What Goes Around

chapter FORTY FIVE

Lucy

‘Jesus, Lucy!’

Ricky is furious as he looks at my roots and I can’t blame him. I did a home dye that one time but, apart from that, it hasn’t been touched since before the funeral. I tell him to be careful because it’s still a bit tender where I seemingly landed on my head and he’s a bit nicer then. He gets me a coffee before he starts but, even though he tries to avoid it, there’s still a sting as the peroxide trickles there, but I’ll live.

I’ll live.

It’s almost a decision sometimes.

An actual choice you make.

It took a couple of weeks but the tablets seem to be helping and Denise, the grief counsellor is nice, she just sits and listens as I pour out my anger about his cheating, about all he left me to deal with. It helps, I think, but I still think there’s more I need.

More that I don’t know.

More that I’m scared to find out.

I flick through a magazine. There’s an article about Sara Michelle Gellar and I think about him in the ground and I try to shove that thought aside.

I can’t watch Buffy anymore, it just freaks me out.

I can’t think about dying.

So, I give in with the magazine and just stare at my face instead. I’ve lost a couple of pounds since I fell but I could use about thirty-two more.

‘I’m thinking of joining a slimming club,’ I tell Ricky.

Normally he’d laugh and tell me I’m being ridiculous, that I look “amaaaazing”

‘You should,’ he says and I nearly take the scissors from the bench and stab him in the leg but instead I actually manage to laugh.

‘So you’re working?’ He chats a little as he snips away and I tell him about the supermarket and that I can’t believe it, but I actually like it. Oh, I hated it those first few days, but I actually like it now. I can’t tell you how hard it was to pull on that shirt the Tuesday after I got out of hospital, I felt sick and was all shaky, but I did it.

Mum stayed for a full week, we had lots of talks, and she’s a bit mental too, she says. God, Mum just doesn’t care what she tells – that was why she used to drink, she told me. It just stopped her thoughts.

‘And now?’

‘I just go to my meetings…’ she smiled. ‘Phone a friend,’ she laughed. ‘And keep on taking the tablets.’

She even had a couple of her elves come over and they sorted out the house and garden and I’ve re-started my online shopping and now I’m sort of back into my routines.

I feel safer with them, I guess.

‘So, who looks after Charlotte?’

‘Well, my neighbour drives her to school if I’m on in the morning, or a woman over the road – Simone,’ I say and he nods, because Ricky knows everyone. ‘If I’m on in the afternoon she brings her home…’ I feel a bit guilty about that but I’m back by five, so Charlotte’s only on her own for a couple of hours. She just sits on Twitter and Facebook. There’s no choice. Mum’s too far away and really, though I am grateful to her for her help, I just can’t suddenly forgive her.

I want to.

The same way I want Charlotte to forgive me.

I can say that I have (which I have), I can act like I have (which I do) but there’s a part of me that simply hasn’t forgiven her.

Even if I wish it would.

Yes, given what happened, I should be more understanding.

Yes, I get your point.

But can you try and get mine?

I did it once.

Terrible as it was, as appalling as it was, as ashamed of myself as I am, I did it once.

It used to be my life.

Finding her unconscious, not finding her sometimes, just not knowing where she was. Ambulances, foster homes, temporary placements and rehab, followed by reunification plans and promises that she simply did not keep.

‘What will you do for the summer holidays?’

I don’t know, I think, but I don’t answer.

‘How is Charlotte doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ this time I do answer.

I see his scissors pause, it’s as if he feels my sudden tension. ‘She’s just…’ I don’t know if she’s grieving or if it’s hormones or a mixture. I don’t know if she’s still angry with me, I don’t know. We’re not so close anymore, it’s like I’ve lost my little girl and I don’t know if I’m going to get her back. She’s twelve now. Maybe she’s just growing up, but I miss her, I can’t tell you how much.

‘Give her time,’ Ricky says and I nod because I can’t speak, I’m scared I’ll start crying. He seems to know that because he goes and gets me another coffee and then he gets back to work on my hair but in silence this time, for which, I’m grateful.

‘Look at you!’ Ricky beams as he holds up the mirror. ‘Back to being a natural blonde!’

I feel better, I feel better, I feel better.

I go over to pay him but he waves me away. ‘On the house.’

He gives me a cuddle and I love Ricky, I love him.

He gave me a free hairdo some years ago.

I’d been seeing him regularly for about a year and then I hadn’t gone in for ages. I’d had Charlotte and my marriage was on skid row. I knew he was cheating and I’d threatened to leave but I didn’t. I wanted my marriage to work, so I came to see Ricky instead and he painted me blonde again and told me about a Pilate’s class that had a crèche. That’s where I met Jess and somehow slid into village life.

I’m sliding slowly back into it now, only I don’t want to be how I was.

I want to be me.