What Goes Around... (16 page)

The doorbell doesn't ring though and a few moments later I hear an engine
starting. By the time I pluck up the courage to look I realise she's gone.

And so I revise.

This is rock-bottom.

You’d think so.

I mean, you’d really think so wouldn’t you?

But you’ve no idea just how low Lucy can go.

‘She’s wetting the bed.’

It’s the day after, the day after, his funeral.

The day after, the day after
that
.

I spent yesterday curled up in bed, then Jess brought Charlotte home and I cobbled together dinner from some of the leftovers in the fridge. This morning Mum came over and when she saw me doing the sheets, she rang the doctor for an appointment.

I can’t look at Dr Patel.

It turns out that she’s really popular and I was hoping she’d be so booked up that I wouldn’t get into her, that I might have to see someone else, but no. I’m sitting there looking at a poster of a skeleton on the wall behind her and that’s what he’ll be soon.

I wonder how soon you start decomposing?

I jerk my eyes away from it in panic almost and I meet her calm brown eyes for about one twentieth of a second.

Eye contact really isn’t my forte and especially not today.

‘It’s to be expected,’ Doctor Patel says. ‘How is she going back at school?’

‘She just went back today.’

‘Okay.’ Doctor Patel nods and nods again – she does that an awful lot. ‘It’s good she’s getting back amongst her friends, back to normal – try and keep as much of a routine going for her as you can.’

I nod too, because I know how much my routines mean to me. ‘Try not to make any major changes if you can. Don’t go making any big decisions on impulse, Lucy. You need a year to really see how things are.’

I’ve heard that from a few people and I find myself
again nodding back.

‘The bed-wetting will sort itself out in time but it’s the last thing Charlotte needs to be dealing with now. I can write her up for some medication to take before bed, just for a few nights.’

She starts typing up the prescription, she’s offered her condolences, she’s asked how I am and I just want to grab the prescription and get the hell out of there but, of course, she doesn’t leave it there.

‘How are you holding up, Lucy?’

‘I told you,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’

She must have the slowest printer in the world.

‘We have a grief counsellor here at the practice.’

I give a small snort and then I do manage to look at her. ‘How long were you prescribing him Viagra?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘You let me sit here and tell you the problems we were having and all the time you were writing him scripts.’

I’m changing my doctor, I decide. How dare she?

‘There’s patient confidentiality, Lucy.’

‘I was your patient too,’ I point out. ‘How long?’ I demand.

‘Lucy, he’s still my patient.’

‘He’s dead!’ I retort. ‘He’s in no position to sue!’

‘Lucy,’ her voice is calm and she refuses to match my anger, she just nods at me, she always does that but it annoys the hell out of me now. ‘I’m sure you know far more about your marriage than I do. You don’t need to hear dates and times from me.’

‘So, I’m guessing it was a repeat prescription?’

I hate the sympathy in her eyes and so I look at the poster again. He can rot in hell for all I care.

She rabbits on about how I’m doing and she gives me more pamphlets. This time they’re about grief and depression. She tells me again that there’s a grief counsellor and I hear the chair scrape loudly as I stand. I look down at her and I don’t say goodbye to her and I certainly don’t thank her – instead I remind her about
my
patient confidentiality and that she’d better damn well make sure that her receptionist, Beth, knows about it too. I storm outside but instead of going to the chemist in the village to get Charlotte’s prescription, I get in my car and I drive.

I drive for a good twenty minutes. I drive
through where I came from but Mum still lives there and someone might recognise me, so I drive a bit further. I park my car and walk into a dingy chemist with bars on the window and I hand in Charlotte’s script and I ask to speak to the pharmacist.

‘Can I ask what for?’

‘The morning after pill.’

Out she comes.

She’s about my age and as my face burns, she tells me not to be embarrassed, she hears it all the time. ‘Accidents happen,’ she tells me with a smile.

‘They do,’ I say, thinking how her eyeballs would fall out if I told her the truth about this particular accident– that my husband’s condom didn’t split, in fact, he’s dead and on the day of his funeral I shagged my stepson-in-law on the hall floor.

I buy a bottle of water too and I don’t even make it to the car. I’m popping my pill and guzzling water because I cannot be pregnant.

I cannot be pregnant.

I cannot be.

It’s an awful drive home.

I turn the radio up but my brain won’t stop thinking.

It would be Charlotte’s half sister or brother and Daisy’s too.

And Laura and Daniel’s so would that make Eleanor its step mum if she and Noel got back together and he wanted access?

Would my stepdaughter be my child’s step mum?

So what would that make Gloria?

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!

I can hear the Hillbilly bells ringing and the audience chanting as I turn into my street.

I see my home and it should soothe me but I’m terrified that I’m going to lose it, that I’m going to lose everything.

I am going to lose it.

I am, I am.

I can’t.

I can’t go back to where I came from.

I’m not taking Charlotte there.

I know I’m going to be sick.

I
have
to be sick.

My car scrapes the wall as I hit the driveway.

My neighbour comes over to examine the damage, for another chat, for more information, but I race through the door and up the stairs but, as I get to the loo, I realise that I can’t even throw up.

I can’t, because I need the pill to stay in there.

‘Lucy!’

It’s my mum knocking on my bathroom door.

‘Lucy! Is everything okay?’

‘I just need the loo.’

‘What happened with the car?’

‘Can you just leave me?’ I scream but she doesn’t. She’s hovering outside when I come out. ‘Don’t start, Mum…’

I do not need a lecture now.

