Again, Rachel, page 33
Very surprised, I said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve had it rough. I get it, now that I’m … broody myself. Thing is, I’d probably be fuck all use to you. I’m bad at sympathy …’ She paused, her mood suddenly darker. ‘So I’ve been told. Or is it empathy? Maybe it’s both.’ Brightening again, she said, ‘But if you were stuck, I’m … yeah, here for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I repeated.
‘You’ve been good to me,’ she said. ‘When I get the Mads, you don’t make it all about you.’
I found this admission almost unbearably touching.
‘Nearly everyone else does,’ she said. ‘They can’t help it, I suppose. But you’re different.’
I swallowed hard. ‘And how are you? With everything that’s going on?’
‘It’s a pain in the hole, isn’t it?’ She sounded exasperated. ‘Wanting a baby. There’s so much more to lose. I was better off when I wanted nothing and loved nobody.’
‘Oh, Helen, no. That’s no way to live.’
‘But it’s safe.’ Her anxiety was suddenly very evident. ‘Rachel, what if I can’t get up the duff? And I go mental again? Or what if I have a baby and then get the Post-Baby Mads? Because that can happen to’ – she spoke in a dorky voice – ‘“women with a history of depression”.’ She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. ‘Which is me. Fuck’s sake! Or what if – and I’m sorry, Rachel – but what if I do get pregnant and then lose it? It’d be straight back to the nut-house for me.’
Christ.
The thing was that any of those scenarios could come to pass. Though the chances were small, the prospect was terrifying. A frantic need to protect her surged in me.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ she said. ‘I wish I had meetings to go to, the way you do.’
‘But there are self-help groups for people with depression.’
‘Yeah. I went one time.’ More eye-rolling. ‘But the others annoyed the living bejesus out of me. They were so … moany. I didn’t go again.’
When I got home after my meeting, I was exhausted. Slowly climbing the stairs to bed, I knew I’d have no trouble sleeping. And, oh God, my gratitude. Even now, the very thought of insomnia threw me back into those terrible weeks after Yara died.
The world had shifted on its axis and nothing would ever be the same again. A whole new dimension of sorrow had opened for me. It was only once I’d got a regular supply of sleeping pills that I could bear it.
Waking up every morning to live another day without Yara was always a shock. Surviving each individual minute was gruelling. But knowing that at 10 p.m. I could stop enduring and disappear into delicious oblivion gave me strength.
The only thing was, it didn’t take much to build up a tolerance to the pills. So it was no real surprise that after a week or so of taking them, I began waking after five hours, then four. For a couple of nights I tried waiting it out, hoping to go back to sleep, but it was hard, especially knowing there was a small stash of pills nearby, rolled into a pair of socks in my chest of drawers. On the third night, I tiptoed over and tried to pull out the drawer without making a noise. But with a squeak, the wood caught and Luke shifted in the bed.
‘What are you doing?’ he mumbled.
‘Nothing,’ I whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’
I pressed the pill from the card, placed it on my tongue, slipped back into bed and soon I was carried off to pain-free nothingness.
After that night, I kept a second tablet hidden in my pillowcase for when I woke at 2 or 3 a.m.
In an awful development, daytimes seemed to be becoming more painful. It was about seven weeks since she’d died, the initial devastation had shifted and the full weight of my – our – loss was starting to settle. Instead of the wide-open expanse of love and happiness Luke and I had been primed for, the life we were left with seemed small, stunted and very sad.
Then he went through a spell of insomnia. After one morning too many when I woke to find him hollow-eyed and exhausted, I suggested he go to Carlotta. My hope was that if we were both taking sleeping pills, he’d understand how helpful they were – and I could tell him I was still taking them.
But he said, ‘I’ll just tough it out. Your sleeping got back to normal.’ Then, ‘Didn’t it?’
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought his eyes flicked to my sock drawer and I went cold. If he found out about them, he’d make me throw them away and I couldn’t – they were the saving of me.
