Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

content myself with picking her up in a close embrace. Her body slumps on to mine; her head cradles into my neck, I slide her legs around my hips.

This is where she is meant to be: she fits.

It feels as though my whole body is wrapping itself around her.

I bury my head into her hair and, ignoring the clinging scent of a strange shampoo, I inhale the very smell of her. That is unchanged and perfect.

The woman’s eyebrows are raised as I carry Mimi out of the bedroom with me. The man puts a hand to her arm as if to steady her.

‘I’m taking her,’ I say simply.

‘Your choice,’ the man says. ‘But please can you wait just a moment? We need to make sure you are not seen. We have other children in there, as you saw.’

I bow my head in accession. The man goes into another room, I hear him talking on a phone.

Mimi mumbles something, I wonder if she is half waking.

‘Hey baby,’ I croon. ‘It’s Mummy, Mummy’s here.’ Her head lolls backwards, I fail to catch it and swear as her neck jolts downwards. There’s a smear of drool across her cheek.

‘She won’t wake up,’ the woman says. It slips out from her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sometimes – sometimes we have to give them something to keep them quiet.’

‘You’ve drugged her?’ The woman flinches as my voice rises.

‘Please,’ she says. ‘You know the way it is. It’s not easy but we do it to help people like you. We didn’t want to but there were enforcers in the building; we have to be careful.’

I want to continue to shout, I want to shriek, but I pacify myself with shaking my head. I clutch Mimi a little tighter, more certain than ever that coming for her was the best thing I could have done.

I should never have let her go.

‘You can leave now,’ the neatly dressed man said, returning. ‘Be quick.’

He’s about to open the door for me when the woman speaks again.

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? She can’t come back now. This is it. Her boat’s going in two days. And they will find you if you stay here – you can’t keep her hidden for ever.’

Thomas would want me to listen to these words.

‘I can’t,’ I stammer. ‘I can’t be away from her any longer.’

I wrap Mimi up in my arms, realising as I do that she’s barefoot from having just been in bed. ‘Do you have her slippers?’ I ask. I’d packed a pair for her when they took her, tiny bunny slippers that were soft and downy, but the pair they bring out aren’t hers. I pull them on to her anyway. She’s so floppy that I have to lie her down to do it.

‘This,’ I gesture to my drugged and sleeping daughter. ‘This is not right, it doesn’t feel right.’

‘It’s difficult, but it’s for the best. It’s for you all – to be together, to stay together as a family.’ She’s crying now, the woman. Tears flash down her face and she makes no move to wipe them away.

The man takes her into his arms.

‘Go,’ he tells me. ‘Go now.’

She continues to cry.

THEN

Evie was crying when she answered her goSphere.

For a moment, I thought that everything had gone back to front, that she had rung me to deliver the awful news. Her sobbing highlighted what I could not bring myself to do, to weep for the death of the parent who’d raised us, to acknowledge the depth of his absence. Tears rose in my eyes and then I was gasping, overcome by the strength and multitude of them.

‘How did you know?’ Evie asked me, her voice sounding distant through the goSphere.

‘I was going to ask you the same thing. Had you just been round there?’

‘No, they came round here. They turned up unannounced yesterday. I haven’t stopped crying since.’

‘They?’

Her voice fell to a whisper as though she were afraid that we would be overheard. ‘OSIP.’

‘OSIP?’ I asked. ‘What’s this got to do with them?’

‘We were given an IPS, Kit. For using formula milk. We got a bloody IPS because we were giving Jakey formula.’

‘Evie, stop. I wasn’t calling about that. It’s Dad.’

After I told her there was silence on the other end of the line apart from the sound of Evie drawing breath.

‘Can you get over here?’ I asked. ‘I’m at his flat. I’ll call the ambulance now but can you come?’

‘Of course, I’ll be right there.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Kit? Is it really true?’

‘He’s gone.’ I spoke the two words slowly, gently, and had the uncanny sense that it wasn’t Evie I was telling, but myself.

As I waited for Evie to arrive, I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t sit down on the sofa or tuck my legs under myself on one of the chairs around the dining table. I picked up framed photographs, studied the frozen, smiling faces. I sifted through the pile of post that was by the side of the toaster and placed it back there again. I tried to remember the last time I had been here and found that the only memory which sprang to mind was a dinner a few Easters ago where Dad had cooked lamb for Evie, Seb and me.

Had I really not been here since? It made me regretful but then I thought about the last time I’d seen him: we’d driven over to see Evie and Jakob and afterwards he taken me to his allotment and proudly shown off the tomatoes he was growing in his greenhouse. His fingers had never rested while we were there; he was constantly plucking leaves, rearranging fruit so it hung more easily, and so it seemed that the plants were fecund, blooming, from his touch. On our way out, he’d nodded to everyone we passed. A couple of people stopped him to ask his advice or tell him how the seedling he’d passed on to them was growing. It’d