Then She Was Gone Page 9

  “I’m superexcited,” she says.

  “Good,” Laurel replies.

  “And how are you?”

  “Oh, I’m OK, I guess. A little the worse for wear after last night.”

  “Too much champagne?”

  Laurel smiles. “Yes. Too much champagne. Not enough sleep.”

  “Well,” says Poppy, patting Laurel’s hand, “it was your birthday after all.”

  “Yes. It was.”

  The rain is ferocious and Laurel switches on her headlights and pushes the wipers up to the top speed.

  “What have you been up to this morning?” Poppy continues in the precocious way she has that Laurel is quickly becoming used to.

  “Hm,” she replies, “well, I’ve been to see my mum.”

  “You have a mum?”

  “Yes, of course! Everyone has a mum!”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well, no, maybe not one you can see. But you have a mother. Somewhere.”

  “If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes total sense.”

  Laurel frowns at her passenger. “So, what about New York? I can’t see it. Neither can you. Does that mean it doesn’t exist?”

  “That doesn’t count. We could see New York on a thousand webcams right now. We could call someone up in New York and say please send me a photo of New York. But with my mum, well, I can’t see her on a webcam or in a photo, I can’t call her up, I can’t even go and look at her remains in a graveyard. So my mum does not exist.”

  Laurel feels thrown for a minute and breathes in sharply. “Would you like her to exist? Do you miss her?”

  “No. I never even think about her.”

  “But she was your mum. You must think about her sometimes, surely?”

  “Never. I hated her.”

  Laurel glances at Poppy quickly before returning her gaze to the road in front of her. “Why did you hate her?”

  “Because she hated me. She was mean and ugly and neglectful.”

  “She can’t have been that ugly, to have had a daughter as pretty as you.”

  “She didn’t look anything like me. She was horrible. That’s all I remember. Horrible and she smelled of chips.”

  “Chips?”

  “Yes. Her hair . . .” She peers through the rain-splattered windscreen. “It was red. And it smelled of chips.”

  Laurel can’t quite form a response. This awful woman with greasy hair sounds so far removed from anything she’d have imagined as a mother for this self-assured, groomed, and brightly shining girl. Not to mention as a romantic partner for Floyd. But then she remembers the photos she’d found online of Floyd when he was younger and rather more seedy-looking and she remembers that everyone blossoms at a different point in their life: clearly Floyd is blossoming right now and maybe his life was once much, much darker.

  “Would you say that your father is happier now than he was then, Poppy?”

  It’s a leading question but she needs an answer. She’s only known Floyd for a couple of weeks. He’s without context, a man who walked into a cake shop and changed her life from the outside in. She’d love a little insight from someone who’s been on the inside for a long time.

  But what she gets is not what she expects. Instead of offering bland reassurances Poppy says, “What’s happy got to do with anything? Look, we’re here for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You do know that, don’t you? People try and make out there’s a greater purpose, a secret meaning, that it all means something. And it doesn’t. We’re a bunch of freaks. That’s all there is to it. A big bunch of stupid, inconsequential freaks. We don’t have to be happy. We don’t have to be normal. We don’t even have to be alive. Not if we don’t want to. We can do whatever we want as long as we don’t hurt anyone.”

  Laurel exhales audibly. “Wow,” she says. “That’s some philosophy you’ve got there.”

  “It’s not a philosophy. It’s life. Once you learn how to look at the world, once you stop trying to make sense of it all, it’s blindingly obvious.”

  Laurel turns quickly to look at Poppy. “You’re a very unusual girl, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” says Poppy firmly. “I am.”

  In the shopping center they head straight to Nando’s for something to eat. Laurel skipped lunch after seeing her mother and now she’s starving.

  “How do you get on with SJ’s mum?” she asks as they sit and wait for the food to be delivered.

  “Kate?”

  “Is that her name?”

  “Yes. Kate Virtue. She’s nice. I like her. She’s not very clever, but she’s very sweet and kind.”

  “And SJ? Are you two close?”

  “Ish. I mean, we’re very different.”

