Best of Friends (65 page)

Lizzie gave a great peel of laughter at this. “You’re so right,” she said. In Lizzie’s mental parenting manual, it was all her fault that Debra was hard, not Debra’s.

“Anyway,” continued Erin, “if you want to talk about dysfunc-tional mothers, let me tell you about mine.”

So as food and drink were delivered to the table, Abby and Lizzie listened enthralled to Erin’s story about meeting her birth mother for the first time.

Erin told it all in a very matter-of-fact manner, without self-pity, but, even though she did her best not to sound as though she blamed Shannon for what had happened, she couldn’t help herself. Shannon
was
to blame. Erin would have loved another meeting with her, just to say all the things that had been rattling angrily round in her head since the last time.

“She’s just different,” Erin said at the end, trying to convince herself as much as the others. “I can’t explain it any other way. She’s not like any other sort of mum, and I suppose I shouldn’t have ex-pected her to be either.”

It really was the most amazing story, Abby thought, worthy of several magazine articles. It made her own tawdry marriage breakdown seem commonplace in comparison. Somehow, hearing Erin explain the whole saga made Abby feel more normal, more grounded. Everybody had secrets and skeletons in the closet: it was just that, with most people, the rest of the world didn’t get to hear about them.

Lizzie felt honoured that Erin had confided in them. “Don’t worry,” she reassured her, “we won’t breathe a word of this to anyone else.”

But Erin didn’t feel the need for secrecy anymore. “It’s strangely cathartic talking about it,” she admitted. “It was such a big secret for so long and I didn’t tell anybody when I lived in America. But now, forgive me for sounding like a clichéd phone advert, but it’s good to talk about these things. Bottling stuff up doesn’t get anyone anywhere.”

“I went to a psychologist to talk about the breakdown,” volun-teered Abby suddenly.

The other two looked at her, willing her to keep telling the story because they knew it would be good for her to get it out into the open.

“And what did he or she say?” prompted Erin.

“He didn’t say very much at all. I did all the talking. It wasn’t what I’d expected, to be frank. I wouldn’t have gone to see anyone but I feel so guilty about everything, especially about Jess and how hard it must be for her. You talk about your birth mum being messed up,” Abby went on, “but I’ve been just as bad a mother.”

“No you haven’t,” insisted Erin. “Having your marriage break up doesn’t move you from the good mum to the bad mum pile.”

Miserably, Abby thought that if the two women knew why her marriage had broken up, they might think just that.

“I shouldn’t criticise Shannon,” Erin continued, although that’s exactly what she wanted to do. “That’s not fair. She didn’t want to be a mother, but what’s wrong with that? Lots of people don’t want to be parents and they’re not hauled over the coals for it. Not want-ing kids doesn’t make you a bad person but,” she looked down at her plate, “I’ve spent years imagining that absent mother equals bad person and that was wrong.” If she said it often enough, Erin hoped that maybe she’d believe this herself.

“She was very young when she had you,” interrupted Lizzie gently. “I was just twenty-two when I got pregnant, and I have to admit it was scary. For a few days until I told people, it felt like the end of my life as I knew it. You feel so alone. I can understand how your mum wanted to run away from all that.”

“You’re right,” agreed Erin. “I’ve really got to forgive Shannon and move on.” She would manage it, she told herself, she
would.
“There’s no point crying over the past,” she added. “I should look to the future.”

“Do you know, that’s exactly the sort of thing Sally would have said,” Abby remarked.

In the midst of the noisy restaurant, they were all silent for a mo-ment, thinking about their friend and what she’d brought to their lives.

Lizzie knew that she had tried to move on, especially after Myles had found new love with Sabine, but all her plans for a new, im-proved life hadn’t quite worked out. She was still stuck at home all the time, thinking about the sort of life she could have if only she got off her fat bum and did something about it. And what was stopping her going out and getting that life?

Debra,
said a little voice in her head.
Debra’s stopping you from moving on. She wants you to be the same old mum, as if nothing has changed, as if she was still going out to school every day and coming home to a happy family life, cooked dinners and reliable old mum sit-ting there every evening. Men, like Simon, are not an option in Debra’s eyes.

