He closes his eyes and nods. ‘I haven’t been carrying a torch for her all this time. I hated her for what she did to you, but yes, that night on the Thames I was hoping for more than a shag.’ Then he looks at me. ‘Why did he have to die?’
Luke tells me how it nearly killed him to watch Lucy falling apart and not be properly able to step in. How proud he felt when she got all her shit together, how guilty he felt for thinking too much about her.
‘How long has it been going on?’ I ask and I’m cross for Jess but then I frown when he shakes his head, when still he insists…
‘Nothing’s happened. I did everything I could to keep away.’
I don’t believe him.
‘I tried once.’
And then I do.
Believe him, I mean.
Nothing has happened.
‘I tried a few months ago, after Jess and I had broken up but Lucy told me to fuck off,’ Luke explains. ‘Told me that she’d never do that to her friend and I got a slap,’ he lifts his head. ‘She’s not interested.’
She is.
I know she is.
I know that this is love.
And I want Luke to have it, I want Luke to be happy, I’m not sure that he ever has been, properly happy I mean.
‘You need to speak to Lucy.’
‘I don’t want to lose our friendship. I don’t want to make things awkward between us again, because that wouldn’t be fair on Charlotte. I know Lucy will be okay now,’ Luke says. ‘I know that she will. And I know she’s a bit crazy, but she’s…’ he shakes his head. ‘I just hate the thought of her and Charlotte rattling along in the world without me.’
‘Have you told her how you feel, Luke?’
‘I’ve told you,’ he says. ‘I tried to kiss her.’
Men!
‘Go to the cemetery,’ I tell him, because I think Luke feels he needs his permission on this. ‘You need to speak to him.’
He shakes his head.
‘You do.’
‘I have to go back to the office.’
‘I’ll meet you there,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going about one.’ He gives me a kiss on the cheek and says that he’ll think about it.
I’ve a feeling I’m meddling.
But I sit there in my living room and, despite all that’s gone before, despite evidence to the contrary - I don’t just believe what Luke told me.
I’m starting to believe in Lucy.
CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT
?
I'm incredibly nervous walking in.
I look around the pub but I don't have to look for long. She's sitting at the seat where I used to sit with him and I know then he must've brought her here to.
I'm not quite ready to go over. I give her a nod. I can see that she's got a drink and I walk over to the bar and I go to order a glass of wine but I order a soda water – I think I might need it.
‘Thanks for coming.’ She gives me a nervous smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d actually come or if you did…’
‘I don't want to row.’
‘You look well,’ she says and I do.
I feel well.
I'm wearing my red dress that looks like a sarong but with flat silver sandals this time.
Maybe people think I should be wearing black.
I don’t feel black though.
It’s spring.
‘How are you?’ I ask and I watch her crumple.
‘I'm sorry,’ she says. ‘I'm so, so sorry.’
I can feel her grief and her shame and I recognise it.
‘I tried to ring you so many times but I keep hanging up the phone.’
I get up and walk around the table and I slip in the booth beside her and I put my arms around young shoulders and I feel as if I'm holding me. She tells me how much she loved him, how special he had made her feel, how she’d always been awkward and shy, how, in fact, she’d been a virgin.
I hold her as she sobs it out - to me, and she can sob it out to me because of all the work I’ve done on myself.
‘You should write it all down,’ I tell her. ‘Keep a journal - I know it sounds mad, but it actually helps…’
‘Oh I do,’ she says. ‘It's the only thing that’s kept me sane. Not that you'd think that if you read it.’
‘You should see mine,’ I say.
And then I tell her something a woman once told me.
About nuclear reactors and that toxic shame and loathing we all hold inside and I tell her to keep pouring cool water, to simply dilute it. I know that she gets it and that she’ll be writing about it tonight.
‘You’re going to be okay,’ I tell her.
I have to go, I really do, because I'm picking up Charlotte at the end of her lunch break and I promised I’d bring the puppy to show her dad, so I have to go home and get him.
