Forget Me Not (8 page)

‘I think it’ll be a good place to start,’ Isaac says. ‘On neutral ground, so to speak.’

The pain in my head makes it difficult to think coherently. I remind myself that none of this is Isaac’s fault. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

But I can’t look at him. I pull my hands away and turn and fumble with my key; finally I manage to fit it into the lock. As I push open the door, Isaac places a hand on my back.

‘It’s early days,’ he says. ‘Everything will get better.’

The last of the leaves turn to mush under my boots and the hems of my jeans are damp and flecked with mud as I make my way up the slope to the café in Regent’s Park.

Cleo has arrived early. She’s sitting at a table next to the window inside the round, glassed-in building. When she sees me approaching, she springs up and opens the door.

‘I’m so glad you could come,’ she says. She kisses my cheek with chapped lips.

She looks more herself today, with her hair pulled back in a rather severe ponytail, and no make-up except for her pencilled-in brows. She pulls out a chair for me and I sit down. The steel frame is cold and uncomfortable. On the round table between us there are two steaming paper cups and two plates, each with a slice of cake lying on its side.

‘I ordered you an Earl Grey,’ she says. ‘Do you still drink Earl Grey? I remember it used to be your favourite.’

‘I do,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

Cleo talks nervously as she levers the lid off her drink. ‘I hate these takeaway cups,’ she says. ‘You can never get the lid back on again, once you take it off.’

A cloud of steam rises in the air between us. I reach for my drink, leaving the lid on. The side of the cup is scalding hot against my palm.

‘Do you remember,’ Cleo says, ‘how I would bring you your tea in bed sometimes, on weekend mornings, when you had a lie-in?’

I smile as though I do, but the truth is I have no memory of this at all.

‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed having you in my life,’ she says.

I take a sip of my boiling-hot tea through the plastic slit and my eyes well up as my tongue burns. Cleo is watching me closely, as though I am some sort of invalid.

‘I wanted to make sure everything is okay between us,’ she says. ‘I thought I picked up some tension the other night. I take it Ben hadn’t told you that I’d been over to the house?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I had no idea.’

I still can’t put my finger on what it is about Cleo that bothers me, but I feel uneasy. Perhaps it’s the sense of disquiet she carries with her.

‘Did you and Vivien ever make up?’ I say.

She shakes her head. ‘No. But when I read about what happened, I wanted to offer Ben some support.’

I begin to shred my serviette into tiny fragments. ‘How often do you see him?’

‘I try to go over there every evening,’ she says.

Now I think she looks somewhat uncomfortable, or embarrassed, but I can’t be sure because Cleo often looks this way. She has never been comfortable in her own skin. She runs her fingertips along her forehead, back and forth along her hairline.

‘You were so kind to me, Rose,’ she says. ‘I’ll never forget how many meals I ate at your place, how many hours I spent at your flat. You were so strong and you worked so hard. You were my role model growing up. I used to pretend that you and Vivien were my real family.’

‘That’s generous of you, Cleo. But I’m sure I could have done more for you. You were always such a timid little thing. You didn’t talk much, but whenever you did say something it was always very thoughtful and very grown up. And you were so often wandering around the estate or up and down the high street, with no one watching over you. Maybe I should have contacted someone – the school or social services. But I didn’t know if it would end up making things worse for you, getting them involved.’

‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ Cleo says. ‘And I wasn’t the only one with no one to watch over me. You had to work such long hours. Viv and I looked out for each other.’

In that moment, I wonder if she’s merely insensitive, or if she’s deliberately trying to rub salt in my wounds. Then I realize she’s simply being honest. It’s not Cleo I’m angry with so much as myself.

‘I’ve never met anyone like Vivien,’ Cleo says. ‘You never knew what she’d do or say next. Did you ever find out what she’d been doing with the money you gave her to buy food, on the days when you were working late?’

Again the sense of unease returns. It hurts, to be confronted with the reality that Cleo knew my daughter better than I did.

‘No, I had no idea she was doing anything other than buying food.’ My tone is sharp, but Cleo doesn’t notice.

‘You always gave Vivien more than she needed. She’d give me half and I’d buy myself a pizza. I always used to order the same thing, Margherita with extra chicken. I can still remember the smell of the melted cheese and the wood-fired stove. I was so starving after school, and she must have been too. But Vivien never ate a thing. Even in the pizza place, with that smell, she’d never change her mind. And then I’d offer her half of whatever I had, and she’d refuse to take it.’

