Far from it.
I can see that now.
‘You need to get your hair done,’ Mum looks up from my feet. ‘It’s important that Charlotte sees you taking care of yourself.’
I nod. I can’t really afford the hundred and twenty quid I used to fork out all the time and, with the mess it’s in, Ricky will charge me way more than that.
‘Oh,’ she goes and gets rid of my toenails and then she goes in her purse. ‘I forgot, I owe you sixty quid.’
‘What?’
‘For the dress I got for Charlotte to wear at the funeral. I never gave you the change.’
‘You did.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did.’
My mum is not paying for me to go to the hairdressers.
But, I am going to go.
Just not yet.
Muttering and stuffing the money back in her purse the phone rings and mum answers it.
‘No, this is her mother,’ she says and rolls her eyes as she gives her name – Valerie Jones. ‘Yes, she’s here with me now. Charlotte’s staying at her…’ she pauses for a minute. ‘With Gloria Jameson and she’ll be back here tomorrow.’ She holds up her hand and makes a yap yap motion and she takes me by surprise.
I sort of expected her to revere to the social worker, to lower her voice, to be as I would.
But she’s not me.
And I’m not her, I realise.
‘She doesn’t drink,’ Mum says. ‘Well now and then she does but she’s certainly not an alcoholic. I’d know…’ and she is wiping down the kitchen bench as the social worker says something. ‘Because I am one!’ Mum doesn’t give a fag who knows. ‘I’ve been sober for eighteen years,’ she says proudly. ‘I go to my meetings every day and I’d certainly know if my daughter had a drinking problem. If she’d just gone and got a bloody carton of cream this could all have been avoided.’
I never thought I would again but hearing my mum, I almost, almost, smile.
But Luke’s right, it isn’t just about the missing cream and when she speaks on I start to cry.
‘I don’t think it will happen again,’ Mum’s voice is serious now, ‘but we all know, Frances, that well it might. I have had a very long chat with her and we both agree that if it does, and,’ she reiterates, ‘I doubt it will but, if it does, she’s to ring me and I’ll watch Charlotte. She was supposed to be on a sleepover when it happened,’ my Mum points out. ‘Lucy only set up her binge when she thought Charlotte was well out of the way. Tomorrow, I’m taking Lucy to see her GP,’ she comes over and puts her arm around me. ‘Yes, Frances,’ she says to the social worker. ‘I guess we do have a plan.’
‘I mean that,’ Mum says when she hangs up the phone. ‘You are to call me if you’re going to go on a bender.’
‘It won’t happen again.’
‘But if it does.’
‘It won’t.’
‘I won’t try and stop you,’ Mum says. ‘I won’t say a word, but you’re to promise me that you’ll call me and I’ll take Charlotte.’
I nod.
But that’s not enough for Mum.
‘I promise.’
‘Good,’ Mum says. ‘I think they’re going to close.’
‘Close?’
‘Close the case.’ Mum’s more than used to it. ‘They just need to know that Charlotte’s safe,’ she squeezes my shoulder. ‘Bloody hell, Lucy, why didn’t you just go and get some cream?’
‘I didn’t want to leave her,’ I say. ‘I was scared she might wake up and not know where I was…’
Like I used to.
I don’t say that, I’m not trying to hurt her now.
‘Do you think she’ll forgive me?’
Mum looks at me and I realise then that I just did.
Hurt her.
I realise what a cruel question I’ve asked her, because, after all these years, I’ve never once forgiven her.
I don’t even know if I do now.
‘That’s up to Charlotte,’ Mum says.
‘Do you think we’ll ever get back what we had?’
‘Probably not,’ Mum’s always honest. ‘You might just get even better.’
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
Doctor Patel has one of those heads that is constantly nodding.
I don't mean to be rude but I have to concentrate on not nodding back as I tell her what's happened.
But sometimes I forget and I do.
‘It wasn't the alcohol, it was the cream…’ I explain.
Nod, nod, nod.
‘And Charlotte found me.’ Nod, nod, nod.
‘But it's not just what happened on Friday night that I'm worried about.’ I spill it all out, a condensed version, of course. I tell her about my lack of personal hygiene, how impossible it is to get in the bath, to take my clothes off sometimes but her eyes don't widen–she just nods.