Things had moved on, the whole family’s lives had changed and they had all grown older. Debra couldn’t seem to see that, and be-cause Lizzie didn’t want to hurt her, she didn’t want to force Debra to see the truth either. And how could she? Debra needed her and Lizzie knew that she had to be there. Mothers could never let their daughters down.

Abby remembered how, when she’d first met Sally, Sally used to treat her a bit like a grown-up older sister and ask her advice. In later years, Sally’s wisdom had been obvious to everyone and she had become the sort of person other people went to for advice. But what sort of advice would she give Abby now?

Sally and Tom had been friends before he introduced her to Abby. Would she have taken his side in the break-up, become Tom’s friend in future instead of Abby’s? Abby hoped not. Surely Sally would have tried to keep them both as her friends.

For all her inherent goodness, or perhaps because of it, Sally had not been the sort of person who would moralise or choose sides. She was a realist, who appreciated her good fortune in life. If she’d still been around, would she have persuaded Tom and Abby to talk to one another, acting as a go-between to help them get back to-gether? Who knew?

“Lizzie, you know you were asking us for ideas about remember-ing Sally?” Erin said slowly. “Well, I’ve been thinking about the fund-raising you’ve been doing in Sally’s name. I don’t know what you think, but I had an idea about that when I was visiting my mum and dad. It was more something my sister, Kerry, said actu-ally. She’s involved in a health centre where people who are ill get complementary therapies like massage. It’s linked to the Life Beats Cancer organisation, although they don’t only treat people with cancer.”

“Oh,” said Lizzie excitedly, “they’re the people I talked to when I wanted to raise money for charity with my parachute jump!”

“Then you’ll know all about them,” Erin said with enthusiasm. “The thing is, Kerry had breast cancer herself and that’s how she got into the complementary therapy area. She learned how to meditate and had regular massages, and said it was such an incredible help to her when she was going through it all. She said she’d never forget how great it was just to have somewhere to go and talk to other people, a place where she felt normal and not like some sort of a freak.”

The others were looking at her with interest and Erin went on: “This set me thinking. Imagine if we had a centre like that in Dun-more, dedicated to anyone with cancer and maybe their families, where people could get massages, healing, learn meditation, have counselling, whatever. It’s not in place of normal medicine or any-thing, but it could be a help with getting through it all.” Her voice was enthusiastic. “When Sally was sick we didn’t know what to say to her, but going to a healing centre could have really helped her. And I kept wondering how Steve was going to cope and what I’d be like if Greg was the one who was ill or what he’d be like if I was ill and who we’d go to for support. Kerry said that people just don’t know what to say to you—they either avoid the subject altogether or they treat you like some sort of tragic victim, which isn’t what you want when you’re trying to beat a disease. So that’s when I had the idea.

“Kerry says that the Life Beats Cancer people have a research wing, but they’ve also set up a couple of complementary health cen-tres round the country and they want to set up many more. We could link up with them and learn the right way to do it. OK, it’s going to take time because I’m sure something like that would take a lot of money to run, but we could do it, couldn’t we?”

Lizzie’s eyes shone. “What a fantastic idea,” she exclaimed. “When I was trying to raise money for the parachute jump, I was astonished at how many people remembered Sally and would have done anything to help. There’s so much goodwill out there and it’s all down to her. I’m sure we could get a lot of people interested in the scheme, important people, people with contacts, people who could get us state funding. We could set up the Dunmore branch of Life Beats Cancer.”

“And I could use my contacts in newspapers and magazines,” in-terrupted Abby. “We could easily drum up publicity that way be-cause, let’s face it, after this weekend, the whole country knows who I am,” she added ruefully.

“And if we could get Steve involved just a little bit, that would be fantastic,” Erin added. “I know it must be very painful for him right now, but wouldn’t he love something set up in Sally’s name, something that would help other people who are going through what she went through?”

Suddenly, the lethargy was gone and they talked animatedly about their new plans. Ever organised, Erin had a notepad in her handbag and began drawing up lists. The first things, obviously, were to talk to Steve, and then to the people at LBC to discuss the proposal.

