Half a dozen faces turned to me. ‘I met Will’s daughter. She sort of landed in my life out of the blue and I thought that was going to be my way of feeling better about his death but instead I just feel like –’
They were staring. Fred was pulling a face.
‘What?’
‘Who’s Will?’ said Fred.
‘You said his name was Bill.’
I slumped a little in my chair. ‘Will is Bill. I felt weird about using his real name before.’ There was a general release of breath around the room.
Daphne patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry, dear. It’s just a name. Our last group we had a woman who invented the whole thing. Said she had a child died from leukaemia. Turned out she didn’t even have a goldfish.’
‘It’s okay, Louisa. You can talk to us.’ Marc gave me his Special Empathetic Gaze. I gave him a small smile back, just to show him I had received and understood. And that Will was not a goldfish. What the hell? I thought. My life is no more mixed up than any of theirs.
So I told them about Lily turning up and how I had thought I could fix her and bring about a reunion that would make everyone happy, and how I now felt stupid for my naivety. ‘I feel like I’ve let Will – everyone – down again,’ I said. ‘And now she’s gone and I keep asking myself what I could have done differently, but the real truth is I couldn’t cope. I wasn’t strong enough to take charge of it all and make it better.’
‘But your things! Your precious things got stolen!’ Daphne’s other plump, damp hand clamped onto mine. ‘You had every right to be angry!’
‘Just because she doesn’t have a father doesn’t give her the excuse to behave like a brat,’ said Sunil.
‘I think you were very nice to let her stay in the first place. I’m not sure I would,’ said Daphne.
‘What do you think her father might have done differently, Louisa?’ Marc poured himself another cup of coffee.
I wished, suddenly, that we had something stronger. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But he had this way of taking charge. Even when he couldn’t move his arms and legs you got the feeling he was capable. He would have stopped her doing stupid stuff. He would have got her straightened out somehow.’
‘Are you sure you’re not idealizing him? We do idealization in week eight,’ said Fred. ‘I keep turning Jilly into a saint, don’t I, Marc? I forget that she used to leave her hold-ups hanging over the shower rail and it drove me absolutely potty.’
‘Her father might not have been able to do anything to help her at all. You have no idea. They might have loathed each other.’
‘She sounds like a complicated young woman,’ said Marc. ‘And it’s possible that you gave her as many chances as you could. But … sometimes, Louisa, moving on means we do have to protect ourselves. And perhaps you understood that, deep down. If Lily simply brought chaos and negativity into your life, then for now, it’s possible you did the only thing you could.’
‘Oh, yes.’ There were nods around the circle. ‘Be kind to yourself. You’re only human.’ They were so sweet, smiling at me reassuringly, wanting me to feel better.
I almost believed them.
On Tuesday I asked Vera if she could give me ten minutes (I muttered vague things about Women’s Troubles and she nodded, as if to say Women’s Lives Were Nothing but Trouble, and murmured that she would tell me later about her fibroids). I ran to the quietest Ladies loo – the only place I could be sure Richard wouldn’t see me – with my laptop in my bag. I threw a shirt over the top of my uniform, balanced the laptop near the basins and hooked into the thirty minutes’ free airport Wi-Fi, positioning myself carefully in front of the screen. Mr Gopnik’s Skype call came in dead on five o’clock, just as I whipped off my ringlets Irish-dancing-girl wig.
Even if I had seen nothing else of Leonard Gopnik than his pixellated face, I could have told you he was rich. He had beautifully cut salt-and-pepper hair, and gazed out of the small screen with natural authority, and spoke without wasting a word. Well, there was that and the gilt-framed old master on the wall behind him.
He asked nothing about my school record, my qualifications, my CV or why I was conducting an interview beside a hand-dryer. He looked down at some papers, then asked about my relationship with the Traynors.
‘Good! I mean, I’m sure they would provide a reference. I’ve seen both of them recently, for one reason or another. We get on well, despite the – the circumstances of …’
‘The circumstances of the end of your employment.’ His voice was low, decisive. ‘Yes, Nathan has explained a lot about that situation. Quite a thing to be involved in.’
‘Yes. It was,’ I said, after a short, awkward silence. ‘But I felt privileged. To be part of Will’s life.’
He registered this. ‘What have you been doing since?’
‘Um, well, I travelled a bit, Europe mostly, which was … interesting. It’s good to travel. And get a perspective. Obviously.’ I tried to smile. ‘And I’m now working at an airport but it’s not really –’ As I spoke, the door opened behind me and a woman walked in, pulling a wheelie case. I shifted my computer, hoping he couldn’t hear the sound of her entering the cubicle. ‘It’s not really what I want to be doing long term.’ Please don’t wee noisily, I begged her silently.
He asked me a few questions about my current responsibilities, and salary level. I tried to ignore the sound of flushing, and kept my gaze straight ahead, ignoring the woman who emerged.
‘And what do you want –’ As Mr Gopnik began to speak, she reached past me and started up the hand-dryer, which let out a deafening roar beside me. He frowned.
‘Hold on one moment, please, Mr Gopnik.’ I put my thumb over what I hoped was the microphone. ‘I’m sorry,’ I shouted at the woman. ‘You can’t use that. It’s … broken.’
She turned towards me, rubbing perfectly manicured fingers, then back to the machine. ‘No, it’s not. Where’s the out-of-order sign, then?’
‘Burned off. Suddenly. Awful, dangerous thing.’
She fixed me, then the hand-dryer, with a suspicious look, removed her hands from under it, took her case and walked out. I wedged the chair against the door to stop anyone else coming in, shifting my laptop again so that Mr Gopnik could see me. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m having to do this at work and it’s a little …’