What Goes Around

chapter THREE

‘Come on!’ I walk into Charlotte’s room to tell her to get in the shower, and see her chatting away on her mobile. ‘You can speak to them at school…’

‘But it’s Alice,’ she says, and I must have turned purple because she quickly concludes the call. ‘She rang me,’ Charlotte lies. As flaky as Alice is, surely even she wouldn’t be stupid enough to call a mobile phone from Australia.

I’m telling Charlotte the same as he comes in.

Or rather, I’m shouting.

‘Go easy on her, Lucy.’ Of course he takes her side. ‘She’s only talking to her sister.’

Half sister.

But I don’t say it.

Things have been a little tense since Saturday night and I do not want to open that can of worms again, but it’s another thing they don’t tell you when you marry that sexy older guy - he comes with baggage. In this case, apart from Saint Gloria, there are three grown up children. Thankfully, two of them live in Australia, but Eleanor, the eldest, lives nearby. Her husband, Noel is doing Charlotte’s braces, the invisible ones that cost a fortune, but we’re getting them cheap - that’s about the only perk to him having children– honestly. It would have been so much easier without them, because three more dysfunctional people you could not hope to meet.

‘I’d like a bit of back up here,’ I tell him. I can feel my face is all red and Charlotte is crying. ‘She’s been calling Alice again on her mobile phone.’

‘Use the house phone next time,’ he tells Charlotte.

Is that it?

Is that all he has to say about it? God, Charlotte’s got him wrapped around her little finger, she really does.

Which reminds me.

I’m just about to tackle him about the new pony when the house phone rings, and suddenly my morning turns to wonderful. ‘Of course,’ I say to Simone. ‘Bring her over. No, that’s fine,’ I smile. ‘Felicity can have breakfast here.’

‘What have you got on today?’ he asks as he sits down at the table in the conservatory.

‘I’ve got yoga and then the doctor’s…’

‘The doctor’s?’

‘I told you,’ I say.

I didn’t.

‘Is there any chance you can take in my watch -it’s got a scratch on the face.’

‘I’ve got a specialist appointment.’ I’m as indignant that he’s forgotten as I would be if I had told him.

‘It will only take half an hour, Lucy.’

‘I’m out all day. I’m going to struggle to get to school, to pick up Charlotte on time, as it is.’

Because I can’t do his watch today, I’m reminded of another job that’s outstanding. ‘Remember, you need to sort out the stable and the float… I want it cleaned up this week and sold.’

‘Look,’ I walk over to him.

‘Sort it, Lucy,’ he says and then sighs when I reach the table.

‘I’ve been thinking…’

‘I bet you have.’ Only he doesn’t say it with an edge. The row we had, or rather, the row we didn’t have, dissolves away and he pulls me onto his knee. I actually think we both regret the way it ended the other night, I really do, because I think he’s remembering the last time I was on his lap and how it could have worked out had we been a bit more nice to each other. He’s got this half smile on his face, one that says he knows what’s coming and I play with his tie a bit.

‘She really loved having a pony,’ I tell him.

‘Don’t you want your life back Lucy?’ He’s still smiling. ‘Up at five in the morning, pony club every weekend…’

‘I don’t mind.’ I look into his green eyes and he looks right into mine, I see the hazel flecks and his eyes smile at me. Apart from Charlotte, he’s the only person I can do that with, his are the only eyes I can really look into without averting mine. ‘I want her to have one.’

‘She does love riding,’ he concedes and I realise I am maybe going to get my way after all. ‘And she did want to go for that week away with the pony club in summer…’ I am getting my way! I start to kiss him, not his mouth, but his cheeks and he pulls his head back and laughs, so I go for his neck and I’ve almost got a yes. ‘We could maybe think about Portugal?’

‘Maybe.’ I give him a smile while thinking, maybe not, but I haven’t got an absolute yes yet and I’m not about to get one this morning, because then the doorbell goes.

I turn and look through the conservatory and down the hallway. I can see Simone through the entry glass and I give her a wave and climb off his lap and walk towards her smiling. One of the reasons that I love my routines so much is the look on Simone’s face when I let her and Felicity in.

