by Nina Kaye
Sasha looks so morose about this, I feel a burst of anger at her mum that I have to swallow down. ‘You’re anxious about it, I understand that, Sash. Your whole world has been chucked up in the air. I tell you, your mum’s lucky I’m not living in Glasgow any more because I’d have been round there by now.’
‘I know you would have.’ She plays absently with her straw. ‘I kind of wish you would…’
‘I’ll do it over the phone if you want?’
Sasha shakes her head miserably. ‘No, Lex. Thank you. What I was about to say was that I kind of wish you would, but this is my problem to solve. I just need your help to do it.’
‘Well you’ve got it.’ I take her hand across the table and give it a squeeze. ‘I’ll help you figure out how to deal with this – in a way that won’t leave you racked with guilt, because I know what you’re like.’
Our food arrives and we dig into our steaming, aromatic dishes. Mine, a portion of delicious deep-fried pork and prawn spring rolls, and a large bowl of pho noodle soup. Sasha has ordered fresh, herby prawn summer rolls and a chicken noodle curry dish, from which wafts of coconut and lemongrass keep teasing my nostrils.
‘You’re settling in well then?’ Sasha’s not so much asking as prompting me to tell her more.
‘Yeah, I’m loving it here, Sash. Not just because I can be me again – that’s obviously a massive part of it – but also because it’s just so me. It’s fast-paced, busy, lively. And diverse. I feel like I could never not fit in here, if that makes any sense?’
Sasha wrinkles her nose. ‘Not yet. Hopefully by the end of the weekend though.’
‘I hope so too.’ I pause as a thought comes to me. ‘Actually, Sash, I want to apologise to you.’
‘What for?’ She looks up from her curry and I sigh, the weight of what I’m about to admit pressing down on me.
‘For pushing you away in the way that I did. When I was diagnosed and my family were breathing down my neck like a bunch of wildebeests and everything was going to shit with work and Dom’ – I swallow as emotion threatens to clog my throat – ‘all I could see were people getting in my way and treating me differently. I felt so… suffocated.’
‘I know that, Lex.’ Sasha leans forward earnestly. ‘You don’t need to apologise for feeling trapped and overwhelmed. You dealt with it the way you had to.’
I hang my head slightly. ‘That’s fair to a certain extent. But I was so fed up with it all, I was ready to keep everyone who was suffocating me at arm’s length permanently – including you. I let you think you could move down here with me because it made my life easier at the time.’
I hear the air expelling itself from Sasha’s lungs as she digests this blow.
‘Obviously, I was being ridiculously self-indulgent,’ I rush to explain properly. ‘I realise that now and want you to know how sorry I am… and that I do really want you to move down. I’ve had to come clean because… you mean so much to me.’
I look up and see Sasha’s eyes are red-rimmed and brimming with tears. She’s quite rightly taking this personally.
‘It’s OK,’ she whispers. ‘Not a big deal.’
‘I don’t believe that for a second. You won’t tell me what a crap friend I’ve been, so I’ll do it myself. I’ve been a crap friend. All you were trying to be was the loyal and bloody marvellous rock I actually truly need in my life.’
Sasha’s tears are receding, which tells me I’m on the right track, so to add some humour, I get out of my seat and kneel down beside her theatrically. ‘Sash, will you forgive me for being a selfish cow and let me be your bestie for life?’
Sasha looks down at me and starts to giggle. ‘Of course I will, silly.’
I get up and hug her, and raucous applause breaks out across the restaurant. Startled, we both turn round to discover it’s being directed at us: all the customers and staff are grinning broadly at us, a few of them even looking quite emotional.
‘Congratulations!’ a woman two tables down from us shouts, setting off the applause once again.
Sasha and I look at each other and blanch.
‘Do they…’ Sasha is wide-eyed with shock.
‘Umm… I think so.’
‘Right… and now?’
‘We have to just go with it.’ I straighten up and give a feeble wave of thanks, then sit back down in my seat as we try desperately to stifle the giggles that have overcome us. ‘Sash, get that down you fast. We need to get out of here before someone asks us when the wedding’s going to be.’
