Sharon was nodding too. ‘I caught a train to Sheffield and I forgot to get off. Ended up in Nottingham. I don’t know how I managed to do that. I even remember pulling into Sheffield and it not registering that I’d landed.’
‘What about you, Peter?’ asked Molly. ‘What happened to you that made you ask?’
‘Sometimes I had dreams about my wife being alive that were so vivid, I thought they were real, and it was reality and the accident that were the lie,’ he replied.
‘That’s so typical, Peter. Have you been feeling very disorientated, Laurie?’ asked Molly.
Laurie swallowed, prepared to answer. ‘My head is caught up on so many stupid details about the accident Alex was in and it won’t let go of them. Conflicting facts that are like oil and water and they won’t mix into one truth.’
‘Like what, can you say?’ asked Molly.
‘Like—’ Laurie started and then closed up immediately. She couldn’t give details, not now. She’d felt fine telling Pete about it in the pub but when she got home, she’d begun to think about all that she’d said to him, and cringed in horror at such candour. ‘Oh, just minutiae, too much of it.’ A ring that didn’t fit, yet inscribed with a message meant for her alone. A cruise for Mr and Mrs Wilder. Bank statements sent to his parents. No champagne. ‘Don’t be late home, Laurie. There’s something important I have to tell you.’
She had exhausted herself trying to remember how he sounded when he rang her and every time she came to a different conclusion. She’d been excited when she heard the message, presumed it was something special but since then, she’d wondered if she had overlaid her expectations onto his tone. She wished she still had it on her phone because then she could have listened to it reasonably and might have been able to decipher what sort of ‘something important’ his tenor intimated – serious, frivolous? But she’d deleted it as soon as she’d played it, as was her habit.
Yvonne’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.
‘I think you might have gathered that I didn’t have a very happy marriage. I did all my crying when Des was alive so I didn’t have any tears left when he died. There were times in my life when I’ve felt insane enough to do terrible things but now I feel as compos mentis as I could ever be. My snow globe’s settled for the first time ever, I think.’ Her voice was quiet but commanding as she continued. ‘I’m sorry about losing it a bit last week. You were talking about that lass who was expected to take the place of her mother in her dad’s bed and . . . and you might as well have been talking about me. That’s why I flipped. I married Des to get away from a house of men who had no barriers. I thought Des would be my salvation and he was my sodding damnation – talk about falling from a frying pan into a fire. I got sick of telling people I’d walked into doors or fallen down the bloody stairs. I lost a child because of what he did to me but I couldn’t leave because I had nowhere to go. And that’s why I can’t cry. Because I’m glad he’s dead, I hated the horrible bastard.’
There was a momentary pin-drop silence then Molly came to sit beside her and Yvonne reached for her hand, for strength.
‘I once cooked him toadstools from the garden in a chicken and mushroom pie hoping I’d kill him after he split my lip open, but it had absolutely no effect on him at all apart from curing his constipation,’ said Yvonne, with a hiccupped hoot of laughter. ‘I always thought the devil must be keeping him alive. But then he must have pissed him off as well because he went arse over tit down the stairs and broke his miserable neck. I used to dread hearing his feet walking up them stairs when he came from the pub but that night when I heard the bump bump bump bump, I prayed that he’d knocked himself out cold and he’d be in hospital for a few days and give me a rest. After five minutes of silence, I had to get up and check and I knew as soon as I saw him that he’d gone. And I’ll never go to heaven because the first thought that came to my head was . . . I’ve won the sodding lottery. That’s insanity for you, love.’
Her head fell into her chest and she began sobbing hard. Maurice put his arm around her, Sharon supplied tissues, Molly carried on holding her hand.
Poor Yvonne, thought Laurie. During her time as a solicitor, she’d seen some horrific domestic abuse cases come through the doors of Butler and Jubb, read statements of how vile people could be to each other. It never failed to shock her and just when she thought she’d seen it all, something else came along to trump it.
No one minded that Yvonne poured out her soul, wept, expunged tales of how miserable her life had been living with Des. How she’d hidden as much as she could from her daughter, pretended things were her fault when they weren’t so Lola could be protected from how much of a beast her father was.
‘He never touched a hair on her head though, so he did have some control over how much of a rotten twat he was. I’d have knifed him dead if he’d as much as raised his hand towards her,’ said Yvonne. ‘But at the same time he couldn’t be arsed making it nice for her at Christmas or her birthday – it was always me and he took the credit.’
‘You need to tell her the truth,’ said Maurice.
‘I’d break her heart,’ said Yvonne.
‘You don’t have to tell her every detail,’ put in Mr Singh. ‘But your own relationship with your daughter needs to be on the right footing. Don’t live a lie any more. You have suffered more than enough, Yvonne.’
‘Do you really think so?’ croaked Yvonne.
‘Children see more than you think they do. Don’t be shocked if what you tell her doesn’t come as a complete surprise,’ this from Molly.
Yvonne sniffed. ‘She loved him, though. I don’t want to destroy her.’
‘You won’t,’ said Molly, ‘but you need to tell her a little more of the truth than you have done already or it will carry on destroying you.’
‘Sorry, everyone,’ said Yvonne. ‘I’ve taken over this meeting tonight. I didn’t mean to.’
‘My goodness, Yvonne, that’s what we are here for,’ said Maurice. ‘It’s a support group. I for one feel so much better for it than I ever imagined I could. I loved my mother but she wasn’t very kind to me and I was never really sure why I blighted her life so much. She used to say that I’d ruined everything and if it wasn’t for me she’d be happy, but never gave me any reason why that should be, other than I was born. I am totally aware of how cold my mother was, yet I did love her. But I feel positive about this new phase of my life. I have a set of friends now—’ he smiled at them all ‘—and my first cat.’
‘Do any of you believe in the afterlife?’ asked Yvonne. ‘I’m worried that Des is up there waiting for me so he can thump me.’
‘Yes, I believe in it, Yvonne,’ said Molly. ‘And I think it is a place of peace. When my husband died there was so much love in the room that I could almost touch it. It convinced me that he had gone on to somewhere full of goodness where hate and fear and pain do not exist.’
‘Look at the time,’ said Sharon. ‘Where’s it gone tonight?’