by Nicola Gill
Anyway, right now she had to finish the horoscopes. Sagittarius: Jess’ star sign. You tend to be a bit on the bossy side, Laura wrote, but sometimes it’s good to let others have more say.
Laura’s mind drifted again to the job at Inlustris. You could argue that, even though she was unlikely to get it, there was no harm in trying. Except there was harm in trying. She’d just get her hopes up and be left feeling silly and sad. She suddenly remembered her mother being irritated by her when she was a teenager and she went through a stage of entering writing competitions. ‘I just don’t know why you’d open yourself up to all that disappointment,’ she’d said.
Dani appeared at Laura’s desk. ‘Have you got a minute?’ Before Laura had a chance to answer, Dani carried on. ‘I’m worried the Dear Laura page is getting a little gloomy.’ She made a cartoonish sad face.
‘It’s a problem page …’ Laura responded.
Dani nodded. ‘I know. But I think we need a few “fun” problems – you know, like “I want to spice it up in the bedroom”.’
‘Oh,’ Laura said. Dani gave her a tight little smile and stalked off in the direction of the lifts. Laura was left feeling oddly deflated. She knew it really ought not to matter if she answered fewer of her ‘desperate’ letters. She was all too aware that her advice probably didn’t do much good. At least it made people feel heard though.
She went back to the horoscopes. Gemini was her star sign. If there’s a new opportunity in the offing (like a job at Inlustris), she wrote, then now is an excellent time to go for it.
Then she deleted what she’d written.
Chapter Forty-Six
It was a weekend of packing up belongings; a weekend steeped in sadness. Yesterday, Jon had been at the flat packing more of his things, Billy having been dispatched to spend the day with Jess and her family so he wouldn’t get upset.
‘It’s not like he doesn’t know,’ Jon said when Laura told him.
‘Doesn’t mean he has to watch it happen.’
Now Laura was on her way to her mother’s flat so she and Jess could sort through more of her stuff. Laura willed the bus to go quicker. She sent Jess a text: Running a bit late. See you soon. x
She didn’t mention she had been delayed because Jon was late to pick up Billy. No point giving her sister ammunition. Jon had been late yesterday as well. Laura had been on her own in the flat for over an hour after Jess picked up Billy. She was in a strange kind of limbo state. What did you do when your ex was coming over to pick up the rest of his things? Was it weirdly casual to be doing the ironing? Should she get on with some work? Go out (but then that seemed like an act of hostility)? In the end she settled for pacing restlessly.
Jess was on her mobile when Laura arrived. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Bye.’
‘You seemed in a bit of hurry to finish that call,’ Laura said. ‘Were you bitching about me?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Err, I was joking,’ Laura said, taking off her jacket and wondering if her sister actually had been bitching about her.
‘Do you want to start on Mum’s clothes?’ Jess said.
Laura thought about saying she’d do a different job but decided that sometimes resistance was futile. She started pulling dresses and tops off hangers. It had been over seven weeks since her mother had died, but it still felt invasive to be going through her cupboards. It was just something that felt ‘wrong’ – like deleting her mum’s number from her phone, which she still hadn’t been able to bring herself to do.
Evie’s clothes were all brightly coloured and there was an abundance of sparkle and fur. She had been a very glamorous dresser, like Jess. And, now Laura came to think of it, Dad had been a pretty sharp dresser too. She was the odd one out, a scruffy rogue dropped into their midst from another family.
When she was about four, someone at nursery had told her that sometimes in the hospital where babies were born, the babies got mixed up and went home with the wrong family. And Laura had got very excited about this idea and thought maybe Jess had been sent home with the wrong family and she’d get a new sister; a good one who wasn’t bossy. But then she’d started to panic because what if it was her that had been sent home to the wrong family and one day there might be a knock at the door and someone said that she had to go and live somewhere else? It might be a family where you had to eat kippers.
She pulled a top out of the wardrobe and saw that it still had its tags. Tears filled her eyes. How sad to die before you’d even had a chance to wear your new top.
