‘Because she is so good and when I’m not here, she minds my daddy.’
‘Well, that’s beautiful, Cici, does your daddy know?’
She shook her head.
‘The magic doesn’t work unless it’s a secret.’
The trust in the little girl’s face caused a lump in Cassie’s throat. Cici took the doll back and kissed her head. ‘It’s her bedtime. She has to go before me because she’s younger.’
Cassie followed her into the second bedroom, which had bunk beds and a single bed – bit of a squash, she observed. Cici tucked the doll into the corner of the lower bunk.
‘Con sleeps in the top one and Samantha sleeps over there, but she says she hates sharing with us. She says we’re farty, but I’m not,’ she confided indignantly.
God, having to share with two younger siblings couldn’t be the most ideal situation for a teenager – no wonder she was trying to dodge whenever she could.
‘Would you like me to read you a story?’
‘I’m nearly six, I can read myself,’ said Cici, pulling out a battered copy ofRhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes,which she proceeded to read through without actually looking at the pages. Clearly, she knew it off by heart, which struck Cassie as a very comforting idea right before sleep. She remembered having books like that, endlessly re-read and stuffed under the pillow until the pages began to fall out.
‘Now you have to put it on the locker, so it’s right on the corner and looks like a sandwich,’ Cici explained. Cassie had to adjust the angle of her moon-shaped night light before she crept out of the softly lit room, leaving the door slightly ajar. It felt both novel and strangely familiar. Being a kid hadn’t changed that much over the decades. I could’ve done this, she thought. She could’ve coped with a child, even though during all the years with Gav it’d seemed like such an impossibly big leap and one which they’d agreed wouldn’t ‘suit their lifestyles’. That was bullshit. She’d actually have managed fine. The thought jabbed her in the heart so savagely that she quickly squashed it down.
Con was wedged into the corner of the sofa, with his feet resting against Thor who, despite the gruesome events on the screen, had settled into a soporific trance and was snoring gently. She plonked down beside him.
‘So, what’s the plot?’
She hoped she wasn’t going to be that infuriating adult buzzing in the kid’s ear but thankfully he didn’t seem to see it that way.
‘It’s this town that’s overrun with zombies because of a radioactive experiment that went wrong,’ he explained. ‘We’re the survivors and we have to fight our way into the reactor to shut it down.’
As you would, she thought. She watched for a few minutes as he explained the properties of his various weapons.
‘Con, watch it!’ Cassie slapped her hand over her mouth as a swarm of jerky black figures filled the screen and his thumbs jabbed frantically at the controls.
‘I’m trying .?.?. Fuck,’ he roared as a pixellated red splosh filled the screen. ‘I died.’
‘There were too many. What could you do?’
Sometimes life was just like that. No matter how hard you tried, it all became too much.
‘Are you allowed to play this at home?’
He shook his head.
‘You won’t tell my mum, right? I’m only allowed to playThe SimsandMinecraft, but they’re lame.’
‘Don’t worry. Your dad’s house, your dad’s rules. So, what do we do now?’
‘I could re-spawn and try again.’
She looked at her watch and thought, what the hell, it was a Thursday night. She picked up the second controller.
‘You game?’ He looked at her with curiosity for the first time.
‘A bit. I used to play with someone .?.?.’ She and Gav had playedFinal Fantasyon his nights at home from tour; it was how he unwound and her way of reconnecting with him.
‘I’ve never played this one but I’m sure I can pick it up.’
Just then his pocket began to buzz.
