by Amy Bratley
‘Losing myself?’ I said, though I knew exactly what she was talking about.
She nodded, her eyes wide with concern.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘When you were with Ethan you lived his life and not your own. All you cared about was him. I know he’s a big character and sometimes it’s hard to be visible behind those people, but you can’t go back there.’
Both of our faces were flushed. I looked at the floor.
‘That’s unfair,’ I said. ‘I cared about lots of other things when I was with him. I was just in love with him, that’s all. I thought he was my soulmate.’
‘I know you felt that,’ she said. ‘And again, I’m not denying that you were very much in love with him, but don’t forget he just disappeared, without so much as a goodbye, and you spent the next God knows how long moping around over him. I can’t believe you’re even entertaining the thought of letting something happen with Ethan. He’s no good for you. You can’t trust him.’
‘I used to trust him,’ I said. ‘I would have died for him. I don’t have that with Joe, and anyway, I’m not entertaining the thought of anything happening with Ethan! Oh, I’m so confused!’
Isabel shook her head. Her hands were trembling. Wasn’t she disproportionately cross? A thought struck me. Before she married Robert, Isabel had confessed to me that he wasn’t her soulmate, but that she knew he’d make a good husband. She had been right, he had made a good husband, but perhaps all this with Ethan was stirring up some of those longings inside her.
‘But you have so much else with Joe,’ she went on. ‘You have love and loyalty and kindness, and he’s funny, too, and warm.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to tell me that. Isabel, does this have anything to do with you?’
She looked at me in alarm.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ she said.
‘I mean,’ I said with a big sigh, ‘is it making you question things with Robert?’
As soon as I said the words I wished I hadn’t. Isabel looked as if she was going to cry and I bit my lip, cringing at myself.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just thinking of something you told me ages ago. That was wrong of me. Look, I’m hungover. Ethan’s history. This is helping me, seeing him again; even if I did feel tempted, it was only in passing. I’m just trying to find resolution. I love Joe, you know I do.’
‘I know,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘But what’s going to happen next time you see him? Last time it was a kiss, next time what?’
I opened my mouth and closed it again, before biting my bottom lip again. Then I shrugged a helpless, hungover shrug.
‘Oh Isabel!’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. Help me! I’m so confused. What will I do without you?’
I opened my arms to hug Isabel and watched tears spring into her eyes.
‘Isabel,’ I said, taken aback. ‘Don’t cry. Why are you crying?’
‘It’s just . . .’ she said. ‘Oh, I know you’ll do what you want in the end, and if you really love Ethan, I know you’ll follow your heart. The rubbish thing is that I won’t be here to help you pick up the pieces.’
My eyes filled with tears too.
‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’
I’d known Isabel since university, when we met in a lecture about postmodernist film theory. She’d written: ‘Bored out of my tiny mind’ on her lecture notes and slid them along the desk to me. I wrote: ‘Tiny minds think alike’, and we went to the Student Union bar to sink a few pints of snakebite, because when in doubt, that’s what we did. After that we became inseparable. Isabel was my best friend. She was completely fabulous. I loved her. And now she was going. What would I do without her?
‘We can Skype, I suppose,’ she said quietly. ‘And I will be back. We won’t stay out there forever. Jesus, last thing I heard about Dubai was that a couple were arrested for kissing in public. Doesn’t exactly sound like my sort of place. And this cafe could be so good,’ she continued. ‘I don’t want you getting sidetracked by Ethan when you’ve got this opportunity here that might just be the start of something great—’
‘Ethan would love to get his hands on this place,’ I said, immediately regretting it.
‘I’m sure this place isn’t the only thing he’d love to get his hands on,’ said Isabel. ‘Seriously, though, I might as well say what I think: the guy’s an absolute wanker! He hurt you once so I hate his guts. And, FYI, Robert might be a bit of a bore – and I know what I said to you before we got married – but I do, actually, genuinely love him.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Good,’ she said.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Shall we get on? We can pause for more emotional wrangling whenever we need to?’
