The Secrets We Left Behind Read Free

she was shouting at. She grabbed the little boy by the sleeve and
yanked him towards her, making him cry even harder. ‘Come on, you little bastard,’ she said, righting the pushchair. ‘And don’t think you’ll get any Christmas presents
if you keep up wi’ that roaring,’ she shouted, her voice hard as a slap. Then, dragging the crying boy alongside, she walked right in front of a tram, causing it to brake and sound its
horn, before she headed off across the square and down towards Castle Market.
    I stood there for a few moments. The sound of crying became fainter and the red hat got smaller as they disappeared into the bustling crowd. I felt my throat constrict and hot tears threatening.
For a second I fantasised about sweeping the child away from his wicked witch of a mother and taking him home to a proper, warm, happy Christmas. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have
babies. But I remembered the training I had before I started at the Young Families Project: don’t make judgements; you don’t know the background; you don’t know the circumstances.
And it’s true, some of the families I supported had huge and complex problems, but if I was honest, I knew that the majority of them loved their children, and sometimes they just needed help
and guidance to get back on track. It was hard, though; sometimes, I wanted to pick all those poor kids up and take them home with me so that I could make it all better.
    The automatic doors to Marks & Spencer’s glided open and I felt a puff of warm air as I stepped inside out of the cold. In the Christmas section mothers were buying shiny, glittering
things, watched closely by wide-eyed children at their sides. I paused there for a minute, trying to wipe the memory of that horrible woman from my mind, but I couldn’t seem to shake off a
feeling of gloom. I shouldn’t be feeling like this; after all, Hannah would be coming on Boxing Day and staying until the following evening. It’d give me a chance to look after her and
pamper her a bit. I stayed with them for a few days after Toby was born, but Duncan was worried I’d outstay my welcome. ‘They need to find their feet as parents,’ he said.
‘If you’re there for too long, it’ll make it all the more difficult when you go and they’re on their own again. And we’re only a phone call away if she needs
us.’ Maybe he was right. I knew I had a tendency to overprotect Hannah – I always have. But she looked so tired.
    In the Food Hall there was quite a queue of people collecting their pre-ordered organic turkeys. That reminded me – I needed to ask Duncan to call into the butcher’s to pick up the
turkey crown I’d ordered. I couldn’t go into those places myself. I could just about cook poultry even though I no longer ate it, but I couldn’t deal with butchers’ shops or
meat counters, and I especially couldn’t bear the blood any more; the sight of it on the butcher’s apron and on his hands; the dark smears on the wooden chopping block, and the thought
that behind the counter or out the back where you couldn’t see it there would be blood pooled on the floor, sticking to his shoes and making the sawdust stick together in clumps.
    I wandered along the aisles, throwing crystallised ginger and Turkish delight into my basket but resisting the pack of chocolate tree decorations because last year Monty, who doesn’t care
that chocolate is bad for dogs, snaffled the whole lot up, foil wrappers and all, and had sparkly poo for two days afterwards. As I made my way to the check-out, I sported a man disappearing behind
a display of mince pies. A jolt of recognition shot through my body; he was almost bald and he was wearing a huge dark coat that looked too big for him, but there was something so familiar about
that walk. He appeared briefly at the end of the aisle. I only caught a glimpse of the side of his face but I could see that he was wearing heavy framed glasses and that his skin was