Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Flora marched across the grass. ‘Beckie, get inside! Neil! Look at them!’

Neil blinked.

‘ Look at them! Girls, pull up your clothes and get inside. All of you, get inside. Now! ’

Ten little faces gaped at her.

‘Come on guys, enough is enough,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘Beckie, what were you thinking? That’s unacceptable and you know it.’

Beckie had gone bright red.

Neil was blinking, rabbit in the headlights.

‘Come on you lot, move it,’ said Caroline, and as she shepherded the kids across the grass towards the open glass doors, Flora let fly at Neil.

‘I don’t believe this! Can you not be trusted to supervise the kids for the five seconds I look away because I’m at the end of my tether taking all this on my shoulders because you have abrogated all responsibility? But no, I can’t even have five seconds to cry on someone’s shoulder, someone who actually understands my concerns –’

‘And who would that be?’

‘Caroline, who else? I’ve asked her to be Beckie’s guardian.’

Long, tense silence.

‘And you never thought to consult me about it?’

‘As if you’d be interested!’

He flung up his hands. ‘How can you say that? Of course I’m interested in anything that affects Beckie, let alone something as important as this!’

‘Well, you’ve been doing a very good impression of someone who doesn’t give a fuck!’

Then she remembered Ailish.

She was still there, the cow, staring down at them. Childishly, Flora made a face at her and stormed off up the garden.

Flora and Caroline had just got the kids settled round the table with juice and cake when the doorbell went.

‘Neil, can you please get that?’ Flora said tightly. ‘And remember to check the CCTV before you open the door.’

Too much to hope that it was Selina Wright?

A few seconds later, Neil called out, his voice higher than usual and odd-sounding: ‘Flora?’

She hurried out of the room and into the hall.

In the vestibule – he’d actually let them into the house? – stood Lorraine and Carly Johnson. Neil was holding onto the door between the vestibule and the hall as if for support.

‘Get out of here,’ she said. ‘Get out or I’m calling the police.’

‘Sorry hen, we know it’s Beckie’s birthday and you’re busy and that, and the last folk you want to see is us, eh? But we just wanted to leave these for Beckie?’ Lorraine Johnson rummaged in the carrier bags she was carrying and lifted out some shiny, nylony material. ‘Wee Elsa and Anna costumes. You dinnae need to say where they came from. But we’d like Beckie to have them, aye?’

Neil looked round at Flora. ‘Thank you, but –’

‘As if we’re going to let Beckie have anything from you!’

‘Aye Maw,’ said Carly. ‘Maybe this wasnae such a good idea?’

The woman just stood there holding the hideous costumes.

‘Let’s go, eh?’ The girl put a hand on her mother’s arm. ‘Sorry.’

Lorraine Johnson looked straight at Flora, sharp little eyes filmed with unshed tears. ‘What that Mair bitch did was terrible so it was, but dinnae you think we had anything to do with what happened to her cos we didnae, we didnae even know what she did to Beckie till after she was dead and all the shite hit the fan, and I’m no saying I’m no glad the bitch is dead but we didnae touch her. And none of that was down to yous, eh, and we get that, we’re all victims here by the way, and I’m no wanting trouble, we’re gonnae withdraw the complaint about your man here assaulting Carly, it’s no fair on yous, that was down to us so it was.’

‘Oh,’ was all Flora could find to say.

‘And we’ll no come near yous again and we’ll leave yous and Beckie in peace but I just have to know, right, I just have to fucking know that you love her. You love our wee lassie, aye?’ The tears, now, were dripping down her jowly cheeks and splotching on her thin white top.

‘We love her very much indeed,’ said Neil. ‘You can be sure of that.’

Flora just stared.

Gently, Neil took the dresses from the woman’s hands. ‘Thank you. Beckie will be thrilled with these.’

‘We love her more than anything,’ Flora was finally able to choke out.

‘Aye!’ Lorraine half-sobbed, half-wailed, ‘Aye, I know yous do!’

Carly was bawling too. ‘She’s that lucky to have yous!’

‘God, look at me, a right traichy cow!’ Lorraine swiped at her face with her hands. ‘We’re sorry about all the shite. Jed and Travis – they’re no right in the head, eh? But I can promise you this, hen, I can promise you this – they bastards are no gonnae be coming near you and Beckie ever again.’ And she looked straight at Flora, and Flora’s gut lurched and her heart seemed to contract in her chest.

And the woman reached out a hand and touched the shiny material of one of the dresses Neil was holding, then took her hand away, and drew in a long breath, lifting her chin, facing it.

Facing her loss.

Her irrevocable loss.

Flora swallowed. ‘That – that’s good to know.’

‘We’re that sorry,’ sobbed Carly. ‘Yous are decent people.’

‘I think you probably are too,’ said Neil quietly.

‘Naw, we’re just traichy wee schemies,’ sobbed Lorraine. ‘Beckie’s better off wi’ yous right enough.’ And she waved a hand as if to encompass Neil and Flora, the Victorian tiles of the vestibule, the pretty pictures on the walls, the antique pew, and under it Flora and Neil’s expensive walking boots and comfy slippers lined up neatly next to Beckie’s miniature versions.

The whole of Beckie’s life.

Their child’s life.

And she didn’t know quite how it happened, but Flora found that her arms were round Lorraine Johnson and the big sweaty chest was pressed against Flora’s.

‘Do you want…’ Neil coughed. ‘Do you want to see Beckie?’

In the hot, rather ripe embrace, Flora stiffened.

‘Naw, you’re all right,’ Lorraine muttered, pulling back from Flora and folding the carrier bags once, twice, again in her hands, looking down at them. ‘You’re all right.’

As Flora and Neil stood together at the door watching the two ponderous figures make their way down the path to the gate, Flora felt Neil’s fingers close round hers. Behind them through the house came shouts of laughter, and Edith’s high, delighted squeal: ‘Beckie! It’s all in his hair and everything!’ The little birch tree by the gate swayed in the breeze, casting dappled shade across the geraniums and the lavender and the now empty path.

‘God,’ said Neil. ‘Have we stepped into a parallel universe or what? Did that just happen?’

‘Probably some sort of ruse,’ said Flora. ‘To – I don’t know. Lull us into a false sense of security…’

‘Mm,’ Neil agreed. ‘Let’s just see if they do withdraw the complaint.’

Flora couldn’t stop seeing Lorraine Johnson’s face, the tears coursing down it as she clutched the pathetic nylon dresses Neil was now holding.

But: ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s just wait and see.’

‘Oof, you’d think we were going for a week,’ said Caroline, lifting the cool box off the table.

‘Let’s go for a week!’ said Beckie, surveying the junk-food drawer. ‘We could take a tent and camp out!’

Flora was scanning the room. ‘Has anyone seen my phone?’

Beckie groaned. ‘What is it with you and phones, Mum?’

‘I know, I’m hopeless.’ She’d better not have lost this one too or she’d never live it down.

‘Can I take my tablet? I want to show Edith that video of the hamster sneezing.’