Page 37 of Milo
He throws his head back and starts to laugh, and I smile because his laughter is so him. Big and bold and full of life.
When he stops laughing, he starts to walk towards the tent where people are registering, and I fall into step beside him.
“It’s so cold,” I say. “I hope she’ll be okay.”
He looks down at Cora. “She’s a snug little bug. She’s fine. She’ll get body heat from you as well.” He looks out over the fields. “I won’t be that long, maybe an hour or so, and you’ve got the keys. Get back in the car if you feel too cold.”
I shake my head. “We’re your cheerleaders. We don’t leave a man behind.”
A smile tugs at his lips. “I think that might be the army.” He offers me a half wave as he wanders to join the queue. Withinseconds he’s started a conversation with the people in front and within a minute they’re laughing. I shrug. It’s so him.
“What a gorgeous baby.”
I turn around to see a stout old woman standing in front of me. She’s dressed in a brown coat and wearing green wellies that look well-worn, unlike my navy ones that Niall gave me this morning. She has a round red face, grey wispy hair plaited and wound around her head, and a small mouth which is pulled very tight. She looks mean and cross.
“Thank you.” I smile tentatively but she doesn’t return the gesture. “She is gorgeous, but I’m probably biased.”
“Ah, is she your first?”
“Oh, she’s not mine. She’s my goddaughter. We’re looking after her while her parents are away.”
“How lovely.” She reaches out an old wrinkled hand and prods Cora’s cheek. Cora looks startled and I resist the urge to move her away because the old lady is just being friendly, even if she does have the same expression on her face as the child snatcher inChitty Chitty Bang Bang. “And you’re carrying her around yourself. Why isn’t your wife doing that, or is she running?”
I blink. “I don’t have a wife.”
“Ah, I’m sure you will.” She gives me a thin-lipped smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Wives are a gift from God to a young man. Stops men from being too wild. You should look for one.”
I blink because that sounded way too evangelical for my taste. And also very rude. She goes to touch Cora again, but I step back under the pretext of banging mud from my boots.
She shoots me a glance but bends and coos at Cora again. “And when are your mummy and daddy coming back?”
“Not mummy,” I say steadily. “She has two daddies instead.”
She freezes and slowly looks up at me with a deeper red starting to mottle her cheeks. “This child has two men forfathers?” I nod. For a long minute there’s silence and then she grimaces as if she’s going to be sick. “That’s absolutely disgusting,” she hisses. I’m so taken aback that I can’t speak. Instead I cradle Cora protectively and step back, but it doesn’t stop her. “I cannot stand that.Two menhaving a child. It’s against nature and God. Social services should be called in at once.”
Her voice is rising and people are beginning to stare. Cora startles and I soothe her, feeling anger run through me. How dare this bigoted old lady say such things?
“Last I heard, social services don’t use the Bible as a handbook.” She opens and shuts her mouth, looking like a fat, grey fish. “And I really think that G-God has a lot more things to be bothered about, like your terrible dress sense and the fact that you d-don’t appear to have changed your hairstyle since 1975.”
I come to a stop, the flurried, stuttering words dying away to a stunned silence. Taking advantage of it, I turn around and stop dead. Niall is standing there, his arms folded across his chest and a fierce, proud look in his eyes.
“How long have you been there?”
“Enough time to wonder if Oswald Mosley’s mother needs to take her medication,” he says in a loud voice. I hear a huff, and when I look around, the woman is marching away. I turn back to Niall.
“You didn’t feel like you should jump in?” I ask incredulously.
He shrugs. “Why should I? You were handling it fine. Will you pin my number on my shirt?”
The abrupt change of subject makes me blink, but I hasten to do it. But as I’m pinning and smoothing my mind is teeming. I may have stuttered, but I stood up for Cora and Oz and Silas, and for the first time in a long while I feel a tiny part of the pre-Thomas Milo start to unfurl. It’s quiet and sleepy but it’s stillthere, and I feel a soft thrumming in my blood, like I’m waking up from a long sleep.
After we’ve accompanied Niall to the starting line, Cora and I stand back, watching as a very energetic woman in tight running gear leads the runners in a pre-run warm-up. I look around curiously.
The run is taking place across several fields, so I can’t see all of the jumps. Apparently spectators can follow alongside the runners, but I’ve seen Niall in action before and the only way I’m keeping pace with him is if I attach motorised skates to my feet. What I can see are hay bales set up as obstacles and some sort of massive climbing wall which has ropes attached. I shudder slightly. It’s like some sort of fucked-up sports day.
I turn when I hear the very peppy lady starting the countdown as the runners jog on the spot. There’s a palpable air of excitement in the air and it makes me smile. I search for Niall in the crowd and jerk when I see him. Instead of jumping around, he’s an oasis of stillness standing staring at me. For a second, it’s like I have tunnel vision and there’s just him in this busy field. Then the starting pistol goes off and the crowd surges forward. My mouth tilts up in a tentative smile and he grins back, touching his fingers to his forehead in a salute before turning gracefully and merging into the crowd.
I stride past some spectators to the edge marked out by yellow waist-high rope. The runners pass me in flashes of colour and noise and suddenly he’s there, jogging easily, his body moving smoothly. His face has a huge smile on it, full of life and enjoyment, and it makes me laugh. He looks up and his grin widens and then he’s gone.
