Chapter Twenty

Felicity took a breath. ‘I’m sorry to do this to you at such short notice. Callum and Alice will sit through the whole performance, but I just can’t trust that Fred will. Megan would be so embarrassed if he hollered in the middle of her dance and with the Halloween theme too, I’m just not sure he’ll like it.’

‘It’s fine, really. I’m glad you called me.’ It was a bit of an overstatement considering how nervous she felt about having Fred and the guilt she felt at postponing Jack’s walk, but Lisa wanted Felicity to know she was there for her.

‘Pete’s mum is a pain. She saw the show last night, now she’s too …’ Felicity paused to make air quotes round the next word as she said it ‘… “poorly” to look after Fred for us so we can go today!’ She rolled her eyes making her opinion on Pete’s mum and her illness clear.

‘Really, I don’t mind. We’ll be fine,’ Lisa affirmed, trying to convince herself as much as Felicity.

‘Melissa would have had him, but I know she’s out on a spa day – never mess with a new mum on a spa day – and—’

‘Flick!’

Felicity stopped and stared.

‘Fred and I will be fine.’ Lisa couldn’t hear any more about all the people Felicity had considered before calling her; it was making her more nervous by the moment. ‘We’ll go to the park. It’ll be fun and then we’ll see you back at yours later. Are you sure you don’t want me to have the others too?’ Even as the question came out, Lisa was dreading Felicity saying yes; in all honesty she was terrified of looking after Fred, having Callum and Alice as well would mean she would be outnumbered, and even further beyond her comfort zone.

‘No, I am sure they’ll be fine. Alice wants to go; she helped with the bandages and blood.’

Lisa looked confused.

‘Megan’s a zombie. And Callum’s looking forward to it; he actually can’t wait since Megan told him there’s a skeleton dance in the second half,’ Felicity explained.

‘Oh, OK.’ Phew! Noticing Felicity was loitering, reluctant to actually leave Fred in her care, Lisa attempted a reassuring smile. ‘Well, wish Megan luck from me. And don’t worry, Fred’s in safe hands.’ She swallowed.

‘You’re a star!’ Felicity kissed Lisa on the cheek, hugged Fred goodbye and got in her car.

Lisa waved Felicity off, attempting to hold her smile in place until she drove out of sight, and turned to look at Fred standing in her mum’s pristine hallway complete with change bag, lunch box, water bottle, car seat, raincoat and wellies. Pulling out a toy dinosaur and a chubby crayon from his pocket he gave Lisa a very mischievous grin. Oh yikes! Deciding getting out as soon as possible was perhaps the best course of action, Lisa picked Fred up and headed out to her van. Unsure how to co-ordinate putting Fred and all of his baggage in the van at the same time, Lisa wondered what to do. Leaving him to play unsupervised in her mum’s house seemed as dangerous as letting him run loose on the driveway. Chewing her lip, she pondered the situation. Then she had an idea.

Popping Fred into the large dog crate she had in the back of the van, a game he luckily found funny, she grabbed the rest of his belongings and wrestled his car seat into place following the obscure set of pictorial instructions on the side. After some debate, in which Fred was reluctant to leave the crate, they set off. Lisa decided to head to the nearby town of Arundel. When she had walked dogs passed the park there, it had seemed less busy than some of those she’d seen in Littlehampton, and more contained with only one entrance gate. In her mind, that meant there was less possibility of losing Fred.

Entering the park, Lisa felt Fred’s dimpled hand in hers and grew a little taller; nobody knew he wasn’t actually hers. With his blond hair – that bounced with each step – and blue eyes, he even looked a little like her. For a moment, she could simply pretend to be his mummy; nobody will know. She gave Fred a smile as she let the thought linger. The toothy grin he returned made a lump form in her throat and a fuzzy warm feeling spread inside her.

The ground was soft and spongy underfoot. It was a dry day, but recent showers meant the earth remained sodden – the autumn sun lacking the heat necessary to dry it out. Fred sploshed his Gruffalo wellies through every muddy puddle he could find. Despite the fact that Felicity had packed him enough clothes for a minibreak, Lisa congratulated herself on tucking his dungarees into his socks. See, Flick, I’ve got this sorted!

Being half term, the park was busy. Taking in the scene, Lisa could see parents gathered near benches, not quite committing to sitting on them now that they had taken on the damp they would keep until the spring. Two older boys were spinning on a ‘witch’s hat style’ roundabout, a little too fast and without enough regard for the younger children in the park for Lisa’s liking.

‘Not that way, Fred!’

Another group of children, who had removed their coats and fleeces, and made them into capes, had taken over the wooden tower with the big slide and were shouting at each other in fake American accents. Hmmm! Lisa didn’t want Fred picking that up before she returned him home, even if it meant he might describe their trip as ‘awesome’.

Without pausing, Lisa led Fred towards the calmer-looking toddler end of the park, thinking he might like the bouncy horse thing – or is it a dog? – on a giant spring.

‘Doggie. Yes!’ Fred began to run towards it. The thick, tufty grass, streaked with yellow, and peppered with red, brown and orange leaves made a challenging terrain for somebody whose knees barely cleared the grass, turning his run into more of a stumble, step refrain.

