Once in a Lifetime (24 page)

‘No,’ said Natalie. That’s OK, I understand - they’re your babies.’

She noticed that Molly’s fingernails were bitten down and the brown print dress that she wore now looked too big for her.

‘We’re thinking of having something to eat,’ Natalie said. ‘Chicken and chips? Sausages in a basket? Maybe we should go the whole cordon bleu hog and have burgers …’ She was trying to joke Molly into enjoying herself.

‘Yeah, that’d be OK,’ Molly said. ‘It’s noisy in here tonight.’

It was. The music had reached migraine-inducing levels and there was a drinks promotion on in the pub. Stunning-looking girls wearing lots of make-up, short skirts and Mexican hats were rambling around trying to get people to try the booze.

‘Do you want some?’ Natalie asked.

‘No,’ said Molly, predictably. ‘Not in the mood really.’

Mark, who was one of Steve’s best friends, began talking to Molly and Natalie, discussing a movie they all wanted to see. Finally Natalie was able to sit back and relax, leaving Mark to talk to her friend. It was like minding a child, she thought, trying to take care of them until they were happy enough to let go of your hand. Poor Molly, there was no getting over her dad’s death. It was the suddenness that hurt.

Bess, Natalie’s stepmother, had said dying quickly was a blessing for the person who died, but horrible for everyone left behind. ‘Nobody gets to say goodbye,’ she said.

That’s not the only way nobody gets to say goodbye, Natalie thought. Watching Molly grieving for her father kept making Natalie think about the mother she’d never known. She tried to forget the day in the graveyard. It had been so embarrassing, falling over like that at a funeral, as if she was trying to draw attention to herself, when that was the last thing she’d wanted. She didn’t even know why she’d found the funeral so upsetting. It wasn’t as if she’d been bereaved recently.

She tried not to think about it, except it came into her head at night, particularly the nights when Molly went to bed early; even though she closed the door of her room, Natalie could hear her sobbing.

At the same time as she worried about her friend, Natalie’s mind kept going back to her own grief. She’d never cried for her mother, had she?

‘If you want to talk, I’m here.’

‘No,’ said Molly. ‘I’m OK, really, thanks.’

Did talking work? Natalie didn’t think so. It was like having cups of tea when you were shocked, or a lie down - all rubbish. None of it helped. Talking wasn’t going to bring Molly’s father back. But Natalie wondered whether talking might help bring her mother to life a little?

Molly and Mark seemed to be getting on well together. For the first time in ages, Molly was actually smiling, and when a waitress cruised by and handed out menus, she’d taken one.

Brilliant, thought Natalie, she might stay for food and then she’ll have had a night out, a night where she didn’t sit at home with the cats and stare blankly at the television, not seeing anything. Natalie felt the weight of guilt lift from her shoulders. These days, she felt guilty whenever she went out with Rory or her friends because she hated to think of Molly back in the flat alone, with only the cats to talk to.

‘Oh my God, that new drink is amazing!’ Lizzie threw herself down on two bar stools opposite Mark, Molly and Natalie. Her eyes were glittering and she was positively fizzing with enjoyment and drunkenness. ‘It goes straight to your head - fabulous!’ she giggled. She put her feet up on a third bar stool. ‘This is so comfortable, I could stay here all night.

No!’ she roared, as someone else tried to take a stool off her.

‘You cannot sit down here, I need the three of them.’

Natalie could see Mark and Molly looking at Lizzie with distaste. It was something she hadn’t noticed until the hen night, when she’d tried to haul Lizzie out of the club and had seen people move out of the way, looking disgusted at the sight of this young woman absolutely out of her mind on booze. It was horrible seeing that expression, on Mark’s face in particular. There was something not nice about having your husband’s best friend look at you in that way, Natalie thought.

Not that Lizzie was noticing.

As for the way Molly was regarding Lizzie with pity …

well, Molly and Lizzie had never entirely seen eye-to-eye.

‘Move out of the way there,’ said Steve, shoving Lizzie’s legs aside. He sat down on the last stool in the triumvirate and she promptly put her legs across his lap. ‘Cheap night out,’ he said, referring to the drinks promotion.

‘Yeah,’ said Mark uncertainly.

Steve didn’t look drunk, Natalie noticed. He leaned down and put a hand on his wife’s forehead, as if taking her temperature.

