Back in London, this time with my 14-month-old girl. She’s now sampled all the local swings and has given the thumbs up on the playground on the edge of St James Park, within firing distance of Buckingham Palace. I wonder if that’s why the police keep pulling up their horses and warily eyeing the busy mothers attending to their toddlers. What exactly are they looking for? A toddler with a sniper hidden under its anorak (spring began here a few days ago with a flurry of snow)…? Beneath squeals of delight, including those of my daughter Beattie, I sense a tow of anxiety. It’s not just the hard nosed scrutiny from the constabulary, but the gun metal helicopter hovering in the one spot a few hundred feet above us like some monstrous hummingbird. The children are oblivious to these expressions of paranoia, preoccupied with a giant sandpit, swings and kinetic play sculptures. I too try to dismiss the noise, the disturbances. But I find that my eye is wandering, watchfully, monitoring the environs. A brown paper bag sits upright on a concrete ledge nearby. It looks empty from where I am. My eye flits around it, looking for other signs. I dismiss it; move on. I don’t actually flirt with thoughts about bombs and attacks, but everything around me - the armed police, the security barriers, the CTC cameras – gives off a sense of foreboding; terrorism has already struck the city and is likely to strike again.
Beattie finally relinquishes the swing and only gently struggles against being lowered into her stroller. We walk across the green lawn peppered with daffodils and crocuses, bathed in the first real sunshine since arriving. Squirrels scamper around us, digging up and burying their acorn and nut stores. At a glance, they remind me of nimble rats, but nevertheless I lure them up to the stroller. Thankfully, Beattie is more interested in the wood pigeons and a pair of fat robins twittering in some low bushes. We exit the park and follow the road round St James Station and past New Scotland Yard. Black uniforms prowl the strip in front of the building, guns out. A gentleman nods hello; a lady congratulates them for doing such a marvellous job (I wonder what she means exactly). Beattie slumps in her cushioned seat, looking as imperious as ever, opening and closing her hand, giving the Queen’s wave. We pass by unnoticed.