* * *
Back at my apartment, we get comfy on my enormous sofa, which (like most of my furniture) I was fortunate enough to hold onto following my split from Dom.
‘That food was amazing.’ Sasha rubs her stomach contentedly at the memory. ‘How is it though that I’m really full, but I still have a hankering for something sweet? Got any dessert in that fridge?’
I screw up my face as I try to visualise whether there’s anything in my kitchen that might semi-resemble dessert. ‘I’m afraid the best I can do is dried fruit and mixed unsalted nuts.’
‘Yeah, that’s not going to cut it. Ooh, I know… I have some chocolate in my bag.’
She pads through to my bedroom, then reappears in the doorway waving a bag of mini Toblerones in front of her.
‘They’re basically just chocolate-coated nuts.’ She gives me a devilish look.
‘Chuck it across.’
Sasha launches the bag in my direction and I brace myself to catch it. But I misjudge the trajectory, and my clumsy attempt to save the situation results in an empty mug being knocked off the coffee table and breaking into pieces.
‘Shit.’ I tentatively pick up the bits. ‘Forgot I can’t catch any more.’
Sasha starts to laugh, then, realising I’m referring to my lack of coordination caused by my MS, she bites her lip guiltily to cover it up.
I glance up at her and smile. ‘It’s OK to laugh. It was funny. We need to find some humour in this nonsense.’
Expecting this to relax Sasha, I’m shocked when she suddenly bursts into tears.
‘Hey…’ I cross the room and put my arms round her. ‘What’s going on? Please don’t get upset. I told you, we need to laugh – otherwise this happens.’
‘Ama-no-crian-coz-a-tha,’ Sasha mumbles miserably into my shoulder.
‘Sorry, what? I can’t make out a word you’re saying.’
‘It’s… not… that.’ She lets out a half-shudder-half-hiccup as I release her and hold her at arm’s length. ‘I’m just… it upsets me so much that you’re getting on with things, accepting no help. When my mum… she’s selfishly taking the kind of support people who are ill like you need and deserve, and there’s not a damn thing wrong with her.’
I take in my best friend’s face, reading the hurt she’s feeling from what she considers to be the ultimate injustice.
‘Aww, Sash.’ I pull her back in for another hug as she dissolves into tears once more. ‘I totally get why you feel that way, but life isn’t fair. I don’t need the kind of help your mum’s taking, and I don’t want it. I intend to stay independent for as long as I bloody well can. Be angry at your mum for how she’s hurt you, not how you think she’s hurting me, because she’s not. Yeah?’
‘Ah-sapo-sat-mahks-shens.’
‘I’m going to take that as you accept and agree with what I say.’ I chuckle, patting her on the back affectionately.
Sasha wipes her eyes with a tissue I hand her and I notice that her expression has turned thoughtful.
‘Lex… if I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?’
‘Depends what the question is—’ I give myself a mental kick up the arse. ‘Sorry, sorry. Yes, I’ll be honest.’
‘Thank you.’ Sasha chooses her words carefully as she unwraps a mini Toblerone. ‘I want to understand how things are with you. If you don’t tell me, I make it up myself, then I get it wrong and annoy you.’
I realise Sasha’s right. Trying to p
retend nothing’s wrong leaves her in an impossible situation.
‘What I want to know,’ she continues, ‘is how your MS is affecting you now; and what support you need. I want to help you.’
I take a moment to digest her question. ‘I suppose it’s natural for you to want to support me, but only if that “support” doesn’t start to take over or smother me.’
‘Lex, you only seem to see two polar opposites: totally able-bodied or totally disabled.’
I flinch as she says this.
‘Sorry.’ She picks up on my discomfort. ‘What I mean is, you’re neither. There are so many shades of grey along that scale. Let’s work out your current “Lex status” and work with that. You need an approach that’s tailored perfectly for you – then I can support you with that.’
