The Other Side of the Story (52 page)

'No, not by her.' I explained about the accident.

'Ah,' he said. 'This makes perfect sense. Your body is so surprised at still being alive that you're experiencing a massive rush of adrenalin. This explains your elation. Don't worry, it should soon pass.'

'I should be feeling depressed again shortly?'

'Yes, yes,' he reassured. 'Possibly even worse than usual. You may experience what's called an adrenalin crash.'

'Well, that's a relief,' Mum said. 'Thank you, Doctor, I'll see you out.'

She walked him to his Saab and their voices floated in through the window.

'Are you sure you can't prescribe something for her?' I heard Mum ask.

'Like what?'

Mum sounded puzzled. 'Something like the opposite to anti-depressants?'

'There's nothing wrong with her.'

'But she's quite unbearable. And I'm worried about what all this positivity is doing to her little girl.'

'The one who was shouting at the sheep? She doesn't seem traumatized. And, frankly, her mother being upbeat and positive after such a shock is the best thing for her.'

I felt like clenching my fist in a victory salute. Worry about Ema was a constant stone in my shoe; I was overjoyed to discover that - entirely by accident — I was doing the best for her.

'Don't worry,' Dr Lott promised Mum. 'Lily's elation will pass soon.'

'And while we're waiting?'

'She's a writer, isn't she? Why don't you try persuading her to write about all of this. At least if she's writing about it, she won't be talking.'

He had barely finished his sentence when I had reached for a pen and notebook and watched my hand write, 'Grace woke up and discovered that once again a plane had not landed on her during the night.' It was a good opening sentence, I thought. And so was the paragraph which followed, where Grace had a shower and did not scald herself, had a bowl of muesli and did not choke to death on a nut, put on the kettle and did not get electrocuted, thrust her hand into a drawer and did not sever a vein on a knife, left the house and did not skid on a stray apple core into the path of a speeding car. On the way to work, her bus does not crash, she avoids contracting ear cancer from her mobile phone and nothing heavy falls out of the sky to land on her work-station - all before nine o'clock in the morning! I already knew my title.
A Charmed Life
.

* * *

It took me less than five weeks. During this time Ema and I stayed at Mum's and for fifteen hours a day I sat at Mum's home computer and clattered at the keyboard, my fingers unable to keep up with the flow of words from my brain.

When it became clear I was in the grip of something big, Mum assumed care of Ema.

On the days she had to go to work (a part-time post selling National Trust aprons at the local stately home) she simply took Ema with her. And when she was not at work, she and Ema wandered the fields together, picking wild spring flowers and becoming (in her words) 'women who run with the sheep'. Leaving me free to transfer my story from my head to the computer.

My heroine was a woman called Grace — not very subtle, I know, but it was better than calling her Lucky - and she was the star of a complicated six-way love story set against a background of all the terrible things that do not happen to us.

That first night I read what I had written to Mum and Ema.

'Darling, it's adorable,' Mum said.

'Dirty,' Ema agreed. 'Filthy.'

'It's absolutely wonderful. So cheery.'

'But you're my mum,' I said. 'I need someone impartial.'

'I wouldn't lie to you, darling. I'm not that kind of mother.' Blithely, she added, 'When I insisted you saw the doctor I hope you didn't think I was being unkind, I was simply concerned about you.'

'I understand.'

'By the way, Anton rang again, he desperately wants to see Ema.'

'No. He can't come. I can't see him. I've had medical advice. I might do something rash.'

'You can't deny him the right to see his child, especially after she almost died. Lily, please do try to be less selfish.'

Never mind Anton, I had to think of Ema. Although she was handling this latest trauma with her characteristic aplomb, regular contact with her dad was vital for her well-being.

'K,' I mumbled, surly as a teenager.

Mum left the room and returned some time later. 'He's coming tomorrow morning. He asked me to thank you.'

'Mum, when Anton comes today, you'll have to greet him and hand Ema over, because I can't.'

'Why on earth not?'

'Because,' I repeated, 'I've had medical advice. I might do something rash.'

'What manner of rash?'

'Just… rash. I need this… adrenalin rush, phase, whatever it is, to pass, then I can see him again.'

She was displeased, more so when I drew the curtains in the study, in case the sight of Anton caused a bout of rash behaviour. I immersed myself in Grace's complicated love life and lucky escapes and waited for the time to pass.

Hours later Mum walked in. I pulled the earplugs from my ears (inserted in case the sound of Anton's voice triggered an onslaught of rashness) and asked, 'Is he gone?'

