While My Eyes Were Closed Read Free Page B

into the car and fastening my seat belt.
    ‘What did you say to the big boys?’ Ella asks.
    ‘I told them to go away.’
    ‘Were they being naughty?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Where will they go now?’
    ‘I don’t know. But at least they won’t be bothering people in Grandma’s street.’
    I glance at Ella in the rear-view mirror. She nods, apparently satisfied with that, and picks up her
Frozen
sticker book from the back seat.
    *
    The car park is packed. I wonder whether to wait for a space or try to find one outside. I pull over when I see a woman struggling towards her car with a toddler, a baby in a sling and a massive changing bag. Quite why people take that much stuff with them when they are simply going to the park, I don’t understand. I’d never been one for designer changing bags, opting instead to stuff a spare nappy, wipes and a little gym towel which doubled as a changing mat into my bag. I’d always gotby fine like that, although no doubt I would have failed those ‘Are you a super-mum?’ questionnaires in the baby magazines.
    The woman mouths ‘Sorry’ to me as she begins loading both offspring and baggage into her car. I smile and back up a bit so she doesn’t feel I’m hassling her.
    ‘Can we go to the park now?’ asks Ella.
    ‘In a minute. We just need to let this lady get sorted and then we can have her space.’
    ‘Have they been to the park already?’
    ‘Yep, looks like it.’
    ‘Did that boy climb up to big slide?’
    ‘I doubt it. He only looks about three.’
    ‘How old was Otis when he could climb up to big slide?’
    ‘I don’t know. Four or five, I expect. I don’t think he did it till he started school.’
    I glance in the rear view mirror. Ella is sitting there with such an incredibly smug look on her face that I have to try hard not to laugh.
    The woman finally pulls away and we squeeze into the space she has left. I hold the car door as Ella scrambles out, balloon in hand.
    ‘You don’t need to take that with you.’
    ‘Charlie gave it to me.’
    ‘I know. But you’re going on the climbing frame now and you can’t take it with you.’
    ‘You can hold it for me when I’m climbing.’
    ‘Why don’t you just leave it in the car?’
    ‘Because I don’t want anyone to steal it.’
    I sigh. My car was broken into a few months ago when I left the satnav on the dashboard. Ella woke every night for the next week and asked a million questions about it. Clearly, she still hasn’t forgotten.
    ‘OK,’ I say, deciding it will be quicker to go with it than to get into another protracted conversation about why the naughty boys did it. ‘But I’ll carry it for you so you don’t lose it.’
    She nods. I take the balloon from her and grab her hand to stop her careering across the car park, noticing as I do so that her nails are dirty and need cutting.
    ‘This is where Grandma parks,’ Ella says as she steps onto the gravel. ‘Near the ice cream van.’
    ‘Well you’ve had quite enough ice cream this week, remember. Do you want to go to the butterfly house before we go to the playground?’
    Ella gives me a look. She is not a butterfly-house kind of girl. She wants to be where her brother would be. Even when he is not here.
    ‘OK,’ I say, as we reach the grass. ‘You can run now.’
    I let go of her hand and she tears off towards the playground, her lime-green Crocs kicking up dust on the parched, worn grass. The playground is heaving but she makes straight for the climbing frame, undeterred by the number of children already on it. She glances back once, to check I am watching, before beginning toclimb. By the time I reach the base of the frame she is already halfway up. Her face is determined, her hands straining to reach each new level. There is no way she will ask for help, though. She passes a bigger girl dressed entirely in pink, whose father is coaxing her up, showing her where to put her feet as she picks her way daintily up the frame. I see Ella open her mouth