I JUST HAVE TO GET ON AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT. Life doesn’t turn out how everyone wants and I’m very lucky to have Billy and Mabel and that you made sure we would be all right, and the house and everything. I know you had to go to the Sudan, I know how long you’d worked on getting the hostages out, I know you did everything to make sure it was safe out there. You wouldn’t have gone if you’d thought there was a risk. It wasn’t your fault.
I just wish we could do it together, and share all the little moments. How is Billy ever going to understand how to be a man without his father? And Mabel? They don’t have a dad. They don’t know you. And we could have just been at home together for Christmas if only . . . stop it. Never say could’ve, should’ve or if only.
I’m sorry I’m such a crap mother. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry I spent four weeks studying dating books, and making a fraudulent cyber version of myself available to a man wearing a rubber minidress, and for being upset about anything which isn’t about not still having you. I love you.
Love,
Bridget xxxx
11.46 p.m. Just heard a thud. One of them is out of bed.
Midnight. Mabel had got down from the bunk bed and was standing, silhouetted, in her little pyjamas, against the window. I went and knelt beside her.
‘There’s the moon,’ she said. She turned to me, solemnly, and confided, ‘It followth me.’
The moon was full and white above the little garden. I started to say, ‘Well, the thing is, Mabel, the moon—’
‘And . . .’ she interrupted. ‘Dat owl.’
I looked to where she was pointing. There, on the garden wall, was a barn owl, white in the moonlight, staring at us, unblinking. I’d never seen an owl before. I thought owls were extinct, except in the countryside and zoos.
‘Shut de curtainth,’ said Mabel and started closing the curtains in a bossy, businesslike way. ‘It’s all right. Dey’re watching over us.’
She clambered up into the top bunk. ‘Do de Baby Printheth.’
Still freaked out by the owl, I held her hand and said the bedtime verse Mark had made up for her when she was just born:
‘For the Baby Princess is as sweet as she is fair, and as gentle as she is beautiful, and as kind as she is lovely. And wherever she goes, and whatever she does, Mummy and Daddy will always love her. Just because she’s lovely, and because she’s—’
‘—Mabel!’ she finished.
‘And the thoughts,’ said Billy sleepily.
I could hear Mark’s voice as I whispered, ‘All the thoughts are going away. Just like the little birds in their nests, and the rabbits in their rabbit holes. The thoughts don’t need Billy and Mabel tonight. The world will turn without them. The moon will shine without them. And all Billy and Mabel need to do is rest and sleep. And all Billy and Mabel need to do is . . .’
They were both asleep. I opened the curtains to see if the owl really had been there. There it was, still, gazing at me unblinking. I looked back for a long time, then closed the curtains.
CHRISTMAS
Friday 7 December 2012
Twitter followers 602 (have broken 600 ceiling), words of screenplay written 15 (better though utter rubbish), Christmas invitations (start of day) 1, Christmas invitations (end of day) 10, ideas re what to do re sudden plethora of invitations largely unsuitable for small children 0.
9.15 a.m. Right. Christmas Resolutions:
I WILL
*Stop feeling sad and thinking about or attempting to live through men, but think about children and Christmas.
*Have a Christmassy Christmas and make a new start.
*Make everything Christmassy and enjoy Christmas.
*Not be scared of not making a Christmassy enjoyable Christmas.
*Be more Buddhist about Christmas. Even though is Christian festival and, by its very nature, therefore, not Buddhist.
I WILL NOT