‘What if it cracks?’ Charlotte asks. ‘What if they fall in?’
‘They won't.’ I know that sounds definite, but I sort of know it to be true –they’re hardy kids, tough kids, they remind me a little of me. Yes, what they’re doing is dangerous and yes, I might be wrong and the ice splits and they all tumble in, but something tells me that they’re here every day, unsupervised and surviving.
‘But what if they do?’ Charlotte persists. I look over to her little anxious, pinched face. She's been through so much, for all I did to make her childhood precious and safe and pampered, in the end, I couldn't shield her from life.
From the shit it flings at us at times.
I couldn't even shield her from me.
But sometimes I can make things better.
Sometimes I do know what to say.
‘What would you do?’ Charlotte begs. ‘If one of them falls in?’
‘I’d call an ambulance,’ I say.
‘But wouldn't you go over?’
I don't actually know what I'd do. We can all say how we'd react in an emergency, we can all hazard a guess but a guess is all it is. Some of us will be the heroes, standing shivering and wrapped in a blanket on the evening news, insisting that anybody would have done the same.
I wouldn’t.
I don't want to be a hero, because Charlotte doesn't want me to be one.
I can see the fear and the terror in her eyes and I wonder how long it will stay – you see, it's not just about losing her dad, she is so scared of losing me.
‘I think you have to find a big branch,’ Mum tells her. ‘And lie on the grass and stretch it out to them…’
‘But it wouldn't reach!’ Charlotte is frantic with her imagined scenario, she doesn’t just look like me, she thinks like me too. She's watching these robust kids disappear beneath the ice; she's standing by the water’s edge screaming as her mother dashes in to save them. ‘I know you’d do something!’ She tells me about this show she saw once, where everybody had formed a human chain across the ice.
‘Your mum?’ It’s my mum that starts laughing; it’s my mum who’s the hero today. ‘Can you imagine your mum, for even a moment, forming a human chain?’ But that’s exactly what Charlotte is doing and I don't want her to have to worry about me any more, I want her to laugh, I want her to be a kid, I want to be her mum.
‘Me!’ I say. ‘You really think I’d lie on ice, holding onto Nanny’s feet…’
‘Sod that.’ Mum says putting out her fag.
Charlotte starts laughing and we walk away from the lake and towards the car and, if I hear a scream, I’ll just call an ambulance and try to find a big branch. I look over to Mum and I know she’s thinking the same. I know she is because we start running to get to the car and we’re all still laughing.
And no, I won’t lie on ice for anyone but Charlotte – I’m far too important to lose.
And if I sound shallow and superficial, I don’t care.
I know I'm not.
I know what I'm here for now.
And I know why I'm staying.
CHAPTER SIXTY TWO
The First Christmas (without him).
Gloria has been here.
There's a bunch of flowers on his grave–it says With love from your girls.
I haven't been here for ages. I've never really wanted to come, rather it was something I felt I ought to do but I actually wanted to come today.
Mum’s at home with Charlotte, I tell him. Today’s already hard enough for her, without bringing her to the cemetery. I hope he can understand that.
She’s doing okay, I tell him.
Things are getting better now. She loves her school, she’s not wetting the bed anymore and we can talk about you at times now, without her crying, we can talk about you and smile.
Oh, and I tell him about the house sale.
He has a right to know.
That for once an estate agent wasn’t lying - he did have the perfect people in mind for the house, but they needed to move in soon, which was great because I put in an offer for the cottage. I tell him how much I got for the house, I am quite sure that somewhere he smiles.