Walking to the Moon by Kate Cole-Adams

arms and temples. Even now, weeks after the accident, the skin of his arms is a soft brown, the muscles clearly defined. Laura takes a step forward, hesitates, glances at the doctor, her husband, her son, and speaks.
    â€˜Is this necessary? I really don’t see—’ she begins, ignoring Paul Orzasky, who frowns, and opens his mouth as if to remonstrate. Perhaps he does. At the same moment Hugh lifts his face now towards the ceiling, arches his neck, opens his mouth and lets out a cry so loud it startles the pigeons on Viv’s elm, a band of sound so clear and wide it might have come from a trumpet, a horn, a conch. Steadily he opens his arms, pushing Dr Orzasky’s apart and finally away, all the time holding that long, pure note that keeps on and on, fading at last with the breath, only to be followed by another, and another.
    *
    Afterwards I go downstairs. In the garden, a young woman sits on a wooden bench with a pram in front of her, the child propped and plump. The woman pulls the pram close and then pushes it out to arm’s length, the baby laughing in hiccoughs of delight as it comes close again. ‘Bah,’ says the woman, and the pram goes back. ‘Bah, bah,’ a breath in his face each time they are near.
    â€˜Bah,’ says the baby, and then, ‘ba ba.’
    The woman’s face pulls to an expression of delight. She claps her hands. ‘That’s right,’ she says, pointing at his chest, ‘Bubba.
    Bubba.’
    â€˜Bubba,’ says the child again, beaming, and claps his hands.
    â€˜Bubba. That’s right. You’re the bubba. My beautiful, clever Bubba.’
    To reach the gate I have to walk past them and, as I approach, the woman looks up for a moment and includes me in her smile.
    â€˜Bubba,’ she says again, as I pass.
    Anna comes by unexpectedly the next afternoon, while I am napping. She taps lightly at the door and enters without waiting for an answer. ‘Hello Jess, how are you? The doctor tells me you’re doing well.’
    â€˜That’s nice of him,’ I say, raising myself only slightly in the bed. ‘I’m not feeling very well.’ It’s true. My lower back aches. My head feels spongy, unreceptive.
    â€˜Why do you think that is?’ she asks, pulling the chair by my bed around so that she is facing me.
    â€˜I don’t know.’ I shrug and hunch further down into the bedding. ‘I just feel sick. I think I might be getting some sort of flu again.’
    â€˜It’s that time of year.’ She nods. ‘A few of my clients are feeling under the weather. Have you sorted out what you’re going to do when you leave here?’
    â€˜No, not yet. I—’ ‘So, you’ve got some decisions to make, then.’
    â€˜I just need to be really well before I—’ ‘Jess, there are always plenty of viruses around. That’s life.
    That’s what your GP’s for.’
    â€˜I just don’t think I’m quite well enough.’
    â€˜It’s time to go home, Jess.’
    She says it quite gently, not taking her eyes from mine.
    â€˜You have a child to look after.’

A long time ago, at a dinner party in a house with harbour views, I found myself sitting next to a man who turned out to be a psychiatrist. It was the first formal dinner party I had been to, the men in suits, the women, even me, in expensive dresses and the table set with three knives, one for fish. The man I had come with, who I would shortly marry, was seated on the other side of the table, at the far end. From time to time he would glance up and smile quickly and reassuringly, but from where I was sitting I could barely even hear his voice above the others. I did not know which wine glass to use. I did not know what to drink. The host, who was tall and tanned and looked as if he played tennis, offered me a selection of whites, and I could feel my mouth open and close two or three times,