‘How are you doing down there, mad woman?’ he said.

‘Fine,’ she roared. ‘Absolutely fine. Get me a couple more of those drinks, Husband, I’m not done yet.’

‘I think you’re well done,’ Steve said, laughing.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Lizzie. ‘I want another one - no, make that two more. Get her quick before she goes! Don’t forget we’re saving - it’s much better to get free drink.’

Steve dutifully got up to go in search of one of the Mexican hatted women for more booze.

‘You’ve had enough, you know,’ Molly said coolly.

Lizzie propped herself up on her elbow and said, ‘Don’t be daft! Besides,’ her face grew grimmer, ‘it’s none of your business, is it?’

Natalie cringed inwardly; Molly had been doing so well, and now bloody Lizzie had upset her. But then Molly surprised her, sitting up a little straighter and speaking in a voice that reminded Natalie, strangely, of Molly’s mother.

‘Actually, it is my business because you’re in my company and I don’t really want to be out for the night with someone whose main aim is to open her mouth and have alcohol poured into it. Why don’t you just stay home with a bottle of vodka and a central line?’

‘Fuck off!’ snarled Lizzie, and Natalie winced. ‘I’ll do what I want.’

She began to get up and her face looked angry and

aggressive. Oh no, thought Natalie, she’s going to try and start a fight. But suddenly, Lizzie’s balance went and she fell off her low barstools on to the ground with a clatter. Mark got up to help her and Molly turned to Natalie. ‘You know,’

she said, ‘it’s quite nice to be out, but I just don’t want to be out with her. Do you think we can go somewhere else?’

Natalie looked down at where Lizzie was sprawled on the floor, cursing and giving out and refusing to let kind old Mark help her up.

‘Go way, I’ll do it myself. Stupid cow, none of her business I can drink what I want.’

Her diatribe was aimed at everybody and nobody. She didn’t know what she was saying; she wasn’t the person Natalie knew and loved, she was somebody else.

Natalie grabbed her coat and her bag. ‘You’re right, Molly,’

she said. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’

‘Don’t walk away from me!’ shrieked Lizzie as they left.

‘Hey, what’s happening?’ said Steve, on his way back from the promotion girls with a tray of booze.

‘Lizzie’s not much fun tonight,’ Natalie told him. ‘We’re going somewhere else. Sorry, Steve.’ She gave him a hug and they left. Let Steve deal with it. Natalie wasn’t taking responsibility for her friend any more.

Lizzie phoned the next day, full of hangover and remorse.

‘I’m really sorry, Natalie,’ she said. ‘Steve said I was an absolute cow, to you and to Molly. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what got into me.’

‘Well, that’s funny,’ said Natalie, ‘because I know what got into you - half a bucket of cheap drink, that’s what.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Lizzie said, remorse vanishing at high speed. ‘I’ve already had Steve going on at me all morning.

What’s wrong with everyone? I was just having some fun.’

‘Well, what’s fun for you isn’t fun for everyone else,’ said Natalie coldly. ‘And I don’t see why your brand of fun has

to always mean booze. There is no other fun with you these days. You go out and get absolutely plastered. Show me the fun in that for the rest of us? Clearly it’s lots of fun for you, but not for your friends.’

‘It’s harmless,’ said Lizzie, sounding taken aback at the harshness in Natalie’s tone.

‘It’s not harmless. There’s nothing harmless about it. You behaved like a total bitch to Molly. That was her first night out since her father died. We had to go off on our own because we couldn’t hang around with you lot. We might as well have stayed at home.’

‘Oh yes, staying at home,’ sneered Lizzie. ‘You’re just like a couple of crazy old lesbians in that flat with your cats.’

For a moment, Natalie thought of telling Lizzie that in fact Molly’s aunt was a lesbian and lived with her lesbian partner, without the cats though. Then she realised, it wasn’t safe to tell Lizzie things like that. Molly had to be very careful whom she spoke to about her family because of who her mother was. The old Lizzie might have kept the information secret. The new Lizzie, the one who wanted to get drunk every night and couldn’t remember who she was talking to, wouldn’t.

‘Call me back when you’re in a better mood or when you really want to apologise,’ Natalie said shortly, and slammed the phone down.

