comes around. He comes over now and puts his arms around me and he lets me lean on him for a moment. I need that moment before I look over. Lucy is sitting there, her face is vacant and her arm is loosely around her daughter, sort of absently patting her shoulder. The hate that rises in me sometimes, that rises now, is suddenly doused as, for the first time, I see Charlotte. I’ve seen photos of her, they’re all over the place on that bloody Facebook, so I see them when I catch up with Alice or Bonny. I try not to look but sometimes I do.
I hate Facebook, I really do.
I know we’re all connected, I know we’re all just a few steps removed and all that, but Facebook joins us all up, and there for the peeking are glimpses of things that an ex-wife didn’t used to have to see. I try not to look because I get this big black churn rise within me when I see her with her pony, Noodle (stupid name) and in her private school dress with her little straw boater, or on holiday at the Maldives, or skiing, or wherever. I just feel jealousy on behalf of my girls when I look at photos like that; because they never had those things, but this is the first time I’ve seen Charlotte face-to-face. It is the strangest feeling because, the thing is, she could be mine.
She’s like Bonny and Alice and Eleanor all rolled into one but she’s different too. She could be mine had we had another.
I am actually having to fight the feeling to go over and wrap my arms around her and take care of her, because she looks so scared and lost. I feel this surge of protectiveness for her that is surely out of place, that is surely not my feeling to have, and then she looks over to me and she speaks. ‘Is Eleanor okay?’
I want her mother to answer her, to comfort her, but Lucy's still just sitting there and it looks like it’s down to me. ‘She’ll be fine.’
‘And the baby?’
‘The baby is going to be fine,’ I say, because even if Eleanor has it now, it's only a few weeks away from her due date and Charlotte doesn’t need to be upset any more than she already is. Charlotte's been so excited about this baby. I only know because her endless questions have driven Eleanor crazy. I know that Charlotte wanted her dad to bring her straight to the hospital when the baby is born, which Eleanor was a bit worried about – it might be a bit of a sensitive time apparently.
‘Mrs Jameson!’ Lucy stirs and we both turn around as a nurse I don’t know comes to the door. ‘The doctor can speak to you now.’ I almost go to see what the doctor wants, my mind is moving really slowly, and then it dawns on me that she’s talking to Lucy.
‘Do you want Jess or me to come with you?’ Luke offers, but Lucy shakes her head and stands. She doesn’t acknowledge me but she’s not being rude, it’s as if she doesn’t realise that I’m there. She gets up and follows the nurse and, because it’s Lucy, she’s all dainty and fey. She’s dressed in a smock and her hairs all rumpled and tumbling. Strange the things you notice but she isn’t wearing a bra and, because it’s Lucy, her tits aren’t down to her waist as mine would be.
Charlotte tells Jess that she needs to go to the toilet and I find myself left with them.
I can’t tell you how awkward it is to be in this room.
There's his brother and his mum and they both look away when they see me. We were supposedly family once, but I'm not acknowledged at all - I haven't been since the day he left, not a card, not a phone call, nothing. Those years of supposed friendship were wiped out the day he left. It took a couple of years for it to dawn on me - I was never their friend and I wasn’t their family. I was only there at birthdays and Easters and included in conversations because I was his wife. It upset me for a while, but then I thought about it. I really examined it and it was a relief to realise that I didn’t like them anyway; they really are the most boring, unevolved