I’m thinking of my mother and what she did to me.
I look at the elves and I can guess what they say about me. Well, they can judge me as materialistic; you know what? I couldn't give a fag what they think. My house is clean, my daughter doesn't smell, there is healthy food in my fridge and I am not giving any of it up.
Not a single piece.
I head back into the kitchen and I pour another brandy.
‘Lucy,’ Mum starts and thankfully, for her sake, her friends pull her aside and have a word. They tell her that she should let me be, that she can’t stop me, so don’t try, which is just as well because I really don't need a lecture from her about drinking on the day of my husband's funeral. My mind is savage and it’s racing and I don't care what Luke says – I’ll be a prostitute before I lose this house.
‘Thanks for everything today.’ I try to be polite; I just want her to leave.
‘Lucy, I don't want to leave you on your own.’
I can’t be polite anymore.
I’m through with pretending.
‘You never used to mind.’
I watch the colour flood her cheeks and all the elves gather around and then a couple of them try to have wise words with me, but I don't want to hear that she loves me and I don't care how much she cares.
And they were right.
She can't stop me
CHAPTER TWENTY
I take off those support top stockings and those bastard pants that have been holding me in. My body inflates and flops in relief and it’s so nice that I take off my bra too and pull it through one arm.
I haven't been on my own since it happened I realise.
There have been people here every day, flowers arriving, funeral directors, the vicar, catering, dealing with family you'd rather not. Funerals are such hard work it's like trying to arrange a wedding in the space of a week and at the hardest time of your life.
Really, it shows what a joke weddings are–maybe I could be a wedding planner, if I have to get job to pay child support for his children maybe that’s something I could do.
I know it’s going to come to that. I know I’m going to have to get a job.
Or a new husband.
But I guess I need a suitable pause.
Weddings in a Week.
Lucy’s Weddings in a Week
I like that.
I know that I didn't cry enough today to appease people, that my grief wasn't visible enough for them.
I don't think I am grieving, I haven't even got to that part yet, I'm still stuck on what I came home too – or what I could have come home to had I arrived half an hour earlier.
I want that moment and it's been denied to me and I can't share it with anyone. I can't, because then my perfect marriage, my perfect life disappears and I don't want it to.
I worked hard enough to get it.
I chose very carefully, you know.
No, I'm not grieving, I'm angry. And yes, anger might be the first stage of grieving, but I'm not grieving, I'm just angry.
I want to run up the stairs and to catch them.
I want that row, that confrontation and then after…
I don't want to think about after. I don't want to think what would have happened then, because I know how it would have been.
I didn’t always ignore it.
I want to ignore it now but it’s like someone’s holding up a mirror that holds my life and they’re making me look into it, except I don’t want to see.
So, instead of thinking about that, my mind runs up the stairs and catches him and we have the most God awful row and I tell him I'm leaving, that I am through with his shit. I mean it, this time I’m through. I should have left the first time I tell him.
Except he's laughing and telling me just to get the hell out then if I don't like it.
‘Remember how you used to bitch and moan about every penny I gave to Gloria?’ I can hear his voice now and it’s not some fantasy row - it's a memory. ‘Remember how I sorted my income to make sure that we were fine?’ Okay, I don't want this row, I’ll get back to grieving please, only I can’t, because it's there in my head and it won’t get out. ‘Piss off if you don't like it Lucy,’ he’s saying. ‘But you can kiss goodbye to your credit cards, to your Botox and you can tell Charlotte to kiss goodbye to that fucking pony, not that she will need it because the school she'll be going to there won’t be any need to compete.’ I’m pacing around my living room and I want this row to stop. ‘You can help her to settle in though,’ he tells me. ‘You know all about growing up with a single mum, you know all about having nothing.’
I could pour another brandy and who would blame me?
But, I don't.
I could dive into the fridge and not come up for air till it's empty-I'd even eat the disgusting glazed cherries she put on top of the black forest gateaux…
But, I don’t.
I pull out the vacuum cleaner instead and, when I’ve finished vacuuming, I’m going to scrub the toilets. No, before that I want to get out into the garden to pick up all the mess and empty out the disgusting cigarette butts…
Cleaning soothes me.
I don't have to think, I just walk along the hall vacuuming, picking up the crumbs the elves missed. I ignore the doorbell when it goes, I just want to be on my own – it’s probably Mum come back and I don't want to see her, or it might be one of his family, or Simone. I don't want to be the perfect wife this evening; I don’t have to be any more, except the bell’s still ringing. Can people not just leave me alone? I turn off the vacuum and go to the door and I am so angry. If one more person tells me what a wonderful man I’ve just lost then God help them.
I open the door and it’s Noel.
He wasn’t at the funeral today.
He looks terrible. I think how hard this is for him-all the shame and betrayal that he’s facing.
‘Are the kids there?’ He can't look at me and I can hardly look at him either – another person who’s been screwed over by the Jamesons. ‘I was supposed to pick them up from here,’ he explains.
