Chapter 21
21
GEMMA
The next Monday when Crystal and I had lunch together, she was unusually quiet. Even her clothes were less flamboyant than usual, as if she’d dressed to reflect her mood – a long, plain brown skirt and cream blouse, and a black cardigan thrown on carelessly when we left the building. I thought perhaps she was tired after her weekend – presuming she’d been to see her brother or perhaps had him to stay with her, and maybe they’d had a couple of late nights. But when she remained almost silent while we were eating, I asked her if she was feeling OK.
‘Yes,’ she said abruptly. Then, looking up at me, she shook her head and apologised. ‘Sorry, I’m just… I’ve just got a bit of a headache, that’s all.’
‘Oh, you poor thing. I’ve got some Paracetamol in my bag if you?—’
‘No, it’s OK, thanks.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’m just not very good company, sorry.’
‘No need to apologise. Did you have a good weekend, though? Poppy and I missed you.’
She shook her head again. ‘Not really. I wish I’d spent it with you and Poppy.’
‘Oh.’ I stared at her. She looked upset, and not just in the way someone with a headache might do. It was something else, obviously – something about the weekend. I put a hand on hers. ‘I’m sorry to hear it wasn’t fun?—’
‘Far from it,’ she muttered, toying with her couscous salad.
I didn’t know quite what to say. I didn’t want to be nosy, to ask questions – she’d surely tell me if she wanted to – but she’d been there for me whenever I’d been upset about Jack, and I wanted to be an equally good friend in return.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked gently. ‘I can see something’s upset you, love. You don’t have to tell me, obviously, but you know I’m here for you if you want to talk it over.’
‘Thanks,’ she said gruffly, and I was surprised to see there were tears in her eyes. It was so unlike her, I jumped up and went to put my arms around her. But she quickly wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan and muttered that there wasn’t anything I could do. ‘It’s just something I have to live with,’ she added quietly, almost as if she was talking to herself.
She sighed, and nibbled a forkful of lettuce, looking like she was trying to convince me she was OK now – but it was pretty obvious she wasn’t.
‘You’ve helped me so much, Crystal,’ I said, sitting back down and talking to her quietly. ‘So I hope you know, that if ever you needed any help or advice yourself, or just someone to confide in – someone to have a moan about things with – I’ll always do what I can, and whatever it is, it’d never go any further. OK?’
She nodded without meeting my eyes. And then, to my surprise and dismay, she suddenly threw down her fork and began to cry properly.
‘Oh, Crystal, what is it?’ I said, feeling quite alarmed now. ‘Please tell me – there must be something I can do to help.’
She shook her head, almost violently. ‘There isn’t. And I can’t tell you – you’d hate me if I did.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’d never hate you! It doesn’t matter what it is?—’
‘Oh, Gemma, please stop being so nice to me. Please don’t make me feel any worse, any more guilty than I already do!’
I sat back in my chair, shocked. ‘Guilty? Why on earth would you feel guilty?’
‘Because you don’t know the truth about me. I’ve been lying to you, Gemma.’
‘Lying to me?’ I stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’
But she just kept her head down, sniffing over her salad, wiping her eyes, blowing her nose, doing anything, it seemed, rather than look at me or answer.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked again, more insistently. ‘Lying about what ?’
Finally, slowly, she seemed to have got herself together. She took a few deep breaths, and looked up at me. There was something in her eyes I didn’t quite recognise. Was it fear? Regret? Anxiety? Whatever, I had a feeling she was wishing she’d never let those words about lying out of her mouth.
‘My name’s not really Crystal,’ she said – and stopped, waiting for me to ask the obvious question.
‘OK,’ I said slowly. ‘So what is it?’
‘Suzanne. Suzie.’ Again she stopped, just looking at me, waiting, as if she was expecting a reaction.
‘Right.’ I stared back at her. ‘But you call yourself Crystal? Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
For what felt like ages, we sat and stared at each other. She’d stopped crying, but her face was expressionless, and I was finding the whole exchange frankly quite odd. Did it matter that she called herself by a different name? Was that a crime?
‘Is it… your middle name, or something?’ I asked eventually, as the awkward silence was going on for so long I was beginning to feel almost freaked out by it.
‘No. It was the self-help group. Everyone who joins is given a kind of pseudonym, in case they don’t want people to know who they are. Most people who join have been going through some sort of crisis, and some are… kind of shy about revealing themselves, you know?’
I nodded. ‘I see. Yes, I get that.’ She was talking more normally now, sounding… somehow relieved, as if she suddenly felt she was on safe ground. The words were almost rushing out of her.
‘There’s a woman called Breeze, and a young girl called Sunshine, and a man called Flint, and – well, if they want to reveal who they are, it’s up to them, but we all use our Planet Earth names at the meetings.’
‘Planet Earth names. That’s rather nice.’
‘So that’s why I got called Crystal.’
‘Well, it’s a nice name anyway.’ I smiled. It was quite obviously not just her name that she was feeling upset about that day, and I had no idea why she should feel guilty for not telling me. ‘Presumably you preferred it to, um, Suzie.’
‘Yes, I did. So I decided to keep it.’
‘And are you happy for me to still call you Crystal?’
