The Book of Us

‘You knew this, why are you being funny with me?’ Cass stopped, taking a shuddering breath, ‘It was why you stayed away, and I got it, but you’re here now. I thought you’d come to terms with it … what’s with the anger?’

Lauren pressed her lips together, eyes resting anywhere but on Cass. It was an overreaction, sure, but it was unfair. All these years had passed, she was dying, and yet Cassidy Jones could still make her jealous. All she had wanted was a child, a little girl. She knew she shouldn’t have wanted a girl over a boy, but she did. She’d wanted a girl she could teach to be strong, and fierce. A girl who wasn’t raised in a pink bedroom wearing pink tutus and ballet slippers, who was taught to be seen and not heard. This daughter she had imagined she would have one day, she’d be allowed to play in the mud, and be loud and silly and messy. The way she hadn’t been.

Lauren could taste the loss, metallic and sour. Of course, Cass had a girl. Cass, who had been irresponsible and flighty and had done what she’d done – she got to have a child. Lauren suddenly heard Cass’s words clearly.

‘I didn’t know. How would I know? I don’t know anything!’ She knew she sounded hysterical, her voice struggling to project. Little mouse, her family always called her, angry little mouse.

Cass’s face lost all colour, eyes widening in panic. ‘Oh God. Oh God, he said he’d told you. That’s why you never returned any of my letters.’ Her eyes flicked to the house behind Lauren, her hand raising slightly, then falling. The fact that she was looking past Lauren enraged her even more. ‘I wouldn’t have … I would have said something—’

‘Who? Who told me what? And what letters? This was the first letter I’ve ever had from you. Six years, nothing, then boom, here’s Cassidy Jones with her drama!’ Lauren could feel the bitterness spilling out and she couldn’t hold it back.

‘Drama!’ Cass hissed, eyes wide. ‘Dying isn’t drama, Loll.’

‘It is when you do it.’

Cass seemed to deflate, leaning back against a tree. Its roots had collapsed the surrounding pavement, leaving the stones uneven and broken. Her fingertips traced the bark and Lauren was drawn to the sight, her soft, pale fingers moving back and forth. She had done that on the inside of Lauren’s arm when they were younger, just below the elbow. It was in second year she’d first started, when Lauren couldn’t sleep at all, worrying and fretting about life and exams and failure. Cass had let her rest her head on her lap and stroked spirals on the inside of her arm, telling her everything would be okay. A lifetime ago. She had believed her then. She watched as Cassidy shook her head, seeming to build up the energy for that bitter little voice.

‘That fucking bastard.’

‘Who?’ Lauren sighed.

‘Darren, obviously.’

‘Darren, my Darren?’

Cass rolled her eyes. ‘Loll, doesn’t it seem strange to you that I’ve sent you hundreds of letters in the last six years, and you only received one? After he left?’

‘You think Darren was smart enough to hide my letters all this time? He barely remembers to pay the gas bill.’ Lauren snorted. Besides, the man was incapable of not expressing every thought he had, whenever he had one. Which was why when he left, at least it had been upfront. Painful, and irritating as hell, but he’d come to her and said he was leaving. It was the one decent thing about him. There’d been no running around, no lying. He’d cheated, he loved this woman, he was leaving. That was it. Done.

The idea that he could have been stealing her post … and since when did Cassidy Jones write letters, rather than leave a drunk voicemail at three in the morning? She could still remember them, the crying and snivelling, the apologies, the excuses. It was too late by then, what they’d had was broken. She’d stopped being Cass the minute she betrayed her.

‘And how often were you working, Loll? How late did you get home, how early did you leave? You don’t think there’s any chance he could have just scooped up the post without you noticing?’ Cass’s grey-blue eyes were round with pity, and Lauren hated that even more.

‘Oh, so it’s my fault? I destroyed my marriage because I’m a workaholic?’ She could hear herself, that stupid teenage answer-back tone. Petulant, stupid woman. Stop talking. You’re in the street. It isn’t proper. Her mother’s worried voice echoing around her skull.

Cass sighed, closing her eyes briefly. Her voice was calm and even, ‘I didn’t say that. I just know you. Or, I knew you. This isn’t about you. This is about Darren lying.’

‘So you’re saying he hid your letters to me? Why?’

‘Because he didn’t want us to be friends. He never did, you know that,’ Cass said lightly, her eyes flickering again to the window, a slow nod and a quirk of her lips. She held up a single finger, mouthing, ‘One minute.’

