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‘You should join the slimming club,’ she says, bundling me over to her scales. ‘You'll need a note from me because you've got an eating disorder.’ I want to interrupt and explain that one binge in ten years does not an eating disorder make, but she won’t let me get a word in. ‘I'll have to see you regularly too–they're very strict about it.’
I'm going to love it apparently, she assures me - Dr Patel lost seven stone. I have to be sure that I go to Beryl’s meetings, she does them all around the area. There’ll be one near me.
Bloody hell!
She seems delighted!
I’m her new project.
Mum’s waiting for me in the waiting room and I make an appointment for the grief counsellor and I get my pills dispensed. I think it’s going to take a bit more than that to sort me out.
A whole lot more than that, I am quite sure.
But, I do feel a little bit better.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Gloria
Well, this is awkward.
I pick her up from Lucy’s and I shake my head when she invites me in.
She’s such a lovely little thing.
Charlotte, I mean!
She’s a bit reserved and a bit shy but we both get on.
I sign her in and I take a seat in the waiting room.
When I got my teeth done, it was normally a nurse who called me through, but this time it’s Noel. He startles when he sees me and then there’s actually a grimace on his face when he sees Daisy but he quickly hides it – he’s polite like that and he smiles to Charlotte.
‘Come through.’
She skips up to go to the room but, when she gets to the door, she turns around. ‘Gloria, aren’t you coming in?’
It never entered my head.
I promise you – I am not meddling.
‘You’ll be fine!’ I give her a smile but her eyes are filling up – she’s an anxious little thing and I guess her mum always went in with her.
‘Come through, Gloria.’ Noel says.
He doesn’t look at me again though and he certainly doesn’t look at Daisy.
Well, not at first.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Lucy
‘Jesus, Lucy!’
Ricky is furious as he looks at my roots and I can’t blame him. I did a home dye that one time but, apart from that, it hasn’t been touched since before the funeral. I tell him to be careful because it’s still a bit tender where I seemingly landed on my head and he’s a bit nicer then. He gets me a coffee before he starts but, even though he tries to avoid it, there’s still a sting as the peroxide trickles there, but I’ll live.
I’ll live.
It’s almost a decision sometimes.
An actual choice you make.
It took a couple of weeks but the tablets seem to be helping and Denise, the grief counsellor is nice, she just sits and listens as I pour out my anger about his cheating, about all he left me to deal with. It helps, I think, but I still think there’s more I need.
More that I don’t know.
More that I’m scared to find out.
I flick through a magazine. There’s an article about Sara Michelle Gellar and I think about him in the ground and I try to shove that thought aside.
I can’t watch Buffy anymore, it just freaks me out.
I can’t think about dying.
So, I give in with the magazine and just stare at my face instead. I’ve lost a couple of pounds since I fell but I could use about thirty-two more.
‘I’m thinking of joining a slimming club,’ I tell Ricky.
Normally he’d laugh and tell me I’m being ridiculous, that I look “amaaaazing”
‘You should,’ he says and I nearly take the scissors from the bench and stab him in the leg but instead I actually manage to laugh.
‘So you’re working?’ He chats a little as he snips away and I tell him about the supermarket and that I can’t believe it, but I actually like it. Oh, I hated it those first few days, but I actually like it now. I can’t tell you how hard it was to pull on that shirt the Tuesday after I got out of hospital, I felt sick and was all shaky, but I did it.
Mum stayed for a full week, we had lots of talks, and she’s a bit mental too, she says. God, Mum just doesn’t care what she tells – that was why she used to drink, she told me. It just stopped her thoughts.
‘And now?’
‘I just go to my meetings…’ she smiled. ‘Phone a friend,’ she laughed. ‘And keep on taking the tablets.’
She even had a couple of her elves come over and they sorted out the house and garden and I’ve re-started my online shopping and now I’m sort of back into my routines.
I feel safer with them, I guess.
‘So, who looks after Charlotte?’
