What Goes Around...

by Carol Marinelli

  But I’m not.

  I’m not an adult lying there ignoring a child who’s just lost her father. She’s supposed to be her sister for God’s sake.

  Half sister.

  There is such a difference.

  ‘Can I see it?’ Gloria asks, when it’s clear Eleanor’s not going to make an attempt with the present. Gloria takes over and she is lovely with Charlotte. She opens the parcel and pulls out the little baby suit and socks and there’s a little headband too. Gloria tells Charlotte how lovely it all is and how she can’t wait to see the baby in it.

  ‘She’s so cute!’ Charlotte peers over into the cot. ‘Mum look, she’s so tiny.’ I walk over to the cot and the baby is adorable, she’s all snuggled up and I feel Gloria’s eyes on me, sort of waiting for my reaction.

  She’s beautiful.

  Smaller than Charlotte was but sort of the same and she’s got her grandad’s chin. She’s absolutely and completely beautiful.

  ‘She’s adorable.’ I feel tears at the back of my nose and I feel it go red. I want to pick her up and hold her; I want him to have lived to have seen her.

  Emotion rushes in as I gaze at her, she really is the most adorable baby.

  But she’s not Noel’s.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Charlotte asks and Gloria casts an anxious look towards Eleanor before she answers.

  ‘We haven’t quite decided yet.’ The baby’s wriggling about and her arms are stretching as she slowly wakes up.

  ‘Would you like to hold her, Charlotte?’ Gloria offers.

  I really am grateful that Gloria is there. I never thought I would say that but she sort of takes over with Charlotte and answers her endless questions. I am so glad of the reprieve, so glad to sit and not speak – to be Eleanor for just a few moments. ‘Is that okay with you, Lucy?’ I don’t even know what Gloria said and I drag my mind to the conversation, try to remember what I’ve missed. ‘If Charlotte helps me change her nappy and gives her a cuddle?’ It’s the first time Gloria has ever spoken to me. Actually, that’s wrong, it’s the second. The last time was long before Charlotte was born, after the Thames boat trip that Luke brought up - we’d all gotten off the boat and were standing on the pier and it was clear Gloria’s husband was coming home with me. There was a row and then a fight between him and Luke broke out, fists and everything. For a moment I thought Gloria might even hit me, but of course, Gloria’s too bloody dignified for that. ‘I got the best years of him.’ They are the only words she’s ever uttered to me. She came right up to my face and said it again. ‘I got the best years of him.’ Then Luke walked off with her.

  We haven’t spoken since.

  ‘I can watch Charlotte if you like,’ Gloria offers. Maybe she sees that I’m struggling, or maybe she is too. Maybe it’s killing her to be in the same room as me and so I’m politely dismissed. ‘If you want to go and get a coffee or something?’

  I don't want a coffee – I’m putting on weight. I had two at Ricky’s this morning and Mum and Jess keep insisting that I eat. Instead, I wander outside maternity, trying to avoid going near Accident and Emergency, but as I walk, I see a sign for the mortuary. I wonder if he's in there, I don't know where he is. I'm still waiting for the coroner to get back to me.

  I’m still wondering if everybody's going to find out.

  I feel like marching over there and storming in. I feel like hauling him out of a fridge and demanding to know how he could do this to me.

  How could he leave me like this?

  Jess says I should keep a journal.

  She says it’s the only thing that helped after her brother died.

  She even bought me one to get me started.

  I opened the page and tried to write something, but I didn’t know what to put.

  I don’t know what to do.

  I just want to go home.

  But first I have to go back and face Gloria.

  ‘Gloria said I could feed her!’ Charlotte is sitting holding the baby and she’s all excited, her face is shining and, for once, it’s not from tears. Gloria is hovering over her as Charlotte gives the baby her bottle. Every now and then she reminds Charlotte to lift the bottle up, so the baby doesn’t gulp air. If it were any other woman, I would later thank her for giving my daughter a break from the grief, but instead I sit quietly beside Charlotte. I look down at a very new baby; she's got tiny little knots of curls and eyelashes that look as if they've been crimped. She truly is gorgeous and, when I thought I never would again, and certainly not with Gloria in the room, I realise that I’m smiling. ‘Girl with a curl,’ I say, and even though Gloria doesn't look at me, I see out of the corner of my eye that she smiled a little bit too.

