Knowing it was a sticking point, I changed the subject. ‘Come on, Rosie. Enough of that now. Time to go in.’
‘But I need to do this before tomorrow.’
‘No, you don’t. Now come on.’
Rosie continued wrapping and tying. ‘You don’t understand, Mum. It’s really important.’
‘If you don’t come now, Rosie, I’ll ban your games this week.’
‘Don’t care.’
I braced myself for a fight. ‘I won’t tell you again.’
‘Just two minutes.’
I stood there like a fool, wondering how to persuade her to come back inside, short of dragging her by the hair.
And then she raised her head, dazzling me with her head-torch, brandishing an intricate autumn wreath of oak leaves, which was dramatically backlit by the torch beam. I took it from her and rotated it round in my hands, admiring her work, charmed by its originality, distracted from the goal of getting her to do her maths homework, which suddenly didn’t seem so important. ‘Rosie, that is really beautiful,’ I said, returning it to her.
‘It’s for Charlotte.’
‘She’ll love it.’
Hand-in-hand, we ambled back across the garden, the wreath crackling as it brushed against her knee.
I gave her hand an extra tight squeeze. I felt a pang of fear, as though my grip on her was tenuous, as though she had never really been mine to hold on to. They say that you only have temporary custody of your children, that they are not yours to own. How true this felt in that moment. She was her own little person with her own journey to make. How much influence I had over her narrative was anyone’s guess.
‘Can I do my maths after supper?’
‘Okay. Just this once,’ I said, knowing I’d been duped.
‘Thanks, Mummy.’
‘How d’you get away with it, eh?’ I grinned, pinging off her head-torch and switching it off.
‘Because you love me so much?’ she asked cheekily.
‘That’s exactly why,’ I agreed, laughing, and kissing the top of her head.
When Rosie and I were getting along, I felt at peace in the world. It was all I had ever wanted for us: to enjoy the journey as mother and daughter, to feel I was guiding her towards a happy future. And as we went back inside, I hoped the sense of calm would last.
Chapter Two
Mira sank into the hot steaming water. It was a little too hot. She liked it that way. Her skin prickled with pleasure as she slowly submerged her body up to her neck. The bubbles crackled in her ear. The water near-scalded her skin.
Her bath should have been the most peaceful time of her day, but there were antics next door. The raised voices were turning to screams. She put her book down on the towel and reached for her phone and earphones, forced to listen to the words instead of reading them, to block the noise out. The audio book had been Barry’s suggestion.
He was probably sick of her complaining about next door, but Mira couldn’t bear the screaming. A child in distress was the worst, most abhorrent, heinous sound for her. As if it wasn’t bad enough to hear it at work, she thought, pressing her flannel into her eyes.
It was the only part of her job that she couldn’t stomach. The tears in the playground, the fights, the yelps of joy, she didn’t mind. It was the gut-wrenching screams that she found impossible; when a child was really hurting, inside rather than out. She believed she could tell the difference. If she had it her way, she would make it her business to keep every single one of those children at Woodland Primary happy, all the time.
Maybe it was because she didn’t have her own children. If she had her own, she supposed she would worry only about her own. Although, that’s what frustrated her most about the parents she had to deal with at school. It was all about what their own precious little Johnnys or Marys needed. There was very little concern about the bigger picture, for their community. Like the parents who parked on the zigzags every single morning, who didn’t seem to care that a child might get run over because they obstructed the crossing, just as long as they were not late for work or for their yoga class. The culprits were usually the ‘Down From London’s or DFLs, as Mira and Barry called them. They made Mira cross. Really cross.
‘Hello love? Are you decent?’ Barry said, knocking, rat-a-tat-tat. He would always wait ten or so minutes before he came in for a chat, to give her time to read at least a few pages of her book. The earplugs were in her ears and the narrator was speaking but she realised she hadn’t listened to a word of it.
Nudging the door open with one shoulder, Barry came in with a tray, which carried a tall glass of Prosecco that twinkled at her invitingly. Next to the glass, Barry had prepared a bowl of broken up bits of Curly Wurly chocolate bar. Her favourite.
‘Here you go. Thought you’d need it after today,’ he said, placing it on the chair by her head.
‘Thanks, my dear. What a lucky wife I am.’ She stretched her neck and puckered her lips to give him a wet, bubbly kiss.
He settled down in the wicker chair in the alcove by the small window. Beyond the flowered blind was the Bradleys’ house, almost close enough to reach out and touch.
‘So, how was it today?’ Barry asked. His spectacles magnified his brown eyes and his grey hair was combed neatly to one side. Like a schoolboy, Mira thought.
‘Seemed to go well. They asked loads of questions, and they smiled quite a bit, which I thought was a good sign. Patricia was in a tiz-woz though.’
‘Well, it’s her head on the line if you don’t get “outstanding” again.’
‘Whatever happened to “good”? Good doesn’t seem to be good enough anymore.’
‘It’s all those mums like whatshername next door who come into this area with their big cars and expect all sorts of nonsense.’
‘Gemma and Peter send their kids private.’
‘Still. It’s mums like her that cause all the trouble.’
As if on cue, a muffled yowl emanated from the Bradleys’ marble-tiled family bathroom. Mira knew it had marble tiles because one of the tradesmen had shown her round the house before the Bradleys had moved in. She had lied to the plumber, introducing herself as Gemma’s sister, which was laughable considering how different they looked. Mira was built big, with a round, tough body topped off by her short, blunt grey hair and ruddy tan. It was baffling to Mira that Gemma, with her wispy hair and skinny bottom, could be Head Honcho of Blah-Blah Department at some fancy bank. Amazingly, the plumber hadn’t questioned their contrasting appearances. If she’d come in wearing a balaclava and carrying a swag bag, he probably wouldn’t have cared. No respect for his client, plainly. She had guessed that Gemma had treated him badly, barked orders at him and forgot to make him tea. That was five years ago now, Mira mused, staggered by how quickly time flew.
‘Funny how she never liked the blue bucket.’
‘Seemed innocent enough.’
‘Maybe they don’t like you,’ Mira said, blowing a mountain of bubbles at Barry.
‘Thanks a bundle,’ he laughed, wiping his glasses.
Submerging further into the water again, she asked, ‘How was your day?’
‘I did the roses at Lower Barn and Mrs Cranbourne hovered over me all day. Sometimes I wonder why she doesn’t do them herself. Although, she is a love. Quite chatty.’
‘Oh yeah? Pretty is she, too?’
‘She’s about hundred and five!’
Mira cleared the bubbles to see how her breasts were bobbing on the surface. Maybe this was why she liked baths so much. It was the only time when her body defied gravity and looked perky.
‘I feel about a hundred and five sometimes,’ she said.
‘Well, you look about twenty-five,’ Barry said, reaching out to wiggle her big toe. Mira wondered whether marriage-goggles, like beer-goggles, were a thing. Barry didn’t seem to see her with any real clarity. In his eyes, she had stayed exactly the same since the day they married twenty years ago. She wasn’t complaining. With her fiftieth birthday coming up next year, she was grateful for his marriage-goggles.