What Goes Around... (32 page)

I’m not losing my best friend for a shag and a chardonnay.

He thinks I’m a slut, I know that he does, but I’m better than that, and I would never do that to Jess. I pull my head back and I slap him as I tell him the same.

I turn and open the door to get out.

Up pops my neighbour, like a Muppet over the hedge, pretending to trim it. ‘Bloody cow,’ I mutter ready to charge over there.

‘You don't know that
, Lucy,’ he grabs my coat and thankfully stops me. I take a deep breath and I can see the red marks my fingers have left on his cheek. ‘Don’t march over there all angry with her, when you’re really angry with me.

And I am angry.

Boyo, I’m angry, Jess.

‘Fuck you, Luke!’

Except I don’t.

I climb out of the car when I don't want to.

I just know that I have to.

If this is the price to feel better, to be a better woman, then I’ll pay it.

Not that anyone will know.

It's better this way
though.

Harder but better.

Hard to wave at my neighbour instead of accusing.

Hard to do the breakfast dishes, when I want to lie down.

Hard to tidy up the bathroom and run a cloth over the sink.

But better.

I can face myself in the mirror.

‘I don't want to go back.’

Charlotte is lying on her bed face
down. Everything's been sorted. Felicity has been suspended for five days, she won’t even be there, yet Charlotte can't stop crying and she doesn’t want to go back.

It wasn’t my neighbour who gossiped.

Charlotte told Felicity herself.

She knew her dad had a girlfriend.

I guess she needed someone to speak to.

A friend who would understand.

She just made a poor choice with Felicity.

‘I don’t want to go back.’

She says it again.

But she loved that school. O
r was it me that loved it?

I honestly don’t know.

They teased her at the sleepover apparently and my heart aches for how badly I handled things that night and for all she has had to deal with. ‘You break up for half term in a couple weeks,’ I tell her. ‘Things will settle down over the holidays…’

‘I don't want to go back.’

My hand is on her shoulder but I can feel the resistance beneath. Maybe it's best just to leave it, in a couple of days she’ll come around. She has to go in tomorrow, or it's going to be a problem.

‘I don't fit in.’ She turns on her back and finally she looks at me.

‘Well, that’s not your fault,’ I tell her. ‘It’s hereditary.’ I get a glimpse of a smile. ‘We’ll work something out.’

I’m polite when Simone rings and apologises.

Cool, but polite.

I don’t sit all night wondering what Luke’s thinking.

I don’t start manically vacuuming either.

Or dash to the shops for a vat of
ice cream.

I just go to bed with Adele and have a little cry.

She's such a good girl.

She's up at seven the next morning, her face is all blotchy and red, but she's dressed and ready, just her hat and scarf to put on. We head out to the car and there's my neighbour and I give her a wave.

‘I know it's difficult now.’ W
e’re driving past the council estate. She doesn't understand how lucky she is, all the chances she's been given. I feel the black smoke rise inside. ‘If you don't go back today, then you won't go back…’

‘I've got no choice have I?’

I take a slug of water from my water bottle. Beryl is pretty pedantic about that and I always have it with me. I feel the black smoke hiss it’s protest as I douse it and I’m starting to understand what Gloria meant that night about pouring cool water.

I’m starting
to know who I am a little bit more now.

I know what I want to say
and I don't have to run it by anyone. I’m approaching the traffic lights and, instead of going straight ahead, I get into the right lane and turn around.

‘You do have a choice.’ I look over to her. ‘You don't have to make it now though.’

I get a takeaway breakfast, we haven’t had takeaway in ages and I think of Beryl, and I do the question thing and yes, I want it.

I’ll go for a walk tonight.

We sit in the car and eat it and for the first time since I started my job, I ring in sick, I tell them I’ve got the flu. I croak it out and it makes Charlotte smile and I don't feel guilty at all.

‘What time is it?’ Charlotte asks and I look at my phone.

‘Four minutes past nine.’

‘She’ll be doing the roll
call,’ Charlotte says. ‘What shall we do?’

‘We could go home.’

But neither of us wants to.

We wander up and down the street and look in s
hops. It's like playing truant – she's in her school uniform, I'm in my supermarket uniform, when I usually wouldn't be seen out dead in that. We go to the chemist and try on perfume. At 10 o'clock we stop for coffee and cake and I remember this feeling, sort of bored now, because you hadn't wanted to go to school but there's really nowhere to go and I tell Charlotte that I remember.

‘You used to bunk off?’

‘All the time.’

I watch her
eyes widen.

‘Did Nanny ever find out?’

She wouldn’t have cared, but I don't tell her that, not because I'm embarrassed about my mum, well a bit I guess. Rather, I don’t tell her because there are things Charlotte really doesn't need to know now. Right now, she's dealing with enough.

We stop by the cottage, it’s up for sale again, or maybe it never sold.

‘Dad wanted us to move there.’ I watch her reaction, I watch her eyes look around.

‘It’s nice.’

‘We could ring the estate agency,’ I tell her. ‘Say we want to have a look. At least we’ll get out of the cold.’

‘Won’t you have to buy it?’

‘No!’ I tell her. ‘I used to work at an estate agent’s. Most people aren’t looking to buy, they just come for a nose around.’