  ‘Gloria says that she looks like me,’ Charlotte says.

  It’s funny, because I was just thinking the same.

  When the bottle’s finished I tell Charlotte that it's time to go home. I say goodbye to Eleanor but she doesn't even attempt to answer. I feel like walking over and giving her a slap. My husband had just died and I’ve dragged myself out to visit and she can’t even be bothered to look up. Yes, I know it was her dad, I know she's just had a baby, I know her marriage is on the rocks, I know, I know, I know, but I'm here visiting her with my late husband's ex-wife in the room. I’m here with my grieving daughter and she can’t even give us the courtesy of a goodbye.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Gloria fills in the awkward silence and I know she's talking to Charlotte and not me. I just want out of there.

  I’m glad the visit’s done.

  But I’m glad that I went too.

  ‘Gloria told Eleanor off!’ We’re walking towards the car and Charlotte is still rabbiting on about the baby. ‘She really told her off!’ Charlotte elaborates. ‘And she swore.’

  ‘I didn't know saints swore.’ Charlotte doesn’t know what I'm talking about, of course. Even though I really couldn't care less about Gloria and her daughter, it's nice to have Charlotte talking instead of crying for her dad, and so I ask her more about it. Charlotte walks along beside me imitating Gloria’s London accent. ‘If you can't be sodding bothered to name her, then I will. She’s your daughter Eleanor and she needs a name. It’s not her fault that you couldn’t keep your knickers on.’

  ‘She said that!’ Well, I guess infidelity would be one of Gloria’s hot buttons. ‘What did Eleanor say?’

  ‘Not much,’ Charlotte shrugs. ‘She looked at a vase of flowers and said “Iris.” Then Gloria said, “you’re not calling her that,” and then I suggested Daisy and Gloria said that they’d think about it.’

  It was the only reprieve in an awful day.

  Actually, I tell a lie, there were two reprieves.

  I dropped Charlotte at Felicity’s and when I got home Jess and Mum were sitting, chatting with Luke, who’d finished work early.

  ‘They’re going to put on a coach,’ Luke told me. ‘Everyone from work wants to come.’

  Everyone?

  I wonder if she’ll be there.

  ‘I’ve washed all the sheets,’ Mum says. ‘All your laundry is up to date.’

  No, that wasn’t the reprieve – Mum doing my housework just riles me. Charlotte’s wetting the bed and Mum’s going for Nanny-of-the-Year trying to help, but it just pisses me off further – I had to wash my own sheets when I used to wet the bed.

  I plonk myself down on the sofa and close my eyes as Jess stands to make me a cup of tea.

  ‘Here’s your post.’

  She hands me a wad – I mean a wad of envelopes, they’re purple and lilac and I don’t have the energy to open them, let alone read them.

  ‘And this came.’

  It’s a brown parcel and I wearily start to open it but, as I do, I realise they were a bit off with their 2-3 business days! Given that Mum’s already ripping open the envelopes, I haul myself up to take it upstairs, before she shows the world my vibrator.

  No, that wasn’t my reprieve!

  I shove it in the wardrobe and head back down and, as I do
, the phone rings.

  It’s the coroner’s office.

  I stare in the mirror and I brace myself.

  I can go ahead with the funeral, I’m told, the body has been released.

  And?

  I look incredibly calm, I realise, but I’m waiting for the bullet, then I hear the words “death by natural causes.”

  I fold over for a moment.

  For the first time, since it happened, I feel as if I can breathe.

  Jess brings my tea to the phone and I ring the undertaker and the vicar, then I go to ring Alice but I change my mind, she’ll be here in a couple of hours after all, I can tell her then.

  I put down the phone and I simply breathe.

  I’ve hit my rock-bottom, I tell myself.

  It’s just the funeral to get through now. For the first time I glimpse that we’re maybe going to be okay.

