cardigan.
Kate reached across the desk and took the girl’s hand inside her own.
‘Love, Stacey, is a weird and wonderful thing. I thought I had found love when I was not much older than you and it turned out to be the exact opposite of love, because love means freedom and acceptance and I had neither of those things. Then I felt more love than I ever knew possible when I became a mum and this too is now tested to the limit; to have that love taken away from you is another form of torture. But one thing I do know is that when love comes along, it doesn’t judge and it doesn’t condemn, it simply accepts you for who you are, all of you.’ For some reason, Kate saw an image of Simon, his open smile, his beautiful skin, slicked with seawater. ‘And this will be what it’s like for you, Stacey, I promise. Just you wait and see.’
‘I guess so.’ Stacey tried out a small smile.
‘I know so,’ Kate replied. ‘And when the time comes for you to go home and rebuild your life, I’ll put you in touch with people who can support you at home. Janeece would come and see you, I’m sure.’
‘I’d like that, Kate. I just want to go back to how I was before. I want the old me back. I used to laugh all the time, I used to sing a lot and I thought everything was funny. I enjoyed every single day. I never had much, always skint, but always happy.’
‘You will be like that again.’
‘I hope so, cos I’m sick of feeling this low, this scared.’
Kate squeezed the girl’s hand inside her own.
‘You won’t always feel this way. With each day that passes you will get a little bit stronger until eventually you’ll rediscover the person that you used to be. Look at how far you’ve come in the eight months since you arrived! You didn’t want to leave your room at first, remember? And now look at you, out and about on the beach, talking. It’s wonderful; you are doing so well.’
Stacey nodded, not daring to believe that it was true because the disappointment of discovering otherwise would be too much to bear.
‘How are you getting on with Tanya?’ It mattered to Kate that there was harmony.
‘All right, yeah. She’s from North London though, a different world, Kate. I never thought I’d be living with an Arsenal fan!’
They both laughed.
Kate considered the importance Stacey placed on being married. It was touchingly old-fashioned and echoed how her own generation had felt at that age. She wondered if Lydia had a boyfriend. The thought of Lydia marrying without her being present was something Kate just couldn’t contemplate. The very idea of her little girl taking her last steps as a single woman and betrothing her love to another without her mum there to witness the momentous act of transition was incomprehensible. She wanted to be there to support her, hand her over, add in any way possible to her special day. She wanted to fluff her train, blot her lipstick and arrange her posy just so.
Kate had pictured it over and over since Lydia had appeared one day, at the age of seven, clad in an old net curtain and carrying a plant pot up and down the hallway whilst humming the tune of ‘Here comes the bride’, trying not to wobble off the sparkly heels that she had found in her mother’s wardrobe.
Kate thought of her own wedding. In recent years she had many a time replayed the day in her head, rewriting history at the bit when the vicar spoke. In her new, rewritten version of events, she would run from the altar as fast as her white stockinged legs would carry her, holding her bouquet aloft as she wrenched the antique veil from her head and disappeared down the steps into a waiting car being driven by Pierce Brosnan. Well, why not? It was her fantasy after all.
Her actual wedding had not been nearly so dramatic, although there was a moment when it threatened something similar. She and Mark were standing inches apart, facing the vicar, whose arms were spread wide. As the familiar words were cast around the rafters, there was the faintest hesitation on her part. She knew the lines, had unwittingly been rehearsing them in a deep crevice of her mind since she was a little girl, and yet at that exact moment, with friends