Sasha’s words erupt inside me like a volcano of comprehension. She’s exactly right. I’ve been avoiding things I might actually be able to do, and covering things up when I’m struggling. I need to find the right balance. This is something I can work with. It’s a problem to solve and I can do that without it having to be an emotional thing.
‘You know, I could kiss you, Sash.’
‘Maybe best not, given recent events.’ She giggles.
‘Hmm… yeah, good point.’ I waggle my eyebrows at her faux-lecherously. ‘But seriously, you’ve just made so much sense. I’ll grab a pen and we can work through it.’
Padding through to the small desk in my bedroom, I retrieve some stationery, then return to the sofa.
‘OK, let’s do this.’ Sasha dabs at the remaining dampness round her eyes with a tissue. ‘How do you want to start?’
‘I think I’ll answer your questions, then we can use that information to start to build a framework and approach.’
‘Said like a true project manager. I’ll be note-taker.’
‘Deal.’ I hand her the notebook and pen. ‘OK… how my MS is affecting me… it’s not nearly as bad as when I had my relapse. Back then, I struggled to get out of bed in the morning. It took me two hours just to get ready for a hospital appointment because I kept having to stop and rest. I had to sit down in the shower. It was hellish.’
‘And now?’ Sasha scribbles away on the notepad.
I take a moment to really tune in to how things have been recently. ‘Now… it’s like a perma-exhaustion. A bit like walking around with weights strapped to my body. Nothing is as easy as it used to be – stairs and hills are my nemesis.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I get this tingling in my hands and feet. Turns out that’s a symptom – I just thought I had poor circulation. My balance, coordination, spatial judgement… they’re all off, and I actually fell in front of my colleagues a few weeks back when my foot malfunctioned. That was pretty humiliating.’
‘Oh, Lex, you never said.’ Sasha looks gutted for me.
‘Didn’t seem much point.’ I shrug. ‘Wasn’t like you could do anything to change it.’
‘Maybe not, but this is what I’m talking about. It’s not just about you being physically capable, you also need emotional support. Sharing that with me at the time might have helped you process how you felt about it.’
‘I suppose.’ I know she’s right because I gave myself a bit of a hard time in the days following that incident, but I’m not going to offer that up too willingly. ‘So that’s mainly it. There are moments when I struggle with my concentration, but I generally have a clearer head. It’s not like the “cog-fog” I experienced before. That’s a positive thing because that made it very hard to concentrate at work.’
‘That’s great. So what support do you need? How do I get you to be a bit kinder to yourself? How do we have fun together without going overboard? Or, on the flip side, how do I make sure I don’t become the “fun police”? And what about alcohol? Do you drink? Not drink? If you don’t, should I not either? Or will that annoy you?’
‘Whoa! Slow down,’ I tease her in an attempt to hide the fact that I’m now the one feeling overwhelmed.
‘All valid questions though, right?’
‘Yeah, they’re valid, but can we tackle them one at a time?’
An hour later, we’ve chatted it all through and agreed a plan for the weekend. It includes regular coffee stops, some downtime before going out in the evenings, and Sasha being allowed to say if she thinks I’m looking tired – but if I say I’m not, she’s not allowed to keep asking. We also agree that I’ll stick to my two-drink limit and Sasha will behave as she normally would – though I draw the line at having to carry her home.
It doesn’t quite produce the plan for managing my life I’d hoped for, but it provides some good starting blocks, and I can treat this weekend as a bit of an experiment. I’ll certainly be testing my limits just with Sasha being here, and all the things we’re planning to do together.
Chapter 16
The next morning, after breakfast, we get showered and dressed and take a taxi to the Jewellery Quarter.
‘I can’t wait to see this.’ Sasha’s face is one of an excited toddler as she hops out of the cab on Vyse Street and makes a beeline for the first shop window she sees. ‘Look, Lex, their stuff is gorgeous.’
I join her and we gaze longingly at the stunning array of diamonds winking back at us.
