estate. She doesn't understand how lucky she is, all the chances she's been given. I feel the black smoke rise inside. ‘If you don't go back today, then you won't go back…’
‘I've got no choice have I?’
I take a slug of water from my water bottle. Beryl is pretty pedantic about that and I always have it with me. I feel the black smoke hiss it’s protest as I douse it and I’m starting to understand what Gloria meant that night about pouring cool water.
I’m starting to know who I am a little bit more now.
I know what I want to say and I don't have to run it by anyone. I’m approaching the traffic lights and, instead of going straight ahead, I get into the right lane and turn around.
‘You do have a choice.’ I look over to her. ‘You don't have to make it now though.’
I get a takeaway breakfast, we haven’t had takeaway in ages and I think of Beryl, and I do the question thing and yes, I want it.
I’ll go for a walk tonight.
We sit in the car and eat it and for the first time since I started my job, I ring in sick, I tell them I’ve got the flu. I croak it out and it makes Charlotte smile and I don't feel guilty at all.
‘What time is it?’ Charlotte asks and I look at my phone.
‘Four minutes past nine.’
‘She’ll be doing the roll call,’ Charlotte says. ‘What shall we do?’
‘We could go home.’
But neither of us wants to.
We wander up and down the street and look in shops. It's like playing truant – she's in her school uniform, I'm in my supermarket uniform, when I usually wouldn't be seen out dead in that. We go to the chemist and try on perfume. At 10 o'clock we stop for coffee and cake and I remember this feeling, sort of bored now, because you hadn't wanted to go to school but there's really nowhere to go and I tell Charlotte that I remember.
‘You used to bunk off?’
‘All the time.’
I watch her eyes widen.
‘Did Nanny ever find out?’
She wouldn’t have cared, but I don't tell her that, not because I'm embarrassed about my mum, well a bit I guess. Rather, I don’t tell her because there are things Charlotte really doesn't need to know now. Right now, she's dealing with enough.
We stop by the cottage, it’s up for sale again, or maybe it never sold.
‘Dad wanted us to move there.’ I watch her reaction, I watch her eyes look around.
‘It’s nice.’
‘We could ring the estate agency,’ I tell her. ‘Say we want to have a look. At least we’ll get out of the cold.’
‘Won’t you have to buy it?’
‘No!’ I tell her. ‘I used to work at an estate agent’s. Most people aren’t looking to buy, they just come for a nose around.’
‘You used to sell houses?’
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I just answered the phone.’
My daughter is starting to get to know me.
A different me.
The real me, that I too, am getting to know.
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN
‘She doesn’t want to come.’
I am so disappointed, Jess has asked us to come and stay for a week while we make a decision about her school and we’re all packed and ready, but at the last minute Charlotte has changed her mind.
‘I think she’s worried about the bedwetting,’ I whisper to Jess.
‘Get her to the phone,’ Jess says.
I hate this part.
I hate handing it over, I hate the thought that Jess will say something wrong, something that will make it worse, because Jess doesn’t know her like I do. But I trust Jess too and I watch Charlotte’s surly face break into a smile. Then I hear her start to giggle. I don’t know what Jess said, I don’t know, but I trust her with Charlotte, and with reason, because a couple of hours later we’ve loaded the car and we’re on our way to Wales.
We don’t really talk much.
At first.
Charlotte’s busy on her phone, on Facebook and Twitter and then she dozes off. We stop at a service station and order the pancakes. Only then do I realise that they come with tinned whipped cream but I don’t make a fuss, I just eat them slowly.
I’m more aware of Charlotte than the cream on my tongue.
I know if we’re going to ever properly speak, then it’s time for me to talk.
Just as the first sign for Cardiff comes, I say it.