Page 87 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘That would be lovely. Thank you, darling.’ Then my memory began to snap into focus, and I asked urgently, ‘Is Lulu here?’

He was already halfway down the stairs. ‘She’s been in her room all afternoon. She’s watching YouTube videos about nurse training. I’m keeping out of her way in case she tries to practise first aid on me.’

Thank God for that. Perhaps only Barney would realise the state I was in.

I struggled to my feet and made it to the ground floor loo, where to my relief I didn’t throw up.

Then I went downstairs to find Barney. The kitchen was tidy – a surprise, because the shadow of my dream was still hanging over me. There were a few crumbs of food in Augustus’s bowl. Barney was fishing a teabag out of a mug.

‘You’re an angel,’ I told him. ‘You cleaned the kitchen and everything. Thank you.’

‘That’s all right.’ But his face was wary, and he couldn’t quite meet my eyes.

I sat down and he brought me my tea. It was stewed dark, with just a splash of milk, exactly the way I liked it.

‘Barney,’ I said. ‘About all this – this afternoon. You seeing me like that – I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay,’ he muttered. Then he added, ‘You know what Dad said, before he – you know.’

‘What was that?’

‘He said, “Take care of your mum.” And me and Lulu promised.’

Jesus. I felt my face burn with shame. At the time, I hadn’t understood what lay behind Gray’s words, but now I did. Now I knew, because of what Seren Chamberlain had told me, what taking care of his mum had meant to Gray.

Those years of looking after the person who should have looked after him. The chaos, the uncertainty. And I knew what it had led to: the decision to leave it all behind – to erase his childhood entirely. To reject his mother completely, even after she had tried to take her own life.

If I carried on like this, I’d be doing that to Barney. I’d be replaying the teenage years his father had endured. And I’d be risking my son – my precious boy – hating me and leaving me behind forever like Gray had left Louisa.

And I mustn’t – I couldn’t. This would have to change. I would have to change.

But first, there was something I needed to do to chase away the last of Gray’s demons.

FIFTY

LAUREL

I looked around my flat with satisfaction. It was no larger or more luxurious than it had been when I moved in, but it looked and felt like home – it was home. I’d printed and framed a selfie of me and Gray and put it by my bed. On my tiny dining table was a vase of bronze-and-gold chrysanthemums. The smell of roasting chicken made my mouth water, same as it used to when my mum cooked Sunday lunch, and there was champagne chilling in the fridge.

The doorbell chimed, and I opened it, expecting only one person but seeing two.

‘We were on the same train,’ Mel said, ‘so we walked over together. How nice is this?’

‘Aren’t we punctual?’ Harry handed over a bottle of wine, and Mel presented me with a box of chocolates. ‘We had to be. We knew if we were late, dinner would be cremated instead of just burned.’

‘Stop it!’ I scolded. ‘I’ll have you know I can follow a Delia Smith recipe as well as millions of other people. I’d offer you the grand tour, but it’ll only take about ninety seconds.’

‘Given we’ve waited months for it, it’ll be worth it,’ he said.

I showed them around and they exclaimed over everything – how lovely the view of lights and a bit of pond from my balcony was, how clean my bathroom was, how lucky I was to have storage space for a hoover and even an ironing board.

‘Not that I actually own an ironing board,’ I said. ‘I haven’t ironed anything for about twenty years.’

‘But you certainly hoover,’ Mel said. ‘It’s all spotless.’

‘Clearly Laurel’s got a secret wife she’s not told us about,’ Harry teased, ‘who’s done all of the actual work.’