She carried on folding and sorting. Yesterday, seeing Jon’s clothes spread out all over the bed, she’d been struck by how scruffy and dirty most of them looked. It was all she could do not to start stuffing things into the washing machine. But Jon’s washing didn’t go in the machine with hers and Billy’s anymore.
Jess walked into the bedroom with a huge empty box. She had a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead. She’d obviously been going at it full tilt. She still looked perfect, of course – even the sweaty Jess just looked glowy. And her hair, to quote those old adverts, always looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon. Laura had once seen a photo of her sister on a camping holiday with perfect hair. How was that even possible?
‘I reckon with one more day after this, we’ll be done,’ Jess said.
One more day? Laura was fed up with packing up. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, reaching to the back of one of the shelves. ‘I bought Mum this dish for her birthday when I was about nine. I didn’t know she still had it.’
Jess took the small porcelain dish from her hands. ‘It’s pretty.’
Laura nodded. ‘I think it’s supposed to sit on a dressing table and hold jewellery or knick knacks.’
‘You should keep it.’
Laura put the dish by her handbag in the hall. She walked back into the bedroom where Jess had just uncovered a huge black hat.
‘Is this the one Mum wore to Dad’s funeral?’
‘I think so. She really was a big-hat kind of person, wasn’t she? Even when she wasn’t wearing a hat.’
Jess laughed.
‘Is it time for lunch yet?’ She sounded like Billy.
‘Let’s do another half an hour.’ Jess sounded like her.
‘Oh my goodness, so many lotions and potions.’
‘Put all the unopened ones in one pile and the opened ones in another.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s just I’m taking all the unopened ones to a women’s refuge,’ Jess said.
‘Of course you are, Little Miss Perfect.’ Laura had meant this as a joke but it just came out sounding snarky.
‘I do wish you wouldn’t call me that,’ Jess said, looking cross.
‘I’ll never say it again,’ Laura said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Me neither,’ Laura said, and they both laughed.
They carried on clearing and sorting until eventually Jess conceded that they could eat. Yesterday, Jon had been over at lunchtime and Laura had offered to make him a sandwich but he just looked at her like it was the weirdest suggestion ever. And Laura had suddenly been hit by a tidal wave of sadness because here were two people who had once loved each other, who had a child together, and now Jon looked at her as if her slapping a piece of ham between two slices of bread was an act too intimate.
‘I made us a superfood salad,’ Jess said, reaching into the fridge and pulling out a Tupperware container.
Laura tried not to notice that ever since she’d told Jess she wanted to lose weight, Jess kept giving her diet food. She ploughed her fork into a mound of quinoa and edamame and tried to imagine it was cake.
‘Billy seemed to enjoy the Science Museum yesterday.’
‘Yes. Thanks for taking him.’
‘How was it with Jon?’
Laura shrugged. ‘It was never going to be a fun day, was it?’ She didn’t mention that she and Jon had bickered over a cheap kitchen knife they’d bought in Ikea, argued ab
out a throw that neither of them liked and then really come to blows about a vase Jon’s mother had bought Laura. When she’d seen Jon stuffing it into his bag, she’d protested saying it was a present given to her. Yes, he’d said, from my mother. In the end he’d told her she could have the bloody thing. Laura had stared at it sitting on the kitchen counter thinking how ugly it was and how she didn’t really want it at all – much like Mum’s necklace she’d wrestled from Jess that day at the spa.
‘We ought to get back to it,’ Jess said as soon as she finished her last mouthful. The whirling dervish didn’t stay still for long.
Laura felt a wave of exhaustion as she started to go through the linen closet. All this misery was wearing her down. She piled towels into a box marked ‘charity’.
Jess walked past and took them straight out again. ‘They’re fabric bank not charity.’
Laura sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Eventually though, the hands of the clock did hit four and Jess agreed they could call it a day (although probably only because Laura had to get back in time for Jon to drop off Billy).