Dog it is then! Lisa smiled and followed in pursuit. She loved how excited he looked. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright from the fresh air. The low glow of the sun added to how perfect she found the moment. It was snapshot perfect. Getting out her phone she decided to take a picture and send it to Flick. But after getting Fred balanced and posing she realised her battery was dead. How annoying! She really wanted to save the moment and share it with Flick. Glancing back up at her lost photographic opportunity Lisa was shocked to see a boy, perhaps not more than three weeing in the hedge behind Fred. ‘Oh good God!’ She couldn’t believe it.

The boy’s mum looked at her and smiled as if this was completely normal behaviour. ‘He’s been dry day and night for a couple of months now. How about yours, potty training yet?’

Trapped between being horrified that weeing in a bush counted as potty training, wanting to get Fred away from the boy and actually engaging in a moment of mumsy chat, Lisa scooped Fred up onto her hip – it was how they carried their little ones in Neighbours and felt the thing to do. ‘No, not yet, he’s only just had his second birthday.’

‘Ah, yes, but when they’re ready, they’re ready. Don’t miss the signs, I always say.’

‘No, of course not.’ Lisa attempted not to look puzzled. She had no idea what ‘the signs’ might be. Stooping or cocking a leg were standard signs in her dog walking world, or circling for other business. But she was pretty sure that wasn’t what the woman meant.

Not knowing what on earth else to say, Lisa began to wriggle Fred. ‘Oh look, he wants to get down and play.’ In fact Fred didn’t want to, he’d been happily chewing the strings on Lisa’s hoody, but once Lisa started the wriggling game he found it funny and joined in. It was only as they both wiggled and began to laugh that Lisa realised she had mud from Fred’s wellies all over the front of her. ‘Bugger!’ As soon as it was out of her mouth she realised her error. Thankfully, Fred didn’t repeat her misdemeanour, but as Lisa’s gaze met the other woman’s glare, her son pulled up his pants and trousers, and ran off shouting his new word for all to hear. Lisa attempted to apologise. But it was no use, the woman was already marching off in the direction of a group of other mums, no doubt to tell them to avoid the sweary one with the muddy jeans. Lisa looked at Fred. ‘Whoops!’

With the toddler area to themselves, Lisa and Fred played on. Fred had boundless energy, clambering up the small slide, crossing the bridge repeatedly for Lisa to do her whose-that-trip-trapping-over-my-bridge troll voice, and being guided down the firemen’s pole over and over again. When Fred finally sat in the swing – the only place she could think to hold him still for a moment – eating a sandwich from his lunch box, Lisa paused realising how tired she felt. Enjoying the break she watched the other children in the park.

It was funny, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy as they all played, giggled, and even cried with complete and utter commitment – no distractions to their purpose, none of the stresses that came from being an adult playing on their minds. They lived in and for the moment. She could remember her and Felicity playing in the same way in the playground, and on the field at school. So much had happened since then.

Feeling like she had exhausted herself more than Fred, Lisa decided she deserved a cup of tea and thought they should head off. Fred, on the other hand, had other plans. He was desperate to go on the big slide and was adamant he didn’t want to leave until he had done it, stamping his Gruffalo welly to make his point clear. Not wanting to cause a scene now they had blended in once more, Lisa took Fred by the hand and led him over to the big slide; her plan was to show him that he was just too little for it. He wouldn’t be able to get up to the top and as she had let him try it would not be her fault.

As Fred began to try to heave himself up the vertical ladder, with rungs too far apart for his legs, Lisa could see her plan was going to work. All she had to do was suggest they come back and try when he was a bit bigger, and she would be on her way to her cup of tea. What she hadn’t accounted for was the group of children, still donning their superhero capes, seeing Fred’s plight and deciding to make it their mission to lift, shove and haul him up to the very top of the ladder. Lisa could only watch in horror as the whole situation was taken out of her hands. What would Flick think?

‘Please be careful!’

Once Fred reached the top and stepped over onto the summit of the wooden tower leading to the slide, the mini-superheroes cheered, their mission complete. Fred beamed with excitement and teetered around looking over the edge far too precariously for Lisa’s liking.

‘Sit down, Fred.’

But no amount of imploring on her part was working. Feeling torn between climbing up herself and judging when he might choose to come down the slide Lisa asked the superheroes to help. Gladly accepting their new mission, they sprang into action. Thankfully, with them encouraging him, Fred sat ready for his descent.

Lisa positioned herself in readiness to catch him. There was about a foot drop at the end of the slide onto a rubbery surface and she didn’t want him landing bottom first on that. The slide was steep, but she expected his wellies would slow him down and so wasn’t too worried. But as he went to launch off the experienced, older children shouted for him to lift his feet. Fred complied, the action resulting in him whizzing towards Lisa on his back, his feet in the air and his bottom facing her. Oh God! She prepared herself, but with the angle at which he was hurtling at her she didn’t know what to catch. Grabbing at him as he reached her, she was pleased to gain a purchase, only to find that what she actually grabbed was his wellies. Fred flew past her and landed with a thump on the ground at the bottom of the slide and burst into tears.

Lisa panicked and picked him up. Sure that he would have a bruise to match the pattern of the rubber matting on his back, she stroked her hand up and down it. Poor Fred was in a state. The parents in the park were all looking in their direction, while the mini-superheroes promptly made themselves scarce. Lisa wanted the ground to swallow her up. To make matters worse as she rubbed her hand across Fred’s back she could feel a lump, a large hard lump. Oh no! With no parents coming forward to offer help or advice and no phone to call Felicity, Lisa decided she had no other option. She would have to take him to a doctor and she would have to get him there fast before he ended up looking like the hunchback of Notre-Dame.