4
I was woken in the morning by an unpleasantly familiar noise and Tilly tapping me on the forehead.
‘I beed sick,’ she said, almost proudly. ‘Look.’
At least she’d managed to avoid the bedding.
As I cleaned up I felt the familiar panic set in again.She’s been sick. That means no nursery for forty-eight hours, in case it’s a bug. But I’ve got to go and check Elm Cottage and I can’tnotgo because Ross is meeting me there. I could do it next week? But he needs that paper and it sounded urgent otherwise he wouldn’t have suggested coming here to pick it up. Maybe I could go to the cottage, meet Ross, take Tilly with me and not do anything about the place until she’s back at nursery? But she only has two days. That would mean waiting until next week and he needs the place to be empty by then and if I don’t do it I won’t get paid and – quadruple pay? I can’t not get that…
Tilly, not seeming in the least bothered, coughed threateningly again and I moved at supermother speed to get the bowl underneath her before there was more clearing up to do.
‘Again,’ she said, still sounding slightly proud and I had no idea why. But then, two-year-olds are always ridiculously proud of their body and its products – the potty incident had nearly broken me completely.
‘Yes, darling,’ I said. ‘Oops.’ I gave her a cuddle, even though she wasn’t in the least distressed – it was more to calm me down, to push away thoughts of David. He would have made me feel that I had to scrub everywhere with bleach until my hands were raw, and sit holding her all day, unable to put her down. Any sign of illness in his daughter would ramp up his obsessive need for control, to prevent her from ever getting germs anywhere near her.
We’d been out of that situation for most of Tilly’s short life. I still had flashbacks and didn’t know whether they would ever stop. I still woke in the night fighting, so certain I could feel that pillow over my nose and mouth stoppering my breathing. Tilly, on the other hand, seemed to have no memories at all of her father, the only sign of the chaotic life we’d been forced to live since being a slight speech delay – which was putting itself right rapidly now we were settled – and being rather small for her age. I didn’t know whether to be glad about this or not. It was a small price to pay, but maybe she was harbouring memories that just hadn’t surfaced yet. She was too tiny to ask.
‘Toast,’ Tilly demanded. ‘Breakfast now.’
‘No, sweetie, you can’t have anything, you’ve just been sick,’ I said thoughtlessly, washing out the bowl.
Tilly gave a howl of grief and threw herself against the side of the bed. ‘Breakfast!’ she wailed as though she’d been denied some great, long-promised treat. ‘Breakfast!’
Once again the feeling of inadequacy enveloped me like a snowstorm, wrapping me in the sound of that strident inner voice, echoes of the fear of not being able to do what every other woman in the world does without even breaking into a sweat: stupid little jobs, unbrushed hair, not losing the baby weight, not being able to stop the baby crying. The sight of Tilly, bereft of her usual toast, thrashing around on the newly cleaned vinyl floor while screaming and roaring her demands, sent me right back to the dark days and I wanted to climb into bed and pull all the covers over my head until it went away.
It was a familiar paralysis but one I couldn’t indulge. There was only me here at this outpost at the end of the world, standing between my daughter and who knew what. I glanced at my phone, the black oblong that sat on the table like a silent threat.Any day now. Any day now he’ll find us…
A tap at the door nearly sent me into orbit, but I breathed deeply. Only the residents could get into the building; there were key codes and cameras, it was unlikely that even David would risk coming here. To be on the safe side I picked up my phone and dialled two nines, creeping with it in my hand as I opened the door cautiously to see Tia standing on the small square of space outside our flats. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked. ‘I heard Tilly yelling.’
From the next flat Galina’s head protruded around the door. ‘Tilly?’ she asked.
I breathed out a little more and disconnected my phone, dropping it into my pocket. ‘She’s just having a tantrum,’ I explained, standing in the doorway over a sick bowl and a cloth stinking of Dettol. ‘She can’t have breakfast.’
‘Lina!’ Tilly caught sight of Galina and threw herself towards the door.
‘I see. Good luck.’ Tia withdrew into her own flat. Galina wavered.
‘She’s not well?’
‘No. Well, yes, she’s all right, she’s just been a bit sick.’
‘Poor Tilly.’
‘Poor Tilly!’ Tilly yelled. ‘Breakfast, Lina!’
I smiled apologetically at Galina, held Tilly back with my leg from her attempts to throw herself out of the flat to be rescued by the Ukrainian girls and taken away from her dreadful mother, and closed the door. It was reassuring that Tilly was so fond of both Tia and the girls. She didn’t seem to have acquired any kind of fear of people, and would, I always felt, have cheerfully gone to live in any of the other flats in the block, even the one inhabited by the young men who smoked weed at all hours and played what sounded like their single rock album all night.
‘I might give you some toast later,’ I said, with a brief, uncharitable thought about just sending her to nursery anyway. I dismissed it quickly. Ashlee didn’t deserve whatever bug it was that Tilly was harbouring, and these things could run through a nursery class at the speed of light.
So, Tilly couldn’t go to nursery; she would just have to come with me. I’d never had to confront my bird phobia in front of my daughter before, and I spared a thought for which would come out on top: my desire to protect my daughter or my terror of anything flappy that came with a beak.
I’d done so much to protect her so far.So much.
‘We’ll have to go out in a minute,’ I said over the top of the tantrum, which was escalating now that Tilly had been denied access to her friends as well as toast to a level of shrieking. It would have worried me if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was practically understated for this location. ‘In the car.’
Tilly drew breath. ‘Nursery?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Not nursery, we have to go and visit a house.’
