by Sue Watson
On our last night at the resort, Jon and I joined the girls in the nightclub for a final celebration. Jon was friends with some of the men the girls were meeting up with, and it was a lovely crowd of people, sad but happy, who walked under the stars to On the Piste, a far more welcoming sight than it had been when I’d first arrived. So much had happened since then, and I marvelled to myself how wonderful life could be as I linked arms with Jon along the pathway. The snow had been cleared, so there was no chance of any repeat performances of me in a miniskirt, raging through the snow like a weirdo.
I was really taking to life here and harbouring my little secret about coming back on my own. I hadn’t told Jody because she’d said she worried I was spending too much time with Jon as it was. ‘I hope you’re not just a babysitter,’ she’d once said. ‘I hope he’s looking for a lover and not just a mother for his child.’
I knew Jon and I was sure of him, but Jody had had her fingers burned and was overprotective of me and my feelings – especially after Tim.
Once in the nightclub I was swept up in the music and the drinking, and not only did I dance on the tables, Jon, his friends and the girls joined me. I was drinking cocktails and shots like a party girl, loving every moment, and despite the freezing temperatures I was described as ‘hot’ by a man at the bar.
As dawn broke, we all meandered wearily back to the chalet, Jon and I leaning on each other, Lola being carried by Hans and Jody holding hands with the Canadian guy she’d met earlier in the holiday.
‘Where’s Kate?’ I asked.
‘Oh, she’s with her ski instructor,’ Jody said.
‘Yeah she’s gone back to his chalet for some après ski,’ Lola guffawed through a drunken haze.
‘She’s got this crazy idea about coming back and getting a job here,’ Jody sighed.
‘Why is that crazy?’ Jon said.
My heart leaped slightly at this.
‘Because it’s just a holiday romance. These things never translate into real life.’
I glanced at Jon, and he smiled reassuringly, but for a moment I wondered if she was right. Would we forget about each other once I was home?
‘I’ll talk to Jody, she’ll understand,’ I said to Jon later. ‘I can’t believe I will ever feel any different.’
‘You won’t. You will always want to come and live here, she is so beautiful.’
‘She’s even better with you… and Ella.’
‘You will come and live with me, yes?’ he asked.
I nodded. We had something special and yes, it was early days, and Jody might be angry that I was even entertaining the idea of throwing myself into another man’s life, but I’d grown – I knew what I was doing. I’d learned that life was for living, and I was determined to do just that.
‘I don’t want to take you out of your life, but if we are to be together… I can’t come to England. I can’t leave Ella. It might be a little difficult… there isn’t much room at my flat and…’
‘It will be fine. I used to worry about every little thing – let’s not spoil this by looking for problems. Let’s just enjoy the moment and I’ll come back in the spring. I could get work in the coffee shop until something else comes along. And, besides, I would love to live here. I’m not the stressed, obsessed woman I was, I’m learning to be “going with the flowing” as you taught me, and I’d rather spend our last night talking about the possibilities of an exciting future – and not the possibilities of any problems.’
He agreed, and we walked back to the chalet and I led him to my bedroom. I tingled as his beautiful hands ran all over me, teasing me, seducing me, reminding me how it felt to make love, and I ached for him. I was racing through a wonderful glittering snowstorm, my heart in my mouth – I couldn’t get enough of him as we moved gently, then more urgently together. He was ardent but tender, and as I felt myself explode, a million snowflakes filled my head, falling like confetti, covering me, folding me into him. This was what I’d been waiting for, and when we came together it was passionate, hands and lips and bodies entwined, and we held onto each other like we’d never let go.
Waking the next morning it was wonderful to see Jon’s dark curly hair on the pillow next to mine. And when he turned his head, opened his eyes and saw me, his face lit up with a huge smile and without words, we just reached for each other and kissed for a long time. And then he left me, disappearing into the bleak, beautiful whiteness while I vowed to myself I’d return. If only I’d known what fate had in store for me.
Chapter 18
Mind over Menopause – the Sequel
Going back home to the house I shared with Storm was comforting, but it felt like I was going backwards instead of forwards. I’d had a glimpse of what my life could be and I wasn’t going to stay here.
