One Moment, One Morning (40 page)

Her Mum is crying.

Lou fights down anger, leans round to look her in the eye. ‘You OK, Mum?’

Her mother won’t meet her gaze. With her eyes studiously focused on the garden straight ahead, she says, ‘I don’t understand, Lou. What did I do wrong?’

‘It’s nothing you did, Mum,’ Lou replies. Inside she is screaming: what makes you believe you have to do something
wrong
for me to be gay?

Her mother finally turns to her, and Lou can see it: pain. A muscle twitches in her cheek; her eyes are full of sorrow.

‘You were always your father’s favourite,’ says her mother, as if she is struggling to find an explanation.

‘But not yours,’ observes Lou.

‘It’s not that I didn’t love you.’

Lou is shocked; her mother has never used the L-word with her before. She waits. Her mother’s hands rest on the edge of the sink; suds drip, unchecked, to the floor.

‘I just didn’t understand you, that’s all.’

‘I know.’ Suddenly Lou appreciates something of her mother’s point of view. It must have been hard, having Lou as a daughter: a girl who was so easily, so firmly connected to her father. Maybe she felt excluded, disempowered. ‘I’m trying to help you understand me more now.’

‘Mm.’ Her mother looks back out of the window, pensive. Outside, the garden is immaculately tended: the lawn gleams green with neatly manicured grass; pots of primulas and pansies edge the path in height order, smallest near the front, like a line-up of pupils for a school photograph.

‘It’s not too late, you know.’ Lou reaches over, places her own hand on top of her mother’s, gives it a squeeze. She is not used to touching her; they do so rarely. Through the wet and the soap, she feels her mother’s bones, her fragility.

And although her mother doesn’t respond, still doesn’t look at Lou, she doesn’t pull away, either.

For the time being, Lou is aware, this is as much as her mother can give.

*     *     *

‘Coffee, that’s what we need,’ says Karen. ‘I’ll make it, you carry on.’

She knows where Anna keeps the grounds, how the percolator works; and presently, she carries the mugs up the stairs, being careful not to spill anything on the cream carpet.

‘Stop for a minute,’ she suggests. They both take a seat on the bench in the bay window. Karen puts the mugs down on the floor close by.

For a moment they sit in silence, looking out.

It is not a smart street, and it is unlikely that it ever will be. There is litter on the pavement: a plastic bottle, a carrier bag, an old newspaper, wet from the rain. A car drives past, slowly, looking for a space to park; a young man walks up the road, side-stepping puddles. In the distance, on the hillside, a new office block is going up; next door, the house has lost some roof tiles.

‘Here we are, both of us without our men,’ says Anna, then adds, apologetic, ‘not that I mean it’s the same for me as you.’

She looks different today, Karen thinks. Then she realizes why. She has left her make-up off: a sure sign, if one were needed, that events have forced her, as they have with Karen, to abandon her routine. But Karen likes seeing Anna exposed this way: she seems younger, more vulnerable, real.

Karen leans forward, takes her hand.

‘Courage,’ she says.

The sky is the bluest of blues, cloudless. It is high summer, hot. The car window is fully wound down; Lou is leaning her left arm on the door, resting her head on her elbow, enjoying the breeze. They are in Sofia’s battered MG, roof folded back, headed along the seafront; Sofia is driving. Lou watches Sofia’s profile as she looks ahead, concentrating, and her heart soars up, up, to meet the cloudless sky.

It is one of those oh-so-rare times when Lou can’t, in any way, imagine how she could be happier. She loves her job, for all the pain-in-the-neck students she has to deal with. She loves this city, for all its down-at-heel mishmash of buildings and people and shingle-not-sand. She loves her flat, albeit small and imperfectly formed. She loves her friends, both old and new. She even – in a weird way – loves her mum. She knows her mum is trying – she can hear the effort in her voice when they speak. And although she can hear the disapproval too, it is nonetheless out there, in the open, who Lou is. At last, it is more her mum’s problem than hers. And her mother can deal with it, slowly, at her own pace. For, finally, Lou has a different focus: she has shifted, she has let go. Perhaps she needed to witness death in order to realize how much she wanted to meet someone, to make herself available, to free herself from the shackles of her past. Whatever the reason, Lou is in love, and, as of last night, it is official. She’d said it first, softly, while she and Sofia were in bed – ‘I love you.’ And Sofia had said, louder, with undoubted force, ‘I love you, too,’ and then they had both giggled, and kissed, and soon after that first Sofia, then Lou, came.

They are nearing a set of lights. ‘You need to go right here,’ instructs Lou.

Sofia indicates, makes the turn, and as they drive up away from the promenade through residential Hove, Lou has a sudden thought as to what would make this moment even more perfect.

‘Let’s stop and get ice creams,’ she says.

*     *     *

Karen is on her hands and knees, weeding the allotment, listening. Molly and Luke are chatting to each other, playing nearby. The earth is wet from rain the night before; they are making mud pies. A little further away someone is banging wood with a mallet: erecting a fence, maybe, or mending a shed. And further away still, she can hear chanting in the playing field across the road: ‘Go! Go! Go!’ It’s the weekend, so it must be the school baseball or rounders team, cheering on one of their members to complete a circuit and score.

Karen can feel the sun on her back, warming.

‘Children,’ she says, getting to her feet. ‘You need lotion.’

‘No, no, no lotion!’ Molly stamps her feet on clumpy grass. She hates this ritual.

