‘I will,’ says the cosy lady sitting between me and Ariel. ‘I’m Eileen and this has been a really hard week. Last week was so good. I was walking and doing my garden. I did my Daisy rituals, obviously: went to the grave, put flowers on it, prayed. But this week is different. Sometimes it comes and goes like that – you’d think I’d be used to the ups and downs. I know you all know it you have heard me say so before. This week is difficult. It’s the twentieth year school reunion and she’d have loved that. Daisy was brilliant at school, brilliant. She wasn’t wildly sporty or terribly academic like that but they loved her, they all came to the funeral, everyone in her class. They were genuinely heartbroken. But that wasn’t what made me think of it,’ said Eileen and out of the corner of my eye I can see she’s starting to cry wordlessly.
Equally wordlessly, Ariel opens her backpack, finds tissues and hands a handful to Eileen who mops her eyes. ‘There was a car death on the news the other night and I don’t know why it hit me but ... The person was a teenage boy not a girl but I just kept thinking of Daisy and how Daisy had so much life in her and now it’s gone. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that. I’m sorry,’ she holds up a hand, still crying silently. It’s like the tears are such a part of her that she just lets them flow out. ‘I know I’m trying to say the right things and convince myself all the time that I can get through, that we can get through. I mean Ken just goes into these silences sometimes, for weeks on end, but we manage. We have the dogs and, and ...’ Eileen’s voice trails off as if she can’t think of anything else to say. ‘I miss her,’ she says finally.
Reaching across me, Ariel’s hand is now clutching Eileen’s larger, older one and I think I might cry myself but I can’t. I’ve never heard anything like this except on the TV when people talk about children dying. I can’t even allow myself to think about it. There are so many questions I want to ask Eileen, like:what age was your daughter and what happened and did they get whoever hurt her in the car because if the person responsible goes to prison that must help?
But I can’t ask anything. Because she’s in so much pain and to ask would be to add to that. And even if the culprit is in jail, so too is Eileen. There is nothing simple about this pain: it’s layered. It can’t be solved. Eileen lives with it, day by day and this room helps.
I feel ashamed to think I imagined this room would be full of nuts. It’s a room of healing. Ariel was right.
Nobody speaks for a while: it’s as if we are all in silent communal prayer, the type of spiritual prayer that’s sending love and hope towards Eileen. A young guy with a shaved head and quite a lot of tattoos has got up and he brings a cup of tea over to Eileen and swaps it for her existing one.
‘That’ll be cold,’ he says gruffly.
‘Thanks, Shane,’ she says, ‘thank you, I feel better. Needed to get it out – better out than in.’ She sighs. ‘I wish Ken had come with me but he doesn’t see the point in this raking it over, talking about it again.’
This time, I pat her hand. I have no wisdom to offer but my presence.
Eileen smiles. ‘That’s me done,’ she says and everyone looks around, waiting for the next person to speak.
‘I had a good week,’ pipes up Ariel. ‘It was a gift. I didn’t feel sad or scared. Imagine, I didn’t feel scared,’ and she beams round at everyone. I wonder briefly if Ariel is not quite all there. But when she starts talking again I realise that she’s every bit there, she’s just suffering.
‘There was another of those syringe robberies in town. I just saw it on the internet and I didn’t let it get to me, I said no, not going to happen.’ She says that in asing-song sort of voice and I’m not sure I believe her. ‘So I went to my friend’s house, the one with all the cats.’
Everyone laughs. This is clearly anin-joke.
‘I stayed there for a few days. We even went out and I stayed late, till nine o’clock.’
‘Hey,’ say a few people, ‘way to go, Ariel.’
Ariel looks at me. ‘I know nine is not very late in the real world but it is for me. It happened after nine and I just keep trying to get past that barrier. Like nothing bad will happen before nine o’clock and after, I have to be scared.’
She turns to me, clearly finished.
‘Everyone, this is Freda. Do you want to talk, Freda?’ she says. ‘You don’t have to. It’s totally up to you, you can just sit in and see how you feel.’
Suddenly I know I can’t lie to these people.
‘My name isn’t Freda. It’s actually Freya and I’m sorry I lied.’ Nobody looks shocked or angry. Their faces are still warm, interested. ‘I – I feel so stupid. I have this job that puts me on TV sometimes and so some people recognise me and I just wanted to be able to come in here and be normal.’ I laugh with a hint of bitterness. ‘Or try to be normal.’
‘Hey,’ says Steve, ‘none of us are normal, why should you be any different?’
And there’s more laughing.
‘I was mugged over four months ago and I can’t sleep at night.’ The words spill out of me. ‘I’m angry and stressed and I’mdifferent. I don’t know how else to explain it, it sounds really stupid but ...’
‘It’s not stupid,’ says Eileen.
‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘I want to stop feeling different from everyone else.’
I’m waiting for someone to give me some wisdom but they don’t. They’re silent, and I can feel them, their love and kindness. They understand.
And then I allow myself to cry because I’ve been bottling it up for so long and it wants to come out, now.
Eileen’s arms are around me, Ariel is patting my back and I feel safe.
Lorraine and I had made three trips back to my car in the underground car park.
‘We need one of those old lady shopping trolley yokes,’ said Lorraine on the last trip, when our arms were killing us both and I could feel the ache in my neck from setting the whole thing up, prepping, then anhour-long demo and Q & A afterwards, signing books, talking about recipes to people who wouldn’t go home, then packing it all up again and schlepping it all back to my car.
