by Gina Rossi
“Lis?” he calls.
Smothered giggle way down in my bed.
He lowers his voice to a menacing rumble. “Lis, are you hiding from me?”
She flings back the bedding. “Yes, Daddy! I hiding in Lara bed!”
Oh.
“Well then, I’ll just have to come and look for you.” He steps through the door.
Wow. Showered, not very big towel around his waist, he comes into the room, stands at the end of my bed, raises his eyebrows at the squirming lump under the duvet, puts his hands on his hips, and says, “Hmmm. I wonder where Alice is? Could she be under the bed?” He bends to look. “Nope.” He turns to face the window. “Behind the shutters? Nope.” He winks at me. Oh my eyes, he looks naughty. His hair, wet, is up in dark spikes, his frankly mind-blowing shoulders speckled with drops of water. “I think,” he goes on, “I think Lis is in Lara’s suitcase.”
Squeal from deep in the bed.
He rushes across the room, rattles my suitcase. “Hmmmm,” he says slowly. “Not there. Hmmmm. Lara, do you know where Lis could be? She has to get dressed real quick.”
I shrug. “I actually haven’t seen Alice for a while.” I pull the duvet up to my chin, fists clenched.
“I don’t believe you.” He grins, his eyes gleaming like a hungry wolf’s. “What’s that in your bed?” The towel slips. He grabs it, folds it around his waist and tucks the end back in.
The bedding heaves as Alice rolls herself into a tight ball. She’s laughing now, barely able to catch her breath.
“Um, I think it’s a…a little mouse,” I say, my heart beating in my throat.
“A little mouse! If there’s a little mouse in your bed, I’m going to have to catch it because I’m very, very hungry.”
“Nooooooo, Daddy!”
Lucas lunges. We are doomed.
“Waaaah!” he roars, throwing back the bottom of the duvet, exposing the both of us—lucky I got dressed. “Waaaah!” He grabs Alice’s kicking feet and drags her off the bed, toys flying everywhere. “Oooh, yumyumyum,” he growls. “What tasty bit shall I eat first?”
Shrieking with laughter, Alice can’t fight Lucas’s strength. “Help me, Laraaaa, help meeee!”
I abandon her, and reverse up the pillows piled against the headboard. There’s a kind of exquisite terror. Also, I’m very ticklish and Lucas is tickling Alice, making me laugh. I can feel it everywhere.
“Help,” she shrieks.
“I can’t!” I wouldn’t know how. My knees are under my chin, clamped to my body with both arms.
“Come on, Lis,” Lucas says. “I’ll eat you in the bedroom while we get dressed.” He picks her up, slings her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and lets her slide down his back. He carries her out of the room, by the feet, upside down. She’s giggling so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t wet herself. I grit my teeth as her head swings wildly, missing the doorframe by a half a hair’s breadth.
And oops, there goes the towel. Clearly, Lucas dives in warm waters for a large part of the year. There’s no white bum revealing the size of his swimming trunks. He’s nicely tanned, all over.
They go off, down the passage. “Do it to Lara, Daddy! Do it to Lara! Eat Lara too,” Alice begs.
“Not now, sweetheart. I’ll eat her later.”
“Why? Why?”
“Because I won’t have room for breakfast if I eat both of you now.”
Their voices fade, Alice laughs again, delighted at something her daddy has said. I slide off the pillows and stretch out on my ruined bed. For a moment I lie on my back, hands behind my head and listen to the thump of my heart, my mouth curving in a smile. I’m glad I didn’t flounce out last night. This will be way more fun than looking after an older person, no offence. Lucas is, well, nice—let’s leave it at that for now. Alice is adorable and her cuteness will more than make up for what I’m missing by not being a companion to an intellectual grand old dame of Maine. There’s potential for great happiness in this house. It’s everywhere, in spite of the shadows, waiting for the right moment to come out.
I hope.
Chapter Four
Breakfast. There’s absolutely nothing apart from milk in the fridge and some sugary cereal in one of the cupboards. Someone—it had to be Lucas—has been shopping and dumped a bag on the kitchen table. I look inside. Doughnuts and orange juice.
Alice, hair unbrushed, skips in wearing odd socks, a blue smock printed all over with white daisies and a red and green striped cardigan with one button done up. She goes straight to the bag of doughnuts and takes one out. I pass her a plate and ask her to sit at the table.
