Chapter 39
39
GEMMA
I thought about it overnight. Was I being ridiculous? Should I just accept that Crystal was being kind by offering to drive, making my life easier, saving me the hassle of driving to her place and finding a parking space? But no matter how much I turned it over (and tossed and turned over myself in bed, worrying about it), I couldn’t see anything other than the look on her face when I’d suggested going to her place. It was panic. There was definitely some reason she didn’t want me there.
I felt so uneasy about the whole thing that I didn’t even tell Mum I was going to see the Christmas lights, let alone that I was going with Crystal. As it was, she asked me, when I took Poppy round that Friday, whether I’d taken her – and Dad’s – advice to stop Crystal going out with Poppy on her own.
‘Yes. Just for now, till I’ve had time to think it all over,’ I said.
‘What is there to think over?’ Mum insisted – but I changed the subject. I wasn’t in the mood for another long drawn-out discussion of her suspicions about Crystal.
Saturday arrived – a bright but cold day – and I made up my mind to enjoy the day out, regardless of my worries. Poppy was looking forward to it too. Although she’d loved helping with our little Christmas tree at home, and putting up a few decorations, she had no idea what to expect from ‘seeing the lights’. But when I explained that there would be a huge Christmas tree in the square in the town centre, and lights all the way along the seafront, she jumped up and down with excitement and started singing the few words she remembered of a song they’d been singing at nursery, about a Christmas tree with a fairy on it.
‘Can we go now?’ she was asking me every few minutes, and I had to explain that we were going later at lunchtime, to have a bite to eat in town, before seeing the lights in the afternoon, when it started to get a bit darker.
Just before I was due to set off to pick Crystal up, I noticed an alert on my phone, warning that traffic into our town centre was tailing back, all the way to my own area and beyond. As well as the usual pre-Christmas shopping crowds, there were road works to contend with, and – oh joy – traffic lights out, at one of the main junctions. I gave Crystal a call.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if we should actually go,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s going to be a nightmare getting there, and just as bad coming back.’
‘Oh, but we can’t disappoint Poppy now,’ she protested. She thought for a moment, and then added ‘Look, why don’t we just go on the bus?’
‘Seriously?’ I said, without any enthusiasm. I never went anywhere by bus.
‘Yes! Look, there’s a bus lane most of the way into town from where you live?—’
‘I know. It’s really annoying.’
She laughed. ‘Yes, when you’re driving, it is, but not if you’re a bus passenger. I used to use the bus all the time, a while back, when I… when I’d been ill for a while and I couldn’t drive. I still use them occasionally. It’s brilliant, much faster than driving when the roads are busy, and no worrying about parking. It made me wonder at times why I ever bothered driving. I’ve got the app on my phone. I’ll have a look at the times and message you back.’
Within minutes she’d texted me the times of the next couple of buses.
‘Text me which time bus you’re getting,’ she added, ‘and I’ll go out and get the same one when it arrives here. The stop’s just around the corner from me.’
It did seem a sensible idea.
‘Come on, Poppy,’ I called her. ‘Let’s get your coat and shoes on, we’re going on the bus.’
‘The bus ?’ she repeated, looking at me as if I’d spoken in a foreign language. ‘ All Day Long ?’
‘Yes, just like in the song!’ I agreed.
And we walked to the bus stop, singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ at the tops of our voices. She’d apparently forgotten, in the excitement, to ask if Crystal was still coming. And I’d forgotten completely to worry about the fact I’d wanted to go to Crystal’s home. I’d forgotten to worry about any of it. It was nearly Christmas, I was with my little girl and we were going on an outing. I was happy.
Of course, when we eventually pulled up at the stop nearest to Crystal’s road and she got on the bus, Poppy jumped to her feet, amazed.
‘Crystal’s here!’ she shouted.
‘Yes! She’s coming on the bus too,’ I laughed. Crystal had been right. It was more like an adventure, a proper day out. The bus wasn’t too crowded at first, but quite a lot of people got on at the next stop so I put Poppy on my lap, and Crystal came to sit next to us to allow someone else to sit down. We moved on again, and Poppy, who’d knelt up on my lap to look through the gap in the seats, said a shy little hello to whoever was sitting behind. I turned, to see it was an elderly lady wearing a bright red woolly hat, who’d got at the stop after Crystal, and she was smiling back at Poppy.
‘Hello again, dear!’ she said. And then, turning to Crystal, she added, ‘Are you taking her into town to see the lights, Mummy?’
Crystal and I both froze. I stared at Crystal, but she – wide-eyed, with a look of panic on her face – just looked back at the older woman, stammering something about having lunch and yes, seeing the lights.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, appalled by the icy tone to my voice, even as I spoke. ‘But I’m Poppy’s mother.’
