‘He’s not,’ Jess attempts.
‘Yes, he is…’ I am just clawing with panic. ‘I have to keep things stable. I have to….’
‘You can’t afford to.’
To Luke it really is that simple – well what would he know? Nothing. He has no idea what I’m going through, what I’m really going through.
‘I went to see the GP about Charlotte.’ I drop my voice to a whisper. ‘She’s wetting the bed,’ I tell Luke. I just want him to understand. ‘Doctor Patel says to try and keep things as even as possible for her, for at least a year.’
‘What if you can’t?’
‘I have to.’
‘Jess,’ Luke turns to his wife. ‘Why don’t you take Charlotte to the park or…’
Jess looks at me and I nod, because I don't want to say things that Charlotte might overhear.
‘I know it’s not the same as losing her father,’ I say once we’re alone. ‘But losing Noodle really upset her and then it was her Dad…’
Luke nods.
‘I can't take her away from her friends at school. I know I might have to at some point but I just can't do it to her now. The same way I can't tell her that she's losing her home.’
‘Lucy,’ he remains unmoved. ‘There’s no shame in selling your home; you won’t be the only one. We’re in the middle of a global…
Don’t even go there, I snarl inside.
I don’t care about some global financial crisis. I don’t care if governments have fucked up - they can sort it out amongst themselves but I am not losing my home.
I tell him why.
I tell this cold, immutable man my reasons.
I’m never honest with anyone, no-one knows, well, my husband knew some it and he threw it back at me at times but, for my daughter I’ll be honest.
I’ll be honest if I have to be, because I am not losing my home.
‘I’m not leaving here, Luke,’ I tell him. ‘Charlotte’s getting her year of calm. I put up with enough of his shit over the years just to keep it.’
I see him frown.
‘I lied,’ I say to him. ‘There were never going to be any more babies. You all think I trapped him by getting pregnant; well you’re all wrong. I have never been more terrified than I was when I found out that I was having a baby. I have never felt more scared than the first time I held her. I swore things would be different for her than they were for me…’
‘Lucy…’
‘No!’ I am outside of myself. For once I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. I don’t care what he sees just so long as he sees my reason. ‘Everyone loves Valerie,’ I snarl. ‘Everyone thinks I’m too harsh on her, well that bitch was absent for the first sixteen years of my life. We lived in the slummiest flat and I was the fat kid that smelt.’ I am so, so angry. ‘Because of her I went through hell. “I don’t think Lucy Jones wipes her bottom.”’ I tell him my shame, I tell him how I found out I smelt. I tell him how lonely and scary it was. I tell him how many different homes I lived in the many, many times Mum was taken off to dry out. I tell him how petrifying it was to go to a new foster home and to lie there at night, trying to stay awake, so you don’t piss the bed. I tell him that no, I’m not allergic to ice cream, it was my only friend. I forget to be posh; I drop my accent, as I shout. I drop the pretence. I’m every inch an Essex girl as I fight for what’s mine and Charlotte is mine and I’m keeping the house!
‘I am.’ I am standing there right in his face and he just stands there looking at me.
‘It’s okay,’ he says.
Just two words.
Two words that I so needed to hear.
‘It’s going to be okay, Lucy.’
I feel my terror leave.
We sit back down at the table and finally we’re actually talking.
While I want things to carry on as before, at some level I know that it can't. I just want this to be as gentle on her as possible, which is the one common ground between us. He crunches the figures as I try to find statements and we quietly work towards that goal.
‘It’s hard to get a mortgage.’ Luke looks at the numbers in front of him. ‘They don’t just give them out these days.’
‘I know that,’ I say.
I do know that.
I know something else too - I'm going to have to get a job.
I hear a noise and I stand and look out of the window - Jess's car is pulling up. I watch Charlotte climb out and she so doesn't deserve this. I look at her little face and she’s so pale and all that exuberance just seems to have left her.
She’s not losing her home; I won’t let her lose it.
I just need that year.
I’ll get another husband.
A richer one.
