‘I’m sorry,’ I started to say, the words tripping off my tongue, used so often these last few weeks – months, if I was being really honest. ‘Everything is so busy at the moment.’
Reminded of the time, of the things I had to do that weekend, I started to surreptitiously check my phone as I oohed over Amy’s outfits, refusing to try on more myself. She could tell I was distracted, my foot tapping as I stared out of the window at the Saturday shoppers moving by.
‘Hey,’ Amy said, centred in the changing-room curtain as if on a miniature stage, ‘it’s OK, Lottie, do what you need to do. Go, OK?’
I had been looking at my phone again, crossing and uncrossing my legs on the rust velvet chaise longue.
‘Really? Because I don’t want to let you down,’ I started, knowing I had barely been present for the last hour.
‘Go,’ she sighed, not quite meeting my eye.
I pushed myself off the sofa. ‘Thanks. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’
Amy lifted a hand, swatted the air in front of her as if batting away my words. She didn’t say anything in reply.
I scooped up my coat and bag and turned to her, trying to ignore the slump of her shoulders, the saddest bride in town. ‘I’ll call you,’ I said, my cheek clashing against hers.
She nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face.
I paused. Something in her expression frightened me, a resigned look, one I had grown used to in recent months. She didn’t believe me. And I wasn’t sure she should.
Darling Cora,
Lottie is staying in the house for a trial and I’m making her bed in the spare room while she is out. You teased me for ironing your sheets but in those last weeks, when I didn’t know what else to do or say, it seemed important. I could make your bed up as nicely as you always made it, smoothing at the pillows, leaving the tiny sprigs of lavender in your top drawers, dragging the hoover around the room, wiping at the windows. You didn’t grumble about being stuck in there, eating soup from a tray and playing endless games of Scrabble with me.
You always looked after me and then it became my turn, bent over tea-stained cookery books, measuring out ingredients. The day-to-day tasks allowed me to keep marching on, busy, busy, not thinking too much about you upstairs, a book abandoned in your lap, too tired to finish your chapter, your head lolling to the side. Sometimes I would appear in the doorway and see you there, so still, and I would think it had happened, would approach feeling nausea swirl in my stomach, until I could make out the gentle rise and fall of your chest. Another day with you. The relief would take my breath away.
Luke has been dropping in lately. He seems to know what to do when he’s here. We sit in companionable silence in the kitchen or front room, my hands wrapped around your dancing sheep mug as he stands at the counter, both of us watching the television in the corner, occasionally looking up to swap useless sports trivia before returning to the screen. He doesn’t force me to talk or supply me with an endless stream of inspirational quotes: he’s just there. It has been good to see more of him. You always adored him, and I see him glancing across at the photograph of you on the mantelpiece with a small, sad smile and remember he has lost people in his life too.
He came last week. Lottie was out somewhere with Amy doing something for the wedding and he appeared with a bag of pains au chocolat.
‘It will be nice to have Lottie here next week,’ I said to him, pleased to see he was enjoying the flapjacks I had made the day before, a recipe I found in your handwriting in the pages of an old Filofax. You’d always had a sweet tooth.
Luke swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes, less running around for her too. She is manic at the moment.’
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something more but then bit into his flapjack.
There was a pause as he chewed and I waited, sensing he wanted to get something off his chest.
‘I think this last case has been difficult, I mean a lot of them are, it’s hard . . . ’