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Sabrina threw back the covers and stood up so quickly that she staggered backwards. ‘I’m so late,’ she said, attempting to stand again.
‘I hope you don’t mean that as late for work,’ said Marielle sternly. ‘There’s no way you’re even stepping outside today. You’re to rest and that’s final.’ She put the mug down on the bedside table. ‘And you’re to drink this. And when you have, will you come through and I’ll make you some breakfast?’
Sabrina felt slightly out of it, hungover without the headache; the coffee helped to right her. Her throat was dry from the long sleep. She put on her waffle dressing gown because she had no energy to think about what else to wear. Someone, Marielle she presumed, had emptied the bin liner and hung her clean clothes back up.
Crying had helped. She would cry again, she knew this, but what she had let go of the previous day had been sitting inside her for years, keeping the wounds open. She had hung on to it as if the pain was the only way to feel her loved ones close and if she cried, if she emptied her soul of grief, they would sail away from her on her own tears. They were still there with her though, part of her; while she held them in her heart they would always be with her.
She knocked on Marielle’s door, knowing she must look a proper sight, and when Marielle opened up and invited her in, she nearly died of embarrassment. The sitting roomwas full of the women who had ousted her so rudely the previous day.
‘Please come and sit down, no one cares what you look like,’ said Marielle, catching her arm before she retreated. She knew how her friends had treated Sabrina. She knew they’d done it from a place of kindness to her, but still it hadn’t been right. She wasn’t as angry at them as she was at Cilla though, because she had been the one who had caused all this. She didn’t want to think of what might have happened if they hadn’t found Sabrina at the hospital, even though her mind kept wanting to take her down that road.
Sabrina sat crunched up, defensive, her arms wrapped round herself.
Sylvie spoke first. Sabrina remembered her from the fish-and-chip restaurant but she hadn’t been in the posse yesterday.
‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry we are, Sabrina. In our defence we were protecting one of our own, but we got it very wrong.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Sabrina. ‘Really. I understand.’
‘It’s absolutely not fine,’ said Diana vehemently. ‘I was especially vile to you. I was so angry at you and I’m now ten times angrier at myself. We handled it all wrong. We can’t make up for it but we thought you might like some flowers and chocolates – they’re lovely, those, made by a French woman in town.’ She pointed to the table where there was a large wrapped bunch of mixed blooms and a rectangular gold carton sitting beside a very large square white box.
Bev spoke next. ‘We’ve always said flowers are sweeter when women give them to each other. Men too often buy them because they’ve been caught with their trousers down.Again.’ She sounded as if she spoke from experience and Sabrina smiled, just a little, but it was enough to break the ice.
‘We are all really sorry,’ said Jackie. ‘I can’t tell you how much.’
‘Can I get anyone a top-up?’ asked Marielle.
‘If it hadn’t been so early, I’d have suggested gin,’ said Sylvie, cradling her mug.
Bev twisted her head to look at the clock on the wall. ‘Can’t we nudge the hands forward?’
‘You’re honoured, you know,’ said Sylvie to Sabrina. ‘Being allowed into the inner sanctum with the Mad Cows. Cilla’s been trying to get in for years.’
‘Well she’s never getting in now,’ said Jackie. ‘I hope you’re not going to let her get away with it, Marielle. It needs calling out. I mean, who does that? I can’t get my head around it.’
‘We have cake as well,’ said Diana. ‘We didn’t know what you’d like so we brought coffee and walnut, chocolate and Victoria sponge. Cake of apology tastes especially good.’
‘They all sound lovely,’ said Sabrina. ‘Thank you.’
‘As Cher said, if only we could turn back time,’ added Sylvie, ‘but we can’t and a Mad Cows collective and very genuinesorryfrom the bottom of our hearts is the best we can offer you.’
‘Can you forgive us?’ asked Jackie.
‘Of course,’ said Sabrina, and she felt the air in the room almost sigh with relief at her answer.
Then she broke bread, or rather cake, with the Mad Cows and for that morning, at least, all was well with the world.
At work, Flick was quiet at best, morose at worst. She wouldn’t cheer up.
‘Go and see her,’ said Teddy, in their break.
‘I daren’t.’ Flick coughed a rasp out of her throat.
‘Can I make you feel better?’ said Teddy. ‘If you hadn’t said anything, then this lie might never have been found out, so you did Sabrina the biggest favour, though it might not seem like it.’
Flick let that sink in. ‘Do you think?’
‘I know.’