‘Yes,’ she said, grinning. ‘Sounds like a good plan.’
I passed her a dust sheet, which she started to unfold. I turned towards the door as I heard it opening.
‘Hello?’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘Eve?’
‘Oh, hi, Daisy,’ I said, seeing Daisy standing in her bicycle helmet, pink-cheeked from the ride in the sun. She smiled, unclipped her helmet and rested down her bicycle basket. It was packed with picnic foods and a blanket. I suddenly remembered we were supposed to be meeting in the park for a picnic lunch.
‘Hi, Eve,’ she said. ‘Hello, Isabel, how are you?’
‘Yeah,’ Isabel replied, wiping a stray tear from under her eye. ‘Not bad, thanks, Daisy, not bad. And you?’
Daisy sighed and nodded and shrugged all at the same time, so there was no telling how she was.
‘Tired,’ she said. ‘I was up half the night.’
She shot me a look and I remembered her phone call at two a.m.
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Daisy, we’re having lunch to talk about Dad’s party, aren’t we? So sorry, I forgot. I shouldn’t really leave Isabel because we’ve got so much to do here, or maybe you’d like to come along—’
I looked at Isabel, who shook her head and waved her hand in the air.
‘No,’ Isabel said. ‘You go. You won’t be long, will you? I’ll get everything ready so we can work all afternoon. And besides, we’d better get used to being apart.’
We pulled sulky faces at each other and Isabel pretended to burst into tears.
‘I’ll bake a chocolate cake when I get back,’ I said. ‘To try out the kitchen equipment.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ she said. ‘We can have half each.’
I smiled. I was going to miss Isabel. London would not be London without her.
Chapter Twelve
‘You shouldn’t be so selfish,’ Daisy snapped at me, out in the street, when I told her how gutted I was that Isabel was leaving London for Dubai.
‘What?’ I said, open-mouthed. ‘How is that selfish? She’s my best friend, I’m bound to be upset. She’s upset too.’
‘Because,’ said Daisy, pulling off her pink bicycle helmet and putting it in her bike basket, ‘she’s the one who’s got to pack up and go to a new place where she won’t know anyone. She’s probably feeling terrified.’
I frowned and glared at her profile, but Daisy continued looking forwards, pushing her bike, an Orla Kiely rucksack on her back, as we walked quickly along the road to the park. I thought, fleetingly, how grown-up Daisy looked, in her smart Jigsaw capri pants and sheer short-sleeve blouse, wooden bangles jangling on her slim wrist. She seemed incredibly together, whereas I felt shambolic in comparison. She was a single mum of a crazy toddler, yet still had an important job working for the Housing Association and was the kind of person who volunteered for Shelter in the winter months, handing out blankets to homeless people. The sort of thing I talked about, but never actually did.
‘And, you know, Dubai isn’t Paris or New York,’ she said. ‘She’s going to have a massive culture shock. I don’t envy her.’
The pavement was bustling with people today, walking out
in the sunshine. I stepped out onto the road to avoid a harassed-looking mother pushing a buggy and holding a toddler’s hand, shopping bags digging into her wrists. A driver beeped his horn at me and Daisy grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the pavement.
‘For God’s sake, be careful!’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘The whole world does not revolve around you. You know?’
‘Daisy!’ I said, standing suddenly still in the middle of the pavement, causing everyone around me to tut and mutter in complaint. ‘Why are you so mad with me today? I’m sorry about last night. Are you pissed off with me?’
Though I loved Daisy with all my heart and felt I knew her well, sometimes she was a total conundrum. When she relaxed she was delightful, charming, funny and kind. But other times, she was bad-tempered and irritable and hard to work out. Life had not exactly dealt Daisy a great hand and it had always been my role to attempt to placate her, to cheer her up, but today, I didn’t feel like it. I had a banging hangover, a million things to do at the cafe and I was going to miss Isabel like mad. I had every right to be a tiny bit pissed off, didn’t I?
‘No, come on,’ she said, steering me by my elbow. ‘Let’s get to the park.’
