seat of Nathan’s BMW later on, when I pick her up after school. ‘Is he at home?’
‘Because mine’s in for a service and no, he’s not,’ I say.
‘Aww, when’s he going to be back? Will I see him before I go to bed?’
‘I don’t think so, sweetie, he’s playing golf and then going out for dinner.’
‘But he’s always out,’ she moans.
I wonder why she feels that way. It certainly doesn’t feel like that to me, but maybe the perception of time veers wildly between the two of us. What’s my hour must feel like her day, and my week, her month. That’s how I remember feeling about my dad, as a kid. He very rarely went out, but on the odd occasion he’d go to the pub, straight from the building site on a Friday, with his bulging wage packet in his pocket, it felt like forever until I saw him again on Saturday morning.
‘You’ll see him tomorrow,’ I promise. ‘It’s the weekend.’
‘Yay,’ she says, fidgeting with her seatbelt, not wanting to let go of the jam jar housing the painted lady caterpillar the school has helpfully asked us to look after whilst it morphs into a chrysalis.
‘Forget it, little lady, you’re not staying there. In the back.’
‘But Daddy lets me,’ she whines as she clumsily gets out, dropping the hungry caterpillar into the abyss of the footwell.
‘Livvy,’ I shriek. ‘Be careful.’
‘Ooops!’ She laughs.
‘Well, he shouldn’t,’ I say. ‘You’re not allowed to.’
The lid has popped off the jar and the hairy slug-like insect is tantalizingly close to poking its head out. I reach down and under the seat, frantically feeling around for the lid.
‘But why not?’ she goes on.
I blindly touch upon a sharp object and instinctively pull my hand away, still no closer to locating the lid. I go in again, as if I’m doing a bush tucker trial, not knowing what’s under there or where the sharp object is. I’m reminded of my Aunty Val, who’d have a panic attack every time she had to pop a letter in the postbox. She couldn’t bear to have her hand there, just in case something came out and dragged her in. It got so bad that she’d pay me twenty pence to post her letters for her. In my infinite innocence I’d boldly stride up to the red pillar box, stand on tiptoes and peer into the slot, asking if anyone was in there. What happens to us between then and now, I wonder, as I gingerly poke my hand under the seat again. I come at the object from a different angle and am able to pinch it and pull it up to the light. I can’t make it out at first and hold it aloft to the windscreen. I blink a couple of times, as if to clear my vision, but there’s no mistaking the crystal pear drop earring that’s dangling there.
‘Mummy,’ shrieks Olivia, ‘it’s crawling out.’
‘Oh my God. Livvy, find the lid.’
‘Why can’t I sit in the front?’
‘Because you’re not allowed.’
‘But Daddy lets me.’
‘Livvy, find the lid.’
‘What will happen if it crawls out?’
‘Get in the back seat.’
‘Will Daddy get into trouble?’
I look at the earring again. Oh yes, I think to myself.
‘For letting me sit in the front.’
‘The caterpillar’s getting out.’
‘Find the lid, Mummy.’
‘Yes, because it’s against the law for someone so little to sit in the front.’
‘I can see it. The lid’s back here.’
I want to go on like this. I want to continue our diatribe forever because the longer it goes on, the longer the earring has to change itself into one of mine. I so want it to be mine.
7
Sophia is already home when we get back, and once I’ve set Olivia up with her homework, I climb the stairs to my elder daughter’s room. I sit on her bed and watch as she brushes her long dark hair through. God, she looks like Tom. Every now and then, I catch her at a certain angle, or see her pulling the very same expression as him. She doesn’t know she’s doing it of course, and if I asked her to do it again she wouldn’t be able to, but just in those fleeting moments, I can see him so clearly. And I don’t want to lose him. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut to try and hold on to him.
It’s what I used to do in the months after Tom had gone; shamefully willing Sophia to metamorphize into him. My mind had been tricked