I call for Charlotte who’s already halfway down the stairs. I love the tightness to Simone’s lips, even as she smiles. She follows me down the hall apologising for the short notice. ‘I only just got the call,’ Simone explains. While I believe she's got a meeting, I don't believe it suddenly came up at 7.30 on a Monday morning.

I’m quite sure that she's trying to catch me out.

But she won’t.

‘Have you got time for a quick cup?’ I gesture to my tea selection.

‘No, really, I’m in a mad rush. Thanks so much for this, Lucy.’

‘It’s no problem.’

I see her to the door as Felicity takes a seat at the breakfast table and then I walk back inside with a smirk.

You see, it looks as if it’s taken me hours when in fact it takes six minutes and that includes making the bircher muesli. Add in, about twelve minutes freezer preparation time, once a week.

It just takes a bit of organisation and, of course, the initial setup.

Allow me to share!

When my shopping is delivered on Tuesdays, I separate the breads, croissants and the muffins into seven portions. I top up my tea selection basket – initially I bought a selection from a tea boutique in the village, but now it’s just a matter of topping up the Earl Grey and English Breakfast. Anyway, on Tuesdays I also do a top up of the muesli and the jams and honeys - they all live on a large dresser in the conservatory. So, each evening, it's just a matter of putting out plates and teapots and the bread and pastries for defrosting and mixing up the bircher muesli. As I said, it takes six minutes, and it's worth every one of them, because the sight of my lovely clean family, all sitting around my beautifully laid table, has really pissed Simone off.

‘We’ll talk about Portugal tonight,’ he says, aiming a kiss at my cheek. I bite my tongue, because we’ll be speaking about the pony! ‘See you, Baby Girl,’ he says and gives a quick ruffle to Charlotte’s hair. Once he’s gone the girls go on Facebook, while I sort out the dishwasher and then we head out the door, but I’ve forgotten something and dash back and put my mug in my handbag.

That will get her.

I’ve got a cleaner called Rhonda – she’s the laziest woman on God’s earth, I swear. She comes in twice a week and basically does nothing except drink out of my favourite mug.

I’ve tried hiding it – but she finds it.

Even if I put it right at the back of the cupboard, she finds it, uses it and leaves it rinsed and drained on my shiny sink, like a little victory sign.

I hid it in my bathroom cupboard last week, but when I came home, there it was. There was also a pie wrapper in my newly changed bin and she’d been reading my magazines.

I know it.

I should fire her really.

Except you sort of have to have a cleaner in the village.

Though I’d far rather do it myself.

I really would.

I drop the girls at school and hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to yoga I go.

I stand like a tree and pretend to centre but I can’t switch off my mind. I want to know if we are getting another pony. I have to speak properly to him tonight. I hate it, it’s not for me, I’d happily let the idea go – I hate picking up shit and pretending it’s because we love picking up shit and want the real pony experience, instead of the cheaper agistment fees. I loathe it so much, yet Charlotte loves it so much. She really does and I can’t stand how upset she is over Noodle. I can’t stand to see Charlotte upset - maybe I shouldn’t have been so cross that she was on the phone to Alice.

I seem to get cross a lot lately.

I’m not going to get cross with her again, I tell myself. I remember what it was like with mum, how horrible it was when she flew into a rage and I am not doing that to Charlotte.

Calm, I tell myself.

I’m going to be calm and serene.

‘Lucy?’

I look up and I’m still wobbling in my tree position and everyone else is watching me. ‘It’s time for guided meditation.’

I hate this part.

But at least it means that the lesson is nearly done, because all of a sudden my brain tumour’s back.

We walk over and get our blankets and then back to our mats we go. Because you cool down when you relax, we cover ourselves in our blankets and fifteen grown women lie there with their eyes closed while Genna talks crap.

I remember this at nursery school.

We used to lie down and Mrs Lewis would read us a story.

I hated it then too.

All the other children would doze off.

And I’d lie there awake.

Wondering if she’d come.



‘Great lesson!’ We all chat as we shower and change and say things like - ‘wow, I so needed that,’ and ‘I just couldn’t get through the week if I didn’t have Genna on a Monday.’ They sound as if they mean it, so I say the same things too.

