So, the solution they had come up with, after detailed discussion within her five-minute segments (Dr Dailey is a serious man with far too many patients) was to try HRT.
They’d been discussing it, building up to it, for a year now and, in January, she had finally decided that she was ready. Ready to admit she was menopausal. Ready to do something to stave it off, too.
But she’d made the mistake of talking to Dr Wilson-Coombe, her Harley Street guy, her second doctor, who, unbeknown to Dr Dailey, she sees in order to double her Valium prescription. She had never really considered Wilson-Coombe as a proper doctor, had always seen him as more of a pusher really, an expensive dealer of Valium, if you will. So she had been surprised when he had such a strong opinion on HRT. He had sent her for some outrageously expensive genetic tests just because she had mentioned a great-aunt who might have had cancer.
And then, just yesterday, he had dropped the bombshell. She is a carrier of a gene sequence which puts her at risk of cancer. Whether HRT would increase this risk was uncertain, he said, but ‘well within the realms of possibility’, whatever that was supposed to mean. It was certainly something to consider before starting HRT, he said. As was having an ovariectomy, a hysterectomy and quite possibly a double mastectomy as well.
Why don’t you sew on a penis, while you’re at it? she had thought, obtusely. Because what kind of woman would she be after that?
Something new to consider, she thinks again, running the doctor’s words through her head. As if she was likely to ever think of anything else, ever again.
Beyond her fear of cancer, which has always been acute but which is now overwhelming, is the fact that the one option open to her to relieve these dreadful symptoms is being wrested from her grasp. Because if it does turn out that she can’t have HRT – and she really does need to find a way to discuss this within her five-minute window with Dr Dailey – then what’s left of her life?
Though their sex life had never been fabulous, it had, at least, the merit of existing. But the wrong kind of dryness combined with the wrong kind of wetness does not sexy foreplay make, so now she’s become that woman as well. She’s become the woman who hasn’t had sex with her husband in nearly a year.
Martin is avoiding her, too; she can sense it. He’s working three nights a week, yet he’s not at the office (she’s checked). So where is he?
She couldn’t blame him, really, could she? Every woman knows that, as far as men are concerned, needs must – a man’s gonna do what a man’s gotta do. And yet, she’ll leave him if she finds out for sure, she knows she will. She just has to decide whether she wants to find out for sure. Or not. She struggles to see how a divorce could make anything better.
So here she is, lying in bed, thinking about everything, thinking about nothing, but mainly thinking about Valium, which might just stop her thinking about the rest.
She’s taking too much of the stuff. Both of her doctors have told her so, even though neither of her doctors knows about the other, even though neither of them knows she has effectively doubled the dosage.
She’s tried to cut down, really she has. It’s just that when she does, everything else – the cleaning, the hand washing, the anxiety – it all gets worse.
She pulls her hands from beneath the covers and looks at them. They’re raw and pink from all the scrubbing, from the bleach, from the nail brush.
‘Are you OK?’ Martin asks, and she physically jumps at the shock of his presence. That’s another thing which keeps happening recently. She keeps drifting into herself, keeps disconnecting from the outside world, then being shocked when it suddenly forces its way into her consciousness. Is it the Valium or the menopause or her endemic anxiety that’s the cause?
She turns to look at Martin. He’s standing in front of the wardrobe, knotting his tie, smiling at her expectantly. He looks young, fit and healthy. He looks like the opposite of her, in fact. He’s going to leave me, she thinks. Of course he is.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she tells him, faking a smile. ‘I’m absolutely fine. And you?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Martin says, glancing at his watch. ‘Running a bit late. That’s all.’
Once Martin has left for work, Victoria gets up. She pulls on her dressing gown and heads through to the kitchen. It’s just before nine and she’ll have to go and wake Bertie up soon. He has a late start today on account of the swimming pool being closed for repairs.
She prepares the coffee machine and switches it on, then sits at the kitchen table and listens to it cough, wheeze and splutter.
She thinks about Bertie next, for even he is drifting away from her. He’s still nowhere near as bad as Chloe, but he’s spending more and more time in his room and less and less with his parents.
She does her best to remain chipper around him, but perhaps he’s picking things up all the same. They say that children soak everything up like a sponge, don’t they? They say that even your subconscious affects their development.
He had been good company for her when he was little, such good company, in fact, that she had felt guilty for monopolising him. But now he spends his home-time talking to girls on Facebook and, for much of the day, she finds that she’s effectively living alone.
Somewhere along the line, not only did she forget to make new friends to replace the occasional, inevitable departures (people move away, they decide they don’t like you and sometimes they even die), but she also forgot how to make friends. She finds herself approaching fifty, and she has no idea whatsoever how women her age might even go about meeting new people. It’s not like she’s going to meet them at the school gates, after all. She’s not going to bump in to new people at work, here in the kitchen, is she?
She’s nearly fifty, friendless, jobless and in a failing marriage to a probably adulterous husband. She’s mother to an increasingly alienated son and sister to an apparently angry Penny. In fact, the only person she still really talks to is her mother. It’s not looking good.
