What Goes Around

chapter SIXTY NINE

‘How was school?’

‘Great!’ Charlotte says scooping up the puppy. ‘I've been invited to a party!’ Then she stops.

‘Tell me.’

‘Later,’ she says, because sometimes you feel guilty being happy.

Charlotte is happy.

She loves her new school and she’s making good friends and we’re a happy little family now.

She’s fully back to me now and my mum was right – it’s even better.

We stop and buy flowers and then we pile back into the car. I park it in the cemetery and I sit for a moment before I head out there and then my phone bleeps and I read a text from Jess.

Love you, thinking of you today.

I’m not quite ready yet but maybe in summer the three of you can come over. I’m not losing my best friend and neither are you, always know that xxx

I smile as I read it, because despite what went on, even if it’s been a bit awkward between us since we went to Wales, she is my best friend, and yes, Charlotte, the puppy and I will head there in summer.

I walk past the baby bit as fast as I can because I really don’t want Charlotte to see them, but she does. You can’t avoid it, it’s right next to the car park bit. I just want to rush her through but I know I’ll have a million tears and questions tonight.

I see that Gloria and Daisy are there and I’m glad because it makes things easier for Charlotte. She gives a little squeal of delight and I figure that Gloria must have timed it, because I remember Charlotte saying to Alice on Skype that she was being picked up from school at lunchtime.

I thought she should go in for half a day.

Not just because she needs her routines but because I wanted some time to myself too.

Because, I do miss you.

I look at the stone and his name and I can honestly say it.

I miss you and I did love you and I do think you loved me.

I am quite sure that you loved Gloria too.

I don’t understand it.

Often I question it.

But most of the time I just accept it.

There are different sorts of love.

Your death means ours can last.

Charlotte starts crying and I stand there beside her and I can’t stop her pain and I can’t erase her loss, I can just be there.

Then, when she’s calming down, Gloria makes a fuss of the puppy and asks its name.

‘Holly.’

I see Gloria frown as he cocks his leg on a long blade of grass.

He piddles every ten seconds, I swear.

‘Mum didn’t like the boy Christmas names,’ Charlotte explains. It takes Gloria a minute to compute and then she goes a bit red, but I think there’s a tiny smile as she catches my eye and then she suggests that the girls play on the grass. ‘Show her her namesake,’ Gloria says as she hands over Daisy. ‘Make a daisy chain.’

We stand there in silence for a minute and it’s Gloria who breaks it.

‘Well, one thing I’ll say for him - he did what I asked.’ Gloria says. ‘He looked after his girls.’

He didn’t just look after his daughters.

Gloria must have been one of his girls too.

She looks amazing and is that a diamond sparkling on her finger?

I don’t know if it’s my place to say anything, if I ought to congratulate her?

‘So, you’re planning a wedding?’ I can be so diplomatic!

‘Two!’ Gloria says.

I look, not at the stone in the ground, but the stone on her finger and I tell her that I wish her well.

I mean it.

Then we stand there and I turn and there are the girls making daisy chains. I watch Charlotte split the stem and link another one in. I know we’re all connected and sometimes it comforts but right now I just don’t like it. I get that horrible shiver down my arms.

It’s spooky.

‘I’ll have nightmares tonight.’ Gloria breaks into my dark thoughts. ‘Honestly, after I’ve been here I have terrible ones – I see things coming out of the ground.’

‘Like Buffy,’ I say and she smiles.

‘I’ll leave you then,’ she says. ‘Let you have some time with him.’

I’m about to say thanks but Charlotte comes over and hands a daisy chain to me and she’s stressed and teary. ‘Can we go?’

‘Sure,’ I say and we walk off with Gloria and Daisy.

I can feel the sun on my shoulders and I am leaving him behind.

I wonder if he can see us.

I wonder if he’s proud that both of us are holding Charlotte’s hands.

And, if he is proud, then I want to make him even prouder.

‘I was wondering,’ I say it ever so casually. ‘If you wanted to come and have a coffee sometime, at the cottage…’

There’s a bit of a pause.

‘I’d like that,’ Gloria says. ‘Let me know when it’s the school holidays and I’ll bring Daisy for a play.’

‘I meant,’ I don’t know if I should say it. ‘I meant, just us.’

I shouldn’t have spoiled things; I shouldn’t have said anything, because she doesn’t answer me. In fairness that’s because Daisy has gone crazy, she’s bouncing around in Gloria’s arms and for the first time I hear Gloria a little bit stern.

