Shelley
I arrive home around six and I’m so glad to see Merlin at the gate. He’s wagging his tail and barking with joy now that he finally has some company after a long afternoon on his own. He is soaked through from the rain and when I get out of the car he makes sure I am too as he jumps up onto my clothes with his muddy paws.
‘You’re an eejit, Merlin,’ I tell him. ‘Why didn’t you stay inside out of the rain? That’s what we made you a dog flap for!’
He doesn’t care what I say of course and is much more interested in what I have in my shopping bag, though I can assure him the contents aren’t very exciting at all. I hate cooking for one but for the next few evenings I don’t have a choice. Well, technically I do have a choice. I could take up Eliza’s offer, or I could do as Matt suggested and call one of my ever-patient friends even though they are fed up making suggestions to help me get better. There is no getting better from grief. They say time heals but I’m not so sure of that anymore.
Merlin follows me to the front door, still barking and wagging, and when I reach the doorstep I see why he is so excited. I sometimes swear that dog could talk if he tried and he glances up at me and then down at a bouquet of flowers that sit on the sheltered porch and back up at me again, as if to gauge my reaction to this unexpected delivery.
‘Gosh, I really wasn’t expecting this,’ I say to the dog. ‘Who was here, Merlin? I wonder who these are from.’
The cerise pink, white and sap green flowers really are a sight to behold and I open the door and take them into the hall, followed of course by my trusty friend. Merlin waits and watches as I put them on the sideboard, take off my damp coat and leave my shopping on the floor, before opening the card attached to the flowers with anticipation.
I read the greeting, take a deep breath and exhale long and hard just like I was taught to do in therapy when I need to really release some nervous energy or stress. Then I fetch my phone in my handbag to text my friend Sarah for her kind thoughts.
Bless you for remembering, I say to her and then make my way to the kitchen to fetch a vase for the flowers and give them the attention they deserve. By the time I reach the sink she has messaged back.
I will never forget her, she replies. Take it easy and call me if you need me. No pressure x
I put the flowers on the dining room table and I do, to my surprise, get some comfort from how they brighten up the whiteness of the room. It was my part of the deal with Matt when he finally talked me round to staying in this house after Lily’s death to keep everything totally white. I redecorated from top to bottom, all plain and neutral with no frills, no heaviness, no colour I suppose, and most of all, no heart. Bless him, he played along and has let me take everything at my own pace, but I was and still am numb. I need my surroundings at home where we lived with her to be dumbed down too, with no memories on the walls. I put all her little paintings from playgroup that decorated the fridge into a box, while all the framed photos of her firsts – her first haircut, first tricycle, her first Christmas and each of her three birthdays – are all boxed up and in her room upstairs.
It’s the only room I didn’t whitewash. I couldn’t, but I have closed the door and I never, ever go in there. To do so would tear me apart in a way from which I could never recover. To me, part of her is still in that room where we shared bedtime stories and dress-up time, and where I’d slip in at night and watch her sleep under the yellow glow of her nightlight as tiny stars shone from it onto the walls and ceilings. That room was a precious place, a room full of night-time kisses, lullabies and songs and I just couldn’t, and will never, change it from how it was on the morning that she left us. I have memories in there and I have closed the door on them in case they ever get lost. Her smell, her favourite cuddle toy, her shoes, everything is in that room and they will stay there for as long as I live.
There’s something about the very thought of her shoes in particular that chokes me up. Her tiny, shiny shoes that she loved to put on and off all by herself, thinking she was such a big girl for doing so. But she was just a baby really; just a baby who couldn’t be left alone, not even for seconds. Oh God, oh God, please help me …
Our wedding photos are in there too tucked at the bottom of a wardrobe, our holiday snaps together with Lily, our photo albums and our home videos – they are all frozen in time because my life has ended and I have no idea how I am getting from one day to the next. No idea whatsoever.
‘Fancy a walk?’ I say to Merlin who is the one thing that keeps me going and functioning when Matt isn’t around. He makes me put one foot in front of the other. He makes me talk as well, as I couldn’t possibly not communicate with a face as friendly and warm as his and I swear he knows exactly when I need him. I have sat alone on many occasions on the sofa, trying to remember how to breathe, when he snuggles around my feet or puts his head on my knees in sympathy and I stroke his fur to awaken my senses and bring me back to life.
I fetch his lead, put on my raincoat, fix up my hood and change quickly into my trainers – within minutes we are on the beach and I just keep walking and walking as usual without realizing I am moving at all.
Juliette
There is nothing, and I mean nothing that irritates me more than trying to get a hairbrush through a wet wig when in a hurry.
I called this wig Marilyn Monroe when I bought her, but at the minute she is more like Marilyn Manson with her knots and tangles and I feel like flinging her across the floor in frustration.
I sit at the dressing table in my tiny adopted bedroom with the wig poised in my hand, just like the kind assistant, Dorinda from Lady Godiva’s wig making shop showed me to do and after patting it down with a towel and combing it through with conditioner spray, I still have a battle on my hands to try and resemble a normal head of hair before I go out for dinner with Rosie.
