy was hideous, but I liked the thought of it lying on her pillow in her new home. It was another way to stretch out the time before she forgot me.
“Are we going to go home now?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Where are we going?”
“We have to go and see Sasha.”
She sighed and wiped her mouth on her sleeve, transferring coat fibers to her lips, and I thought that there was probably no other kid in the world as sticky as Molly at that moment, and no other person I felt as indelibly stuck to.
I stood up and reached out a hand, which she looked at for a long time. “Come on,” I said. I stretched my fingers wider. “Let’s go.”
• • •
The Children’s Services receptionist had brown hair and brown eyes and was wearing a brown jumper that went all the way up to her chin. She looked like a mud pie. As we approached she lunged for the phone and turned away from the desk in her swivel chair, and I heard her say, “Yes, yes, just came through the door.” When she turned back to us her cheeks were flushed and her glasses were steamed up at the bottom. I thought this was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to her since she had found a jumper the exact same color as her hair and eyes.
“We’ve come to see Sasha,” I said. I tried to keep the wobble out of my voice. The mud pie squeaked something about taking a seat. In the strip-lit foyer, Molly’s level of stickiness seemed intolerable, and I took her to the toilets to wash her hands and face.
“I’m hungry,” she said between wipes.
“You just had candy floss,” I said.
“But that’s not food,” she said. “That’s just floss.”
“Well I don’t have anything for you to eat,” I said. “You’ll have to wait.”
“That’s not very good,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Okay. I’ll forgive you,” she said.
We had just sat down in reception when Sasha came through the swing door, her lanyard tapping the buttons of her cardigan. Her hair was sticking up at odd angles, half in and half out of a ponytail.
“Julia,” she said. “Really glad you’re here.” She touched my arm and crouched down, so she could speak to me without Molly hearing. Molly helpfully came round to stand in front of me, to make sure she absolutely could hear. Sasha looked as though she quite wanted to hit her.
“Julia, I think it might be best if we take Molly into one of the family rooms. Then we can have a chat. Is that okay? I’ve asked one of my colleagues to