When he left for work, I gave it twenty minutes, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back to catch me, then I retrieved my precious little stockpile – three cards, twenty-seven pills remaining. They needed to be broken up and hidden around the apartment, so that if Luke found some, at least there would still be plenty left.
As I cut the cards into quarters, I felt ashamed, then resentful. Why did he have to be so difficult? If only he’d take on board that this was a very temporary thing and as soon as I was stronger, I’d stop.
The bathroom seemed too obvious, that was probably the first place he’d look. But it seemed safe to slide some pills into the pocket of a coat I no longer wore. In the kitchen, my hand rummaged down low into a bag of basmati rice we hadn’t touched in years and I buried four tablets. So long as Luke didn’t take it upon himself to do a kitchen clearout – and that was wildly unlikely – they’d be safe.
My focus narrowed in on the three photographs hanging on the living-room wall: smiley, happy pictures of Brigit and me on a night out with the Real Men, a thousand years ago. They’d been there for so long that Luke and I no longer saw them.
I took them down and as I was sellotaping tablets to their backs I got a glimpse into how insane this was. Like, it was mad. Shouldn’t I just tell Luke? There was nothing dodgy about taking these pills, they’d been prescribed by a doctor. Well, two doctors actually. Carlotta didn’t know that Dr Gagnon had given me a prescription and Dr Gagnon either didn’t know or wasn’t interested in Carlotta’s script.
But they were prescribed. Admittedly, I was taking more than either doctor had given me, but that was just to get me through this awful time. For all that Luke had freaked out about the initial five Ambien from Carlotta, he was forgetting that I was the least likely person to come a cropper. I knew so much about myself and so much about addiction that I would make sure it would never happen.
58
I woke up to a series of texts from Claire.
Devin Costello a BIG hit. Luka and him in bromance! Even Francesca stopped being bitchy after a while.
Then:
No effing job, though. Do any of them ever have jobs? Us Gen Xers keep the world turning then they make us feel guilty for buying clothes. Not cool.
Then:
I’m barely Gen X. Almost young enough to be millennial lol. They’re happy enough to take allowance from us though and let us pay for stuff.
Then:
Doesn’t really look like Luke. Would have been weird if he did. He seems mad about Kate. Never liked that Isaac.
Then:
What you up to this evening? Luka and me having mother-son bonding time. Going shopping. Proves my earlier point. Then going for Mexican food. Teenage boys obsessed with tacos.
Well. It was good news for Kate that they liked Devin. That was about as much headspace as I could spare for it. Then I went to work.
At ten past ten, Freya Tollemarche hurried up the steps, her bossy-pants father, Eden, behind her.
I’d expected Bronte’s daughter to be a fey, fine-boned blonde but instead she had lots of thick, russet hair, barely contained by a knitted utility hat. Her face was long and thin with prominent teeth but she was gorgeous, with fresh bouncy skin and glowing eyes.
Eden greeted me by bellowing, ‘Today must be all about Freya.’
‘Excuse me?’ Cheeky fecker, telling me how to run my sessions.
‘I can be here whenever you command. But as Freya is visiting for just one day, she must have the floor.’
‘We’ll see.’ I gave him a thin smile and turned my attention to his daughter.
Emotionally, she was all over the place, smiling non-stop while on the verge of tears. The poor little thing, she was only eighteen.
‘Rachel.’ Gingerly, she double-kissed me, as if we were meeting socially. ‘We’re so grateful for your help with Mumma.’ She plucked at my sleeve. ‘Your jumpsuit is heaven.’
She flashed an anxious grin while tears made tracks down her face. From the pocket of her chocolate-coloured twill trousers, she pulled out an actual cotton handkerchief and used it to dab her eyes.
I have to say, her look was mesmerizing. On her long, narrow feet was a pair of dark brogues polished to a high shine. A glimpse of a vest in vivid green appeared under a boxy-shouldered serge jacket, topped off with a crossbody satchel which looked like a family heirloom. She could have come straight from the Margaret Howell catwalk or from the All You Can Wear for a Tenner from her local Oxfam.
‘Jumble?’ Bronte asked, faintly, at the sight of her daughter. ‘Oh! It’s really you!’
