The deluge hit before they reached home. The rain, tropical in its intensity, flattened nettles and grass, bouncing off the hard earth. It soaked through the seams in her jacket and drenched the front of her trousers, making her limbs damp and cold.
Ziggy raced ahead, waited trembling at the gate. Fiona stood a moment, turned her face up and felt the cold, fresh water drumming on her cheeks and her eyelids, sliding down her neck. Lost in the sensation.
She was all right that first day back. More or less. She accepted the words of sympathy, the shared outrage of her colleagues, with a nod and a shake of her head. It must have been awful. That poor child. And his mother. A twin as well. Is it right you’d delivered them? Hands on her arms, on her shoulders, a hug.
She felt a little teary but once she was back doing her visits it passed. One of her mums-to-be showed signs of pre-eclampsia and Fiona organized a hospital admission. Another had worrying levels of sugar in her urine and Fiona recommended she see her GP: it happened to some women and not others, but they needed to consider whether there was any risk of diabetes. She went about her work: changed four nappies on newborns, dressed umbilical stumps, comforted a toddler, gave an anxious mum some help getting the baby to latch on properly and removed stitches from a tear. At each house there were papers and charts to complete. She called at the office at the end of the day. Shelley had checked her schedule and asked for a word.
‘Do you want to swap Carmen Johnson for another second-weeker?’
Carmen Johnson was the woman whose house overlooked the recreation ground. The woman Fiona was with when she saw Danny fall. Carmen was in her second week of motherhood and now only receiving visits every other day. Soon the midwives would stop calling and the health visitor would take over.
‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Fiona said.
‘Just yell,’ Shelley told her.
‘I will.’
Nothing had prepared her for the impact of returning there. As she drove closer she felt her guts cramp and her palms grow hot and sticky. She admonished herself. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t be daft. Take it easy. It’s just a place.’ Fiona tried to empty her mind, let it fill with grey fuzz.
She turned off the dual carriageway alongside the rec. The tent and the police tape were gone but there was a police Portakabin at the northern side of the rectangle. And a splash of colour by a lamppost. Flowers. She should have bought flowers! Her thoughtlessness cut at her. She parked outside Carmen Johnson’s, gathered her bag and case, got out and locked the car.