It’s not the first time she has felt this bleak, she reminds herself. The black dog of depression has visited her regularly as the years have gone by. But it had always seemed that there was something on the horizon to look forward to – there was some event marked in red in the calendar which would shake up the routine, if she could just hang on in there. There would be Christmas at Penny’s, or a coming summer holiday in Corfu – there would be books to read and pools to lie next to.
Even the holiday, this year, has gone tits up. For Martin, who must be having his very own midlife crisis, now wants to camp. He wants to walk all day and sleep in a tent. He wants to prove just how young he is by sleeping in flea-infested Spanish hostels, too. And there’s just no way she can participate in that madness. It would send her over the edge, that’s her fear. It would push her off the cliff and the only place to land would be in the deep, dark sea of clinical insanity.
The current plan, then, is for Martin and Bertie to go walking in the Spanish hills together. It will do them good, Martin keeps saying. And it’s indisputable that they need to do something to fix their relationship. Bertie hardly speaks to either of them these days, but he seems to hold Martin in special disregard.
In his bedroom, Bertie is not asleep. He’s chatting to his friend Michelle on Facebook. In a strange kind of synchronicity that neither he nor his mother will ever be aware of, he, too, is worrying about the upcoming walking holiday.
M: So why isn’t your mum going?
B: Mum? Camping? You’ve got to be joking!
M: Why?
B: Freaks out if there’s a stain on a teaspoon.
M: True. I forgot.
B: There’s no way.
M: Spain’s cool. We went last summer. The sea was HOT.
B: You went to the Costa Not A Lot. V. diff. This is walking every day. Miles and miles and miles. Blister distances.
M: Yuck. Watchagonnado?
B: Dunno. I need an escape plan.
M: We’ll come up with something.
>
B: I could tell them. That would put an end to it.
M: You wouldn’t dare.
B: I might.
M: You wouldn’t.
B: I might.
M: They’ll freak.
B: I know. But at least he won’t want me on hols any more, will he?
M: True. But you wouldn’t dare.
B: I might.
M: Repetition.
B: You, too.
M: True. Gotta go, anyway. Mum’s calling.
B: Mine, too. Love ya.
It’s just gone eight and Victoria, freshly returned from her appointment with Dr Dailey, is googling HRT on the iPad.
She finally plucked up the courage to tell him about her other doctor (though she didn’t mention her principal reason for having another doctor). Still, she’s glad she broached the subject, she’s glad she was brave or, at least, braver than usual. Because Dr Dailey, who seemed very sure of himself, claimed that Dr Wilson-Coombe was a ‘little behind the times’ as far as HRT was concerned. Specific clinical trials have shown, he claims, that HRT does not increase the risk of cancer beyond the level which her genetic disposition implies. And even that isn’t as clear cut as Wilson-Coombe had implied. With regular check-ups, she should be fine, he said.
Of course, words like ‘should’ only make you feel better until you have time to think about what they mean, but she is feeling at least a tiny bit less depressed about the whole thing.
But the whole Google business is frustrating her, and she wishes she could ask someone for help. Both Bertie and Martin find answers to their questions instantly, whereas she can never find a damned thing.
The front door to the flat opens, making her jump. She switches off the iPad, but then thinks better of it and switches it back on again, closes the HRT search window, and then switches it back off again. She doesn’t want anyone stumbling upon that.
‘Hello,’ she says as Martin enters the room. He drops a large carrier bag beside the door and places his briefcase on the chair. ‘You’re late again,’ she says.
Martin nods. ‘Rush job,’ he says. ‘Another Saudi needing British nationality yesterday.’
‘It sounds like they all want to be British these days.’
‘They do,’ Martin says. ‘The Middle East is a mess.’
‘I’m surprised we let them in. What with all the fuss about immigrants at the moment.’
Martin shrugs. ‘We only let in the extremely rich ones who can afford apartments in One Mayfair and expensive immigration lawyers like myself. None of those horrible poor people.’
‘No . . .’ Victoria says. She’s not entirely sure if he’s mocking her, or joking, or perhaps even being serious.
‘So how are you?’ Martin asks.
‘Good,’ Victoria replies, crossing to Martin and kissing him on the cheek. She breathes in deeply in an attempt to detect some clue as to where he really spends his evenings. And there is something there, isn’t there? A sweetness to his breath. ‘Have you been eating something?’ she asks.
‘Ah, yes,’ Martin says. ‘Turkish delight. A gift from a client.’
‘Right,’ Victoria says, picturing belly dancers and veils. Was there something shifty in his expression as he replied to her, or is she being paranoid? She nods at the carrier bag. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Ah!’ Martin says, brightly. ‘Camping stuff. An amazing two-man tent. It weighs less than two kilos. And two ultra-light sleeping bags. Do you want to see them?’
Victoria shakes her head, so Martin moves to the kitchen table and, as he loosens his tie with one hand, picks up a letter with the other. ‘Bertie’s report card?’ he asks as he shakes the sheet of paper open.
‘Yes,’ Victoria replies. ‘Five As and two Bs.’
‘He’s a clever lad,’ Martin says, then, ‘Hmm. A+ in sport? That’s my boy. Is he in his room?’