‘Mumma!’ Freya and Bronte fell into each other’s arms, Eden hovering behind them.
‘I’m so sorry you’re in this place,’ Freya said.
‘Jumble, no.’ Bronte was dotting Freya’s face with little kisses. ‘Please don’t fret. They’re all terribly nice. But … how are you here? Have you left San Francisco?’
‘Just for today. I fly back tomorrow.’
‘You’ve come for one day? Because of me?’
‘Yes!’
Then they were both laughing and crying into each other’s faces.
All of the others were gripped.
Freya said to Dennis, ‘May I?’ And indicated his chair, which was beside Bronte’s.
‘You certainly may.’ He hopped up and crossed the room to sit next to a stony-faced Eden. Nervously, he gave him a nod and muttered, ‘Grand day for it.’
Freya was stroking Bronte’s hand and Bronte was smoothing Freya’s hair – literally grooming each other. They needed to be separated if I was to get any sense out of Freya, so Dennis was despatched back to his original seat.
When everyone had settled, I began. ‘Freya, you were thirteen when your mum went to rehab for the first time. What was it like growing up with an addict parent?’
Freya was all angles, an earnest arrangement of knees, elbows and long expressive fingers. ‘What you must understand is that Mumma is the sweetest soul. We knew she had gone to rehab but I don’t remember her ever being … whatever the word is – out of it? Stoned? High?’
Ah here. ‘Ever?’ I asked.
‘Sincerely, no. She was so much fun and so sweet, always. I’ve always felt very loved by her. So have Hugo and Gerald. We adore her.’
Funnily enough, I believed her on that.
Bronte blew kisses across the room. ‘Bisous,’ she said, tears in her eyes.
‘What-oo?’ Dennis whispered, leaning sideways into Chalkie.
‘French word for “kisses”.’ Chalkie rolled his eyes.
Not everyone with an addict for a parent was messed up. Maybe Freya was damaged in less obvious ways but I was certain that she loved her mother.
‘I’m horse-mad,’ Freya offered. ‘We both are. We – she and I – Our horses are the loves of our lives.’
‘Will you get to see Bubble while you’re here?’ Bronte interrupted.
‘Yes!’ Freya squeaked, suddenly animated. ‘I’ll pop home for a little love-in if there’s time after this.’ She glanced at Eden, who nodded.
He’d told me they were going straight to the airport from here.
‘Give her a kiss from me,’ Bronte said.
‘Of course. And I’ll visit Merryweather, shall I?’
‘Oh, please!’
Something about all this horse-love made me wonder about Freya’s career choice. ‘In San Francisco?’ I asked. ‘You’re working in a bank?’
‘Investment bank. Just for a year, before I start uni.’
‘Are you planning on being a banker? Wouldn’t you prefer to work with horses?’
‘Yah, yes. But no.’ She flicked a furtive glance at her father. ‘It’s not a career.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Surely there were all kinds of jobs in the horsey world?
‘No, not financially. No.’
I wanted to press her further but she wasn’t my client, it wasn’t my business.
‘How did you feel,’ I asked, ‘when you heard your mum had relapsed?’
‘I –’ Freya’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
After a long silence, I asked, ‘Were you surprised?’
‘Well, yes, because I’d never seen her … what should I say? Being an addict? But she’s fragile. I think she finds life more painful than others.’
‘Do you want her to stop using heroin?’
After another pause, she said, ‘I want her to be happy. Hugo and Gerald also want it for her. Above anything.’
‘Freya.’ I tried to be gentle. ‘You love your mother, you want to protect her from pain. But heroin is a very dangerous drug, with a high fatality rate.’
This really wasn’t fair, Freya was young and innocent. But I’d been hoodwinked by Eden, who’d made Freya fly five thousand miles to say unpalatable truths so that he wouldn’t have to.
Poor Freya was in agony. ‘Well, then she must stop.’ Her tears began again. ‘I’m sorry, Mumma, we love you too much. You must stop.’
Bronte looked stricken. This was the key to her, I suddenly understood. This was what I’d missed: she adored her children.