'Yes.'

'How was he?'

'Fine. Thrilled to see Ema and
she
was beside herself.
Such
a daddy's girl.'

'Did he ask about me?'

'Of course.'

'What did he say?'

'He said, "How is Lily?"'

'That's all?'

'I believe so.'

'And then what did you talk about?'

Well, nothing, really. We were playing with Ema. We were mocking the sheep.'

'And when he was leaving, did he say anything about me?'

Mum thought about it. 'No,' she said finally. 'He didn't.'

'Charming,' I muttered at the screen.

'Why do you care? You left him.'

'I don't care. I just can't believe how rude he was.'

'Rude?' Mum asked. 'From the woman who sat in the study with the curtains drawn and her ears stuffed with silicone. Rude, darling?'

His second visit did not disturb like the first: he had come to see his daughter and had every right to do so. As Mum said, I should have been glad that my child had such a devoted father. Thereafter, he came from London every five or six days and on each visit I remained cloistered. Although once - even through the earplugs — I heard him laughing and it was like bumping a once-broken limb; I was shocked at how much it was still capable of pain.

One night I was lifting Ema into bed and she whispered into my neck, so quietly I barely heard it, 'Anton smells nice.' It did not mean anything, Ema was not big on coherent sentences and she could just as easily have said, 'Anton licks trees,' or 'Anton drinks petrol,' but it generated a longing so intense and familiar, I wanted to howl.

I was obliged to resuscitate the mantra which had helped me through the early days of the split: Anton and I had been in love, we had had a child together, we had been soulmates from the moment we had met. The end of something so precious could only be bloody and perhaps the break would always remain capable of hurt.

I thought of those halcyon days just before I left London, when I had thought Anton and I were one encounter away from being friends. I had been astonishingly deluded: we were nowhere near it.

Daily, I continued to write, the words pouring from me, and every night, before we put Ema to bed, I read that day's work and Mum raved about it. Ema too offered comments. ('Jiggy.' 'Seedy.' 'Farty.') I did not experience the 'adrenalin crash' that Dr Lott predicted but over the five weeks, the more I wrote the more my sense of salvation dwindled. By the start of May, when I finished the book, I was almost back to normal. (Although perhaps still a little more buoyant than I had been before the accident.)

I knew that
A Charmed Life
was a dead cert; people would love it. This was not arrogance; I also knew the reviews would be savage. But perhaps I had learned a little about publishing by then. I had seen how people had reacted to
Mimi's Remedies
and intuited that this would generate a similar response. The story and setting of
A Charmed Life
were nothing like those of
Mimi's Remedies
, but the
feel
was. For a start, it was terribly unrealistic. If I wanted to be nice about it (and why not?) I could say it felt magical.

It was time to return to London and Mum was sad but tried to hide it. 'It's not me,' she said. 'The sheep will be devastated. They seem to have adopted Ema as some sort of goddess.'

'We'll come and visit.'

'Do, please. And send Anton my best. Will you see him in London? Has the fear of doing something rash passed?'

I didn't know. Perhaps.

'Can I give you some advice, darling?'

'No, Mum, please don't.'

But she was on a roll. 'I know Anton is unreliable with money but better to be with a spendthrift than a skinflint.'

'How would you know? Who was a skinflint?'

'Peter.' Her second husband. Susan's father. 'He doled out money like he was pulling teeth.' I had not known that. Or had I? Perhaps I had suspected it, but after all the insecurity with Dad, I had assumed that Mum enjoyed it.'

'At least being with your dad was fun,' she said, moodily.

'So much fun that you divorced him.'

'Oh darling, I am sorry. But he bored me to
sobs
with all those wretched money-making schemes. However, after living with a man who calculated how long loo rolls ought to last, I've reached the conclusion that it's better to spend one day as a spendthrift than a thousand years as a skinflint.' Then anxiety bruised her face. 'But that doesn't mean your dad and I are going to get back together. Please don't get the wrong idea.'

Ema and I returned to London.

I had felt so abject about writing off Irina's lovely car, that I bought her a new one — well, I had all those lovely
Mimi's Remedies
royalties just sitting in my bank. Irina, however, was far from impressed by my flashness. 'You did not hev to. The insurance people will buy me a new car.'

I shrugged, 'When — if — you get the insurance cheque, you can pay me back.'

'You are foolish with money,' she said, coldly. 'You make me engry.'

However, despite my buying her a new car, she forgave me enough to let Ema and me resume living with her until we got a place of our own.

