Page 23

Chapter 22

Liv

There must be at least three hundred women here, all of different ages, races, appearances and backgrounds. And we’re all bound together by the C word.

I’m feeling quite emotional as I look among us and think of my sister Amelia and how, in a different life, she’d have been standing shoulder to shoulder with us. I miss her.

She was both my inspiration and my biggest fear. She inspired me to get out of Sandlehope because I was terrified I might end up like her. She was trapped in a coercive relationship with an older man she’d dated since her teens. She wasn’t allowed her own phone or social life and rarely saw our family. And her opinion of herself was too low to allow her to escape, despite my frequent encouragement.

Amelia did nothing about a lump she found in her left breast, scared she might add an extra layer of complication to her and her husband’s already complex relationship. Thirteen months later and she was gone, dead at thirty-five. I look up to the dark sky above us and the one star I can see. ‘This is for you, Amelia,’ I whisper.

Anna is already here and limbering up, stretching her arms and hamstrings. I recognise a lot of my sister in her. The people she spends the most time with don’t bring positivity to her life. Margot takes cheap pot shots at her as and when she can, and I don’t think her marriage to Drew is a happy one. All of which makes me want to protect her. Maybe I can succeed with Anna where I failed with Amelia.

Margot’s oversized sleeves flap like windsocks as she strides towards us. She must hate me for ordering something so large. But I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes we all need a gentle reminder not to take ourselves too seriously. She makes her way through the crowd to join us.

She’s about to say something when a voice through a megaphone expresses the organisers’ gratitude to everyone for taking part. Then a klaxon sounds and with our head torches illuminated, we begin the first of three laps around Abington Park. When I turn to Margot, my torch’s white light blinds her as if I’m preparing for an interrogation.

‘What were you going to say before the walk started?’ I ask Margot.

She clears her throat. ‘I hear you’ve had a conversation with my daughter.’

‘Frankie,’ I say, without misgendering them. I have a feeling I know what’s coming next, so I wrongfoot her with praise. ‘They’re a credit to you and Nicu. A really perceptive, self-aware kid who knows their own mind. I bet they’ve got that from you.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d like to know what she’s ... what they’ve told you.’

‘About what specifically?’

‘About them. About our relationship.’

I could tell her the truth. How I pulled the car over in the pouring rain to give Frankie a lift home because their mum had forgotten to pick them up and wasn’t answering her phone. How they described Margot as an ‘ignorant bitch who never listens’ and who doesn’t care about them, or how Frankie was in tears for much of our conversation. I could tell her that if Frankie didn’t care about Margot, they wouldn’t be carrying such strong emotions. And I could add how I hugged them and told them it will be alright in the end because often these things are. How the majority of parents aren’t like Margot and are supportive of their kids’ decisions. About how young people’s brains aren’t fully formed yet so they can’t yet see the big picture and how they just need to hang in there, because change will come.

However, I decide against it. People like Margot don’t respond well to being told what they need to do, even from an objective standpoint. Instead, they retaliate, fighting fire with fire, then complaining when the flames are too high to extinguish. So I take a different approach.

‘Well, Frankie told me what self-identification means to them,’ I continue. ‘And they admitted how, at first, you grappled to understand where they were coming from and how, eventually, they’re sure you’ll see things their way. And then I put them in touch with Dana, the child of two of my friends, Sylvia and Ian Carmichael. You might’ve seen Sylvia on TV – she’s one of the judges on that Super Chef show?’

Margot’s eyes widen. The fact it’s the child of a celebrity on prime-time television makes a difference.

‘She owns that restaurant in the Cotswolds that has a two-year waiting list,’ she says.

‘Yes, that’s her. They’ve been through the same thing with Dana. And Sylvia says I can pass her number to you if you ever want to talk. I hope you don’t think I’ve overstepped the mark?’

‘Um, no, not at all,’ Margot says.

‘And you know that you can talk to me if ever you want to vent,’ I add. ‘Parenthood is about rolling with the punches, just hoping you get it right, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she replies.

But I think she’d rather roll away from, than with, the punches.