“Would you like some orange juice, Alice?”
She nods, mouth covered in sticky icing. Like I said, I’m no childcare expert, but I don’t think doughnuts constitute an ideal breakfast for a four-year-old.
Here’s a positive: while the kitchen remains destroyed, the dishwasher contains a load of clean stuff. I get out a Hello Kitty mug and fill it with juice, handing it to Alice.
“What shall we do today, Alice? Shall we go to the beach later?”
“I show you the oyster tractors.”
“Oyster tractors?”
“No. Oyster tractors.”
I don’t see oyster beds anywhere, so why would we need tractors to pull trailer-loads of oysters? Maybe she means oyster crackers, giant crabs that crack open oysters? Do such creatures exist? Or crackers, like biscuits you eat? Maybe she means tractors driven by oysters. Okay, that’s rubbish.
“What are oyster tractors, Alice?”
“Birds. Lis means oyster catchers, don’t you sweetheart?” Lucas dumps a giant holdall on the kitchen floor. Here is a man ready for long-hauling it to the oil and gas fields of the dark north. On top of the holdall is a fur-lined jacket that would fit King Kong. On the table, that underwater laptop, smartphone, headphones, fat passport with extra pages and a pile of documents.
He pours coffee and knocks it back standing up, going immediately for a second cup. “All okay? Sleep well?” he asks me.
“Yes, thanks.”
“Lara was waiting and waiting and waiting for you, Daddy, by the window, when you were running.” Alice grins at him, and then me, crumbs everywhere.
“She was?” He studies his coffee.
Want to know something? I am not a blusher, but my cheeks ignite. “Ah hahaha,” I trill, “I was looking at the view. It’s beautiful.” None of that is a lie. I wish I could shove my face in a bowl of ice.
“Any questions before I go?” Lucas is looking at me now, but no way am I looking at him.
Yes. To kick off, what am I doing here? “Too many.”
There’s a bit of a silence, and then he says, “Know something?”
“What?” I ask, eyes down.
“You’re a natural.”
Is that so?
“Look, it’s easy.” Lucas reaches for a doughnut. “You have Lis’s program.”
Is that all there is to childcare? Programming? “But what’s the…the essence of a good relationship with a child? How do I reach out and connect?”
He bites into the doughnut, chews and swallows. “Nobody’s ever asked me that.”
Damn right they haven’t, because everybody, up to now, has known what they’re jolly well doing!
I wait. He thinks, drinking coffee. Eventually he says, “I guess every kid is different, but, with Lis, tell her what’s going to happen, or what you’re going to do, and do it. That way she’ll always trust you. And always tell her the truth. Other than that, keep to her routine, be strict about manners, bedtime, TV and blasphemy. That’s about it.”
“Blasphemy?”
“Yeah. I sometimes, you know, make a mistake.” He shoots me an apologetic look, a sudden, rich glint in those sombre eyes.
I glance at the sheaf of papers he’s shuffling on the table, spotting British Airways First Class boarding passes.
“That’s nice,” I say.
“Yeah.”
; I look at him, with envy. Holly and I often discuss what we’d do if we won the lottery: buy a huge house on the beach, have our shoes handmade and always, always, travel First Class. I can’t comment on his shoes, but he scores on the other two, lucky, lucky man.
He grins. He’s got unusual teeth for an American insofar as, while they’re white and healthy, they’re a little crooked, each and every one. It’s lovely.
“I go First Class because—” he finishes the last of his coffee. “—you can’t take your money with you.”
“You can’t.” I agree. I won’t have any money to take with me, after the Hampers disaster. Problem solved.
He sits, puts his elbows on the table, rests his chin on clasped hands and looks at me. “The day after I get to Aberdeen, weather permitting, I have to get into a rubberized body bag and fly for three hours in pissing rain and gale-force wind, in a rusty, storm-battered helicopter with grim, silent, oily men. When I look down at that heaving rig, at the tiny, postage-stamp trampoline of a heliport, awash with seawater, without a guardrail, I think, fuck, if I ditch here at least I spent my money on the way, drinking champagne at thirty thousand feet in a leather chair, having fun.”
