‘Make a list,’ Kay says. ‘A few basics we can buy. You’ll need something too,’ she says to Jack. She passes him some paper and a pen.
‘I want Bert,’ Florence says, her voice rising.
‘You’ll see Bert soon,’ I try to reassure her. ‘Perhaps you could look after someone new till then.’
‘Who?’ she says suspiciously.
‘A dolly or a pony? Something from the toyshop. We could go and choose.’
It’s touch and go whether she’ll play ball or have a tantrum. ‘With Daddy,’ she says. She doesn’t want to be parted from him.
‘Of course,’ Kay says.
‘You’ll have to go barefoot,’ I say to Florence.
She makes a funny face and I laugh, then feel clumsy and guilty. Lizzie is dead. What sort of mother am I? What sort of human being?
I go with them. I’m not so different from my granddaughter, not keen to let people out of my sight, not comfortable at being left. After all, anything could happen. The world is a chaotic, dangerous, random place now.
We go to John Lewis; it’s out of town, with free parking and everything under one roof. We must make a strange sight: Jack and I looking wrecked, slow and distracted, Kay guiding us through the various departments.
We pick a couple of books, familiar ones that Florence has at home, then go to the toy section. Florence stands with her arms folded and surveys the bins of soft toys and the shelves of dolls with disdain. Jack and I make some suggestions: the little donkey’s sweet, how about a polar bear, or the tiger? She shakes her head each time.
Another child arrives, an older girl, perhaps seven, dressed in a pink pinafore dress and ballet shoes and with fuchsia-pink bows in her hair, dragging a woman, presumably her mother, by the hand. ‘This one,’ the girl squeals and grabs a baby doll. It’s one of those designed to look realistic, with a floppy neck and a protruding navel. There is a range of accessories to buy too, clothes and bottles, nappies and wipes. The woman asks the girl if she’s sure, and they move away with their booty.
‘Come on, Florence,’ Jack says. ‘Time to choose.’
Florence goes to one end of the display, then the other, picking up and relinquishing the toys. I can feel something like panic thickening in the air as she darts about.
‘You don’t have to get one,’ I tell her, ‘if you don’t like them.’
She gives a little shrug. We make it to the escalator, then she turns and runs back. Jack follows her. She picks up one of the lifelike dolls. It’s revolting. Staring blue eyes and a pursed rosebud mouth. The wrinkles around its neck and furrows on its forehead make me think of an alien or something old and decrepit.