59
As soon as I’d seen Freya and Eden off the premises, I made for the office, itching to focus on the timeline of Bronte’s relapse. I was nearly certain I had it figured out – then Brianna intercepted me with a dense little package. ‘I’m guessing it’s from another grateful customer.’
I should have kept going but Brianna was keen to see what it was – a giant hunk of nougat, as it transpired.
Brianna recoiled. ‘I’ve a literal phobia of that stuff. Aren’t you worried it’ll pull out all of your teeth?’
‘No. I love it.’ But I knew someone who’d love it more – Nola’s husband Harry. Nougat was his thing.
I was so fond of Harry. Obviously, he’d never know me as well as his wife did because Nola knew literally everything about me. But simply by opening his front door to me dozens of times a year, an affectionate warmth had built up.
It must be strange being the partner of a sponsor, seeing people arrive at your home, in all kinds of states, good and bad – but not being privy to any of the details.
It had been the very same for Luke. Like the time I’d been sponsoring a lovely woman called Jessamay. She’d been doing very well, then suddenly relapsed three times over five months. Her girlfriend, Britt, threatened to leave if she did it again. Then it actually happened – Jessamay slipped and Britt left.
Jessamay rang me in a terrible state and I told her to come to my apartment. Somehow Luke got to the door first and Jessamay flung herself against him. ‘Oh, Luke! I relapsed! Britt left me! Could you talk to her, please, tell her –’
Looking terrified, Luke cut his eyes to me. ‘I’m sorry to hear th–’
‘Jessamay.’ I took her hand, led her into my bedroom and tried to calm her. We talked for a long time and then went to a meeting. Afterwards, I walked her back to her apartment.
When I finally got home, Luke hopped up off the couch, full of anguish. ‘Is she okay? Has Britt really left her?’ Then, ‘I know. It’s none of my business. You can’t tell me. But that was hard to see.’
I compressed my mouth, trying to stop the words from jumping out.
‘I know you can’t tell me,’ Luke repeated. ‘But has Britt really gone? What if she doesn’t come back?’
‘Maybe it’s for the best.’ That wasn’t an actual divulgence of facts, I told myself. It was a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question.
‘What? Rachel, no!’ Luke seemed offended. Upset, even. ‘Why?’
‘Listen to me, you romantic sap. How often have I told you that if an addict doesn’t lose something, they’ve no incentive to change?’
‘Right.’ But he didn’t like it.
‘In fact, if – and it’s not going to – but if I ever relapsed, you couldn’t stay with me.’
‘But what if I wanted to?’
I laughed. ‘You wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t be me. And you wouldn’t be helping me, you’d be doing the very opposite.’
He shook his head. ‘This is all very tough love. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.’
When I cracked Bronte’s timeline, I was so gleeful, I literally rubbed my hands together. As soon as we were back in group after lunch, I launched in.
‘Bronte? You were happy to see Freya?’
She lit up. ‘I was bouleversée!’
‘What-ee what-say?’ Dennis asked.
‘French word,’ Chalkie said. ‘Means “bleedin’ delighted”.’
‘I adore her,’ Bronte said. ‘I adore all three of my children.’
‘So how do you reconcile being a loving mother with using heroin?’
‘But they weren’t there.’ She sounded surprised. ‘They were away at school. I never took drugs around them.’
Really? Well, maybe. It fitted with Freya’s version of events. ‘When you got married you – for the most part – stopped using heroin? But you began again about six years ago? Yes? Why?’
‘I’m not really sure …’
‘Your youngest child is thirteen? What age was he when he went to boarding school?’
‘Seven.’
‘Which was how many years ago?’
‘… Six.’
I let that sit with her for a while.
‘Eden sent you to rehab five years ago? And you got clean and stayed clean, until eight months ago? Yes? Before you broke your ankle, how were you doing with your life? Was anything different? Any changes? Big or small?’
She widened her eyes. ‘Not that I can remember.’
‘Let’s track back. It was June when you had your accident. What else was going on last June?’
