Page 120 of Love Is: Two Bodies One Soul

Emily’s smiling face collapsed into a scowl. ‘Lexie would say yes. I wish she was here.’

The taxi driver pulled over to the kerb. ‘Will this do you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thanks.’ Owen paid through the gap in the driver’s screen and, switching his phone to his left hand, he took hold of Emi.

‘Come on, cariad. Let’s go find your mummy.’

Even when Owen lifted her into his arms to take her from the cab, Emily continued to frown.

‘You’re late again, Owen.’

Owen turned. Margaret was standing on the pavement, her foot already tapping impatiently. He felt sick. She was always so bloody predictable. Late, late, late! She must have been watching their arrival from the square.

‘Can we go see the tree, please?’ Emily asked, still in her father’s arms, clinging to his neck.

‘No. You’re late,’ Margaret snapped.

‘But I want to.’ Emily clung on more tightly to Owen. ‘Lexie would take me.’

Margaret’s expression darkened.

‘I was hoping there would be time to take Emi to Hamleys,’ Owen said.

‘Well, you can’t. You’re late, and there isn’t time.’

Tears glistened in Emi’s eyes.

Anger flared in Owen. ‘Stop being so petty and trying to make this my fault. The train was late arriving at Victoria – not … my … fault! I got a cab which saved us time, so we’re only minutes late. If we can’t go to Hamleys, then at least be reasonable for a change and let Emi go look at the tree. It’s Christmas, for Grist’s sake.’

‘Give me my daughter.’

‘She’s our daughter, and I want to take her to the tree and Hamleys.’

Margaret snatched at Emily. ‘Give her to me.’ Emi leaned into Owen and grabbed at his hair, holding on for dear life.

‘No … not until you agree we can go to the tree and the shops.’

‘Oh, shops now, is it? Expanding the demands.’

‘No … don’t nit-pick Margaret, just for once think of your daughter’s happiness rather than your personal agenda and crazy fixation with time.’

Margaret’s eyes shot daggers at Owen, but with Emi clinging tightly to him, and he unusually determined to get his own way. There was nothing for her to do but agree. Grudgingly, she said, ‘Yes. All right, tree and then the toy shop but only that shop and only one hour.’

‘Good, thank you,’ Owen said, his anger still simmering.

Emily relaxed her hold on his neck and hair, beaming a watery smile at him.

He placed her gently on the ground, and Margaret seized Emily’s hand.

‘Come on, let’s go, Emily.’

‘Hey, wait!’ Owen said.

Sensing betrayal, the child squealed and pulled back, trying to grab hold of Owen again. Margaret tugged roughly at her daughter, turned away from Owen, and stepped, without looking, into the road.

The scream of a braking vehicle filled Owen’s ears just as he was about to pocket his phone, and he didn’t hear it clatter as it hit the kerb. He saw only his wife, ex-wife, stepping in front of a brewery lorry.

Afterwards, he thought he might have heard the dull thud of a human body hitting hard metal, the whoosh of air being forced by impact out of lungs. But perhaps that was a false memory, because after that it seemed as if someone had cut the sound from his life.

He saw his daughter flying, accompanied by three startled pigeons. She looked like a character from an illustration in a children’s book. He remembered standing over his wife’s lifeless body. Her legs seeming thinner than he remembered, twisted at an unnatural angle. Blood blossomed on the ground in a halo around her head, turning her white-blonde hair red.

Everything had come to a standstill. He thought there was total silence in Trafalgar Square for what seemed like an eternity. The carollers had stopped singing. The traffic was stationary. People were no longer talking. Even the pigeons were silent. Then gradually, the distant sound of traffic on Charing Cross Road broke through as Owen stood in the middle of the mayhem with a sickening sense of hope ending.

He snapped back from the slow-motion horror and ran to his daughter. A crumpled rag doll unconscious on the roof of a taxi.

‘Call an ambulance!’ he shouted. God only knew what had happened to his phone. Only he knew he didn’t have it anymore. He held Emi’s hand. Still warm. Still alive. ‘Please, someone, call an ambulance.’

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