Lauren looked behind her, but saw only the flicker of a white net curtain.

‘He told me you knew about my kid, that it hurt too much, that you didn’t want to see me,’ Cass stared at the ground. ‘And I understood, you know, of course, but it didn’t seem … I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like you. I always thought if I just kept sending the letters, you’d come around … but now I get it. You didn’t know, you never knew. All this time I thought you hated me—’

‘I did hate you! I hated you!’ Lauren said, feeling herself trembling.

‘And you’re going to hate me again. Now you know. He said you’d never been able to get over it, and I hadn’t thought he was just protecting himself.’ Cass hovered on the edge of tears, pressing her lips together as she looked at Lauren in silent apology, shaking her head.

Lauren tried to make sense of it, her emotions twisting tendrils around her vocal cords. She knew the answer, it was obvious. It was suddenly as if she’d always known. They said nothing.

Cass used all of the tree to support her weight, as if she couldn’t find the energy to stand. Her eyes flicked behind her, and she straightened, whispering to Lauren, ‘Just breathe, okay? Just keep breathing and everything will be fine. We’ll sort this all out back at the house.’ The same words she’d always used, the same promises. How could they ever sort this out?

Suddenly, the front door opened behind her, and Lauren whirled around to see a little girl coming running out, sprinting across to Cass. Her brown hair was in two high pigtails, and her trainers lit up as she moved. Her jeans were a little too big, a heart-shaped patch on the side, and her T-shirt said, Girl Power.

‘Hey there, munchkin, cool your jets. No need to run anywhere.’ Cass tried for a smile, but it was drawn and tight, her eyes flittering up to Lauren to assess the situation.

Cass turned the little girl around to face her, and it was clear. So clear.

‘Vee, this is Loll, my very best friend in the whole world,’ she looked towards Lauren cautiously, like she was a wild thing, not to be trusted. ‘Loll, this is my daughter, Veronica.’

Lauren almost laughed then, at the second meaningless betrayal. Cass knew that was her grandmother’s name, a name she’d planned to save for her own child.

Abuela Veronica had been the only person to ever really see her as strong. As something beyond the scared little girl that everyone else seemed to want her to be. She had these dark eyes that demanded more of you, and permanently pursed lips like she wanted to laugh but was holding it in.

Veronica had been the one to tell her to do law, if she wanted to do law. That she was only as weak as she allowed herself to be. That it didn’t matter what they thought.

She was unlike anyone else’s grandmother. Sure, she did the motherly stuff, and she squeezed baby cheeks and made amazing paella. She cared about her family. But she absolutely didn’t care about what anyone else thought. She poured herself a large glass of port most nights, she giggled when she ate chocolates, holding them daintily between her solid fingers. She started a swing dance class in her seventies, and though everyone knew she’d loved her husband, she never felt the need for another companion. She had her life, and she was satisfied.

Lauren’s favourite thing about her grandmother, beyond that funny, wild spirit, was that she had chosen her own name. When she came to England with her kids, and her husband died, she decided she could either be afraid, or she could be in control. So she gave herself a new name, for a new life. And she lived it, well.

Cass knew that. She knew how much that name meant.

‘Veronica,’ she exhaled, shaking her head. ‘Really? Veronica?’

‘Yes,’ the little girl said, a little pout appearing on her lips, ‘but I like Vee best.’ She held out her hand, so that Lauren couldn’t resist bending down to accommodate her.

‘Very nice to meet you, Vee,’ she heard the break in her voice and stood back up again, staring up to the sky until the tears dried. Her heart beat in her throat, vicious and rapid. The little girl appraised her.

‘Are you sick like Cassy is? Is that why you’re sad?’

‘No,’ she pressed her lips together, shaking her head and trying desperately for a smile. ‘I’m just so glad to meet you, and to see your mum again. We have a lot to catch up on.’

Veronica nodded in approval, turning back to Cass to smile at her, taking her hand. God, she looked like him. Not a lot, but just enough to matter. An echo of her father about the tips of her ears and the tilt of her chin. It was always arrogant on Darren, but with Vee’s delicate features it was pleasantly obstinate. Lauren couldn’t help but trace Vee’s features for more of him, like there were clues in her skin. She tried to remember if she’d seen any of Darren’s baby pictures, but his family weren’t like that. His mother was never a soft woman. She’d had a pinched look at their wedding, standing there sipping her champagne like she’d never been so put out. And she was an unsuspecting grandmother. How insane.

