Life Line

'Not so bad, thanks. Summer might be on its way today…all right, not a hint of a leaf as yet, but a beautiful blue sky, and a bit of warmth in the sun.'

‘Just the four of us at the moment, Mum…getting the place shipshape for the start of the season…not long to go now.'

'Oh, the usual, you know…a deep clean, check all the equipment, and a lick of paint here and there.'

‘I had a bit of a shock, this morning, though…you know…over what happened last summer…not that I’d really forgotten, of course - you could never completely forget something like that could you, but I’d managed to put it more or less to the back of my mind… I mean, I’ve got to, haven’t I … jobs don’t grow on trees… Anyway, I wasn’t getting so many flashbacks. Thought I could handle it.'

'Well, I went to the swimming pool to clean it out …but just before I got to the gate, I turned and shouted back to Greg that if he brought out a couple of chairs we could have our sandwiches in the sun.'

'So what’s the first thing I see when I finally open the gate? That donkey, that’s what…it gave me a real shock…I don’t know why it was there… it should have been in the creche. Lyndsey does the creche. I don’t need to go in there. '

'Well, it brought it all back, like… I had to come away, didn’t I? I was shaking…and I kept on thinking - what if it’d been Becca…she’s about the same age…what if it’d been her? What would I have said to Jen? I still don’t know how it could have happened, Mum. We’d done all the checks. And now I can’t stop seeing that little ’un again, face down in the pool.'