“Quite.” What was that about a body bag?
Honk honk. Skeet’s here. Lucas digs in his jacket pocket and hands me a folded cheque. “The Morgan Bank in town has a series of post-dated cheques for you. Go see them about an account.”
That’s a quaint way to bank in this day and age. I pocket the cheque without looking at it. “Thank you, and, um, don’t worry about anything. Everything will be fine here.”
“I know.”
We go outside. Lucas dumps his stuff in the boot of the Chevy, picks up Alice and hugs her tight. “Goodbye, sweetheart. You be a good girl now, see?”
“Bye, Daddy!” she chirps, happy as you like.
He is not happy. It’s really, really hard for him to leave her. Why, why does he do this? A lonely man, leaving his daughter alone. I swallow the soppy lump that’s gathered in my throat and watch the softness in his eyes as he lowers her to the ground and goes down on his haunches, straightening her dress, re-buttoning her lopsided cardigan. “I love you, sweetheart.”
Skeet’s back in the car, engine running, seatbelt on.
“Love you, Daddy,” Alice says. “Now kiss Lara.”
I smile. He gets to his feet and I hold out a hand for him to shake. He takes it and leans in for a formal peck on the cheek. We press faces and air kiss.
“No, Daddy, silly. Kiss properly, and cuddle!”
He lets go my hand and looks down at her. “I did.”
Her face falls. “Didn’t, Daddy. You must, or Lara will be very sad.”
Lucas looks at me, shrugs and holds out his arms. “C’mon, Lara Jasmine Layla, cuddle time!” We hug. He’s laughing, but as his arms go around me I can feel, against his chest, that he’s trying not to cry.
We break apart. I look at the ground, blinking my own tears. This is absolutely, ridiculously, over-the-top sentimental. Lucas must go now. I grab Alice’s hand and step back, well back, into the small porch at the front door—the one Lucas calls the sea horse door.
He’s standing by the taxi, feeling his pockets, thoughtful. Out comes the set of keys he showed me last night. He looks at them for a moment, rubbing a thumb over the oddly-shaped key. “Let me not forget to give you these.” He flashes a brave smile that shoots a squiggle through my stomach. “All the keys. You’ll need those.” He tosses them in my direction. I lunge and miss. They clatter to the ground, scaring Buster.
I pick them up. “Bye now, Lucas. Take care.”
Alice waves. “Love you, Daddy!”
Lucas gets into the car. “Be in touch every day, okay? Email’s best.”
“I will,” I say.
“All my details are in the red file.”
Skeet, thank the gods of each and every universe in our solar system and beyond, puts the Chevy in drive and rolls away through the gate.
“Daddy?” Alice, plaintive, puts a finger in her mouth.
I pick her up. “Wave, sweetheart, wave!” We wave until Lucas’s big hand, waving high over the roof of the car, is obscured by the trees on the drive. All of a sudden, it’s very quiet in the vacuum of departure. We can’t hear the sea from this side of the house. Nothing moves, nothing happens until a bird lands close to our feet, and takes off immediately, with a cheep of alarm.
Alice points. “Look! Buster.”
Praise the Lord for Buster, truly. He waddles back out of the house, and I make much of him. Together, Alice and I shoo the bird to further safety while Buster lies on the bottom step of the porch and eyes us with hungry misgiving, like he’ll never eat again.
I ask Alice to show me around. The pinks, golds, and silvers of early morning have been overrun by blue, blue, and more magnificent blue. We wander right around the house in the sunshine, holding hands, Buster following. The house, viewed from the scruffy garden from a little distance, my back to the sea, is a great, gracious, magical pile of mellow grey-blue planks—clapboard, clinker? I don’t know the name. It’s the same colour as the Paul Revere house, and the Witch House in Salem, that I visited only last week, but the windows are bigger, the doors wider, and there are square porches and stoops and balconies, even a cupola, but square. Above and behind the house, there’s a hill cloaked in dark pines. Here and there, big roofs of what I’m sure are grand old Maine mansions stand clear above the trees. Turning, I look at the sea, the view that must be visible from every south-facing room in Blue Rocks—that immense blue sky underscored with a bright pewter band of ocean. It’s glorious.
“Look, Lara, look!” Alice tugs my hand, pulling me around to face the house again, pointing to something on the roof.
