That maybe she just doesn’t like her.
She calls Paul later that afternoon. He’s at work and she can hear the warm rumble of normality in the background.
‘Listen,’ she says, ‘can I ask you something? About Hanna?’
There’s a beat of silence before Paul says, ‘Yes.’
He knows, thinks Laurel, he already knows.
‘Has she said anything to you about a boyfriend?’
There’s another silence. ‘Yes, she has.’
She exhales. ‘How long have you known?’
‘A few months,’ he replies.
‘And you know – you know who it is?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
Laurel closes her eyes. ‘And she told you not to tell me?’
‘Yes. Something like that.’
Now Laurel pauses. ‘Paul,’ she says after a moment, ‘do you think that Hanna hates me?’
‘What? No. Of course she doesn’t hate you. Hanna doesn’t hate anyone. Why would you say that?’
‘It’s just, whenever we’re together she’s so … spiky. And cold. And I’ve always put it down to arrested development – you know, losing Ellie when she was just on the cusp of adult life. But I saw her the other day, with Theo. And she was so bright and so happy. She looked like a completely different person.’
‘Well, yes, she is madly in love, by all accounts.’
‘But when she’s with you, and Bonny, what’s she like then? Is she light-hearted? Is she fun?’
‘Yes. I’d say she is. On the whole.’
‘So, I’m right, you see. It is me. She can’t stand being with me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘It is true, Paul. You’ve never seen it. You’ve never seen what she’s like with me when it’s just the two of us. She’s like a … a void. There’s nothing there. Just this blank stare. What did I do, Paul? What did I do wrong?’
She hears Paul take a breath. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘You did nothing wrong. But I’d say, well, it wasn’t just Ellie she lost, was it? It was you, too.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You. You went kind of – off radar. You stopped cooking. You stopped – you stopped being a parent.’
‘I know, Paul! I know I did! And I’ve apologised to Hanna a million times for the way I was then. Why do you think I go to her house every week and clean it for her? I try so hard with her, Paul. I try all the time and it makes no difference.’
‘Laurel,’ he says carefully, ‘I think what Hanna really needs from you is your forgiveness.’
‘Forgiveness?’ she echoes. ‘Forgiveness for what?’
There is a long moment of silence as Paul forms his response.
‘Forgiveness …’ he says finally, ‘for not being Ellie.’
Paul’s words have unfurled a whole roll of thoughts and feelings that Laurel hadn’t known were so tightly wound inside her and she is plunged straight back into the minutes and hours following Ellie’s disappearance, recalling the sour resentment at being left with Hanna, denying her the lasagne that Ellie had staked her claim on, as Ellie had staked her claim on so much in their family. Everyone had fought for Ellie’s attention, for a blast of her golden light. Then the light had gone and they’d dissipated like death stars falling away from the sun.
And yes, Laurel had never accepted Hanna as a consolation prize. She really hadn’t. And as a result she’d got the relationship with her daughter that she deserved. Well, now she knows this, she can work on it and make things better.
Laurel calls Hanna. It goes through to voicemail, as she’d known it would. But this can’t wait another moment. She needs to say it right now.
‘Darling,’ she says, ‘I just wanted to say, I am so proud of you. You are the most extraordinary girl in the world and I am so lucky to have you in my life. And I also wanted to say that I’m sorry, so sorry if anything I’ve ever done has made you feel like less than the centre of my world. Because you are, you are absolutely the centre of my world and I could not live without you. And’ – she draws in her breath slightly – ‘I wanted to say that I saw you the other day, I saw you with Theo, and I think it’s wonderful and I think he’s a very, very lucky man. A very lucky man indeed. Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say and I’m sorry I haven’t said it before and I love you and I’ll see you on Christmas Eve. I love you. Bye.’
She turns off her phone and she rests it on the kitchen counter and feels a wave of relief and weightlessness pass through her. She is unburdened of something she hadn’t even known she was carrying.
Fifty-four
When Laurel arrives at Floyd’s house that evening she feels lighter, more present in the moment. And she notices for the first time that although there are only three days till Christmas, there is no tree in the house. In fact, there are no decorations of any kind.
‘Do you not do Christmas trees?’ she asks as Floyd helps her off with her coat in the hallway.
‘Do Christmas trees?’
‘Yes, do you not put one up?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Well, we used to, but we haven’t for years. But we can if you want one. Do you want one? I’ll go and get one now.’
She laughs. ‘I was thinking more of Poppy,’ she says.
‘Pops!’ he calls up the stairs. ‘Would you like a Christmas tree?’
They hear her footsteps, loud and fast. She appears at the top of the stairs and says, ‘Yes! Yes please!’
‘Right then,’ says Floyd. ‘That’s settled then. I will go out now, like a proper father, and I will bring home the mother of all Christmas trees. Want to come with me, Pops?’
‘Yes! Let me just get my shoes on.’
‘We’ll need fairy lights,’ says Laurel, ‘and baubles. Have you got any?’
‘Yes, yes, we do. In the attic. We always had a tree when Kate and Sara-Jade lived here. There’s boxes of the stuff up there. Let me go and get it.’
He bounds up the stairs two at a time and returns a few minutes later with two large paper shopping bags full of tree decorations. Then he and Poppy get into the car and disappear into the dark night together and Laurel looks around and realises that she is alone in Floyd’s house for the very first time.
She turns on the TV and finds a satellite channel that is playing Christmas songs. Then she pulls some things from the bags; random is the word she’d use to describe them. Scuffed plastic balls, a knitted reindeer with three legs, a huge spiky snowflake that snags a hole in her jumper, stern-faced wooden soldiers and a group of slightly alternative-looking wood nymphs in pointy hats with curled toes on their shoes.
She leaves them in the bag and takes out the fairy lights. There are two sets: one multi-coloured and the other white. The white ones work when she plugs them in at the wall. The multi-coloured ones don’t.