Susan Edginton

Lost

    ‘Are they both asleep?’ you say, bringing the tray to the table. I nod but avoid your eyes. ‘Are you alright Anne?’ you say. I nod again, for although I am not, I don’t want to cry. I fix my gaze on your hand rising and falling as you put teapots, cups and miniature milk cartons on the table. I see the familiar grace of your fingers. Slumped under Hannah’s warm weight, I feel cold. My arms seem too slack to hold her.
    ‘I chose Earl Grey for you,’ you say. ‘Is that what you want?’
    No! It's you I want, I think. You, you bastard. You wanting me. Not her.
    ‘That’s fine – thanks,’ I say.
    My thought slips into my foot; dangerous as it rocks the pushchair in which our Evan sleeps, while rage boils in my breasts, which so recently fed him. Around us is the busy chatter of the Saturday market cafe. Other people are making jokes and smoking.
    ‘I hope you’re not just saying it,’ you say.
    Your courteous voice carries a vein of tenderness. Because you know that you have hurt me, and the formality is so you can stay out of reach. You are out of reach, I think, and Hannah slides off my knee. As her shoes slap the floor she wakes up shocked, stiffens and collapses in tears. Now I stand up and what's more I’m screaming. I don’t even know what I’m saying but I see your face blank off and you walk out. This isn’t love. It’s terror. My whole face yells after you, ‘Why can’t you be angry back!’

    In the café there has been a silence but now people are beginning to shuffle back into talking. I grab the buggy with one hand and Hannah with the other. Outside I am daunted by the market crush. I manoeuvre between the bodies and get behind a stall. I insert the buggy into a doorway. ‘Stay there,’ I say to Hannah. ‘I’ll only be a moment. Hold on to the buggy  -  and don't let go.’
    ‘Where are you going?’ says Hannah.
    ‘Just over there,’ I say. ‘I just want to see if Dad's gone down the other side of the market. I want to find him.’
    ‘So do I,’ says Hannah, her bottom lip jutting.

    I cross the road, weaving between people queuing at the stalls. There is no sign of you so I dodge back to where I have left the children. And they aren’t there. I can’t believe it. They’re not there. I look each way, up and down the pavement, along under the butchers dirty awnings. I am hemmed in by all the people, stalls, and flapping canvas. I look back again. They’re still not there. ‘Hannah, where have you gone? Where are you?’ 
    I put myself in the little corner where they should be. ‘Where are you? I can't believe this.’ I shout as loud as I can, ‘Hannah.’ Louder. ‘Hannah. Hannah.’

    I seize the arm of the nearest woman, and the next, and the next. I beg them, ‘Have you seen a little girl? A little girl with a buggy, have you ....?’ 
They ask what does she look like and I can’t remember.
    ‘What’s she wearing love?’ and I just can’t think. I don’t know where to look. If I go the wrong way I’d be getting further away from them. I want to stay by the spot where I left them. ‘Hannah,’ I say to myself over and over, ‘Where are you?’

    Then there you are, stock-still among the market crowds threading the pavement. Your arms root in your pockets, I want them round me. I feel like I did when I was very young and had made my mother angry. I had lost the only person I could turn to. You are angry now. I try to forestall you.
    ‘David.....’

    I watch you shouting at me. Little muscles bulging on your forehead, your mouth in a snarl. I hear some of the words ‘had enough of you ... your feelings, ......what about mine? ....’
    I don't recognise you like this.

    ‘And how do you justify behaving like that in front of the children,’ you bellow. I lift my fist and bring it down on your chest.
    ‘Dave, listen, for God’s sake, I’ve lost them. Hannah and Evan. I don’t know where they are.’
    I am crying. I see you believe me. Now I believe myself and I am calmer. We separate to search and meet up. Almost immediately you see her. You call out to me, and point. There is Hannah hoisted high above the heads, coming down the middle of the market, on the shoulders of a policeman. He is wheeling Evan like the dodgems. Hannah is sobbing. I get near enough to hit her. But I take her in my arms. You stroke Evan’s gleaming forehead where he sleeps.

    We are looking at each other. Hannah lifts her face from my neck and struggles to speak, ‘Mum, the policeman, Mum, he made me let go of the buggy. He said I was lost. But I wasn’t lost, was I Mum. It was Dad. Dad was lost.’

* * * * *

This short story is one of a series which focus on specific incidents of painful communication in the lives of their characters, without reference to their past or future.

Biography

Sue Edginton lives in Oxfordshire but may soon return to her London home ground. A social scientist, she has worked as a community worker, as a consultant to government on local services, as a freelance feature writer and photographer, and as a director of an independent television company making documentaries.