  “In what sort of ways?” Laurel asks, thinking that they’re both certainly rather strange.

  “Well, she’s an introvert, I’m an extrovert. She’s good at art. I’m good at maths. She cares about everything. I care about nothing. She’s humorless. I’m hilarious. She’s not close to Dad. I’m superclose to Dad.” She smiles.

  “And why do you think that is?”

  She shrugs. “I guess I’m just more like him. That’s all.”

  They stop talking as their food is delivered. Laurel watches her for a moment, studies the intensity of her focus on a bottle of ketchup, the way her forehead bunches into lines, and suddenly she finds herself thrown headfirst out of her own continuum and into a moment from her past. She is here, in this very spot, with Ellie. She doesn’t know where Jake and Hanna are in this isolated vignette; maybe it’s an INSET day at Ellie’s school? But she is sitting here and Ellie is sitting there and everything is exactly the same but completely different. Her head spins for a second and she grips the edge of the table and breathes deeply to center herself. She blinks and looks again at Poppy and now she is Poppy. Definitely Poppy. Not Ellie.

  Poppy has not noticed Laurel’s brief moment of extracorporeal time travel. She bangs the ketchup bottle to dislodge some sauce and then replaces the lid.

  “I’m really looking forward to meeting your family tomorrow night,” she says. “Do you think they’ll like me?”

  Laurel blinks slowly. “I’m surprised you care,” she says drily.

  “I don’t care,” Poppy replies. “I’m just interested in your opinion. Caring and being interested are two very different things.”

  “Yes,” says Laurel, smiling. “Yes. They’ll like you. You’ll be a breath of fresh air.”

  “Good,” says Poppy. “That’s nice. I love being with other people’s families. I sometimes wish . . .”

  Laurel throws her a questioning look.

  “Nothing,” says Poppy. “Nothing.”

  Laurel takes Poppy into New Look. She takes her into Gap. She takes her into H&M and Zara and Top Shop and Miss Selfridge. But Poppy refuses to countenance anything fashionable. Eventually they find themselves in the John Lewis childrenswear department where Poppy heads steadfastly toward a rail of printed jersey dresses.

  “These,” she says. “I like these.”

  “But don’t you already have a dress like this?” Laurel asks, thinking of something she’d seen her wearing that weekend.

  “Yes,” Poppy replies, pulling a dress sideways from the rail. “I’ve got this one. But they’ve got it in another print now. Look.” She pulls another dress from the rail. “I don’t have this one.”

  Laurel sighs and touches the fabric of the dress. “It’s very pretty,” she says, “but I thought we were going to, perhaps, break you out a bit, you know, of your usual style.”

  Now Poppy sighs. She looks mournfully at the dress and then up at Laurel. “We did say that, didn’t we?”

  Laurel nods.

  “But all that other stuff. In the other shops. It’s all so trashy. And scruffy.”

  “But you’re young, and that is the joy of being young. You can wear anything and look amazing in it. Scruffy
looks great when you’re young. So does cheap. And trashy. You can save all the smart stuff for when you’re my age. Come on,” she urges. “One more whizz round H&M? For me?”

  Poppy beams and nods. “Yes,” she says. “Fine.”

  They pick out patterned leggings, a soft, slashed-neck sweatshirt, a brushed-flannel checked shirt, a fitted T-shirt with a mustache printed on it and a gray party dress with a chiffon skirt and jersey bodice.

  Laurel stands outside the cubicle, as she has stood outside so many cubicles for so many years of her life and waits for the curtain to be drawn back. And there is Poppy, stern and uncertain in the leggings and T-shirt. “I look vile,” she says.

  “No,” says Laurel, her hands going immediately to the waistband of the leggings to center them and make them sit properly. “Here.” She pulls the flannel shirt from its hanger and helps Poppy thread her arms into the sleeves. “There,” she says. “There.” And then she removes the neat bands from the tips of Poppy’s plaits, untangles them and fans the corrugated waves of her hair out over her shoulders.

  “There,” she says again. “You look incredible. You look . . .”