And she listens.
I tell her that sometimes things get better, sometimes I feel great but it never lasts and I always mess things up.
I start to cry and I tell her that I keep on messing up, not just a little bit, but big time.
She asks questions.
I'm taking up too much of her time, I tell her.
No, I’m not.
Nod, nod, nod.
She asks me questions and she tells me things, she goes through leaflets with me, but properly. I burn when she talks about promiscuity and heightened sexuality. Maybe that explains what happened with Noel and my increasing thoughts about Luke but I don’t want to be bi-polar, I don’t want that to be Charlotte’s mum.
‘I’m not saying that you are, I’m just explaining things,’ Dr Patel says when I start to cry. ‘Depression is very complicated and it’s not something you can manage on your own.’
She really is lovely to me; she really does seem to get me. She just holds my heaving shoulders and she tells me we are going to take things one-step at a time. That, just as depression has many facets, so too does grieving.
‘I’m not grieving.’
She nods but with Doctor Patel, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she agrees.
‘Right now, we need to deal with your grief and then we’ll see how things lie.’
She just keeps right on talking and nodding and when she tells me that maybe I’ve always been a little bit that way, that there are many facets to bi-polar too and that his death has perhaps exacerbated it. ‘A lot of clever people are,’ she says and no-one’s ever called me clever before but I didn’t really want to hear it that way but she smiles when she says it. ‘A lot of notorious people are too.’
And, yes, I guess I can be a bit notorious at times! That’s a very nice word for it.
I’ll keep that one please.
Doctor Patel sort of talks me off the ledge of madness I’ve wedged myself on and tells me that things will calm down.
I’m not going to lose my daughter, she tells me. The social services rang this morning and were pleased to hear that I’d already made an appointment. They’ve already spoken to the school and it would seem that the case is closed.
It was a one off.
I’m not going to lose my daughter, she says again.
I'm to go on tablets she tells me. Just a very low dose but she’s going to be keeping a very close eye and, any hint of suicidal thoughts and I am to ring her. She just says all the words that no one else does. She wants me to see the grief counsellor. It's not a grief counsellor I need, it's a psychiatrist, I think. Maybe I could ring Alice and ask if I can borrow Hugh for a few weeks (and no, I wasn't even thinking of that).
I don't think Doctor Patel fully gets it. I don't think she understands just how bad I am.
‘I don't think I'm grieving.’
She nods and I've given in trying, I'm nodding back - I'm telling her the truth.
‘I don't think I loved him.’ She doesn't react. ‘I don't know if I ever loved him,’ I reiterate. ‘I don't know if I was just married to him for what he could give me, for the sake of Charlotte…’
‘Well, you can't have a grief counsellor then,’ Doctor Patel says. ‘Not on the NHS…’ I'm the one nodding, because it isn’t grief. ‘They're very specific with their criteria - only perfect wives, grieving perfect husbands are allowed to speak with one.’ Then I realise she's joking and also that she’s terribly kind. ‘Lucy, you are grieving.’ She takes my hands. ‘Of course, you are grieving.’
She doesn’t kick me out of the door with my prescription, she carries on talking and she looks at my swollen hands.
‘Your ring!’
It’s so tight, even more than it has been lately, they pumped some fluids into me at the hospital and I’ve had about fifty cups of tea with mum and my finger is actually hurting.
‘Cut it off,’ I say.
‘No, no…’ she gets soap, she gets lubricant and she wiggles and she works it but it is simply not going to come off.
‘Cut it off,’ I say again. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’
‘Lucy…’ Doctor Patel gets out the ring cutter and seems more upset than me. She gets a sheet of paper and rests my hand on it and then she gets this huge silver thing and slips it beneath my ring and starts turning a little wheel. ‘Hopefully, I won’t go through the hallmark or engraving…’
The metal gives and she gets two forceps and peels the metal away and slides off the ring and then she folds it up in the paper with all the little bits of gold dust and puts it all into a small bag plastic zip lock bag and she hands it to me. ‘They can fix it and you won’t even know.’ She massages my swollen finger and the indent where my ring has been. I mention my weight and that I really want to lose it, but slowly this time, sensibly, instead of all the mad diets I go on and I swear her eyes light up.