Unless she knew. Was this all some big game, where everyone knew everything except her? She had to be kept in the dark because she was so fragile, so incapable? ‘Let me worry about it, it’s too much for you,’ Darren had always said. ‘I didn’t want you to get upset,’ her mother said whenever there was big news. She didn’t know about her brother’s baby until a month before the birth. ‘You just get so worked up,’ the voices seemed to repeat, over and over. ‘I’ll never lie to you, Loll,’ was Cassidy’s refrain, fighting against the others, ‘even if it hurts.’ She’d kept that promise at least.

Lauren was unspooling, she could feel it, jumping off into a dark pool of water, unwilling to come back. Step back from the paranoia, take a deep breath and a step back.

‘Hello?’ A chubby little hand shook hers, and she refocused. ‘Auntie Loll? I said are you going to have dinner with us? We get to have a special New Year’s dinner. Cassy said you might come – it’s macaroni cheese. My favourite.’

Auntie Loll. Lauren let herself be led along by Veronica, the small child holding a hand of each woman like she knew she had to keep them moving. She chatted away and even though she tried, Lauren couldn’t catch the words. They looked like a family. She couldn’t get the idea out of her head.

‘Did the cat get mean again, baby?’ Cass asked her daughter, scanning her face. ‘He didn’t scratch you?’

‘No … it was my fault. I shouldn’t have cuddled him when he didn’t want to be cuddled.’

‘That’s true.’ Cass shook her hand and grinned at the floor.

‘Jasper isn’t as nice as Geronimo. Do you like cats, Auntie Loll?’ Veronica turned her huge eyes to Lauren now, and the fact that they were the same colour as Cass’s, but her hair was brown like Darren’s … it just threw her.

‘Huh?’ she blinked.

‘Baby, Auntie Loll isn’t feeling very well – maybe wait to chat at dinner, okay?’

‘Okay,’ the girl’s voice quivered with disappointment. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh no, you don’t have to be sorry!’ Lauren squeezed her hand, ‘I’m not feeling well right now, but when we get back home I would love to talk about cats. I had a cat growing up called Tigger and he was a big fluffy monster. I’ll tell you all about him.’

Vee grinned, nodding. ‘Good.’

The walk seemed to last forever. Lauren was sure she was walking through fog, or wet tissue paper. Something was pushing back, making it hard to see. She just had to keep breathing and moving, that was all she had to do. Steady breaths, don’t look at either of them. It will all be fine.

Oh, but Veronica was gorgeous. There was mud under her fingernails and scuffs on her trainers and she spoke eloquently and clearly. She was confident. Maybe if Lauren had had a daughter, she would have been meek and mild. She hadn’t thought so, but everyone else seemed to. She might never have been strong enough. Clearly, Darren wasn’t the problem after all. It was her. She was the reason they hadn’t had children.

As soon as the key was in the lock, Lauren felt it.

‘Bathroom?’ she gasped.

‘Top of the stairs.’

She galloped up, losing a trainer in the process, and collapsed into the bathroom with enough time to slam the door and reach the toilet. There wasn’t much to throw up – she hadn’t been eating. That didn’t stop her body from retching, over and over, until her throat hurt and her stomach cramped. She wasn’t sure if the bile was red from last night’s wine or she’d scratched the lining of her throat.

Lauren clung to the toilet seat, resting her head on her arm. She could die here. She could outdo Cass, for once. She would die of shock on her bathroom floor, and that would show her who was dramatic.

Except that was stupid. But what wasn’t stupid was finally getting angry instead of sad. She should be finding an appropriate outlet for her rage. Someone who wasn’t a dying mother or a five-year-old.

Lauren scrambled for the phone in her coat pocket and pressed the button. She felt strangely drunk, elated even, at having the chance to scream at him. It somehow hadn’t been his fault when he left. He’d fallen in love, it just happened, he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to hurt her. And before that, all those years ago … he was shocked, disgusted by the accusation. He could never even have dreamed of hurting her like that. It was offensive that she even considered it, those were his words … God, how he must have been laughing at her naivety, her stupidity. These lies were longer than their marriage.

Her heart pounded as the phone rang.

‘Lauren? Why are you calling?’ Darren sounded genuinely puzzled, and she couldn’t blame him. He could have counted on her pride. She wouldn’t have called him again for the rest of her life if not for this.