  She has to turn then, turn and force half her fist into her mouth. She realizes what she has done. She has dressed this child up as her dead daughter. And the result is unnerving.

  “You look lovely,” she manages, her voice slightly tremulous. “But if you don’t feel comfortable in it, that’s fine. Let’s go back to John Lewis. We’ll get you that dress. Come on . . .”

  But Poppy does not acknowledge Laurel’s suggestion. She stands and stares at herself in the mirror. She turns slightly, from side to side. She runs her hands down the fabric of the leggings, plays with the sleeves of the shirt. She strikes a pose, and then another one. “Actually,” she says. “I like this. Can I have it?”

  Laurel blinks. “Yes. Of course you can. If you’re sure?”

  “I’m totally sure,” she says. “I want to be different. It will be fun.”

  “Yes,” says Laurel. “It will be.”

  “Maybe you could be different, too?”

  “Different? In what way?”

  “You always wear gray and black. All your clothes look like uniforms. Maybe we should find you something swishy.”

  “Swishy?”

  “Yes. Or colorful. Something with lace and flowers. Something pretty.”

  Laurel smiles. “I was just thinking the same thing myself.”

  22

  On Friday evening Laurel drives to Hanna’s flat, from where they will get an Uber together to the restaurant in Islington.

  “Wow,” says Hanna upon opening her front door. “Mum, you look gorgeous.”

  Laurel swishes the skirt of her new dress. It’s black with an Oriental print of birds and flowers. It has a halter neck, buttons down the front, and is made of silk. “Thank you!” she says. “Ellie helped me choose it.”

  An echoing silence spreads between them.

  “Oh,” says Laurel. “Did I just say Ellie?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I meant Poppy. Obviously. Sorry. All this shopping with young girls must be messing with my time lines.”

  “Must be,” said Hanna.

  “And you look lovely, too,” Laurel says, trying to leave her faux pas as far behind her as possible. “Have you had your hair done?”

  “Yes, I had a cut and blow-dry on Wednesday.”

  For your big romantic night out with T, no doubt, Laurel thinks but does not say. “Very nice. I like it that length.”

  They sit in a companionable silence in the back of the minicab. It has always been thus with Hanna. She rarely feels the need to converse. It’s taken Laurel a long time to lose her conviction that this is a symptom of her own failings as a mother.

  Outside the restaurant Laurel breathes in hard. They’re two minutes early and she has no idea of what lies inside, of who might be sitting at that table. It could be any number of awkward combinations of people, the most excruciating of which would be Paul, Bonny, Floyd, and Poppy. Her skin crawls at the very thought of it and she wishes she’d thought to meet Floyd elsewhere first.

  But as they are led across the restaurant toward their table in a glass room at the back, she sees that only Floyd and Poppy are seated and she breathes a sigh of relief.

  Floyd stands to greet them both. He looks incredibly attractive tonight. He is wearing a fitted ink-blue suit with a slim black tie and his salt and pepper hair is swept back off his forehead with some kind of product. And Poppy looks refreshingly normal in her new checked shirt worn over a fitted jersey dress with black leather lace-up boots. They look just right, thinks Laurel; they look like us.

  “How incredibly good to meet you,” says Floyd, his hand out to Hanna, his eyes bright with genuine pleasure.

  Hanna gives him her hand. “You too,” she says.

  Then Poppy follows suit. “You’re so pretty,” she says. “I’m so happy to meet you.”

  Hanna flushes slightly at the bluntly delivered compliment and mumbles something under her breath that Laurel can’t hear.

  They take their seats and then all get to their feet again when Paul, Bonny, Jake, and Blue arrive. Laurel turns her hands into fists and plasters a facsimile of a smile onto her face. She’s been told by both her children not to worry, that Bonny is a nice person, that she’ll like her, that she’s sweet, but still, it’s a huge moment and magnified tenfold by the presence of her own boyfriend and the impending introductions that that will involve; for a brief moment Laurel feels as though she is going to turn liquid and pool to the floor.