‘
Yes
lotion.’ Karen walks over to the big wicker basket she has brought out with her and rummages for a plastic bottle. ‘Come here.’ And before Molly can protest further, she squirts the blue-white liquid onto her palms and squelches it over Molly’s limbs, sliding her hands round the plump flesh of her arms; down the front, then up the back of her legs. Then smear, smear, on either cheek – Molly is in full recoil mode by now, feet stamping one-two, one-two with increasing ferocity, and Karen can sense she’s right on the verge of a wail when – ‘Right, you’re done’ – she releases Molly to her game.

Phew, scene avoided. Molly’s tantrums have eased again lately – they reached a crescendo a month previously, but just when Karen really thought she might not be able to stand any more without doing something she’d regret, they’d decreased. Now they appear to be more of a once-a-day event, and that she can just about manage.

‘Your turn, Luke.’ He stands there, compliant, the barrel of his chest braced. His colouring is hers, but his physique is just like his father, thinks Karen, and his talents are his dad’s, too.

She wishes Simon could see them. He is missing these changes, the nuances of their growing up. The way Molly is less difficult, Luke’s body is changing from child to boy . . . She feels lonely, watching them sometimes, thinking about them like this: although she has friends and family who are glad to hear about her children, only their father would have appreciated these subtle differences just as she does.

Then she feels a gust of wind, hears the leaves rustle high in the trees, the buzz of a bee close at hand. And, for the first time since that dreadful, dreadful day in February, she has a real sense that she might, she will, get through this. It is not over yet, she knows, and in countless ways it never will be. She is taking it day by lonely, numbing day, and she will never be fully OK with what has happened. But she is learning to live differently, in this world where Simon is gone. Her emotions are being played out on a new terrain; she is gradually unearthing her grief so she can rebuild herself from the ground up. As much by instinct as design, she is finding what gives her solace and leaning towards it, like a flower to sunlight. She can continue.

‘You’re finished,’ she says, clipping shut the bottle top and giving Luke’s bottom a gentle pat.

*     *     *

Anna clicks round the dials of the padlock until the code is in a line and yanks it apart. She pushes open the big metal gate; it swings wide. She is laden; a waxed cotton bag containing sandwiches, water and shortbread over her shoulder, a large garden fork in one hand, a rug in the other. She locks the gate behind her and heads along the path.

As she turns the corner, she sees that Karen, Molly and Luke are there before her.

Molly runs to say hello. ‘It’s Godmother Anna!’

Karen is bent double, weeding. ‘Hiya.’ She lifts her head, beams.

‘Hello.’ Anna puts everything down on a patch of rough grass and admires Karen’s pile of wilting green. ‘You’ve done heaps already.’

‘Look at my patch!’ squeals Luke, stopping his pies to yank Anna’s T-shirt with muddy hands. She has no choice but to follow him to the smallest bed. And sure enough, lo, the sunflowers have shot up in the week since she was last here; they’re over two foot tall, a fine row of big, healthy leaves drooping a little in the heat, beginning to bud flowers.

‘Wow!’ she says. ‘Soon they’ll be as big as you.’

‘I know.’ Luke is proud. ‘And see, here, my seeds have grown too.’

‘Ooh, yes. What are they called?’

‘Candytuft.’

‘How lovely. Let’s see how the vegetables are doing, shall we?’

Luke marches her to the bed where Karen is working. ‘The runners have grown, haven’t they?’ Anna observes. Twirling around a frame of bamboo poles, they are in flower, zinging bright red beads of promise. One or two have turned to beans already.

Karen nods. ‘The lettuces need picking. Take as many as you can; they’ll only go past their best.’

‘Great. So what do you want me to do?’ asks Anna.

Karen knows more about this than she does, having read up on it extensively, and consulted Phyllis. ‘There’s no point in watering now. It’s too hot. We’ll do that just before we go. Perhaps if you could clear the bed around the rhubarb?’

‘Sure.’ Anna gets her gardening gloves from her bag. Soon she is on her knees, tugging weeds from the soil.

Shortly, there is a ‘Hello! Hello!’ from the path.

It’s Lou, and, close behind, Sofia. They look the part somehow, more than Anna feels she does, dressed in cut-off jeans and cotton vests. They complement each other, symmetrical, like bookends. There is something particularly delightful about them as a couple.

‘Ladies, welcome,’ she says, getting to her feet.

‘We brought ice creams!’ announces Sofia.

‘Yay!’ Up jumps Molly. She’s been concentrating hard, laying flint stones in size order, in a row next to her mud pies.

‘They need eating now. This
minute
,’ orders Lou, rummaging in a white plastic bag. Anna notes, not for the first time, that she’s a natural with children. No wonder she does what she does, work-wise. ‘Do you want chocolate or strawberry?’ Lou asks Molly.

‘Strawberry!’

Lou hands her a lolly. ‘Luke?’

‘Chocolate!’

‘I’d like chocolate too,’ says Anna, ‘if that’s OK?’

‘Sure. Karen?’

‘I’ll have whatever’s left,’ offers Karen.

‘No, you choose next,’ insists Lou.

Anna smiles. Typical Karen. But typical Lou, too: Karen has met her match in terms of generosity. They are mirrors, the two of them. And yet in other ways she, Anna, and Karen mirror each other; and, equally, so do she and Lou. Their friendship reminds her of the three-panelled mirror on her mother’s dressing table. When she was little, she used to angle the three panels to see reflection after reflection of herself, growing fainter and fainter ad infinitum. She loved the way it presented a different perspective on the world.

Anna tears open her wrapper, takes a lick. Mm, white chocolate. Wicked, delicious.

‘We have an announcement,’ says Lou.

Anna can tell from her expression that it is something good.