“We could get a lot of people to do charity parachute jumps,” Lizzie said. “That really appeals to younger people—it’s fun and they’re doing something good at the same time. I made friends with the people who run the jump centre and they’d be sure to help us set up a weekend solely for our charity.” And she’d get to talk to Simon again, she thought eagerly.

Abby knew someone who’d done a lot of charity work for autism and could possibly give her hints on the best ways of raising money. Erin said she didn’t know very much about charity fund-raising but she was a good organiser.

“Just imagine if Dunmore had its own Life Beats Cancer cen-tre—wouldn’t that be brilliant? It could be somewhere friendly and supportive and helpful in all sorts of ways,” Erin enthused.

“And somewhere that people could access accurate information so it wouldn’t all be so terribly scary in the beginning,” Lizzie said, remembering the Penders and how terrified they’d been when Mr. Pender had been told about his prostate cancer. “I see it in the surgery all the time. People are so petrified about the word ‘cancer’ that they often don’t bother to consider the cure rates and how suc-cessful modern medicine is today. And that’s half the battle, isn’t it? Being able to be positive and knowing that there is hope out there.”

“Kerry would help us,” Erin said. “I’ll ring her as soon as I get home and ask her advice and what she thinks has worked.”

“Yes,” said Abby enthusiastically, “and I’ll ring my autism friend when I get home to pick her brains. I’ve got to do a few more interviews for
Declutter,
and it would be great if I could get publicity for Life Beats Cancer too while I was at it.”

Erin and Lizzie grinned at the enthusiasm in their friend’s voice. Fifteen minutes ago, she’d been despairing. Now she was full of life and vigour.

“It’s Sally,” Erin remarked. “She’s still looking out for us, isn’t she?”

For the first time since Sally’s death, Abby didn’t feel the usual sense of terrible loss and powerlessness when she thought of her friend. This was something they could do to make the world better in Sally’s name.

“We should call it after her,” she suggested. “The Sally Richardson Health Centre or something like that. It has to have Sally’s name in the title. We’re doing it for her.”

Abby looked around at the other two, who nodded in agreement.

thirty

J
ess hated going to stay with Aunt Caroline and Uncle Phil. However, she couldn’t say anything to Dad: he needed to get away and be with his family, and he’d asked her to come with him. The article about him and Mum splitting up was due to appear in the paper on Sunday and Dad said he didn’t want to be around when it came out.

“A weekend away is just what the doctor ordered,” he’d said to Jess, trying to sound cheerful when she knew he wasn’t. “We’ll go to see Caroline and Phil.” He announced it as if going to see his sister and brother-in-law in Kent was a great treat. “That will be fun, won’t it?”

Jess didn’t have the heart to tell him that no, it most definitely would not be fun. She wasn’t sure how this visit would help, seeing as Aunt Caroline wasn’t a calming person to be around, but he needed her and she was going to support him.

Sometimes Jess wondered what it would be like to have brothers and sisters, people you could go to when you were in trouble and who’d understand everything in your head because they’d grown up the same way.

Brothers and sisters weren’t all they were cracked up to be, Oliver said. He had a younger brother and sister, but they were kids, both under ten, and while they were fun, you couldn’t really talk to them.

And Steph had a younger sister, Natasha, who was thirteen, and they fought all the time. Steph said she couldn’t imagine ever telling Natasha anything. To be honest, Jess couldn’t imagine her dad con-fiding in Aunt Caroline either.

Aunt Caroline wasn’t anything like Dad. She was three or four years older and she’d lived in Kent for as long as Jess could remem-ber. Sometimes Aunt Caroline and Uncle Phil had visited Cork but they had never stayed with Mum and Dad. They always stayed with Granny and Granddad Barton until first Granddad, then Granny died.

Jess hadn’t seen them since Granny Barton’s funeral, nearly two years ago. Uncle Phil was OK, but Jess found Aunt Caroline hard going. Mum didn’t like her much either, Jess knew, but Mum had somehow managed to hide this from Dad for years because she didn’t want to hurt him.

Jess herself was doing a lot of things to make sure Dad wasn’t hurt—going on this trip was a particularly irritating addition to the list. And she felt bad about leaving Mum, even though she hadn’t been able to say this to Abby.