throughout three square inches of naked face. I pulled him out, cheek to cheek and held him until he began rabbiting away at my ear, while Bunty, platform soles chugging, made across the park after the attendant.
After five minutes she came back red-faced with a stitch and a crumpled park jacket, found on the grass. The man had disappeared. ‘Isn’t that something else?’ said the older of the two cardplayers. standing with his table-cloth clasped to his waistcoat. ‘The judge give you custody, they’ve got no right to do that.’ He picked up a jack of hearts in full beaver and chucked the gasping Benedict under the chin with it. ‘You stick to your Momma there, girlie. You gonna call the fuzz?’
I looked at Bunty. ‘Are we going to call the fuzz?’
But we didn’t have to telephone anybody, as Charlie arrived with the police just as we got back to the six yelling children, and from then on, it was nothing but questions. They finished with the other girls first. I said to Bunty, ‘If expressions of gratitude come into the picture, Sultry Simon ought to give you one for running after the bastard.’
‘Shucks,’ said Bunty agreeably. ‘I only wanted to ask him to take Grover and Sukey next time. That’s our duplex, on top of the newest block there. Come and have a drink when you’re off next. Tomorrow?’
We fixed it. Then she and Charlie went off while I led the fuzz out of the park and past the notice board through which the Carl Schurz addresses its visitors.
It said:
ENJOY
Run Hop Skip Jump Litter Skate Leap Laugh Giggle Wiggle Jog Romp Swing Slide Frolic Climb Bicycle Stretch Read Relax Imbibe Play Sleep.
I forbore to go back and mark in KIDNAP. Who reads notice boards?
FOUR
I didn’t need to wonder whether to phone Johnson on the day of the snatch: Rosamund did it for me. In one sitting, he seemed to have made quite an impression. She got on the phone as soon as the police had left us and so did I, on the upstairs extension.
Johnson’s voice was sympathetic but not burning with eagerness. His advice was to phone Simon and hire a bodyguard.
My employer’s tones, on the other hand, were resonant with self-pity. ‘Your little Joanna, you know, was hired to look after this child twenty-four hours a day. Do you suppose she’s too young, or wrapped up in boyfriends or what? The Mallards’ girl is a nymphomaniac.’
I was interested because it was practically true. Charlotte really has the best contacts at home and abroad of any person I know. I waited to be told more about myself, but instead Rosamund went on to ask if Johnson wouldn’t move in to finish painting her. She’d feel better, she said, with a man in the house.
Johnson said he couldn’t, and wasn’t Simon due home tomorrow and really he advised very strongly hiring a short-term bodyguard. Some people snatched babies on impulse. It might never happen again.
Rosamund rang off and so did I. I was almost as annoyed with him as Rosamund was.
Benedict cried off and on through the night and by midday had worked himself into a heat rash and got both his sleeping times and his eating times so muddled up that it wasn’t worth taking him out. I cooled him off and dabbed on some lotion and surveyed him with a purely clinical satisfaction.
A new, dark stubble was joining the two patches of long silky hair over his ears and his chin was advancing. He didn’t squint any longer. The previous week, he had smiled for the first time, but I hadn’t mentioned it. Tradition requires that the first smile is always for the mother.
Later, preparing to take my afternoon off, I felt that somehow she wasn’t going to get it today. I laid out the feeds, the written instructions, the fresh clothes, the nappies, the spare sheets and everything else that in four hours might become of urgent necessity and, leaving Rosamund and her offspring glaring at one another, departed next door to the block of luxury flats that contained Bunty Cole and
After five minutes she came back red-faced with a stitch and a crumpled park jacket, found on the grass. The man had disappeared. ‘Isn’t that something else?’ said the older of the two cardplayers. standing with his table-cloth clasped to his waistcoat. ‘The judge give you custody, they’ve got no right to do that.’ He picked up a jack of hearts in full beaver and chucked the gasping Benedict under the chin with it. ‘You stick to your Momma there, girlie. You gonna call the fuzz?’
I looked at Bunty. ‘Are we going to call the fuzz?’
But we didn’t have to telephone anybody, as Charlie arrived with the police just as we got back to the six yelling children, and from then on, it was nothing but questions. They finished with the other girls first. I said to Bunty, ‘If expressions of gratitude come into the picture, Sultry Simon ought to give you one for running after the bastard.’
‘Shucks,’ said Bunty agreeably. ‘I only wanted to ask him to take Grover and Sukey next time. That’s our duplex, on top of the newest block there. Come and have a drink when you’re off next. Tomorrow?’
We fixed it. Then she and Charlie went off while I led the fuzz out of the park and past the notice board through which the Carl Schurz addresses its visitors.
It said:
ENJOY
Run Hop Skip Jump Litter Skate Leap Laugh Giggle Wiggle Jog Romp Swing Slide Frolic Climb Bicycle Stretch Read Relax Imbibe Play Sleep.
I forbore to go back and mark in KIDNAP. Who reads notice boards?
FOUR
I didn’t need to wonder whether to phone Johnson on the day of the snatch: Rosamund did it for me. In one sitting, he seemed to have made quite an impression. She got on the phone as soon as the police had left us and so did I, on the upstairs extension.
Johnson’s voice was sympathetic but not burning with eagerness. His advice was to phone Simon and hire a bodyguard.
My employer’s tones, on the other hand, were resonant with self-pity. ‘Your little Joanna, you know, was hired to look after this child twenty-four hours a day. Do you suppose she’s too young, or wrapped up in boyfriends or what? The Mallards’ girl is a nymphomaniac.’
I was interested because it was practically true. Charlotte really has the best contacts at home and abroad of any person I know. I waited to be told more about myself, but instead Rosamund went on to ask if Johnson wouldn’t move in to finish painting her. She’d feel better, she said, with a man in the house.
Johnson said he couldn’t, and wasn’t Simon due home tomorrow and really he advised very strongly hiring a short-term bodyguard. Some people snatched babies on impulse. It might never happen again.
Rosamund rang off and so did I. I was almost as annoyed with him as Rosamund was.
Benedict cried off and on through the night and by midday had worked himself into a heat rash and got both his sleeping times and his eating times so muddled up that it wasn’t worth taking him out. I cooled him off and dabbed on some lotion and surveyed him with a purely clinical satisfaction.
A new, dark stubble was joining the two patches of long silky hair over his ears and his chin was advancing. He didn’t squint any longer. The previous week, he had smiled for the first time, but I hadn’t mentioned it. Tradition requires that the first smile is always for the mother.
Later, preparing to take my afternoon off, I felt that somehow she wasn’t going to get it today. I laid out the feeds, the written instructions, the fresh clothes, the nappies, the spare sheets and everything else that in four hours might become of urgent necessity and, leaving Rosamund and her offspring glaring at one another, departed next door to the block of luxury flats that contained Bunty Cole and
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