I couldn’t stop replaying the day in my head so I decided to try to write my letter to anorexia. Maybe it would help me get rid of some of my anger. The words flew onto the page:
Dear Anorexia,
I hate you. You have come into our home like a violent criminal and brutally stolen our daughter, our happiness and our sanity. Before you appeared, we were a happy family, a family that laughed a lot and loved each other.
But then you came and ripped us apart. You took our beautiful Ali away and left a scared, sick, unhappy girl behind. You sucked all the joy out of her life and filled her with negative thoughts.
Our angel is now in a clinic because of you, but she’s going to get better. You will not win this war. You’re messing with the wrong family. I will use every ounce of strength in my body to crush you. You will not ruin my daughter’s life. I will not let you hurt Alison any more. I will hunt you down and banish you from her life.
A mother’s role is to protect her children and that’s what I intend to do. I know that the mistakes I made have allowed you to come into our lives, but I will not let you control us any more. You will leave Alison alone. She’s going to lead a full, happy and beautiful life and you will burn in hell.
So farewell, evil voice, you will be replaced with my voice, telling Alison every day that she is wonderful, gorgeous, clever, kind, caring, special … I will tell her how proud we are of her. I will tell her how on the day she was born I knew that my life was going to be enriched beyond my wildest dreams. She was the most perfect baby I’d ever seen and every day of her life has been a joy. I love her more now than ever and I will not let you hurt her any more.
Go to hell where you belong.
Ava
I folded the letter and put it in my pocket. I lit the fire and sank back into the couch, sipping wine until Paul came home. He snuggled up beside me, sharing my drink, while I told him about my phone call with Denise and how she had said we were not to feel depleted, that Ali was still on the road to recovery.
‘Well, that’s good to hear – although hard to believe after today’s fiasco,’ he said. ‘So I guess we just keep telling her we love her and we think she’s wonderful and hope for the best. That’s our job, right? To support our kids and, no matter when they fall, to catch them.’
‘You’re very philosophical all of a sudden,’ I said.
‘I was talking to one of the guys in the pub. His son was in a car crash and suffered from depression afterwards. He didn’t speak or get out of bed for a year. John just said he sat beside his son every evening, told him he loved him and read him books. Eventually one day the boy got out of bed and got on with his life. So I suppose what I’ve realized is I have to be more patient. I want this to be over now, I want Ali to be better yesterday, but I can see after today that there’s no quick fix. So I’ve decided to try to stay calm and let her get well at her own pace. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to understand what you’ve been telling me for months.’
‘Wow, I’m impressed,’ I said, smiling at my husband. ‘I like this new Zen approach. I need to take some of my own advice. I’ve been sitting here furious with Ali when really I should be feeling sorry for her. The day started so well – it’s just so disappointing.’
‘Tell me about it! Look,’ Paul said, showing me his hand. His knuckles were all bloodied.
‘Oh, my God – what happened?’
‘After dropping her back, I was so frustrated that I punched the wall outside the clinic. Intelligent move! It’s killing me.’
‘Here, let me get some ice for it. God, Paul, we’re turning into lunatics. We’ll all end up in the clinic soon.’
51
As I got up to get the ice, the front door flew open and Sarah and Bobby came rushing in.
‘Oh, my God! You are so not going to believe what we’ve just found out,’ Sarah said, tripping over her words.
‘You’ve used up all the false tan in Ireland.’ Paul found himself very amusing.
‘Hilarious,’ Sarah drawled.
I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. ‘I thought you were supposed to be at Tia’s sleepover.’
‘Yeah, well, we ended up going to Sapphire –’
‘Sapphire?’ Paul exclaimed.
‘Yes, Dad, it’s a nightclub – you know, where young people go to have fun.’
‘That nightclub is not a place for young girls.’
‘Like you’d know.’
‘One of my barmen used to work there. He said it’s full of people off their heads on cocaine. If I ever find out you’ve gone there again, you’ll be grounded until you’re thirty.’
‘Hello! We’re not living in Afghanistan! You can’t lock me up for having a good time. What are you? The freaking Taliban? I have rights, you know.’
