I started sobbing then, silently.
‘Shhh. Shhh,’ he whispered, putting his strong arms around me. ‘No one was hurt, I knew it was going to be fine.’
I leaned against him, sniffing and snuffling.
‘You’re doing all right, Bridget,’ he said softly. ‘You’re a good mum and dad, better than some who have a staff of eight and a flat in Monte Carlo. Even if you have put snot on my shirt.’
And it felt like the aeroplane door opening, when you arrive on holiday, with a rush of warm air. It felt like sitting down at the end of the day.
Then Mabel yelled, ‘Mummee! SpongeBob’th finished!’ and simultaneously the doorbell rang.
It was Rebecca. ‘We just heard about the school thing,’ she said, clattering down the stairs, a string of tiny LED Christmas lights woven into her hair. ‘What happened? Oh!’ she said, seeing Mr Wallaker. ‘Hello, Scott.’
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. Headgear unexpectedly understated . . . but still.’
Finn, Oleander and Jake came over and the house was filled with noise and chocolate and Hellvanians and Xbox, and everyone running about. I kept trying to talk to Billy, and help him process what had happened, but he just said, ‘Mummeee! I’m a Superhero! OK?’
I watched Mr Wallaker talking to Jake, both of them tall, handsome, old friends, fathers. Rebecca looked at Mr Wallaker and raised her eyebrows at me, but then his phone rang, and I could just tell he was talking to Miranda.
‘I have to go,’ he said abruptly, clicking it off. ‘You guys will look after them tonight, right, Jake?’
Heart sinking, I followed him up to the doorstep and started to gabble, ‘I’m so grateful. It’s you who is the Superhero. I mean are. I mean is.’
‘Are,’ he said. ‘And it was my pleasure.’
He walked down the steps then turned, added softly ‘. . . Superheroine’, and strode off towards the main road, the taxis, and a girl who looks like she’s out of a magazine. I watched him go, sadly, thinking, ‘Superheroine? I’d still like someone to shag.’
’TIS THE SEASON
Monday 2 December 2013
Everything is all right. Took Billy to the child psychologist who said he seemed to have ‘healthily assimilated it as a learning experience’. When I tried to take him for a second time, Billy said, ‘Mummee! It’s you who needs to go.’
Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah are enjoying a period of what can only be described as celebrity at the school and have been signing autographs. Their school celebrity, however, is as nothing beside that of Mr Wallaker.
And Mr Wallaker is friendly to me now, and I to him. But that’s as far as it seems to go.
Tuesday 3 December 2013
3.30 p.m. Mabel just came out of school singing:
‘Deck de halls wid boughs of holly,
Falalalala la la la la.
’Tis de season to be jolly . . .’
It is the season to be jolly. Am going to be jolly this year. And grateful.
Wednesday 4 December 2013
4.30 p.m. Oh. Mabel has now changed the words to:
‘’Tis de season to hate Billy.’
Thursday 5 December 2013
10 a.m. Thelonius’s mother stopped me at the Infants Branch drop-off this morning.