He smiles nicely. ‘I was just saying, Paula, am I right in thinking you work as a carer? At a care home?’ She nods vaguely as he continues. ‘You must be around quite a bit of loss there?’ She regards him blankly and then nods again, thinking of the three residents Vinnie, Floyd and Handsy Harry, all dying at the same time, at Christmas four months ago. How much more awful it must’ve been for their families, losing someone at that time of year. Gerald continues after a second, ‘But being around loss doesn’t mean you’re equipped to deal with this on your own. Grief can come in many forms—’
‘Grief has tentacles!’ Tilly practically shouts.
Gerald ignores her. ‘And it can make you feel very isolated sometimes, but you’re not alone in any of this. You’ve got Tilly and Seth here.’ Seb murmurs a name correction but the grief counsellor ignores him, too. ‘As we continue to work together in these sessions, Paula, I want you to have a think about what you’d like to gain as a family from our sessions. And about what you think might help you process everything you’ve been through.’ He pauses. ‘It can really help to speak to someone like me, someone with an outside perspective.’
She nods at him, suddenly feeling brave.
She’s made a decision. An actual decision!
Sheisgoing to speak to someone outside of her situation. She’s going to see Teddy again and meet the mysterious other member of The Lottery Winner Widows Club. She’s going to go. She’s really going to go.
Tomorrow.
Maybe they’ll understand.Imagineif they understood.
10
Paula takes the bus to meet Teddy, the smell of someone’s curry following her from stop to stop. It’s a pungent reminder that the twenty-one million currently burning a hole in her purse could buy her way off of public transport forever.
Not literally in her purse, of course.
In her purse she has only her bus pass, an old photo of Tilly and Seb aged five and three, and a handful of pound coins.
John always took care of their finances, especially when things got difficult and mortgages had to be taken out. So all their cards and accounts were in his name. After he died, Tilly spent a long time on the phone with the bank, getting things reissued for Paula, and it still gives her a jolt, seeing the nameMrs P. Sheldonprinted there in that lumpy lettering. Despite that, she can’t bring herself to use the card – she can’t even bring herself to hold it. Not when she knows what it represents. All that money in one place! Twenty-one million pounds sitting on that little bit of plastic inside her pocket. It feels too frightening, like too much of a risk to have it with her. So the card stays at home, sitting there on her living room dresser, looking at her reproachfully.
What would it be like to splash out on a taxi, Paula wonders. What would it be like not to have to think about bus schedulesand bus smells? To not have to check Google Maps over and over, anxiously waiting for the right place to get off? How would it feel to be reclining in the back seat of some kind of fancy saloon car right now, the feel of dark leather against her bottom? How nice it would be to escape this stale curry air, to have the window open a little. To feel cool wind on her face.
But not so much, of course, that it messes up her carefully arranged hair. It took Paula forty-five minutes to get itjust sothis morning, and it’s thin enough already without being flattened by the air outside.
She wonders again what shampoo and conditioner Teddy uses.
A taxi would be nice, but Paula can’t, not yet. She can’t remember ever taking such a liberty, enjoying such a luxury. She doesn’t feel worthy of it.
She glances down at her lap, where a slip of paper sits. She reads it again, though the words themselves are meaningless. It’s the address Teddy gave her, written in the woman’s sloping handwriting. Paula wonders about her again, feeling nervous. The woman is so dry. So American. So relaxed about murdering people.
Maybe going isn’t the right decision after all. She felt so sure of herself after the therapy session yesterday – not that she shared it with the counsellor or her family.
Whydidn’tshe tell Tilly or Seb about Teddy? Or about today’s trip? Tilly, in particular, has been very worried about Paula’s refusal to leave the house in recent weeks. She’d probably be delighted to see her finally getting out and about.
But Paula finds herself clamming up every time Tilly asks if everything’s OK. Everything is obviouslynotOK – her life and her world have been turned upside down – but shecan’t tell her daughter that. She can’t tell her the truth about how she feels or what she feels. Sometimes it’s too hard to say these things to yourself, never mind anyone else. And Tilly has always been such a worrier, so overprotective. Of course her daughter means well, but it can feel a bit . . . claustrophobic. Especially since John died. Sometimes it feels like Tilly is the mum, not Paula. It feels like there isn’t any room for Paula to think or speak when Tilly is already crowding in to anticipate her every mood.
She thinks again of how much she talked to the 111 operator. It was so much easier to speak to that stranger on the phone than to her own children. There’s something wrong with that. With her.
If she was very honest with herself, a small part of her feels quite excited about having this secret. About this private new thing her family don’t know about, strange as it all is. Paula’s always given so much of herself over to her family, she wants this to be something just for her. She doesn’twantthem to know.
‘Oh!’ Paula leaps up, realising where they are. ‘Excuse me, please,’ she adds to the tall man beside her, who sat in the seat next to her despite the bus being empty.
She catches a loud tut floating over from the driver as she rings the bell one too many times and runs for the door. After all that obsessive map checking, she almost missed her stop. Too busy thinking about whether this is a good idea and whether Teddy’s glossy hair is just the result of good genes.
Off the curry bus, Paula breathes properly at last, steeling herself for the twenty-minute walk. She spends the entire time staring down at her plimsolls, trying to work out how old they are. Has it been five years since she and John went to Clarks?Probably more like fifteen. They’re still comfortable enough – Paula does a lot of walking, especially with her job – but she has so much money now. Maybe she could buy an even more comfortable pair? Trainers and a taxi – goodness, it’s a whole new world she’s considering.
She is almost at her destination before Paula notices the overindulgent amount of greenery all around her. She’s somewhere called Godalming in the Surrey Hills. It’s an area that, despite having lived in Surrey her entire adult life, Paula has no knowledge of whatsoever. But it is undeniably beautiful.
Huge houses sit way back from the road, behind large black gates, surrounded by lush gardens. As she gets closer to the address, she can see only fields and high fences. Healthy-looking trees line the quiet, well-kept road. Paula can’t see a single pothole. She wonders about the council tax.
She spots a pair of brass gates, which open magically on her approach. Paula walks through and down an extensive driveway, feeling more than a little dazzled. A humungous red-bricked mansion comes into sight, surrounded on all sides by endless green spaces; cultivated hedges, flower gardens, water features. Paula gasps at the sight of an enormous fountain surrounded by hundreds – thousands! – of perfectly positioned peonies. She and John once had a small pond in their garden, and it got so grimy, so fast. Moby the cat kept falling in trying to catch wildlife. They had to get someone to fill it in.Thisfountain looks like it’s cleaned every day. The water is clear and algae-free. Untouched by creatures. It’s like something straight off a film set.
This is where Teddy lives? Goodness gracious. It’s beyond anything Paula could’ve imagined.
