Scatterlings

It has been a very warm summer so far. For England that is.

I took Jessica to the city centre park last week with my cousin and her three children. There is a small pool for the children to splash about it. It generally stands unused as the weather is too cold to swim most of the time.

I had forgotten to bring Jessica's swimming costume so, with some trepidation and thoughts of a nasty accident involving pool pollution on a grand scale at the forefront of my mind, I simply stripped her off completely and rolled up my trousers.

The water was like ice, a faint ammoniacal smell of urine and chlorine rising from its surface.
Jessica's skin gleamed with sunscreen and the greasy texture lingered on my hands.
The warmth of the bricks beneath our feet, the sunlight reflecting in Jessica's hair.
Her crooked little smile as she looked at up me in delight at her own sploshing and splashing about, checking to make certain that I was watching her raising her foot and smacking it back down into the water, covering us both in droplets.
The warm sun on our arms, the cold, cold water on our feet.

My mind drifted to another child. One who never felt sun or water on her skin.
I could almost see her there, I could almost will her back into being.
Another set of chubby limbs, another shy smile of self satisfaction.
A thin, red child, eyes fused shut, swimming in the water next to her far larger sister. My twins.
The sun flickers, blinding me.
Two, one, none. Two, one, none.
An empty pool. One where I haven't enough hands to hold on to my bounty.
I'm almost surprised that other people still smile at us.

***

Later my cousin and I are talking.
She relates a story about her middle child running into the road and nearly being hit by a car.
She tells me that the 'nearly' part of this story was due to the intervention of their family's guardian angel, because they are lucky.
I want to cry for I don't think that there are any such creatures. If there are guardian angels they do not work to preserve this earthly part, they are not safeguarding the flesh and bones and blood of us. If they do exist, they are protecting something else. Perhaps something more valuable than our bodies. I really couldn't say.
I want to tell her that the reason that her little boy was not hit by a car was because her husband pulled him out of the way in time and stopped the impact between charging metal and tender flesh. That her son's little bones did not break, that he not bleed, that she did not see him involved in a terrible accident, that she did not witness his death because, thankfully, his body never made contact with the car. No reason other than that.
There is no protection. None of us are special.
I wouldn't be putting my trust in guardian angels if I was her. I would be buying some reins or walking on less busy streets.

Begs the question where my guardian angel was that day. Or Georgina's. Or Jessica's. Or my husband's. But perhaps they were working flat out protecting some other aspect of us that I can't get at. Perhaps they are just empty air and spun sugar. A pretty confection for the weak. Perhaps they were all out having a fag break. Who knows.

***

We are walking along a wooded path. I hear a small rustling in the leaves. A mouse perhaps. A bird maybe. But my heart leaps and for one mad instant I think to myself, Georgina. It is Georgina in the leaves, at last.
The volume of crunching leaves sounds like it could just about be caused by a very small baby moving about. I want to go and check. Just to make sure that it is not Georgina. I know it couldn't be. She is dead and she is ash. But I just want to go and make sure that it isn't her, rustling about, trying to make her way back to us. The thought of that small body twists at my logic and at my heart. I go and check. It isn't her. There is nothing there by the time I put in my appearance.

***

I think I've discovered a strange kind of bravado in myself. You can be devastated and still have some bravado left in you. In spite of yourself. Who knew.
Or perhaps it is simply that the beauty of my daughter seems to be coming back to me in the approach to her second birthday. She was beautiful.

'I was just a boy when I sat down
To watch the news on TV
I saw some ordinary slaughter
I saw some routine atrocity
My father said, don't look away
You've got to be strong, you've got to be bold now
He said, that in the end it is beauty 
That is going to save the world now


And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me