The Other Hand

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    It would be a long story to explain why I did not like to leave Charlie like that.
    “I have to go,” I said.
    I turned away from the magazine seller and I walked back across the bridge with heavy steps.
    When I got back to the place where the three of them were standing, Sarah turned and smiled at me.
    “Where did you disappear to?” she said.
    I shrugged. “Nowhere.”
    I looked down at the river. Something swam close to the bank but it did not break the surface. All you could see were the swirls in the water where it passed beneath. I looked at Sarah and she looked back at me and we found that we could not smile anymore.
    “What’s wrong?” She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry. Is all this water reminding you of the beach?”
    I said, “It is only water.”
    Charlie was pulling my hand. He wanted to play, so we went down some stone steps that were slimy with some green river plant, down to a thin strip of yellow sand at the edge of the river. There were other children down there too, wearing just their underwear in the hot sun, building sand castles with their mothers and their fathers. We built sand castles too. We built towers and bridges. We built roads, railway lines, and schools. Then we built a hospital for injured superheroes and a hospital for sick bats, because Charlie said his city needed these things. Charlie was concentrating very hard. I said to him, Do you want to take off your Batman costume? But he shook his head.
    “I am worried about you. You will be exhausted by this heat. Come on, aren’t you too hot in your costume?”
    “Yes but if I is not in mine costume then I is not Batman.”
    “Do you need to be Batman all the time?”
    Charlie nodded. “Yes, because if I is not Batman all the time then mine Daddy dies.”
    Charlie looked down at the sand. He squeezed his fists so tight that I could see the small white bones of his knuckles through the skin.
    “Charlie,” I said. “You think your daddy died because you were not Batman?”
    Charlie looked up. Through the dark eye holes of his bat mask, I could see the tears in his eyes.
    “I was at mine nursery,” he said. “That’s when the baddies got mine Daddy.”
    His lip trembled. I pulled him toward me and I held him while he cried. I stared over his shoulder at the cold black drainage tunnels that disappeared into the tall stone wall of the river embankment. I stared into the black mouth of one of them, as wide as myshoulders across, but all I could see was Andrew spinning slowly round on the electrical cord with his eyes watching me each time he revolved. The look in his eyes was the look of those black tunnels: there was no end to them.
    “Listen Charlie,” I said. “Your daddy did not die because you were not there. It is not your fault. Do you understand? You are a good boy, Charlie. It is not your fault at all.”
    Charlie pulled himself out of my arms and looked at me.
    “Why did mine Daddy die?”
    I thought about it.
    “The baddies got him, Charlie. But they are not the sort of baddies Batman can fight. They are the sort of baddies that your daddy had to fight in his heart and I have to fight in my heart. They are baddies from inside.”
    Charlie nodded. “Is there lots?”
    “Of what?”
    “Of baddies from inside?”
    I looked at the dark tunnels, and I shivered.
    “Everyone has them,” I said.
    “Will we beat them?”
    I nodded. “Of course we will.”
    “And they won’t get me, will they?”
    I smiled. “No, Charlie, I don’t think those baddies will ever get you.”
    “And they won’t get you either, will they?”
    I sighed.
    “Charlie, there are no baddies here by the river. We are on an adventure, okay? Maybe you can take one day off from being Batman.”
    Charlie frowned, as if this was another trick of his enemies.
    “Batman is always Batman,” he said.
    I laughed, and we went back to building the city out of sand. I put a big handful on top of a pile that Charlie said was a multistory Batmobile park.
    “Sometimes I wish I could take one day off from being Little Bee,” I said.
    Charlie looked up at me. A drop of sweat fell from inside his bat mask. “Why?”
    “Well, you see, it was hard to become Little Bee. I had to go through a lot of things. They kept me in prison and I had to train myself to think in a certain way, and to be strong, and to speak your language the way you people speak it. It is even an effort now just to keep it going. Because inside, you know, I am