I don’t look her in the eyes. I stare out of the window at the failing light. The colours in the park are muted, everything blends into one grey palette.

‘So what did she do with the money?’ I say.

‘She’d save up and then buy herself something she knew you wouldn’t let her have. I remember one time she bought this leopard-print jumper.’ Cleo laughs. ‘She was very secretive when she was a teenager. I don’t think you had any idea what she got up to.’

I don’t want to hear about the way Vivien deprived herself, about her loneliness, or her propensity for deception. There are things I don’t want to know, knowledge I would prefer to be spared. But this is no less than I deserve.

‘I got you a piece of lemon drizzle cake,’ Cleo says, pointing at my plate. ‘Or do you have Vivien’s iron will when it comes to boycotting white flour and sugar?’

Again, this feels like a dig. I don’t respond. I break off a small corner of the cake with my teaspoon and taste it. It’s bland and dry. I cut off a few more small pieces but I end up leaving them scattered around the paper plate. Cleo has nearly finished hers, but I have no appetite.

‘Do you remember how Vivien let me tag along with her to the eisteddfods? I was her personal valet.’

I smile now, an easier smile. ‘Yes, I do.’

Cleo and I share many of my daughter’s childhood memories and this one brings with it a rush of pride. I see Vivien, standing on stage, smiling from ear to ear, her hair scraped back into a bun, with a winner’s sash draped across her leotard and flowers in her arms. And poor Cleo, in her tracksuit, content to bask in the glow of Vivien’s reflected glory and not needing to be centre stage.

‘I felt so important,’ she says, ‘when I was allowed to go backstage to help her get dressed. It was all so magical to me, the way Vivien would sleep in ringlets, or you would tease her hair and spray in ten tons of hairspray and then arrange it into a bun. Her tutus were so beautiful and so pink, with all that tulle. I remember you would put glitter on her cheeks, and make it stay on with Vaseline.’

I’m grateful to her, for reminding me I was there for Vivien, sometimes. Sometimes I was present, even if it wasn’t often enough.

‘You had your talents too, Cleo. You were top of your class, right the way through school. I don’t think Vivien would have made it through as far as she did without your help.’

‘I loved school. It was so much better than being at home. My parents couldn’t stand the sight of me.’

‘What did you do,’ I say, ‘afterwards?’

‘A degree in languages. It was my dream to work as a translator for the UN. But instead, there was Ben.’

We both fall silent. I can’t help but feel sorry for her.

A gust of cold air from the door blows all the little white pieces of serviette to the floor. I try to gather the remaining shreds from the steel table top and, not knowing what else to do with them, I shove the scraps into my pockets. I leave my ice-cold hands deep down inside my coat.

Cleo’s fingers dance restlessly across her forehead as she pulls strands of her hair loose from her ponytail.

I’ve never known what happened, between the three of them. All I know is that Cleo and Vivien stopped speaking. I always suspected that Vivien had interfered in Ben and Cleo’s relationship and that she was the cause of their break-up. I didn’t want to know the details. I didn’t want to see that my daughter might be capable of hurting someone weaker than she was.

We both reach for our paper cups. The tea has cooled down and I take a few more sips. I do still like Earl Grey.

So far we’ve had the café to ourselves, but now a group of teenage girls bursts in through the glass doors. They’re all black-rimmed eyes, long hair and short skirts.

Cleo bites down on the rim of her paper cup. She leaves teeth marks all around the edges. Her fingers creep up to her hairline again and she scratches at the skin of her forehead. I remember now, how she used to have a nervous habit of pulling at her eyebrows. There was barely anything left of them by the time she was in secondary school.

As I watch her, awkward and fidgeting, I find it hard to believe she had anything to do with the argument between Vivien and Ben. I simply cannot imagine Ben choosing Cleo over Vivien.

‘Cleo,’ I say, ‘we’ve known each other a very long time and I hope you don’t mind if I’m direct.’

‘Of course not.’

‘What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Ben?’

‘He’s in shock and he’s lonely,’ she says. ‘I keep him company. He doesn’t want to be alone.’

‘Do you understand how vulnerable he is?’

