He wondered if Laurie would read into that that she had contributed to his lovely week.
‘And me too,’ Laurie said. ‘I feel as if I’m fitting in more with . . . life and . . . that I’m making forward steps. I’ve had a really lovely week too. Full of nice things.’ She was looking at Molly as she said it but her words were for Pete to hear.
‘Excellent,’ said Molly and beamed. This group of people are good for each other, she thought. Sometimes the dynamics worked better than others and it always surprised her that the more motley the crew, the better the connections made. She thought that maybe these people would be leaving her, not needing her support any more soon and that both saddened and heartened her because this might be her favourite group so far. They were all especially vulnerable and yet, at the same time, surprisingly resilient.
‘It was Mother’s birthday at the weekend,’ said Maurice. ‘I thought it would hit me hard and it did . . . but not quite the body blow I expected.’
‘That’s why I suggested going out,’ put in Yvonne. ‘I hoped it might cheer him up.’
‘And it did, but I don’t think I needed cheering that much,’ Maurice went on. ‘I was dreading the date and felt that I had to mark it in some way. I took flowers to her grave, of course, and said a few words to her but . . . I presumed I’d be felled by a wave of emotion and then guilt set in when I wasn’t. Is that normal?’
‘Dates are stamped on your memory and they trigger off alerts in your brain that in turn release emotions around people,’ Molly explained. ‘You don’t need to beat yourself up because you didn’t collapse into a sad heap. You are moving on, Maurice, out of your grief but that doesn’t mean you have forgotten your mum or love her less. The unconscious mind remembers the dates even if the conscious mind has forgotten. The brain is a very complicated and clever computer, but it doesn’t always have its host’s best interests at heart.’
Maurice nodded, then said, ‘Thank you, Molly. I’ll always be grateful for this group and the sense and order it has brought to my life. And friendship and joy I never thought I’d find.’ He gave her a smile of such tenderness that it brought a lump to Molly’s throat. A picture flashed in her head of the first time he came to her group, unkempt, lost, confused and dangerously low in mood. He was a different man now and she hoped his life would be full of the contentment that had eluded him so far. Yes, these people were healing and she would miss them terribly but she would be proud to send them all into the world stronger and happier.
Sharon was thinking about adopting a dog because the woman a few doors away had to go into a home and she couldn’t take her pet with her, and wanted to talk through if she would be disrespecting Billy’s memory.
‘I think you’d be honouring Billy’s memory by giving the new dog the love you can’t give to him,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Plus you can take the dog to see the old lady. She must be quite distraught to have to let her go.’
‘She is. And I could, couldn’t I?’ said Sharon with a bright smile.
Yvonne and her daughter had had a good chat but it hadn’t gone that well, she explained. Lola had stormed out, accused her mother of lying. Everyone had expressed regret at that.
‘Then she came round to the house with a bunch of flowers yesterday.’ Yvonne turned to Molly. ‘You were right, a lot of it didn’t come as a shock, she’d seen more than I thought she had but she’d buried it because she didn’t want to see her dad in that light. I didn’t tell her everything, she doesn’t need to know it all, and I certainly didn’t tell her about the toadstool pie.’ This elicited a ripple of laughter. ‘We’ll get there or we won’t,’ she went on, ‘but I’m glad I said my piece. I’ve cried a bit this week. I should have left Des years ago. I would have coped somehow.’
Molly smiled at her. Life didn’t come with a rewind button but often she wished it did. She and Harvey could have had so many more happy years if only she could turn the clock back and they’d talked more; it would have changed their history. Words unsaid made bricks for big walls.
At the end of the session, Pete pulled Laurie to the side of the room where they couldn’t be overheard.
‘I can’t go to the quiz tonight, Laurie, I’ve got to do an extra night shift. Pay a favour back that someone did for me by swapping shifts.’ He saw the disappointment register fleetingly on her face before she overcame it.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t expect it was a ritual. I have some work to do at home anyway.’ An obvious lie.
‘I would have really liked to go,’ he added, in case she was in any doubt.
‘Those quizzes hurt my brain. I’ll be glad of the rest.’
‘Can I take you to dinner?’
He’d blurted it out, made it sound as if it hadn’t been on his mind when it had and he’d rehearsed asking it. It should have come out much better than that.
‘Oh, er . . .’ Her mouth was an ‘O’ of shock.
‘Sunday. Firenze? If you haven’t been, it’s top-notch.’
Laurie had been and she knew it was.
‘Well, that would be just lovely. Thank you.’
‘I’ll pick you up at seven? That work?’
‘It does.’
‘Okay, I have to dash off now but I’ll see you then.’
‘Yes, see you then.’
Laurie tried not to grin like a child who had just been told that Christmas was coming well ahead of schedule, but failed. She was in trouble.
She dawdled behind, looking at the lovely literary goods which filled the cabinets around the room, and waited for the others to go so she could have a private word with Molly.
‘Can I ask you something, Molly?’ said Laurie, quietly, away from the ears of Mr Singh who was busy doing the washing up.
‘Of course you can, my dear.’
Laurie opened her mouth, couldn’t find the starting point and so just leapt in. ‘When is too soon to start . . . having feelings for someone else? Asking for a friend.’ That was convincing, said the sarcastic voice inside her head.
‘There’s no right time, Laurie. Some people never want to, because the love of their life was enough and friendship adequately fills the lonely places; then again, for some people, that whole connection is an essential and they don’t want to live without it, so the answer to your question is that it’s different for everyone. Obviously people are vulnerable at the time of bereavement and feelings can run haywire; mistakes are made, but not always. Lovely, genuine people can come into our lives at any time and our hearts respond to them.’
Laurie nodded, absorbing the words.
‘My husband left me and came back into my life many years later,’ Molly went on. ‘I wouldn’t have missed having him for the world, even though I expected that world to disapprove of us being together again.’
‘My friend . . . she’s in the same boat as I am but she honestly didn’t think I’d . . . er . . . she’d be able to even consider going out with another man yet. She’s worried people will think that her . . . husband hasn’t even been gone a year and his parents would hit the roof if they found out.’