‘Don’t be rude to your dad, not tonight,’ I warned her.
‘Oh, why? Because we’re all upset about Ali for a change? So we’re back to bloody square one again. Can’t eat. Voices in her head. Won’t eat. Too much food. Gagging on food. Hiding food. Spitting food out. Why can’t she just be normal? I’m sick of it.’
‘We’re all fed up,’ I said, feeling sorry for her. She’d had to put up with a lot lately. ‘But Denise thinks Ali will really get better now.’
‘How did she figure that out? Was the clue when Ali couldn’t even eat a sprig of dry broccoli without throwing up? We all know I’m not the smart one in the family, but it looked to me like she was a total basket case.’
‘Sarah, I know this is hard for you too, but you need to calm down and be nice about your sister. Why are you so wound up?’
‘Because, Mum, if you ever listened to me, you’d have heard me say that Bobby and me found out something unbelievable tonight.’
‘We were like professional detectives,’ Bobby added.
‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’ Paul asked.
Sarah told us to brace ourselves and began to explain. ‘So I went to Tia’s sleepover, which was really a free house and an excuse to go to Sapphire, which is actually not all that cool so I won’t be going back anyway, before you have a freak attack. Anyway, Bobby and I were there and most of the people we were with were, like, so drunk they were falling around, bumping into the walls and throwing up in the loos. The bouncers were getting really pissed off, so we pretended we didn’t know them and left before we all got thrown out.’
‘Don’t think I won’t be coming back to the fact that you lied to me about Tia’s parents being at home and went to a nightclub without our permission,’ I informed my younger daughter.
‘Whatever, Mum. So Bobby and me are standing on the footpath trying to get a taxi but there are a million people and, like, four taxis and a rickshaw. The guy with the rickshaw was nearly as thin as Ali, so I doubted he’d be able to pedal me and Bobby the four miles home without collapsing and dying. So we looked around for somewhere to go for food while we waited for more taxis to arrive. I was still starving after the plate of grass you served us for dinner. But then I saw a sign for Zuzi’s, which is where Nadia works, so I said to Bobby, “Let’s go in and see if she can help us get home.” ’
‘You went to a pole-dancing club?’ Paul asked, looking crosser by the minute.
‘We were totally not there for the girls, Mr M, we just wanted to get help with a taxi,’ Bobby assured him.
‘So we go in and it’s all dark and full of dirty old men your age,’ Sarah said, pointing to Paul. ‘This foreign girl comes over who is basically naked.’
‘Babe, she did have some clothes on,’ Bobby reminded her.
‘Hello! She was wearing a tiny G-string and had two tassels covering her nipples. She wasn’t exactly in a freaking burqa. Anyway, she totally ignores me and is all over Bobby like a rash.’
‘She just wanted to know what we were having to drink,’ Bobby pointed out.
‘She actually shoved her boobs in your face and you went bright red.’
‘I did not. I was cool
with it.’
‘I know you were enjoying it. I could see that from the stupid grin on your face. So I pushed the waitress back and ordered two beers, but she said they only had wine and champagne, so Bobby decided to try to impress her and ordered a bottle of Moët.’
‘I wasn’t trying to impress her, babe, I bought it for you,’ he claimed.
‘You were staring at her boobs when you ordered it,’ Sarah retorted. ‘So the waitress goes off and gets the champagne and brings it back and hands Bobby the bill. It’s a hundred and fifty euros! Bobby tries to pretend that he’s not shocked and takes out his wallet but he only has sixty and I only have thirty, so we can’t pay.’
‘I should have brought my old man’s credit card out. I’m only supposed to use it in life-and-death situations, but this was a major emergency. I was mortified,’ said the big spender.
‘So the waitress who was all over Bobby is now totally disgusted, because she can see we’re not high-rollers. She starts getting stroppy and saying she’s opened the champagne now and we owe her a hundred and fifty euros and she’s going to call the manager. So then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Nadia strutting onto the stage and swinging out of a pole and I say to the waitress, “Chill out, you narky tart, we know Nadia, she’ll lend us the money.” So she looks over to where I’m pointing at Nadia upside-down on this pole – I have to say she’s so bendy for her age it’s seriously impressive – and the naked waitress starts going mental. She’s shouting, “That Nadia is a bitch,” and all that kind of stuff, but it was hard to understand because her English wasn’t great and the music was really loud.’
