Living with Saci

by M J Dees

  Teresa felt a sudden panic. What if the doctor had wanted her to send the results in advance? Maybe he needed time to look through them before the appointment. The doctor would be able to scan through them in about thirty seconds. Wouldn’t he?

  And so he did.

  “Well your cholesterol is a bit high,” he said, not lifting his head from the paper.

  ‘Here we go.’ thought Teresa.

  “Your liver function is OK.”

  Yes! Triumph. No questions asked about alcohol consumption.

  “How much do you drink?”

  Bollocks.

  “Oh not much, maybe a small drink in the evening.” she lied.

  “Hmm,” he considered her response with the contempt it deserved. “I recommend that you make some changes to your diet. Eat more foods with Omega 3. Oil, nuts, red wine.”

  Teresa smiled.

  “Tuna is a good source of Omega 3.” he continued.

  ‘Yeah, and mercury and other heavy metals.’ Teresa remembered from her brief foray into environmentalism.

  “Jump up here,” he said getting up and pointing to an examination table in the corner of the room where he prodded Teresa with a stethoscope and blood pressure equipment, scribbling notes until he was satisfied. Then he sat down at his desk again while he waited for Teresa to join him.

  “Do some exercise? Get some new blood tests at the end of February, or the beginning of March and come back and see me.”

  ‘Exercise?’ thought Teresa returning to the chair.

  “If the cholesterol is better, fair enough. If not, then we’ll put you on statins. Are you still getting spots of blood in your urine?”

  “A little,” Teresa admitted.

  “Hmm,” the doctor furrowed his brow. “Well, the tests haven’t revealed anything. No pain when you wee, you said?”

  Teresa nodded. The doctor paused in thought.

  “I’ll have to refer you for an examination I’m afraid,” he said, scribbling. “We’ll see what that turns up. Anything else?”

  Teresa took a deep breath.

  “My boyfriend disappeared,” she just came out and said it. There was no other way to say it. The doctor was giving her the concerned doctor expression he had spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting in medical school. “He left a note and his phone and just left. The police found his clothes and wallet on the beach but no body. They think he’s committed suicide.”

  The doctor now modified his facial features to grave sympathy and leant forward.

  “I’ve been feeling a bit depressed,” Teresa confessed.

  Reaching a satisfactory conclusion, the doctor sat upright once more, plucked his prescription pad from his side and scribbled in a business-like manner.

  “Get yourself along to a psychologist,” he said. “Tell them all about it and come back and see me if you have any more problems.”

  He tore off the top sheet and thrust it toward Teresa who, bemused, took it and held it with the other sheets he had given her.

  “Thank you,” she said, not quite sure that this was what she had expected.

  By 6 pm Teresa was sat in the Kebab restaurant with the first of her two for one kebabs.

  ‘I’ll start my diet tomorrow,’ she told herself, contemplating the bottle of wine she would buy on the way home, on doctor’s orders.

  Teresa sat just inside the restaurant whose large windows opened so that nothing stood between her and the street where they had arranged more tables and chairs on the pavement. As she ate, she watched a girl with short hair chatting to a blonde with tattoos.

  ‘Not a natural blonde’ she surmised.

  When Teresa had been in England, people had always been delighted to hear that she was from Brazil. Teresa imagined that they pictured her living on the beach sipping caipirinhas. They, of course, could not imagine the decaying streets of São Paulo covered with tags, graffiti and litter. Why would they? Football, beaches, samba and rainforests, were all anyone talked about when they talked about Brazil.

  Teresa noticed a woman crossing the road. She used this as further evidence to support her argument that São Paulo was not the paradise that her fellow staff at the Spondooley traditional bar and grill, Vauxhall Bridge Road, Stockwell, London, or the staff at Gaia environmental collective, Hercules Road, Lambeth North, London, thought it was.

