On cue Charlotte kicked off just as Janine sank into sleep, the baby’s cries jerking her awake. She felt the familiar lurching feeling: a combination of resentment at being woken and fear that her child was in distress. Picking her from the cot, she tried settling her with words, rubbing her back and feeling the tiny wings of shoulder blades beneath the babygro, circling the soft, downy head with her palm.
She tried her with a bottle but the baby didn’t seem interested, there was no sign that her nappy needed changing and Janine hadn’t the energy to go through the ritual of trying to resettle her in her cot. Without Pete there was always plenty of room in her bed. Opinion-makers couldn’t agree as to whether sleeping with a baby was a good thing or not: a rod for your own back, dangerous even, or a natural state of affairs. Janine knew she probably got more sleep sharing her bed than if she spent time getting up and down to Charlotte who regularly woke three times a night. On that particular night, in the light of the tragedy she had witnessed, it seemed a precious thing to be able to take the child into her bed and fall asleep aware of the small presence nestling beside her.
First thing the next morning Janine went through to Tom’s room. Plastic dinosaurs, action-men figures and small soldiers littered the carpet. He slept on his bunk. His cheeks looked flushed; his arms were flung up behind his head.
‘Tom,’ she said gently.
He opened his eyes. Gave her a sunny grin. He scrambled out of his duvet and down the ladder, clutching a beanie-baby dragon.
Janine sat on the sofa-bed beneath his bunk and patted her knee. ‘Come here a minute.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
He gave a small sigh and wriggled onto her lap.
‘You heard about Ann-Marie’s accident?’
He nodded, bounced the dragon on her leg and then his own.
‘Well, Ann-Marie was very badly hurt.’
‘Where?’ Tom was always literal, and curious.
‘Everywhere,’ Janine said. ‘And the doctors tried to make her better but she was too poorly.’ Janine paused a moment, trying to assess how direct to be. Tom put both his hands on the dragon and held it close.
‘It’s very sad,’ she went on, ‘you see Ann-Marie died. Everybody is going to be feeling very sad about it.’
Tom was very still. She gave him time but he said nothing. She put her arms round him pulling him back for a cuddle. ‘OK?’ she asked.
He murmured, stood up and stretched the dragon’s wings wide. ‘Mum?’
