Towers of Silence

Chapter Forty Nine

Nana Tello had insisted on the Queen’s speech. This didn’t make much sense as she is a raving republican. However Nana’s passion for the gee-gees means she feels an affinity with Lizzie and knows exactly what animals she has in training, in stud and in the running on any given day. Lizzie is a fellow horse-fancier rather than a Queen. So Nana Tello was glued to the telly. She was probably hoping for a tip for the Boxing Day meet at Newmarket

Laura and Ray were loading the dishwasher. I never got my vegetarian feast. Ended up with all the trimmings and no turkey. It was fine. I was a little hurt that Ray hadn’t treated me to a cashew roast or chestnut and stilton roulade but he couldn’t do that without dropping the wall of disapproval he was lugging about. I’d not got him a CD anyway or anything else, nor Laura. Hadn’t had chance. He’d bought me a book on water gardens, a nice one with lots of design ideas. I was touched, I’d been planning a pond for years and not getting very far. He accepted my thanks gruffly with a nod rather than a smile.

I couldn’t quite get away with telling the kids I’d fallen down the hill especially when they’d been party to Laura’s 999 call and the ensuing drama. So it was a ‘bad man’ who had pushed me and the police had got him locked up. They seemed to accept it with only a few whys and wherefores.

They were playing on the computer. Frogger Two had gone down a treat, “Si-i-i-ck,” they’d chorused, “so si-i-ick.” They were happy negotiating the cartoon creatures through the violent threats posed by relentless lawnmowers and aggressive bumble bees.

I went outside, wandered round the garden. It was almost dark. Someone was letting fireworks off, a series of bangs and shrieks. I glimpsed a few fleeting star bursts.

Diane would be in the thick of it in her winter wonderland. I tried to imagine the northern lights flickering over a snow draped landscape. Bright and beautiful unlike this dull, damp, grey one.

A great tit swung on the seed feeder followed by its mate. Beneath the tree a sliver of green caught my eye. I moved closer. Two tiny sword-like leaves, the green striped with white. I bent, grimaced at my aching muscles, touched the tightly rolled bud with the tip of my finger, stroked the length of the leaves between thumb and forefinger.

The first snowdrop. So early. A promise of things to come. I slowly straightened up. Turned to face the house, windows aglow.

Maddie came out, she had her slippers on. I thought about it but decided to say nothing.

“Why didn’t it snow?” She sat on the swing and tilted herself back.

“Well, it doesn’t usually, not in Manchester. It’s not cold enough.”

“It always has snow in pictures.”

“Yes. Like it’s always sunny in the summer.”

She sat upright and narrowed her eyes. “But it is.”

“Do you think so?”

She frowned. “Yes.”

Can’t be bad, a child who remembers all her summers like that.

“Are you going to make any New Year’s Revolutions?”

I laughed. “Resolutions.”

“What are they?”

“Things you want to do, things you want to change.”

“What like?”

“Well, some people stop smoking or start going to the gym.”

“What can I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“If I wanted to, though?”

“Okay. What would you like to do next year that you haven’t done this year?”

“Get a kitten?”

I raised my eyebrows, kittens aren’t an option.

“I don’t know really,” she said. “Are you doing any?”

I considered the question.

“Oh!” She flew off the swing and darted into the house and returned a couple of minutes later with an envelope. “I did this.” She thrust it at me. It said Mummy on the front in a big red heart.

Inside was a green card with a cotton wool snowman and a red robin stuck on the front. Inside Maddie had drawn a picture of our house with a face at each window, all smiling. “There’s you and Tom, “ I said. “That’s Ray with the ‘tache and beard. Is that Laura?”

“Yes, and Digger,” she pointed.

“And that’s me.”

“Your nose is a bit big but it went wrong there.”

She had written Happy Christmas and New Year. The rest of the card was covered with kisses and I love yous.

“That is lovely, come here.”

She screwed up her nose anticipating a kiss. I gave her one and a hug. “And I love you, you know.”

She nodded and returned to the swing.

“Would you, then? Make a resolution?” She swung up her toes pointing skyward, hair falling towards the ground behind her.

“I don’t think so. I like things pretty much as they are. Maybe my resolution will be to remember that more often.”

She gave a grunt which signalled I was talking rubbish again and swung higher. I watched her for a while, drinking in the sight. When she slowed and stopped I walked over to her. “Come on then,” I said. “My turn. Give us a push.”

I watched the tree rock above me and the warm lighted windows of the house dip in and out of view, and felt Maddie’s small hands press on my back and her giggles ring round the garden. And I swung higher and higher.