Heat Wave by Penelope Lively Page B

in.’
    ‘Actually I’ve been thinking that when Luke’s old enough to start at a nursery I’ll take on some commissions again. I could be working part-time at least. Unless I have another baby.’
    Pauline eyes her. ‘Unless …’ she agrees, non-committal.
    ‘I’d rather two than one, really.’
    Pauline says that two is not a bad idea.
    Teresa now looks warily at her mother. There is something
unstated that hovers, that has perhaps hovered before. ‘Did you ever …’ she begins.
    ‘Whoops!’ exclaims Pauline. Luke has dropped his piece of anchovy toast. He wails. There is a flurry of consolation and substitution. The moment passes.
    And it is time to meet up with the rest of the party. Pauline and Teresa leave the tea shop. Luke is put back into his buggy, protesting – he has other plans, it seems, and there is a tussle as Teresa straps him in. They walk back up the village street to the agreed meeting place outside the wood craft shop where they stand for a few minutes until Maurice, James and Carol appear, all smiles, evidently well pleased.
    ‘It was
really
kitsch,’ says Carol. ‘I loved it. Like doll’s houses – you wanted to get inside and live there. Tiny oil lamps on the tables and a little mangle with a sheet in it, and a miniature washing-tub. Heaven!’
    ‘Exactly what you were meant to feel,’ says Maurice. ‘I quite agree – it was entirely satisfactory. A perfect instance of the diminution of the past for purposes of touristic exploitation. Quite literally, in this instance.’
    Carol giggles. ‘Well, it exploited me all right. There was this cricket match,’ she tells Teresa and Pauline, ‘with miniature deck chairs for the spectators and little figures in white flannels.’
    ‘Don’t forget the four-inch bats,’ says James. ‘And the ball. And the real grass.’
    ‘Where’s Luke?’ says Pauline sharply.
    The buggy is empty. They have been standing in a group as they talked. Teresa had her back to the buggy, one hand upon the handle. A party of French schoolchildren has just jostled past. The pavement is crowded on all sides.
    Teresa freezes. Then she darts frantically off. Pauline follows. She hears Maurice shout, ‘We’ll go and look the other way.’
    Pauline glances again at the empty buggy. She sees the straps hanging loose and remembers that earlier tussle. During which, presumably, Teresa failed to click home the catch so that it has fallen open, enabling Luke to climb out.
    It is a full minute before they see him. A long full minute. He is
between two parked cars, holding himself steady on a bumper. In the instant that they catch sight of him, he loses his grip on the bumper, falls to his knees, picks himself up and staggers out into the road, into the traffic which passes in a steady stream.
    He is fifteen yards or so away. It is not Pauline or Teresa who reaches him but a man who shoots suddenly from the pavement, a middle-aged stranger who grabs Luke by an arm at the moment that a car swerves past him. When they get there Luke is crying and the man has picked him up and is awkwardly holding him. The first thing that he says is ‘Sorry …’ – presumably on account of Luke’s screams.
    Teresa takes Luke. She is shaking so much that she cannot speak. It is Pauline who says the things that should be said to the man. He is deprecating, he shrugs, he doesn’t want too much made of this. ‘All’s well that ends well,’ he says. And then he melts away.
    They hurry back the way they came. Pauline sees Maurice’s back view. She shouts. He turns. He comes towards them. James and Carol too arrive from somewhere. ‘Oh good – you’ve found him,’ cries Carol.
    Maurice is rattled. Or rather, he has been rattled – distinctly rattled. But now that he sees everything is all right he is instantly restored. ‘How did that happen?’ he asks Teresa. ‘Don’t tell me he’s learnt to undo those straps.’
    Teresa does not reply. She stands there holding Luke and