What Goes Around... (34 page)

Gloria

‘I said to myself, the day you walked through the door - mark my words, Beryl
, this woman is going to reach her goal, and now Gloria, you have.’

There's a round of applause and I'm the proudest I've ever been. I thank Beryl for her support and I'm smiling and blushing as I sit down and then I'm smiling and blushing again when it
’s Paul's turn to stand.

We reached our goal weight on the same day and I'm so proud of him.

He looks amazing and tonight we're going to celebrate but I'm going to make a start on the Christmas shopping with Eleanor and Daisy first.

We have a quick kiss in the car park.

Actually not such a quick one.

Some might think that I’m
too old for all that, but I like it. I like holding his hand when we walk together and I like lying on the sofa with him at night.

I meet Eleanor and Daisy. Eleanor’s completely thrilled for me. Really, it was the jogging pushchair that helped. I lost my way a few times and put some of
my weight back on but I kept going with it. I started walking regularly and Daisy just loves it. I have her three days a week while Eleanor works.

A friend of mine said that she is taking advantage of me. Noel and Eleanor don’t need the money
, after all, but I'm pleased to see her working and I love the time I spend with Daisy.

We walk down the street and drift in and out of shops and then into a smart department store and, instead of tackling the Christmas shopping, we try on clothes. Maybe we just can’t face it. It’s going to be a difficult Christmas - the first one is the hardest I tell Eleanor.

I think of Lucy and Charlotte and I wonder how they are getting on.

I miss taking Charlotte to the dentist.

Oh, I hear bits from the kids and I find out some stuff on Facebook, like they’re moving and that Charlotte’s changed schools.

But I miss knowing how she is.

I’m not just talking about Charlotte.

I can’t discuss that with Eleanor, so I try on clothes instead. I’ve never done stuff like that. I've never
wanted
to do stuff like that, but I'm enjoying it now. I need a whole new wardrobe really; maybe I should do some extra shifts at work?

We go to the cafe and I order a coffee and a chicken and salad sandwich instead of cake and then Eleanor realises
that she’s left her phone in the changing room and has to dash off.

Yes, I’ll watch Daisy.

I sit there and I wait for her to come back before I drink my coffee, but she doesn't and I don’t want to drink it cold. She’s still not back by the time I’ve finished my sandwich. I'm starting to get a bit irritated, maybe my friend is right, maybe Eleanor does take advantage, maybe all my girls do at times but I know that they love me.

I just didn't know how much.

Eleanor’s coming back now and I feel a surge of irritation because she's left me here while she's been shopping. She’s got about ten bags over her arms and I have to drink a very long glass of cool water, because I don't want to ruin our day.

It could never be ruined.

I didn't know how much they love me, how much they’ve appreciated all that I’ve done, because the bags are filled with all the clothes that I tried on and loved. There’s a gift voucher too, to get some more clothes and there’s another one to go and get my hair and make up done.

It’s from Eleanor, Bonny and Alice and they’ve been planning it for weeks. They had no idea how to get me that new wardrobe when I reach
ed my goal weight.

This was what they worked out.

It’s the best day.

The best day of my life.

I get home and the house is empty. I’m running late and Paul will be here to take me to dinner soon but apart from a quick wash in the sink I’m ready. I don’t want to ruin my new make up and hair. I peer in my bags and I choose a navy dress that wraps over and ties at the side. I put on my stockings and new shoes. It’s better than Christmas, there are bags and bags and bags and I keep opening them.

Then I find one that I haven’t opened yet.

A camel coloured coat that I tried on.

It’s very similar to the one I wore
the time that I dumped the kids on him and Lucy when I headed off to France with my sexy French lover Marcel!

When Paul comes to take me out to dinner, I put it on and I tie the belt at the back and I am more glamorous than I
ever thought I would be.

A bit like the woman I used to fantasize I was.

‘Gloria,’ Paul says, as we go to head out. ‘I can’t wait till the restaurant, I’ll be too nervous. There’ll be people there and I’d just die if you said “no” to me in public.’ If I did have dark glasses on, as per my old fantasy, I’d whip them off, because I shoot him an incredulous stare. No, it’s not Marcel showering me in jewellery and neither is it my husband begging to come back to me. It’s better than that, it’s real.

It’s Paul, the man who knows me, who accepts the good and bad. Who, as it turns out, really loves me, because it’s an engagement ring
he’s placing on my finger. My eyes fill with tears that he could even think I would say no to him.

I love him.

I’m happy.

I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

But there’s a second tear in my eye as I see a new ring on a finger that’s been empty for a long time.

A tear that’s not for Paul but for him, because despite all the shit, there were good times and I’m starting to remember them.

Though of course I can’t say that to Paul.

I can’t really talk about it to anyone.

No one could understand.

Lucy

I don't really have many choices.

I really can't turn
this
client down.

Things haven’t exactly taken off.

Simone insists that I don’t drop my price.

It’s quality that people want.

Anyway the phone has rung and
this
woman needs me to come on a Sunday – she works all week and her husband is out for the day. It’s the only time she’s got.

I’m sorry, I can’t tell you who it is.

I pride myself on my confidentiality.

I can’t leave Charlotte alone all day. Well, maybe I could leave her, but we’ve only been in the new home for a week. The sale and move just happened so quickly. I want to make sure she’s okay with it all
before I leave her here alone and I’m still a bit wary with all that happened on Facebook.

