Summer at 23 the Strand. Linda Mitchelmore

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      ‘Oh, it’s a seal!’ Cally said.

      She leapt up and went to the boys, lifting them down to take them to the side of the boat where they’d see the seal.

      The captain came over the tannoy to tell them that this seal loved to swim up to boats and catch any fish thrown to it.

      ‘And I just happen to have some mackerel here!’ he laughed. ‘And I can see two little boys who would be very good at feeding seals, I should think.’

      ‘Me! Me!’ Noah and Riley yelled in unison.

      Jack came up behind Cally and put his arms around all of them, and her awkward moment had passed.

      Another memory was being made for her boys and she must relish the moment.

      ‘And to answer your question,’ Cally said, leaning in to him. ‘I’m not missing the internet. Not one bit.’ And she wasn’t, because she knew now that it had only been fuelling her fears – a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as the old adage had it. She wriggled in closer to Jack, the slight frostiness that had been between them melting a little.

      ‘Good,’ Jack whispered in her ear. ‘That’s music to my ears.’

      But still Cally couldn’t find it in her to tell Jack what was worrying her. She found that the best way not to have to tell him was to have the boys around all the time. When Noah wanted to paddle but Riley didn’t, Cally went with him. Even though she could have reached out and grabbed him from where she’d been sitting had he fallen.

      ‘The sea is sucking my feet,’ Noah giggled. ‘Look, they’re disappearing!’

      Cally looked. As the tide pulled back out again, leaving the sand full of water, Noah’s small and perfect feet sank down, the tops covered with a sheen of water.

      ‘Do you like it?’ Cally asked.

      ‘I love it, Mummy,’ Noah said. ‘It tickles. I like tickles.’

      ‘In that case…’

      Cally bent down and tickled Noah, making him squirm, making him laugh. And she found she was laughing too. A genuine laugh. Making memories for Noah.

      ‘Can we live here?’ Noah asked. ‘I like it here.’

      ‘We can come back,’ Cally said. ‘Maybe,’ she whispered under her breath. Then in a louder voice she said, ‘Yes. Yes, we will.’

      ‘The zoo today, boys,’ Jack said, lifting Riley onto his shoulders ready to board the bus. An open-top bus ran a round robin service. Cally and her family scrambled up to the top deck and sat in the two front seats – Cally with Noah, Jack with Riley.

      ‘Grandstand view,’ Jack said as the bus made its way past the pier.

      ‘Will there be whales?’ Noah asked.

      ‘Where?’ Jack said.

      ‘At the zoo.’

      ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Although the man who took us out on the boat the other day when we saw the seal said they do get a whale come into the bay sometimes.’

      ‘See whales now!’ Riley shouted, and Cally and Jack shushed him in unison.

      ‘But there will be crocodiles,’ Cally said. ‘At the zoo.’

      ‘Crocodiles!’ Noah shouted, looking terrified and yet thrilled beyond belief in equal measure.

      ‘Crocodiles!’ Riley emulated his big brother.

      ‘Definitely,’ Cally said.

      ‘Sing the song!’ Riley yelled. ‘Sing the song!’

      One of the songs Riley loved from the playgroup he went to two mornings a week was about a crocodile.

      ‘You must never smile at a crocodile, ’cos a crocodile has got an evil smile,’ Cally began to sing softly, almost a whisper.

      But the boys had other ideas and began to sing the song, with wild facial gestures and much snapping of arms to indicate a crocodile’s jaws, very loudly.

      Jack looked slightly embarrassed at the noise his sons were making.

      ‘Sorry,’ Cally mouthed at him.

      ‘Nah,’ Jack said. ‘It’s all right. We’ll let this one go. I expect there’ve been worse things on the top deck of a bus!’

      And so the boys made more than a few repetitions of the crocodile song, and when they got to the zoo, Jack bought bags of special food for them to feed the animals and birds. Cally burst out laughing when Noah showed more interest in the locks and bolts on the gates of the pens than he did in the animals inside them.

      ‘He’s going to be an engineer,’ she said.

      ‘I should hope so,’ Jack said. ‘Or I’m a rotten role model.’

       And could you take on the role of mother, if…?

      Cally knew the answer to that – yes, he could.

      Like all small children when they saw a big, empty space, Noah and Riley wanted to run into it. The paths in the zoo were wide and, at this time of year, not as crowded as they would be in the summer holidays with more children about.

      ‘When do we lose the ability to be so uninhibited?’ Jack asked. ‘Look at them!’

      Noah and Riley were tearing around on their sturdy little legs, their blond curls blown every which way by the light breeze and their frantic activity. They were both squealing with delight, making car noises. Cally wished she could rush off in the sort of gay abandon Noah and Riley were achieving. Perhaps the lump would go if it knew she didn’t care about it, that she wasn’t going to let it get her.

      ‘Bang, bang,’ Riley said. He had found a stick from somewhere and was pointing it at Noah. ‘I deaded you.’

       Dead.

      Cally’s blood ran cold at Riley’s innocent choice of word in a game all children played, however much she might not like them playing it.

      ‘How happy they are,’ Jack said.

      And they were. Cally took her phone from her bag and began taking photos. Lots of photos to go with those she’d already taken on this holiday. More memories. If…

      ‘It’s going to cost an arm and a leg getting that lot developed,’ Jack laughed.

      Cally still loved to hold a photograph in her hand, rather than look at it on a screen, which was the norm these days. Already she had about six large albums full of photographs of the boys.

      ‘Some things are priceless,’ she said softly.

      Jack linked his arm through Cally’s.

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