‘Sorry.’ I drag my mind back to the wake. ‘Daniel was upset; I think they left with Hugh and Alice.’ I’m all mixed up; I want to get back to my cleaning. ‘I thought Gloria was supposed to be picking them up?’
‘God knows,’ Noel says. ‘You never know what's bloody going on with that lot.’ His voice is so full of bitterness. He sounds like I feel. He turns to walk away and I admire him, because he doesn’t thank me, or offer his condolences, he’s just through with the Jameson shit.
‘I don't know what Eleanor was thinking.’ I see him halt and I’m probably the first person in this family to actually address it, but the thing is, I'm not in this family. I hover on the outside, I'm barely tolerated, I’m the bitch who ended the happy family dream and God, did they judge me harshly for it.
It's all right for them though, when they do it – it’s not the same rules for them when Eleanor cheats.
Excuse me, but yes it is.
I am not religious – I think we all get that but I do remember something about removing the splinter in your eye so you can see the plank, or is it removing the plank so you can see the splinter?
I’m not thinking very straight at the moment, but I’m the plank and Eleanor gets to be the splinter.
Eleanor gets to lie in bed and be fussed over and looked after and I’m still the bitch.
I look at Noel, always smart, always polite, always doing his part. ‘I think she's mad to do what she did when she had you at home.’ I’m telling him what I would like to hear; I say the words that I want someone to say to me.
He turns around.
‘What's everyone saying?’ His eyes search my face. ‘I’m so embarrassed,’ raw is his admission. ‘I’m so ashamed.’
‘She's the one who should be ashamed.’ And then I say it again, but it’s with different meaning. I can’t really explain it, but it suddenly tips – I’m talking about me, saying what I want to hear, what I want people to th
ink about me but Noel must be feeling as crap and as low as I am, Noel’s ego must need a little inflate and it’s like I’ve got an industrial strength pump – I stand on the step and I blow and I blow. ‘I don’t know what she was thinking. I’d give anything to have a guy like you and she’s just pissed all over it.’ He walks back to me. ‘You’re gorgeous Noel,’ his face is on mine, his tongue’s in my mouth and mine’s in his and we’re savage. His hands are on my breasts, his mouth is at my ear. ‘She’s mad to want anyone else.’
We grapple each other, his mouth pushes me through the front door and we’re in my hallway.
I don’t have any knickers on, I don’t have on a bra and his hands are just everywhere and so too are mine.
It’s a minute.
Another moment in your life where suddenly everything has changed.
We can’t look at each other after.
We closed the front door, thank God.
I only know that because, after a minute of stunned silence, he arranges his clothes and then opens it.
There’s nothing to discuss.
It happened.
It never should have.
I don't even fancy him - not once when he’s done Charlotte’s teeth have I looked at him in that way. That's not me being a good wife or step mum, I'm being honest - there has been no simmering tension between us. I go to the window, my hand shaking as I peek through the blind and watch him.
I stand at rock-bottom and I don’t want to be here.
I see him drive off, hear him skid a bit on the gravel and I know that he's as mortified as me. Some things just shouldn't happen - no one must ever know, please God that Noel never says anything, because no one will ever hear it from me.
But God must hate me today and for most of last week too, because, just as I want to go to bed and curl up with my shame, just as I want to put today behind me and move on, just as I go to close the blinds, I see her.
Gloria, I mean.
I see Gloria sitting in a car on the street and she's looking directly at me. I know from the expression on her face, from the loathing in her eyes, from the pure disgust on her lips, that she's seen everything.
That she knows.
I snap closed the blind and I wait. I can hardly breathe. I know she's going to come over, I know she's going to let me have it, not just for today but for everything. We’re going to have the confrontation that we never really had.
The doorbell doesn't ring though and a few moments later I hear an engine starting. By the time I pluck up the courage to look I realise she's gone.
And so I revise.
This is rock-bottom.
You’d think so.
I mean, you’d really think so wouldn’t you?
But you’ve no idea just how low Lucy can go.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
‘She’s wetting the bed.’
It’s the day after, the day after, his funeral.
The day after, the day after that.
I spent yesterday curled up in bed, then Jess brought Charlotte home and I cobbled together dinner from some of the leftovers in the fridge. This morning Mum came over and when she saw me doing the sheets, she rang the doctor for an appointment.
I can’t look at Dr Patel.
It turns out that she’s really popular and I was hoping she’d be so booked up that I wouldn’t get into her, that I might have to see someone else, but no. I’m sitting there looking at a poster of a skeleton on the wall behind her and that’s what he’ll be soon.
I wonder how soon you start decomposing?
I jerk my eyes away from it in panic almost and I meet her calm brown eyes for about one twentieth of a second.
Eye contact really isn’t my forte and especially not today.
‘It’s to be expected,’ Doctor Patel says. ‘How is she going back at school?’
‘She just went back today.’
‘Okay.’ Doctor Patel nods and nods again – she does that an awful lot. ‘It’s good she’s getting back amongst her friends, back to normal – try and keep as much of a routine going for her as you can.’
