London Harmony: Flotilla (6 page)

By the time we got back to the Tennison, it was late afternoon. I told the children as I was paying the fare, “Your mum should be home in a few minutes. Don't let her know I let you each have two pudding cups at the hospital.”

They grinned in a hysterical parody of an evil mad scientist, Nat rubbing her hands together in mischief, as they chimed out, “Ok, Auntie Kanga.”

I smiled broadly at them then we took a moment to center ourselves as I prepared my brolly while Nat got her little one ready, miming my action.

I said with all due bravado, “Once more unto the breach.” We hopped out, and the umbrellas didn't do much good as the driving wind blew the rain almost sideways, drenching us as we ran for the door. We paused, and I just stared at the mocking door in front of us and then tipped my head back and laughed loudly. Of all the boneheaded...

I glanced down with a sheepish look on my face, Wil just holding my hand, waiting patiently. I asked, “I don't suppose either of you have one of those electronic keys? I left the one your mum gave me upstairs in all the confusion and excitement.”

Nat scrunched up her face in thought as she said, using the same tone I heard her mother use with them when she was being oh so patient, “You're silly Auntie Kanga.”

Will nodded staunchly and affirmed her observation, “Yeah, you're siwwy Anie Kanga.”

Then the little girl just hit every button on the intercom panel at the door. Some people started to answer, but someone just buzzed us in before I could even speak. We dashed inside and shook ourselves off.

I looked down at the little mastermind. She shrugged and said, “It's what mummy does when we're selling chocolates for the school trip.” I chuckled and brought them upstairs. The door, of course, had locked itself when we left so we just slid down the wall to sit on the floor of the hall across from the door.

I helped the children out of their duckie gear and coats then hugged them to me and said, “Your mummy will be here soon.”

It was maybe fifteen minutes later, as we sang silly songs, with people walking past us in the hall with big grins on their faces, before I heard Paya and Steph speaking as they came up the stairs.

The smiling look that spread on Steph's face when she saw her children warmed me inside, wishing the woman would look at me that way one day. The kids squealed and ran to extract hugs from their mum and Paya.

I stood and squinted an eye, most likely looking as sheepish as I felt as I asked, “Umm... hi?”

She chuckled and said, “Hi yourself lady. What are you all doing out in the hallway?” Her eye twitched as she spoke, and I felt that knot in my stomach again.

I shrugged and said like it was perfectly obvious and logical, “Because the key is in the flat, of course.”

She chuckled at me and shot me a knee-buckling smile as she knelt in front of her daughter and examined her head to toe, looking at the bandage on her arm then giving her a second hug.

Then she surprised me by giving me a hug of my very own to cherish and obsess over. She said, “Thank you for taking care of the wee one, I owe you bigtime, Ange.”

I shrugged and waffled, not trusting myself not to say something asinine. She unlocked the door to the flat and ushered us all in. Paya, wiggling her eyebrows at me as she stepped past. I swatted her shoulder as she retreated.

Once we were all settled, and the harrowing story of Nat's rainy-day adventures in the playground, and subsequent visit to the hospital were relayed in technicolor detail, Wil blurted, “An we gotted two puddin's after lunch.” I almost snorted, so much for that secret. Busted.

Natalie shoved his shoulder and chastised, “You wasn't supposed ta tell. Us kangaroos have to stick together.”

I squinted an eye at Steph who looked ready to burst out laughing as I said, “Ummm... sorry? I'm the worst sitter ever.”

She winked at me conspiratorially, and started to brush it off, “They do like the pudding there...” Then she trailed off in a haunted memory and quickly recovered. “So I take it you little stinker's dinner is spoiled?”

I sighed and admitted, “With all the excitement, we didn't get lunch until a quarter past three.” Then she sighed and said to them, “Well get a little something into you just before bedtime then.”

Then Paya stood from the couch and slapped an envelope to my chest as she addressed Stephanie, “Well, Tabs is back in London, I think I'll dart over to the Water Witch to welcome her and Teri back.”

She looked back at me as she headed toward the door. “You ok finding your own way home?” She said it so casually... home. She considered the back rooms of the pilot house my home... and I was sort of feeling that way too.

I just nodded as she hugged the roos and Steph walked her to the door and hugged the woman, “Thanks for everything, Paya.”

The caramel skinned woman said with all seriousness, “Anytime. That's what friends are for.” Then she nudged her chin toward me and said to her, “Angie's the real hero of the day, I seriously don't know what I had done without her all these years. She's a godsend.”

There was an odd tone to Steph's voice as she said, “Yes – she is.”

Then I was alone with this wonderful family which I was growing more and more attached to.

We sat around on the couch and spoke about everything and nothing. It was so easy to talk to that woman, and I was aware of her proximity and wished I wasn't. We did what we could to keep the children down to a low roar.

Steph asked me at one point when I was holding a giggling Wil up by his britches, while she was holding a giggling Nat off the ground as her little legs still churned in a mid-air run, “Really? Two puddings?”

I squinted one eye and mock cringed while I mouthed to her chuckling amusement, “Worst sitter ever.”

That's when the lights went out.

***

By candle light, we sat on the couch and read, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, while the children ate peanut butter sandwiches.

Steph was doing an admirable job of voicing the characters, and by the insistence of the roos, I was adding my voice to hers. Before long the children were dozing, and Steph stood to collect Wil from my lap. I moved a sleeping Natalie from where she lay, gently snoring leaned against my side, and scooped her up to follow the emerald eyed sprite to the children's room.

We tucked them in, in the dark room, which was only illuminated by the candlelight streaming in through the doorway from the main room.

