What Goes Around... (26 page)

She doesn’t have to tell me.

I can hear Charlotte singing to Daisy.

I look at the loo to the left and then I look at Gloria’s bedroom to the right, the door
is open and I can see him and me tumbling on the bed there.

What if he’d had a heart attack then?

It could have been me standing there wrapped in a towel and crying as Gloria came home.

I’m the biggest bitch I know.

I go back downstairs and maybe Charlotte heard me, because I turn and she is there.

‘She won’t sleep.’ Charlotte is at the door holding Daisy.

‘I told you not to get her out of her cot without calling me,’ Gloria gently scolds her and takes Daisy.

‘Hi, Mum.
’ I can see Charlotte’s eyes are wary as she assesses me. I can see the pain and the fear that I’ve caused and I never want her to see me like that again – she’ll never see me like that again.

I mean it.

I know it.

She will never see me in that state again.

‘Hi, baby girl.’ I say. That’s sort of her nickname, what her dad used to call her.

‘Charlotte,’ she sa
ys. ‘I don't like being called “baby girl”. I’m not a baby anymore.’

No, she’s not; she’s had to grow up way too fast.

I tell her that Gloria’s offered to take her to the dentist and, Charlotte’s so pleased, it hurts. Then I tell her that Gloria has offered for her to stay for another night and, she’s so pleased that that hurts too.

‘Let’s go and ring mum a taxi,’ Gloria suggests.

‘You can order them online,’ Charlotte says.

‘Really?
’ Gloria answers. ‘Show me!’

They really do get on and, without thinking really, Gloria hands Daisy to me and asks if I can hold her for a moment and the two of them go off.

I hold Daisy to me and I remember holding Charlotte. I look down at her and their chins are the same and I remember holding my new baby. I was so scared when they handed her to me, so scared to hold her that I cried when I did. I remember telling her how I’d always be there for her, how I’d never hurt her, what a good mum I’d be. My tears fall on Daisy now, because look what I’ve become…I think Gloria sees me crying because she walks in and walks out with Charlotte. I hear them getting out tins in the kitchen and I weep a little bit more and then I pull myself together enough to say goodbye when the taxi toots. I hand Daisy over and I hug Charlotte, who doesn’t hug me back, she just stands rigid in my arms.

I feel every bump and every bend in the road as the taxi takes me home and there she is waiting, clipping a hedge that doesn’t need clipping, just to have a first row seat at me.

She gives me a cheery wave in her gardening gloves. Hasn't she had enough of a show to be content with? She saw the ambulance last night and she saw the ambulance when he died, and that woman running off.

Hasn’t she got enough gossip stashed up her sleeve already?

What the hell is she doing coming over?

‘Hi Lucy,’ she smiles her perfect smile. ‘How are you – I’ve been so worried. I saw the ambulance.’

Here’s where I lie, here’s where I say something about my asthma (that I don’t have), or that I had a reaction to sleeping tablets, or that I tripped over the dog, except we haven’t got a dog and I’m too tired to lie. I’m too exhausted to cover over the cracks, there’s no point anyway - they’re all gaping open for everyone to see.

So, I give her what she wants, I give her
, firsthand, the gossip that will soon line the school and the street.

‘I went on a bender,’ I say and I see her face s
tartle. ‘I made the biggest ice cream cake and, because I didn’t have cream, I washed it down with Baileys.’ I’m starting to cry but I just carry right on. ‘I got so drunk that I fell off the loo and then I shit myself. My daughter found me and thought I was dead like her dad was…’ I think I am going to throw up, I’m crying so hard, thinking what Charlotte must have thought. I wait for her eyebrows to raise, for her to dash off or wait till I’m inside so she can rush down the street.

Except, her arms are around me.

My perfect neighbour has her arms around me and is leading me to my door, to my home.

More than that
, she is coming inside with me.

‘Hi, Luke…’

My face is burning as I look up from the table as he comes down the hall.

Jess has gone to visit her mum in Wales, he told me when I rang about the uniform, and I told him a bit about last night.

My neighbour let
s him in and, after a few moments of chat, she gives me a hug and leaves, telling me if I need her, just to call.

The strange thing is, I might.

I can’t look at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says and I fr
own, because an apology from Luke I wasn’t expecting. ‘I knew you were in trouble.’ He sits at the table with me. ‘I should have made you see your GP.’ I look up and he closes his eyes. ‘We shouldn’t have left you on your own last night.’

‘You offered to come over.’

‘Yeah,’ he gives a pale smile. ‘I shouldn’t have listened when you said no.’

He looks at me for a very long time.

‘You need to sort yourself out.’

‘I know.’

‘Properly.’

‘I know.’

He tells me how worried he is and I get a very long lecture about taking better care of myself. He just drones on and on but, at one point, he gets really cross with me.

‘It’s not just the fucking cream,’ he says, he actually stands at that point, he leans over the table and shouts at me. ‘Was the missing cream the problem when you shagged Noel?’

I start to cry.

‘Was the missing cream the problem when you forgot to wash?’

‘Please Luke,’ I beg him to leave it.

‘No, I will not leave it,’ he shouts. ‘Your daughter needs you and you need to do whatever it takes to be here for her.’

‘I get it.’

‘I don’t think you do…’ Luke says. ‘I lost my mum. I had a single mum and I know
how I felt when she was ill…’ He doesn’t say any more than that about it. ‘You need to ring your mum and get her over here.’

I don’t want to though.

‘Lucy, even if you don’t need her now, then Charlotte does…’

He waits while I ring her and he waits till she is here.

Then he leaves me alone with Mum.