I nod too, because I know how much my routines mean to me. ‘Try not to make any major changes if you can. Don’t go making any big decisions on impulse, Lucy. You need a year to really see how things are.’
I’ve heard that from a few people and I find myself again nodding back.
‘The bed-wetting will sort itself out in time but it’s the last thing Charlotte needs to be dealing with now. I can write her up for some medication to take before bed, just for a few nights.’
She starts typing up the prescription, she’s offered her condolences, she’s asked how I am and I just want to grab the prescription and get the hell out of there but, of course, she doesn’t leave it there.
‘How are you holding up, Lucy?’
‘I told you,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’
She must have the slowest printer in the world.
‘We have a grief counsellor here at the practice.’
I give a small snort and then I do manage to look at her. ‘How long were you prescribing him Viagra?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘You let me sit here and tell you the problems we were having and all the time you were writing him scripts.’
I’m changing my doctor, I decide. How dare she?
‘There’s patient confidentiality, Lucy.’
‘I was your patient too,’ I point out. ‘How long?’ I demand.
‘Lucy, he’s still my patient.’
‘He’s dead!’ I retort. ‘He’s in no position to sue!’
‘Lucy,’ her voice is calm and she refuses to match my anger, she just nods at me, she always does that but it annoys the hell out of me now. ‘I’m sure you know far more about your marriage than I do. You don’t need to hear dates and times from me.’
‘So, I’m guessing it was a repeat prescription?’
I hate the sympathy in her eyes and so I look at the poster again. He can rot in hell for all I care.
She rabbits on about how I’m doing and she gives me more pamphlets. This time they’re about grief and depression. She tells me again that there’s a grief counsellor and I hear the chair scrape loudly as I stand. I look down at her and I don’t say goodbye to her and I certainly don’t thank her – instead I remind her about my patient confidentiality and that she’d better damn well make sure that her receptionist, Beth, knows about it too. I storm outside but instead of going to the chemist in the village to get Charlotte’s prescription, I get in my car and I drive.
I drive for a good twenty minutes. I drive through where I came from but Mum still lives there and someone might recognise me, so I drive a bit further. I park my car and walk into a dingy chemist with bars on the window and I hand in Charlotte’s script and I ask to speak to the pharmacist.
‘Can I ask what for?’
‘The morning after pill.’
Out she comes.
She’s about my age and as my face burns, she tells me not to be embarrassed, she hears it all the time. ‘Accidents happen,’ she tells me with a smile.
‘They do,’ I say, thinking how her eyeballs would fall out if I told her the truth about this particular accident– that my husband’s condom didn’t split, in fact, he’s dead and on the day of his funeral I shagged my stepson-in-law on the hall floor.
I buy a bottle of water too and I don’t even make it to the car. I’m popping my pill and guzzling water because I cannot be pregnant.
I cannot be pregnant.
I cannot be.
It’s an awful drive home.
I turn the radio up but my brain won’t stop thinking.
It would be Charlotte’s half sister or brother and Daisy’s too.
And Laura and Daniel’s so would that make Eleanor its step mum if she and Noel got back together and he wanted access?
Would my stepdaughter be my child’s step mum?
So what would that make Gloria?
Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!
; I can hear the Hillbilly bells ringing and the audience chanting as I turn into my street.
I see my home and it should soothe me but I’m terrified that I’m going to lose it, that I’m going to lose everything.
I am going to lose it.
I am, I am.
I can’t.
I can’t go back to where I came from.
I’m not taking Charlotte there.
I know I’m going to be sick.
I have to be sick.
My car scrapes the wall as I hit the driveway.
My neighbour comes over to examine the damage, for another chat, for more information, but I race through the door and up the stairs but, as I get to the loo, I realise that I can’t even throw up.
I can’t, because I need the pill to stay in there.
‘Lucy!’
It’s my mum knocking on my bathroom door.
‘Lucy! Is everything okay?’
‘I just need the loo.’
‘What happened with the car?’
‘Can you just leave me?’ I scream but she doesn’t. She’s hovering outside when I come out. ‘Don’t start, Mum…’
I do not need a lecture now.
‘I’m worried about you, Lucy,’ she says. ‘I want to help.’
‘Well, you can’t.’
‘I could if you’d just let me.’
‘You just don’t get it!’ I go to walk past.
‘I might if you talk to me, I might understand.’
Actually, she might – after all, she was an expert in one-night stands, so much so that I don’t even know who my father is. At least I’m not that bad, at least I’d know who the father was. I turn to her and I look at her and I tell her the truth.
Not that truth.
I tell her mine.
‘I’m terrified that I might turn into you.’
I know I’ve hurt her, but do you know what?
She hurt me too.
‘I had a disease.’
She hurls her usual defence.
‘Sherryitis.’
‘I wasn’t well,’ she says. ‘But I’m better now and I want to help take care of you and Charlotte.’
But I won’t let her.
‘Too late,’ I tell her. ‘Too little, too late – I’ll take care of my daughter.’
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