LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Where is it, Sofie?’ Jamie demanded, trying to keep the anger from his voice.

      His temper was part of the problem, Rose-Marie had said during one of their Skype therapy sessions.

      ‘You fly off the handle so easily, it’s exhausting to live with,’ Rebecca had remarked.

      ‘So that’s why you drink? Because of me?’ he had said in return, even though he knew it was unfair, and that he was really just deflecting the attention away from himself.

      He was stressed, and worried about everything. The last year had felt like life was creeping up on him, about to give him a terrible surprise.

      And then Rebecca fell down the stairs.

      She lay for two hours until the children and their nanny found her and called an ambulance, and that’s when they finally accepted that her drinking was not just a sometime thing.

      ‘Come on Sof,’ Jamie coaxed. ‘You were the last to have my phone. I need to check if Mummy has called.’

      The mention of Mummy swayed her enough to spill her secret and she looked down at her pink-socked feet. ‘I dropped it,’ she said in a half whisper.

      ‘Dropped it where, darling?’ asked Jamie in a quiet voice.

      ‘Rain, not thunder, helps the flowers grow,’ Rose-Marie’s voice rang in his head.

      Bloody Rose-Marie and her bumper-sticker sayings, he thought. They resounded in his head like old school songs.

      Oscar came rushing inside, a gale of freezing wind making the fire in the grate shudder in protest.

      ‘I think it’s going to snow,’ he announced.

      ‘I hope not,’ said Jamie. ‘We have to go back tomorrow.’

      He returned his attention to his daughter, who at seven looked like an angel but had the wiles of a teenager.

      ‘Where did you drop it, Sofie?’ He was a little sterner now.

      Sofie looked up and widened her eyes, a tactic she had learned from Rebecca, and he felt himself fill with love for both the females in his life.

      ‘In the bath,’ she said, her voice quivering as she spoke.

      ‘In the bath?’ he repeated, as though trying to make sense of the words. ‘In the water?’

      She nodded.

      ‘Why did you have my phone in the bath?’

      ‘I was watching Taylor Swift videos,’ she said with a slight eye-roll, as though he knew nothing about anything.

      ‘And you dropped it in the water, and then didn’t tell me for the past day, even though you have seen me frantically looking?’ He felt his temper rising.

      Rain, rain, less thunder, he reminded himself.

      ‘Go and get it,’ he instructed.

      Oscar, who was twelve and so considered himself wise beyond his height, was lying on the sofa, flicking through a gaming magazine.

      ‘It’s screwed now,’ he offered.

      ‘Don’t say screwed,’ said Jamie crossly.

      ‘Buggered then,’ Oscar said.

      Jamie left it alone. At twelve Oscar knew too much about life, electronics, and the truth about his mother.

      Sofie was back, holding out the phone to Jamie.

      He turned it on and off but nothing happened.

      ‘You could put it in a bag of rice; that might soak up some of the water, but I doubt it, since it’s been left wet for so long,’ Oscar offered.

      Jamie went to the cupboard of the farmhouse he’d rented to try and get to know his children for a few weeks while Bec was in treatment.

      Two weeks had felt like a long time when he booked it; now it felt like an eternity.

      ‘We don’t have any rice,’ he said, as he peered through the staple items. ‘Can I do flour?’

      ‘No,’ said Oscar, not looking up from his magazine.

      ‘Pasta?’

      ‘No,’ came the same answer.

      Jamie stood facing the pantry with its jars of mixed herbs and lack of rice and felt himself wanting to cry.

      How ridiculous was he? he asked himself.

      He missed Bec so much it hurt. He wanted to go and tell her every single thing she had done that was amazing, how the mere presence of her lit up the room, and how he didn’t know how to do things as well as her, certainly not Christmas.

      He knew he was too focused on having things perfect, even if they cost him comfort or enjoyment. Like that stupid chair he had bought that every interior designer said was a staple for a true aesthete’s home.

      Except it felt how he imagined a medieval torture chair would have done in the dark ages.

      No support to the back, no give in the leather, just clean lines.

      He had wanted to admit to Bec that he’d made a mistake, but they’d fought so hard about having it inside, he didn’t want to admit that she was right.

      Why? he wondered now. Bec was often more right than him, so why had he stopped listening?

      ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ Sofie’s voice came from behind.

      ‘I know you didn’t mean to drop my phone in the bath but I wish you’d told me straightaway,’ he said, kneeling to look her straight in the eye.

      ‘I was scared,’ she said, and he felt his heart jerk because he knew it was true. He could be vile, especially when he was angry.

      ‘I understand,’ he said and bent down to Sofie’s eye level. ‘You have to tell me things and I will promise not to be scary if I’m upset, okay? Can we make a pact?’

      Sofie nodded and he could see the relief in her eyes.

      ‘Tomorrow we will go into the village and see if I can get a new phone,’ he said, standing up. ‘Oscar, can I borrow your phone?’

      ‘No, you told me not to bring it,’ he said.

      ‘I didn’t think you’d actually listen,’ said Jamie, shaking his head.

      ‘I didn’t want you to yell,’ said Oscar, looking up briefly at his father.

      Jamie felt sufficiently told off by both his children, and went upstairs to his bedroom, whacking his head on the beams of the farmhouse.

      Stupid beams, he thought as he rubbed his head. Who was the landlord? Miss Tiggywinkle?

      He lay on the bed and tried to remember the dates for Bec’s return. He had a whole thing planned for the airport, with a sign, and he would wear a chauffeur’s cap, and there would be flowers, white lilies and holly, he had decided.

      It was five days until Christmas, he’d reasoned; he had plenty of time. He was sure she’d said she would be back the week before; he was absolutely positive, wasn’t he?

      Number one priority: he had to get a new phone.

      Sofie

      Sofie lay in bed and thought about the three things she loved the most in the world.

      Taylor Swift.

      Bubbles, her dog.

      And her mother.

      And not one of them was with her.

      Taylor didn’t even know who she was, even though she had written to her a thousand times. She had liked every video on YouTube, and had even written to Katy Perry to ask her to stop bullying Taylor, because everyone knows bullies are the worst kinds of people.

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