  At this day in the month, Teresa was halfway through her overdraft limit, and she was feeling a bit flush, even though she had maxed out both of her credit cards. Hence the kebabs. Besides, she kept telling herself that she needed cheering up but so far no amount of kebabs, chocolate or gin seemed to make much difference. In any case, she should be trying to save her money to go back to England to see her daughter. That made her feel even worse.

  Teresa finished her second kebab, paid, and walked up Augusta past the shop selling trendy tat that she liked to browse. Having reminded herself that she should be saving money and not spending it on tat, she felt poor again and kept walking up the hill in the way that someone does when they have eaten one too many kebabs.

  She decided not to enter the metro straight away but to go for a browse of the Livraria Cultura bookshop first. It was a Monday and Teresa knew there was a good chance there would be a book signing which meant there would be lots of people not interested in looking at books, taking up space, getting in the way of the shelves, eating nibbles and drinking glasses of wine that Teresa herself wouldn’t mind drinking. The books they were launching were never the kind of intellectual literature that Teresa always prided herself on reading. They were more the trashy kind of books of the kind her ex-husband would like: How to make a Million Dollars with Little or no Effort or Cooking Spectacular Meals with Little or No Effort.

  Teresa couldn’t arouse interest in any of the books like she did so she left. In fact, she had lost interest in just about everything. At work, she felt demotivated. Her students, who must have sensed this, were bored too. She became very irritated, by both students and staff, and couldn’t find the patience to deal with anyone in the way she perhaps should.

  The icing on the cake was an email she had received from her ex-husband in England. It regarded her daughter. The daughter she’d left behind. The daughter she couldn’t afford to visit. The daughter who had suffered from asthma and pneumonia and who now, in the middle of the British winter, had, according to the email, been admitted to hospital again. Just before her seventh birthday too.

  The wind messed with Teresa’s hair, hair that she should have had cut at least three weeks ago. It also threatened to blow off her headphones. Headphones that her students had broken and were now held together by sticky tape. Perhaps that accounted for the tinny sound. The evening was warm, and she found herself sweating from the exercise of negotiating the metro and walking to the bus stop. She squinted to see through the old scratched, dirty, cracked screen of her smartphone, which had been the cheapest in the shop three years ago and was now, by modern standards, something of an antique. The bus arrived, and she was able to find a seat in which she could sweat even more.

  Teresa had received some cryptic messages from her ex about going to the doctor, but that was par for the course. Annabel had been to and from the doctor with her chest since she was six months old but nothing anyone did seemed to make any difference.

  Chapter Eight - The Psychologist – 19th January 2016

  “Murellies,” Teresa told the security guard who asked for her ID card, checked a list and then dialled a number.

  “Teresa Da Silva,” he said into the telephone, replacing it straight away. “Tenth floor.”

  Teresa took her ID card and followed the guard’s gesticulation to a door beside him that led to a set of lifts.

  When the doors slid open on the tenth floor, a middle-aged woman stood waiting.

  “Teresa?” she asked. “Dr Murellies.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Teresa said, shaking the doctor’s hand.

  “This way,” the doctor gestured to an open
door at the end of the corridor. Teresa stepped inside and waited while the doctor followed her in and closed the door.

  “This way please,” the doctor showed Teresa through to a large room with two chairs placed quite some distance apart. The doctor indicated towards the nearest chair. “Please take a seat.”

  The doctor waited for Teresa to seat herself before she seated herself in the other chair.

  “So, Teresa,” the doctor began in a slow, reflective tone. “What brings you here today?”

  Teresa swallowed.

  “My boyfriend disappeared. The police think he committed suicide.”

  The doctor nodded to show her understanding.

  “And I’ve been feeling down,” Teresa continued. “I went to my doctor, and he suggested I come and see you.”

  “OK,” said Dr Murellies. “Why don’t you tell me all about your boyfriend?”

