Poppy marched up to me like a soldier going into battle. She looked cross and hot and full of the importance of what she had to say.
‘I did cry at Jake’s,’ she said.
I squatted down. ‘Why did you cry, my darling?’
‘I wanted Teddy.’
‘You had Teddy. I put him in your bag.’
‘I wanted my special mug. I wanted Sunny. I wanted my unicorn tee shirt. Gina brushed my hair.’
I took her hand. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Just me and you.’
‘Just me and you.’
‘We can dig for worms,’ said Poppy with satisfaction.
‘OK.’
She looked at me suspiciously. ‘No bath,’ she said.
‘We’ll think about that.’
‘And it can thunder and lightning and I will see a fox and Sunny will sleep with me.’
‘I can’t promise the weather.’
I bought us each an ice cream on the way back and we sat on a bench to eat them, the sun on our backs. Then we went back to the flat, hand in hand, and Poppy played in the paddling pool, dug for worms with intense and scowling concentration, told Sunny a story about a girl called Poppy who could fly, and I watched her. I watched her and marvelled.
Soon enough, the news about Aidan would be public. It would be in papers, on news channels, online. More to the point, everyone in my life would know, would look at me differently, look at me hungrily, would talk to each other about it in appalled and revelling tones. Did you hear? Did you know? Isn’t it awful? Not yet, though, not this evening, which was so warm and luminous and peaceful. Not while Poppy splashed in the paddling pool, throwing handfuls of water into the air, and ran in her knickers round the garden, muddy and enthralled, and the birds came to the feeder and the light fell through the leaves and left rippling shadows on the ground.
I didn’t know what to tell her and what to leave alone. Should I simply let time wash away her memories and her bad dreams, or should I say to her: you witnessed horrible things, but they are over now? You were confused and scared, but now you don’t need to be. I let a bad man into our home, but he will never come again. Your world is safe once more.
But the world is never safe, not for a little girl who is unfiltered and wide open, who sees everything, hears everything, lets everything move through her; is like a wind chime that the lightest breeze will set chinking.
‘Bedtime,’ I said.
‘Stories,’ she replied. ‘Till I say stop. Owl babies and the tiger at tea, and little bear and the moon and the cow jumped over it and this little pig. All the way home.’