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‘Eight?’ The funeral is not until twelve.
But he doesn’t elaborate, just jiggles his keys again as Jess gives me another cuddle. I put Charlotte to bed and thankfully she falls asleep, happy now, that she thinks she's named a baby. I try to sleep but I’m too wired, and about midnight I wander downstairs and sit at the computer. Normally, Charlotte’s paranoid about logging out, but she hasn't tonight. I can't help but go on and have a little peek. Sure enough Facebook wars are breaking out between Noel’s family and the Jamesons.
And then a little window pops up.
Go to bed!
I blink. What the hell is Luke doing messaging me?
You need to sleep and your mum needs a break.
I realise I’m logged on as Charlotte and she’s friends with Jess and Luke. I realised that he’s still typing.
Are you worried about tomorrow?
Yes. I type back
Jess and I will be there for you – if it all gets too much you just come and find one of us. For now you need to get some sleep. I cannot tell you the comfort this gives me. Well not so much that Luke will be there, but Jess. She’s been so great. Okay, they’ve both been great. I cringe again when I remember earlier; how he knew all that time I was lying.
night. He types.
night. I type back, and then change it before I press send.
nite I type, because he isn’t being nice to me, I remember.
I’m supposed to be Charlotte.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gloria
You wouldn’t believe the work I have to do for a funeral that I’m not even going to.
Black dresses, black bras, black shoes, black underskirts… don’t get me started. I’m the taxi tomorrow too – I’m picking up Daniel and Laura from Lucy’s – I’m to toot apparently and they’ll come out, then I’m to drop them back to Noel’s.
The house is fit to bursting and we keep changing rooms but I’ve worked it out now.
I’m sleeping downstairs with the baby.
Eleanor’s called her Daisy.
Or rather I’ve pressed Eleanor for a decision and, with a lot of prompting, she’s now called Daisy Lydia Jameson.
Daisy, probably because she’s wearing the outfit that Charlotte brought her and it’s the first thing Eleanor’s glazed eyes landed on. Lydia, because, as I told Eleanor, her other two have middle names. I suggested Lydia after my mother and it’s Alice’s middle name too and she gave me a tired nod of agreement.
And Jameson, because she’s not Noel’s.
We announce it, or rather I announce it.
‘Are you going to tell them?’ I sort of pretend she isn’t sitting slumped in the chair and not engaging. ‘Are you going to tell them the baby's name?’
‘Daisy.’ Eleanor mumbles.
‘Daisy Lydia Jameson.’ I say in that happy clappy voice that I seem to have reserved lately for Eleanor. I should audition for Play School. Daniel her eldest goes off to announce his sister’s name on Facebook. Noel should be picking them up soon.
I head out to the kitchen. It’s after nine and we still haven’t had dinner and Daisy’s bottles are all scattered on the bench waiting to be washed and there are her little sleep suits going around in the washing machine. I must remember to put them in the tumble dryer before I go to bed. I’d forgotten just how much work a new baby is. Eleanor is still having nothing to do with her.
I can’t begin to get my head around dinner.
It’s his funeral tomorrow.
Tomorrow he goes into the ground and I don’t get to be there.
Lucy gets everything.
She gets to be his widow.
She gets the cards and the sympathy.
I bet she’s not lifting a finger.
I bet she’s not making dinner and running out of loo rolls every five minutes – no, she gets to bask in her grief while everyone supports her.
I'm hurting too, I want to scream.
I was married to him once, or don’t you remember?
I’ve lost someone too!
But I don’t think I count.
I hear the doorbell and they’re all talking in the living room and probably don’t hear it.
It rings again and I guess, again, it’s down to me.
I open the door and there is Luke with his lovely wife Jess.
He is holding up three bulging plastic bags and it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever seen.
‘We stopped at the fish and chip shop….’
Jess is wonderful. She sorts out plates and knives and forks and tomato ketchup and takes them through to the dining room table and calls everyone through to eat. I stand in the kitchen, my head on Luke's chest and his arms around me and, for the first time since the whole thing happened, I properly cry.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lucy
How can you keep a stiff upper lip when you haven’t got one?
