Free What Goes Around... by Carol Marinelli Page B

and shaking her head.
    ‘You need to do this Lucy.’
    ‘I can’t,’ I beg. ‘Gloria will be there.’
    ‘Gloria might be at the funeral,’ Jess voices my dread. ‘It might be easier all around if you see her beforehand and just get it out of the way.’
    ‘I can’t!’ Apart from Monday, I haven't seen Gloria in ages. He always dealt with that side of things. The last time I saw Gloria , I was pregnant with Charlotte–that's how long it's been. None of his children came to my wedding and it was considered for the best that I wasn’t invited to Bonny and Lex’s - but a few months later, when they emigrated to Australia, he insisted that I come with him to the airport to say goodbye. That really was the last time I was there with all of them.
    ‘Lucy. ’ Jess knows them too, knows what they can be like, know just how difficult that family can be at times, because Luke is still in touch with Gloria. ‘You're going to have to get used to seeing them.’ She confirms what I don't want to know. ‘They’re Charlotte’s family and just because her dad is dead, you can't take them away from her…’ Her voice fades off and I turn around and there is Charlotte standing at the living room door.
    She’s lost weight.
    She's just a tiny little thing anyway, and she can't really afford to lose weight. It's written on her face–the strain that she is under. I've told her that she doesn't have to go back to school until after the funeral, but it’s taking so long that I don't know if it was the right thing to do. She needs one good thing, she needs this to happen and, stuff the lot of them, I'm taking my daughter to see her niece. I don't care how uncomfortable it is for them.
    ‘Eleanor and the baby are still in the hospital,’ I tell Charlotte. ‘I thought perhaps we could go and see them this afternoon.’ She lets out this tiny squeal of excitement. You can actually see the grief lift from her as, for a moment, she gets to be an eleven-year-old again but then she starts to worry.
    ‘We haven’t got her a present.’
    ‘Mum’s going to go to the shops and get one now,’ Jess says and my eyes widen in panic, I'm just not ready to go out. For Charlotte I'll go to the hospital, but I absolutely cannot face the shops but it would seem that Jess has been busy. ‘I booked you a hair appointment,’ Jess winks. ‘Can't let those Nordic good looks fade.’
    ‘I'm not going to the hairdresser ’s.’ It just seems wrong, people already think that I'm a cold-hearted bitch and they’re going to think it even more if I'm out getting my hair done when he's only been dead a few days.
    ‘He'd want you to look good, ’ Jess says and it's true, it was all he wanted from me and, even if they're not quite showing, I do have roots. If I don't deal with them now, by the funeral they'll be there for all to see.
    It matters.
    It mattered to him.
    And it still matters to me.
     
    It feels strange to be out. The car feels strange, as if I haven't driven in weeks. A bit like when you get in the car after a holiday, or after I had Charlotte and drove for the first time. There's a coffee cup in the cup holder and Monday’s newspaper is on the passenger seat. I have this bizarre thought that maybe I should keep it for Charlotte. ‘Here you are darling. This is the newspaper from the day Dad died.’ It’s the sort of thing my mum would suggest!  The seat has been moved back. I remember somebody moved it to let the ambulance out - I just parked it and ran in.
    I move the seat forward and adjust the mirror and I start to sweat because I can see it again–what I came home to. I can see it in my rear-view mirror. I can see him lying on the floor and the smell of sex in the room and the paramedics and police and her standing there shivering. I don't want the world to know, except I feel it's all about to spill it out, that any day now the truth will be told, that I’ll be the talk of the village...
    I’m the talk of it now,