  I just have to keep it together, keep up with my routines. Everything will be fine now, I convince myself. I’ll come out the other side.

  I had no idea what was to come.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  That awkward moment when the vicar asks if you want a double-plot in front of your stepchildren.

  I just wanted one of those places that do everything. A “do you want fries with that coffin” place. The Original Jameson Girls want a church and not just any old church - they want the one they were all christened in, hence the visit from their vicar.

  I bought cakes in the village (more stares – am I not supposed to eat?) and Jess winks at me as, already flustered, I go out into the kitchen to get them. Luke is in there with us all, not just as the peacekeeper - as I said, they were close. Mum’s upstairs playing with Charlotte but Jess is cheering me on from the kitchen bench.

  Thank God for Jess.

  ‘Stick to your guns,’ she tells me as I arrange a little platter. ‘You have the final say.’

  My jaw is so rigid it aches when I speak. ‘You should hear them, they’re debating You Raise Me Up or The Wind Beneath My Wings…’

  ‘You can tell me all that later,’ Jess interrupts. ‘For now, all you say is -’ Jess waits, she’s been training me. Honestly, we’ve been sitting on the couch and she’s trained me as to my responses. ‘What do you say, Lucy, when they start to push you towards something you don’t want?’

  ‘I’ll take it on board.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Jess says. ‘Remember to give a little nod after you say it, so that it looks as if you’re really going to think about it.’ She gives me a quick hug. ‘Back to it, baby.’

  It’s going okay, well I think it is.

  They shake their heads when I suggest Robbie’s Angel.

  ‘Fine,’ I concede. ‘Charlotte wants Morning Has Broken to be sung as we do all the pictures and power point stuff.’

  Reluctantly they agree.

  We sort out the hymns and the readings. Luke is going to do the eulogy and just when I start to pat myself on the back, just when I think I’ve got a handle on this, comes the awkward moment, and my God it’s awkward (sorry God, didn’t mean to use you in vain there) when the vicar asks if I’ve thought about a double plot.

  I just sit there.

  I can feel all these eyes on me as they wait for me to answer.

  I think I’m supposed to start crying. That I’m to lean onto the table and weep ‘yes,’ sob sob. ‘Yes,’ as I bang my fist on the table. ‘I want to lie with him forever.’

  But I just sit there.

  I don’t want to lie with him forever.

  I want to kill him for what he did.

  I sit there and I’m told about the cost of a double plot and no, I don’t want one.

  I am so angry.

  I am so furious and there’s no-one left to row with. There’s no chance to have it all out. I just feel all these faces looking at mine, all waiting for me to crumple, to produce mandatory tears, to dissolve, to collapse in heap, as a good widow should.

  ‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘Single plot.’

  Wrong answer, Lucy.

  I can feel that my grief isn’t the grief the room wants, that my answer isn’t the appropriate one.

  Shame on you, Lucy.

  Shame on him!

  So, we have the church the Original Jameson Girls wanted, we have the vicar of their choice and the hymns that they have chosen, which is all fine by me. I am clueless as to religion; Mum didn’t discover her Higher Power till I’d left home. He’s in a single plot which is my (everyone suck your lips in) decision and we have Morning Has Broken, near the end.

  I am very happy with my victories.

  I really don’t envy Luke doing the eulogy. I have no idea how he’s going to address it all. I guess he’ll just gloss over a lot of things, or rather, I hope that he does.

  When the vicar leaves we start to discuss the wake.

  I want to have it back here or, if it’s awkward for them, maybe refreshments in the church hall but, of course, the Original Jameson Girls don’t like that idea.

  Bonny’s got big plans, it would seem. I just don’t want to hear them; I cannot rationally discuss one more single thing.

  ‘I’ll take it on board,’ I tell her, for perhaps the twentieth time, as I show them to the door.

  As I close it, like mice creeping out, they all come into the hall.

  ‘Charlotte’s asleep.’ Mum says, pretending she’s just come out of her room, pretending that she wasn’t sitting listening on the stairs.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Jess says holding up a bottle of wine.

