I ignored the questions. I had one of my own. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘Some of them were talking about how much they missed Simon. I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I had to get out of there. Why are you in bed? And why not in your own bed?’
‘And how are you feeling now? Do you want to take a Xanax?’ I hoped she wasn’t keeping count.
She ignored me and went downstairs again. It was a stand-off. If I wasn’t going to answer her questions, she wasn’t going to answer mine.
As she had grown up, our relationship had become more difficult, but this new Lucy was even more spiky and suspicious. So was I.
Lucy was always a sensitive girl. As a toddler, she was compliant and affectionate to Jack and me. Her mouth naturally turned up at the corners. She had a resting smiley face. She was smart too, quick to catch on to new ideas, and she could always outargue me using logic and facts. As exhausting as this could be, she was still a sweet girl. Despite some deviousness as a child, she was a natural empath, crying when any of her friends were hurt as if she felt their pain too. Her adolescence, though, was hard on me. She was angry that I didn’t know who her birth father was. She judged me. And it got worse as she got older. Everything that Jack said was right and I was always wrong. She tried to drive a wedge between Jack and me. I’m not sure how aware of it he was, but it was blindingly obvious to me. It was clear that Jack loved her more than he loved me. It awakened all those old feelings. Erin, Isobel Lucas, and now, my own daughter.
Lucy had visited my mother regularly and often took her shopping. She loved school and participated in all the social activities except for drama club, probably to annoy me. She had been an excellent student, a good netball player. She did a stellar Leaving Certificate. She was fiercely ambitious. She had loved going into the office every day because she was a social creature.I should have been delighted with such a high-achieving child, but the way she hung out of Jack and avoided me was irritating.
It was her fault that I was drinking again. How was I supposed to help her when I couldn’t help myself? I pulled the duvet over my head and went back to sleep.
68
At 4.30 p.m., I was still in bed. I could hear the tinkling sounds of YouTube or whatever Lucy was watching in her room. I was hungry. I had to get up and prepare us some food. I showered again first, washing every molecule of that man out of my body, my hair. How could I have slept with a stranger, again?
My feelings were confused. They had led me to that lost night with the man in the Merrion Hotel and then to the previous night. I had tried to carry on as normal, to ignore Lucy’s moods. But now I had fallen off the wagon spectacularly, twice, and reverted right back to my teenage behaviour. The shame was back, tenfold.
I dried my hair carefully and dressed in jogging pants and a clean sweatshirt. My head was still pounding. ‘Are you hungry, Lulu?’ I asked as I knocked and opened Lucy’s bedroom door. She slammed the lid of her laptop down.
‘How many times, Mum? You knock, wait for me to say enter, and then you come in, okay? And my name is Lucy.’
‘Sorry, I forgot. I wanted to check that you’re okay. Feeling better? You want to come down and help me fix dinner? Your dad will be home soon.’
‘Right, are we going to play happy families again? Do you know how bored I am with this game?’
She was a smart girl. The atmosphere in the house had not been good. I had been depressed and withdrawn since herincident. My disappearance last night and the night she told us, added to Jack’s anxiety about it, must have shaken her.
‘You’re drinking again, aren’t you?’
We had always been open with Lucy about our addictions.
‘It was a slip, that’s all. I don’t know what got into me. It won’t happen again. I’m seeing Nasrin tomorrow.’ Lucy knew her and liked her. Maybe Iwouldtry to see her tomorrow.
Lucy looked up at me, her eyes pooled with unspilled tears. ‘It’s because of me, isn’t it? You drinking, you and Dad fighting? It’s because of what happened.’
Yes, I wanted to say,it’s because of you. I shook my head. ‘I promise you that’s not true. Now,’ I said, quick to change the subject, ‘would you like a proper dinner or something simple, like beans on toast? Whatever you like. Or we could order Chinese?’
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?’
‘I had a minor slip, that’s all, and it was nobody’s fault except my own.’
‘Sure.’ She didn’t believe me.
‘Please come down when your dad gets home.’ It was selfish of me, but I needed a buffer between Jack and me tonight. ‘I love you,’ I said. Did I?
‘Whatever.’
I closed the door and crept away.
Downstairs, I drank a full litre of water, a cup of tea and a can of Coke. I texted Nasrin and asked if she was free to meet tomorrow for coffee. She was the only person who knew everything. Well, noteverything.
Jack came home. As soon as I heard the car, I called Lucy to come down. I didn’t want a showdown tonight. She hadn’t appeared by the time he came in, slinging his jacket on to the hook inside the hall door. ‘Look, Jack,’ I said, ‘you were right and I’m sorry. I had a slip, and it was bad. I ended up passed out at some partyover the other side of the city. I blacked out. I don’t remember much of it. I’ll go to a meeting in the morning. You were right all along.’
He didn’t say anything, but I knew by the set of his jaw that he was livid. Then he spoke, his voice trembling.
