Snow Blind by Richard Blanchard Page A

devotion.
    â€œWhat’s your boy up to now?” I shift us onward.
    â€œHe’s just finishing sixth form. Bepe is so lovely don’t you think?”
    â€œWe had a thing with him at the airport.” I feel as if I have no answers to anything she says. My marbled chocolate cake turns to a warm mush as I push my spoon into it.
    â€œI know Sophia told me, god forbid, god forbid…” She tails off. It’s the first time she has shown any emotion.
    â€œHe just ran out of the airport babe.”
    â€œHe’s a gift you have to protect at all cost.” She can’t help herself barking at me a little.
    â€œWas Ethan’s dad around when he was young?”
    â€œNo. I brought him up on my own. I had nothing to do with his dad back then. My mum helped as much as she could.”
    â€œWas it Tristan’s baby?”
    â€œTristan, why him?” Incredulity forms an L shape frown in between her eyes. She wraps her black hair once more around her left hand and jumps from her seat a little.
    â€œI thought you left me for him.”
    â€œWhy ever did you think that? You thought I ran back to him?” She looked horrified; trying to imagine the twisted truth I had held all these years.
    â€œDo I know him from college?”
    â€œNo. You just don’t know him.” She never partnered anyone easily, so a one-night stand would not sit easily with her.
    â€œYou didn’t have to leave college because of me though.” As well as being wracked with pain I added a large helping of guilt for seemingly driving her out of college.
    â€œIt was for the best. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was too confined…” She has no reservation in re-endorsing her self-release despite the implications for me.
    Our trays are despatched from whence they came. I stretch a little and push my plastic shelf onto the seat in front.
    â€œEthan is my boy and my best friend.”
    â€œBepe was wild with mischief when we came out this morning. But at the end he really didn’t want me to go.” I say with some unexpected pride.
    â€œHe just wants his dad.” Something I have failed at mentally and physically so far.
    â€œI know but there is something in him I don’t understand.”
    â€œDon’t try to unravel it. You have done your shift. You have probably had poo on your hands at 3.30 in the morning like the rest of us, so he just senses you now.” Sophia breast-fed him, which left me comfortable but excluded back in bed. In truth, most of the time he has passed me by. He is shunted from greedy grandparents to a noisy nursery, from a teatime DVD on to a book on his mum’s knee at bedtime. Where have I been?
    â€œHe just needs to know who you are.” There’s the rub. I can start to connect with him through music though. It was my first love, even before you Juliet, could I make it his?
    â€œYeah, I have been thinking about that too.” Since you just mentioned it! “I am compiling a playlist for him to start his musical education, the seven tracks that have meant the most to me in my life.” I am thinking about this really well on the spot.
    â€œSounds like an idea. Think about music that he can listen to though, not the usual obscure post-punk acid-house jazz-funk fusion.” Juliet has always strained to deliver deadpan humour, as it is so unnatural to her; she forces her mouth to curl downward to hide her smile.
    â€œListen, I wanted to say that I am really sorry for what happened to us. There is…”
    â€œThere is no need to apologise babe. You were probably right. Listen, I am just going to work on this playlist if you don’t mind.” I can’t stand the prospect of raking over her reasons. Juliet reluctantly picks up the in-flight magazine and seems to read intently about paper re-cycling in Norway.
    With my headphones re-inserted tenderly, I consider what to call the new playlist