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By Root 1472 0

hospital, giving birth, in terrible pain. All around was noise, confusion, mayhem; shelling in the street, the school opposite hit: people running for cover, windows shattering. I remember thinking as I pushed, as I gripped some strange hand, I can take the pain, but I can’t take the confusion; can’t take the terrible chaos. Please, please, make it go away. I just want some shush. And then Seffy was out in moments, and in my arms, and the ward I was taken to was full of people, sitting on the floor, on my bed, wrapped in soggy, bloodstained bandages, eyes blank. I remember the man bursting in with the child; I remember getting off the bed where Seffy was wrapped in a blanket, backing away in horror. Remember stumbling to the door, and once outside, vomiting in a sink. Then being physically incapable of going back in. Just groping blindly down the crowded corridor, down the stairs, out into the dusty street, and away. Still bleeding heavily. Getting a lift on a lorry, part of a convoy, just having to get away. How odd. I’d never gone there before, in my head. Never remembered actually abandoning him.

Kit seemed to be sitting beside me now at the kitchen table. His hand closed over mine, and I realized, in that gesture I had more than I could ever have hoped for. Shocked and horrified, initially, this family of mine, but they wouldn’t totally condemn me. There had been moments along the way when I’d had to wrestle with the feeling that life hadn’t been altogether kind to me. Could it be my family felt that way too? Felt I’d been dealt a rotten hand? If they did, I knew it was down to Kit, who, like Hal, would have smoothed the way. Shed a little light on what had happened to us out there.

‘If you’re such an emotional cripple, Kit, how is it everyone turns to you in a crisis, hm?’ My voice was unsteady. ‘How is it that Seffy sought you out first, as I did? Riddle me that one, Batman.’

He gave a small smile. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m always hanging around like a bad smell. Perhaps it’s the dog collar. Perhaps they think I’ve got a hot line to God. Or maybe it’s because I don’t have the usual appendages – a wife, children – so they see themselves filling some shoes. It could also be,’ he said lightly, ‘that they know I’m careful with myself, ipso facto I’ll be careful with them.’ He got to his feet and walked to the window. ‘It could be any number of reasons, Hattie, but one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty. It’s got nothing to do with me being some kind of life authority. Some kind of Solomon. I haven’t got anything figured out. I’m no wise man.’

He ran the tap, filled his glass again, and drank it down quickly. Perhaps, I thought watching him. But perhaps not.

29

Luca came out of hospital a few days later and there was something parabolic about his return. This prodigal young man with his Ferrari, his Armani clothes, his Rolex watch, his savvy, cunning ways, the biting tongue, the caustic remarks that could cause Laura and the girls to dissolve and Hugh to rush around performing damage limitation; this sharp young blade, when he walked into the kitchen with Daisy that day, just looked different. Granted he was heavily bandaged, his arm in a sling and his head in a white turban like a First World War hero, but it wasn’t just that. It was his eyes. Where previously they had been wont to flash at one before slithering away, now they were steady and… what was the word, I wondered, as we all got up from the lunch table to exclaim, embrace him – but not too hard, Daisy warned… yes, humble. The eyes were humble. And vulnerable. His guard seemed to have slipped, and when he sat down to join us, Mum, Dad, Seffy, Hugh, Laura, Biba, Hal and Cassie – oh, yes, Hal and Cassie – and when we made polite, gentle enquiries, that guard didn’t go up again either. He didn’t shy away as he usually did, or give evasive answers. In fact, when he’d assured us he was feeling much better, he cleared his throat and said the whole episode had been entirely his fault. That he’d been a fool to hand Daisy his gun in the first place,