I should have had my fillers and Botox, I think, as I face the mirror to tackle my make-up. If that sounds shallow, then I think it’s safer for me to be shallow today, or I swear, I’m not going to get through.
Luke and Jess arrived as promised at eight and now I understand why. Flowers keep arriving and the doorbell keeps ringing and Jess looks after Charlotte as I lock myself in the bathroom and try to face today.
Everyone’s going to be looking at me, everyone’s going to be turning their heads towards me and for once I don’t want it.
I pull my hair out of the shower cap. I had it blow-dried yesterday (and a few more foils) and I was going to wear it up, but I feel better with it down. I feel, that way, people can’t see so much of me.
I pull on black underwear that’s supposed to keep it all in and then sit on the edge of the bath and wrestle my damp legs into black stockings. I tear them but I bought two pairs, so I put the second pair on really slowly. They’re really sheer and they’re not really black, I should have got darker ones. I look at the dress and I should have got a size ten. People have been here all week, there have been cakes and casseroles and rolls and I know I’ve put on weight and everyone is going to be looking.
I can’t do this.
I feel the bubble of panic start to rise.
I can’t do this.
I shouldn’t have had breakfast; I can feel it still sitting there. I can feel my anxiety building and I try to find a hair tie, but there isn’t one, so I stuff my hair back into the shower cap because there’s only one thing that can bring me relief.
I hunch over the toilet bowl, I have my fingers at the back of my throat and I stick them right back and start to wiggle them but, at first gag, I pull them out and I lie there cuddling the toilet bowl because I can’t do this either.
I can’t go there again.
‘Lucy!’ There’s a rap on the bathroom door and I hear Luke’s brusque voice as I sit on my knees clinging on to the toilet. ‘Your mum’s here.’
Great!
I nearly put my fingers back down my throat but instead I stand up. ‘I’ll be there in a moment.’
I wash my hands and teeth then shake out my hair and brush it and I put on some lipstick.
I head back to the bedroom and I swear I have to step over him. It’s like he’s still lying there dead and naked on the floor with his Viagra beside him.
There’s no escaping today.
Even if Gloria’s not, his daughters will be there -whom I now have to provide for.
Well, I do.
If he’d left it all to me, things would have been fine.
Instead, we’re still paying child support for the Original Jameson Girls.
I’m savage inside.
I’m not upset.
I am savage with anger at what he’s left me to deal with.
I pull on my shoes.
And then I put on the diamond necklace he gave me on our first anniversary, which sounds romantic, but two days before I’d threatened to leave, to end it.
I can’t think about that.
But memories are raining in.
I put in the diamond studs that he gave me a couple of years later – I’d been threatening to leave then too and I’d told him I was getting the house.
I wasn’t going back to slumsville.
I look in the mirror and the dress that just fitted last week is a bit too clinging now. It really shows my hips and boobs, though it actually suits the dress – I look curvy, sort of hourglass.
Even if I suit the dress, I don’t know that the dress suits a funeral and Ricky’s gone overboard with the foils. I’m a bit too blonde to be mourning, if you know what I mean.
I look good.
I’m not supposed to, but I really do.
I know I do, because Luke’s jaw tightens in disapproval as I come down the stairs. Here’s Mum arriving - staggering under the weight of cakes and sandwiches. ‘I told you,’ I say to her. ‘I’m getting it catered.’ As if she’d ever listen. I just let it go, but there’s no way I’m putting out the cheese and pineapple squares and black forest gateaux and egg sandwiches that are whizzing through the hallway courtesy of her merry band of helpers. Jess gives me a smile and a hug, not an air kiss hug, a real one.
‘You look so good, you bitch,’ but she says it so nicely. Jess knows what they’re like, his family, his friends, the people in the village, the school, the whole circus really.
She knows what today means.
Charlotte comes over to me and I wrap her in my arms and I tell her it’s all going to be okay, to just try and be brave and I’ll be there by her side.
And you know what?
I can do this.