‘You used to sell houses
?’

‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I just answered the phone.’

My daughter is starting to get to know me.

A different me.

The real me, that I too, am getting to know.

‘She doesn’t want to come.’

I am so disappointed, Jess has asked us to come and stay for a week while we make a decision about
her school and we’re all packed and ready, but at the last minute Charlotte has changed her mind.

‘I think she’s worried about the bedwetting,’ I whisper to Jess.

‘Get her to the phone,’ Jess says.

I hate this part.

I hate handing it over, I hate the thought that Jess will say something wrong, something that will make it worse, because Jess doesn’t know her like I do. But I trust Jess too and I watch Charlotte’s surly face break into a smile. Then I hear her start to giggle. I don’t know what Jess said, I don’t know, but I trust her with Charlotte, and with reason, because a couple of hours later we’ve loaded the car and we’re on our way to Wales.

We don’t really talk much.

At first.

Charlotte
’s busy on her phone, on Facebook and Twitter and then she dozes off. We stop at a service station and order the pancakes. Only then do I realise that they come with tinned whipped cream but I don’t make a fuss, I just eat them slowly.

I’m more aware of Charlotte than the cream on my tongue.

I know if we’re going to ever properly speak, then it’s time for me to talk.

J
ust as the first sign for Cardiff comes, I say it.

‘I’m sorry, Charlotte.’

She just looks out of the window.

‘I’m
so sorry for what you had to see…’

She thinks
I got drunk (which I did) but she’s a clever little thing. She really is, and I know that she’s so confused. I know that that doesn’t make sense to her because, as I told Doctor Patel, I don’t really drink.

Well, not much.

I just know that there are so many questions in her head.

So
, I try to answer them.

I juggle the too much information ball with the truth ball. I juggle so many things, but I’m getting better at juggling these days.

I tell her that when I grew up, I had a problem with food and, as I drive, I ask her if she knows what bulimia is and she nods.

She knows so much more than I did at her age.

I wasn’t much older than her when it started. For years I didn’t even know its name.

For all the experts there are, and some will be shaking their head
s, I am sure, as to how I tell her but, for all the experts there are, I am the expert on Charlotte. I name the white elephant, I tell her that I had a problem when I was younger, a problem that stayed well away…

‘But, when dad died,’ I tell her, ‘I felt
as confused as I did back then.’ She’s not looking out of the window now; she’s watching me as I drive. As the sign posts change from English to English and Welsh, I tell her, I hope not too much, but enough for her to know that she can also talk to me.

‘I still feel like a teenager sometimes.’ That makes her laugh. ‘But, I’m not a teenager.’ I tell her that I love her very
much and that her dad did too.

‘Did he know?’ Charlotte asks.

And the air blows out of my nostrils as the signs change from English and Welsh, to just Welsh.

‘Yes.’

It’s ten pm and we’re two hours later than we said we would be but I think they are the two best hours I have ever spent.

‘He found out my terrible secret…’ I glance over and I smile as my GPS tells me
that we have reached our destination. I can see Jess coming out, but there’s just a little bit more of this conversation that has to be had. ‘He was never horrible about it.’ I look out of my windscreen, I see Jess coming over and my eyes fill with my first real tears for him.

He was a bastard.

By anyone’s standards, he was an absolute bastard.

Except…

I remember then the day he found me on a bender.

I was so ashamed.

More than ashamed.

I was shame.

He didn’t shout, he didn’t walk out, he didn’t get cross. He washed me, he bathed me and he put me to bed and then, when I woke up later, he was holding my hand.

There is so much
to hate about my late husband but as the car door is pulled open by Jess, for the first time since Luke’s eulogy, I remember that there was also so much to love.

And there’s so much to love about Jess!

She just grabs Charlotte in a hug.

She kisses her and she brings her in and she’s bought her favourite chocolate drink and there’s a room all ready for Charlotte and Jess’s old teddy is waiting there on the bed.

They go for a wander.

I hear Jess showing her the washing machine and the cupboard of sheets
, and I found out what was said as I drink my tea and eavesdrop. It would seem Jess was still wetting the bed at fourteen.

I don’t know if she’s exaggerating.

I just know I chose well.

Charlotte couldn’t have better g
odparents, even if I’m not quite sure about God.

I have to try to remember that, six days later.

I really have to force myself to remember that, because we’ve had the best week. Charlotte’s been riding on Jess’s neighbours’ horses, and we’ve spoken about schools and moving house and so many things… and now dusk is all around, Charlotte’s riding a pony as Jess brings up something she doesn’t have to.

‘I’m so sorry for accusing you,’ Jess says. ‘I just thought…’

‘Nothing happened.’ I watch Charlotte ride, I hear her laughter carry through the cool autumn air. I see her being a kid again and we’ve had four dry nights in a row now and I am so grateful to Jess for that.

‘Nothing?’ Jess checks.

I turn to my best friend.

I do my best to be honest.

‘He tried a few days ago…’ I watch the pull on her lips. ‘He’s trying anything now though, but I slapped him.’ I stare out to the fields and should I be honest? Should I tell her that there are times when I think about Luke? Should I admit to my fantasies? I decide no, because fantasies are all that they are Denise and Dr Patel tell me, even if sometimes they seem more than that.