Free Miss You by Kate Eberlen Page B

and then suddenly, she stopped, cocking her head to one side, like a robin. My ears searched the rumble of traffic and
detected the noise of a band playing ‘Silent Night’ somewhere in the direction of Selfridges.
    We must have stood there for half an hour listening to the carols, Hope’s face lighting up as she recognized each familiar tune. She knew all the words to ‘Away in a Manger’
and ‘We Three Things’, as she called it, and sang them completely unselfconsciously. When the band stopped for a break, I gave her fifty pence to go and put in the collection box.
    ‘Aren’t you the little angel?’ the Salvation Army lady said.
    ‘I’m the little donkey,’ Hope told her.
    Selfridges was packed inside, and all the cosmetic counters were just a little too high for Hope. When I tried to interest her with a squirt of perfume on the back of her hand, she started
coughing in a silly exaggerated way. I quickly chose a box of guest soaps with beautiful floral wrappers for Mrs O’Neill and a gift pack of Rive Gauche
eau de parfum
and body lotion,
Doll’s current favourite fragrance.
    ‘I’d like them in separate bags, please,’ I told the assistant when we eventually got to the front of the queue.
    The whole point was the bright yellow Selfridges bags.
    ‘That’s twenty-eight pounds, madam.’
    Delving around in my bag, I could feel the line behind me growing impatient and had a horrible sinking feeling that some clever pickpocket had stolen my wallet in the crush of shoppers. Finally,
I felt it at the bottom of my bag.
    ‘Here!’
    Thrusting two notes at the assistant, I was suddenly aware that Hope was no longer holding my hand, nor was she standing next to me.
    ‘Hope?’
    No sign of her.
    My chest tightened, as if I’d forgotten how to breathe. Keep calm. She must be around somewhere. I scanned the crowds. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of people on the ground floor
of the shop. Where had she gone? People were packed onto every step of the escalators going up and coming down; and everywhere there were mirrors reflecting more people. But no Hope.
    ‘Hope?’
    With the cash still in my hand, I started moving through the crowd peering over the tops of the shiny glass counters looking for her. Perhaps she was hiding? But it would be so unlike Hope to
hide. Whenever I tried to play hide-and-seek with her, she didn’t get the idea.
    ‘. . . nine, ten, coming to get you!’
    ‘Here I am!’ Hope would call out from behind the curtain.
    Had she run away? Hope never ran away. She wriggled and kicked, but she didn’t run.
    It was like a nightmare, except instead of shouting and nothing coming out of my mouth, I was shouting and nobody was paying any attention.
    Someone must have taken her! Please God, no! Don’t let someone have taken her!
    The revolving door was whirling people into the street. Did someone have a car outside waiting, a car with black windows? Surely people would have seen her being taken? But I’d had all the
disapproving glances and nobody had asked, ‘Is that child yours?’ Everyone was too busy shopping.
    Please God! I will believe in you, if you just bring her back to me!
    As I started saying Hail Marys in my head, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
Aren’t you the little angel?
    Outside, I dodged this way and that, not caring who I bumped into in my haste to get back to the Salvation Army band.
    An ambulance siren screamed nearby. Please God, don’t let her have tried to cross the road and gone under a big red bus!
    Calm down. She’ll be standing by the litter bin where we listened to the band.
    She wasn’t! I’d lost her! I really had lost her! And it was stupid to leave the shop because if she was looking for me, she wouldn’t find me now!
    The band started a new carol.
    ‘Little donkey, little donkey, on the dusty road . . .’
    In my panic, I hadn’t seen Hope standing right next to the conductor. She was adamantly refusing to hold the hand of the