‘He clearly isn’t The One,’ Aaliyah said. ‘The Actual One, if she ever meets him, will be someone who doesn’t take her away from her friends. Every time. Literally. The first time she meets someone who she really likesandwho’s willing to hang out with us, we’ll know that he’s actually going to be good for her. Also, Rupert is not a good name.’
‘I don’t think we should be name-ist,’ Lily said automatically.
‘I mean, fine, whatever,’ Aaliyah said. ‘Oh, okay, you’re right. Her Actual One might be called Rupert and obviously a lot of Ruperts must be nice, but I just don’t like the name. Can’t help it.’
‘Fair enough,’ Lily said. ‘I think.’
‘And this Rupert really is awful,’ Tess said. ‘I mean, she told him that it was the night before your granny’s funeral, and he told her that if she wanted to see him again she’d put him above seeing the friends she already sees all the time.’
‘Total arse.’ Aaliyah nodded. ‘I give it a month tops before she finds out that he’s been sleeping with someone else and she’s devastated and we have to pick up the pieces. Anyway, enough about Meg’s love life. How are you doing, Lily? Are you coping?’
No, Lily was not coping. She felt like even smiling was too big an effort right now, let alone being her usual self.
‘Come here.’ Tess moved round the table and drew her into a hug. Oh, God. Lilycouldjust let herself weep and weep on Tess’s shoulder, and Tess and Aaliyah would both be there for her, she knew that, and maybe it would help, except then she’d have lost who she was, or rather who she’d become. And if she let herself crumple now, how would she gather herself together again? Other people didn’t comfort her, or look after her, the way she was now.Shelooked afterthem. The only person who’d ever properly looked after her had been her granny. Oh,God.
Lily allowed herself a couple of moments to cry,reallycry, against Tess, and then she did a gigantic sniff, a snort if she was honest, to stop herself. She started coughing and spluttering and Aaliyah whacked her on the back.
‘Are you okay?’ the other two asked her in unison.
‘I’m fine. Literally just choked on my own snot,’ Lily said, coughing, laughing and crying a bit all at once. ‘That’ll teach me to cry.’ She shook her head, did another sniff, although more cautiously this time, to avoid any more snot-choking, shook her head again, and said, ‘Where’s my wine?’
Aaliyah pushed her glass towards her and said, ‘I hope tomorrow isn’t going to be too much of a nightmare.’
‘How are you feeling about the funeral?’ Tess asked.
Lily sniffed. ‘Sad, obviously, but, you know, it is what it is and, as she said herself, we had her for eleven years longer than the doctors feared, so if you look at it like that, we’ve been lucky. Anyway, enough sad stuff. Much better not to talk about it. How’s the new job?’
Tess looked at her for a long moment and then gave her another squishy hug. ‘Always here to talk when you’re ready.’
‘Yes, always here,’ Aaliyah said. ‘But I’m guessing now’s not the time?’
Lily shook her head and then nodded, and Aaliyah said, ‘Love you, hun.’
Lily mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ If she’d tried to make an actual sound she’d have cried again.
‘So your job, Tess?’ Aaliyah said.
‘The new job’s good. My boss is shag-me-now gorgeousandsingle, there are free Mars bars in the canteen on Fridays, and the nearest pub does all-night happy hour for nurses on Wednesdays.’
Lily laughed and found her voice to say, ‘Thank you for being such lovely and understanding friends. And oh myGodwhat an amazing-sounding job.’
Twenty hours later, she was standing with her parents welcoming people to the post-funeral drinks they’d organised in a local church hall.
Matt was approaching them from the kitchen at the far end of the hall. He’d made it back from Prague, where he’d been working on and off for the last couple of months, just in time for the start of the funeral service.
‘The caterers have everything under control,’ he said. He slipped an arm round Lily’s waist and took up position next to her. Lily leaned into his gorgeous, solid warmth for a second.
‘I’m so pleased that you’re here to support Lily,’ her mother said solemnly. ‘She’s going to need all the support she can get.’ It was true. Everyone needed support at a time like this. But Lily was pretty sure that she was strong enough not to need any more support than your average bereaved person and her mother’s tone of voicereallygrated. It was exactly the same one that she’d used in the past when she was referring in hushed tones to howdelicateLily was and howworriedabout her they were; and it had felt like no one ever saw Lily as an actual person; she was always just the ill girl.
Being fair to her mother, Lilywasgrief stricken. Her grandmother had effectively brought her up and they’d been very close and Lily really couldn’t imagine the world without her in it. But she didn’t want to be defined by her grief like she used to be defined by her health, or have people talk about her in hushed tones.
Matt was looking down at her with a mixture of pity and sympathy on his face. It was so lovely of him to care so much, but so much more than she could deal with right now. ‘Would you mind just going to check that my friends are okay?’ she asked him. Tess, Aaliyah and Meg were inside the hall. They’d be totally fine but she could really do without Matt being here with her parents at this moment. She should probably have introduced him to them before, well, of course she should, but she hadn’t wanted him to witness the way her mother was with her, which was ironic because she was being even worse than usual today.
‘Of course,’ he said. He gave her shoulder a squeeze, which was nice, it really was, and obviously everyonewasgoing to feel sympathetic towards her, but he wassosympathetic, and all the sympathy andunderstandingwere dragging her down into feeling like she always had when she was ill, like people were treating her as though she was very unusual. She wasn’t. She was just a regular person going through some of life’s regular – albeit at this moment particularly shitty – shit.
‘Lily, dear.’ Doreen, one of Lily’s granny’s best friends, took Lily’s hands and clasped them to her. ‘We’re all going to miss Letitia so much. Please, please look on me as another grandmother now. I’d love you to come over and reminisce with me. And we do need to laugh as well as cry, because there are so many happy and comical memories.’
‘I’d love to.’ Lily loved the bony strength in Doreen’s hands and the glint in her eye. And the fact that she was treating Lily like a perfectly normally healthy person still. Like her best friends did. She really didn’t want to let go of Doreen.
