Charlotte must have thought. I wait for her eyebrows to raise, for her to dash off or wait till I’m inside so she can rush down the street.
Except, her arms are around me.
My perfect neighbour has her arms around me and is leading me to my door, to my home.
More than that, she is coming inside with me.
CHAPTER FORTY
‘Hi, Luke…’
My face is burning as I look up from the table as he comes down the hall.
Jess has gone to visit her mum in Wales, he told me when I rang about the uniform, and I told him a bit about last night.
My neighbour lets him in and, after a few moments of chat, she gives me a hug and leaves, telling me if I need her, just to call.
The strange thing is, I might.
I can’t look at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says and I frown, because an apology from Luke I wasn’t expecting. ‘I knew you were in trouble.’ He sits at the table with me. ‘I should have made you see your GP.’ I look up and he closes his eyes. ‘We shouldn’t have left you on your own last night.’
‘You offered to come over.’
‘Yeah,’ he gives a pale smile. ‘I shouldn’t have listened when you said no.’
He looks at me for a very long time.
‘You need to sort yourself out.’
‘I know.’
‘Properly.’
‘I know.’
He tells me how worried he is and I get a very long lecture about taking better care of myself. He just drones on and on but, at one point, he gets really cross with me.
‘It’s not just the fucking cream,’ he says, he actually stands at that point, he leans over the table and shouts at me. ‘Was the missing cream the problem when you shagged Noel?’
I start to cry.
‘Was the missing cream the problem when you forgot to wash?’
‘Please Luke,’ I beg him to leave it.
‘No, I will not leave it,’ he shouts. ‘Your daughter needs you and you need to do whatever it takes to be here for her.’
‘I get it.’
‘I don’t think you do…’ Luke says. ‘I lost my mum. I had a single mum and I know how I felt when she was ill…’ He doesn’t say any more than that about it. ‘You need to ring your mum and get her over here.’
I don’t want to though.
‘Lucy, even if you don’t need her now, then Charlotte does…’
He waits while I ring her and he waits till she is here.
Then he leaves me alone with Mum.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Gloria
‘Luke!’
I was expecting Jess, but it turns out she drove back to Wales last night to see her mum.
It's actually Charlotte who opens the door and gives her godfather a hug. He hands her her uniform and school shoes and boater and Luke is so good, he acts as if it is completely normal that Charlotte is here.
He doesn't dodge the issue either.
He asks Charlotte how she is, he asks Charlotte about her mum and he asks Charlotte how she feels about what happened last night. He's just so lovely with her – every time I want to interrupt, every time I want to tell him to stop, he silences me with his grey eyes and he lets an eleven year-old speak.
It's the grown ups who don't want to hear it.
‘She's sad!’ I feel my heart twist as Charlotte describes it. ‘Mum used to be so pretty, she used to care, but she doesn’t even wash now. I’ve tried to run her a bath. I don’t know what to do.’
Luke tells her that she doesn’t have to do anything.
That the grown ups are stepping up and stepping in.
That things will get better now.
There’s a terrible twist of guilt as he says that, because I should have done just that yesterday.
I should have stepped up and stepped in when I saw Lucy ranting at the graveside.
I didn’t want to deal with it.
I’m lazy like that.
I sit there and I admit it.
I am lazy like that.
‘What if something happens to her?’ Charlotte asks
I go to rush in, to tell her it won’t but Luke silences me again.
‘I don’t think anything is going to happen to your mum but, I promise you this Charlotte, you have got so many people that love you…’
‘If something does happen could I come and live with you and Jess?’
He looks her right in the eye but I frown at his hesitation. ‘I will always be there for you and so too will Jess,’ Luke says.
Charlotte says that she’s worried about her mum being