Palmer noticed that she had avoided answering his question directly. ‘That’ll mean long hours, won’t it?’ Elspeth worked for a law firm with offices all over the north of England and as far south as Birmingham.
Elspeth looked across to a stand of hornbeams. Their lollipop heads, stripped of leaves, stood black and stark against the winter-blue of the sky. ‘I’ve decided it’s time Lucy had a nanny.’
‘You’ve decided . . . ?’ Palmer suppressed a spurt of anger.
‘It’s the only practical solution,’ she said, a flush spreading along the sharp line of her cheekbone.
‘Is it?’
Elspeth glanced at him. ‘Don’t try that with me, Alan. You’re not the one who has to sit up with her when she can’t sleep at night. You don’t have to drag her out of bed in the morning when she’s too exhausted to open her eyes. You don’t have to juggle work with the childminder and pre-school and dance club and still be one hundred per cent committed and on the ball at endless bloody meetings—’ She broke off and he felt once more, as he had felt it a thousand times, the burden of what he had done.
‘I’ve told you,’ he said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation. ‘I can do more. That’s why I bought this house — so I’d be just around the corner. I can be there in the morning. I could be there at night, too — or she could come to me.’
‘And what about your patients? Your practice?’
‘I’ll find a way. Even if it means cutting back my list—’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Elspeth hated any suggestion of a reduction in their means — even now, when they had lived apart for months. ‘You’ve only just begun building it after—’ She checked herself, took a breath, started again. ‘You have to live.’
His guts twisted into a knot. He wanted to say, This isn’t living, Elspeth — it’s existing. But Elspeth despised hyperbole, no matter how deeply felt. So, he remained silent. Lucy had become quiet, too, and a moment later, he felt her little hand, cool against his forehead. She patted him gently and he felt his heart swell till it threatened to choke him.
His afternoons with Lucy were mere snapshots of the bigger story of her life. Their lunches and trips to the zoo were asides — her real life was the childminder and pre-school and dance club, breakfasts and teatime and dinner time and bath time and bedtime stories. There wasn’t enough time — was never enough time — to see every season and shift of her nature in these brief, meaningless outings.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said, when he had a better hold on himself. ‘We can talk about it, can’t we?’
Elspeth hesitated before giving a stiff nod, avoiding his eye, and he suspected that the matter was already settled.
They reached the tarmac pathways that skirted the smaller ponds and Lucy gave a gasp of delight. ‘Step-in stones! Let me down — let me down! I want to go first.’
Palmer lifted her lightly down and she raced ahead, tripping in her excitement, almost falling.
‘Careful!’ her mother called. ‘You haven’t got your wellies on. Mind you don’t get your feet wet.’
Palmer watched his daughter run to the brink of the stream which connected two ponds, feeling the warmth and the welcome weight of her still in his shoulders. She stood, barely three feet tall, watching the torrent tumble and twist. Her multicoloured gloves hung from a cord, threaded through the sleeves of her coat. Her hair, chestnut-brown like her mother’s, escaped from the confines of her felt hat. She wore maroon shoes to match her coat, and cream woollen tights on her plump baby legs. Lucy spurned trousers.
She turned to them, her eyes wide with fear and excitement. Look at me! They said. Look what I can do! She jumped, landing on the first flat stone, sending water in a corona that almost reached her parents’ feet.
‘It’s flooded,’ Elspeth called, and Palmer heard the anxiety and strain of the last months in her voice. ‘You’ll get drenched.’
Palmer touched her arm. ‘Shh . . .’ he soothed. ‘She needs to do this.’
Lucy turned again, uncertain this time, and nearly lost her balance. Palmer smiled. ‘You can do it,’ he urged. ‘Count the stones.’
Lucy drew her brows down, as Palmer had seen her mother do so many times, then faced forward with renewed determination apparent in every bone and sinew of her little body. She leapt from stone to stone. ‘One, two, three!’
They both cheered and Lucy cheered herself, her confidence restored, and trotted ahead of them.
Palmer had told his daughter stories about Fairy Glen since she was a baby, repeating and embellishing the stories his mother had told him as a child. In summer it was crowded with children, this man-made ravine, carved deep, it seemed, into the sandstone bedrock underlying the city. Rhododendrons drenched the glen with colour and scent in May and June, and even now, the dark waxy leaves lent a hint of the exotic.
Today, the miniature waterfall, usually a dainty trickle, was swollen with rain. It gushed and foamed and gurgled and splashed, cascading down to the pond below.
The place was deserted, and at the top of the steps into the grotto, Lucy stopped, transfixed.
‘What is it, sweetie?’ Elspeth asked.
Lucy pointed with her wand, a look of delight and wonder on her face. Drawing closer, Palmer caught a glimpse of colour, and guessed what his daughter had seen. He crouched beside her and motioned for Elspeth to do the same. Reluctantly, she complied, then gave a little laugh of pleasure that Palmer felt as a tug at his heart.
The sun glanced through a mist of fine droplets thrown up from one of the bigger rocks. Within it, the light split, dancing in an arc of bright colours — a tiny, shimmering rainbow.
‘Magic . . .’ Lucy whispered.
Palmer hugged her. ‘Fairy magic,’ he agreed. ‘Go carefully to the bottom of the steps, turn around three times, and make a wish. If the rainbow is still here when you get back to the top, your wish will come true.’
Elspeth glanced sharply at him.
He read irritation and impatience in that look, but he waited until Lucy had managed the first few steps and was absorbed in her task before saying. ‘It’s a game, Elspeth.’
‘She needs to learn that toys and presents can’t be magicked from thin air.’
Lucy was murmuring something under her breath. At first, he heard numbers — she was counting the steps to the bottom — but as she reached the last one, she raised her voice in triumph.
‘Down the bloody steps to darkness and death.’
Palmer felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. ‘Lucy?’
She turned, her eyes blank, and he felt a chill ripple down his spine. ‘Lucy, darling . . .’ He rose to his feet.
This time, Elspeth restrained him. ‘Leave her,’ she said, and Lucy turned again, and began a stately pirouette, eyes closed, making her wish.
‘What else has she been saying?’ he asked. ‘Elspeth? What has she—’
His wife stood beside him, brushing her hands together, as if to dislodge dust or dirt from them. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you, Alan?’ she said, her voice fastidious, filled with lofty contempt. ‘Why do you have to constantly analyse her? This constant . . . scrutiny does more harm than good.’