We carried on walking to the park in the sweltering heat, with Daisy sighing at the people walking too slowly in front of us, me silently fuming at her criticism of me. I shot her a look, but she stared straight ahead. So many people had had the same idea, to picnic in the park, and were spread out on blankets covering the grass, that there was hardly any room left to sit. I pointed to an oak tree, slightly up the hill, which had space underneath the shade of its branches.
‘How about under there?’ I said, heading to the spot, my anger mounting. ‘By the way, that was unfair, Daisy. I’m not selfish. I’m upset. I’ll miss her so much. This will do, won’t it?’
I was pleased for the cool shade of the tree, and flopped down on the grass, which was peppered with buttercups, leaning back on my hands. I watched as Daisy pulled the picnic blanket out of the basket and flicked it out so hard, it made a snapping sound. Without speaking, she kicked off her sandals then pulled a selection of Tupperware pots out of her rucksack, yanking off the lids and tossing them into the centre of the mat. She’d gone to a lot of effort; there were slices of homemade tortilla, juicy tomato, fennel and red-onion salad, red cabbage coleslaw and a block of cheese wrapped in brown paper. She broke up a baguette and handed me a wedge, pointed at the plates and cutlery and gestured for me to help myself, then pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head and rubbed her temples.
‘Daisy?’ I said, sitting forward. ‘Are you all right? You seem majorly pissed off. This food looks amazing, by the way. Thank you. Why did you go to so much effort? You didn’t have to.’
She gave me the tiniest smile. I hoped she was softening slightly. I was usually pretty good at reading people, but Daisy was really confusing me. I smiled a bland smile in return, trying to communicate my confusion at her mood.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, with a massive sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have said all that. I’m just really stressed out. I didn’t get any sleep and this new housing project I’m helping on is an unmitigated disaster. I thought we deserved a good lunch, so I spent an inordinate amount of time making it this morning.’
She paused to pour lemonade into plastic glasses. She handed me one and I took a deep drink, feeling the bubbles burst on my tongue. It took me back, immediately, to coming home from school, when our mum was still alive. She’d give us a glass of lemonade, poured over ice cubes, and a fresh slice of homemade shortbread while we changed into play clothes, carelessly casting our uniforms aside on our bedroom floors.
‘My boss phoned me this morning – on a Sunday – to tell me that the windows for the bathrooms in an entire block of flats in Stockwell are all wrongly sized,’ she said. ‘And apparently I signed them off, so I’m the one to blame for a great chunk of wasted budget. Thousands and thousands of pounds. Thing is, I hardly even remember signing the form. I’m so mad with myself. I never fuck up at work and now I’m going to be hauled up in front of the finance director tomorrow, who’s a real dragon. I’ll probably lose my job over this.’
I spooned some of the tomato salad onto my plastic plate, breathing in the fragrance of basil, unwrapped the cheese then picked up a knife.
‘What a nightmare!’ I said, starting to cut a few slices of cheese. ‘Surely you won’t just get the sack for one mistake. Wasn’t it the architect’s fault really? Shouldn’t they have got the measurements right in the first place?’
‘Don’t cut it like that,’ Daisy sighed, pulling the knife from my hand. ‘You need to do it at this angle.’
‘I’m not a complete moron, I do know how to cut cheese!’ I said, sitting back and rolling my eyes. ‘Can I have the knife, please? Can’t you blame the architect, then?’
‘Just let me do it,’ she said, not giving me the knife back and cutting into the cheese. ‘But no, I can’t blame anyone. That’s the point of my job; I have to be accountable for everything. Oh God! I’m so angry with myself. Anyway, there’s no point talking about it. What’s done is done. I’ll just have to see what the dragon says.’
Her mouth was set in a grimace, the corners of her lips slightly downturned. I wondered if she was about to cry. I put my hand out to pat her arm gently and she patted my hand briefly in acknowledgement.