I can see by the blankness in her eyes that she doesn’t want to hear what I’ve got to say.

‘Ben doesn’t talk about you very much,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d see more of you at the house.’

The teenage girls arrange themselves across three tables, with their feet propped up on chairs. They’re becoming louder and louder, laughing and screeching. A paper cup lies on its side, the straw fallen to the floor and vanilla milkshake leaking across the table top. Cleo is staring at them.

‘What sort of relationship do you have with Ben?’ she asks.

‘It’s complicated,’ I say. ‘Things aren’t great, between us.’

‘Maybe I can help,’ she says. ‘I could talk to him.’

If what Cleo says is true, that she’s fond of me and always has been, then she might be able to help, in my quest to win Ben over.

‘It’s worth a try,’ I say. ‘I’d like to convince him to trust me more, with Lexi.’

‘I can tell him how wonderful you were to me when I was her age.’

Cleo is staring at me, watching the way I rub the side of my head. ‘Would you like another cup of tea?’ she says.

‘No, thank you.’

I glance over at the counter. Behind it, there are two women, both young, both attractive with fair skin and dark hair. They laugh as they share a joke. I think they are speaking a foreign language. I wonder if one of these women was the one who saw Vivien on the morning of her death.

‘Are you all right?’ Cleo says.

‘I get these headaches on and off,’ I say. ‘I think I need to walk for a bit, to get some air.’

Cleo holds the door open and I walk out ahead of her as we leave the café and head down the slope. In front of us, the BT tower rears up in the midst of the fading London skyline.

A wooden jaguar is poised above an empty bench, as though he’s waiting to pounce. I hear a lion roar.

As we walk, the fog creeps down around us, lower and lower, until I can hardly see anything but white mist. I don’t know if we’re alone on this path, or if there are people nearby. My daughter used to run this route, day in and day out.

‘It was like this on the day she died,’ Cleo says. ‘You could hardly see two feet in front of your face.’

We arrive at the funfair early on Saturday morning, before it gets too crowded. Giant teacups swirl pink and yellow against the dull sky. Lexi is pulling us towards the twisted tracks of the rollercoaster which snake high above the river. Her ginger curls blow into her eyes and her already pale skin grows ever more pale as the wind coming off the river whips against her face.
Ghost-like
, Vivien used to say.

The grey coat she wears is so dour; I don’t understand why Vivien never dressed her daughter in anything bright, or why she kept Lexi’s hair so short when the colour is so lovely.

Maybe I’m holding her hand too tight. I ease my grip a little.

‘Thank you for inviting me today,’ I say to Ben. He’s holding on to Lexi’s other hand. Like the other night, he looks terrible, his eyes bleak.

‘You can thank Isaac,’ he says. ‘He seems to agree with you that Lexi needs her grandmother in her life.’

‘I’m glad.’

Whatever Ben may think, his daughter does need me. And I need her too. With her hand in mine, I feel a little stronger.

Isaac, as usual in his mackintosh, walks a few paces behind us. I feel reassured by his presence.

‘Have you been on a rollercoaster before?’ I ask Lexi. I have to raise my voice, because the wind drowns my words.

She shakes her head.

‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ Ben says.

Lexi nods, but her eyes widen as she looks at the tracks looming in front of us. But in the end, it’s Ben and I who are most nervous, and Isaac steps forward. He claims he’s not afraid of heights or speed, he took his stepdaughters on these rides often, he says. Ben gives him a grateful pat on the back.

Lexi lets go of our hands and she and Isaac take their places in the short queue. Ben and I lean against the railings and keep watch over them. As they inch closer to the front, Lexi grows more subdued. She tucks her hands into the pockets of her coat and her head droops down. I wonder if she’s going to be sick all over Isaac. I feel a little better when I see that children even smaller than she is have joined the queue. They all cling to their mothers’ hands.

My hair blows across my face as I smile and wave at my granddaughter. I take out my phone and ready the camera. When their turn comes, Lexi shuffles in to the small carriage first and Isaac follows close behind her. The attendant has a downy black moustache and his hair is tied back in a ponytail. He looks much too young and too careless to be in charge of safety issues. Disinterestedly, he clicks the harness bar into place. Lexi feels for it and pulls it back and forth several times, checking it’s secure. I take a photograph, but she’s not smiling and the shot is blurred. Isaac whispers something in her ear.