‘Well, my neighbour drives her to school if I’m on in the morning, or a woman over the road – Simone,’ I say and he nods, because Ricky knows everyone. ‘If I’m on in the afternoon she brings her home…’ I feel a bit guilty about that but I’m back by five, so Charlotte’s only on her own for a couple of hours. She just sits on Twitter and Facebook. There’s no choice. Mum’s too far away and really, though I am grateful to her for her help, I just can’t suddenly forgive her.
I want to.
The same way I want Charlotte to forgive me.
I can say that I have (which I have), I can act like I have (which I do) but there’s a part of me that simply hasn’t forgiven her.
Even if I wish it would.
Yes, given what happened, I should be more understanding.
Yes, I get your point.
But can you try and get mine?
I did it once.
Terrible as it was, as appalling as it was, as ashamed of myself as I am, I did it once.
It used to be my life.
Finding her unconscious, not finding her sometimes, just not knowing where she was. Ambulances, foster homes, temporary placements and rehab, followed by reunification plans and promises that she simply did not keep.
‘What will you do for the summer holidays?’
I don’t know, I think, but I don’t answer.
‘How is Charlotte doing?’
‘I don’t know,’ this time I do answer.
I see his scissors pause, it’s as if he feels my sudden tension. ‘She’s just…’ I don’t know if she’s grieving or if it’s hormones or a mixture. I don’t know if she’s still angry with me, I don’t know. We’re not so close anymore, it’s like I’ve lost my little girl and I don’t know if I’m going to get her back. She’s twelve now. Maybe she’s just growing up, but I miss her, I can’t tell you how much.
‘Give her time,’ Ricky says and I nod because I can’t speak, I’m scared I’ll start crying. He seems to know that because he goes and gets me another coffee and then he gets back to work on my hair but in silence this time, for which, I’m grateful.
‘Look at you!’ Ricky beams as he holds up the mirror. ‘Back to being a natural blonde!’
I feel better, I feel better, I feel better.
I go over to pay him but he waves me away. ‘On the house.’
He gives me a cuddle and I love Ricky, I love him.
He gave me a free hairdo some years ago.
I’d been seeing him regularly for about a year and then I hadn’t gone in for ages. I’d had Charlotte and my marriage was on skid row. I knew he was cheating and I’d threatened to leave but I didn’t. I wanted my marriage to work, so I came to see Ricky instead and he painted me blonde again and told me about a Pilate’s class that had a crèche. That’s where I met Jess and somehow slid into village life.
I’m sliding slowly back into it now, only I don’t want to be how I was.
I want to be me.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
Dr Patel was right - there’s a meeting in a hall around the corner from me. I’ve been going now for four weeks and do you know what?
I like it.
Beryl has this huge cardboard cut-out of herself and my God, you should have seen the size of her! She was massive; Gloria massive, I mean, and then I stop myself.
I just stop my bitchy thoughts sometimes.
‘Do I want that piece of cake?’ Beryl says holding court over all of us. ‘Yes, Beryl, I do.’ She looks around the room. She does this the whole meeting, she talks to herself and answers herself and she’s as mad as a box of frogs but I like her. ‘Do you want to take the dog for a walk, Beryl? No, Beryl, I don’t. Well you can’t have the cake then, Beryl.’
It works for me.
Do you want that glass of wine, Lucy? Actually yes, I do.
Do you want to do fifty sit ups first and then you can have it.
Err, no, because I’m so bloody tired that we might just ring out for pizza.
But you had pizza last week, didn’t you Lucy?
Yes.
And you can’t walk the dog because you don’t have one.
It works with other things too.
Are you upset that Charlotte didn’t notice your new hair cut?
A little bit.
Okay, quite a bit.
Who’s the adult here?
Tell you what Lucy, I say to my sulking self. Why don’t you suggest that you watch a movie together tonight?
You know what, Lucy – that’s a good idea.
I’m mad, I realise as I microwave a low calorie meal for me and make pasta and salad for Charlotte, but you know what? I like it.
