What Goes Around... (23 page)

Will a pill clean my house, will it sort out the money, will it put everything back as it was?

I read on though, I know that there’s something wrong with me.

I read about bi-polar and mania and I want some of that – I want some energy back.

In fact, I realise, I have some.

It’s an angry energy though.

I am so angry with him today, so angry with him for leaving me.

I start cleaning, except it doesn’t soothe me.

It’s his birthday.

It’s all right for him, cold and dead in the ground.

It’s
all right for him, resting in peace.

While I have to carry on.

I hate him.

Not just for leaving me.

But for what he did to me when he was here.

And, I decide, I’m going to tell him so.

Gloria

I get some flowers, which is a bit of chore, because there are all these adverts about not leaving kids in the car, so I can’t even nip into the shop – n
o, I have to haul out her pushchair.

It’s one of those jogging ones.

Noel bought it for Eleanor when she told him that she was pregnant.

Me, with a jogging pushchair
!

It’s embarrassing.

Still, once I've strapped her in and bought the flowers, it's easier to walk to the cemetery than to get back in the car. Beryl says I should walk more and I know that I haven't done enough exercise this week.

We walk up the hill. Daisy's asleep and I think of all the chocolate I’m earning but it shouldn't be like that should it? I should be thinking of him instead of food.

Why do I always think about food?

Why, when I'm walking to the cemetery to visit my late ex-husband, instead of thinking about our marriage, our kids, about heaven and God, instead I'm thinking about a Walnut Whip.

Instead of thinking about God and an afterlife, and this great plan that we are not privy to, and the ground that he lies decomposing in, I can see myself biting the head off that Walnut Whip and getting to the goo in the middle.

There's a shop on the corner and surely after puffing
up that hill I've earned one?

Maybe it's the
pushchair, because I'm almost jogging. I can taste that sickly fondant and it’s so much sweeter than my thoughts. I don't want to think about him dead in the ground, I don't want to think that all it comes to is that.

I look down and Daisy’s awake now but she’s quiet, enjoying
the motion. She's just lying quietly, her little rosebud mouth smiling and I don't want to disturb her, I don't want the movement to stop, so I push past the shop and the Walnut Whip and I’m running up that hill and I’m crying.

I don't know why.

He’s not my husband to mourn.

I’ve been a single parent for years, so why am I so scared of being one now?

Because I really am the only one there for them.

What will happen if I'm gone?

I hate the cemetery.

I slow down to a walk but I still want to run.

I hate walking past the plaques and the stones with the names and dates. To get to his, you have to walk past the baby bit and I just want to close my eyes but I look at Daisy instead. She's blowing bubbles and smiling and waving a hand in front of her face. She’s so innocent and happy and oblivious to the pain that inevitably comes.

Her hair’s really growing. Rose is coming over this afternoon to show me how to look after it but it should be Eleanor doing this.

Bloody Eleanor.

Why won’t she grow up and take charge of her life?

Yes, she’s on tablets now. Yes, she’s getting on better with Noel.

But what about Daisy?

I'm really crying now.

I was stupid to come, I’ve gone and upset myself. I’m just going to quickly put these flowers on his grave and then turn around and go home and I’m going to have my Walnut Whip on the walk back…

Then I see something I shouldn't.

Something p
rivate.

Something she wouldn't want me to see.

For the first time I don't want to kill her.

Lucy must have put on two stone (I’m quite good at gauging these things now since I joined my slimming club) and she's certainly not the natural blonde that she would have us believe
that she is, because she's got inches of roots.

Maybe she’s just been riding
, because she’s wearing boots and she’s filthy.

Her face is brick red and she's all bloated and she's crying, though not like I was crying just before. She's crying in a way I haven't for a long time. She’s crying like I did in those dark months after he left, when the kids were all out, when I had the place to myself…

Remember at the hospital, when I saw Charlotte?

Remember how I wanted to wrap my arms around her and take away the pain?

How I felt as if she were mine, that she was a part of me?

That's how I feel this moment. I want to take Lucy home and look after
her. I want to tell her that it gets better, that she shall get through this.

I know her pain.

I recognise it.

I’ve felt it.

But I don't understand this surge of compassion.

She stole my husband I remind myself, as I turn the pushchair around. She caused my babies so much pain. I look down at Daisy who is starting to cry and I remember that that bitch screwed her father as well; she fucked with my daughter’s marriage too.

Daisy’s really crying as we go down the hill. It’s rare for Daisy – she’s such a happy natured baby.

She's crying though and carrying on so much that I don't even stop and get my Walnut Whip.

I get home and sort out Daisy and then I put the flowers in a vase to brighten up the living room but they don’t make me feel any better. It’s there, it’s still there rising up in my chest - the loathing and anger is still there. I want to pour cool water, I want to be a better person, to be forgiving and calm and to care.

Except, I don’t want to care about Lucy.

I pick up the flowers and I take them outside and I bin them.