  But other people save her from herself. Bonny heads straight to Laurel, looks her directly in the eye, presses her hands against Laurel’s forearms, then enfolds her inside her soft, welcoming body that smells of violets and talcum powder and says in the voice of a woman who has smoked and drunk and cried and sung, “At bloody last. At long bloody last.”

  Floyd meanwhile has made his way straight to Paul to shake his hand and tell him what an honor it is to meet him; there is a moment of gentle hilarity as they realize that they are dressed virtually identically and that they are in fact wearing exactly the same Paul Smith socks.

  “Look,” says Paul, pressing himself up against Floyd. “Twins!”

  As onerous meetings between exes, new partners, old partners, and various children go, Laurel thinks, it really has been at the upper end of the scale.

  She sits between Floyd and Bonny. Paul sits at Bonny’s other side with Hanna at the head of the table, and Jake, Poppy, and Blue are opposite. Blue looks sour-faced and disgusted to be here and Laurel can only imagine the emotional wrangling that Jake must have undertaken to get her to agree to coming tonight. If Blue had her way, they would never leave their cottage.

  But Blue is the only dark point in the proceedings. Laurel looks around the table and sees a best-case scenario. No one would ever guess, she thinks, no one would know how weird this is, how extraordinary. Even Hanna is smiling as she chats with her dad and opens his gift to her.

  A waiter brings two bottles of preordered champagne and fills all their glasses. It feels as though someone should get to their feet to raise a toast to the birthday girls, but there is hesitation because, of course, who should it be? Without Floyd, Paul would be the obvious candidate: father to one, ex-husband to the other. But with Floyd it’s not so clear-cut, and the hesitation builds and builds until suddenly, unexpectedly, Poppy gets to her feet.

  She grips her half-glass of champagne between her hands and looks around the table from person to person, her focus not wavering. “I’ve only known Laurel for a couple of weeks,” she begins, perfect diction, unerring poise. “But in that time I’ve got to know her well enough to consider her to be a true and beautiful friend. She’s so kind and so generous, and my father and I are so lucky to have her in our life. And now I can see that she is not the only lovely person in her family. I know I’ve only just met you all, but I can feel how much you all love e
ach other and I feel honored to be a part of all this. To Laurel”—she raises her glass—“and to Hanna. And to happy families!”

  There’s a brittle silence, just long enough to acknowledge the strangeness of Poppy’s pitch-perfect speech, the irony of her comment about happy families, before everyone else raises their glasses and says, “To Hanna, to Laurel, happy birthday.”

  Paul catches Laurel’s eye from the other end of the table and throws her a conspiratorial whatthefuck look. She smiles tightly at him. She wants to join in with his wry judging but she feels strangely loyal to Poppy. She’s young. She has no mother. She doesn’t go to school. She doesn’t know.

  Bonny turns to her as they all put down their glasses and says, “I hope you know I’ve been wanting this to happen for an awfully long time.”

  Bonny has an unruly face: a wide mouth that moves in all directions at once, a dip and a curve in her nose, one eyebrow sits higher than the other, and her chin has a scar running through it. But it all works together somehow and Laurel can see that she is beautiful.

  “Yes,” says Laurel. “I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t ready before. It was never anything to do with you. I promise.”

  Bonny’s hand covers hers. Her nails are short and painted red. “Of course I know that. And Paul has never spoken about you in any way that wasn’t positive and generous. I’ve always understood. And I understand now, too. You’re moving on, because you can. You couldn’t before. There’s a right time for everything. Don’t you think?”

  Laurel nods and smiles and thinks, Well, maybe not. Maybe, for example, there’s not a right time to lose your child. But she doesn’t say it because this nice woman is trying her hardest and this is an important conversation, one that will set the tone for a relationship that could last the rest of her life.

  Paul reaches across and passes Laurel a wrapped gift. “Happy birthday,” he says.

  Laurel tuts. “Oh Paul,” she says, “you didn’t have to. That’s just . . .”

  “It’s nothing, really.”

  “Shall I open it now?”

  He shrugs. “Yes. Why not.”

  She unpeels the paper and uncovers a book. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.