What Goes Around

chapter THIRTY NINE

Lucy

‘I’m sorry.’

I can’t look at her.

I am beyond embarrassed.

I spoke to the consultant at 8am. He was actually very nice, and seemed to understand that it was the cream I was trying to get, and he believed that it hadn’t happened before.

Not in years.

But he wants me to see my GP and he is going to have to speak with social services.

I was discharged at 8.30am – bundled into a taxi wearing two hospital gowns. I’ve been home and cleaned up the house and I’m not up to driving so, at lunchtime, I phoned for a taxi. It’s waiting in the street and I just want to grab Charlotte and run.

‘Thank you,’ I say and I still can’t look at her. ‘I’m really sorry….’

‘Why don’t you pay the taxi and come in,’ Gloria says. ‘Charlotte’s just upstairs with Daisy.’

I can’t really say no, can I?

I pay the taxi and I walk into the home I once destroyed.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ Gloria offers and I shake my head. It hurts to shake my head. ‘Could I have a glass of water?’

‘I might have one too,’ says Gloria. We share the briefest of looks as she hands me a glass, as I drink cool water and Gloria does the same.

‘How’s Charlotte?’

‘A bit confused,’ Gloria says. ‘She’s very worried about her mum,’ she adds. ‘Which she doesn’t need.’

I close my eyes, I don’t want a lecture, but I know I deserve one, except it doesn’t come. ‘You’ll get there, I’ve told her.’ I look up at Gloria. ‘Charlotte adores Daisy.’

‘I know,’ I nod. ‘She talks about her all the time.’

‘A social worker called.’ I close my eyes in shame. ‘I told her that Charlotte was here with me and that she was fine. I said that, from everything I know, you’ve been a wonderful mother but that you’ve been struggling since your husband died.’ After all this time she hands him over to me and, the strange thing is, now I don’t want him. ‘I told her that I would do all I can to help with Charlotte. That’s if you want me to.’

I don’t know what she means.

‘Charlotte said that you weren’t able to take her to the dentist.’

My face is burning, I go to take a drink but my glass is empty, and Gloria takes it. She takes hers too and is gone a moment then she comes back with both of them filled and we both take a gulp of our cool water. ‘I can take her to Noel for you – it’s no problem for me and it might give Charlotte a chance to see Daisy now and then.’

‘It’s every few weeks,’ I say.

‘I know that.’

‘Why?’ Why is she being nice?

‘I can’t help but care about Charlotte,’ Gloria says. ‘To tell the truth Lucy, I didn’t do the best by my girls sometimes, I was a bit missing in action for a while.’ She smiles at my frown. ‘I don’t want the same for Charlotte. When’s her next appointment?’

‘I haven’t made one. I cancelled them.’

‘She needs her teeth sorted. Ring for an appointment and let me know when it is and I’ll take her.’

I’ve been so worried about her teeth.

They really do need sorting, they were just starting to look nice – I just didn’t know what to do.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘And thank you for last night.’

My head is pounding and I wince. I put my fingers to my temples, I just want it to subside and then I say it. ‘I’m sorry.’

There’s a very long silence.

‘I’m so sorry, Gloria.’

We both know, I think, that I’m not just referring to last night.

‘Why don’t you leave Charlotte here tonight,’ Gloria says. ‘I’ve got Daisy and in some ways it’s easier having the two of them.’

‘Her school uniform…’ I close my eyes and it hurts, my head hurts and I actually think I might be sick. I don’t know why she’s being nice, well I know it’s because she cares about Charlotte, or more that she just is…

…nice.

‘I could ask my friend Jess to bring it over this afternoon.’

Last night I remember it being so important that neither Jess nor Luke found out. I refused to give them anyone’s number. Now, with what’s happened, I really don't care who knows.

It’s embarrassing enough that Gloria saw me.

It kills that Charlotte did.

‘Can I use your loo?’

‘Of course,’ Gloria says. ‘Up the top of the stairs and to your left.’

She doesn’t have to tell me.

I can hear Charlotte singing to Daisy.

I look at the loo to the left and then I look at Gloria’s bedroom to the right, the door is open and I can see him and me tumbling on the bed there.

What if he’d had a heart attack then?

It could have been me standing there wrapped in a towel and crying as Gloria came home.

I’m the biggest bitch I know.

I go back downstairs and maybe Charlotte heard me, because I turn and she is there.

‘She won’t sleep.’ Charlotte is at the door holding Daisy.

‘I told you not to get her out of her cot without calling me,’ Gloria gently scolds her and takes Daisy.

‘Hi, Mum.’ I can see Charlotte’s eyes are wary as she assesses me. I can see the pain and the fear that I’ve caused and I never want her to see me like that again – she’ll never see me like that again.

I mean it.

I know it.

She will never see me in that state again.

‘Hi, baby girl.’ I say. That’s sort of her nickname, what her dad used to call her.

‘Charlotte,’ she says. ‘I don't like being called “baby girl”. I’m not a baby anymore.’

No, she’s not; she’s had to grow up way too fast.

I tell her that Gloria’s offered to take her to the dentist and, Charlotte’s so pleased, it hurts. Then I tell her that Gloria has offered for her to stay for another night and, she’s so pleased that that hurts too.

‘Let’s go and ring mum a taxi,’ Gloria suggests.

‘You can order them online,’ Charlotte says.

‘Really?’ Gloria answers. ‘Show me!’

They really do get on and, without thinking really, Gloria hands Daisy to me and asks if I can hold her for a moment and the two of them go off.

I hold Daisy to me and I remember holding Charlotte. I look down at her and their chins are the same and I remember holding my new baby. I was so scared when they handed her to me, so scared to hold her that I cried when I did. I remember telling her how I’d always be there for her, how I’d never hurt her, what a good mum I’d be. My tears fall on Daisy now, because look what I’ve become…I think Gloria sees me crying because she walks in and walks out with Charlotte. I hear them getting out tins in the kitchen and I weep a little bit more and then I pull myself together enough to say goodbye when the taxi toots. I hand Daisy over and I hug Charlotte, who doesn’t hug me back, she just stands rigid in my arms.

I feel every bump and every bend in the road as the taxi takes me home and there she is waiting, clipping a hedge that doesn’t need clipping, just to have a first row seat at me.

She gives me a cheery wave in her gardening gloves. Hasn't she had enough of a show to be content with? She saw the ambulance last night and she saw the ambulance when he died, and that woman running off.

Hasn’t she got enough gossip stashed up her sleeve already?

What the hell is she doing coming over?

‘Hi Lucy,’ she smiles her perfect smile. ‘How are you – I’ve been so worried. I saw the ambulance.’

Here’s where I lie, here’s where I say something about my asthma (that I don’t have), or that I had a reaction to sleeping tablets, or that I tripped over the dog, except we haven’t got a dog and I’m too tired to lie. I’m too exhausted to cover over the cracks, there’s no point anyway - they’re all gaping open for everyone to see.

So, I give her what she wants, I give her, firsthand, the gossip that will soon line the school and the street.

‘I went on a bender,’ I say and I see her face startle. ‘I made the biggest ice cream cake and, because I didn’t have cream, I washed it down with Baileys.’ I’m starting to cry but I just carry right on. ‘I got so drunk that I fell off the loo and then I shit myself. My daughter found me and thought I was dead like her dad was…’ I think I am going to throw up, I’m crying so hard, thinking what Charlotte must have thought. I wait for her eyebrows to raise, for her to dash off or wait till I’m inside so she can rush down the street.

Except, her arms are around me.

My perfect neighbour has her arms around me and is leading me to my door, to my home.

More than that, she is coming inside with me.