  The doctor listened as Teresa told her the story of how she met Felipe, how they were planning to get married, had planned to go to England on their honeymoon and then he had vanished or killed himself. She told the doctor all about her failed relationship in England. The divorce, her daughter, the fact that her mother had died the previous year, she told her about her missing cat, she even told her about her fears that Saci might be following her around breaking things.

  “Well, our session is coming to an end,” the doctor said when Teresa had finished her story. “What I do is I work a lot with dreams because dreams often reflect what is happening inside us. Why don’t you try to keep a small notebook by your bed for you to write down any dreams you have and then in our next session we can discuss a dream you have had. Is that a deal?”

  Teresa nodded.

  “You may find that keeping a journal may help you with all the negative feelings you have been having. At the end of each day try to make a list of all the positive things that have happened during the day. I think you’ll be surprised how long the list is.”

  Teresa nodded again.

  “Well, thank you, Teresa,” the doctor’s tone changed to suggest that the session was now concluding. “If you are happy with this time we could meet at the same time next week.”

  Teresa and the doctor stood. Teresa nodded again.

  “Yes, that would be fine,” she confirmed. “I’ll try to write down some dreams.”

  “Great. Well, it has been nice to meet you. Can you find your way downstairs?” the doctor asked, showing Teresa the door.

  Chapter Nine - The Journal – 19th January 2016

  Teresa wrote in the journal her psychologist suggested would be good for her. She wrote her name, her age, her nationality and the fact that she lived in São Bernardo do Campo in São Paulo. She wrote that she was a mother, though her daughter was with her ex-husband in England and she hadn’t seen her for over almost two years. She wrote about how her ex-husband had married again and how much it pained her to think of that bitch raising her daughter.

  ‘I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m going to see a psychologist.’ she wrote. ‘That and the fact that my boyfriend vanished or killed himself and my sister-in-law shot herself, and I was held hostage while they murdered a dentist. My family don’t talk to me. My boss hates me. But I’m meant to be writing positive things so…It’s very sunny today. I managed to leave my flat to buy and post a present for my daughter. It’s her birthday in a couple of weeks. She’ll be seven. What else? Did some laundry. Washed the dishes. At least the house is clean. It’s my holidays at the moment, so I’ve got plenty of time to keep on top of the chores. I work as a teaching assistant in a school. To be honest, I’m not looking forward to going back. Oops, that wasn’t very positive. I’m trying to get my teaching qualification so that I can earn a bit more money. Now that my boyfriend is dead. Is it still right to call him my boyfriend? Should I call him my ex-boyfriend? Or my late boyfriend? Late boyfriend sounds like I’m waiting for him. Dead boyfriend sounds like I keep his rotting body in a cupboard. The man who used to be my boyfriend until the stupid bastard killed himself or ran away or whatever. How about that? Oh, God. I hope my psychologist doesn’t ask to see this journal. Or the dream journal she’s also asked me to keep. The first dream I had after she asked me to write them down was one in which I was having sex with my boyfriend, and my mother walked in on us. My psychologist would have a field day with that one. The one I’ve managed to remember so far is one where I was trying to play the guitar with the Beatles on the roof of Abbey Road, but I didn’t know any of the chords, and no matter how much they tried to teach it to me I couldn’t get it right. Because I know three chords in real life. Positive things. My house is tidy. Except for the blood stain on the floor where Selma shot herself. The stupid cow. Positive things. I still have a week of holiday left. Can’t think of anything else right now. Will try harder tomorrow. Here’s a positive thing. Although not very positive, I did find writing today’s journal therapeutic so to hell with the positivity and sod the psychologist. I’m just going to write what I want. Get it all out there. Where to start. My father, my dead father that is. Drank himself to death, which might be why I drink now. God, I’m turning into my dad. I don’t want to pretend that I had an unhappy childhood. When I say, it was the drink that killed him that’s half true. He was drunk when he stepped off the kerb, but it was when the truck from the brewery hit him. That did it - an irony that did not escape my mother who I think was not sad to see the back of him.’ Teresa put her pen down and exhaled a long deep sigh. It was true she did feel a little bit better, and she resolved to write more the next day.

