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‘I’ll ring Jess,’ Luke says. ‘I’ve told her what’s happening and she’s already on her way here. She can pick up Charlotte and bring her here.’
‘Not here.’ I shake my head. ‘Not here.’
I don’t want to do that to her.
I don’t want her to know.
But she has to.
I can’t protect her from this.
‘She’ll need you,’ Luke says.
I know that, so I nod and he rings Jess. I can’t stand how everything is changing – I can’t stand the thought of her face crumpling when she finds out.
I wanted her childhood to be perfect.
I’ve done everything that I can to ensure that it is, but still, it wasn’t enough.
I know that it ends today.
My phone rings as he speaks to Jess, because the world carries on.
Yours stops, yours shifts permanently, yours changes forever, while everything else keeps moving along.
It’s the clinic about my missed Botox appointment.
‘I’m at the hospital,’ I say. ‘My husband…’ I don’t finish, I don’t have to, they apologise, give their best wishes and I hang up.
‘Jess is going to the school now,’ Luke tells me. ‘And she’ll bring her here.’
There’s a long silence and I know what’s coming - he’s always bringing her up, but this time there is no choice, this time it’s me who says her name.
‘Should Gloria be told?’ I’m not just asking him, I’m asking the question to myself. I mean, should she? I look at the little pamphlets they’ve got on display and wonder if there’s an etiquette one, for times like this. I’m sure Dr Patel would have one that would explain what happens in such situations. I mean, who does ring the ex-wife and how much of a priority is she? Do you even call her – would she even want to know? I expect Luke to whip out his phone again, or for him to say that she’s already on her way, but for the first time Luke doesn’t seem sure what to do.
‘I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘Maybe we should wait till Eleanor gets here.’
They’ll all be here soon.
Luke’s like a machine with my phone.
Charlotte, Jess, Eleanor, which means Gloria will be being told – then there’s his mum who’s in her eighties, Luke rang his brother and asked him to tell her. He rang my mum too, insisting that she’d be good for Charlotte.
Please!
I look at the phone ringing again and it’s my neighbour.
I don’t answer.
I don’t want to talk to anyone – except there are so many people to deal with, to inform, to update when I just need a moment to process things.
I don’t get a moment though.
She rings again and I am furious as I answer, she can’t wait to find out, the nosey bitch.
‘Do you need me to pick up Charlotte?’
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘Her godmother is.’
She doesn’t ask for a progress update.
I forget to thank her as I hang up my phone.
Eleanor arrives and I look around for Noel but she seems to be here on her own. She must be eight months pregnant but she doesn’t look it, she’s a tiny thing, a composed thing, or she usually is but she’s hysterical now. Luke is trying to get her to calm down, to take a few breaths before she rings her mum, but she’s not listening to Luke, she’s staring at me and demanding to know what happened.
I just sit there.
‘What the hell happened, Lucy?’
I don’t know what to tell her, I don’t know what to say, I can’t even remember how to speak and then Eleanor storms off - she wants more information apparently. Well good luck getting it, I think but don’t say - I just sit there and someone comes in and offers me tea.
It looks disgusting.
It’s in a green cup and it’s definitely not Earl Grey. They must have put in half a cup of milk and I take a sip and nearly puke it straight up.
My head is pounding. I press my fingers to my temples and I close my eyes. Charlotte will be here soon and I think I want to pass out. Luke goes to a machine and comes back with a bottle of water and I take a long drink and then go into my bag. I open my little tin that has a needle and thread and safety pins and things. It should have two headache tablets too but, that’s right, I had another headache on Sunday.
Maybe I should ask a nurse for one.
‘Mrs Jameson?’
The door opens and there’s a doctor with a nurse standing behind him and they come in and take a seat. I think it would be rude to interrupt them and ask for a headache tablet right now, I mean, I can hear Eleanor screaming and carrying on outside and I think that they might have something rather important to tell me.
I’m quite sure he’s brilliant; it’s just his English that isn’t.