‘I’m also worrying about Dad,’ she said, glancing up at me. ‘He’s still being really weird. I’ve asked him about his trips to the GP, but he just laughs. He’s being quite secretive, if you ask me. When I dropped Benji off with him this morning, he was on the phone to someone, but wouldn’t say who. Anyway, more importantly, what about Ethan last night? Did you talk more? You shouldn’t have gone, you know.’
The mention of Ethan’s name made a shiver pass through my body despite the scorching midday heat.
‘I know what you think,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘But we didn’t really get to talk much. More lemonade? I’m so thirsty today.’
I drank down another whole glass of lemonade and held the cup against my cheek in an attempt to cool down. I was fed up with people telling me I was wrong to have seen Ethan. I thought about what Maggie had said: that I was being brave and finding out how I really felt. Beyond us, a group of friends started a game of frisbee, the blue disc spinning through the air and landing in someone else’s picnic.
‘I think you should speak to Dad,’ she said. ‘Will you? You know you’re his favourite; he’ll probably open up to you, but I could ask him until I’m blue in the face and he won’t tell me.’
I watched Daisy, trying to figure out if she was joking, but she was deadly serious.
‘I’m not his favourite!’ I said. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘You are so,’ she said, quite coldly. ‘You’re such a daddy’s girl. I was much more of a mummy’s girl. We did everything together, Mum and I.’
Daisy paused. I saw, quite unusually for her, she had bags under her eyes. That was my fault. A tear ran down her cheek and she quickly, almost angrily, wiped it away.
‘Oh, Daisy,’ I said. ‘Don’t get upset.’
‘You know, I’m really missing her at the moment,’ she said. ‘When I stop and think about her dying, I feel this awful emptiness. I wish I’d told her I loved her more than I did. I wish I’d said goodbye. I wish she was still alive.’
‘Oh, Daisy,’ I said, putting my arm around her. ‘So do I.’
Daisy made a humming sound that she always made when she was about to get really upset and I hugged her tight. Though I knew she missed her terribly, Daisy rarely spoke about our mum’s death.
‘I’d been a real brat to her those last few days of her life,’ she said. ‘And when she actually died, I wasn’t even with her. I was throwing a tantrum in the hospital car park.’
‘You were angry and upset,’ I said, passing her a tissue. ‘We were both just kids, but you understood better than I did. It was hard for you.’
&
nbsp; Daisy wiped her eyes, collected herself and stared off into the distance, biting her top lip.
‘You know, you’re so much like her,’ she said suddenly. ‘Sometimes when I see you, I have such a strong sensation of her it blows me away.’
‘That’s what Dad says,’ I said. ‘I can’t see it myself – when I look at pictures, I mean.’
I said that, but I could really. I just never knew what to say in these situations, because, for some reason, I didn’t feel I could claim my mother in the same way as Daisy, because she was older and so had known her for longer before she died. I’d always been the person who tried to cheer everyone else up, to try actually to step into our mum’s shoes and do as she did. We sat quietly for a while, in slightly strained silence, while Daisy picked at the food. I lay down on the picnic mat and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the park all around us; children shouting, music playing and the spooky chiming of an ice-cream van in the distance.
‘I wonder what she’d think of us now,’ I said, watching a family nearby set up deckchairs and empty out a massive icebox. The mum was handing out sandwiches to the children, smiling brightly.
‘I really wanted to live in a way that would make her proud,’ said Daisy. ‘But I feel like I’m failing miserably, and if she knew what I was like with Benji . . . Sometimes he makes me so tired and irritable, I—’
Tears started to roll down Daisy’s cheeks harder now and she choked on her words. I was taken aback. She was normally such a controlled, private person; I’d only seen Daisy this upset once or twice in her adult life.
‘Of course she’d be proud of you!’ I said, rubbing my hand on her back. ‘You’ve got a great job, you’ve taken care of me and Dad brilliantly, you’re a lovely mummy to Benji. Daisy, don’t cry, this isn’t like you. You’re just anxious about your job and you didn’t get enough sleep last night. If anyone’s messing their life up, it’s me, not you. Mum would be proud of you. I’m not sure what she’d make of me, though.’