‘D’ya know, you’re an amazing wife, Lou, not like Siobhan because she’s going to carve out Tommy’s heart with his blood donor pencil because he’s drunk. She’ll want diamond earrings when it’s her fiftieth, but I told Tommy that you don’t need that sort of thing. You’re a trooper. You don’t expect anything. You don’t even mind me not dancing! Good old Lou, I told him. I could buy her a pot plant from the supermarket and she’d be happy because she just doesn’t need—’
‘I do!’ shrieked Lou, turning on him. ‘I do need things! I need proof that people care about me just like everyone else does! Why does everybody think I don’t need proper flowers or earrings or people to say, “Thank you for helping me, Lou?” I deserve thanks! I deserve birthday presents!’
Her head was exploding with shock and grief. Why had everything gone so wrong?
Ned was too drunk to comprehend this long, complex complaint but he stared at the flowers Lou was holding in her hand.
‘Oszkar and Bettina got you those?’ he asked, pointing. ‘Oszkar phoned, said they couldn’t come – I forgot to tell you – I thought they’d send something, but not those.’
Ned, buoyed up on unaccustomed alcohol, laughed at the hopelessness of the bouquet.
Lou looked down at the flowers. ‘Yes, they did send these,’ she said. ‘This appalling bouquet wouldn’t make it to the website under any circumstances. It’s so obviously an emergency, we-have-nothing-prepared-but-this-will-do bouquet. Not even the twenty-five-euro one. Oszkar and Bettina didn’t think I deserved even the twenty-five-euro bouquet for my fiftieth – but it’s still better than what you got me, isn’t it.’
She glared at Ned, tears in her eyes.
The music system cranked up again and the people who’d watched the whole Lillian saga at the back of the barn and followed Lou’s progress to the door did their best to look away. But it was hard. The entire night was like a live episode ofOutraged Housewives of Beverly Hillscombined withLong Lost Family: The Intro. Nobody could tear their eyes away.
The waiters hovered at the cake trolley, unsure what to do next: cut it up or wheel it back into the kitchen.
‘I’ll get you flowers,’ said Ned, slurring a bit. ‘Ouch!’ He staggered back as his mild-mannered wife began to hit him with her bouquet.
‘But you didn’t get me flowers at the right time,’ shrieked Lou. ‘For future information, Ned, you buy the person flowersbeforethe party. Not after. Before.Formy birthday, you big moron. It was my birthday today. Although nobody, my mother included, seems to realise that.’
‘Whasha matta?’ asked Tommy, arriving in time to get a belt of the green stems for his trouble.
‘Mum,’ said Emily, appearing with Gloria and Toni by her side and Simone and Evan bringing up the rear. ‘We’re leaving. Will you come with us?’
‘No,’ said Lou. ‘I need to be alone. I need to think.’
She set off quickly before anyone could follow her. She couldn’t bear to be with anyone right now.
Outside the barn, she saw a taxi which had just disgorged its passengers and she threw herself into it.
Why has nobody ever told me this before, she asked Mim silently.Why now? Why explode my world now? Why would Mum hurt me like that?
Chapter Nine
Lou felt the wind on Whitehaven Beach whip her face and heard her sister speaking to her.
‘What do you say to a cup of coffee? It’s chilly and we need something warm.’
‘Don’t want to go home,’ said Lou, aware that she was speaking the way a child might. ‘I don’t want to see anyone after last night. The whole town will know by now. I might as well be on the front of the local paper.’
‘I know.’ Toni squeezed her sister’s arm. ‘I know, but—’
‘I’m not going,’ Lou interrupted. ‘I can’t.’
‘Then ... how about we take off, just the two of us?’ Toni said, surprising her utterly.
‘And go where?’
‘Anywhere we want,’ said Toni. ‘Nobody but us. We justescape.’
Lou felt some of the weight on her heart lift. As if a little light still glowed within her.
‘Just leave ...?’ she asked.
‘Let’s just go,’ said Toni eagerly. ‘Everyone will be fine without us.’
