Peoww! Peoww! Peoww! Blast them swans out of the water, guts and feathers and blood everywhere, looking down their beaks at me and my girl…. .

     They give me the stare, turn, and glide away without making a ripple. Alice bounces up and down, cackling and waving Byebye. Then she gives me the eyes, waggles her mittens and does the seagull noise. I may not live in her world, but I do speak Alice.
“There you go.” She lobs the last of the Mighty White at the ducks, not that they need it, big fat buggers. One of them’d feed a family of six. But there’s something about them that calms her, brings her down from her tree.

      Jesus, it’s cold. Forgot my gloves and I’m paying for it. I scrunch down inside my parka, wriggling frozen toes, trying to remember what warm feels like. But Alice is okay, snug in her charity-shop snowsuit.
It’s all grey. Sky, water, trees, grass….and no bugger here but us. There’s frost on the bushes, grimy city-frost, not the pretty Christmas-card stuff, and mucky ice at the water’s edge where the ducks have paddled. And there’s nowhere to get out of the constant, bastard wind.

     The bread’s all gone, the ducks have waddled off, and Alice goes into the Zone. Howling, kicking, rocking backwards and forwards, almost tipping the pushchair over. She’s way too big for it, but I won’t go begging. Not until I have to. I give her my phone to play with, push buttons, pretend she’s ringing Daddy, Jesus, the man at the corner-shop….and it shuts her up, for a while.

    They chuck us out after breakfast, Benefits scum, better roaming the streets than mucking up their crappy premises. The shopping-centre was okay until I lost it with the Jobsworth git who told me Alice was ‘upsetting the customers.’ And there’s only so long you can hang around Tesco without buying anything. Couple of days, and then Security were tailing us like we were on the rob. When Alice got scared and kicked off, we were ‘asked to leave,’ and not come back. So now it’s the park. Alice can do whatever, laugh like a hyena, scream like a forest-full of monkeys, and nobody cares.

     She’s got this chronic cough. It’s wheezy and rattly, and sometimes she can’t catch her breath. I don’t do doctors anymore. Don’t trust them with Alice. But she’ll be okay once we get out of the wind.
There’s a fiver left til Friday: that’ll buy us a drink and a warm, mebbe a shared buttie, in some caff that’ll put up with us. Pack of nappies, and then Alice’s tea from the chippy. I’d kill for a packet of fags, but I’ll make do with a can or two once she’s in bed, stops my belly churning and helps me drop off. Not that Alice sleeps through…there’ve been complaints. No wonder Mandy couldn’t take it. Hour after hour, day after day, night after endless night….

     There’s a girl, jogging, Christ knows why, in this weather. Tall, slim, black lycra. Classy. Fit. Out of my league. Flashing a smile at Alice, eyes sliding over me and away. I wasn’t always skanky though: she might even have fancied me back in the day, before I turned into stinky, stubbly Oxfam Man. Off she trots, can’t say I blame her, back to her nice life, hair tossing in the wind, and Alice lets out a shriek, the chainsaw one that drills into your brain til you can’t think straight …

     Does Mandy ever think about us? Know where we are, how we live? I don’t care about me, but how can you airbrush your kid? She did, though, and it was down to me to keep us together. There was a day-nursery, but they wouldn’t take Alice because they were ‘Unable to meet her needs.’And thanks to the Cuts, there was nothing else. No-one knows even what’s wrong with her, some ‘sort of Syndrome’. Great. They wanted her in for ‘assessment’…research, more like, take her away and stick needles in her. No way. And besides, they couldn’t mend her. My broken, beautiful girl.
So I signed on. Lost the flat because the landlord ‘wouldn’t entertain ‘doleies’, leaving me and Alice in the b&b shithole.

She’s got bored with the phone, dropped it in the water, so that’ll be knackered. Not that it matters, because who am I going to ring? God? I don’t think so. And I’m bursting for a slash. But Alice is quiet for once, watching some small birds scratching about in the mud. If I move her now, she’ll really go off on one….
“Hello, chickpea! What you on with, eh?”

She plonks herself down on the bench: short, dumpy, bundled up in roly-poly layers like a proper Nan.
“Phaw!” she puffs. “Don’t mind, do you? Take the weight off me shopping!” She’s loaded down with carriers. “Proper perishing, ain’t it?” I smile, but not too much, because when Alice goes into the Zone, people back off fast.

     Alice rips her mitts off and chucks them in the mud. I know full-well there’ll be trouble if I try and replace them. “Here,” says the Nan, “let me.”
“Oh, I don’t think….”
“Nonsense. Can’t have cold handies, can we!” And the mittens are back on, no messing. Alice looks as gobsmacked as me.
The Nan winks. “Years of practise.”
“Thanks! I just didn’t think Alice would…”
“What? Be a good girl? And why wouldn’t she be?”
Alice stares, long and hard, and I hold my breath, waiting for the usual explosion. Instead, she brings out the special smile she’s always kept for me.

The Nan smiles. “There you are then. Kids is kids.” Then Alice has one of her coughing-fits. The Nan roots about in her pocket, hands her a soft, sugary lozenge. “Here you are, chick-pea, suck on that.” Then she leans over, pats my hand. Kind, concerned.“Tired out, ain’t you?
Bone-weary. I nod. Take a deep breath.“Can I ask a favour?”
“Course you can.”
“I wouldn’t usually only…she seems to like you. Will you watch her while I nip to the gents?” I stroke Alice’s face, but she doesn’t look up.
“Off you go, my love. Me and Alice will be fine.”

What have I done? I’ve never left her with anyone….but I’m frozen through, my bladder’s bursting, I’ve got to get out of this wind….
Of course, the toilets are closed, even the Ladies. In the end, I grit my teeth and huddle behind the wall. Is this what I’ve come to, standing in the teeth of a gale, pissing on the frozen ground, just for five minutes’ respite?

The park’s empty, the lake’s deserted. There’s no-one on the bench, no pushchair, no Nan, no Alice.

One of Alice’s pink mitts has fallen under the bench. I pick it up, hold it to my face. It smells of her. And I sit for a bit, watching the wind ruffling the cold water.
The Nan was right. I’m tired, so, so tired. And I can’t do this any more. But, Alice, I tried. I’m a crap Dad, I’m no better than Mandy. Alice doesn’t need me, but at least I know she’ll be all right with The Nan. Loved, warm and well-fed, and that cough will get better.

The first chill cuts like a knife in the guts. But after a bit, it’s not so bad. Funny, that. The deeper you go, the warmer the water..
My trainers are sinking into the mud, jeans water-logged, trailing weed is pulling me down. And the swans appear, circling, beaks at the ready, as I start to flounder, too weak to fight any more, too tired to care. 

Whatever.