17 Brinks Avenue
Manchester
M19 6FX
Six days. What’s that in hours? I work it out. One hundred and forty-four. It feels longer. Although time is a pretty nebulous concept, the hours and days bleed together. How many seconds? How many heartbeats?
Had you any idea the police were closing in on you? Or as the days rolled by did you breathe easily, and dare to hope you’d got away with it?
Florence has not touched the doll since she brought it home. She keeps trying to cuddle Milky, hauling the poor animal up with her arms under his stomach. He’s placid, won’t scratch or bite her, but he thrashes about and runs off.
Florence and I are alone. Florence is at the table eating some beans on toast. Kay has a meeting with the investigation team, Jack’s having a rest. We are still stumbling through our lives. I’m sorting through some clean clothes left neglected in the basket. Even this simple task seems to require a Herculean effort.
One of my socks, old grey wool, has a hole in the toe. No point in keeping it. I stick my hand in, wiggle my finger through the hole, put on a funny fluting voice. ‘Hello.’ I make the sock bow.
‘What is it?’ says Florence.
‘I don’t know. Maybe…’ I gather the fabric and narrow it into a windsock shape, ‘maybe it’s a Clanger.’
‘What’s a Clanger?’
‘They were on the telly a long time ago. Lived on a planet with a soup dragon. They made a noise like this.’ I combine a hum and a whistle.
‘I want a Clanger,’ she says. ‘No – I want a sock cat. No – a kitten.’
‘A kitten, eh? What would it need?’
‘Some ears.’ She scoops up the last of her beans.
‘And whiskers?’
‘Yes, and paws.’
My sewing skills are basic. ‘Paws might be tricky. Let’s see…’
The sewing box yields enough black felt scraps to furnish two triangular ears and two round eyes, Florence chooses a brown leather button for a nose.
‘Look at Milky’s eyes,’ I say. Milky is sitting on the chair by the radiator. Florence kneels up in front of him and stares. Milky yawns, affecting disdain, but then his ears flatten and I can see he’s preparing for a rapid exit if she makes a lunge. ‘Yellow bits,’ she says.
‘What shape?’
She sketches something unreadable with her hands.
‘Great.’
I have some yellow cotton and use that to stitch a vertical line on the eyes. Plaited brown wool furnishes a tail. There’s nothing stiff enough for the whiskers, so we make do with more lengths of the wool, which hang down like a droopy moustache, but Florence seems happy.