‘Yes. And tell him dinner’s ready, will you?’
Martin removes his jacket and walks along the hallway to Bertie’s door, on which he knocks.
‘Yes?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘I’m busy,’ Bertie says. ‘Um, homework.’
‘Come on,’ Martin says. ‘I only want to congratulate you.’
There’s a scuffling sound on the other side of the door and then it is unlocked and opened just enough for Bertie to peer out.
‘You got secret visitors in there?’ Martin asks, trying to peer in past his son’s body.
‘Nope,’ Bertie says flatly. He grimaces, throws the door wide open and gestures theatrically.
‘I only wanted to congratulate you on your report,’ Martin says.
‘Yeah. You said.’
‘Those are really good results.’
Bertie nods. He looks bored.
‘And an A+ in sports!’ Martin says. ‘You’re going to walk the legs off me on holiday.’
Bertie vaguely restrains a yawn.
‘I got a tent,’ Martin says. ‘Ultra-light. It weighs two kilos. Less, actually. Do you want to see it?’
‘Not now, Dad,’ Bertie says, then, ‘Are we done here?’
Martin sighs deeply. ‘I guess,’ he says. ‘But dinner’s ready, so . . .’
‘OK,’ Bertie says. ‘I’ll be there.’ And then the door closes in Martin’s face.
He stands, staring at the door for a moment as he tries to control his anger. Should he kick the door down and beat the boy? Perhaps. Then again, maybe he should just wait for the holiday to fix everything. He focuses on the plaque on the door. It says ‘Albert’. It is decorated with images of Thomas the Tank Engine. He swallows hard. He feels like he could cry. But then he licks his lips, stretches his jaw and forces a smile. Keeping on smiling is his speciality, his one great skill in life.
‘So how are you?’ he asks, on re-entering the kitchen.
Victoria looks at him strangely, as if he has just said something incomprehensibly stupid.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘We already did the whole “how are you?” thing,’ she says. ‘That’s all. I mean, we can do it again, if you want . . .’
Martin clears his throat and nods sadly, then slumps into a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘I just love living here.’
Victoria, who isn’t really listening, opens the oven door, slips on her oven gloves and lifts the dish from the shelf. She places it in the middle of the kitchen table.
‘Yum,’ Martin says. ‘Cauliflower cheese, my favourite.’
‘It’s mushroom soufflé,’ Victoria corrects.
‘Yum,’ Martin mugs, sotto voce. ‘Mushroom soufflé, my favourite.’
Victoria stares at him blankly for a moment. She’s still thinking about Turkish delight.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘Nothing,’ she replies. ‘Did you call Bertie for dinner?’
PART THREE:
TWO SECRETS
With just over a week remaining until Victoria will have to drive Martin and Bertie to Gatwick Airport, the pile of stuff they’re intending to take now takes up one entire corner of the lounge. Victoria can’t imagine how they are possibly going to carry it all, and she can’t imagine, either, how she’s going to get through their two-week absence. It will be the first time she has slept alone in the flat since Bertie was born.
As if that wasn’t challenge enough, Martin has had to fly off to Dubai for three nights for one of his immigration cases, leaving only herself and the increasingly isolationist Bertie in the house.
In her more optimistic moments, she imagines spending the coming two-week hiatus reading (also for the first time in years), sipping red wine, and listening to classical music. She visualises herself feeling centred and calm.
But she suspects that the truth will be rather different. Valium, chocolate and rubbish TV are more likely candidates to fill the void. That and a binge of her new cyberchondria – this obsessive googling of cancer and HRT side effects with which she now fills her spare time.
S
till, she’s getting the bathroom retiled while everyone is away, so there will be lots to clean up after that. And the grouting – that horrible grey grouting – will finally be gone from her life. Even Marge agrees that the bathroom is looking dirty. Just thinking about it makes Victoria’s hands itch.
She crosses to the kitchen sink and pulls the nail brush and bleach from the cupboard. But there’s no point trying to clean the bathroom grouting now. It will be gone in ten days.
Dirty, she thinks. God, how she hates that word. Dirty Deirdre, she hears – a voice from the past. A dirty Deirdre, that’s all you are, my girl.
She pours the bleach on to the brush and starts to work at the fingernails of her left hand. That’s where the bacteria hide, in the folds of skin and beneath the nails. The stiff brush is hurting her hands – they’re already raw – but the pain feels good. It feels real. It feels like she’s alive.
She’s supposed to make a fresh appointment to meet Dr Dailey this week, but she’s been putting it off. He wants to talk to her about reducing her Valium dosage (if he only knew), and he has been commenting on the state of her hands as well. She had told him she had been using white spirit while decorating, which seemed to placate him, but she won’t get away with it next time.
Perhaps she can deal with it all while everyone’s away. Maybe she can bin all the Valium and bleach and lock herself in the flat like some heroin junkie going cold turkey. How hard can it be, after all? Surely all she has to do is prevent her own hand putting a tablet in her own mouth, stop her right hand scrubbing away at the left.
The Bottle of Tears Page 10
