Thursdays in the Park Read Free

proppedagainst the mantelpiece in the sitting room, holding forth as if he were entertaining guests at a soirée. The room was sparsely furnished, the stripped floor covered with a pale sisal rug, bare of anything but the large brown leather sofa, a stylish dull-orange Conran armchair with wooden arms, a padded stool and a giant flat-screen television. Jeanie knew this was partly a style decision, the decoration being paintings, colourful and mostly abstract, and a modern rectangular mirror covering the area above the fireplace. They had obviously come to the conclusion that while Ellie was small it was pointless to deploy anything that might be knocked over, damaged or damaging to their child.
    Jeanie felt her heart begin to race with indignation. ‘Space’? He needs ‘space’? This arrogant, weasel-faced layabout, who takes advantage of Chanty’s misplaced love on a daily basis to feed, clothe and house him, never contributing a single, solitary penny, and resenting his own beautiful daughter, has the nerve to whine about ‘space’! And to crown it all his paintings to date were, in her opinion, derivative, abstract, sub-Hodgkin crap.
    ‘I’ll bring her back around five.’ She tried to smile but felt the anger sticking to her face like a neon sign.
    ‘Sure . . . whenever . . . see you later, sweetie.’ Alex bent to kiss his daughter on the top of her head, avoiding his mother-in-law’s eye.
    ‘Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.’ Jeanie took a deep breath and sang to her granddaughter as they walkedup the hill to the park. She berated herself for her inability to be more grown-up. But she had been there when Chanty, eight months pregnant, had collapsed on her parents’ kitchen floor, clutching the monstrous note Alex had left:
    This isn’t working for me,
I’m not ready to be a father, I have so much to achieve.
Please forgive me.
I love you, but this has all been a terrible mistake.
Alex x
     
    The note wasn’t scribbled in an agony of flight, which vastly added to the offence in Jeanie’s mind. No, it was carefully penned with black, heavy flourishes on a thick cream card, set out in column format, for all the world like an invitation to a party.
    Chanty had literally been unable to breathe, and by the time George had called an ambulance and they’d sirened her off to A & E, it was clear Chanty was in labour. So this man she was now supposed to like and accept – love, even – had put the very life of his daughter, and indeed Jeanie’s daughter, in jeopardy through his selfishness.
    Ellie took it all in her small stride, however. She’d spent forty-eight hours in an incubator to stabilize her breathing, but she’d never looked remotely frail. No thanks to Alex.
    ‘Again . . . again, Gin,’ Ellie was insisting. So Jeanie sang again, watching with delight as Ellie’s blonde curls swung to and fro to the tune.
    But if Chanty had chosen to forgive him, and George – not being the sort to dwell on these things much – had managed to get past it, Jeanie had not. Every time she saw him she was reminded of her daughter’s face, permanently ravaged by tears, as she struggled to cope with her baby alone in the months before Alex had condescended to return.
    The playground was empty except for one boy of about four and his father, who were racing round on either side of the roundabout, spinning it at high speed and shouting with laughter.
    ‘Swin . . . swin . . . come on.’ Ellie, released from her buggy, made straight for the swings. This, experience told Jeanie, could go on for hours, her granddaughter falling into an almost trance-like state as she swung, urging her grandmother, ‘Higher, higher!’ if Jeanie threatened to slack.
    Today Ellie was spellbound not by the swing, but by the boy and his father. Her face lit up with laughter as she watched their antics. Then suddenly the boy let go of the blue-painted handhold and raced across the spongy playground tarmac towards his ball,