‘Oh.’ The poor woman looked as if she was crumpling into her own hat. She stared from me to Crystal and back again. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought… I thought I’d seen you around here together before, so I just assumed…’ She stuttered to a stop, shook her head, apologised again and turned away, mumbling that her stop was coming up now. It was ours, too, and I took Poppy’s hand, pulling her away from the hand Crystal was offering, and followed the other passengers off the bus. As soon as we were safely off, Crystal tapped me on the shoulder. I had to struggle with myself to even look round at her, but when I did, her eyes were full of pain.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Another presumption ?’ I hissed back at her.
‘No,’ she admitted, and closed her eyes, swallowing. ‘No, I’m… I’m…’
‘You’re sorry,’ I finished for her.
Well, at least she was being honest, this time. But – what the hell? How many people around here had she pretended to be Poppy’s mother to? And why ? I couldn’t ask her, couldn’t have a proper conversation with her about it, with Poppy skipping along beside me, still singing about the wheels on the bus, excitement glowing in her eyes, her little cheeks red from the cold wind outside after the heat of the crowded bus. But for me, the day was spoilt, the excitement abruptly gone. I’d tried to think the best of Crystal, to ignore Mum’s and Dad’s worries, as well as my own, to give her the benefit of the doubt and try to convince myself that it really was just an accident that people were assuming she was Poppy’s mum. But now she’d really been rumbled. And she’d admitted it. Did she think I wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t think it was strange, or, frankly, suspicious?
Luckily Poppy was too excited to notice the tension – and the silence – between Crystal and me. When we arrived at the square and Poppy looked up at the huge, glittering, tree, her eyes lit up, and her mouth dropped open in awe.
‘It’s big!’ she said, staring up at the star on the top. Despite how cross I was feeling, I couldn’t help smiling at her innocent ability to be so impressed. A local choir was stationed beneath the tree, singing popular Christmas carols and songs – and when they announced that it was time for a couple of songs for the children, and launched into ‘When Santa Got Stuck Up the Chimney’, Poppy turned to me, almost beside herself with joy. I’d been singing this one to her at home, to make her laugh while she watched me putting our decorations up.
‘Santa up the chimney!’ she shouted gleefully. ‘Sing it, Mummy!’
It was all too easy to put aside my bad mood while my little girl was so happy and excited. We sang along together with enthusiasm, Poppy joining in where she remembered the words. Following this song was ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, another of her favourites, so it was some time before Poppy had had enough of the singing, and we all began to feel the cold from standing still in the crowd for so long.
‘Come on,’ I suggested, ‘let’s go and get some lunch.’
Over soup and a sandwich in a café just off the square, the silence between Crystal and me became more obvious, but I still couldn’t say what I needed to, with Poppy sitting at the table with us, her ears flapping. Crystal picked at her sandwich while doing something on her phone, and after a few minutes my own phone pinged with a message.
Are you still angry with me? I’m so sorry. It wasn’t deliberate. I just didn’t bother to correct her when she assumed. C. xx
I looked up at her. She was watching me, waiting for a reaction, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. I sighed and tapped a message back to her.
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t correct people who ‘assume’. It feels like you’ve been passing yourself off as P’s mum, and I don’t like it. You’ve obviously been bringing her all the way over here, near your own place, which I didn’t know about and I don’t like. I think this had better stop.
Please don’t stop me from seeing her.
I’m not saying that. But I’m starting to feel uncomfortable about you taking her out on your own.
She read the message, looked back at me and nodded. She looked pale and sad and had hardly eaten anything. I felt a flash of regret. I didn’t like being like this. But even for a best friend, she’d overstepped the mark, made me feel very uncomfortable, and I really didn’t know if I could trust her now. Why was she so obsessed with Poppy that she had to pretend to be her mum? I’d tried my best, hadn’t I, to understand and sympathise with her about having no children of her own. I’d shared my daughter with her so freely that I’d felt, at times, like Poppy preferred being with her – and still I hadn’t taken offence. But now it seemed like she’d been taking my place, behind my back. Pretending to be me. Pretending Poppy was hers. It was no good – however much it hurt her, I had to stand firm. She had to stop doing that.
I bought Poppy a cake after she’d finished her sandwich, and by the time we left the café and had started to head for the seafront, the sunshine had disappeared, replaced with dark, forbidding looking clouds.
‘All the better for seeing the lights!’ I said, making an attempt at being cheerful. It sounded forced. ‘Let’s walk all the way along the seafront to the pier. Look, Poppy, the pier looks amazing!’
‘It looks pretty,’ she said. ‘Twinkle, twinkle!’
‘Yes, the lights twinkle like stars, don’t they, Poppy?’ Crystal agreed. It seemed she’d decided to try for a pretence of normality too. ‘Oh, look! Can you see what shape those lights up there are?’
‘Father Kissmas!’ Poppy squealed.
‘And over there?’ I added, pointing.
‘Wudolph!’ Poppy did a little hop and skip in her excitement. ‘Wudolph the Weindeer!’
‘Yes!’ Crystal and I both laughed, enjoying her exuberance as she ran ahead of us a few paces to see what the next part of the display was. We glanced at each other – both smiling – and for just a moment, everything almost felt normal.
But it wasn’t. And I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to let it be, now. Not any more.