A younger one.
Anger fizzes inside me again and I spit it out with a single word. ‘Bastard.’
‘Because he didn't have enough life-insurance?’
Ah yes, I forget at times - Luke was his friend not mine. I'm the bitch, the gold-digger. I must remember his opinion of me.
‘Yes.’ I don’t even turn around as I speak. ‘I’m pissed off because he didn’t leave me enough money.’ I watch my daughter and I say it again. ‘Bastard.’
An hour of just us and Luke’s rapidly losing patience with me. ‘What are you so angry with him for Lucy? He didn't choose to die.’
I’m still watching my daughter through the window. She’s such a good girl, she’s laughing at something Jess has said but it’s a little too late and I can tell she’s pretending. My heart just squeezes. So much so, that again, for a moment, I forget to lie.
I forget for a moment who I am supposed to be.
The woman I invented.
The one with the perfect life.
I forget, so much so, that I answer him. ‘That smile on his face when he went out.’ I head for the door to greet Charlotte and I toss the words out over my shoulder but I don’t need to turn and see his reaction. I don’t care about Luke’s response. I say it out loud for the first time, purely for me. ‘He didn't get it from me.’
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Gloria
‘She’s doing well.’
It annoys me that the nurse just hands Daisy back to me and starts to fill in the book. Yes, Daisy’s doing well but what about her mum?
What about me?
I think I’ve been too nice about it, I think I’ve said that I’m coping too well. I’m starting to find out that a lot of people are going through this. A few women at work, I’ve realised, are raising their grandkids. I just didn’t know and I never thought it might happen to me - that Eleanor would, if I let her, happily sign off on her child.
As I head out to the car with Daisy, I want to turn around and go back in. I want to tell the nurse that no, things are not okay.
She’s six weeks old and her mother is having nothing to do with her.
I’m sick of softly, softly.
I’m sick of my beaming smile when Eleanor deigns to give her daughter a bottle.
And I’m furious that Noel was round there the other day.
Laura told me.
He’s been round a few times.
It’s been churning inside me since I found out.
I’m sick of slowly, slowly because I’ve a feeling that this might take, oh, around sixteen years.
I’m not joking.
They’ll slot back into their perfect lives and just ignore their problem.
‘I’m going out tonight.’
I ring her while I’m still angry.
I sit in the car park and I call her.
‘Oh?’
‘So, do you want me to bring Daisy over?’
There’s silence, a long one and then she starts to cry. ‘Mum, please.’
‘Or, you can come over to mine and look after her.’
‘I’m not ready.’
‘Well guess what,’ I shout. ‘I’m not ready either. And,’ I am, I bloody well am, ‘I am going out tonight.’
I regret shouting when I hang up.
I know that I’m making a mess of things; I know that I’m being too harsh. I drive towards home and pass a take-away. I think about stopping there and getting lunch.
‘Do you really want that piece of chicken, Gloria?’ That’s what Beryl tells us to stop and do. Yes, I really want that piece of chicken. Some lovely deep-fried chicken and they do mashed potato and gravy too. I’m sick of my diet, it’s not working, I didn’t even lose a pound last week. I don’t want to go and get weighed tonight; I know I’ll have put on.
So I might as well have enjoyed putting on.
I park in the car park and I go to unclip Daisy, except she’s asleep.
She’s sound asleep and she doesn’t deserve to be disturbed.
I could leave her for two minutes, surely?
But it’s hot for May and I can’t.
I blink as it passes.
It just stops.
The urge just goes back from wherever it came.
I’ve never felt it leave before really – I mean a severe one.
I’ve always fed it.
So, instead of coming to in the front seat, face and hands greasy from chicken, with empty containers surrounding me that I need to hide in the bin, instead of hating myself further, I’m coming to in the back seat and feeling stronger.
I gaze at a sleeping Daisy.
Then I ring Paul.
He’s at work, but he can talk.
I tell him what I’ve done, what I said to Eleanor, how it’s not fair on us, that we never get a chance to go out.