I mean it must be good for you, surely?

A couple of us go for a coffee after, a skinny latte, with skinny vanilla, and wow, they so needed that too!

I usually love my Mondays.

I just don’t today.

I haven’t of late, in fact.

‘Hey, baby,’ I hear when I answer my phone and it’s him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m just on my way to the specialist.’ I think about discussing the pony again with him, but decide it’s better left till tonight and anyway, he tells me, he’s got to go into a meeting. I head off to the village and there’s a bit of a wait so I get a pedicure and my eyebrows threaded and finally I get my spray tan done. Afterwards, I put on a very loose cheesecloth dress and some sandals.

I look at my watch and Rhonda should be long gone. I concentrate extra hard on the drive home. I’ve got no knickers or bra on, so as not to mess up my spray tan, so I especially don’t want to have an accident.

And I don’t want to have Botox.

I wasn’t completely lying to him.

I do have a specialist appointment today.

Only it’s not with a doctor, it’s with a nurse. I’ve messed up my appointments, so I’ll have to get changed and I don’t want to mess up my tan. I just can’t face it today. I really do have a pounding headache.

Maybe I’ll just go to bed and read.

I slow down to let an ambulance pass and then a police car too. I’m going to cancel my appointment I decide, or just not show up. I’ll have to pay fifty quid whatever I do, because I haven’t given enough notice. It will be like bunking off – I used to do that a lot. But instead of hanging around the shops and the park like I did then, at least now I can go home. I smile at the thought, because all I want to do is go to bed and read.

It might sound as if I do nothing all day, but being his wife is a full-time job and I really want to just sign off for the afternoon.

I can’t stand the thought of needles in my face today.

As I turn into my street I slam on the brakes, not to avoid hitting someone, but because of what I see.

That ambulance and police car that I slowed to let past are outside my house. Their lights are blazing and there is my neighbour, with a prime view over the privet fence.

Why didn’t he have a word?

Why didn’t he insist that she grow it years ago?

I don’t want her watching my life.

I do remember thinking that surely the normal response would be to drive faster, to accelerate, to get there and find out what's going on, except I slammed the brakes on. I can see his car on my carriage driveway and instead of racing to get there, I actually want to turn the car around and drive away.

I swear, had I not met the eyes of my neighbour, I might just have done that.

I wish I'd gone for Botox, or out for lunch, or taken that spin class, but instead, I coax the car forward and park behind the ambulance and me and my pounding headache climb out, to be met by my neighbour.

‘Lucy!’ My neighbour is breathless with excitement. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

I shrug her off; I know she wants to come in, that she wants to find out for herself exactly what is going on.

All I know is that I don’t want her to.

There is a policeman at the door and he asks who I am. I tell him it's my house, I don't need his questions right now and no, I’m not showing him my ID. Another ambulance is pulling up and I have to stand back on the stairs as they race past me. I hear the police officer shout that the wife is here.

My headache is really pounding and I’m sweating as I run up the stairs. As I turn on the landing I can see his bare legs on the bedroom floor and I know what I’m going to find.

I don’t want to know but I know.

There’s shit everywhere if you look.

Mum said it all the time.

Or slurred it.

I can hear male voices; someone is counting as I walk in. I watch them pounding on his chest, there are bruises all over it. The paramedics that have just arrived are pulling up drugs and I’m pretty much ignored as I walk in the room, except by one.

‘You all right love?’

I think I nod.

He’s a big guy, and he’s very practical and kind and he lets me take in the scene for a second or two before the questions start.

‘Do you know if there’s any history?’

So much history, so much bloody history, because even though I haven’t looked, even though I haven’t so much as turned my head towards her, I know that she’s there. I turn and face her and mum was right – I’m looking at shit. She’s wrapped in a sheet and crying and shaking, her skinny legs are buckling and, Christ, she’d only be about twenty!

‘Does he have any history of heart problems, or medical conditions?’ The paramedic is more specific with his questions this time.

‘None.’ I hear my voice, so I guess I can speak.

‘Is he on any medication?’

