“No,” Flo said, appalled.
“Then, why don’t you have a try on the potty? Just a little try? And then I can put your knickers on.”
“I’ll pud dem on!”
“That’s a good idea, you go to the potty—and then you can put your knickers on!”
Florence launched herself off the table and into Coralie’s arms. “Flo! Be careful!” She tipped her backward to cradle her. “You can’t fly!”
They smiled at each other, and Florence reached out a hand for Coralie to kiss. How she loved her little girl.
And yet, just as passionately, Coralie longed once again to be pregnant. It was scary to be back in the wanting place, the almost-desperate place, craving a second baby while her beautiful existing baby was there before her. To justify wanting more when she had everything, she had to tell herself it was for Florence: a sibling close in age, a built-in best friend, something both she and Adam felt they’d missed out on. They’d been “trying” since they returned from Australia. It had been almost a year! Nothing seemed to be working. Why?
In the bathroom, Coralie squatted on the floor and tried not to look impatient as Flo scrabbled in the bath toy box instead of doing a wee.
Florence had been born before Brexit, before Trump. Since then, a crazed right-winger had shotandstabbed a woman MP to death during the Brexit referendum campaign, shouting, “Britain first!” At the US border, Donald Trump ordered the separation of thousands of children, even nursing babies, from their parents. When public outcry caused the policy to be stopped, the families couldn’t be reunited because their records were messed up. In Australia, the prime minister was a total dipshit, a global warming–denying embarrassment. “This is coal,” Scott Morrison had said in 2017, brandishing a black lump of it on the floor of Parliament. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared. It won’t hurt you.” Meanwhile, in October, the world’s leading climate scientists had said the last remaining bestcase scenarios were already barely manageable. Sweeping wholesale changes had to be made within the next twelve years. Nothing was okay anymore, everything was bad, and even if she was able to bring another child into the world (and it felt like anifat that point), was it moral to do so? Was it right?
Florence had produced something in the potty. Coralie exclaimedover it, wiped her bum, took out the potty’s green plastic insert, tipped the contents into the toilet, swilled out the insert with some clean water, and poured that on top of everything else. Why was she craving more of this? Was she mad?
At least she could put Flo in knickers now and have two clear hours before starting to ask, at first casually, then with more urgency, and then with an anxious sheen of sweat above her lip: “Flo, Flo—do you need the toilet?”
“Can I choose her clothes?” Back in the nursery, Zora laid down her magazine.
“Yes, but something the snowsuit can go over. I’m hoping Adam will take her out.”
“He only ever goes out for coffee. He would’ve had coffee with Andrew Marr.”
“If he doesn’t go out,I’llhave to go out. I want to get some writing done.”
“Where do you go when you go out and write?”
“If I have an hour, Violet, the cake shop. If I have two, the library.”
“What if you have longer than that?”
“Oh, Zora!” Coralie said. “I’ll let you know when that happens.”
•••
Downstairs,the front door burst open. “I’m home!” Adam heaved and clattered his bike through the kitchen to shove it outside in the bike store. Coralie and the girls were down to meet him by the time he came back in. “Whew,” he said. “My fingers have frozen off. Who wants to feel my hands? Zora, come here.”
Zora screamed. “No!”
“No, no!” Flo began running too.
Adam chased them into the sitting room. Coralie put the kettle on and waited to hear her fate.
After a little while, Adam returned. “Bad news, I’m afraid. Zora says she’ll get a blue card in PE if she doesn’t take sneakers in to school.”
“We’ll have to buy some. We’ll have to go to the big M and S.” Zora looked levelly at Coralie. “In Stratford.”
Stratford! My God, she was looking at two, two and a half hours alone! She could sit and write in the kitchen, where the heating properly worked. She was free!
“Tell me if you want anything from Westfield,” Adam said on the front step, resigned, as Flo kicked her snowsuited legs in the buggy. It had taken them twenty minutes to get ready.
“Nothing, I need nothing!” She kissed Zora on the head and whispered, “Thank you.”
•••
