Chapter Seven

Felicity couldn’t believe it; poor little Fred had been up nearly all night being sick. It was the last thing she needed, her children getting ill. There wasn’t time for it, what with Megan’s ballet rehearsals for her Halloween performance, and Fred’s birthday party looming. One of them was bound to be down with something at a crucial time, especially as they never just got these things all at once. With four of them in the house, one of them being poorly always threatened a month of illness as the germs worked their way through each of them individually. She knew she had taught them to share, but sharing germs she could most certainly do without.

‘Could it be something he ate?’

Pete’s words sent a vision of pizza fingers and curly fries through Felicity’s mind. Yes! ‘Maybe,’ almost certainly, ‘but in some ways it might be better if it is,’ she added, thinking on her feet while trying to appease her own guilt.

Pete guffawed. ‘Yes, let’s hope our son has food poisoning.’

Felicity hit him. ‘You know what I mean. If it’s a bug, well, we’re buggered! Pardon the pun. If it’s something he ate, it will be over within a matter of days. Fewer sleepless nights and days occupying poorly children all round.’

‘I love my wife’s logic.’ Pete pulled Felicity into a cuddle.

She snuggled in, loving the feel of his arms around her. Perfect! ‘And I love you!’

‘Good because you owe me some attention later,’ Pete joked with a squeeze.

Felicity’s momentary warm fuzzy feeling fizzled as she pushed Pete’s arms away. She had been up almost all night with Fred, her attempt at seduction had gone well and truly wrong, she hadn’t had time to begin to process seeing Lisa in the supermarket, and, really, she wanted to curl up in Pete’s arms, have a good cry and fall asleep for possibly one hundred years.

‘Have you ever thought that telling someone who looks after four children all day and who has been up nearly all night that you want them to give you a little attention later is not such a great turn on?’ Felicity realised the words came out more caustically than she intended, but she couldn’t help it.

Pete looked at her, eyes wide, like a spurned puppy. ‘Flick, I was trying to be nice, you know … sexy!’

‘Sexy? Well, what you achieved was demanding. Along with everybody else in this house, you want me to take care of you.’ She knew she sounded like a cow, but she was tired, verging on well and truly knackered, and she had been enjoying that hug.

‘But, last night, you wanted it. If Fred hadn’t turned into something from The Exorcist, you were the one being all Miss Whiplash.’

‘That was then … and I really wasn’t aiming for Miss Bloody Whiplash. Honestly, Pete, I’ve been covered in sick, gone to Tesco practically in my underwear, been up all night since then … and … to top it all … I bumped into Lisa.’

‘Lisa who?’

‘Lisa. My Lisa. The Lisa.’

Pete looked confused.

‘For God’s sake Pete, Lisa Blake! My frie— ex-friend; you can’t have forgotten her.’

Finally registering whom Felicity was referring to, Pete sighed. ‘Really? Here? In Littlehampton? What does she want?’

Annoyed that Pete would think Lisa was back because she wanted something, Felicity took a breath before she could speak. ‘I don’t know.’ I couldn’t speak to her. I didn’t know what to say; really, I just wanted to … to hug her! And she knew Pete wouldn’t begin to understand that.

‘Please don’t tell me you are going to let her hurt you again, after all these years.’

Felicity sighed in exasperation, after all these years! She wasn’t sure she had ever stopped being hurt over losing Lisa. And she didn’t need Pete to remind her how many years it had been. Felicity remembered all too well Lisa’s phone call on her twenty-first birthday, when she was so pleased to hear her voice, delighted she had remembered and devastated when Lisa hung up so quickly – before Felicity could say how much she needed a friend and how scared she was that she was pregnant. When Lisa stopped writing back and getting in contact, Felicity had thought she was gone forever. She tried to tell Pete how she had felt at the time, but she knew he didn’t really understand. Grieving for the loss of someone who wasn’t dead didn’t register in Pete’s world.

‘When did you see her? What did she say? What did you say?’ Pete’s arms were back round Felicity, his voice softer.

‘She didn’t say anything and I didn’t say anything sensible. It was in Tesco last night, while you and Fred were in the bath.’

‘Really? So you hadn’t actually seen her, what … well, since before you met me, and then you saw her covered in sick, wearing my coat over your you-hoo undies. Oh Christ!’ Pete ventured a giggle. Hugs and humour were his usual tools for winning Felicity round.

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Felicity thrust her head into his shoulder. ‘Because, I’ve got to tell you, it’s not bloody working!’ Despite her protestations she welcomed his hug and the kisses he placed on the top of her head. I can’t believe she’s back!

Collecting up all the washing festering from the night before, Felicity found herself drawn to the box she had secreted away under her bed. Her mum would have understood the significance of her seeing Lisa again. She would have told her what she ought to do. Sliding out the memory box, which she kept for herself as much as the children, Felicity ran her hand over the top, removing the thin layer of dust that had settled there since the last time she had opened it. She loved the box – a wooden chest she had rubbed down and varnished as part of her self-induced therapy after losing her mum – but whenever she opened it she had to brace herself. Even now she was still struck by the smallness of it all. The bits and pieces, the randomness of the remnants of a life. Most of it only significant to her and her children through the stories she had shared with them, but all of it precious. Pictures, jewellery, little keepsakes, even a postcard her mum had sent from her trip to Cornwall the month before her car accident. The fact it was addressed to her ‘Gorgeous grandbabies’ and included the message ‘never forget how much Nana loves you’ made it special, as if it included the boys she had never got the chance to meet.

Felicity pulled out a picture of her mum with Megan draped around her shoulders and Alice tiny in her arms. Life had marched on so much since it was taken. Alice was a newborn and Megan, not looking at the camera, was divided between being excited at being a big sister and concerned that this new, little interloper might usurp her nana’s attention. But her mum’s expression, beaming with pride, was perfect; Felicity loved it. She loved knowing that her mum had been proud of the person she had become and the family she had created.

Felicity wished her mum could have met Callum and Fred – her adorable boys – seen their cheeky little faces, known their boundless energy, held them and shared in the joy of them as she had too briefly with the girls. And she wished she were there now, to confide in about seeing Lisa again.