‘I’m fine.’
Same answer as twenty years ago.
But, like then, I can tell he’s been crying.
‘I saw him on Saturday…’ I look at his lips as he speaks and they are white. He’s just black and white - his shirt, his lips and his skin are all white, but his suit, his eyes and his hair are black. The only bit of colour is the red of his eyeballs. ‘He was fine,’ Luke says. ‘We were talking about going to Portugal.’ He shakes his head just a little. ‘We were talking about going on holiday.’
That’s as much as you’ll get from Luke. A few seconds later he’s back to asking about me.
‘I’m just about to ring the girls.’ I look at my watch and why the hell did they have to move to Australia? ‘Should I wait for morning?’
I don’t know how to tell them.
I don’t know what to say.
I think I’m going to start crying and that would be so wrong for me to do here.
It really isn’t my place.
‘I’ll do it,’ Luke says. ‘Give me the number and I’ll call Lex now – they need to know.’
‘I think I’ve got it.’ I take out my new phone, I have no idea how to properly use it and I have no idea what it does. The girls all got me it for Christmas I tell him. ‘So I can keep up with the grandkids on Facebook and twerp them.’
‘Tweet,’ Luke says and then he finds Lex’s number. ‘I’ll call him now.’
‘Maybe wait.’ I can’t stand to think of their reaction.
‘It won’t change things,’ Luke says.
‘But…’ I stop talking as I see Lucy walking towards us - she's holding an interim certificate. How come she's wearing that floaty smock dress and sandals, how come she hasn’t got a bra on? I feel embarrassed as realisation starts to dawn, as I remember he was at home when he collapsed. I can’t stop looking at her. I’m sort of fascinated really. I watch her petite features harden, her eyes narrow and her lips tighten and I don't know what I've done, if she expects me to have gone by now–it takes a moment to register that her eyes are looking over my shoulder, that her contempt isn’t aimed at me. I turn to see who it is, because Lucy's eyes are shooting daggers. I know that look well, I was the recipient once, the night of the staff do on the Thames springs to mind, but today the daggers are not aimed at me.
‘Nanny!’ I hear Charlotte’s yelp of relief from the interview room but I don’t think her Nanny does.
‘Lucy!’ A woman dashes past me, she’s a tiny little thing with straggly brown hair and I watch Lucy shrugging her off as she tries to wrap her in her skinny arms. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’
But Lucy just stands there, impervious to her mother's comfort - she's as hard as nails that one. Charlotte dashes over and is cuddled by her nanny but Lucy soon ends it, she takes Charlotte's hand and starts walking. ‘We’re just going…’
‘All right darling, let’s get you both home - you need to get his things before you go…’ Her mum’s got a right Essex accent, compared to snooty Lucy. She’s just trying to be a mum, trying to sort things out for her daughter, trying to spare her pain. ‘You need to take his things, you don't want to have to come back to collect them…’
‘Just leave it Mum!’
‘You need his clothes, his ring…’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ She shouts at her mum. ‘Just leave it!’
‘Lucy!’ I hear Luke fire a warning and clearly it's not his place because she shoots him that look too. I realise there probably aren’t any clothes to collect and I can see why Lucy’s cheeks are on fire. That’s why she isn’t wearing a bra; she must have just thrown something on. It sort of rams it home to me how much more he wanted her - I mean, did he come home at lunch just to screw her?
I don’t carry on watching because they’re moving Eleanor and getting ready to head up to maternity now. While I want to be there for my daughter, a part of me wants to be here too. Somehow, even though they didn't want me, even though I’ve moved on, even though we’re nothing to do with each other now, even if I hate a lot of guts, still, a part of me feels that this is my family.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lucy
‘She’s asleep.’
It’s nearly midnight and finally Charlotte has cried herself out.
I thought she’d fallen asleep at eleven but just as I got downstairs she started crying again. Mum offered to go up to her but it’s me Charlotte wants, so I said no.
Then mum went home.
I asked her to.
She is the very last person I need.
But thank God for Jess.