I shade my eyes. A weather vane.
“It’s a mermaid,” Alice says.
It is. It’s a mermaid curled around a trident. Only, it looks more like a mermaid pierced by a trident. If this were my house, I wouldn’t change much, but I’d change that.
****
Later, when we’re home from the beach, Alice falls asleep on her bed, browsing through her pile of Winnie books. Is she supposed to sleep now? I have no idea. The program says nothing about an afternoon nap. I call my sister Julie on Skype. “How long does a four-year-old sleep?” I ask, when I’ve explained what I’m doing in the first place with a four-year-old.
She yawns. “I have no idea. God knows, but I hope it’s more than me.”
“Oh, right. How are you feeling?”
“Don’t ask,” she groans. “I’m exhausted. During the day I can’t stay awake, and I can’t sleep at night. All I can eat is chocolate ice cream. I’ve burst out of all my clothes. I can’t wait for this pregnancy to be over, so things can get back to normal.”
Normal? What is that? I look around the half-sorted kitchen, at the colourful Kilimanjaro of washing tumbling through the laundry room door, at the books and toys strewn across the floor. I think about the bookshop jumble of documents, plans and sketches in Lucas’s office, the bare house, and the gone-wild, run-to-seed garden outside the tall windows—and ponder normal.
We chat about this and that: her blood pressure, nausea, and back pain, and after about half an hour she tells me she needs to take a nap. Well, that would be about six p.m. in the UK, so things are back-to-front if you ask me. We ring off. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sleepy too. A little delayed jetlag, a week partying in New York, and a few hours in the sun will do this to a person.
But there’ll be no nap for me. There’s work to do. I’m not on holiday. I drink a glass of iced water and get started on the kitchen. It takes me an hour to clean up. Funny, there’s no way I’d normally do something like this—I like to stick to a job description and as far as the Blue Rocks job goes, I’ve deviated quite enough, thank you very much—but I don’t mind doing it. After all, it’s me who’s got to live in the house.
And there’s still no food. That aside, the soap I used
in the shower this morning is so brittle and cracked it could be prehistoric, never mind the three sheets of loo paper dangling on a battered roll. We’ll have to go shopping as soon as Alice’s awake.
I move through the house, straightening what little there is to straighten, and wiping down the guest loo and upstairs bathrooms. If I were the stay-at-home mum of Alice, at this moment, in this house, life would hardly be normal! Quite apart from anything, I can see life is going to be really busy. I’m referring to the physical side. As far as the emotional side goes, of caring for lovable, delightful Alice, I worry I haven’t got what it takes. Has Julie got any idea what’s heading her way?
In the end, it’s easy. Alice wakes the minute I come inside from pegging out a load of washing, and says she’s hungry, so—leaving the food desert of Blue Rocks—we go to town. First, I acquaint myself with Lucas’s dark blue Jeep thingy, which is totally ridiculous. It’s as wide as a combine harvester with a double “cab”—as Alice informs me—furnished with deep leather seats and all things luxury. It has the words Trailhawk and Renegade on the rear, but I’ve no idea what it is, apart from a four-by-four vehicle of whatever origin. The back is so big you could fill it with water and keep a whale there. I suggest this to Alice, and she decides it’s a brilliant idea. You could go to the moon in this thing, whale and all. Luckily, there’s an instruction book because I have no idea how to turn it on, and luckily, I’ve driven my parents around Spain on the wrong side of the road, and surely the airbags on this thing would be nothing less than the arms of Jesus.
We kick off at Maggie’s Diner, with Sandwich of the Day—I have to scrape some of the basil pesto off Alice’s—plus apple juice, and watch the Lobster Cove world go by for an hour or so. Alice insists on keeping some panini crust.
“For Queenie to eat, Lara.”
“Who is Queenie?”
“A chicken.”
“Where does Queenie live?”
“At the gas station!” she exclaims, like that’s the silliest question ever.
Lunch over, we go back to the Jeep, and I drive the long way around town, to see what’s what and where, before going to the grocery store on First Street to stock up on basics. That done, we go home, but as I’m turning right off Main Street, to head north out of town along the bay to Blue Rocks, Alice says, “Stop, Lara, stop. Pleeease. Queenie’s gas station!”