Then She Was Gone(82)

Tears of rage explode from her and she thumps Floyd’s desk until her fists feel bruised. She’s about to yell out again when she hears a sound behind her, the creak of the door to Floyd’s study. It opens a crack and there is Poppy. She’s wearing the little jersey and chiffon dress that Laurel bought her in H&M during their shopping expedition. Her hair is bunched inside her fist and she has a hairband and a hairbrush in her other hand.

‘I’ve been trying to do a ponytail,’ Poppy says, moving towards her, ‘a high, swingy one. But I can’t get it high enough. And it keeps going all bumpy on the top.’

Laurel smiles and gets up from her chair. ‘Here,’ she says, turning it towards Poppy. ‘You sit here. I’ll see what I can do. Though it’s been a very long time since I did a high ponytail.’

Poppy sits and passes Laurel the hairband and the hairbrush. Laurel takes the bunched hair from her other hand and starts to brush it. She finds that the act is embedded in her muscle memory. How many mornings, how many times, how many ponytails has she brushed into place? And now it seems her hairbrushing days are not behind her after all. Now it seems that she is a mother again. Something warm and delicate inside her chest opens up like an unfurling flower.

‘Where’s Dad?’ says Poppy.

‘Dad’s not here,’ says Laurel carefully. ‘He’s had to go somewhere.’

Poppy nods. ‘Is it to do with what he told me last night?’

‘What did he tell you last night?’

‘He told me that Noelle wasn’t my mum. He told me that your daughter was.’ She turns, suddenly, and Laurel can see that her eyes are red and swollen, that she has been crying silently in her bedroom. ‘Is it true? Is it true that you’re my grandma?’

Laurel pauses. She swallows. ‘Would you like it to be true?’

Poppy nods again.

‘Well. It is. Your mother was called Ellie. She was my daughter. And she was the most wonderful, golden, perfect girl in the world. And you, Poppy, are exactly like her.’

Poppy says nothing for a moment and then she turns to Laurel once more, her eyes wide with fear and says, ‘Is she dead?’

Laurel nods.

‘Is my dad dead?’

‘Your dad …?’

‘My real dad.’

‘You mean …’

‘The man who made a baby with Ellie. Not my dad who brought me up.’

‘Your dad told you?’

‘Yes. He told me. He said he doesn’t know who my real dad is. He says no one knows. Not even you.’

Laurel turns her attention back to Poppy’s hair. She pulls it as high as she can and then she twists the elastic band around it three times. ‘I don’t know if your real dad is dead, Poppy. It’s possible we’ll never know.’

Poppy is silent for a moment. Then she says, ‘Have you finished?’

‘Yes,’ says Laurel. ‘All done.’

Poppy slides from the chair and goes to the mirror on the wall outside Floyd’s study. She touches her hair with her fingertips in her reflection. ‘Do I look like her?’ she says.

‘Yes. You look just like her.’

She turns back to her reflection and appraises it again, her chin tipped up slightly. ‘Was she pretty?’

‘She was extraordinarily pretty.’

‘Was she as pretty as Hanna?’

Laurel is about to say, Oh, she was much prettier than Hanna. But catches herself. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘She was as pretty as Hanna.’

Poppy looks satisfied with this.

‘Are we still going to the party?’ she says.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Yes. I want to see my family,’ she says. ‘I want to see my real family.’

‘In which case then definitely.’

‘Laurel?’

‘Yes, sweetheart.’

‘Is Dad ever coming back?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

Poppy glances down at her shoes and then back at Laurel. Her eyes fill with tears and suddenly the unnerving stoicism passes and Poppy is sobbing, her shoulders heaving up and down, her hands pressed hard into her eye sockets.

Laurel takes her in her arms, holds her tight, kisses the top of her head, feels her love for this child flow through her like a sudden, glorious summer storm.





Sixty-four


I have both my passport and a hand gun. I have a change of clothes in a small bag and a fully charged phone. My plan is to get as far away from London N4 as I can and then either blow my brains out or leave the country. I will see how I feel when it comes down to it. At this juncture I have no idea what is worse: to break my daughter’s heart or to break my daughter’s heart and then spend the rest of my life either in hiding or in jail. Plan B at least does not involve a funeral.

And so finally I have cleared up your shitty disgusting mess, Noelle. As I speak (or think, or write or whatever the hell it is I’m doing with a dead person) Laurel will be introducing herself anew to her granddaughter and then they will go together to the twinkling Richard Curtis Christmas meal in the twinkling mews house in twinkling Belsize Park – and imagine everyone’s faces, Noelle, when they walk in together, those two fine women with their strong brows and their big brains and all that golden light dazzling the bejesus out of everyone. Just imagine.