Free Mothers & Daughters by Kate Long Page B

not right now. Instead I bolted upstairs for Matty’s ear thermometer.
Be working
, I told it,
be working
. The relief when I heard it beep and the digital panel lit up.
    When I got back down, Alice had started to weep with fright. I could see at once, though, that the little girl’s limbs and torso were white and unmarked. ‘Shut the front door and take your grandma through to the lounge,’ I said, because I could see Alice was in no state to hold a thermometer steady.
    I helped her to her feet, and in the brief space the two women were out of the hall, I managed to take a reading. Libby’s temperature was high, but not dramatically. I felt her tummy, and it was soft.
    â€˜What do you think?’ said Alice from behind me.
    â€˜I think I’ve been here before. How old’s Libby?’
    â€˜Five.’
    â€˜Jaz was younger, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same. Listen, was Libby maybe a bit cooked? She’d plenty of layers on. Was her room very warm? I know your grandma likes the heating high.’
    Alice gave a nervous giggle. ‘Sweltering.’
    â€˜Then I suspect,’ I said cautiously, ‘it’s what they call a febrile convulsion. If young children get too hot they can have thesemini-fits; Jaz had a couple of similar dos when she was tiny. It looks scary, but it soon passes off.’
    â€˜Does that mean she’s going to be OK?’
    â€˜You stay with her and talk to her while I get some warm water.’
    I brought back two clean towels, plus a plastic bucket of Matty’s which had been the first container to hand, and set to work wiping Libby down. ‘You too,’ I said to Alice. ‘It’ll cool her gently.’
    Within moments, Libby had started to whimper, and then cry, a normal, blessed noise. Her mother’s face crumpled with relief. ‘Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart, shush shush, Mummy’s here. I’m here, you’re all right.’ She scooped the naked child up and started to rock her.
    â€˜Obviously she still needs checking over, for your peace of mind as much as anything.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ said Alice.
    â€˜Shall I call the surgery for you? I can run you down there, too, although actually a walk in the fresh air might perk her up. Do you want to pop her vest back on now? I’ll go call the doctor’s, and have a word with your grandma—’
    â€˜I’ll do anything,’ Alice broke in, ‘if she’s OK. Anything, do you know what I mean? If she’s all right, if she’s just all right.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    I left her rocking and went to phone the GP.
    It was dropping dark by the time I got back from the surgery. It hadn’t seemed right to send Alice on her own, and Mrs Wynne wasn’t up to the job. ‘Thank you, oh, thank you,’ Alice kept saying, the way you do when you’ve been frightened out of your wits and then someone gives you the all-clear.
    I stepped into the hall but I didn’t switch the light on. I went and sat on the stairs and contemplated the stained-glasspanels in the door. The colours at this time of day were muted and dusky, the dimples and surface imperfections highlighted silver by a porch lamp on the house opposite. Jaz used to trace the lines of lead with her fingertips while I was doing her coat up, handing over her schoolbag, nagging her to be careful crossing the road. A hundred thousand years ago.
    â€˜You were so calm,’ Alice had said afterwards. And she’d put her hand to her pregnant belly and sighed, as though the weight of the world was across her young frame. ‘You just knew what to do, and there I was flapping about in a panic. I suppose it gets easier, does it?’
    In the gloom of the hallway I leaned my arm against the stair-gate and remembered the other times Jaz was ill: a dash up to hospital when she caught a chest infection at four weeks; chicken pox that revealed itself on the first