Page 20 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

Ah. So I wasn’t too far off the mark with Dee. She’s brunette and a little shorter than me, her ponytail swinging as she shakes my hand. She’s not terrifyingly svelte, more yoga curvy; I can see why Jonah might be attracted to her. Her sympathetic brown gaze holds on to mine, and I realize she already knows my sob story. Both of her hands clasp around one of mine, slightly too warm. ‘Welcome.’

‘Hello,’ I say, slightly too cold and stiff upper lip, extricating myself. I don’t know what’s come over me. I just hate the idea of a complete stranger thinking she knows everything about me.

‘You missed the mindfulness session, I’m afraid,’ she says. ‘But you’re here for the cake, which is always the best bit in my opinion.’

I keep my churlish thoughts of how cake wouldn’t be much help to me to myself. ‘Maybe Jonah can fill me in on the mindfulness,’ I say instead.

‘Or I can do a one-to-one session sometime if you’d find it helpful?’ Dee offers, and although I can see she’s just being kind, she nettles me again. Am I silently radiating SOS signals? Here I am, feeling like I’m holding it together, and there everyone else is shovelling help on to me until I’m squashed flat. I’m coming to realize that I’m quite a private person; I prefer to hide behind a shiny veneer and then fall apart when no one’s looking.

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ I say, non-committal. ‘Thanks though.’

Dee’s eyes connect with Jonah’s for a few silent seconds, just long enough to indicate ‘Your friend is bloody hard work, isn’t she?’ Or maybe I’m wrong and she was being far more New Age and philosophical in a ‘Your friend clearly has a way to go on her healing journey’ way. Or then again, maybe it was just a straightforward ‘Fancy a drink later?’ kind of look and I’m in the way. I wish I hadn’t come, but it’s too late now because Dee’s hand is on my elbow, steering me over to the group Jonah had been sitting with.

They shuffle round to clear a seat for me beside Jonah, all of them trying not to stare but anxious to make me feel welcome. Tea is poured for me by the woman opposite; Camilla, she tells me as she places the cup down. She is thankfully unfussy, a tight smile and a nod of comradeship.

‘This is Lydia,’ Jonah says, looking grim.

They all nod.

‘I’m Maud,’ an older woman on Jonah’s other side leans forward and half shouts, fiddling with her hearing aid. If I were to guess her age, I’d have said at least ninety. ‘My husband, Peter, fell off the roof trying to adjust the TV aerial twenty-two years ago.’

‘Oh,’ I say, taken aback. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Judging by the braced faces of the others around the table, I’d say this isn’t the first they’ve heard about Peter’s misfortune.

‘Don’t be, I wasn’t. He’d been having how’s-your-father with the woman who worked in the butcher’s for a good ten years.’

Wow. This isn’t what I was expecting at all.

‘Cake?’

I turn to the lady on my other side, grateful for the intervention.

‘It’s apple and date. I made it this morning.’ She holds the plate out. ‘I’m Nell.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, reaching for a paper plate. I’m not sure if I’m thanking her for the cake or for saving me from the pressure of finding a suitable reply. I’m soothed by her quiet presence. She reminds me a little of my mum both in age and stature, and her wedding ring tells me she’s married. Or else, she was.

‘Sorry about Maud,’ she says under her breath as she slides cake on to my plate. ‘You can imagine how much help she was during the mindfulness session earlier.’

She catches my eye and I’m relaxed by her humour.

‘There’re some books,’ Camilla says. Her cheeks stain dull red, as if the effort of speaking up costs her. ‘I found this one especially useful.’ She touches the cover of one of several grief-related books scattered around the table. ‘In the early days, anyway.’

‘I haven’t found reading easy lately,’ I say. ‘I’ve always loved a book, fiction mostly, but my mind just doesn’t seem to be able to retain a story any more.’ I’m not sure where the urge to share came from, but there you go.

‘It’ll come back,’ she says. ‘For a while this stuff was all I could read, but it gets easier.’ She runs her fingers over a string of pearls around her neck. ‘It does.’

I reach for the book she recommended, grateful.

‘How about you, Jonah?’ Nell asks. ‘Do you read?’

‘I do,’ he says. ‘I’m an English teacher, so it kind of comes with the territory.’ He swallows. ‘I’m struggling with music, mostly.’

This is news to me. Music is Jonah’s thing: playing it, listening to it, writing it.

‘I couldn’t watch TV after Peter died,’ Maud shouts. ‘Silly sod snapped the aerial.’

I’m torn between laughing and wanting to throttle her.

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