“I popped in to the surgery to use the toilet, the day you flew to Aberdeen. I bumped into her. I told you I didn’t want her sending me flowers. Now you’ve just encouraged her.”

I sound childish and petulant, I know I do, but now that I’ve started, I can’t help it. He shouldn’t have thanked her for them. They weren’t for him, they were for me. And I didn’t want them.

He sighs. “I thought it was the polite thing to do. I felt awkward, not saying anything.”

“I see, so her feelings are more important to you than mine. Well, at least I know where I stand.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Lizzie! Don’t be ridiculous!”

He flings the metal tape measure on the floor so that it bounces up and hits the skirting board. Then he leaves the room without saying another word. He’s never lost his temper with me before. Never.

I lean back against the wall and slide down till I’m in a crouching position, my head in my hands. This should be a happy time for us: a new house and a baby on the way. It should be exciting—the beginning of our life together. Instead it feels spoiled already. Catherine might be a nicer person now, but she’s still managed to fuck everything up.

26

THEN: AFTER

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2007

There’s going to be a special school service for Alice. Mr. Davis made an announcement about it this morning, and Mrs. Peacock has just given us letters to take home. I can’t peel my eyes away from the heading, underlined and in bold: The Alice Dawson Memorial Service. There’s going to be a plaque, too, and a tree planted in her honor.

It all seems so unreal. I keep expecting—hoping—to wake up and discover that it’s all been a bad dream, that it never really happened and that instead of the empty seat next to me, Alice is still sitting there, her ink-stained fingers fiddling with her pen or rearranging the contents of her pencil case. She was really looking forward to Mrs. Peacock being our form teacher. “Mrs. Peacock is cool,” she used to say, mainly because of the small tattoo of an anchor on her left inner wrist. Alice was mad for tattoos. Couldn’t wait till she was old enough to have one of her own. She would have done, too.

“Whenever I feel worried or anxious about anything,” Mrs. Peacock explained to us last year in her music class, before we knew that she’d be our next form teacher, “I look at my anchor and feel safe and grounded.”