What Goes Around

chapter THIRTY TWO

Lucy

‘Mum!’

From a distance I hear her scream.

‘Mum, please, wake up!’

I force my eyes open.

‘We’re going to be late,’ Charlotte begs.

If Oprah ever comes back to our screens, or if she's franchised, 20 years from now, Charlotte will be sitting on the couch and I think that will be the moment, she says, when it all went wrong.

Only she could explain the significance of that morning. What it must have felt like to come downstairs and there was no breakfast table set up.

It’s the one thing I’ve kept to.

She's teary as she stands by my bed and tries to wake me. I stagger downstairs and I go to put the kettle on, but first I have to fill it. Charlotte’s dashing about pulling out plates but there is no bircher muesli and there's nothing defrosted. I feed frozen bread into the toaster and try to sort her out something for lunch. In the end I give her money to get something from the tuck shop.

‘I haven’t slept like that in ages.’ I give her a smile, the coffee is working and I'm starting to think. ‘That bath was lovely.’

‘You enjoyed it?’ Charlotte checks. ‘You didn't even empty it.’

‘I loved it, but it sent me straight to sleep.’

She relaxes a little; she even manages a smile as she dashes off to get ready. I haven't put her uniform out and I scrabble for socks. We get to school just before the bell rings and I watch her dash off. I sit there for a moment, with my heart still hammering and I curse myself for last night.

I've always felt as if I was a day away from things falling apart.

I was right.

I go home and the house is a mess, the beds are unmade and, as I walk in the bathroom, the bath is full, the water clear and cold. I roll up my sleeve and put my hand in to pull out the plug.

It’s his birthday.

I’m not back at work till Tuesday.

I can get it all sorted by then.

She’s got a sleepover at Felicity’s tonight.

It’s his birthday.

I try not to think about it.

Maybe I should put the golf clubs on eBay?

It’s his birthday.

I have to sort things out.

I can't make sense of last night.

I’m sorry if I scared you.

I’ve scared myself too.

Remember at school and those horrible changing rooms where you had to get undressed for the showers - and the showers didn't have a curtain? I found them torture. I used to wrap a towel around me and just dampen my hair, just as loads of the other girls did. We were all embarrassed about getting undressed in front of each other.

Well, I did that last night.

I didn’t get in the water.

I put on my dressing gown and dampened my hair just in case Charlotte came out, like I used to in the changing rooms.

Except, the only person that I didn’t want to see me last night, was me.

I go through the leaflets Doctor Patel gave me.

There’s something wrong with me.

They all recommend talking but I don’t want to talk to anyone.

And how’s a pill going to help?

Will a pill clean my house, will it sort out the money, will it put everything back as it was?

I read on though, I know that there’s something wrong with me.

I read about bi-polar and mania and I want some of that – I want some energy back.

In fact, I realise, I have some.

It’s an angry energy though.

I am so angry with him today, so angry with him for leaving me.

I start cleaning, except it doesn’t soothe me.

It’s his birthday.

It’s all right for him, cold and dead in the ground.

It’s all right for him, resting in peace.

While I have to carry on.

I hate him.

Not just for leaving me.

But for what he did to me when he was here.

And, I decide, I’m going to tell him so.