Free Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson

evening serving its famous cream teas and exotic ice creams, instead of closing as it normally does at half past
     five, though Ann Slaughter is heard to complain that Mei Yuen’s next door starts frying at five and the smell puts people
     off their tea.
    The photo that I gave to Lacey appears on TV as well as on the front page of the papers. I think Mick took it on holiday in
     France a couple of years ago when we all went away together and liked it so much we thought we’d always do it except we didn’t,
     we never did it again.
    In it she is wearing a striped pinkish T-shirt and she’s smiling and screwing her eyes up against the bright sunshine and
     her hair is that little bit longer, strands of it caught in the wind across her face. She’s not tanned—Lennie was too fair
     to tan—but she looks well and happy, standingthere next to her boys. Of course the papers cut Max and Con off—they wanted just Lennie. So there she is, oblivious, alone
     and smiling.
    And suddenly, there she is, all around us, even in Curdell’s newsagent’s on the High Street. It’s too much for some people,
     to see her beaming out at them like that from the racks. Too close up and personal. One or two get all shaky or have a little
     cry when they go in to buy cigarettes or their lottery ticket. Some mums won’t even take their kids in the shop but leave
     them outside instead, by the fishing nets and buckets and spades and windmills, next to the Wall’s Ice Cream sign that flaps
     in the wind in the place where people usually tie their dogs.
    On the Friday I go back in to work. Though everyone understands why I’ve been postponing appointments, I can’t leave the clinic
     shut for long. I have a number of older patients who rely on me.
    It smells cold in there—we have a constant problem, with the damp. I turn on the heating and water the plants, stuff some
     towels in the washing machine and turn on the computer to look up the appointments. As it crackles into life, I realise that
     Lennie’s e-mails from just a few days ago will still be on it. Not wanting to see them, I go straight into the diary.
    I’ve been there about twenty minutes when there’s a knock on the door at the front. It’s not the door we use. Patients come
     in through a side door in the alleyway they callDene Walk. I lift the front blinds and see that it’s Lacey. Surprised, I indicate to him to go round to the side.
    Sorry, he says when I open the door in my white coat, jeans and clogs with my woolly jacket still on top, I should have phoned—
    No, no, I say. It’s OK.
    Have you got a moment?
    He looks past me into the room. I step aside to let him in.
    As I apologise for the cold and explain that the heating system’s old and takes a while to get going, I feel myself blushing.
     If he notices, he doesn’t show it.
    You work alone here?
    I’ve done less since the baby. There used to be a partner. But he left and went back to London. Making tons more money there.
    You’re busy?
    I shrug.
    There’s enough to keep me going.
    No, he says, I meant—today.
    Oh, I say, colouring furiously again. No one’s in till this afternoon—I mean, I cancelled all the earlier appointments this
     week. It’s the first time I’ve been in—since—
    He nods.
    I just came in to get things—organised.
    I offer him a chair and he sits, looks around him.
    What’s the smell? he asks me.
    I frown and sniff.
    Oh. I don’t know. Lavender? I use a lot of oils.
    He looks at me.
    Do you? What for?
    Massage, I tell him. Soft-tissue work.
    He seems to think about this. And then, I’m sorry, he says. About the other day. The morgue.
    Oh, I say, it wasn’t your fault.
    Was he OK?
    Just upset, I tell him. What about Al? I haven’t seen him.
    Lacey looks at me.
    Eucalyptus, he says.
    I feel myself smile.
    The smell—
    Yes. Quite probably.
    Just then Liv gives a gasp from under the desk. I normally put her down on a small mattress on the floor behind the filing