She wraps her arms around me and takes me to a chair. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
I shake my head.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Luke says. I look up and he’s as white as a sheet, in fact I think he’s been crying again. ‘A brandy?’ he suggests, because I like a brandy now and then.
I don’t answer.
Jess is trying to make me talk but my mouth doesn’t know how to move and then it does. ‘Why do they have to refer it to the coroner?’
‘Because it’s a sudden death,’ Luke says. ‘It’s normal.’
‘He had a heart attack,’ I say. ‘The doctor said that he did. Why does it have to go to the coroner?’ There’s going to be an inquest, I can see it now. I can just imagine the smirk on Gloria’s face.
She looked amazing.
How can someone look better than they did more than a decade ago?
She looks nothing like I remember her.
Things really did get a little lost in translation at the hospital, because Luke must have told Jess that he died on the job and they clearly both think it was with me. They think that all the bites and scratches they must have seen on his chest when they went in to see him, have come from me. They didn’t though - they came from some twenty-something slut and soon everyone’s going to know. I start taking deep breaths because I feel like I’m going to start retching.
‘How could he?’ I gag.
‘He didn’t want to leave you, Lucy.’ Jess’s arms are back around me. ‘He loved you so much.’ She’s trying to make me feel better but so deep is my shame she could not possibly reach in far enough to comfort me.
‘I can’t do this,’ I say, but Jess tells me over and over that I can, that I’ll get through this, that she’ll be here. I just sit as she tells me how much my husband loved me and, because it’s Jess, because it’s the sort of thing she says, I just close my eyes as, oblivious, she adds another layer of pain.
‘Hey, he went out with a smile on his face,’ she says with her sexy Welsh accent. I screw my eyes tighter closed and all I can smell is the sex in my bedroom and I can never go in there again.
‘Do you want some tea?’ Luke’s perhaps a little uncomfortable with the subject matter and I’m offered my fiftieth cup since it happened. Something sparks in my head this time, because I haul myself out of the chair and head out to the kitchen because I have to unload the dishwasher.
‘Leave it, Lucy,’ Jess says. I know she means well, but she doesn't understand, if I leave it now it will still be full in the morning. I need it to be empty in the morning so that I can start my day, and anyway, I need to put the breakfast things out.
‘Lucy, please,’ Jess says as I get out the muesli. I see her cast an urgent look to Luke but they don’t understand, I have to do this now, or everything will go to pot.
It will, I know it will. I’ve always felt I’m just one day away from everything falling apart.
And it can’t.
Simply, it can’t.
CHAPTER NINE
Jess has sorted my bedroom.
All the wrappers the paramedics left and my display purposes only towel have been tidied away but I can see him lying there dead on the floor as I walk in.
I step over him.
I can’t stand to get into the bed, so I lie on top of it.
I’d have slept in another room, except Jess and Luke are staying over and it would look strange if I went to a spare room, wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t I want our bed?
Wouldn’t his scent give me comfort?
I’m still wearing the smock.
I don’t have the energy to change.
Finally I’ve taken some headache tablets and they are starting to kick in.
I think I’m numb really.
I’m just so tired and so relieved to be able to close my eyes.
And just as I do, just when finally I escape …
I hear Charlotte cry.
CHAPTER TEN
Gloria
I’ve stood him up.
Oh God – I’m supposed to be meeting Paul.
I only remember about nine that night. Things are starting to move more rapidly with Eleanor now. It’s my last chance to pop out for a cigarette and to make a couple of phone calls, to gather my thoughts really, before the baby is born.
Noel won’t come.
It might not be his – she’s finally told me.
She only told Noel a couple of weeks ago it would seem.
I stand outside the ambulance bay – there’s a message from Lex, Bonny’s husband, to say that they’re sorting out the flights for Bonny and Alice and her boyfriend, Hugh. Lex is going to stay behind and look after the boys. I have to admit to a sliver of relief, because Bonny’s got four sons and they’re a bit wild. Also, I had no idea how I was going to fit everyone in.