Then She Was Gone(29)

‘Kate?’

‘Is that her name?’

‘Yes. Kate Virtue. She’s nice. I like her. She’s not very clever, but she’s very sweet and kind.’

‘And SJ? Are you two close?’

‘Ish. I mean, we’re very different.’

‘In what sort of ways?’ Laurel asks, thinking that they’re both certainly rather strange.

‘Well, she’s an introvert, I’m an extrovert. She’s good at art. I’m good at maths. She cares about everything. I care about nothing. She’s humourless. I’m hilarious. She’s not close to Dad. I’m super close to Dad.’ She smiles.

‘And why do you think that is?’

She shrugs. ‘I guess I’m just more like him. That’s all.’

They stop talking as their food is delivered. Laurel watches her for a moment, studies the intensity of her focus on a bottle of ketchup, the way her forehead bunches into lines, and suddenly she finds herself thrown headfirst out of her own continuum and into a moment from her past. She is here, in this very spot, with Ellie. She doesn’t know where Jake and Hanna are in this isolated vignette; maybe it’s an INSET day at Ellie’s school? But she is sitting here and Ellie is sitting there and everything is exactly the same but completely different. Her head spins for a second and she grips the edge of the table and breathes deeply to centre herself. She blinks and looks again at Poppy and now she is Poppy. Definitely Poppy. Not Ellie.

Poppy has not noticed Laurel’s brief moment of extra-corporeal time travel. She bangs the ketchup bottle to dislodge some sauce and then replaces the lid.

‘I’m really looking forward to meeting your family tomorrow night,’ she says. ‘Do you think they’ll like me?’

Laurel blinks slowly. ‘I’m surprised you care,’ she says drily.

‘I don’t care,’ Poppy replies. ‘I’m just interested in your opinion. Caring and being interested are two very different things.’

‘Yes,’ says Laurel, smiling. ‘Yes. They’ll like you. You’ll be a breath of fresh air.’

‘Good,’ says Poppy. ‘That’s nice. I love being with other people’s families. I sometimes wish …’

Laurel throws her a questioning look.

‘Nothing,’ says Poppy. ‘Nothing.’

Laurel takes Poppy into New Look. She takes her into Gap. She takes her into H&M and Zara and Top Shop and Miss Selfridge. But Poppy refuses to countenance anything fashionable. Eventually they find themselves in the John Lewis childrenswear department where Poppy heads steadfastly towards a rail of printed jersey dresses.

‘These,’ she says. ‘I like these.’

‘But don’t you already have a dress like this?’ Laurel asks, thinking of something she’d seen her wearing that weekend.

‘Yes,’ Poppy replies, pulling a dress sideways from the rail. ‘I’ve got this one. But they’ve got it in another print now. Look.’ She pulls another dress from the rail. ‘I don’t have this one.’

Laurel sighs and touches the fabric of the dress. ‘It’s very pretty,’ she says, ‘but I thought we were going to, perhaps, break you out a bit, you know, of your usual style.’

Now Poppy sighs. She looks mournfully at the dress and then up at Laurel. ‘We did say that, didn’t we?’

Laurel nods.

‘But all that other stuff. In the other shops. It’s all so trashy. And scruffy.’

‘But you’re young, and that is the joy of being young. You can wear anything and look amazing in it. Scruffy looks great when you’re young. So does cheap. And trashy. You can save all the smart stuff for when you’re my age. Come on,’ she urges. ‘One more whizz round H&M? For me?’

Poppy beams and nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Fine.’

They pick out patterned leggings, a soft, slashed-neck sweatshirt, a brushed-flannel checked shirt, a fitted T-shirt with a moustache printed on it and a grey party dress with a chiffon skirt and jersey bodice.

Laurel stands outside the cubicle, as she has stood outside so many cubicles for so many years of her life and waits for the curtain to be drawn back. And there is Poppy, stern and uncertain in the leggings and T-shirt. ‘I look vile,’ she says.

‘No,’ says Laurel, her hands going immediately to the waistband of the leggings to centre them and make them sit properly. ‘Here.’ She pulls the flannel shirt from its hanger and helps Poppy thread her arms into the sleeves. ‘There,’ she says. ‘There.’ And then she removes the neat bands from the tips of Poppy’s plaits, untangles them and fans the corrugated waves of her hair out over her shoulders.

‘There,’ she says again. ‘You look incredible. You look …’

She has to turn then, turn and force half her fist into her mouth. She realises what she has done. She has dressed this child up as her dead daughter. And the result is unnerving.

‘You look lovely,’ she manages, her voice slightly tremulous. ‘But if you don’t feel comfortable in it, that’s fine. Let’s go back to John Lewis. We’ll get you that dress. Come on …’

But Poppy does not acknowledge Laurel’s suggestion. She stands and stares at herself in the mirror. She turns slightly, from side to side. She runs her hands down the fabric of the leggings, plays with the sleeves of the shirt. She strikes a pose, and then another one. ‘Actually,’ she says. ‘I like this. Can I have it?’