  ‘God, yes.’

  ‘And me,’ Luke says and then he grimaces. ‘Sorry, Valerie.’

  ‘No, go ahead,’ Mum says. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘Bonny doesn’t think a church hall is good enough,’ I explain. ‘She wants some fancy hotel. I just don’t think that I can face it.’

  ‘Whatever you do,’ Jess points out, ‘some people will still come back here afterwards, so why not just have it here in the first place?’

  ‘Wouldn't it be better to have it somewhere neutral?’ Luke repeats Bonny’s argument.

  ‘What?’ Jess snaps. ‘So they can all carry on as if Lucy doesn't exist!’

  ‘Jess!’ Luke stops her, after all, he's long been in the Jameson camp but Jess is having none of it.

  ‘It's true!’ Jess says. ‘They want a say in everything, yet I don’t see them putting their hands up to pay the bill. The readings, the prayers, the hymns, the flowers, have all been chosen by them and now Bonny’s kicking up about the reception venue!’ Jess looks at me. ‘Have it here. Have it in the home that he lived in with you and if it makes them uncomfortable, then good. They've made you feel uncomfortable plenty of times.’ There’s a long silence before she continues. ‘It might be better for Charlotte to be at home.’

  Luke looks thoroughly pissed off but he says nothing.

  ‘She can play with her friends in the garden or, if it all gets too much, she can just hide in her room,’ Jess says. She does make a good point, because Luke gives a reluctant nod.

  ‘I can help,’ Mum says and I feel my jaw clamp down so hard that I can’t even open it to argue as she twitters on. ‘My friends will help, I’ll speak to them tomorrow.’

  At her meeting.

  God, that’s the last thing I need.

  I’ve spent my life keeping my worlds apart and now they’ll all be coming together, in this very room. Everything that I’ve carefully separated will be curdling right here under this roof. The last thing I need is the bloody AA mob here with their piles of sandwiches and slices – honestly, they’re like machines at organising funerals. I can just imagine Bonny sneering as my mum passes round egg sandwiches and my friends will be sneering too.

  My jaw unclamps.

  I have to stay in control here.

  ‘I'll get it catered…’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘He can’t do that.’

  I look to Luke and I look to Jess and I want one of them to agree w
ith me, to tell me that I’m right, that, no, he can’t do that.

  He can’t just leave me the house and our savings and his insurance to his children, because A) There aren’t any savings (though I don’t say that) and B) ‘They’re hardly children!’

  The latter I voice.

  ‘You can contest it,’ Jess says. ‘Can’t she Luke?’

  ‘She could,’ Luke says slowly, looking at me as he speaks. ‘But I don’t know how well she’d go. It’s his living wishes, he changed them in January.’ I feel this twist in my gut and my fingers are pressed tight in my palms, as I further learn, how much this man can deceive, how little about him I know. ‘He’s asked that all his children be provided for. Lucy has the house and there is enough to cover the school fees. It’s not an awful lot that he’s leaving his children.’

  ‘They’re not children!’ I say it again, only a lot louder this time. ‘And it’s an awful lot when you times it by three.’

  ‘Four,’ Luke says, because part of it is being left in trust for Charlotte. ‘Look, let’s talk about it another time. Let’s just get through the funeral tomorrow.’

  ‘No!’ I’m furious. I want this sorted now. We hadn’t been going to talk about money till later but it wouldn’t wait. The undertakers wanted a massive deposit and, given Luke’s an accountant and how close they were, he’s sort of dealing with that side of things and I want this dealt with right now. ‘I want to know my options.’ I feel sick, I honestly feel sick. It never dawned on me; it never entered my head that it might come to this. We have mortgage insurance and life-insurance but not much else. It would seem that my late husband hasn’t just been screwing her, he's been wining and dining her too and there are the credit card bills to prove it. She got flowers and champagne and hotel rooms.

  I’ll stand up in court if I have to, I'll tell those children what a cheating bastard their father was - but then, a mocking voice inside my head chimes up – they already know that – after all, he left them for me.