Gloria

‘Luke!’

I was expecting Jess, but it turns out she drove back to Wales last night to see her mum.

It's
actually Charlotte who opens the door and gives her godfather a hug. He hands her her uniform and school shoes and boater and Luke is so good, he acts as if it is completely normal that Charlotte is here.

He doesn't dodge the issue either.

He asks Charlotte how she is, he asks Charlotte about her mum and he asks Charlotte how she feels about what happened last night. He's just so lovely with her – every time I want to interrupt, every time I want to tell him to stop, he silences me with his grey eyes and he lets an eleven year-old speak.

It's the grown
ups who don't want to hear it.

‘She's sad!’ I feel my heart twist as
Charlotte describes it. ‘Mum used to be so pretty, she used to care, but she doesn’t even wash now. I’ve tried to run her a bath. I don’t know what to do.’

Luke tells her that she doesn’t have to do anything.

That the grown ups are stepping up and stepping in.

That things will get better now.

There’s a terrible twist of guilt as he says that, because I should have done just that yesterday.

I should have stepped up and stepped in when I saw Lucy ranting at the graveside.

I didn’t want to deal with it.

I’m lazy like that.

I sit there and I admit it.

I
am
lazy like that.

‘What if something happens to her?’
Charlotte asks

I go to rush in, to tell her it won’t but Luke silences me again.

‘I don’t think anything is going to happen to your mum but, I promise you this Charlotte, you have got so many people that love you…’

‘If something does happen could I come and live with you and Jess?’

He looks her right in the eye but I frown at his hesitation. ‘I will always be there for you and so too will Jess,’ Luke says.

Charlo
tte says that she’s worried about her mum being at the house on her own, that maybe she should go back there. Luke tells her that he’s just seen her when he picked up her clothes and she seems fine. She was having a cup of tea with a neighbour when he got there and that Charlotte’s nanny is there now and she’s staying the night.

I can’t imagine Lucy’s too thrilled about that!

Still, it seems to appease Charlotte and because, after all, she is eleven, a few minutes later she wants to go and see Daisy.

Daisy has this little gym
in Eleanor’s bedroom, she lies there on her back, bashing mirrors and foil and kicking her little fat legs. Charlotte could literally watch her for hours, so I set it up for them and then I make a drink and some sandwiches for my latest visitor and then I head back in to face Luke.

I’ll know he’ll be as direct with me as he was with Charlotte.

‘What are you doing, Sir Bob?’

I like Luke’s rare, dry
humour and he can always make me smile.

‘I happen
to admire Bob Geldof.’ I can feel Luke’s eyes on me. I know he’s looking out for me but I don’t need him to in this. ‘You don't get it,’ I tell him. ‘She's my children’s sister.’ Then I have to concede a bit, because it is mad - I'm looking after my late, ex-husband’s daughter and I’ve already got more than enough on my plate. ‘I don’t know Luke – I can’t just turn my back.’

‘
Lucy’s trouble,’ Luke says. ‘Gloria, you don’t know the half of it… Jesus!’ He stands up and he’s pacing and I can see that he’s conflicted, that there’s more that he wants to say. ‘After the funeral…’ he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to hurt me, he can’t trust my reaction, I mean, he can’t really tell me, can he? But, I admire him for trying and, more to the point, I already know.

‘
Lucy and Noel?’ I say and Luke double-takes, and then he just stills.

‘You know?
’

‘I
know a lot of things, Luke…’ and he stands there. ‘I know he was your friend but I know too what he was like. I know what went on in our marriage.’ It’s getting too personal and I don’t know why I’m defending her. ‘I think it was the same for Lucy…’ I’m not going to explain it; I’m not going to tell him just how shit you feel when your husband will screw anything with a pulse except you.

‘Anyway, I don’t really know
that. It’s not as if we’ve spoken about it. I’ve never spoken to Lucy till last night.’ He sits down on the sofa. ‘Oh, and one other time.’ I correct. ‘Though, it was hardly a conversation. Remember the boat?’

H
e gives a pale smile because, even if we’ve never spoken about it again, we all remember that night.

‘It di
dn’t help that you were seasick,’ Luke says.

‘I wasn’t sea
sick,’ I laugh. ‘I was pissed. I’d had five Bacardi and cokes before I even got there. I knew that he was leaving me, I knew that Lucy had upped her demands and wanted more than a shag now and then.’ I close my eyes and I can picture that night, more than that, I can feel it, I can hear it - I’ve got my head over the edge of the boat and I’m throwing up into the water. The boat’s turning around and when we get back I know he’s going to go with her. I want the boat to keep sailing. I want the Thames to never end, because my marriage is and I did everything I could to save it.

Everything.

I am there again and I can feel the fear and the shame and the dread for all that’s ahead. I can hear the music the DJ was playing; I can actually hear Don Henley’s,
Boys of Summer
, pounding in my ears as I lean over the boat to be sick. Then later, when we dock, I lose my temper with her for the first time, actually the last time. I’ve told him where he can go, but not quite so politely and then he and Luke got into a fight and it’s then I see her. That’s when I say it. ‘I got the best years of him.’

But there was a bit before that a
nd I look over to Luke and I know he’s remembering it too. On the boat, as I rushed past Luke to be sick, he was leaning over the edge too, that song pulsing, a beer in his hand and he was staring into the water. He’d just found out about them too.

‘You liked her
, didn’t you?’ I say to Luke and he looks back at me.

‘Not really,’ Luke’s
says. ‘I didn’t particularly like her but I
was
hoping to shag her that night,’ he gives a wry laugh. ‘I’d heard she was very good from several sources.’