What Goes Around...

Maybe it is time to see Ricky.

Just not yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Get it together Lucy.

I drop Charlotte at school and I go to the stables.

Good news awaits, because the float has sold.

Nearly four thousand pounds!

But I don’t want to get rid of her tack.

‘Sort it Lucy.’ I can hear his voice.

I’m trying to sort it – I’m trying to sort out the mess you left, I think, as I pick up shit for the last time and hose down Noodle’s old stable. There are flies everywhere and it’s a filthy job but, now I’m here, now I’ve set my mind to it, I get it done in a few hours.

I want her to have a pony.

I want her to be happy again.

It’s been six weeks and, if anything, she’s worse.

I’m worse.

It’s going to get better, I tell myself, as I pick up her tack and load it into the car.

She will get a pony.

So, instead of polishing it up to go on eBay, I stack it in the garage and I cover it up, because I don’t want the constant reminders for her.

It’s already after three, so I head to the school. I almost droop with relief when I pick her up and she tells me she’s been invited to sleep at a friend’s tonight and that they’re all having pizza.

She packs up a little bag and I drive her to her friends.

‘I shan’t come in,’ I smile when invited. ‘I’ve been at the stables.’

That’s the mad thing about the village - you can look and smell like shit, just as long as you’re wearing boots and have been at the stables.

I wonder what to do with my night off.

I’m in a vaguely good mood, maybe because I’ve got some cash – even better, cash that Luke doesn’t know about. I might say we sold it for five hundred pounds.

I change lanes as I drive past the supermarket and I consider going in.

I can have what I want for dinner.

Ice cream if I like but I keep on driving towards home.

I park in the drive and get into the house. I ignore the cupboards and freezer, instead, I head straight for the laundry and I strip off.

There and then.

I throw them all in the washing machine and I watch the black water go around.

God, Lucy!

Despite my resistance to what Luke suggested about seeing my GP, I do read some of the pamphlets that Doctor Patel gave me. I sit naked at the table and read and apparently, not washing and poor personal hygiene can be a sign of depression.

I’m not depressed – I look up and into my tidy kitchen and things are starting to come together I’m sure.

I don’t have poor personal hygiene; I’m just overloaded at the moment.

Busy.

You’d stink too if you’d spent a day cleaning out shit.

I just need a bit of space.

And tonight I’ve got it.

I’m going to have a beauty night, I decide.

I’m going to exfoliate and shave and rub in moisturiser, I’m going to put on a face mask and cut my nails and then paint them.

I run upstairs and I run a bath then I look in the mirror and it’s me that wants to run. I see how much I’ve let myself go, how being the perfect yummy mummy was, in fact, a full-time job.

I’ve put on weight, I don’t want to know how much, but I step on the scales for the first time in six weeks.

I used to get on them every morning.

Up, have a wee, jump on scales.

Now, I step on slowly and I’m scared to look down.

They’re wrong.

I step off and let it go back to zero and then I step on again and I’m a pound heavier this time – bloody hell – I’m putting on weight at a rate of one pound a minute.

Almost.

I’ve put on a stone and a half in six weeks.

I’ve always felt like I’m a day away from things falling apart.

I was right.

I lift my arms and I’m like a French woman.

I look at my hairy legs and down to my toenails that need to be cut, then back up to my face.

I’ve got roots too.

I usually go to Ricky every three weeks – it’s been six.

I can’t pretend I’m naturally blonde now.

I’m a brunette.

With a smatter of grey.

I look for a razor but I can’t find one.

There’s only his and I’m not using that.

A bath, Lucy.

Baby steps.

I get in and I lie there.

A bath used to relax me.

It doesn’t tonight.

I can see my big fat body and when I get out I will cut my toenails I think, while they’re soft. As I wash my hair I decide that I’ll paint my toenails and pluck my eyebrows….

But I don’t.

I put on a dressing gown.

I watch the dirty water go down the plughole and I’m ashamed of myself.

I didn’t remember to exfoliate but I do rub in moisturiser, that expensive one I bought the Saturday before he died.

Jess said yesterday that I pong and I did nothing about it but I’m doing something about it now…Jess.

