‘You offered to come over.’
‘Yeah,’ he gives a pale smile. ‘I shouldn’t have listened when you said no.’
He looks at me for a very long time.
‘You need to sort yourself out.’
‘I know.’
‘Properly.’
‘I know.’
He tells me how worried he is and I get a very long lecture about taking better care of myself. He just drones on and on but, at one point, he gets really cross with me.
‘It’s not just the fucking cream,’ he says, he actually stands at that point, he leans over the table and shouts at me. ‘Was the missing cream the problem when you shagged Noel?’
I start to cry.
‘Was the missing cream the problem when you forgot to wash?’
‘Please Luke,’ I beg him to leave it.
‘No, I will not leave it,’ he shouts. ‘Your daughter needs you and you need to do whatever it takes to be here for her.’
‘I get it.’
‘I don’t think you do…’ Luke says. ‘I lost my mum. I had a single mum and I know how I felt when she was ill…’ He doesn’t say any more than that about it. ‘You need to ring your mum and get her over here.’
I don’t want to though.
‘Lucy, even if you don’t need her now, then Charlotte does…’
He waits while I ring her and he waits till she is here.
Then he leaves me alone with Mum.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Gloria
‘Luke!’
I was expecting Jess, but it turns out she drove back to Wales last night to see her mum.
It's actually Charlotte who opens the door and gives her godfather a hug. He hands her her uniform and school shoes and boater and Luke is so good, he acts as if it is completely normal that Charlotte is here.
He doesn't dodge the issue either.
He asks Charlotte how she is, he asks Charlotte about her mum and he asks Charlotte how she feels about what happened last night. He's just so lovely with her – every time I want to interrupt, every time I want to tell him to stop, he silences me with his grey eyes and he lets an eleven year-old speak.
It's the grown ups who don't want to hear it.
‘She's sad!’ I feel my heart twist as Charlotte describes it. ‘Mum used to be so pretty, she used to care, but she doesn’t even wash now. I’ve tried to run her a bath. I don’t know what to do.’
Luke tells her that she doesn’t have to do anything.
That the grown ups are stepping up and stepping in.
That things will get better now.
There’s a terrible twist of guilt as he says that, because I should have done just that yesterday.
I should have stepped up and stepped in when I saw Lucy ranting at the graveside.
I didn’t want to deal with it.
I’m lazy like that.
I sit there and I admit it.
I am lazy like that.
‘What if something happens to her?’ Charlotte asks
I go to rush in, to tell her it won’t but Luke silences me again.
‘I don’t think anything is going to happen to your mum but, I promise you this Charlotte, you have got so many people that love you…’
‘If something does happen could I come and live with you and Jess?’
He looks her right in the eye but I frown at his hesitation. ‘I will always be there for you and so too will Jess,’ Luke says.
Charlotte says that she’s worried about her mum being at the house on her own, that maybe she should go back there. Luke tells her that he’s just seen her when he picked up her clothes and she seems fine. She was having a cup of tea with a neighbour when he got there and that Charlotte’s nanny is there now and she’s staying the night.
I can’t imagine Lucy’s too thrilled about that!
Still, it seems to appease Charlotte and because, after all, she is eleven, a few minutes later she wants to go and see Daisy.
Daisy has this little gym in Eleanor’s bedroom, she lies there on her back, bashing mirrors and foil and kicking her little fat legs. Charlotte could literally watch her for hours, so I set it up for them and then I make a drink and some sandwiches for my latest visitor and then I head back in to face Luke.
I’ll know he’ll be as direct with me as he was with Charlotte.
‘What are you doing, Sir Bob?’
I like Luke’s rare, dry humour and he can always make me smile.
‘I happen to admire Bob Geldof.’ I can feel Luke’s eyes on me. I know he’s looking out for me but I don’t need him to in this. ‘You don't get it,’ I tell him. ‘She's my children’s sister.’ Then I have to concede a bit, because it is mad - I'm looking after my late, ex-husband’s daughter and I’ve already got more than enough on my plate. ‘I don’t know Luke – I can’t just turn my back.’
