What Goes Around

chapter THIRTY ONE

Gloria

‘We’ll go somewhere nice,’ Paul says. ‘You deserve spoiling and I might not get to take you out for a while.’

‘I'm not sure if I can get a babysitter for Daisy.’ I try to get out of it that way, but he says that he doesn’t mind a bit if we bring Daisy along. Paul’s nice like that and so I tell him that I'll be ready by seven.

I don't want to go.

It doesn't seem right.

Paul starting a stint on night duty and it's nice that he wanted to take me out but, the thing is, it’s his birthday.

Not Paul's.

It just seems wrong to be going out when he's lying cold in the ground.

I had the most terrible dream last night.

About him.

About him in the ground. I don’t like my thoughts sometimes. I don’t like the horrible images that flash in my mind sometimes and I can’t tell anyone.

I can't really discuss it with Paul.

It's the only thing we can't talk about.

Well, it’s not the only thing, but it’s a big thing.

He gets awkward when I bring him up. I suppose it's understandable really. Given that we’ve been divorced for years, I should be well and truly over my ex. I am but it just feels different knowing that he's dead.

I’m obsessed about his last minutes. Did he talk about me, did he think about me for even a moment, did he suffer, did he know he was going to die?

There’s no one I can talk about it to.

Were so close in everything else. I can tell Paul anything.

Well, not anything.

There are some things I could never tell him, some things I could never tell anyone.

I let him talk about his ex though, but as soon as I bring up mine, or talk about Lucy, Paul just clams right up.

It's a problem really.

A deal breaker perhaps - because when I started dating again, I made a promise to myself that if I ever got serious again, then good or bad I’d be myself and, today, my self is sad.

I'm about to ring him, to tell him that I don't want to go out, that today is a hard day for me, but the phone goes again and I’m saved from cancelling, saved from speaking my truth. His work has rang and asked if he can go in tonight.

‘Honestly,’ I say. ‘It's fine.’

‘Are you okay, Gloria?’

I’m about to say yes, but I change my mind, I keep that promise to myself. ‘Actually no,’ I admit. ‘It’s his birthday today. He’d have been sixty.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Paul answers. ‘You should have said.’

‘How?’ I ask. ‘You don’t like it when I talk about him.’

‘No, Gloria…’

‘Yes.’ I interrupt.

‘Gloria, it’s not him, it’s…’ then, as always, he just stops. There’s just this mumble of sympathy and I hang up on him.

I know he’ll ring back.

Or come over.

I know I’m important to him.

But I’m important to me too.

Daisy is crying and, as I pick her up, I feel like crying too.

When is Eleanor going to sort herself out?

She comes round sometimes and she stays for a couple of hours but the rest is left for me.

I’m too old to play mum.

I want my life back.

Then I look at Daisy’s green eyes. They’re just like her grandfather’s and I regret my thoughts, because I cannot tell you just how much I love her. I cannot stand how her mother refuses to see just how beautiful Daisy is. I hold her close as I give her her bottle and she soothes me. She soothes the anger that is building inside, because I asked him to look after his girls and he hasn’t.

Aside from Eleanor, I can hardly get Bonny to even come to the phone – the only one remotely normal is Alice and that’s worrying enough in itself.

Like, she’s so happy with Hugh.

What happens if it ends?

What happens if they break up?

She’s fine now while they’re all happy, but they’ve never had to face problems…

Daisy’s hand finds my cheek and I press it to mine and I correct myself. They have faced problems. He’s been dead for more than three months and they’ve got through that.

‘Let’s go and see him,’ I say to Daisy. ‘Let’s go and see Granddad.’