Chapter Eleven
They each welcomed the hit of caffeine as the two once-best friends sat with steaming mugs of coffee in hand, both a little shocked to find themselves red eyed, sitting together in Lisa’s mum’s kitchen. Lisa wished there was something stronger in the house, even the cooking sherry she had downed the previous night would have been welcome. There was so much tocatch up on and so much to be explained, they hardly knew where to begin. At first they reminisced; it was safe ground, sticking to the past they had shared. They laughed together, understanding jokes from the past only they knew and, probably, that only they would have ever found funny.
As Lisa poured them a second coffee, she decided she felt brave enough to broach their first reunion.More than anything she wanted to apologise for running from Tesco the way she had, leaving Flick when she seemed to be in some kind of trouble.
Felicity giggled. ‘Oh, Lisa, I wasn’t, and I’m not, in any sort of trouble. I just have a toddler.’
Lisa looked at her discombobulated, trying to fathom the connection and to take in the fact Felicity had a child.
‘Seriously, gettingto the supermarket at all is a miracle sometimes, going covered in sick when I really wanted to be at home snuggled up with Pete is—’
‘Pete Willis!’ Lisa gestured for Flick to continue, not wanting to reveal she had spent too long trying to remember Pete’s surname during her Facebook snooping session.
‘Yes, you remember. I told you about him. I met him the second summer after youleft. He was an apprentice, working with his dad, landscaping Mum’s garden.’
Lisa nodded silently without actually remembering the details.
‘Anyway, going to the supermarket covered in sick, it’s not something I normally do, but when needs must, well… well, it’s just an occupational hazard.’
Lisa smiled, overwhelmed by the knowledge Felicity was married and still processingthe fact she had a child. ‘So tell me… tell me about your toddler.’
‘Oh, there’s not just Fred, though he’s a handful enough. There’s four of them.’
‘Four!’ Lisa couldn’t take it in.Four!Married with four children!If everything else wasn’t enough to show how long it had been since they were last together, the thought of Flick with four children was. Felicity had a whole life.A whole Lisaless life. Lisa wondered how her own life would have differed if she had never gone away. Would she and Nathan Baker have a whole little tribe to call their own? Lisa didn’t want to feel any ill will towards Flick and attempted to rub away the pang of jealousy she could feel forming at the pit of her stomach.Married with four children.
‘Megan’s just turned eight – she’s myfeisty one in lots of ways, but she can be sensitive too. Alice is six and my little helper – she wants to be a doctor. Callum is my little pumpkin – with his daddy’s red hair and good looks, and he’s just started school; and Fred, well, he’s my baby – he’ll be two next week.’
‘Wow!’ Lisa didn’t know what else to say.
‘You’ll have to meet them. I really want you to meet them.’
‘Of course.’ Lisa felt terrified at the thought of meeting them and terrible for not having met them before. After all the promises she and Flick had made to each other as they had grown up, she hadn’t been there. Her phone calls had become fewer and fewer over the years, and her trips home had become so fleeting that visiting Felicity didn’t feature – no time to stop when she had Ben andher life in London to get back to.
Lisa sipped her coffee before continuing. ‘And your mum, how has she taken to you having four? Does she love being a granny?’ Lisa was trying to collate things in her head. She knew Flick’s mum hadn’t wanted Felicity to have children young. A single parent at the age of eighteen herself, she had always made it clear to Flick and Lisa, when she could,that she expected girls of their generation to do more, to want more. This stance being one of the few things they had in common, they were words Lisa’s own mum had often echoed too.
‘Oh, Lisa, you don’t know, do you?’
Lisa sat silently, listening, struggling to take in Felicity’s words as she told her about her mum’s accident. When she finished Lisa put her arms around her andthey sobbed together for the second time that evening until their tears ran dry.
‘Flick, if I had known—’
‘It’s OK, really, I didn’t try to tell you.’
‘Oh—’
‘I mean it was about four years after I’d last heard from you. I needed you, really needed you, you were the closest thing I had to a sister, but…’
Lisa swallowed.
‘But Alice was a baby, Meganwas heartbroken and I, well, I fell apart.’ Felicity wiped her eyes.
‘Of course you did.’ Lisa looked at the box of tissues they had already emptied, stood and returned to the table with the kitchen roll. She was in shock, trying to come to terms with the news herself. Flick falling apart was completely understandable. It had been years since Lisa had seen MrsF and yet the thought thatshe would never see her again saddened her.
‘Mum loved my girls, you know.’ Flick smiled, ‘Of course, she was shocked and cross to start with, when she found out I was pregnant – you know how she never wanted that for me, she didn’t want me to struggle the way she had – but, once she saw I was happy and Pete wasn’t going anywhere, things changed. In some ways it was like Megan coming gaveus something in common. At my scan…’ Felicity wiped a tear that trailed down her face.
Lisa passed her a wad of kitchen roll.
‘When Megan appeared on the screen, my mum reached out and squeezed my hand. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. I could feel it, you know.’
