I shake my head. ‘I don’t think it was as straightforward as that.’
‘The end of a marriage never is.’ Denise says gently. ‘People start to disengage, pull back, people grow up…’ I frown. ‘Sometimes people grow out of each other and, had he not died…’
Yes, I think I’d have left him.
I think I was starting to.
I just didn’t know it at the time.
We talk some more.
It turns out Dr Patel was right - I was grieving.
Maybe I still am.
Not just my husband, but also my marriage, my own childhood and the perfect world I had so badly wanted for Charlotte.
I feel so superficial, I tell Denise, that I stayed for a house. ‘How shallow is that?’
‘Lucy.’ Denise’s voice is practical. ‘You said that you stayed for the house, for the pony, for Charlotte.’
‘I did.’ I nod.
‘What was he like with Charlotte?’
‘Always on her side!’ I roll my eyes. ‘She could wrap him around her little finger.’
‘So could you.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I mean, she could always win him around, he was always telling her how stunning she was, how he could never say “no” to her…’ and then I stop talking and I look at my husband and the relationship we had.
I’m sitting on his knee and I’m looking into the only eyes, apart from Charlotte’s, that I can stand to look into. I’m teasing him and talking him around and I know that I’ll get my way.
Oh, he might have thought that he was getting his way with me too, but there was no way I would have got in that pool in Portugal.
I don’t think.
Or perhaps I might have and that would have been the end of us.
I don’t know.
But I do know how we were.
I got to play house.
I got to dress up.
I got all the nice things that I never had in my childhood.
I got to be one of his girls
I didn’t just stay for Charlotte.
I stayed for me.
But, as Denise explains to me, as every child changes, as every young adult yearns to stretch their wings, I was starting to grow up, I was getting ready to leave.
I grew up with him.
And I’m grown up now without.
CHAPTER SIXTY SIX
I’ve tried to make this phone call so many times.
I introduce myself and I am met with silence.
‘I was wondering if we could meet – for a coffee perhaps…’ Still there is silence. ‘I’ve got so many questions and I thought you might have some too.’ I hear a sharp intake of breath and I quickly squeeze some words in. ‘I know we can never be friends, I just really need to talk to you.’ I don’t know what to say now, I’m about to give in when finally, finally, she speaks.
‘Okay.’ There’s another long stretch of silence and then she suggests that we meet for a drink.
Today.
I’m relieved that it’s today, because I know if we postpone this, then one of us will change our minds, one of us will find an excuse not to go.
And I’m nervous too, because it’s today.
She suggests a pub where we could meet and I agree to the place and the time. She gives me the address and directions and I pretend I’m writing them down, I pretend that it’s a place unfamiliar to me, except I know the pub well.
It’s a place where he used to take me.
CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN
Gloria
I ring them all to check that they’re okay and I tell Bonny and Alice that I’ll take flowers for them.
They don’t ask if I’m okay.
It’s been years since we broke up – I suppose they just assume that I am.
Eleanor was all teary and vague when she dropped off Daisy on her way to work. She’s going to try and get to the cemetery this weekend, she tells me, but she just can’t face it today. I understand that and so I tell her that I’ll take flowers for her and that she’s not to go upsetting herself today.
Eleanor doesn’t ask if I’m okay either.
Paul did.
He woke me up with a big mug of tea.
When I went to climb out of bed to get to the loo and have a cry by myself, he pulled me back and let me cry on him.
Not a lot.
I don’t want to push it.
But we can talk about it now.
Not all of it.
There are some things I don’t think anyone could understand unless they’ve been through it.
But I love that Paul holds me and that with him I can be nearly all