‘Your parents sound amazing,’ she says.
Floyd blinks and smiles sadly. ‘In many ways I suppose they are,’ he says. But there’s a chip of ice in his delivery, something sad and dark that he can’t tell her about. And that’s fine. She’ll leave it there. She understands that not everything is conversational fodder, not everything is for sharing.
They go back to Floyd’s house after dinner. Sara-Jade is curled up in the big armchair again, a laptop resting on her thighs, headphones on. She jumps slightly as she and Floyd walk into the room.
‘Happy birthday,’ she says in her whispery voice. ‘Did you have fun?’
Laurel is taken aback by the unexpected overture.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes, thank you. We did.’
Floyd squeezes Laurel’s shoulder and says, ‘I’m just popping to the loo, be back in a minute,’ and Laurel knows his withdrawal is deliberate, that he’s hoping she and SJ might finally have a chance to bond.
‘I’m a bit tipsy,’ she says to SJ. ‘We went to a champagne and cheese place. Had more champagne than cheese.’
SJ smiles uncertainly. ‘How old are you?’ she says. ‘If you don’t mind me asking?’
‘No, of course I don’t mind. I’ve never understood people being ashamed of their age. As if it’s a failure of some kind. I’m fifty-five,’ she says. ‘And a few hours.’
SJ nods.
‘Are you staying over?’ Laurel asks.
‘No,’ says SJ. ‘No. I think I’ll go home and sleep in my own bed. I’ve got work tomorrow.’
‘Oh,’ says Laurel. ‘What sort of work do you do?’
‘Bits and bobs. Babysitting. Dog walking.’ She lowers the lid of the laptop and uncurls her legs. ‘Modelling tomorrow. For a life-drawing class.’
‘Wow. Is that clothed, or …?’
‘Naked,’ SJ says. ‘Just as you say that there’s no shame in getting older, I think there’s no shame in being naked. And don’t you think’, she continues, ‘that if people say you shouldn’t be allowed to ban burkinis on the beach then, really, the natural extrapolation of that is that full nudity shouldn’t be banned either. Like, who decides which bit of a body should or shouldn’t be seen in public? If you’re saying that one woman legally has to cover her breasts and her minge then how can you tell another woman that she’s not allowed to cover her legs or her arms? I mean, how does that even make sense?’
Laurel nods and laughs. ‘Good point,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘No one thinks about anything properly these days. Everyone just believes what people on Twitter tell them to believe. It’s all propaganda, however much it’s dressed up as liberal right thinking. We’re a nation of sheep.’
Laurel feels suddenly very drunk and has to resist the temptation to say baaaaa. Instead she nods solemnly. She has barely absorbed another person’s opinion for over a decade. She is no sheep.
‘Your daughter was Ellie Mack,’ says SJ, as if reading the changing direction of Laurel’s thoughts.
‘Yes,’ Laurel replies, surprised. ‘Did your dad tell you?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘I googled you. I’ve been reading everything on the internet about it. It’s really, really sad.’
‘Yes,’ Laurel agrees. ‘It’s very sad.’
‘She was really pretty.’
‘Thank you. Yes, she was.’
‘She looked really like Poppy, don’t you think?’
Laurel’s head clears, suddenly and sharply, and she finds herself saying, almost defensively, ‘No, not really. I mean, maybe a little, around the mouth. But lots of people look like people, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ SJ replies, ‘they do.’
Twenty-one
Laurel visits her mother the next day. She’d seemed a bit perkier during her visit last Thursday, interested in Laurel’s romance, gripping Laurel’s hand inside hers, her dark eyes sparkling. No talk of death. No empty gaze. Laurel hopes that she will find her in a similar mood today.
But the joy seems to have seeped out of her in the days between her visits and she looks grey again, and hollow. Her first words to Laurel are: ‘I think there’s not much time left for me now.’ The words are seamless, said without pause or hesitation.
Laurel sits down quickly beside her and says, ‘Oh, Mum, I thought you were feeling better?’
‘Better,’ says her mum. And then she nods. ‘Better.’
‘So why the talk of dying again?’
‘Because …’ She stabs at her collarbone with stiff fingers. ‘… old.’
Laurel smiles. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘you are old. But there’s more life left in you yet.’
Her mother shakes her head. ‘No. No. No life. And y … y … you. Happy. Now.’
Laurel takes a sharp intake of breath. She feels the meaning of her mother’s words. ‘Have you been staying here for me?’ she asks, tears catching at the back of her throat.
‘Yes. For y … y … you. Yes.’
‘And now I’m happy, you’re ready to go?’
A huge smile crosses her mother’s face and she squeezes Laurel’s hand. ‘Yes. Yes.’
A heavy tear rolls down Laurel’s cheek. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh, Mum. I still need you.’
‘No,’ says her mum. ‘Not n … n … now. Ellie found. You happy. I …’ She prods at her collarbone. ‘I go.’
Laurel wipes away the tear with the back of her hand and forces a smile. ‘It’s your life, Mum,’ she says. ‘I can’t choose when to let you go.’
‘No,’ says her mum. ‘N … n … no one can.’
That afternoon, Laurel takes Poppy shopping. It’s raining, so she suggests Brent Cross as an alternative to Oxford Street.
Poppy greets her at her front door wearing smart trousers with a jade-green round-neck cardigan and a floral raincoat. Her hair is in two plaits, one on each shoulder. She loops her arm through Laurel’s as they run through the rain to her car across the street. Then she rolls down her window and waves frantically at her father, who stands in the doorway in his socked feet waving back at her.
‘How are you?’ Laurel asks, turning to glance at her as she pulls out of her road.
‘I’m super excited,’ she says.
‘Good,’ she says.
‘And how are you?’
‘Oh, I’m OK, I guess. A little the worse for wear after last night.’
‘Too much champagne?’
Laurel smiles. ‘Yes. Too much champagne. Not enough sleep.’
‘Well,’ says Poppy, patting Laurel’s hand, ‘it was your birthday after all.’
‘Yes. It was.’
The rain is ferocious and Laurel switches on her headlights and pushes the wipers up to the top speed.
‘What have you been up to this morning?’ Poppy continues in the precocious way she has that Laurel is quickly becoming used to.
‘Hm,’ she replies, ‘well, I’ve been to see my mum.’
‘You have a mum?’
‘Yes, of course! Everyone has a mum!’
‘I don’t.’
‘Well, no, maybe not one you can see. But you have a mother. Somewhere.’
‘If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘It makes total sense.’