‘You bastard. You lying bastard.’ Her voice was low and croaky, and yes, that was blood she tasted. She quite liked how her words sounded when they bled.

‘Who told you?’ Darren replied too quickly, and before she’d even answered he’d blathered on, his voice high and wavering. ‘Look, obviously we’ll wait until after the divorce comes through to tell anyone, it’s not a big deal or anything. We just put it on social media so Sasha could show off the ring, that was all. There’s no rush—’

Lauren pressed her palm into her forehead, as though she was trying to stop her brain falling out.

‘You’re getting married.’

‘Well, yeah, but it was spontaneous, sweetheart, it wasn’t—’

‘We’re still married, dickhead.’ Lauren suddenly felt like her nineteen-year-old self again, holding hands with Cass, drunk and obnoxious as they told boys to fuck off and find someone else to gawk at, because they wanted to dance. She felt powerful.

‘Well yeah, but it’s over, so …’

‘Whatever, I wasn’t calling about that, although wow, continually lowering my expectations after all these years. Impressive.’ Her throat was too dry to laugh, so she coughed.

‘Look, what do you want, Lauren? I don’t think it’s healthy for us to talk at this time.’

‘Oh, okay, well I’ll be quick. I just kind of wanted to know about that whole thing where you knocked up my best friend and then hid it for six years!’ Screaming hurt, but it was a good hurt. It gave her burning lungs something to do.

He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘Bloody hell, all those years and Cassidy finally got her claws back into you? Didn’t see that one coming. Thought you didn’t forgive, Lauren, that’s what you said, wasn’t it? Once people lose your trust it’s gone for good?’

‘Still married you, didn’t I?’ she hissed. ‘Aren’t you sorry?’

‘Sorry? I hid it for you! You, crazy-desperate for a family, to know that Cass had what you wanted? You think you wouldn’t have gone mental over that? I was protecting you.’

‘You’re a liar. Everything you said, you denied it, you made it seem impossible. And it happened, it all happened …’ Lauren felt herself unravelling.

‘It was better this way. You know what Cass was like back then. You were better off without her, we both were. Without the drama, the drunken hysterics.’ Darren’s voice softened, ‘I didn’t want to lose you.’

‘So I had to lose her?’ Lauren wanted to burst into tears like a child at the unfairness of it all. ‘Have you even met her, your kid?’

She didn’t know why she asked, it barely mattered. Everything had changed the moment he lied. Everything could have been different.

‘No! My God, no, Lauren, never! I told her I wasn’t interested. I send her some money every month, because it seemed like the right thing to do, but—’

Lauren snorted, ‘How noble.’

‘Look, I didn’t want to be a dad. You know that. I went along with it for you, because it was what you wanted, but I never wanted that. Not yet anyway. And certainly not with her, for fuck’s sake.’

‘You … you stole my letters? Every opportunity you had to make things right, every time a letter came to the door. Stacking up the lies over and over,’ she was rambling, she could hear the madness in her voice. ‘I honestly didn’t think you were even that smart.’

He laughed at that. ‘I was smart enough to protect myself. To protect my marriage.’

‘Only to throw it away when something better came along.’

‘You’d rather I stayed with you even when I wanted to be with someone else?’

‘I’d rather you died a painful death in some sort of ridiculous clown-related accident,’ she threw out, channelling a teenage Cass. But oh, to wish him dead when Cass was dying … that wasn’t right. Her anger had bubbled up and it was like a burst tap, spitting hot hatred everywhere. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Yes, you did. Maybe until the divorce we shouldn’t speak, so we can interact like civil adults when it comes to separating the assets, right?’

Lauren wasn’t even sure where to start. So she didn’t. She hung up the phone and rested her head on her arm again. She might have fallen asleep, she wasn’t sure, but there was a gentle tap on the door, and then she saw Cass’s pale arm sneaking around the frame, handing her a mug.

‘Ginger tea. Settles the stomach.’

Lauren half-laughed, blowing on it, ‘Prefer vodka.’

‘Later.’ Cass pushed back the door, leaning her head on the frame. ‘What did he say?’

‘That he lied to protect me.’

‘You know that isn’t true, Loll.’

Lauren closed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

‘Good. Let’s talk about you.’

Lauren shook her head, drowsy as a child. ‘No. No talking about me. And no talking about death.’

