Gone

67

At four thirty Charlie Stephenson blinked, opened his mouth and began to howl. In the room at the front of the house Skye stirred. She rubbed her eyes and reached sleepily for Nigel, but found cold empty sheets instead of his warm mass. She groaned and rolled on to her back, tilting her head up to see the numbers projected on to her ceiling – 4:32. She let her hands drop across her face. Four thirty. Charlie’s favourite time.

‘Oh, God, Charlie.’ She pulled on her dressing-gown, sleepily shoved her feet into slippers. ‘Oh God.’

She shuffled into the nursery, the walking dead moving towards the soft glow of his Winnie the Pooh nightlight. The nursery was dark. And cold – too cold. The sash window was open. Drowsily, she padded to it and closed it. She couldn’t recall leaving it open – but her brain was mush these days. She paused to look into the moonlit alley that ran along the side of the house. At the dustbins lined up. They’d had a break-in a couple of months ago. Someone had got in through the french windows in the living room. Nothing had been taken, but in a way that had freaked her out more than if everything had gone. Afterwards Nigel had put locks on the windows downstairs. She really ought to remember to close them.

In the cot Charlie screwed up his face. The sobs made his little chest jerk up and down.

‘Oh you little tyke.’ She smiled. ‘Waking Mummy up.’ She reached in and wrapped his blanket around him, swaddled it around his arms, lifted him up and carried him into her room, murmuring to him all the way, about how he was going to be the death of her, how she’d remind him of this when he was eighteen and dating. It was windy outside. The trees in the front were making strange moving shapes on the ceiling as they bent and swayed. The draught coming through the windows ruffled the curtains. They popped and lifted.

Charlie’s nappy was dry so she rested him on a pillow and climbed sleepily on to the bed next to him. She began to unhook the maternity bra. She stopped. Sat upright, eyes wide, suddenly completely awake, her heart thudding. In the alley outside Charlie’s window something had clattered.

She held a finger to her lip. ‘Stay there, Charlie.’ She tipped silently out of bed on her bare feet and went back into the nursery. The window was rattling. She went to it, pressed her forehead to the glass and peered down into the alley. One of the dustbin lids lay on the ground. Taken off by the wind.

She closed the curtains, went back into the bedroom and climbed on to the bed. That was the problem when Nigel was away. Her imagination ran riot.

‘Silly Mummy.’ She pulled Charlie into her arms, jammed down her bra to expose her nipple and got him latched on. Lay back and dreamily closed her eyes. ‘Silly old Mummy and her silly old imagination.’