I don't really have a lot of experience on the development of children, to be entirely honest, so I'm sorry if there are any glaring mistakes in this story;) I hope you enjoy the chapter, anyway! x
Three:
"Mummy's coming soon," Billy told his goddaughter.
She was sitting on his knee in the corner of a café, shuffling impatiently as Billy drank his coffee. He offered her a piece of his shortbread, but she shook her head and stared out of the window.
She was a beautiful little girl. At three years old, her hair fell down her back like one of those slides she so liked to play on. Obviously, he was a bit biased, but he felt that her aquamarine eyes were filled with warmth and intelligence, just like her mother's.
Scarlett was very like Martha, in some ways. Sometimes she had that mischievous glint in her eye, the look that said 'I know I shouldn't really be doing this, but I'll do it anyway'. She knew right from wrong; she knew how to hover on the edge of right without straying into wrong.
She was also quite unlike her mother. There were moments when she was shy, and she didn't particularly like new people, although she was perfectly happy with Billy. She liked her own company almost as much as she liked Martha's.
"When?"
"Soon."
"She's just finishing something at work," he said, when she tugged at his sleeve. It was snowing outside, and they both faced the window, her head on his shoulder; he wondered if she was about to fall asleep. He wouldn't blame her.
Billy had picked Scarlett up from the nursery on the way home from chambers, with Martha promising she'd only be half an hour. They'd agreed to meet in the café on the high street and have coffee.
Billy had taken his goddaughter to a little boutique on the way across, and they'd picked out a beautiful china plate painted with flowers, and put it in a gift bag. Billy had helped Scarlett to write Merry Christmas Mummy on the tag, and she'd drawn a rather dubious stick figure underneath too.
He thought she'd like it. She liked things of beauty, things that held love and effort and memories of the past. Martha was one of those people who appeared to move with the times, even ahead of them, and yet sometimes you got the impression that she wanted to stay exactly where she was in the world, just for a day.
"Are you tired?"
She shook her head.
They'd been sitting here for almost half an hour, and that was a long time for Billy to wait, let alone Scarlett. He worried that it would affect Scarlett, when she was older, that she'd feel as though she was less important than her mum's work. It wasn't true at all – he felt privileged to know a little about Martha, generally such a private person, and he knew she adored her daughter – but sometimes it was difficult for everyone involved, Martha and Billy and even Clive, trying to balance the different aspects of their lives around Scarlett.
"Should we play I spy?"
She nodded.
"I spy, with my little eye," he shifted his arm behind her back so that they were both sitting more comfortably, "Something beginning with... S."
He pronounced 'S' in lower-case, like 'sss'. She was a clever girl, already beginning to recognise the alphabet, beginning to speak more complex sentences and even write a couple of wobbly letters.
She looked around her, "Snow."
"Well done," he said, kissing her cheek with cold lips so that she squealed, although it had been 'shortbread', originally, "You're too good at this game, Scarlett. You always win."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with–" she looked from the tablecloth to the counter and back to the window, "Mummy!"
The woman stamped her feet outside to avoid treading excess snow into the café, then stepped inside and rubbed her hands together, "It's freezing."
"Mummy," Scarlett said, taking one of Martha's hands and leading her back to the table.
"Miss," he said, "You took a while."
"It's Martha, Billy. You can call me Miss at work, but it's Martha here."
Martha slipped off her coat and took her daughter onto her knee, kissing her, smoothing her hair. How much did she love that child? It hurt him to think of how different it could have been, if Scarlett hadn't survived.
"Do you want a coffee?"
"I'm fine. How was your day, Scarlie? How's Callum?"
"We played in the sandpit," she said, like she'd climbed Mount Everest and got back just in time for a paddle in the sea before her tea and scones.
"Did you make lots of sandcastles?"
"We did a snake."
"That's good," Martha said, with such enthusiasm that Billy wondered if he should have bought her a pet snake instead of the plate. Probably would've been cheaper. "Very good. You'll have to make a dog tomorrow."
"Callum says we should make a cat. And I can go to his house."
Billy watched them, mother and daughter, as they talked about all the trivial things that made Scarlett so very happy, the chocolate cake she'd had for her pudding and the play dough she'd used in the afternoon.
Martha was shivering. He pushed his coffee cup across the table, and she put her hands around it with a grateful smile, but didn't say anything to him.
"Martha?"
She looked up, probably because he'd called her Martha. "Billy."
"Is everything alright?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
He shook his head. Why wouldn't it be? Because I've known you for far too long, Martha Costello, and I can see something's happened since I left you, and I can also see that you won't tell me, not now, no matter what I say.
He wished that he could follow her everywhere, just to make sure that she didn't get hurt. They all laughed about him being their daddy, some of them rather disparagingly, but he meant all of it: they were his family, particularly Martha and Scarlett. They were the family he'd never had.
"We got you a present."
"For tomorrow," Billy said quickly, but Scarlett was already fishing for the bag from the floor and passing it to her mother.
"When I was little, I always used to open one present on Christmas Eve. When we get home, you can choose one from under the tree to open. It makes it more special to spread it out," Martha said, helping her daughter to take the present from the bag.
Scarlett clawed at the wrapping paper like she was desperate to know what was inside, like she'd forgotten she'd wrapped it up with Billy in the Marks and Spencer disabled toilets half an hour ago. The spirit of Christmas, so easily lost once you left childhood behind. He envied her for a moment.
He looked out of the window, because it felt a bit intimate, mother and daughter opening Christmas presents. It almost embarrassed him; he shouldn't be here, he should leave. Martha had invited him for Christmas dinner tomorrow, even said he could stay overnight, but he'd declined.
Was that why she was upset? Not only tired from working Christmas Eve, but because she was going to have to spend Christmas alone tomorrow? He hadn't thought about that when he'd said no, selfish bastard that he was.
"Marth–" he said, but the last syllable was drowned out by the dropping of china onto the hard tiles below the table, the bittersweet jingle of something precious being torn apart into shards.
"Scarlett," Martha snapped.
The power of one angry word from her mother brought tears to Scarlett's eyes. Perhaps because she didn't want to be shouted at, or because she understood that she'd ruined something that was supposed to be special, or because she too saw that her mother was holding something back.
"Sorry. It was my fault; I was being clumsy. Silly mummy."
"Silly mummy," Scarlett agreed quietly, looking relieved.
"I'm sure we can glue it back together," Martha said, wincing.
Billy crouched down on his hands and knees and gathered the shattered pieces back into the tissue paper, "I'll see what I can do."
Martha took a long sip of coffee. Billy sat back at the table and looked out of the window at the snow falling like icing sugar, and thought how nice it would be to have someone to be with tomorrow, to laugh with and to dance with, rather than facing another year of watching crap on TV with a takeaway. Christmas was supposed to be a special time, a family time, and they were his family now.
"Marth, you know what you said, about tomorrow?"
She reached across and touched his hand with cold fingers. He laid his other hand on top of hers, and his gaze was the colour of a jay's wing as it met his.
"Would you?" she asked.
"I'd love to."
Scarlett reached across and put her hand on top of Billy's. "Pat a cake."
Martha's laugh was as beautiful as Billy always remembered it.
XxXxX