London, 1924
The clouds split open and spill golden, evening light across the streets and suburbs. He trudges home from the hospital, tired, dispirited, angry. It is always the same, whenever a patient dies he carries it on his own shoulders like it's his cross to bear when really, no-one could have saved the poor blighter.
As he approaches his house, a small red-brick terraced affair with the roses that his wife's friend coaxed out of terracotta pots forming a rainbow above the door, there is the sound of music, laughter beaming through the half-open windows. He almost smiles as he unlocks the brightly-painted door, pushes it wide and deposits his bag in the hallway.
"Daddy's home!" The voice of his four-year old daughter shrieks from the sitting room, and a minute later she's running into the hallway, all dimples and dark ringlets, throwing herself into his arms. "Daddy!"
"Hello, sweetheart," he says, scooping her up onto his hip and kissing her forehead. She begins to wriggle, and he puts her down – she takes his hand in her sticky one and drags him to the sitting room. The music, lively, bright, pours from the gramophone in waves of jangling notes.
In the centre of the room, his wife, Kitty and stepdaughter, Sylvie dance a complicated looking dance full of kicks and flicks. Audrey runs to join them. "Hello, Tom," Kitty says, stopping for a second and putting a hand on the rise of her pregnant stomach.
"You look like you're having fun," he remarks, crossing to sit on the easy chair before the fire.
"It's called the Charleston," Sylvie says enthusiastically. "Elizabeth was showing it to us earlier – apparently it's all the rage with the ballet girls at the moment."
"Come dance, Daddy!" Audrey pulls on his hand insistently.
"Audrey, let your father relax. He's had a long day at work," Kitty chides, but Tom is already pulling himself to his feet, letting himself be dragged into the middle of the carpet by Audrey.
"Go on, show me how to do it," he tells his daughter.
"You do this, and this," Audrey begins to jump up and down, and he tries to copy her for a second, before giving up.
"I'm sorry, I'm too tired. How about I sit and watch you three dance?"
"But Daddy," Audrey pouts, but he shakes his head.
"No, sweetheart. I'm not very good at dancing, but I'd really like to see you dance it for me."
"Come on, Audrey," Kitty takes her daughter's hand. "Sylvie, do you want to re-start the music?"
As the music begins again, fast and furious, he sits and watches the three people he loves best in the world twirl and spin in beautiful harmony, letting it wash away his irritation at his work in pictures of flying dark curls and bright, happy eyes.
He hopes that life will be like this forever.
A/N Another little oneshot I dreamed up. Reviews make me smile! :) N xxx