‘He saw me! He waved at me!’ Jasper yelled, drumming his heels painfully against her chest, utterly oblivious to her discomfort.
‘Stop kicking, Jazz,’ she called up, squeezing his shin to get him to calm down.
‘But he looked straight at me and gave me the thumbs up! He’s going to visit, mama. I’ve been good, I’ve been good!’
She couldn’t help but smile. ‘Of course you have. You’re the best little boy in the city, I keep telling you that.’
‘There he is!’ Jasper’s voice rose three octaves and the heel-drumming began again as Sinterklaas’s barge glided past them. The great man had a flowing white beard, was dressed in a red-and-white robe with matching mitre, and was carrying a hooked staff. He was waving beatifically to the great crowds gathered for him, knowing that as he disembarked a few hundred yards further up, ready to ride his white horse, Amerigo, through the streets, they would follow him too. There would be almost half a million out today, joining in the start of the festivities. ‘Let’s follow him!’
‘Okay then.’ She turned away from the water and moved uncertainly through the jostling crowd, her hands gripping Jasper’s skinny calves. He wouldn’t give her his hands, too busy waving frenetically and pointing at all the presents piled atop the barges as the Christmas convoy sailed into town. She slowly climbed the short slope to the humped bridge but it was like wading through treacle, prams and buggies not helping the sluggish flow as parents battled to keep their children both close and under control.
Everyone had come out, it seemed, a carnival atmosphere permeating the cold streets, trumpets blaring intermittently and whistles blowing; even those without kids were leaning from their windows, watching the festivities with beers in their hands, music drifting from narrow apartments in the handsome seventeenth-century black-bricked buildings hooded with white gables.
The congestion eased somewhat as they moved above the water, crossing the bridge. They had to walk down the very centre of it; there was no chance of getting near the edges with these numbers, not with that vantage point. From the sudden cheer, she could tell the boat had docked ahead and that Sinterklaas was disembarking.
‘Can you see him?’ she asked Jasper, who was still wriggling and twisting on her shoulders like she was a swivel seat.
‘He’s getting on Amerigo!’ he pointed, oblivious to the fact that she couldn’t see over most people’s shoulders. Being almost five foot ten didn’t mean much when everyone else was that – or taller – too.
‘Great!’ she cried back, wondering if this would mean they could wrap it up now and go get a hot chocolate with marshmallows somewhere. She was beginning to lose feeling in her fingers and toes. ‘Well, listen—’
But he knew her tone of voice too well. ‘I want to see him on the horse!’
She squeezed his leg again, still unable to see Sinterklaas directly. ‘But that’s probably as good as it’s going to get, Jazz. He’s got all the other kids to see now, hasn’t he? And you said Zwarte Piet saw you, right? So we’re good for him coming over. So why don’t we—?’
The sound ripped through the crowd – sharp, shocking. They startled as one, the collective gasp like a muscular contraction, everyone looking left and right for the source of the noise. Everyone except her. In one fluid movement, with a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Lee had Jasper off her shoulders and in her arms and she was running. Sprinting, in fact. Pushing through the crowds, her arms over her child’s head, she cut a line through the bodies that only moments before had seemed so impossible to navigate. She heard words carry through the air but she didn’t stop.
‘Mama, wait! Stop!’ Jasper cried, his voice muffled against her coat as she kept on going, turning off the main drag onto the smaller side streets, one, two, three back . . . Within minutes they were alone, just a dog walker and a couple of cyclists either side of a small canal, chatting away easily with that relaxed stance that marked out the locals from the tourists.
Lee put her son down on the cobbles and looked him over, her eyes frantically roaming for blood, dust, signs of injury . . . He blinked back at her, still, silent, trembling, as she realized she had a stitch. As she realized he looked frightened. As she finally processed what the man beside her had said to his wife in the moment immediately after the ‘bang’.
‘It’s just a groundcracker.’
Chapter Two
Thursday, 26 November 2020
‘I love you.’
‘I love you, mama.’
‘Give me a kiss.’ He reached up with a rosy pucker and planted a kiss on her lips. Her hands clasped his face for a moment, her gaze raking over its lusciousness: those plump cheeks, the thickly fringed long lashes, glossy chocolate-brown eyes. He was such an utterly perfect miniature human, even after five years she still couldn’t quite believe that he was real – well, until she saw the state of his bedroom every morning. ‘Now run along. And when you go for your walk later, try not to send any more cyclists into the canal, please. Pigeons aren’t actually that exciting when you catch them, and I can’t afford the dry-cleaning bills.’
‘Okay,’ he sighed, looking despondent at the prospect of good behaviour.
‘Hmm,’ she replied, staring into those eyes for another moment, before pinching his chin lovingly and straightening up. ‘Off you go, then. I’ll see you later.’
Jasper turned without further prompting and ran up the steps into the kindergarten building, his backpack jostling up and down on his narrow shoulders, his jeans rolled up at the ankles, flashing his Spider-Man socks.
She stood there for another moment after he had disappeared inside, just in case he popped his head back around the corner again – even though he never did – and after another pause, she turned and walked back to the bike she’d left propped against the railings. It always felt strange getting back on it without his bulk and weight on the passenger seat in front of her, the whistling emptiness between her arms as she began pedalling reminding her of life before him. Her life before.
She cycled with her usual lackadaisical manner, rolling languidly over the small humpback bridges and giving way to the trams but not the tourists. The city was still teeming with visitors, none of them yet put off by the cold wind and icy cobbles when there were illuminated Christmas trees, festive shop windows and pretty lights to admire. She almost looked forward to those first bruisingly cold, bitterly bleak months of the new year. It was the only time, it felt, when the locals briefly had their town to themselves again, before spring washed in the first influxes and the tourist cycle geared up again. Amsterdam was beginning to sink under their numbers, that much was certain. Just like the city’s seventeenth-century Golden Age, there were too many people and not enough terra firma to go round. The new mayor was making noises about turning the city car-free, but as far as Lee was concerned, it wasn’t cars that were the problem. The locals hardly used their vehicles in town anyway, everyone by far preferring to get around on foot or by bike or boat. No, it was the tourists and the Instagrammers, all idly walking around down the middle of the cobbled streets, with no concept of moving traffic heading towards them, that drove her mad. People didn’t walk down the middle of Bond Street or the Champs-Élysées or Via Montenapoleone, expecting the traffic to swerve around them, did they? The self-absorption was incredible, the desire for a good selfie overriding even personal safety. Was this a new mutation in human behaviour, she wondered, was it where the human race was heading – the glorification of the ego, the adoration of the ‘I’ transcending everything else? Not for the first time, she figured peace had a lot to answer for. From what she had seen, it bred insularity, selfishness, contempt for community . . .