We walk out of the pub together and I feel the warm breeze as I farewell her. Somehow I know it's not quite goodbye - that next year this is where we will be.
I know I'm looked after.
I know this year I've been looked after.
I don't know how or why.
Sometimes I feel that there's this big master plan we’re not privy too, that there’s a connection we simply can't see and I’m not talking about Facebook!
I don’t know if it’s God, I don’t know what to call it.
I just feel that there’s something more.
CHAPTER SIXTY NINE
‘How was school?’
‘Great!’ Charlotte says scooping up the puppy. ‘I've been invited to a party!’ Then she stops.
‘Tell me.’
‘Later,’ she says, because sometimes you feel guilty being happy.
Charlotte is happy.
She loves her new school and she’s making good friends and we’re a happy little family now.
She’s fully back to me now and my mum was right – it’s even better.
We stop and buy flowers and then we pile back into the car. I park it in the cemetery and I sit for a moment before I head out there and then my phone bleeps and I read a text from Jess.
Love you, thinking of you today.
I’m not quite ready yet but maybe in summer the three of you can come over. I’m not losing my best friend and neither are you, always know that xxx
I smile as I read it, because despite what went on, even if it’s been a bit awkward between us since we went to Wales, she is my best friend, and yes, Charlotte, the puppy and I will head there in summer.
I walk past the baby bit as fast as I can because I really don’t want Charlotte to see them, but she does. You can’t avoid it, it’s right next to the car park bit. I just want to rush her through but I know I’ll have a million tears and questions tonight.
I see that Gloria and Daisy are there and I’m glad because it makes things easier for Charlotte. She gives a little squeal of delight and I figure that Gloria must have timed it, because I remember Charlotte saying to Alice on Skype that she was being picked up from school at lunchtime.
I thought she should go in for half a day.
Not just because she needs her routines but because I wanted some time to myself too.
Because, I do miss you.
I look at the stone and his name and I can honestly say it.
I miss you and I did love you and I do think you loved me.
I am quite sure that you loved Gloria too.
I don’t understand it.
Often I question it.
But most of the time I just accept it.
There are different sorts of love.
Your death means ours can last.
Charlotte starts crying and I stand there beside her and I can’t stop her pain and I can’t erase her loss, I can just be there.
Then, when she’s calming down, Gloria makes a fuss of the puppy and asks its name.
‘Holly.’
I see Gloria frown as he cocks his leg on a long blade of grass.
He piddles every ten seconds, I swear.
‘Mum didn’t like the boy Christmas names,’ Charlotte explains. It takes Gloria a minute to compute and then she goes a bit red, but I think there’s a tiny smile as she catches my eye and then she suggests that the girls play on the grass. ‘Show her her namesake,’ Gloria says as she hands over Daisy. ‘Make a daisy chain.’
We stand there in silence for a minute and it’s Gloria who breaks it.
‘Well, one thing I’ll say for him - he did what I asked.’ Gloria says. ‘He looked after his girls.’
He didn’t just look after his daughters.
Gloria must have been one of his girls too.
She looks amazing and is that a diamond sparkling on her finger?
I don’t know if it’s my place to say anything, if I ought to congratulate her?
‘So, you’re planning a wedding?’ I can be so diplomatic!
‘Two!’ Gloria says.
I look, not at the stone in the ground, but the stone on her finger and I tell her that I wish her well.
I mean it.
Then we stand there and I turn and there are the girls making daisy chains. I watch Charlotte split the stem and link another one in. I know we’re all connected and sometimes it comforts but right now I just don’t like it. I get that horrible shiver down my arms.
It’s spooky.
‘I’ll have nightmares tonight.’ Gloria breaks into my dark thoughts. ‘Honestly, after I’ve been here I have terrible ones – I see things coming out of the ground.’
‘Like Buffy,’ I say and she smiles.
‘I’ll leave you then,’ she says. ‘Let you have some time with him.’
I’m about to say thanks but Charlotte comes over and hands a daisy chain to me and she’s stressed and teary. ‘Can we go?’