Apart from my wig atrocities, I feel very comfortable and very bright in my new blue jersey wrap dress and not like a dying woman at all. It’s a fine dress, one which I have decided could easily be glammed-up with some heels and jewellery, as well as dressed down in flat pumps like I have chosen for now. I have to say I am delighted with my new purchase.
I think of the lady in the shop and how she tried to hold a conversation but couldn’t, how she stuttered and stammered instead and avoided any eye contact at all with me as I paid. She was a strange fish, but then I guess no one knows what others are going through and who am I to judge? I did feel sorry for her though. She looked a troubled soul and nosiness did get the better of me for a while as I wondered what on earth could be distracting her so much from her work. A sick relative perhaps, or a row with her husband, or maybe she had had some bad news herself and seeing me prance about in a wig and getting in a fluster over a hormonal outburst from my teenage daughter, who still hasn’t returned by the way, was all too much for the poor woman who just wanted to sell the bloody dress and not hear my life story to go with it.
I call Rosie when I realize that she has gone over the twenty minutes curfew we agreed and hold the earpiece away from my ear in preparation from the tirade I will get for fussing over her when she is only ten minutes late, but she doesn’t answer. Typical. I try again, but still no answer so I leave a voicemail which I know will irritate her even more, but then everything I do today seems to irritate her. I wonder if it really is possible for teenagers to transform into alien versions of themselves in such a short space of time. Evidently, it is. My daughter is living proof.
‘Rosie, this is your mother,’ I say to the phone. ‘You know, the one who is waiting for you to go for dinner because you are apparently starved? Well, I’m ready now. Almost. I’m ready apart from this stupid wig which just won’t sit properly so if you can make your way back or I could meet you at the Beach House Café if you’re across that way? It’s the little place on the pier, you can’t miss it. Oh and the address of this place, in case you have ventured too far despite your insistence that you wouldn’t get lost, is 25 Pier Head, so just ask someone and they’ll help direct you back here, I’m sure. And hurry up, please. I’m starving now myself. Bye.’
I go back to my wig duties, waiting for the door to open or the phone to ring or at least a text to say she is on her way. But another five minutes pass and there’s still no sign of her.
I place the wig on my head and adjust it and for a brief moment I admire my own reflection. I don’t look so bad actually. Doesn’t a bit of lippy and a new dress work wonders for the soul? Maybe Dr Michael has made a mistake with his diagnosis because physically I feel absolutely on top of the world, in my new attire and not to mention my new surroundings with the sea at my door and a delicious seafood meal to look forward to with my one and only child.
I spray some perfume and feel my tummy rumble as I rub my wrists together. It’s forty-five minutes now since she left and still no reply from Rosie. Okay, so she hasn’t been herself since we got here but this really is out of character for her. As cheeky as she was earlier, I don’t think she would intentionally put any worry in my mind. We’re a team, me and my Rosie. A team of two and, even with Dan in the mix, we’ve always had an unbreakable bond after so many years on our own.
My hunger turns to butterflies now and I leave the bedroom, go down the narrow hallway towards the sounds of the TV coming from the living room. My nerves are on edge. Maybe she’s here after all? The TV … I don’t think she would have left it on.
‘Rosie’ I call ahead. ‘For goodness’ sake turn that volume down. I’ve been wondering where you’ve got to! I thought you were—’
I reach the living room door but the room is empty. I turn off the TV and notice my hands are shaking. It is really lashing down now outside and I don’t know whether to leave the house to look for her, or stay here in case she comes back and I miss her. I try her phone again. Nothing. Oh God, what on earth should I do? I have no coat and it is pouring down outside. She’s been gone almost an hour now. I should never have let her leave the house alone. This is all my fault. Children aren’t meant to be left alone, not in strange places especially. She may be fifteen but she isn’t streetwise which is my fault too for being so bloody over-protective. What should I do?
I need to go and find her.
The second umbrella she mentioned stands by the door but it snaps when I put it up so I duck my head and walk out into the rain, not knowing where on earth to look first. I begin to fear the worst.
It’s peak season here and tourists travel and pass through constantly so what the hell was I thinking when I let her go wandering around on her own? If she was as hungry as she said she was, maybe she headed to the corner shop for some snacks? I really have no idea and I can’t think straight. The streets suddenly seem quiet and eerie despite the heavy rain.
The bar from earlier? Maybe she went back there to see that bartender, after all. The fear I feel right now takes me right back to when she was just two years old and I lost her for what felt like hours, but was really less a minute, in a department store. The rush of heat to my fingertips, the perspiration, the blinding terror that someone may have hurt her or taken her away from me. I can’t lose her yet, we still have time to do so much together. Where is she?
‘Rosie?!’ I shout into the empty evening air and out onto the pier. ‘Rosie, where are you?’
A shiver runs through me and I feel sick. We aren’t meant to be apart on this trip. Why did I let her go out alone? This is all my fault. I am stupid and forgetful just like she said I was. She hates me. She has never spoken to me the way she did earlier.
‘Rosie!’
I feel dizzy and nauseous as I walk through the rain up and the winding street. Even though I have no idea where to start or who to ask, I need to find my daughter and take away her pain. And I will.