Free Monday to Friday Man by Alice Peterson Page B

back gently into the water. After her bath she has to be wrapped in heated towels and dressed immediately.
    Megan goes to bed at the same time every evening and I hear the sound of Mum’s footsteps in the middle of the night heading towards her room, where she will gently turn her over in bed. In the morning Mum lays her down on the sheepskin rug and has to remove all the mucus from her mouth with a suction machine, which is placed over her mouth and nose. She tells me that it doesn’t hurt, that I must remember that it is this machine keeping Megan with us. Everything in the house is sterilized. Mum is always cleaning obsessively.
    At weekends we get out of London. Before Megan was born Nick and I would meet up with school friends, but now we go on day trips, and during the summer we all bundle into Dad’s car and drive to the coast. His car is hot and smells of curry, but I love escaping from the city to explore. Mum wraps Megan in so many layers, saying she looks like an Egyptian mummy. ‘Too hot,’ Megan sometimes protests, but Mum explains to us that it is vital she doesn’t catch a cold.
    Driving to the beach, we play games and sing songs. There’s always music in the house or in the car when Megan is around. My little sister has the voice of an angel. The doctor explained to us that because she doesn’t have to concentrate on movement her brain tells her not to bother with anything but her voice. She is far more advanced in speech than Nick and I were at her age. Before she’s two she knows all the rhymes and songs she’s learnt at her playgroup off by heart. ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ is still her favourite. She has a poster of him in her bedroom.
    ‘How does it go?’ we ask her each time, sardines squashed in the back of the car.
‘Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea,
Silver buckles on his knee:
He’ll come back and marry me . . .’
     
    Then we all join in, ‘Bonny Bobby Shaftoe!’
    Sometimes we visit Aunt Pearl and she takes us all to the seaside. Nick and I clamber up rocks and play ducks and drakes in the sea. We paddle and collect fossils. Dad picks up Megan and runs along the sand, lifting her high into the air, the wind blowing in her face. Mum and Aunt Pearl run alongside screaming, ‘Don’t drop her!’ One time Anna came with us, and it was so hot that Dad put on his pale-blue swimming trunks and we all laughed at his white legs.
    Dad kisses Mum in public. Sometimes they hold hands.
    On Sundays Mum and Dad take us to church, and Megan enjoys singing the hymns. When I kneel down to pray, I pray that the doctor got it all wrong. Yet I know her time is running out.
    In a week she will be two. Mum is going to bake a cake and we’ve bought her a red velvet pinafore dress for her party.
    ‘She won’t live beyond the age of two,’ Dad had told us that day, after Mum had rushed out of the kitchen.
    That means we have just seven more days left with her.
    She is slipping away from us, like sand slipping through our fingers.

14
     
    As I wait for Jack Baker to arrive, I sift through my mail. Bank statement . . . ugh . . . letter from Hammersmith and Fulham Council . . . boring. Ah, now this looks more promising. Rarely do I see a handwritten envelope. I open it eagerly, hoping it’s a party invitation, praying it’s not a wedding invite, or another change of address card.
    ‘The Heron clan Are Moving TO UIST!’
    Another friend bites the dust.
    On thick printed card is an illustration of a mother and father heron holding hands with their two baby herons as they head off into the sunset.
    Jessica, my old sixth-form college friend and her husband Thomas are moving to North Uist, a tiny island in the Hebrides. Thomas is going to learn about the fishing industry and Jess’s plan is to set up a bed and breakfast business. Jess had talked about the move for some time. She was desperate to leave London after having the children.
    ‘Gilly,’ Jessica scribbles on the card, ‘please come and visit soon.