Free Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

tighter.
    ‘Did you hear about Daddy? I’m trying to be sad, but I’m not.’

    7
    Three fifteen. Waiting at the school gates with dozens of mothers and grandmothers. I’m the only male here beyond the age of Huggies. I tend to stand apart because I’m not good at making smal talk or remembering their names. I link mothers to their children: Jasper’s mum or Sophie’s mum.
    One woman approaches. Young and pretty, with short auburn hair, she buries her hands in the pockets of a Barbour jacket, which looks two sizes too big for her. She’s probably a nanny.
    ‘Hel o, I’m Natasha.’
    ‘Joe.’
    ‘Your Emma and my Bil y are in the same class.’
    She’s not a nanny after al .
    ‘And you have Charlie,’ she adds.
    ‘How do you know Charlie?’
    ‘My husband teaches at Shepparton Park.’
    Before I can ask her husband’s name, the school bel rings and laughter and young voices fil the playground, jostling for their bags. It takes me a moment to spot Emma, whose schoolbag makes her look like a turtle walking on her hind legs.
    I cal her name. She raises her eyes. There’s that smile.
    She holds my hand - something Charlie doesn’t do any more. I loop her bag over my shoulder and shorten my stride.
    ‘How are things, Emm?’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Learn anything to today?’
    ‘Mrs Graveney said we were getting a male teacher.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    ‘I thought the postman was going to teach us how to put letters in mailboxes.’
    I try not to laugh. ‘That’s a different sort of mail.’
    She looks at me crossly. ‘I know that now .’
    We reach the terrace and Emma changes out of her uniform into a Snow White dress she has been wearing obsessively for the past two months. By now the neighbours wil think she’s strange, but it’s not worth arguing over. I’m sure she’s not going to be wearing it when she accepts her Nobel Prize.
    I’m more concerned about her other ‘foibles’, which is a polite way of describing her neuroses. Last week she launched her dinner plate across the table because a meatbal ‘touched’
    her macaroni. What was I thinking, putting them on the same plate!
    I have learned some remarkable things since becoming a father and I appreciate how much there is stil to learn. I know, for example, that a pound coin can pass harmlessly through the digestive system of a four-year-old. I know that regurgitated chicken-flavoured ramen noodles and tomato sauce wil ruin a silk carpet; that nail polish sticks to the inside of a bath and too much beetroot turns a toddler’s urine a neon crimson colour.
    There is also a mysterious person living in our house cal ed Notme, who is responsible for leaving wet towels on the floor, empty crisp packets on the sofa and chucking buckets of toys around the bedroom. I got so sick of cleaning up after Notme that I made a dummy out of old pil ows, dressed it up and hung a sign on his chest saying, ‘Notme’.
    Emma thinks it’s hilarious.
    When I discovered locks of her beautiful hair floating in the toilet bowl and more evidence in her bedroom, I demanded to know who did the cutting.
    ‘Not me,’ said Emma.
    I looked at Charlie.
    ‘Wel , it’s not me .’
    I went to the dummy. ‘Listen, Notme, did you cut Emma’s hair?’
    Emma looked on nervously.
    ‘Notme says he didn’t do it,’ I announced.
    ‘Did he real y say that?’
    ‘Real y.’
    ‘Real y?’
    ‘Yes, real y.’
    ‘Oh.’
    After that she confessed and took her punishment like a five-year-old.
    Charlie won’t be home for another hour. In the meantime I make Emma a snack and listen to her sound out words on her spel ing list. Then she goes into the garden and chases Gunsmoke, wanting to tie a bonnet on his head. The Labrador lopes, stops, waits and lopes off again.
    Julianne phones at a quarter past four. The trial has been adjourned. She’s meeting someone for a drink and wil be home at six-thirty. I listen to her voice and imagine that by ‘home’
    she means coming back to me.