‘Lucy’s trouble,’ Luke says. ‘Gloria, you don’t know the half of it… Jesus!’ He stands up and he’s pacing and I can see that he’s conflicted, that there’s more that he wants to say. ‘After the funeral…’ he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to hurt me, he can’t trust my reaction, I mean, he can’t really tell me, can he? But, I admire him for trying and, more to the point, I already know.
‘Lucy and Noel?’ I say and Luke double-takes, and then he just stills.
‘You know?’
‘I know a lot of things, Luke…’ and he stands there. ‘I know he was your friend but I know too what he was like. I know what went on in our marriage.’ It’s getting too personal and I don’t know why I’m defending her. ‘I think it was the same for Lucy…’ I’m not going to explain it; I’m not going to tell him just how shit you feel when your husband will screw anything with a pulse except you.
‘Anyway, I don’t really know that. It’s not as if we’ve spoken about it. I’ve never spoken to Lucy till last night.’ He sits down on the sofa. ‘Oh, and one other time.’ I correct. ‘Though, it was hardly a conversation. Remember the boat?’
He gives a pale smile because, even if we’ve never spoken about it again, we all remember that night.
‘It didn’t help that you were seasick,’ Luke says.
‘I wasn’t seasick,’ I laugh. ‘I was pissed. I’d had five Bacardi and cokes before I even got there. I knew that he was leaving me, I knew that Lucy had upped her demands and wanted more than a shag now and then.’ I close my eyes and I can picture that night, more than that, I can feel it, I can hear it - I’ve got my head over the edge of the boat and I’m throwing up into the water. The boat’s turning around and when we get back I know he’s going to go with her. I want the boat to keep sailing. I want the Thames to never end, because my marriage is and I did everything I could to save it.
Everything.
I am there again and I can feel the fear and the shame and the dread for all that’s ahead. I can hear the music the DJ was playing; I can actually hear Don Henley’s, Boys of Summer, pounding in my ears as I lean over the boat to be sick. Then later, when we dock, I lose my temper with her for the first time, actually the last time. I’ve told him where he can go, but not quite so politely and then he and Luke got into a fight and it’s then I see her. That’s when I say it. ‘I got the best years of him.’
But there was a bit before that and I look over to Luke and I know he’s remembering it too. On the boat, as I rushed past Luke to be sick, he was leaning over the edge too, that song pulsing, a beer in his hand and he was staring into the water. He’d just found out about them too.
‘You liked her, didn’t you?’ I say to Luke and he looks back at me.
‘Not really,’ Luke’s says. ‘I didn’t particularly like her but I was hoping to shag her that night,’ he gives a wry laugh. ‘I’d heard she was very good from several sources.’
‘Luke!’ I scold him, because I don’t like him talking like that.
‘I hate her for what she did to you two.’
‘Luke,’ I try, but he interrupts me.
‘I’m only stepping in now because of Charlotte and because of how much I loved him. I’m not doing this because I care about her,’ Luke says. ‘The thing is Gloria, whatever way you look at things, Lucy’s a slut.’
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Lucy
‘I’ll run you a bath.’
I’m on about my tenth cup of tea since mum arrived.
I thought mum would sweep in with a thousand questions, or tell me off and just lecture me, but she hasn’t really said anything.
Neither have I.
She just keeps making me tea and I keep on drinking it.
I’m so dehydrated and I’m all shaky. I feel like I should have felt when he died.
‘Come on.’
‘I had a shower this morning.’
‘Lucy.’
I go upstairs and I don’t look in the mirror. I bought a packet of razors the other week but never used them.
I use them now.
Unkempt.
I never thought it would be a word that might apply to me.
I come back down and I lie on the couch and mum comes over, she takes my feet in her lap and she gets to work with the clippers.
I hear unkempt with each clip and I see the last bits of fading red fall away.
The last time things were perfect.
Except, they weren’t perfect then.