‘I found her quite easy to understand, I must say,’ Bobby disagreed.
‘Well, that’s because she only spoke to you and ignored me. Anyway, the waitress is going mad shouting about Nadia being a whore. I’m, like, “Hey, I know, I could have told you that myself.” But she’s ignoring me and ranting on.’
‘So I ask the lady, “Why are you so pissed off with Nadia?” ’ Bobby explains.
‘And she says,’ Sarah pauses for dramatic effect, ‘ “I hate her because she stole my boyfriend.” So I say, “Now, hold on a minute, who is your boyfriend?’ And she points to this really big muscly guy at the bar who looks like the Incredible Hulk.’
‘He was well ripped,’ Bobby agreed. ‘I’d say he spends minimum three hours a day in the gym just doing weights.’
‘OK, the man had muscles. Can you get on with the story? I’d like to get to the end of it before sunrise.’ Paul hustled them along.
‘Patience, Dad,’ Sarah reminded him. ‘So I ask the waitress how long ago Nadia stole her boyfriend. And she says four months, and then she starts to cry and Bobby is all handing her tissues and rubbing her back and ogling her boobs.’
‘I can assure you, Mr M, I was not looking at her knockers. I felt sorry for her, that’s all,’ Bobby said.
Sarah ignored him and continued with the story: ‘Obviously I wasn’t going to let that go, so I told her that Nadia was engaged to my grandfather and that she was pregnant with his baby. And then the waitress started to laugh and said the baby wasn’t Charlie’s, it’s her ex-boyfriend’s.’
‘Hold on!’ I interrupted. ‘Did you just tell me that it’s not Charlie’s baby?’
‘According to this waitress, Nadia has been using Charlie for money. She’s been shagging this other guy for months and is pretending it’s Charlie’s baby so he’ll give her more money. The boyfriend knows all about it and has been encouraging her to squeeze as much out of Charlie as possible.’
‘That little bitch,’ I raged.
‘I always knew Nadia was a slut,’ Sarah said. ‘So I went over to her and pulled her off the stage and I was screaming, “You’re a whore, I know it’s not Charlie’s baby – how could you do that to Charlie? He’s been so good to you …” ’
‘What did she say?’
‘She knew she was sussed. She didn’t even deny it. She said she hadn’t done anything wrong, that Charlie had had a good time with her and she hadn’t got much money from him at all and she’d been planning to tell him the baby wasn’t his … and then I got so angry I pulled her hair and told her she was a cheap whore, but her big beefy boyfriend came over and picked me up and tried to throw me out of the club. Bobby jumped on him from behind but he was way too strong for us.’
‘Hold on there, babe. I had him in a head-lock. It was only a matter of time before he hit the deck,’ Bobby objected.
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Babe, he was twice your size. Anyway, the naked waitress came over and hit her ex-boyfriend over the head with the champagne bottle and the Hulk fell down, so me and Bobby ran out of there as fast as we could.’
‘Jesus Christ, you could have been killed. A lot of the guys running these joints are ex-IRA,’ Paul scolded. ‘You’re not bloody US Navy Seals. What the hell were you thinking?’
‘Excuse me! We just saved Charlie’s life and you’re giving out to us?’ Sarah was incredulous.
‘Poor Charlie, how am I going to tell him? He’s mad about Nadia,’ I said.
‘I dunno, Mum – but since Nadia said she was pregnant and started being so narky, I think she lost some of her charm for Charlie.’
‘He was very excited about having a baby. Oh, God, what a mess,’ I groaned.
‘He’s better off finding out now before she fleeced him,’ Paul said.
‘I know, but you’re all forgetting that he’s in love. After twenty miserable years with Catherine he deserved a break. How am I going to explain this to him?’
‘You won’t have to. I heard it all,’ Charlie said, appearing from behind the door in his pyjamas. ‘I woke up when Sarah slammed the front door and heard a commotion so I got out of bed to see if something had happened to Ali and then I got caught up in Sarah’s adventures. Our own little Indiana Jones.’