‘Come on.’ I give her a nudge. ‘There’s plenty more shops like this to nosey at. According to what I read online, the Jewellery Quarter is “Europe’s largest concentration of jewellery businesses” and it’s become known as “the golden heart of Britain”. It’s an area steeped in history too. I think you’re going to enjoy what’s further down the road.’
‘You sound like a tour guide,’ Sasha giggles. ‘Obviously been doing your homework.’
‘You know me. Google’s my best friend.’
We slowly make our way along the street, which in itself is also appealing with its Victorian charm, lined with quaint cast-iron lampposts and cute red-brick terraced buildings.
‘Which one would you choose if you could have any of these?’ I ask Sasha, as we peer at yet another display of engagement rings.
‘I’d love one like that.’ She points to a platinum one-carat round-cut diamond ring, with smaller glittering stones embedded round the band. ‘It’s stunning.’
‘And expensive. Though I gather you save money if you buy from here rather than the high street.’
‘Useful to know, but it’s not like I’m even close to getting some bling like that on my finger.’
I put my arm round her shoulder. ‘The online dating isn’t going well then?’
Sasha makes a face. ‘Put it this way, of the last three guys I’ve been on dates with, one turned out to be twice my age, one conveniently discovered his wallet had been “stolen” when the bill arrived, and the other spent the whole evening talking about his ex-wife.’
‘They sound like a bunch of charmers. And you never heard back from the one you did sort of like from a couple of months ago?’
‘Nope. Totally ghosted me. Was probably married or something.’
‘Aww, Sash. You will meet someone good one day.’
‘I sincerely hope so.’ She sighs loudly. ‘Otherwise I’m going through this ridiculous torture for nothing.’
We turn away from the window display and continue down the street until we reach the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.
‘Ooh, this looks interesting,’ says Sasha.
‘I think you’ll like it. It used to be a jewellery factory.’
We enter the museum and pay the cashier, who invites us to make our way through the two galleries before joining the workshop tour.
‘So, how about you? Have you heard from Dom?’ Sasha asks, as we wander round the bright airy gallery, taking in the exhibits.
‘No, and I don’t expect to. Dom’s not the kind of guy to ruminate. Once that decision was made, it was final. We only “talked business” after we broke up – to get the flat sold and divide our things. There was no sentimentality whatsoever.’<
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‘Did you not find that hard? You were together for a long time. I would have been devastated if a guy I’d been engaged to just switched off from me like that.’
‘Oh, I was hurt – badly. I thought he was so cold. Wondered even if he had ever really loved me. But I guess he was doing what he had to do to cope. Dom does feel things, he takes them quite personally, he just doesn’t know how to process those feelings, so he pretends they’re not there.’
‘Sounds a bit like you.’ Sasha’s eyes widen in horror and she puts a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that how it sounded.’
I pause in front of a glass cabinet containing an intriguing range of gold and silver samples that the factory workshop used to make. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s probably true. Dom and I worked well because we never dwelled on anything. We considered ourselves quite resilient. It seems naïve now, because as much as it’s not healthy to wallow, it’s equally unhealthy to never face up to issues. As soon as things got a bit tough, we crumbled.’
‘I’m sorry. I really liked Dom. I’m also sorry I suggested a few months ago that you drove him away. That was unfair. I just didn’t want you to leave.’
‘I know that, Sash. No need to apologise. I’ve admitted that I didn’t face up to things. So in a way, you were right. I did drive him away.’
I look at the floor, expecting the familiar sadness and empty Dom-shaped hole I’ve been holding together with metaphorical sticky tape to burst open again. But the tape stays intact. Surprised by this, I do a self-check. Am I over Dom? No, I can’t be. Not fully. Not yet. But something has changed. As this thought works its way through my brain, it’s chased closely by another. The man from the train. Matt. With his gorgeous penetrating brown eyes, his endearing inquisitive nature. And his defeated look in the bar just a few weeks ago.
‘What is it?’ Sasha asks. ‘Something’s bothering you, I can tell.’
I look at her blankly, then come to. ‘It’s… nothing. Nothing at all.’