Laura picked up the porcelain dish she’d left in the hall. She could remember the day she bought it for her Mum. She’d been with her dad in John Lewis. ‘Do you think Mum would like this?’
‘I think she’d love it.’
And he’d been right because Evie had looked genuinely pleased when she unwrapped it and, what’s more, she’d kept it all these years. Okay, it might have been at the back of a cupboard and not out on a dressing table, but she’d kept it.
‘Jess,’ she shouted. ‘You don’t have a plastic bag, do you?’
And then suddenly, before she knew it the dish was out of her hands, falling through the air and hitting the wooden floor, shattering into what seemed like a million pieces.
Laura felt the tears spring to her eyes. She knew it was pathetic to cry over a dish but she couldn’t help herself.
Chapter Forty-Seven
It was such an irony: Laura would do anything – anything – to protect Billy from getting hurt and yet she was the one who’d ripped his heart to shreds.
He was sobbing bitterly because he hadn’t been invited to Caitlyn’s party and, although Laura knew he was upset about Caitlyn’s party (and was planning to punch both Caitlyn and her mother later), she also knew that he wouldn’t normally be this upset.
‘Everybody’s going!’ Billy wailed.
Laura bent down to his level and put her arms around him. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
Billy sobbed louder. ‘It is true! Harry, Freddie, Jake …’
‘It probably won’t even be a very good party.’ Stupid thing to say – stupid, stupid, stupid!
‘It’s at Laser Quest!’ Billy was practically hiccupping now.
‘I’ll take you to Laser Quest.’
‘I don’t want to go with you!’
Eventually he’d stopped crying, and started half-heartedly building a Lego spaceship.
Laura watched him intently, her heart feeling as if it might cleave in two. She had been so determined that she and Jon would give Billy the perfect home. Not in the Jess sense (although, to be fair, Jess’ girls had a perfect home at a deeper level too) but in the way that really mattered.
Billy had wet the bed three times in the last week. The first time, he’d shaken Laura awake in the middle of the night and she’d had to stumble around in the half-light dealing with sodden sheets, feeling as if she was dreaming. It had been so long since she’d done this – years.
At least she could change sheets though. Not everything was so straightforward. A lot of the time Billy was angry and aggressive, particularly just after he came back from being with Jon. He’d shout and scream, telling her ‘no’ when she asked him to brush his teeth or get his shoes on. He called her names too, only things like ‘stupid’ and ‘doofus’ because those were the worst words he knew. He may as well have been swearing at her though, judging by the look on his face when he said them and the venom with which they were spat.
‘Whee,’ Billy said, flying his spaceship through the air.
She found the anger difficult to manage. She desperately wanted to be the perfect mother but that was hard at the best of times, and nigh on impossible when you were feeling overwhelmed, angry and sad yourself; when your patience felt like it was in short supply.
She settled for being completely inconsistent, which she knew was parenting sin number one. One day she was Strict Authoritarian Mummy: Don’t you dare speak to me like that! GO TO YOUR ROOM! The next she was Let it Slide Mummy, dishing out cuddles and ice cream.
‘Daddy left because I was naughty, didn’t he?’
Laura felt as if the air had been knocked out of her lungs. She knelt down beside Billy, put her hands on his face and turned him to look at her. ‘None of this is because of you, Billy. None of it. Mummy and Daddy were having some arguments and we’re going to live in different houses.’ She thought about how Jon was still crashing at Jimmy’s. It wasn’t really the sort of environment you’d pick for your child, but she supposed she didn’t get a say in that now. ‘You have done absolutely nothing wrong, and Mummy and Daddy love you very, very much.’
Billy started pulling his spaceship apart. Laura instinctively wanted to stop him.
‘Do you love Daddy?’
Christ! Laura knew you were meant to be honest with your kids but how do you answer a question when you don’t even know the answer yourself? ‘I love Daddy in a different way.’
Billy’s face scrunched. ‘Stupid!’