Actually, she reflected, it wasn’t as if there was a new Lizzie all of a sudden. This Lizzie had been taking over her friend for a long time, creeping in, bit by bit. This Lizzie was the one who had been drunk at their Debs Ball, the big party when they’d left school. This Lizzie was the one who had snuck into Fresher’s Week in college with Anna and Natalie and got completely trolleyed on cheap wine made by the microbiology department. This wasn’t a new Lizzie, this was the old Lizzie sliding slowly down.

Molly was in a -good mood when she woke up. ‘Last night did me good,’ she said. ‘Sort of nice to get out, not sit at home with the box.’

‘Lizzie phoned and sort of apologised,’ Natalie said.

Molly shrugged as she put the kettle on to boil. ‘It’s not her fault,’ she said. ‘She’s an alcoholic’

‘What!’ Natalie nearly dropped the bowl of cereal she was holding. ‘She’s not!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Molly. ‘I thought you knew.’

‘No, she’s my friend, she’s just my age.’ Natalie didn’t know what to say. Alcoholics were supposed to be old men in grubby raincoats, who hung around outside early-opening pubs, looking all grizzled and wrecked, dying for a drink in case they started to see pink elephants marching down the street.

Not her beautiful friend.

‘You can’t work in the poverty sector and not see a lot of that,’ Molly said, matterof-factly. ‘Has anyone tried to get her help?’

Natalie’s mind was reeling. ‘Get her help?’

‘You know, get her into rehab or anything like that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Natalie said. ‘I never have.’

‘Google alcoholism,’ Molly said. ‘See what you think then.

But just as a stranger’s viewpoint, and remembering the state of her when she woke up after her hen night, I’d say it’s a pretty good bet.’

Charlie had found that routine helped. Intense routines that kept her from making fists with her hands and wanting to punch all the cushions in the house. The morning routine involved getting up earlier than usual and having a cup of coffee on her own in the kitchen as she wrote a bit in her gratitude diary. It was the only time in the day when she was totally alone, and she was doing her best to relish it.

The’ time was very important, so everybody told her. Apparently, the key to me time was to be able to do your own thing

and have nobody making demands on you. Since this was impossible in the average day, Charlie found that six in the morning would have to be her me-time. Necessity was the mother of invention.

She listened to music on the radio - on low since, if it was noisy, it woke her mother - sipped her coffee and wrote:

Iseult is driving me mad, even madder than my mother. Yes, shock, horror - I know, I never say a bad word about her, but I swear, I will kill her if she doesn’t stop being such a cow and helps me.

I mean, how DARE she talk to me like that? I haven’t got time for this, Charlie, I’m busy. This is make-or break time for me. I know you don’t understand, but you’ll just have to manage on your own.’

How dare she? In six weeks, I have done absolutely everything for Mother and Iseult has done precisely nothing, except come into the hospital and make a big fuss - as if Mother wasn’t making a big enough fuss already - and annoy the hell out of the staff, so that everyone glared at ME for the whole time Mother was in there. Fine, the hospital wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton but what hospital is? And the nurses were brilliant. OK, the hip man talked to us like we were a bunch of three-year olds, but still, they were doing their best. All that talk of helicoptering her to somewhere else and about how Iseult had a friend in the private hospital up the road, and how fabulous that was, did nothing but get people’s backs up. And it was all rubbish anyway - if Iseult was going to helicopter her somewhere else, why the hell didn’t she? Because it was just talk, that’s why. That’s all Iseult does, talk about stuff. There’s no followthrough.

And now Mother is much better, but she’s still using the crutch and there’s no plan for her to go home yet

because she’s so weak. So we’re stuck with her, and I may kill her.

Hip breaks, the consultant had explained when it was established exactly what had happened, were more likely when the patient got older and had less bone density. Smoking was a prime factor. He’d looked sternly at Kitty as he said this, but Kitty had looked back at him with an insouciance Charlie knew too well.

The doctor was short, balding and generally ordinary looking. Had he been a Dr Kildare lookalike, Kitty would have been batting her eyelashes and murmuring, ‘Yes, Doctor,’ in breathy tones and implying that she only smoked occasionally.

‘After sex,’ she might add meaningfully.

Charlie was grateful that they’d at least been spared that particular scene.

There had been nobody to flirt with in the hospital, which meant her mother was even more irritable than usual. Flirting suspended normal behaviour and if the flirtee reciprocated, Kitty would remain in a post-flirtal happy mood for quite a while.