She kissed each of their foreheads and then she made a silly show of sneaking to the door, I snuck out with her. She whispered as she closed the door behind us, one hand resting flat against it to ease it soundlessly closed, “I'd normally wake them to brush their teeth and get in their jammies, but they had a long and eventful day, I couldn't bare to wake them.”

I nodded understanding, and we made our way back to the couch. She detoured to the kitchenette and brought a bottle of wine and two glasses from the upper cupboard with her. She sat with a long sigh as she decompressed. She held the wine up and stated, “We've had an eventful day as well.”

I smiled and nodded at the understatement. I asked, “Are children always such a handful?”

She chuckled as she poured two half glasses of red. She held hers up in a salute and smiled as she said, “You have no idea. This was a tame day comparatively. It makes me think we all owe our parents an apology.”

I soured for a moment as I added in my head, 'some of us maybe.'

She caught that as she offered a stemmed glass to me. Narrowing her eyes slightly, trying to read me. She took a sip with a thoughtful expression on her face before asking quietly, “Care to share what makes you cringe like that? I suspect it's connected to why you left Manchester?”

When had we gone from playful to serious? I studied her over the rim of my glass as I sipped. It was a cheap wine, something I'd buy. I reminded myself that of course it was, as her financial situation was on par with my current one, and she had two children to support on her own.

I shrugged. Did I want to share things with this tawny haired woman that I haven't shared with anyone? She laid a hand on my arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. That simple action broke through all of my defenses. I tried weakly to postpone the inevitable and said, “You owe me your story too, lady.”

Her facial muscles twitched in response to that. She inhaled long and deep, then exhaled as she curled her legs under her as she turned to face me on the couch. The flickering light from the candles casting highlights and shadows playfully across her stoic face.

Then she nodded and gave a sad smile. She glanced back at the children's closed door once, then said in acceptance, “Fair enough. I guess I owe you that if I want to hear your story.” Then she smiled crookedly and accused, “This is extortion you know, manipulating with curiosity.”

I almost snorted and explained, “I do work with Paya.” Offering a shrug in an “it was inevitable” gesture.

This caused her smile to bloom as she nodded and agreed, “Yes, she's rubbing off on you.”

I mirrored her posture, curling my legs up under me as we faced each other, taking each others measure again as she tapped a finger on her glass. She took another deep sip and then reached over to place the glass on the coffee table. I put mine beside hers, and then she began.

My eyes were intent on her face as her eye twitched in that involuntary wink as she said, “I told myself I'd put all this behind me after the police and the trial. But I am so overly curious about you that I have to know. Paya won't tell me a bloody thing except to say you do more work than any two people and never complain.”

She's asked Paya about me?

Then she shrugged and added, “And that you're her friend. That's all the endorsement I need. She took us under her wing after all that... messy business happened, and we found ourselves on the brink of winding up homeless after everything was said and done.”

I held my breath for a moment, the traitorous dark part of my mind adding the unspoken, 'like you.'

She placed a hand on mine, where it was resting on my leg. She could read me like a book after just two meetings. I smiled sheepishly, and she bit her lower lip as she decided where she should start her story.

She seemed decided, and began with, “Andy wasn't always that way.” She glanced at the wine and said in a voice just above a whisper, “Things just got rough, and the drink didn't help.”

I narrowed my eyes, and she held up a cautionary hand, saying with surety, “I know. I'm not making excuses. I never saw myself as one of those women who would put up with abuse. But knowing and doing are two separate things when it is someone you love. Someone who is supposed to love you.”

She looked at her left hand, and it tremored under the scrutiny. She seemed distracted by it and said in a haunted voice, “It sometimes takes something drastic for you to come to terms with reality I guess.”

I placed a hand on hers to get her to stop from drifting off into that dark place in her own head. She returned her eyes to mine and smiled, brushing off the unwanted thoughts. The explained, “His spiral began when he was sacked from the accountancy when they downsized. It started out with his temper and the drinking. He would snap at the smallest things.” Then repeated, “And the drinking.”

She shuddered, and I grabbed the little throw from the back of the couch and laid it across her legs. She smiled and, looked at her hand then waved it off, “I don't want to get into the sordid details. Suffice it to say that it got worse, much worse over the next few months until I found myself in the ICU with severe trauma to my head. There was some internal hemorrhaging and bruising to my brain. I'm not quite right anymore as you can clearly see. They say I'm as recovered as I'll be.”

She slid down a little, getting herself more comfortable. She said like it confused even her, “I don't know why it took that to make me realize just how poisonous he had become. He wasn't the man I married, nor the father of my children. I was through making excuses for him. Too late of course, irreparable harm had already been done.”

She cocked her head toward the kid's room again and said in a lower voice, “The trial was drawn out and messy. I felt like I was dragged over hot coals, his lawyers trying to make me the bad guy, and him the victim, but the jury had no sympathy for the man. Andrew's mother tried to get custody of the children. She likely would have succeeded as we were in financial ruin and losing our flat. I couldn't hold a job while I was going through physical therapy, and being dragged back and forth into court.”

She added quickly, “Not to speak ill of her of course, she's a perfectly pleasant woman. But...” I could hear the fire in her voice as she almost growled, “They are my babies.”

Then she gave me a vindicated grin as she said, “That's when Paya turned up. She had heard of our plight, and she came swooping in like some sort of white knight on a fiery steed. She brought us to the Flotilla and gave us a place to live, to show the courts that the children had a stable environment and a roof over their heads.”

She had a thoughtful look on her face as she confided, “I swear that woman sees everyone she looks after at the flotilla as her extended family, friends, and her personal responsibility. I doubt there is another woman out there with a bigger heart.”