They pick out patterned leggings, a soft, slashed-neck sweatshirt, a brushed-flannel checked shirt, a fitted T-shirt with a moustache printed on it and a grey party dress with a chiffon skirt and jersey bodice.
Laurel stands outside the cubicle, as she has stood outside so many cubicles for so many years of her life and waits for the curtain to be drawn back. And there is Poppy, stern and uncertain in the leggings and T-shirt. ‘I look vile,’ she says.
‘No,’ says Laurel, her hands going immediately to the waistband of the leggings to centre them and make them sit properly. ‘Here.’ She pulls the flannel shirt from its hanger and helps Poppy thread her arms into the sleeves. ‘There,’ she says. ‘There.’ And then she removes the neat bands from the tips of Poppy’s plaits, untangles them and fans the corrugated waves of her hair out over her shoulders.
‘There,’ she says again. ‘You look incredible. You look …’
She has to turn then, turn and force half her fist into her mouth. She realises what she has done. She has dressed this child up as her dead daughter. And the result is unnerving.
‘You look lovely,’ she manages, her voice slightly tremulous. ‘But if you don’t feel comfortable in it, that’s fine. Let’s go back to John Lewis. We’ll get you that dress. Come on …’
But Poppy does not acknowledge Laurel’s suggestion. She stands and stares at herself in the mirror. She turns slightly, from side to side. She runs her hands down the fabric of the leggings, plays with the sleeves of the shirt. She strikes a pose, and then another one. ‘Actually,’ she says. ‘I like this. Can I have it?’
Laurel blinks. ‘Yes. Of course you can. If you’re sure?’
‘I’m totally sure,’ she says. ‘I want to be different. It will be fun.’
‘Yes,’ says Laurel. ‘It will be.’
‘Maybe you could be different, too?’
‘Different? In what way?’
‘You always wear grey and black. All your clothes look like uniforms. Maybe we should find you something swishy.’
‘Swishy?’
‘Yes. Or colourful. Something with lace and flowers. Something pretty.’
Laurel smiles. ‘I was just thinking the same thing myself.’
Twenty-two
Laurel drives to Hanna’s flat on Friday evening from where they will get an Uber together to the restaurant in Islington.
‘Wow,’ says Hanna upon opening her front door. ‘Mum, you look gorgeous.’
Laurel swishes the skirt of her new dress. It’s black with an Oriental print of birds and flowers. It has a halter neck, buttons down the front and is made of silk. ‘Thank you!’ she says. ‘Ellie helped me choose it.’
An echoing silence spreads between them.
‘Oh,’ says Laurel. ‘Did I just say Ellie?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘I meant Poppy. Obviously. Sorry. All this shopping with young girls must be messing with my timelines.’
‘Must be,’ said Hanna.
‘And you look lovely, too,’ Laurel says, trying to leave her faux pas as far behind her as possible. ‘Have you had your hair done?’
‘Yes, I had a cut and blow-dry on Wednesday.’
For your big romantic night out with T, no doubt, Laurel thinks but does not say. ‘Very nice. I like it that length.’
They sit in a companionable silence in the back of the minicab. It has always been thus with Hanna. She rarely feels the need to converse. It’s taken Laurel a long time to lose her conviction that this is a symptom of her own failings as a mother.
Outside the restaurant Laurel breathes in hard. They’re two minutes early and she has no idea of what lies inside, of who might be sitting at that table. It could be any number of awkward combinations of people, the most excruciating of which would be Paul, Bonny, Floyd and Poppy. Her skin crawls at the very thought of it and she wishes she’d thought to meet Floyd elsewhere first.
But as they are led across the restaurant towards their table in a glass room at the back, she sees that only Floyd and Poppy are seated and she breathes a sigh of relief.
Floyd stands to greet them both. He looks incredibly attractive tonight. He is wearing a fitted ink-blue suit with a slim black tie and his salt and pepper hair is swept back off his forehead with some kind of product. And Poppy looks refreshingly normal in her new checked shirt worn over a fitted jersey dress with black leather lace-up boots. They look just right, thinks Laurel, they look like us.
‘How incredibly good to meet you,’ says Floyd, his hand out to Hanna, his eyes bright with genuine pleasure.
Hanna gives him her hand. ‘You too,’ she says.
Then Poppy follows suit. ‘You’re so pretty,’ she says. ‘I’m so happy to meet you.’
Hanna flushes slightly at the bluntly delivered compliment and mumbles something under her breath that Laurel can’t hear.
They take their seats and then all get to their feet again when Paul, Bonny, Jake and Blue arrive. Laurel turns her hands into fists and plasters a facsimile of a smile on to her face. She’s been told by both her children not to worry, that Bonny is a nice person, that she’ll like her, that she’s sweet, but still, it’s a huge moment and magnified tenfold by the presence of her own boyfriend and the impending introductions that that will involve, and for a brief moment Laurel feels as though she is going to turn liquid and pool to the floor.
But other people save her from herself. Bonny heads straight to Laurel, looks her directly in her eye, presses her hands against Laurel’s forearms, then enfolds her inside her soft, welcoming body that smells of violets and talcum powder and says in the voice of a woman who has smoked and drunk and cried and sung, ‘At bloody last. At long bloody last.’
Floyd meanwhile has made his way straight to Paul to shake his hand and tell him what an honour it is to meet him and there is a moment of gentle hilarity as they realise that they are dressed virtually identically and that they are in fact wearing exactly the same Paul Smith socks.
‘Look,’ says Paul, pressing himself up against Floyd. ‘Twins!’
As onerous meetings between exes, new partners, old partners and various children go, Laurel thinks, it really has been at the upper end of the scale.
She sits between Floyd and Bonny. Paul sits at Bonny’s other side with Hanna at the head of the table, and Jake, Poppy and Blue opposite. Blue looks sour-faced and disgusted to be here and Laurel can only imagine the emotional wrangling that Jake must have undertaken to get her to agree to coming tonight. If Blue had her way they would never leave their cottage.
But Blue is the only dark point in the proceedings. Laurel looks around the table and sees a best-case scenario. No one would ever guess, she thinks, no one would know how weird this is, how extraordinary. Even Hanna is smiling as she chats with her dad and opens his gift to her.