Lauren pushed herself up from the floor and Cass offered her hand. ‘I think it’s time for bed. Come on now, up you get.’

She coaxed and cajoled, her voice so soothing that Lauren couldn’t even get grouchy at being treated like a child. She led her into the dark room, and tucked her up in a single bed, plastic stars faintly glowing on the ceiling. In the corner of the room, a space-themed mobile swung in the breeze through the window, sun and moon orbiting each other around an unsteady Earth.

‘Is this Vee’s room?’ she said in surprise, failing to focus on the stars.

‘She won’t mind.’ Cass rested a cool palm on her forehead, ‘Sleep, Loll. The rest will sort itself.’

She stayed a few moments longer, her thumb resting in the middle of Lauren’s palm, applying light pressure, just as she always had whenever Lauren had drowned in anxiety, struggling to breathe.

Now, she was beyond all that – she was simply numb and exhausted. She pulled her hand away, and Cass nodded as she left.

Sleep came like death, engulfing her in darkness.

When she awoke, she padded down the stairs to see the remains of dinner on the table, and Vee asleep, curled into Cass on the sofa, her little dark head nuzzled under the blanket, Cass’s arms tight around her. Cass’s eyes were on the fireworks on the screen, but she seemed to be looking past them. She looked up as Lauren peered around the corner.

‘I saved you some dinner,’ she whispered, ‘nothing much, but it’s in the microwave if you want?’

Lauren smiled, the force pulling at the skin at the corner of her mouth. She walked through to the kitchen, set the microwave and waited. She suddenly saw, as she hadn’t before, the plastic princess cup on the draining board, the photos on the fridge. If she had taken one more second to look around earlier, she wouldn’t have been blindsided.

Cass looked like a mum, the way she stroked Veronica’s cheek, and smiled at her enthusiasm. The way she had gripped her hand, and checked both ways as they crossed the road. She was really a mother. Maybe even a good one. It was cruel of her to be shocked by that.

The microwave beeped loudly, and she burnt her fingertips as she pulled out a bowl of macaroni cheese with a slice of garlic bread stuck in the top. Absolutely no nutritional value, but she ate desperately, burning her tongue in eagerness. It was the first time she’d been hungry in days.

She watched Cass settled on the sofa, absentmindedly stroking her daughter’s hair. Her smile was tired, and she shuffled slightly when Lauren came in. Lauren chose the seat across from her, curling into the padded armchair and resting her bowl on her knee.

Cass kept her eyes on the television. ‘No shouting or arguing unless it’s a whisper, okay? Dealing with a grouchy, sleepy kid is not my favourite.’

‘Agreed,’ Lauren said, her eyes hovering on the sleeping child. ‘I can imagine that’s not fun.’

Cass shook her head. ‘A couple of years ago she had croup, it was a nightmare. Seeing her in pain, not being able to help, killed me. It’s worse to be the bystander sometimes, you know?’

The fireworks on the screen were over the top, bursting into flashes of pink and blue against the colours of the London Eye.

‘You remember when we went?’ Cass’s eye tilted from the screen back to Lauren.

‘Worst New Year’s ever,’ she laughed, still watching that repetitive motion of Cass’s hand stroking Veronica’s hair. ‘We were freezing and drunk, and we had to pee outside because of the queues …’

‘We got neck ache looking up and that guy vomited all over your shoes!’

‘My back! On my leather jacket!’ Lauren smiled, placing her bowl on the side table.

‘Wearing a leather jacket out on the coldest night of the year – a classic Loll move.’

Lauren tilted her head. ‘Was it?’

Cass snorted, ‘You kidding? Every single time we went out, you would never put a proper coat on because your outfit didn’t look right, or you didn’t want to look bulky, or you didn’t want to carry it, and you’d spend the whole night cold and miserable.’ She shook her head. ‘Or worse, you’d decide to drink more to keep you warm and that would get you in trouble.’

‘I’d forgotten that. Seems so unlike me.’

Cass smiled. ‘Bet you’ve got a spare coat in the car now, haven’t you?’

‘Something like that.’ She had a second pair of gloves, two hats and an extra jumper in there, just in case. Always prepared for every eventuality. Somehow, the idea of discomfort had become more harrowing as she grew up. Being cold, being tired, being pissed off, it just never seemed worth it. It was better to prepare, to keep herself happy enough. She’d thought that would be a good trait as a future parent, always being the one with the baby wipes and the spare bottle of water.