‘I’m worried about you, Lucy,’ she says. ‘I want to help.’

‘Well, you can’t.’

‘I could if you’d just let me.’

‘You just don’t get it!’ I go to walk past.

‘I might if you talk to me, I might understand.’

Actually, she might – after all, she was an expert in one-night stands, so much so that I don’t even know who my father is. At least I’m not that bad, at least I’d know who the father was. I turn to her and I look at her and I tell her the truth.

Not that truth.

I tell her mine.

‘I’m terrified that I might turn into you.’

I know I’ve hurt her, but do you know what?

She hurt me too.

‘I had a disease.’

S
he hurls her usual defence.

‘Sherryitis.’

‘I wasn’t well,’ she says. ‘But I’m better now and I want to help take care of you and Charlotte.’

But I won’t let her.

‘Too late,’ I tell her. ‘Too little, too late –
I’ll
take care of my daughter.’

‘I won’t stop trying Lucy,’ she warns me. ‘And you can shut me out all you want but Charlotte wants me in her life and I intend to be there for her.’

I don’t get it.

I truly don’t get it.

Somehow, she’s turned me into the bad guy.

Gloria

I tell Paul what happened between Noel and Lucy.

Not straight away.

For days I keep it in, but it’s there churning and black inside of me.

I had no intention of telling Paul, I never discuss things like that, I just keep it all in. I hardly know him after all. Though I did go for coffee with him after slimming club last week and
, when it was time for my daughters to go back to Australia, he offered to take us to the airport, as he’s got a seven seater, and he arranged a baby seat.

Noel’s moved out and Eleanor’s moved home and I’m left holding the baby.

We drive back from the airport after Alice, Hugh and Bonny leave and the house is quiet and it’s over now. Only, it will never be over – I learnt that a long time ago but at least it’s over for now.

After I settle Daisy down for the night
, he offers to make me a cup of tea, but I tell him I’d prefer a glass of wine.

‘Do you really want that glass of wine, Gloria?’

It’s an in-joke between us; something Beryl from the slimming club says that we should ask ourselves.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I really want that glass of wine.’

‘So do I.’

He pours us both a glass and it’s nice to sit down on the sofa with him and know it’s just us.

Nice to sit and, for a little while, not have to get up.

‘How’s Eleanor?’

‘Supposedly sorting herself out.’

I’m
cross with Eleanor. I’m trying to separate what I saw with Noel and Lucy. I’m trying to go to a cupboard marked only Eleanor and not busy it with everything else – and I am cross with Eleanor. I know you can’t help depression and everything, but I also believe, if Noel had been Daisy’s father then everything would be fine now. It would all have been brushed under the carpet. More than that, I think had Eleanor’s lover been white, he wouldn’t even have left. It’s that they can’t escape the fact that they’ve had problems in their marriage, that they can’t just pretend it away, is what is finishing them.

Eleanor’s looking after Daniel and Laura, which I should be grateful for I guess, but I think they’re spending an awful lot of time at Noel’s and his parents.

Poor Daisy is left with me.

We don’t just talk about Eleanor though.

Paul doesn't ask any questions at first, instead that's me. I want to know why his marriage ended. I can see he's uncomfortable but I really need to know, because I do think I could like him. I mean, now he’s not huge he’s a good-looking man, he really is. I know that sounds fattist but I'm sure he probably thinks the same about me. I’ve sort of watched him emerge from within himself as he’s lost weight- his work told him to apparently but now he's glad that they did.

Anyway, we really don't know that much about each other and, before we do, this bit I need to know, because I can’t be with another man who cheats.

I can’t.

‘She had an affair,
’ Paul says and I swallow my wine and I feel relief first and then sympathy follows, because I know what that's like. ‘With another woman.’

Oh!

‘It’s disgusting,’ he says.

My face burns.

I actually feel a bit sick for a moment but I can’t tell him why.

Embarrassment floods every pore.

I don’t know what to say and so I breathe for a moment until I do. ‘Alice’s best friend is gay,’ I tell him. ‘She didn't want to be - she did everything she could to make her marriage work but Roz always knew she was gay.’

‘Then why did she marry him in the first place?’ Paul asks and tonight’s the only time I've ever heard him bitter.

‘Things were different then,’ I answer and Beryl’s not going to be pleased, because, yes I do want that second glass. It’s so nice to relax and to just sit talking, to have someone listen. ‘The same as me, she got pregnant and felt that she had to get married.’

It’s so nice not to have a full house.

I check on Daisy and she’s sound asleep.

When I get back downstairs we talk some more. I tell him a bit about me
, about my marriage and my divorce and about the woman who took him from me. I tell him about Lucy, and her posh house and how gorgeous she is. It's my turn to be bitter, because I may be working towards forgiving him, but I've got my work cut out forgiving her. I tell him what I saw after the funeral, I tell him what she did, I tell him what I know I can never share with my daughter.

‘That’s her stepdaughter
’s husband…’ Spite tightens my lips and I can hear my own hate. ‘What sort of woman is she?’ I ask. I’m on a roll now. ‘Aside from that, her husband had only been dead a week. What sort of woman would do that?’ I want him to agree with me, to tell me she’s the worst sort of woman but instead he goes really quiet for a while and then he takes my hand. He tells me that maybe I don't know what she's going through, that maybe his leaving her, was as hard for Lucy, as it was, at the time, for me.