Paul and I looked at each other.
‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ I said, getting up.
‘Don’t worry, pet, I’ll be grand. There’s plenty more fish in the sea – isn’t that right, Sarah?’ He smiled over at his granddaughter.
‘Totally. She was never good enough for you. I pulled her hair really hard,’ Sarah said. ‘And I told her that she’d better not darken our door again or my dad would kneecap her.’
‘Jesus, you’ll get me arrested,’ Paul said.
‘I was protecting Charlie,’ Sarah protested.
‘That’s enough detective work from you two,’ I said. ‘Now, Bobby, I think it’s time you went home and Sarah went to bed.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Paul said. ‘I’d like to have a word with you anyway about bringing my underage daughter to nightclubs.’
‘Leave Bobby alone,’ Sarah told him. ‘It was my idea.’
‘I’ve no doubt it was, but he needs to learn to say no to you,’ Paul replied.
‘The relationship works very well the way it is, thank you, Dad, so can you please leave it alone and not stick your oar in? I’m the normal daughter, remember?’
‘Normal?’ Paul sputtered. ‘Accosting pole dancers and fighting bouncers is not normal behaviour for a sixteen-year-old girl.’
‘Whatever happened to, “Well done, Sarah, nice work, Sarah. Congratulations, Sarah. Despite your sister freaking out at dinner and upsetting everyone in the family yet again, you managed to keep a cool head and help your grandfather”?’
‘I’m very proud of you, pet,’ Charlie said.
‘We’re just worried about you,’ I reassured her. ‘What you did was brave but extremely dangerous. We couldn’t bear anything to happen to you.’
‘Well, it didn’t. And I saved the day. You can think of a suitable reward while I get my beauty sleep.’ Turning to Bobby, she said, ‘Babe, ignore everything my dad says. You were great tonight.’
‘You rocked too. You had a total Charlie’s Angels vibe. So hot.’
‘Easy there, tiger, take yourself and your hormones and get into my car.’ Paul ushered Bobby out of t
he house and Sarah went upstairs to bed.
I went over to put my arm around my father. ‘Hey, Charlie, are you all right?’
He sank into the couch. ‘Oh, Ava, I’m some gobshite. I was totally taken in by her. I actually thought she loved me. I was lonely and I wanted some fun – I was an easy target and she must have seen me coming a mile away. God, I’m an awful idiot. You were right, Ava, I never learn – out of the frying pan into the fire.’
‘You’re not an idiot. You’re just trusting and generous and kind. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’ I poured him a whiskey from the drinks cabinet in the corner and handed it to him. ‘Here, drink this – you’ve had a shock.’
‘I just feel so stupid. It looks like I’ll always be the orphan boy desperate for love. Will I ever learn?’
‘But that’s what makes you so special. Despite having had no love when you were small and being dumped in an orphanage, you somehow managed to come out full of life and love and warmth. You’re one in a million. Don’t ever change, Charlie. Even if you have made mistakes the wonderful thing about you is that you never give up on love and happiness. I’ve really seen over the last few months how important that is.’
‘I suppose as mistakes go it wasn’t so bad. It was fun for the first few months and the sex was fantastic. As for the money, she didn’t get much out of me.’
‘What about the baby?’
‘Ah, I’m too old to be having children. I can barely look after myself. I tried to convince myself it would be fine, that it was a new start, but I’m past being a dad. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful daughter and two fantastic granddaughters. That’s enough for any man.’
I kissed his cheek. ‘And I’ve been blessed with an amazing father and the girls with an incredible grandfather.’
‘I’m not exactly a great example to them, marrying an alcoholic and then being conned by a pole dancer.’
‘You’re a great example to them of how to be generous and kind, and how important it is to have fun and not take life too seriously. I’ve allowed myself to get bogged down in mortgages and school fees and work and exams … And I stopped taking time to appreciate everything. But you’ve always been grateful for what you have and you live every day like it’s your last – and that’s right, Charlie, because you never know what’s around the corner, as we’ve seen with Ali.’
Pieces of My Heart Page 38
