Free Happy Birthday and All That by Rebecca Smith Page A

of Posy?) seemed to have taken a Vow of Silence in bed soon after Jimmy arrived.
    He couldn’t stop himself now. This was what his life was meant to be like. The pink and yellow lights and the notes were all around them.
    Afterwards they smoked (oh the intense pleasure of being with someone who smoked afterwards) and watched as the Disney ship disappeared into the night.
    â€˜Melody,’ he said. ‘Melody.’ The name was music to him. ‘I should never have done that. You know my situation. It was beautiful. You are beautiful. The most beautiful thing to happen to me in a long time. But I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.’It was a lie. He was not sorry, not yet anyway. He wanted to kiss her again.
    â€˜Hey Frank,’ she said. ‘No big deal.’
    He dropped her off and drove home very slowly. Back home, seeing the children’s shoes lined up in the hall, ready for the morning, he realised what that thing digging into him had been. Shit. The Stardust card. He knew without a doubt that one of them would ask him for it in the morning.

October
    Tom’s was the next birthday. It involved a Batman theme party with black, grey and yellow balloons, bats in the party boxes, and a bat symbol cake with four candles, made by Flora. There were six small batmen, a Spiderman, Bob the Builder, two princesses who were ostracised, and two children whose mummies or daddies hadn’t realised that it was fancy dress. The present from Aunty Flora was swimming lessons, not just for Tom, but for James and Poppy too. She had gone ahead and booked them at a pool within walking distance and on an afternoon that she knew would suit Posy. She said that she would take the children herself when she could.
    â€˜Wow!’ said all of the Parousellis. Frank tried to appear suitably grateful too. ‘If I wanted my kids to have swimming lessons, don’t you think I’d arrange and pay for them myself?’ was what he felt like saying.
    Amongst Posy’s favourite sounds was the squeak and rustle of balloons tied to the gate, and, even better, the sound it made if it rained on them the night after the party.
    She had always wanted to live in Paris, in an attic apartment, to be a Françoise Sagan character, and see the Parisian sky ‘cut into pathetic triangles’ by the rooftops, to lie on her bed reading a new novel whilst the rain drummed on the sky light.Hearing rain on the balloons in the dark was the next best thing.
    She’d bought a one-way ticket and no returns were issued on the Eurostar that had taken her from aspiring Sagan heroine to Mummy. It made her think of her own mother listening to a Dr Hook record, ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’. Now Posy, like her mother and the woman in the song, realised that she’d never ride to Paris, in a sports car, with the warm wind in her hair.
    She listened to the rain on the balloons and finished the last of the supper dishes.
    â€˜Want some help?’ Frank appeared in the kitchen just as she took off her rubber gloves.
    â€˜No thanks. I’m all washed up already.’
    She would untie the balloons from the gate the next day and throw them away when the children weren’t looking. She hated it if they started to look deflated and sad. Rather than noisily burst them she made little snips at their necks so that they would silently perish. She knew from experience that this could only be done to balloons that had already started to wither.
    â€˜If you don’t mind,’ Frank said, ‘I might just go out for a bit, if everything is done …’
    â€˜I thought you’d be staying in seeing as it is Tom’s birthday. But if you want to …’
    She had imagined them sitting in companionable silence, exhausted but happy. After all it was a special day. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    â€˜OK then. See you later.’ He kissed the top of her head and was gone. It seemed to Posy that Frank