Chapter 27
Julie’s bustling about, getting the hoover out and sorting the washing, even though I’ve told her time and again she doesn’t need to.
‘Come and sit,’ I call, and she appears in the doorway, and it’s only then that I realise she’s not her usual self. ‘What is it, Julie?’
She shakes her head. ‘The baby came. Martin and Estelle’s.’
Her ex-husband and the woman he left her for. I think back to when she told me about her miscarriages. How much she longed to be a mother.
‘Oh, Julie,’ I say, and she leans against me, her head on my shoulder.
‘It’s my sister’s birthday too. You know how some days are harder? This is one of them.’
‘Was she a big birthday sort of person?’ Dot asks. ‘Did she go in for all that? Cake and champagne and parties?’
Julie looks surprised to be asked, but not unhappy.
‘When she was younger, not at all. She had a hard time making friends, kept falling in with groups who weren’t nice to her for some reason.
One year, I think she would have been thirteen, she’d invited six girls over for pizza and a film and sleepover.
Mum had bought popcorn and bottles of Coke.
And they didn’t come. Not one of them came.
I can still remember the look on her face when she realised, about an hour after they were all due to arrive, that they’d done this on purpose.
Girls can be so awful, can’t they? Anyway, in the end Mum and Sam and I watched the film and stuffed ourselves silly with all the snacks.
But I knew she was embarrassed. Felt ashamed that her so-called friends didn’t like her enough to show up for her.
And after that, she never wanted to celebrate at all.
‘But then when she turned forty, she said to me that she couldn’t believe she’d let those bitches ruin so many of her birthdays, and after that we used to go the whole hog, just her and me, usually.
Her husband wasn’t a big drinker so he’d stay at home with their daughter while Sam and I would paint the town red.
Fancy dinners in restaurants we couldn’t usually afford. Spa days. Once, a weekend in Paris.’
‘It sounds like you were a great sister to her,’ I say.
‘I don’t know about that. I think about the times I wasn’t, you know?
The times when she asked me for something and I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – give it.
Like when I had this denim jacket she loved and she was going on her first date and she asked to borrow it, and I said no, even though I wasn’t going anywhere that night.
Just because it was mine, and I could. And sometimes, when we were adults, she’d ask me to meet her for a drink or dinner and I just wouldn’t fancy it, would just want to snuggle up on the sofa with Martin watching an old film on TV.
So I’d say no. But I can’t go back and change any of that now, can I? I just have to live with it.’
‘I can’t get over that, about her friends not coming to her party,’ Dot says. ‘What an awful, awful thing.’
Julie shrugs. ‘Teenage girls, they’re a mystery.’
‘But those things you’re talking about,’ I say, ‘the things you did. They’re nothing you should feel bad about, Julie. We’ve all done silly or selfish things like that. None of us are perfect.’
‘Yes, I suppose. It’s just… it’s hard when you know you can’t make it up to someone.’
I nod. ‘That’s how I feel about Arthur sometimes. I wasn’t the best wife to him, and I’ll never be able to make it up to him.’
‘Let’s have a party,’ Dot says. ‘For Sam.’
‘Oh yes!’ I say. ‘That’s a brilliant idea. Erin’s due to finish work in an hour, I could ask her to pick up some party food and balloons.’
‘And champagne,’ Dot says. ‘To celebrate her life.’
Julie looks tearful. ‘Would you really do that, for me?’
‘What? Drink champagne and blow up balloons?’ I ask.
‘Host a party for a woman you never met who isn’t even alive,’ Julie says.
‘Yes,’ I say, at once. ‘Of course we would, wouldn’t we, Dot? I can’t think of a better thing to do with our afternoon.’
In the end, Julie goes to the supermarket to pick up the things we need and brings Erin home with her at the end of her shift.
Meanwhile, Dot and I invite Patty and Kirsty, apologising for the late notice.
They arrive together, little Dotty in Kirsty’s arms. You can really see that she’s pregnant now, and I wonder how much longer she’ll be able to hoist Dotty onto her hip.
‘Kirsty,’ I say, taking her in my arms. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been around much, to help out.’
‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘Ben and Patty have been amazing. And Erin.’
‘Erin?’ I ask.
‘Yes, she messages me every time she’s working at the supermarket and asks if there’s anything I feel like, and then she drops it over.’
Erin hasn’t mentioned this once, and she’s had so much on her plate. I look at her, over in the corner of the room chatting to Dot, and feel a rush of love.
A short while later we’ve got music playing and drinks in our hands and Julie looks… not ecstatic, that would be a stretch, but certainly happier than when she turned up a couple of hours ago.
The music goes off and I see that Julie’s tapping her glass with a spoon.
‘I’d just like to say something,’ she says, and we all quieten down.
‘I woke up this morning feeling sad about the fact that it’s my sister’s birthday and she’s not here to celebrate it, and I’m ending the day with some of the loveliest women I know, celebrating her regardless.
I’m so grateful to have all of you in my life.
And special thanks to Dot, for this idea. ’
Everyone raises their glass and looks at Julie and then Dot, and she nods at them a little awkwardly.
She’s told me that she’s never had a close group of female friends like this one, that she’s grateful to be let into it.
And it’s possible that she’s had more champagne than she should have, because she takes the opportunity to say a few words herself.
‘Thank you all, for welcoming me to Broughton so well. It’s a real privilege to get to know the women Mabel talks about so much. And here’s to Sam.’
We raise our glasses again, and Julie looks glassy-eyed, but happy, too.
We pair up, me and Dot, Patty and Kirsty, Erin and Julie, and we do a bit of dancing under Patty’s instruction. Dotty whirls around in her pretty dress with a tutu skirt, weaving in and out of us all and eating what I suspect is far too many crisps.
And then things are winding down, and Kirsty’s resting on the sofa with Dotty sprawled across her body. I join them.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask.
‘The first few months were a bit rough,’ she says. ‘I had morning sickness and Dotty always wanted to play. Thank you so much for walking Olly so much for me. It’s been great to have one job off the list.’
‘Do you still want us to take him back permanently?’ I ask. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t got that sorted, but what with our trip and then Dot being ill…’
‘Don’t worry at all, I know how it’s been for you. But yes, I think we’re ready for that if you still are. And he won’t be far away, will he?’
I find that I don’t know what to say, because I’m starting to wonder whether Dot and I have set up home in the right place.
It feels like there are all these pieces – Olly and my friends and Dot’s family – and we just have to keep rearranging them until we get them all in the right place.
We’re not there yet, but I think I’m starting to see how we could be.
‘Right, now I think it’s about time I got this one home for her tea,’ Kirsty says, her arms tight around her little girl.
Julie stays to clear up despite us saying there’s no need. Erin’s a dab hand with the rubber gloves, and besides, we’ve got a dishwasher. Part of me thinks she just doesn’t want the day to be over. When we all sit down with a final cup of tea, she looks at each of us in turn.
‘Sam would have bloody loved that. Thank you.’
‘We should do it every year,’ Erin says.
‘When is your mum’s birthday?’ I ask.
‘November.’
‘We’ll find a good way to mark that, too.’
By November, Dot and I will be married. Erin will be away at university, as long as everything goes to plan.
Kirsty will be having her baby. I used to think there was nothing left for me after Arthur died, that every day would be the same, one after another, with no joy and no company. And I couldn’t have been more wrong.