I’m honestly not sure if he’s being sensitive, or if he simply doesn’t realise it wasn’t me.
‘The medication,’ he says, ‘put a strain on his heart and the lovemaking…’ I just stare at his face as he tells me. ‘All efforts were made, we did everything we could to save your husband…’ There’s a whooshing sound in my ears and now Luke is holding my hand and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say, I don’t even know how to cry.
My husband is dead and I simply don’t know how to feel.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gloria
I look the best I ever have.
Today, on this day in my mid-fifties, I probably look the best that I have since I was a teenager.
That probably sounds vain but that’s because you don’t know me. I’m not a vain person, but for now you’ll just have to take my word.
I just can’t stress enough, how good I look today.
Better than I did on my wedding day, though that’s not hard because I was three months pregnant and throwing up.
Three kids will soon ruin your figure and since I got pregnant with Eleanor I’ve had a constant battle with my weight. Then, just when I started to get my life back, just when they were getting older, and things should be getting easier, just when he was due for a really good promotion and we could think about a holiday, just the two of us, bloody Lucy came along.
Lucy, with her lovely slim body and long blonde hair.
Lucy, who had her eye on the prize from the get go.
For a very long while after he left, I didn’t care how I looked.
There was too much other stuff going on.
Then there wasn’t even that excuse.
I simply didn’t care.
I let things slide for a very long while.
Way too long in fact. But, I’m slowly getting there. I started losing weight a few months ago and I finally plucked up the courage to ring my son-in-law, Noel, and I asked him to fix my teeth.
Even though I never expected to, I met someone at my slimming club.
I recognised him from work and we started chatting and it’s all sort of grown from there. Or rather it’s sort of shrunk from there, because Paul’s lost a lot of weight too. He’s been going there for nine months now and, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d have said yes to a date if he’d been as big as he once was. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have asked and, if he had, I wouldn’t have said yes, but for my own reasons… you sort of lose your confidence really, well I have.
We’re going out tonight on our first date. I went to the hairdresser’s yesterday and I had my eyebrows and upper lip waxed and I am trying on some clothes that I've bought.
It doesn't get any easier, this dating lark, whatever your age.
My phone rings and I half expect it to be Paul, for him to have come up with an excuse, to say he’s changed his mind. It would be a relief, I don’t actually want to go, but when I look at the screen I roll my eyes, it’s my eldest daughter Eleanor and I wonder what the drama is this time.
‘Eleanor, slow down!’ I don't understand what Eleanor is trying to tell me, she's at the hospital and apparently things don't look good. ‘Eleanor, you need to calm down.’ I’m suddenly sick in my stomach because she is due to have the baby in four weeks time. ‘Is Noel with you?’ That makes her cry harder and it is then that a nurse comes on to the line.
‘Mrs Jameson.’ She introduces herself as the nurse in charge and I recognise the Jamaican accent - its Rose. I do a few shifts down in Accident and Emergency now and then but I don’t think that she realises it’s me.
‘Rose, its Gloria! Gloria Jameson…’ The line goes quiet and for a moment I think I've been cut-off. ‘What’s going on? Is everything all right with the baby?’ I’m wondering what Eleanor is doing in Emergency, because even though we did our midwifery training together, it’s Emergency where Rose works.
‘Gloria, you need to come now,’ Rose says gently. ‘Where are your other daughters?’ she asks and I frown. ‘Can one of them come and get you, or are they both still in Australia?’ Then I realise just how wrong I’ve gotten things. Yes, Eleanor is at the hospital but she isn't ringing about herself or the baby, this call really is for me. It’s Eleanor’s father who’s sick - my ex-husband.
‘He collapsed at home…’ Rose continues on. ‘Things don't look good.’
I want the truth. I don't want the safe hospital version, so that I don’t have a heart attack and drop dead, or kill myself driving in. ‘Just tell me Rose,’ I say. ‘I need to know what to tell Bonny and Alice. Just tell me now.’