‘None.’ There goes my voice again, except what would it know? There’s a policeman going through his jacket pocket and he opens a pillbox. I stare at the little pile of blue pills that he tips out onto the bed and one falls on the floor beside his body.

It might be safer for him if they stop the resuscitation! I feel my lips stretch into the wrong shape - into a shocked, incredulous smile.

There’s no need to state the obvious – no need to say that I didn’t know.

I stare at the pill that rolled to the floor and all I can think is - he wouldn’t get them for me.

For the first time I look properly at him.

He’s naked.

They’ve put a towel over his bits.

A white one that he’s not allowed to use – it’s one of my for display purposes only towels. How ironic, I think. I never let him dry his hands on it and now it’s covering his cock.

The room smells of sex.

It reeks of it.

It sticks to the lining of my nostrils and it makes be want to gag as it moves into my lungs. I see that they’re not bruises on his chest - they’re love bites and, a moment or two later, when he makes gurgling noises and they roll him on his side, I see scratches on his back and they didn’t come from me.

I will kill her.

I swear, the second this over, my eyes turn from him to her, and even though I don’t say a word, my expression clearly tells her that very soon, any moment now, she’s going to have her head ripped off.

His phone is ringing and I half expect him to answer it. For him to ask everyone to stop everything for a moment and then get up and step outside, or go out to the garden to answer it, as he always does. Christmas, Easter, middle of a row, it doesn’t matter, if his phone rings he answers it. This time though it rings out and I know then that he’s gone.

I know, even as they stand back and his body jolts and his chest lifts off the carpet, that he’s not coming back.

‘We’ve got a rhythm.’

He’s got a pulse apparently. They’re all taking about moving him and a policeman comes and tells me that he’s moving my car as I’m blocking the ambulance. I’m not alone with her, but we’re the only two standing doing nothing in the room.

‘I’m sorry…’ She’s sobbing, there is snot running down her nose and she’s beside herself and she’s cowering as if I’m about to hit her. I think about it, believe me, I think about it, but his phone rings again and we both stand there frozen for a moment before I answer it.

‘Where the hell are you? We’re supposed to be starting the meeting…’

‘Luke?’ He sounds normal, he sounds busy, he sounds like he lives in the same world that I did a few moments ago.

‘Lucy?’ I hear his confusion. ‘Sorry, I thought I was ringing…’

‘You did.’ I’m not crying, I’m shivering and shaking, and he sounds so normal, so oblivious. ‘I’m at home…’ I can hardly get the words out, let alone explain things to Luke. ‘They’re taking him to hospital…’ and there’s just silence. ‘It doesn’t look good.’

He’s all calm and practical and tells me that he’ll meet me there, that things will be fine, that he’s tough, and if anyone is going to pull through then it’s him, but I don’t think so.

I really don’t think so.

I turn off the phone and I look at her and I’m not going to hit her, I just want her gone. I want her out, I want her away, I want this finished and done, right here, right now…

‘If my daughter ever has to hear about this.’

‘I won’t say anything.’ She’s pulling on her clothes.

‘I swear to God,’ I tell her, ‘if my daughter, if anyone, gets so much as a sniff…’ The room stinks of sex and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

‘I’m not going to tell anyone,’ she whimpers. The policeman’s back with a colleague and I’m told that he’s not well enough for me to go with him in the ambulance, but the police will drive me there – I’m in no fit state apparently.

She’s dressed now, about to run out, but the policeman asks her to wait. ‘We need a few details,’ he says.

I don’t even attempt to comprehend what he wants her for. I mean, I don’t dwell on his words. I’m led down the stairs and they’re closing up the back of the ambulance. I can see that they’ve got this bag attached to a tube in his throat and are breathing air into him, but even though they’re not banging on his chest now, I just feel like he’s gone, I feel like he left in the bedroom…

I’m driven to the hospital. Occasionally the police car blasts the siren, but only at traffic lights and things. We’re not following the ambulance; they’re just trying to get me there as soon as they can, but I know that the blue lights are on, because people keep turning around as the car swishes past.

And all I can think is that I haven’t got any underwear on.