‘Yes. Everybody does, now.’
‘Well, that’s fine, then, isn’t it? I wouldn’t exactly call it a lie.’ I laughed. ‘Lots of people call themselves by different names.’
‘Yes, but – well, look, now we’re getting to be such good friends, I just felt a bit bad about not telling you my real name, that’s all. Sorry for making a fuss. It… as I said, it wasn’t a good weekend, and I suppose I’m just feeling a bit down.’
‘Ah, I’m really sorry your weekend was a disappointment. And I won’t ask any questions if you’d prefer to keep… whatever happened… to yourself.’ I paused, and then suggested as brightly as I could, ‘Why don’t you come round tonight and we’ll watch a film or something?’
‘Thanks, Gemma, but it’s Monday, though. The group meeting. If I don’t go, they… get worried.’
‘Really?’ I frowned, and then shrugged. It was nice that she had a supportive group, but it seemed a bit extreme that she couldn’t even miss a meeting occasionally. ‘Well, OK – you’re welcome another night, then. Whenever you want, you know that.’
‘Thanks.’ She was smiling now. ‘Perhaps I’ll come on Wednesday, if that works for you. It’ll cheer me up to see Poppy again.’
All that evening, after I’d put Poppy to bed and while I was supposed to be finishing off a blog post for a client, I sat in silence, puzzling over that strange conversation. Crystal had been so upset – something had obviously gone very wrong for her at the weekend, something she didn’t want to talk about. But the whole thing of lying to me about her name was just bizarre. She’d looked almost scared, there, for a minute, as if she half expected me to be furious about it. And the way she cheered up – as she always did – at the very idea of seeing Poppy… it was a bit over the top. Of course, it was really nice that she loved Poppy the way she obviously did, and I’d schooled myself sternly about my jealousy over the way Poppy loved her back. But I was also starting, just a little, to feel a bit used . I was starting to wonder if Crystal really wanted to be my friend as much as she said she did – as much as I thought she did – or if all she really cared about was being Poppy’s honorary ‘auntie’.
And then I remembered how much she’d helped me, how kind she’d been to me when I found out about Jack, how supportive and sympathetic she was, how nice it was of her to look after Poppy so that I could work. She was a good friend, of course she was. OK, so she had some kind of hang-up about her name – what did that matter? Perhaps she needed my support and sympathy now, and I needed to step up and give it. She could come round any time she liked, even if all she wanted to do was play with Poppy. If it made her happy, who was I to begrudge her that? I definitely needed a friend myself. We were our own mutual support group, and it was petty of me to feel jealous of her love for my daughter, just as much as it was childish to feel jealous of Poppy’s love for her.
Crystal was a bit quiet again when we had lunch the next day, but was quite obviously making a supreme effort to pretend everything was OK. And when she came round on the Wednesday evening, she seemed pretty much back to her normal self. She swooped on Poppy, picking her up and swinging her around joyfully as if she hadn’t seen her for months, and took her to play a game, waving me off almost dismissively to go upstairs and get on with my work. I heard the two of them laughing together downstairs and began to wonder if I’d imagined the distressed state she’d been in on the Monday. Again, I had to rein in my pathetic feeling of being left out, missing out on the fun, wishing I was the one who made my daughter so happy and excited instead of being boring old mum, there to feed her, mop up the tears when she was unhappy and calm her when she was cross.
As we cooked a chicken curry together, Crystal suddenly switched from talking about Poppy and how clever and sweet and beautiful she was, to quietly telling me:
‘I’m sorry about being a bit miserable the other day. It was an overreaction to something. A silly argument with someone – you know how it is – I took something too much to heart.’
It hadn’t looked, to me, at all like just being a bit miserable . But it was obvious she wanted to play the whole thing down; she was probably embarrassed now and just wanted to forget it and move on. And for me to do the same. So I went along with it.
‘Ah, no need to apologise,’ I said lightly. ‘It can be really upsetting to have an argument with someone, can’t it? As I’ve already told you, I’m always here for you if you want someone to share stuff with.’
‘I know, and I’m grateful. But honestly, it’s just too silly, and I’m over it now.’
‘Good.’ I smiled at her. I’d come to the conclusion that whatever had happened at the weekend must have been about her brother. It was probably wrong of me, because she’d now made it clear she didn’t want to talk about the silly argument she’d had, but my curiosity drove me to ask, in as innocent a voice as I could manage, ‘So how’s everything else going? Have you seen your brother lately?’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. If my hunch was right, I was risking upsetting her all over again, stirring up the memory of the argument she’d been trying to suppress. But she just looked back at me blankly for a moment before answering that no, she hadn’t seen him for months, probably wouldn’t even hear from him until Christmas, which was nothing unusual.
So it wasn’t her brother. I told myself, finally, that I had to stop speculating; whatever had happened, it was none of my business. Crystal had obviously completely forgotten – or had deliberately forgotten – that she’d pretended the whole upset had been about not telling me her real name. It was so obviously nothing to do with that, but I wasn’t about to bring it up again. Nevertheless, that aspect of it was still puzzling me. Why on earth would she have thought it was such a big deal not to tell me her real name? Perhaps I’d never know.