As soon as I walked into my bedroom I noticed that the wastepaper basket had not been emptied in all the time I had been away — clearly Irina had been respecting my privacy.
Shit
. The letter from Anton was still there, a corner poking out. I looked at it, wondering what to do, then quickly picked it up and shoved it back in my underwear drawer, unsettled that it was still clinging to me.

Before I gave
A Charmed Life
to Jojo, I decided to try it on someone who would not humour me; the obvious choice was Irina, who read it in an afternoon. She gave me back the pages, her face impassive. 'I do not like,' she said.

'Good, good,' I encouraged.

'So much hope in it. But other people, they will like very much.'

'Yes,
I said happily. 'That's what I thought.'

Gemma

All of a sudden, it was spring and life was good. Dad was at home with Mam, my book was coming out soon — already it was out in the airports but it was too soon to know how it was selling — and now that I didn't need to bail Mam out, I had enough dosh to pay off my credit card, sell my car and buy one that men didn't feel the need to assault. '

Maybe, eventually, I could do like Jojo and set up on my own. But because of my writing career, I decided to do nothing for the moment.

The only fly in the ointment of my life was that I was still mortified about my carry-on with Johnny the Scrip and avoided driving past his chemist. But show me someone whose life is entirely cringe-free and I'll show you a dead person.

In April, a few short weeks before my book came out in the real world, I finally went on my holiday to Antigua. Andrea was coming in place of Owen. Then Cody said he'd like to come and so would Trevor and Jennifer and maybe Sylvie and Niall, and Susan said she'd come from Seattle, and suddenly there were eight of us. Looking at it that way, a week no longer seemed enough, so we changed the booking to a fortnight.

Even before we left Dublin, there was great excitement. In the airport bookshop, seven of us clustered around the small display of
Chasing Rainbows
and said loudly, 'I hear this is a great book,' and 'I'd buy this book if I was going on my holidays.' Then when a woman bought one, Cody collared her and told her I was the author and even though she clearly suspected we were taking the piss she let me sign her copy and didn't object to me shedding a tear or Cody videoing the event.

Then when we arrived at our resort, a woman lying by the pool — a different woman to the one at Dublin airport — was reading
Chasing Rainbows
. And six hundred and forty-seven were reading
Mimi's Remedies
, but never mind. I will admit to getting a little pang every time I saw it but nothing I couldn't handle.

We met Susan who'd flown in a day earlier from Seattle and for the next two weeks, we had an absolute blast. The sun shone, we all got on with each other, there was always someone to play with, but the place was big enough if we needed (that awful word) 'space'. There was a spa, three restaurants, excellent watersports and all the premium brand liquor we could drink. I had loads of facials, went snorkelling, read six books and tried learning to windsurf, but they told me to come back when I wasn't banjoed out of my head on free Pina Coladas. We met millions of other people and Susan, Trevor and Jennifer all got the ride. Most nights we danced until sun-up at the crappy disco but — this was the best bit — we didn't have the fear the following day. (That's premium brand liquor for you.)

The holiday was a turning point for me. I think I'd forgotten how to be happy but I rediscovered it there. On our last night, sitting at the beach-front bar, listening to the suck and roar of the waves, cooled by fragrant little breezes, I understood that I was free from the bitterness I'd carried for so long towards Lily and Anton. And I no longer wanted to drive over to gloat at Colette. I actually felt for her; with two children, life can't have been easy, and she must have had
really
atrocious luck with men — miles worse than mine - if she thought my dad was a catch. (All due respect, lovely man, yadda yadda, but I
mean)
I even felt forgiveness towards my dad. I breathed in well-being, breathed out calm and felt benign goodwill to all.

I looked at the people sitting around me — Andrea, Cody, Susan, Sylvie, Jennifer, Trevor, Niall and some bloke from Birmingham whose name escapes me but who was there because he was getting the ride off Jennifer, and thought, this is all I need: good friends, to love and be loved. I have health, a well-paid job, a book coming out, a hopeful future and people who love me. I am whole and complete.

I tried explaining to Cody how light and free I felt.

'Course you do,' he said. 'You're banjoed out of your head on free Pina Coladas.' (It had become the holiday catchphrase.) 'You've given up on men,' he said. 'You can't do that.'

I tried to explain that I hadn't given up, merely reshuffled my priorities, but I didn't do a very good job of it, probably on account of being banjoed out of my head on free Pina Coladas. But it didn't matter. Happiness means not having to be understood.