  Chapter Ten - Another Dream – 20th January 2016

  Teresa dreamt she was in England. It was the day of the Grand National horse race, and people were watching the race on the streets in television showrooms. For some reason, an old friend had asked her to put a bet on for her even though Teresa knew she would have already put bets on of her own. She used her phone and bet on every horse even though the stake was much greater than any winnings could be. Unless a horse came in at 100/1 which, even at the National, was unlikely. Halfway through the race, some of the jockeys had a muddy brawl like some bad-tempered Sunday pub league football match that her ex-husband used to drag her along too. The camera zoomed in on two of the jockeys one of whom she could see was Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army a programme that her ex-husband loved and made her watch even though she hated it.

  She woke up.

  She turned on her IPad and opened Facebook. 99 notifications. She hadn’t dared look at it since Felipe disappeared.

  She swiped down the list of notifications. Oh no, her sister’s birthday. She’d forgotten her sister’s birthday. What a terrible sister Teresa felt she was, as well as a terrible mother, a terrible girlfriend, a terrible teaching assistant, a terrible daughter.

  She would have to send her a message now and acknowledge that she’d forgotten.

  On another bus. Before 9 am and it was already almost 30°C. The traffic crawled into the city in snakes of single-occupant cars and vans through which wove convoys of reckless motorcycles. The occasional patch of hill or woodland suggested that the area must have been beautiful when the first colonial settlers arrived, before São Paulo’s concrete tentacles reached out, devoured the beauty and excreted the dull grey effluence that now covered every surface, breeding the ubiquitous mould, which thrived in the humidity. Teresa was already sweating. She had begun to sweat almost as soon as she’d stepped out of the shower. Her ex would have reminded her that ladies don’t sweat, they perspire. She thought about her daughter, and then her thoughts returned to Felipe. She blamed herself to some extent for Felipe’s death but her guilt revolved around her motivation for being with him. If she were honest with herself, she would admit that she had entered into a relationship because she saw him as a potential way to get her back to the UK and closer to her daughter, even if for a holiday. Usually, they granted custody to the mother, but after the incident, her ex-husband didn’t need expensive lawyers to establis
h that she was unfit to look after her daughter.

  ‘What complete and utter bollocks,’ she thought.

  They, of course, cited her fondness for a drink or two. Bastards. She’d managed to stay off the stuff since she came back to Brazil. Of course, she hadn’t mentioned drink to her psychologist. It hadn’t come up. It hadn’t been a problem. Now she was counting down the days until she went back to work. Five more sleeps. Could she get away without mentioning any of this to anyone? Not only did she doubt that she could handle the conversations but she feared that any perception of emotional or psychological instability might be the final excuse her boss needed to convince herself to fire her. She glanced out the window of the bus as it passed an electronic display that declared the air quality was very bad next to a bright red square designed to illustrate, through colour, the level of badness.

  She took out her dream diary and began to write what she remembered of that morning’s dream.

  Chapter Eleven - The Headmistress - 21st January 2015

  Teresa tried her best to smile while everyone shared their holiday stories.

  When it was Teresa’s turn, she answered: “Ah, not much, just stayed in São Paulo.”

  No-one seemed to notice or care. Teresa exchanged a grunted hello with the headmistress, Catarina Sidebottom, a formidable looking woman with a monobrow to rival Frida Kahlo, who would not have looked out of place as the headmistress of a Victorian girls’ school but who embraced the modern methods of education, and that was it. Back to stapling coloured paper to display boards, organising books, pencils, rulers, rubbers. Teresa avoided the protracted conversations that typified this stage of the school year, but she could not avoid the Assistants meeting. She followed the conversation as best she could. Trying her best to concentrate. Just as she grasped the subject and felt she had something to contribute, the conversation had moved on, so she remained silent. This did not escape the Headmistress.