Then She Was Gone(67)

‘Yes. Six months on Tuesday.’

‘Poppy. It’s a pretty name.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I said. ‘And it suits her, I think.’

‘Yes,’ you agreed. ‘It really does.’

You blew a raspberry at her then and she looked at you in utter delight.

‘And how’s it been?’ you asked. ‘How’s it been for you?’

‘It’s been …’ I plastered a stupid smile on my face and didn’t mention the endless, nightmarish nights when I’d be in her room two, three, four times with endless bottles of milk. I didn’t mention how sometimes I’d put her in her cot for an hour and sit in my kitchen with the radio turned right up so I couldn’t hear her crying. And I certainly didn’t mention the time I seriously toyed with the idea of leaving her on the steps of the hospital just like your own parents had done to you. ‘It’s been amazing,’ I gushed. ‘She’s a real dream. She sleeps all night. And she smiles. And she eats. And, honestly, Floyd, I can’t think why I didn’t do this a long time ago. I really can’t.’

You really liked this response, I could tell. Probably in your head you’d had me painted as a terrible, sexless ageing crone that you were best shot of. And suddenly here I was in your kitchen, looking well (I’d been to the hairdresser’s and made them take my hair back to its original copper. It was the first time I’d been to a hairdresser for anything other than a trim in about twenty years) and with this drop-dead gorgeous baby that I was clearly in love with, like any normal woman would be. And I could feel you then, I really could, re-evaluating me, reconfiguring your prejudices. I could feel that we still had a chance.

I stayed for an hour and a half and when I left (at my behest, off to a fictional friend’s for supper) you came out of the house with me, holding the baby in her chair. You insisted on strapping the chair into the back seat. I watched you adjust the straps on the seat, making sure they weren’t too tight around her fat little arms.

‘Bye bye, gorgeous Poppy,’ you said, kissing your fingertips and placing them against her cheek. ‘I hope I see you again really, really soon.’

I smiled inscrutably and then drove away leaving you there on the pavement not knowing where you stood with anything.

And that was exactly where I wanted you.





Forty-eight


Bonny calls Laurel at work on Monday. Laurel recognises her been-around-the-block voice immediately.

‘We’ve been talking,’ she begins, ‘about Christmas.’

Laurel stops herself groaning. She cannot possibly bring herself to think about Christmas even though it’s less than a week away and the world is full of lights and music and even the plumbing supplies shop has baubles in its windows. She’s not ready for it.

‘Now, unfortunately we’re at my stepmother’s on Christmas Day itself, she’s eighty-four, far too frail to make it down to London, so we’ll be heading up to Oxford. So what I thought is that we could do a big Christmas Eve bash here. We can do gifts and games and cocktails and what have you. And I have space for thousands, so all the children, partners, etc. And you can absolutely bring your gorgeous man and his lovely daughter.’ She pauses for breath; Laurel can hear the rattle of a cough in the bass of her breathing. ‘What do you think?’

Laurel fingers the pendant at her collarbone.

‘Have you asked Jake?’ she asks after another pause.

‘Yes. Yes I have.’ There’s a finality to this that tells Laurel immediately that Paul and Bonny are now aware of the current impasse.

‘And is he coming?’

‘He says he thinks so.’

‘And what about Hanna?’

‘She said yes. She’ll be coming.’

Laurel’s stomach lurches. Hanna has completely transmogrified in her mind from an ice princess destined never to thaw to a scarlet woman throwing herself at other people’s boyfriends with no thought for anyone but herself. Laurel no longer knows what to think about her daughter.

‘Well,’ she says after a significant pause, ‘that does sound lovely. I’ll ask Floyd. He did say that he and Poppy usually stay in on Christmas Eve, but I’m sure they could be persuaded. Can I get back to you?’

‘Yes, of course! Please do. But sooner rather than later, if you don’t mind. I’ll have to get my Waitrose order in by tomorrow at the very latest.’

Waitrose orders. Laurel cannot imagine that she ever had a life that involved Waitrose orders.

She puts down her phone and sighs.

At Floyd’s that night Laurel asks him how Poppy had reacted when Noelle dropped her on his doorstep and disappeared into thin air. ‘Was she happy?’ she said. ‘Was she sad? Did she miss her mum? What was it like?’

‘Well, first off,’ he replies, ‘she looked awful. She was overweight, refused to let anyone brush her hair, bathe her, brush her teeth. So she was a mess. And that was basically why Noelle left her with me. She’d had this perfect little baby and she’d totally fucked her up because she did not know how to parent and she’d ended up four years later with a monster.

‘And no, Poppy wasn’t sad. Poppy loved being here with me. When she was with me she behaved. She didn’t have tantrums. She didn’t demand chocolate spread on everything. She sat and we talked and she learned and she read and when Noelle left her here she was happy. Really happy. And of course’ – he shrugs – ‘neither of us had any idea that we would never see her again after she dumped her with me. We thought she’d be back. And by the time it was clear that she wasn’t coming back, Poppy and I were a team. I genuinely don’t think she’s suffering because of not having Noelle in her life. I think …’ He glances up at her. ‘I think it was a blessing.’