Page 59 of The Mother-in-Law

Lucy turns back to Harriet. Ollie comes to stand beside her and she reaches out to grip his forearm.

‘Lucy,’ I start, but she holds up a hand, silencing me.

‘Why were you in the pool?’ She doesn’t even face me to ask this.

‘I’m sorry. I know you said no swimming, I just thought . . .’

‘. . . that you knew better?’ She whirls around. Her eyes flash wild. ‘That you were entitled to override me in decisions aboutmychildren?’

‘You have no idea how sorry I am, Lucy. Honestly, I am. But it’s done now and I think it would be better if we could just—’

‘What?’ A rush of air expels from Lucy—almost a laugh, not quite. ‘Put it behind us?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Did you hear what the doctor said? Harriet needs an MRI. My daughter could havediedbecause you thought you knew better than me.’ She takes a step toward me. Lucy is usually hard to pin down—like a child she is in a state of perpetual movement—but right now she’s eerily calm and still. I find myself taking a step back. ‘I know we’ve never been close, Diana. First there was my wedding day. I thought we’d shared a moment when you gave me that necklace. Then you felt the need to remind me that I had to give it back, which I knew, by the way, but pointing it out like I was planning to steal it wasn’t the best way to ingratiate yourself to me.’ She takes another step toward me. ‘You made me feel like a gold-digger when we asked for a money to buy a tiny workers cottage. You know what? I didn’t even want your money. It was Ollie’s idea.’ Lucy’s entire body pulses. ‘You brought me a raw chicken when I had a newborn. A raw chicken!’ I can actually see the sparks in Lucy’s brain, metal on metal, memory on memory. ‘You turned off Archie’s monitor so I couldn’t hear him cry, and ever since you’ve made it abundantly clear that I don’t measure up to you in the mothering stakes. Even so, we might have been able to put all that behind us. But my baby might have brain damage because of you. We cannoteverput that behind us.’ She takes another step.

‘Lucy . . .’ Ollie says. I’ve almost forgotten he was here. In the back of my thoughts it occurs to me that Ollie is the fruit of my womb, yet at some point he’s become almost insignificant. He and Tom and Patrick are the cogs and spokes, but Lucy and Nettie and I, we are the wheels. ‘You need to calm down.’

Lucy takes another step.

A nurse appears in the doorway. ‘Is everything all right in here?’

‘Lucy,’ I say, holding up my hands, ‘just take a breath—’

But Lucy thrusts a palm out, flat like a stop sign. It connects with my own hands and I stagger backward. I feel a sharp pain in my ankle and then I’m falling. There is a solid thwacking sound. The room swims.

‘We need security in here,’ I hear someone call.

Lucy disappears and people I don’t recognise appear right up close.

‘Ma’am, are you all right?’

‘I need a doctor in here!’

‘Are you all right, Mum?’

‘Don’t try to move her.’

They’re making a big fuss about nothing. I’m fine. I’m on the floor now, I believe. Colour dances in front of my eyes. And then it’s just . . . black.

35

LUCY

The present . . .

Iwear Diana’s necklace to the funeral, the one she lent me on my wedding day. She left it to me in her will. When I tipped it out of its envelope this morning, there was a little note attached:At least this time, you don’t have to give it back.

I’d planned to wear the necklace with my hot-pink wrap dress, but instead I’ve gone for a simple black shift. There is something to be said for black at funerals, and I did add a pair of hot-pink wedges.

Outside the funeral home are dozens of people who know my name and who talk about how we met down at Sorrento or at Tom’s sixtieth birthday party or some other such event. I nod and smile and ask after their families but the small talk is achingly limited. All of the normal day-to-day topics are off the table, being deemed too trivial for the occasion, except oddly, the weather, which is freely discussed at funerals, and indeed one of the few safe topics of discussions.The sun is shining down on Diana, today. Or evenThe sky is crying too. (Interestingly though, the sun is not shining and the sky is not crying, it is merely a dull grey day. I wonder, idly, what this is supposed to say about my mother-in-law.)

Nettie is in quite a fragile state. She has dressed up at least, in a cream dress and brown leather wedges, but she looks drawn and tired. She dissolves into fresh tears periodically and I wish I could console her. But she won’t even accept support from Patrick, who stands beside her uselessly, smiling politely at people who offer condolences.

The children mill about at my heels, bored and excitable, pinching and pushing each other, but they quiet down when I hand them a fistful of gummy bears from the stash in my bag. Inside, the crowd is typical upper middle-class folk, apart from the smattering of dark-skinned faces, rare enough among these parts to assume they must be the refugee women Diana worked with. I also notice Eamon as we make our way to the seats at the front. There’s no physical sign of his fight with Ollie, other than perhaps the expression of mild defiance on his face. I would wonder why he bothered coming at all if I didn’t know how into appearances he is. Jones and Housseini are here too, which is a surprise. They wear black suits, and as such should look like any other mourners, but there’s something about them that screams cop. Perhaps it’s that I can feel their presence, like ants crawling up my back.

The service is slow and dull, in large part because of the lack of hymns. Ollie gives a eulogy that is as heartfelt as it can possibly be, which is to say fairly generic. Lots of ‘I love you’s, lots of stories about Diana’s charitable work. As I listen I can’t help but think of the eulogy Ollie gave at Tom’s funeral. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Ollie himself became so choked up that I ended up standing behind him for most of it, with my hand on his shoulder. But today he doesn’t manage so much as a misty eye.