‘It’s not nice to call people names.’ Her voice lacked conviction. This was another mummy she pulled out of her arsenal sometimes: Toothless Mummy.
‘Caitlyn’s daddy died.’
Oh. Oh. That rather changed things. Perhaps Laura wouldn’t punch her or her mother.
‘Miss Newman said her daddy was sick. I saw him once in the playground. He was bald. Not like Mikey’s dad is bald but bald with little bits of hair. Miss Newman said we must all be very kind to Caitlyn.’
‘Yes,’ Laura said, choking back the tears.
So. Much. Sadness. In. The. World.
She hadn’t told many people at work about splitting up from Jon. They were all still handling her like an unexploded bomb because of her mother dying, so she feared they might get her sectioned if they found out about the latest drama. She’d told Amy now and she’d also confided in Karen. Karen had two daughters and had gone through a divorce a few years ago. ‘How the hell did you help your girls through it?’ Laura said to her.
Karen had shaken her head sadly. ‘It gets easier.’
‘How long does it take?’
Karen laughed mirthlessly. ‘You don’t want to know.’
Billy jumped up from the floor, saying he was bored with Lego. Laura knew she ought to make him clear it up but she couldn’t face being told Daddy didn’t make him tidy up. So she said nothing and instead started picking up the multi-coloured sea of plastic bricks and scooping them into the box. He had so much Lego and yet she’d still bought him a new set last weekend (Bribing Mummy). He’d been overcome with gratitude for what had seemed like about thirty seconds but then started to talk about how he really wanted a Nintendo Switch. Everybody had them. Lola and Hannah had one each!
Sometimes Billy seemed fine, as if nothing had happened. But there was always another tantrum or outburst just around the corner. The other day he’d hit Lola. Jess had tried to make light of it, said it was nothing. But Laura had been horrified. He’d never done anything like that before.
She raked her hands through yet another pile of Lego.
Worst of all was when Billy said things that made Laura realize that he was hoping that she and Jon were going to get back together. Sometimes she knew he even thought he could help this along. He told her proudly that Daddy hadn’t let him have a McDonalds for lunch and wouldn’t let him stay up past his bedtime – things he thought would impress her.
And, although she knew it was vitally important that she and Jon were always civil to each other in front of Billy and didn’t slag each other off, it broke her heart when Billy misinterpreted this. She could see the hope in his face when Jon had said something that made her laugh recently. She could see his eyes shine when she said something was nice of Daddy.
She picked up the box of Lego, put it away in the cupboard and had a swig of Gaviscon.
She would be a better mummy from now on.
Chapter Forty-Eight
It was an innocent comment of Billy’s that got Laura thinking: Josh is always here.
She stopped hunting for Billy’s reading record, which she knew must be buried somewhere under one of the piles of condolence letters and bills that were littered all over the place.
Always.
It was exactly what Jess had said.
Laura looked at Billy and Josh, who were sitting on the floor with a huge stack of toy cars between them. Billy was showing Josh his favourite red Ferrari, explaining earnestly that it went super-fast. They looked really sweet together and Billy often seemed happier when Josh was around. God knows, Laura needed things that made Billy happy right now. So she shouldn’t get hung up on the ‘always’.
She started going through the papers again. It was just that Amy had left Josh with her a lot recently. She’d had him on Sunday night even though she was exhausted after the day clearing out her mother’s flat, she’d had him on Tuesday evening because Amy’s brother was in London, she’d had him when Amy had to pop out to get a few bits from the supermarket (apparently Josh was a nightmare in the supermarket).
‘And this car is a Mini,’ Billy said.
It was fine though. She loved Josh, Billy loved Josh. And she knew Amy would look after Billy if Laura ever asked her to.
Laura carried on working her way through the pile of papers. She certainly didn’t want to become the sort of person who cared about everything being scrupulously equal. Like those ghastly people who start saying they didn’t have a starter when you’re splitting a bill in a restaurant.