She flicked the Winnie the Pooh duvet over to check that it was clean, then bundled it onto the carpet. “You lie down for a second while I sort the bed out.”
Jacob cried as she lowered him to the floor. “Don’t want to…let me…” But when she laid his head on the duvet, his thumb slipped into his mouth and his eyes closed again.
She tied the nappy bag and threw it into the bin. She stripped the bed, threw the dirty sheets into the hallway and turned the mattress over. She grabbed a new set of sheets from the cupboard and pressed them to her face. God, it was lovely, the furriness of thick, worn cotton and the scent of washing powder. She made the bed, tucking the edges in tight so that it was smooth and flat.
She plumped the pillow, bent over and hoisted Jacob up.
“My tummy hurts.”
She held him on her lap. “We’ll get you some Calpol in a minute.”
“Pink medicine,” said Jacob.
She wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t get enough of this. Not when he was conscious. Thirty seconds at most. Then it was helicopters and bouncy-bouncy on the sofa. True, it made her proud, seeing him in a circle listening to Bella read a book at nursery, or watching him talk to other children in the playground. But she missed the way he was once a part of her body, the way she could make everything better just by folding herself around him. Even now she could picture him leaving home, the distance opening up already, her baby becoming his own little person.
“I miss my daddy.”
“He’s asleep upstairs.”
“My real daddy,” said Jacob.
She put her hand around his head and kissed his hair. “I miss him too, sometimes.”
“But he’s not coming back.”
“No. He’s not coming back.”
Jacob was crying quietly.
“But I’ll never leave you. You know that, don’t you.” She wiped the snot from his nose with the arm of her T- shirt and rocked him.
She looked up at the Bob the Builder height chart and the sailing boat mobile turning silently in the half dark. Somewhere under the floor a water pipe clanked.
Jacob stopped crying. “Can I have a polar bear drink tomorrow?”
She pushed the hair out of his eyes. “I’m not sure whether you’ll be fit for nursery tomorrow.” His eyes moistened. “But if you are, we’ll get a polar bear drink on the way home, OK?”
“All right.”
“But if you have a polar bear drink, you won’t be able to have any pudding for supper. Is that a deal?”
“That’s a deal.”
“Now, let’s get you some Calpol.”
She laid him down on the clean sheets and got the bottle and the syringe from the bathroom.
“Open wide.”
He was almost asleep now. She squirted the medicine into his mouth, wiped a dribble from his chin with the tip of her finger and licked it clean.
She kissed his cheek. “I have to go back to bed now, little boy.”
But he didn’t want to let go of her hand. And she didn’t want him to let go. She sat watching him sleep for a few minutes, then lay down beside him.
This made up for everything, the tiredness, the tantrums, the fact that she hadn’t read a novel in six months. This was how Ray made her feel.
This was how Ray was meant to make her feel.
She stroked Jacob’s head. He was a million miles away, dreaming of raspberry ice cream and earth-moving machinery and the Cretaceous period.
The next thing she knew it was morning and Jacob was running in and out of the room in his Spider-Man outfit.
“Come on, love.” Ray pushed the hair away from her face. “There’s a fry-up waiting for you downstairs.”
After nursery she and Jacob got home late on account of having stopped to get the polar bear drink, and Ray was already back from the office.
“Graham rang,” he said.
“What about?”
“Didn’t tell me.”
“Anything important?” asked Katie.
“Didn’t ask. Said he’d try again later.”
One mysterious call from Graham a day was pretty much Ray’s limit. So, after putting Jacob to bed, she used the phone in the bedroom.
“It’s Katie.”
“Hey, you rang back.”
“So, what’s the big secret?”
“No big secret, I’m just worried about you. Which didn’t seem the kind of message to leave with Ray.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t in terribly good shape when you turned up the other evening, what with my back and everything.”
“Are you talking to anyone?” asked Graham.
“You mean, like, professionally?”
“No, I mean just talking.”
“Of course I’m talking,” said Katie.
“You know what I mean.”
“Graham. Look-”
“If you want me to butt out,” said Graham, “I’ll butt out. And I don’t want to cast any aspersions on Ray. I really don’t. I just wondered whether you wanted to meet up for a coffee and a chat. We’re still friends, right? OK, maybe we’re not friends. But you seemed like you might need to get stuff off your chest. And I don’t necessarily mean bad stuff.” He paused. “Also, I really enjoyed talking to you the other night.”
God knows what had happened to him. She hadn’t heard him sounding this solicitous in years. If it was jealousy it didn’t sound like jealousy. Perhaps the woman with the swimming cap had broken his heart.
She stopped herself. It was an unkind thought. People changed. He was being kind. And he was right. She wasn’t talking enough.
“I’m finishing early on Wednesday. I could see you for an hour before I pick Jacob up.”
“Brilliant.”
30
Toothbrush. Flannel. Shaver. Woolly jumper.
George started packing a suitcase, then decided that it was not quite outward bound enough. He dug Jamie’s old rucksack out of the roof space. It was a little scuffed, but rucksacks were meant to be scuffed.
Three pairs of underpants. Two vests. The Ackroyd. Gardening trousers.
This was his kind of holiday.
They had tried it once. Snowdonia in 1980. A desperate attempt on his part to remain earthbound after the horrors of the flight to Lyon the previous year. And perhaps if he had had stouter children or a wife less addicted to her creature comforts it might have worked. There was nothing wrong with rain. It was part and parcel of getting back in touch with nature. And it had let up most evenings so that they could sit on camping mats outside the tents cooking supper on the Primus stove. But any suggestion of his that they go to Skye or the Alps in subsequent years had been met with the rejoinder, “Why don’t we go camping in North Wales?” and gales of unsympathetic laughter.