‘Daisy!’ She warns and then looks at me. ‘I think I must have put sugar on her cornflakes this morning, she’s crazy today.’ She carries on walking and then she says it. ‘I’d like that.’

I keep on walking too. ‘So would I.’

We hit the car park in silence and it’s Gloria who ends it. ‘Actually,’ Gloria says, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being insensitive, I don’t know if you’ve got plans…’ I frown and look over to her. ‘It’s Daisy’s birthday so we’re having a little ice cream cake tonight. I wondered if I could bring along Charlotte.’

I don’t have a sudden compulsion to dive in a freezer at Tesco’s and come up with a Cornetto in my mouth, I’m just thrilled for the smile on Charlotte’s face and then I remember… I mean, how could I forget – It’s Daisy’s birthday!

‘I forgot!’ I’m so, so embarrassed. ‘God, Gloria, I’m sorry. I just completely forgot that it’s her birthday,’

But of course it is!

I’ll never forget that day and yet, I forgot her birthday.

‘I’ll go to the shops at the weekend.’

Gloria waves away my apologies. ‘It’s a strange old day,’ she tells me. ‘Eleanor’s really struggling, she wants to keep the two days apart, she’s coming to the cemetery at the weekend, she just wants to keep today for Daisy.’

I get that.

‘Have some time with him,’ Gloria nods in the direction of his grave. ‘I’ll get these girls back to mine and we’ll have a little party.’

‘Thanks.’ I really appreciate it - it will be nice to have some time on my own, but first I kiss Charlotte goodbye and tell her I’ll pick her up about seven and then I hear a car behind me. I turn around and it’s Luke and I try not to blush as he comes out and walks over but I can feel Gloria’s eyes on me. I sort of know that she knows that I like him.

How could a woman not though?

How could I ever have thought him boring?

‘Hi Gloria,’ he kisses her on the cheek and then he turns to me and I don’t get a kiss, I get a nod and a jiggle of keys. ‘Lucy.’

I give him a nod back. ‘Luke.’

‘Well,’ he says and he makes us both smile. ‘Is it just me, or is this awkward?’

‘Just you, Luke.’ Gloria grins.

He says goodbye and walks off towards his grave and I give Charlotte another kiss.

‘Say goodbye to Luke from me,’ Gloria says.

‘Luke?’

‘I thought you were going back to the grave?’

‘Oh, yes…’ I nod. ‘I’ll just wait till he’s done.’

No I won’t, I’m thinking. The second she’s gone I’m legging it to my car.

She turns to go and then I see her look over to his grave and so do I. I see Luke’s shoulders heaving because he loved him too and then Gloria speaks. ‘I’m happy to have Charlotte stay the night.’

‘It’s a school night,’ I say.

‘I can wash out her uniform and take her to school tomorrow, it really is no problem.’

A night to myself is usually too good to pass up but I’m not sure I want to be alone on tonight, of all nights but Charlotte is all excited and so I nod.

‘Thanks, Gloria.’

I get her school bag from the car and I say goodnight now to Charlotte and I say thank you to Gloria and then I go to kiss Daisy because, well, it’s impossible to not.

I feel her hair beneath my fingers and I see her lovely smile. ‘She’s so gorgeous. Happy Birthday, Daisy.’ I say.

I look into her green eyes and she looks right into mine, I see the hazel fleck and her eyes smile at me and for a second I recoil.

I’m startled.

But then I look again and I am lost in her eyes. Daisy is the third person in the world whose eyes I can look into and there’s something there, something I recognise, someone else I see smiling back at me and telling me I will be okay.

That this I can do.

It isn’t just the day he died.

It’s the day she was born.

It isn’t just the day he left.

It’s the night that she arrived.

I feel the breeze and the sun and the smells of spring and somehow I know that Daisy was meant to be here this year to help us all through, to heal us.

That Daisy was simply meant to be….

Gloria and Charlotte get into the car and I offer to help and clip Daisy in.

‘You’re so precious,’ I say.

‘Oh she is….’ Gloria agrees from the driving seat and I look up from Daisy and out of the back window I see Luke walking back from the grave. I know Gloria’s probably watching from the rear-view mirror so I try not to look, I try to be slow, I want him in his car and gone before Gloria drives off.

I cannot be on my own with him.

I go back to Daisy’s eyes and they’re still smiling at me - they’re telling me that this I can do and there’s a shiver that runs down my arms as Gloria starts the engine and then speaks on - except, it doesn’t scare me this time.

I know, as I step out of the car to stand-alone and face Luke, that what Gloria just said is somehow true.

‘She’s an angel.’