Fuck you, Lucy!

Lucy

I drop Charlotte off at Simone’s for a sleepover and then Jess rings to see if I’m okay and if she and Luke can come over.

I tell her I just want to be alone.

I do.

I head to the supermarket and then I change my mind and head for home.

I think of the cupboards and freezer all groaning.

It’s all waiting for me there too.

I know that I’m going to do it, so I turn around and go back to the supermarket.

I might as well get what I want.

Tomorrow.

I’ll start properly tomorrow.

I mean it.

Just once, I decide.

I haven’t done it in ages and this really is the last time.

Charlotte’s safely out of the way.

I make up a long convoluted story in the chemist
’s.

‘My husband is having an IVP tomorrow and I can’t find the tablet, the laxative
, that he was told to take.’

What are you doing Lucy? Your husband is dead. Why are you making up a story?

Why don’t I just bung them in my basket?

Why do I have to make things so complicated?

I just do.

My hand closes in relief around the lovely packet.

Then it’s in to the supermarket. I get a trolley and finally I’m shopping for me.

Not for work.

Not for Charlotte.

Not the healthy meals I used to make for him.

I’m shopping for me.

Vanilla
ice cream.

A good one this time, not the crap I used to buy when I was home alone with Mum.

Then off to buy Maltesers and Crunchies and Snickers and Flakes. I’ve got Baileys at home.

I add a mud cake to my trolley.

I’ve got the black forest gateaux all cut up and in the freezer and if I pull it out as soon as I get home it will be ready if I need it.

I know that I won’t cook sauces – I won’t have time for that, so I go to the
ice cream sauce aisle.

I haven’t been here for years – I mean – not for me.

He caught me once when Charlotte was about six months old. It was the most shameful moment of my life, well, at that time, it was the most shameful moment of my life, and I stopped then.

We’ve never had
ice cream in the house since.

But I’m having it now.

I come to this aisle maybe fifty times a day for work but I just sort of zone out, or I try to.

Except I
notice.

There are ice cream sauce
s that you can warm in the microwave now – butterscotch and chocolate. Jess really didn’t need to go to all that trouble.

My trolley is groaning but
, so that the check out lady thinks I’m having a party, and not about to go on a bender, I add candles too.

‘Having a party?’ s
he says as she slides my purchases through.

Perfect!

I mash the Snickers and Crunchie
s and stir in the Maltesers and I break up the mud cake. I don’t use gloves as I stir it in but I’ve forgotten the Baileys. I go and get it and see my smeary hand print on the sideboard and I’ll wipe it off later. I put it into the biggest bowl and then I shove it in the freezer and I just have to wait.

But I can’t.

Just wait Lucy.

I swallow a handful of laxatives and then a few more to be sure.

I can see the answer machine flashing as I wipe down the benches and I remember my mobile was ringing as I mixed the ice cream too but I ignore it.

There’s no way I can have a conversation now.

I forgot cream!

Shit! I like cream with my ice cream
and I’m just about out to head out when the doorbell rings.

I ignore it.

Then I hear the key in the door and for a second I think it’s him coming home, that he’s going to catch me again.

‘Charlotte?’

‘Sorry to startle you,’ Simone smiles. ‘We tried calling.’

Charlotte’s let herself in with her key. She’s all droopy. ‘She doesn’t feel well,’ Simone explains.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I was just in the laundry. I didn’t hear you.’

I see her glance around.

The house is tidy - at least the hall is.

‘Thanks so much Simone.’

No, she won’t stop for tea, she says when I offer, she’s got a full house.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask Charlotte once Simone has gone but she shrugs me off and heads up to her room.

I follow her in.

‘What’s wrong?’ I put my hand on her forehead and it feels cool.

‘I just don’t feel well.’

‘Charlotte?’

‘Just leave me.’ She shrugs me off again. ‘I just want to go to bed.’

There’s something wrong, there’s something going on.

I just don’t know what it is.

She won’t talk.

Though, if I’m honest, even if she did, I’m not sure that I’d hear it.

I’ve got a freezer full of ice cream cake waiting for me and I simply can’t ignore it.

It’s not an attractive thing, so I’m
not going to go into detail.

The important point is – I’ve forgotten the cream.

I don’t want Charlotte waking up and me not to be there.

As I’m waiting for the freezer to do its job with my
ice cream cake, I remember that I have an awful lot of Baileys left over from the funeral and that Baileys contains cream.

Basically, I eat an awful lot.

I mean, an
awful
lot.

And I wash it down with cream, or rather Baileys, safe in the knowledge I’m about to purge.

Except I haven’t factored in the alcohol content and as I sit on the loo with a shower cap on, working on my second bottle of cream, or rather, Baileys, with a bucket in front of me, that I’m aiming to puke into, I fall off.

I don’t remember falling off.

But I must have because I’m on the cold floor.

I can hear Charlotte screaming.