I should ring her and see how she is.

I’m a terrible friend.

My thoughts are all scattered but I’m feeling so much better, all clean and lovely and finally I’ve got some energy. I look in the mirror and I smile at a Lucy that is coming back.

My mobile is flat so I have to use the landline and I don’t know off hand what her number is but thankfully he programmed the phone and I hit dial when I see Luke and Jess.

Only when Luke answers, does it compute that I’ve rung the home number.

‘Jess isn’t here,’ Luke tells me. ‘She’s on her night out with the girls.’

‘Oh!’ I’m surprised; she crashed her car last night.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s fine. Just a bruise.’

‘That’s good.’ God, he’s really crap at conversation and I’m really in the mood to talk but this is Luke and he doesn’t attempt small talk. Then I remember how much he loathes me. ‘Well, give her my love.’

‘Yep. We’re going to drop by over the weekend,’ Luke says.

‘Thanks,’ I say but he’s already rung off.

He’s so brusque.

I know he’s been good and everything but he’s so bloody rude at times. I know he doesn't want to help - that he was pushed into doing this out of duty but even so…

I can't settle. Even though I wanted a break from Charlotte it seems so strange to have the house to myself. I don't know what to do any more. I don’t know who I am without him.

I lie on my bed and I see my journal but I’m sick of writing it all down. It doesn't really help. I read it back and it's all completely mad–I'd die if someone else saw it.

I go to the back of my wardrobe to the secret I've got hidden there - a box that’s still unopened. It took 3-4 business days to get here and nearly seven weeks to open. I take it out and it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen but everyone swears by them and it has been so long.

I'm scared it won't work to tell the truth, that the sexy young me has long since died and that that part of me has gone.

I know what I did with Noel, but I don't think I came. I know I didn't. I wanted him to, if that makes sense. All I wanted was for him to want me.

I put it back in its box. I'm not using it and it didn’t come with batteries anyway.

Then I change my mind.

Like an addict looking for its fix, I go through the drawers and the cupboard and search for batteries but there are none - in the end I take them out the remote control.

What do you do with it?

I lie there feeling stupid - I knew it wouldn’t work - maybe if I think of someone it would help. I rummage through my mind and play my usual game of Celebrity Squares. Okay, I’ve got one - I'm a young and good looking Susan Boyle and there's that judge, what's his name? His jaw drops as I walk out to sing.

Then I stop.

I don’t like that I’ve entered the competition, that’s lame…

Why do my fantasies have to be so complicated?

Right, I try again. I’m a good looking Susan Boyle and I didn’t formally enter the competition, I was just singing as I walked down the street and they begged me to enter. They were short of contestants and the competition couldn’t go ahead if I didn’t come and sing and everyone would be so disappointed. Luckily, yesterday, I’d been waxed and I’ve tried on this amazing body oil, so I smell fantastic, I look amazing.

Okay!

I start to relax, to go with the flow, so to speak. I stop trying to figure out the hows and whys. What was it that Jess said? That Luke bought a vibrator for her.

Does he use it on her?

I can't imagine Luke like that, he’s so stern and staid. I can't imagine him kneeling over me, smiling down at me, enjoying watching me.

Except, I am!

I open my eyes and I can see him over me - my hands are roaming my body, except they’re his. I have to stop because I can't think of him like that, I can't do it to me and I can't do it to Jess… its wrong, wrong, wrong.

I’m in my kitchen, no, I think it’s his kitchen, because I recognise the fridge. I’m wearing that dress, the red one with the silver flowers. I’m at the sink drinking water and he’s coming up behind me, his mouth is on my neck and he turns me around and his hands slide over my dress. I shiver because, in my fantasy, it wasn’t loathing that walked in the kitchen that night, it wasn’t disgust that crept up behind me, it was lust, it was want. It’s as if I’m feeling it from him now - replaying it through his eyes.

‘No!’ I push him off, I get out of the kitchen and back to my bed and I try to get back to the stage and impress the judges, but there he is again. I’m walking past and he grabs me, I can feel the metal of the fridge on my back.