The Drowning Girl. Margaret Leroy

unnerves me.

      ‘Perhaps a fortnight today?’ she says.

      I know this isn’t negotiable.

      We fix the time. She goes off to her room.

      Sylvie comes back with her coat and slips her hand into mine, and we go out into the foyer.

      ‘Now don’t go forgetting your picture, Sylvie,’ says Beth. She turns towards us, holding out the drawing. ‘It’s one of her houses,’ she tells me.

      I glance at it—a house in pastel crayons, precisely placed in the middle of the page. Just the same as every day. She’s been drawing houses for several months, and she draws them over and over. They’re neat, exactly symmetrical—four windows, a chimney, a door—and they’re always bare and unadorned. Never any people—though she knows how to draw stick people now, with triangle skirts for the women and clumpy big boots for the men—and never any flowers in the garden. Sometimes she draws blue around the house, not just for the sky, but all around, a whole bright border of blue, so the house looks like it’s floating. I said to her once, ‘It’s such a nice house in your picture. Does anybody live there?’ But she had her closed look, she didn’t tell me anything.

      I hold the picture by its corner: pastel smudges so easily. We say goodbye to Beth and go out into the night.

      In the middle of the night I wake, hearing the click of my bedroom door. I’m afraid. Just for an instant, a heartbeat, taking in the shadow in my doorway, dark against the crack of yellow light from the hall, I think that someone has broken in, that someone is looking in at me—a stranger. I can’t make out her face, she’s just a silhouette against the hall-light—but I can see the shaking of her shoulders as she sobs.

      I’m drenched with sleep; I can’t get up for a moment.

      ‘Oh, sweetheart—come here.’

      She doesn’t come.

      I put on my bedside light and drag myself out of bed. My body feels heavy, lumbering. I go to her, put my arms all around her. Her skin is chilly; she doesn’t feel like a child who’s just tumbled out of a warm bed. Sometimes in the night she’ll kick off all her covers, however securely I tuck her duvet in around her, as though her dreams are a struggle.

      She lets me hold her, but she doesn’t move in to me. She’s clutching Big Ted to her. Her face is desolate; she has a look like grief.

      ‘What did you dream about, sweetheart?’

      She won’t tell me.

      She moves away from me, makes to get into my bed. I slip in beside her, wrap her in my arms.

      ‘It’s all over,’ I tell her. ‘The nightmare’s over. You’re here with me now. Everything’s OK.’

      But she’s still shuddering.

      ‘It’s not real, Sylvie,’ I tell her. ‘Whatever you saw, whatever happened in your dream… It didn’t really happen, it was only a dream.’

      Her eyes are on me, the pupils hugely dilated by the dark. In the dim light of my bedside lamp, they’re a deeper colour than usual, the elusive blue-grey of shaded water. The terror is still on her. When she looks at me, it’s as though she isn’t seeing me. Nothing I say makes sense to her.

      I try again, needing to say something, anything; hoping my voice will soothe her.

      ‘That’s what a dream is,’ I tell her. ‘It’s something your mind makes up—like a picture-show in your head. Sometimes a horrible one. But it’s gone now, it’s over. It doesn’t mean anything.’

      The front of her pyjama jacket is damp from all the crying. I feel I ought to change it, but she’s starting to quiet; I don’t want to rouse her again. I stroke her hair.

      ‘This is the real world, sweetheart. You and me and Big Ted and our home and everything…’

      Quite suddenly the tension leaves her. Her hand that’s clasping the teddy bear eases open, her fingers are lax and fluid; her eyelids flutter and close. I want to say, Why do you do this, Sylvie? Why are you so unhappy? But she’s asleep already.

      CHAPTER 4

      On Saturday something cheering happens. Even the timing is perfect—because Sylvie and I are about to set off for Karen’s: if he’d rung a moment later, we’d have been gone. This timing is a good omen.

      ‘Now, am I speaking to Grace Reynolds?’

      A man’s voice—light, pleasant, with a smile in it.

      ‘Yes,’ I tell him, a fragile hopefulness flaring up in me.

      ‘Grace, it’s Matt. We met at that weird evening at Crystals, remember?’

      ‘Of course I remember.’

      ‘Grace, to get to the point—I’d love to take you out to dinner. If you’d like that.’

      ‘I’d like it a lot,’ I tell him.

      ‘Great.’ He sounds relieved, as though it matters.

      We fix the time, the place—next Thursday, and we will go to Welford Place. It’s a restaurant by the river I’ve sometimes driven past; it used to be a gentlemen’s club. Quite different from the Alouette, I guess: no red-checked cloths or accordian music or menus scrawled on a board. I imagine silkily ingratiating waiters, and a silver trolley that’s heaped with indulgent desserts.

      I can’t recall if I told him about Sylvie; it’s probably best to make sure.

      ‘I’ll have to fix a babysitter. For my little girl,’ I tell him.

      ‘Of course, Grace. Look, just ring if there’s a problem.’

      I put down the phone and stand there for a moment. I remind myself of his white linen shirt and the hair falling into his eyes; I remind myself I liked him. I have a distinct, thrilled sense of newness. This is all so easy, so straightforward—both of us unattached, and I told him about Sylvie and he didn’t seem to mind.

      It’s a gorgeous afternoon, honeyed sunlight mellowing everything. I decide we will walk to Karen’s; it isn’t that far. Sylvie brings her Shaun the Sheep rucksack, with some of her Barbies inside. We talk about the things we pass: a glove that someone has dropped in the road, that looks from a distance like a small dead animal; a caterpillar that Sylvie spots on the pavement, no longer than her thumbnail and the fresh, bright green of limes.

      ‘We must be very careful when we come back,’ says Sylvie. ‘We mustn’t tread on the caterpillar.’

      In the tree-lined road where Karen lives, there’s a cat that sits in a circle of sun.

      ‘The cat has yellow eyes,’ says Sylvie. ‘Look, Grace.’

      She strokes the cat with a gentle, scrupulous touch, and it rubs against her, purring hugely.

      ‘He likes me, Grace,’ she says.

      I watch her as she pets the cat. Just like a normal child.

      At Karen’s, the girls go up to Lennie’s room. They’ll probably play their favourite hospital game with Lennie’s Barbies—this always seems to involve a lot of amputation and bandaging. We sit in the kitchen, where there’s a scent of baking and citrus, and Karen’s Aga gives out a welcome warmth. Leo and Josh have gone sailing today, as they usually do on Saturdays. You can hear the liquid sound of chatter and laughter from Lennie’s room—Karen has left the kitchen door open. I notice this, and briefly wonder whether she leaves the door ajar when other, more predictable children come to play.

      Karen complains about homework. Josh has been given an alarming Maths project to finish by Monday morning.

      ‘It’s the poor old parents who have to do it as usual,’ she says. ‘Why can’t they just give us a break for once?’

      She puts the coffee