I’ve made some friends at my slimming club but one
’s skiing and one’s got twins and an autistic child and a teenager from hell (no wonder she eats), so I don’t really feel I can ask her, and Yolanda’s working. Though Charlotte sort of talks to Felicity now I’m not even going to go there.

I think of Gloria.

So too does Charlotte but I don’t really feel I can ask.

Anyway, there’s someone else I can fall back on now.

Someone who really deserves to be asked, so I take a breath and I ring Mum instead.

She’s delighted.

She’s been waiting for twelve years for this – for me to trust her with my child and I do, I think I do. Yes, I do, or I’d never leave her.

I’m not worried about Charlotte as I work, as I sort a whole lot of chaos
out – and I do a great job, she tells me.

She’ll be recommending me.

I’m so sorry that I can’t tell you who she is, or go into greater detail. Women are trusting me with their guilty secrets you understand.

But, given that it
’s you…

I mustn’t.

I can’t.

Okay, I’ll give you a clue.

It’s someone you’d expect to be a little more prepared…

Be Prepared!

Get it?

Of course, given her status, she knows an awful lot of mums in the village.

An awful lot.

‘Lucy,’ she tells me as she waves me off. ‘You can expect to be busy any time soon.’

I’m still grinning like an idiot when I park my car.

I’m a Personal Organiser and I’m paid fifty quid an hour to do what I completely love.

I turn the key in the door and as I walk in I stand there for a moment, still smiling, as I watch myself in the kitchen with mum.

I’ve never seen the likeness between me and Charlotte so clearly – it must be the braces, because there she is in profile and she’s a mini pre-peroxide me. She’s making chocolate crispies with mum – and we did that.

Mum and I did that.

Yes, it was crap and there were so many bad times, just so,
so
many bad times, but I’d forgotten that there were good times too and I stand there for a moment remembering them.

‘Hi, pet.’ Mum looks over and smiles. ‘How was work?’

‘Good,’ I say and I walk over and she digs out another spoon from the drawer and I fill it.

‘She used to lick the bowl,’ Mum tells Charlotte and Charlotte laughs. ‘She’d put her face right in it.’

Mum suggests that we go for a walk, the three of us. Christmas is coming and Lucy will be getting fat, so I say yes and we head to the park I used to go to sometimes when I bunked off school. There's a massive old manor house and a lake at the front and it’s all frozen over. Some kids are skating on it and Charlotte sees the sign that tells them not to.

‘What if it cracks?’ Charlotte asks. ‘What if they fall in?’

‘They won't.’ I know that sounds definite, but I sort of know it to be true –they’re hardy kids, tough kids, they remind me a little of me. Yes, what they’re doing is dangerous and yes, I might be wrong and the ice splits and they all tumble in, but something tells me that they’re here every day, unsupervised and surviving.

‘But what if they d
o?’ Charlotte persists. I look over to her little anxious, pinched face. She's been through so much, for all I did to make her childhood precious and safe and pampered, in the end, I couldn't shield her from life.

From the shit it flings at us at times.

I couldn't even shield her from me.

But sometimes I can make things better.

Sometimes I do know what to say.

‘What would you do?’ Charlotte begs. ‘If one of them falls in?’

‘I’d call an ambulance,’ I say.

‘But wouldn't you go over?’

I don't actually know what I'd do. We can all say how we'd react in an emergency, we can all hazard a guess but a guess is all it is. Some of us will be the heroes, standing shivering and wrapped in a blanket on the evening news, insisting that anybody would have done the same.

I wouldn’t.

I don't want to be a hero, because Charlotte doesn't want me to be one.

I can see the fear a
nd the terror in her eyes and I wonder how long it will stay – you see, it's not just about losing her dad, she is so scared of losing me.

‘I think you have to find a big branch,’ Mum tells her. ‘And lie on the grass and stretch it out to them…’

‘But it wouldn't reach!’ Charlotte is frantic with her imagined scenario, she doesn’t just look like me, she thinks like me too. She's watching these robust kids disappear beneath the ice; she's standing by the water’s edge screaming as her mother dashes in to save them. ‘I know you’d do something!’ She tells me about this show she saw once, where everybody had formed a human chain across the ice.

‘Your m
um?’ It’s my mum that starts laughing; it’s my mum who’s the hero today.  ‘Can you imagine your mum, for even a moment, forming a human chain?’ But that’s exactly what Charlotte is doing and I don't want her to have to worry about me any more, I want her to laugh, I want her to be a kid, I want to be her mum.

‘Me!’ I say. ‘You really think I’d lie on ice, holding onto Nanny’s feet…’

‘Sod that.’ Mum says putting out her fag.

Charlotte starts laughing and we walk away from the lake and towards the car and, if
I hear a scream, I’ll just call an ambulance and try to find a big branch. I look over to Mum and I know she’s thinking the same. I know she is because we start running to get to the car and we’re all still laughing.

And no
, I won’t lie on ice for anyone but Charlotte – I’m far too important to lose.

And if I sound shallow and superficial
, I don’t care.

I know I'm not.

I know what I'm here for now.

And I know why I'm staying.

The First Christmas (without him).

Gloria has been here.