I had to work three months’ notice at the library, which felt like an eternity. I got through this by speaking to Jon every day either on the phone or on Skype, and I began a course in cake icing, which happened every Tuesday night. I was also allowed to become Ella’s friend on Facebook, which was a huge honour, and she messaged me most days, usually upset about her mum’s pregnancy and how it was impacting her. I talked her down a lot, sometimes sitting on the phone for hours on end. When I wasn’t Skyping Jon, counselling Ella, working at the library or practising for cake icing exams, I spent many nights reading lovely romances about women swept off their feet and loved until their bodices ripped. But instead of making me happy, they made me cry. What was wrong with me? I was in love, I’d see him soon, and I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly so tearful and helpless all the time.
‘Why are you so bloody miserable and moany?’ Jody said when I met her and the girls for a few drinks at her flat. I’d finally told her of my plans to return to Switzerland, and she’d taken it surprisingly well. In fact she said she’d toyed with the same thoughts and might even follow me there.
‘I’m just hot and uncomfortable. I don’t know why you have to have your heating on full blast, Jody.’ It was like the bloody tropics in her flat.
‘I don’t even have the heating on… I can’t afford it. But, Jen, it’s February, it’s bloody freezing. What’s wrong with you? You’re complaining about the heat all the time.’
‘I don’t know, must be menopausal, but the sooner I get back to chilly Switzerland the better,’ I sighed. ‘I just feel so lethargic, no energy. It’s not like me.’
‘Issues, shrinking hormones… you’ve got the lot,’ Kate sighed.
‘I reckon your middle-aged juices are crying out for a final fling,’ Lola said, momentarily distracted by a photo of a topless Gerard Butler on her phone.
‘Jon is my final fling,’ I said, ‘and only just in time the way this menopause is raging through my body.’
It didn’t take a nurse to spot the wild hormones and rampant emotions of menopause. I’d broken down several times in ‘Romantic Fiction’, where the tables were turned and customers had to shush me. By mid-February I felt so out of sorts I turned to Storm for help. As she had prophetically predicted the presence of a child in my last relationship (Jon’s daughter), I hadn’t quite given up on her talents, and I asked her to read the cards for me. But through a haze of patchouli oil and steaming green tea, we would hold our collective breaths, only to sigh as Storm turned over that hanged man and swords. This was always followed by cards with people being crushed by brick walls and screaming faces, and she’d try desperately to convince me this wasn’t all bad.
‘Your immediate future is suggesting rough storms and swirling tempests,’ she said, gazing at the picture of a man upside down and dead with a noose round his neck. ‘But it’s not all bad… there’s either a birth… oops or… or is that a death?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry.’
‘So am I… if it’s a death,’ I sighed.
‘I know, I know… but birth and death are the same, aren’t they really?’
‘No.’
‘Well, would you rather I lied about what the cards tell me?
’
‘Frankly yes. Or at least pretend you got mixed up again and these gothic images of death, destruction and falling walls are June’s.’
‘No… they’re not June’s, quite the opposite – June went on a cruise and met an exotic male dancer from Buenos Aires… I read her cards last week. She got the world card.’ And she smiled, like I should be pleased.
‘Lucky June,’ I sighed, deeply and irrationally envious of a woman whose holiday romance was in full swing, while I had to wait for mine while working notice at the library.
My moods were all over the place, I kept forgetting things and, as Jody said, this was proving to be one hell of an early menopause. My tropical moments were more like the swirling tempests the cards had predicted, and when one evening I spent a whole evening at Jody’s being sick, she did a nursey thing and checked my blood pressure.
‘It’s pretty high,’ she said. ‘And this sickness bug combined with your hot sweats is a little worrying. I think you should see a doctor.’
I almost collapsed. ‘Really? Oh no, Storm predicted a child and now she’s predicted my death! Oh my God, the woman is a shaman,’ I said, collapsing in floods of tears on Jody’s sofa. ‘Give all my jewellery to Ella when I’m gone.’
‘You haven’t got any jewellery.’ Jody was, as always, quite calm; she didn’t believe in Tarot cards and as she’d recently done a stint in A&E, the sights and sounds of me vomiting, sweating and swearing was just like another day at work to her.
‘Look, Jen, get a grip. You’re not dying, but if it is the menopause, then your doctor will be able to at least give you something so you can function – every time I’ve seen you in the past few weeks you’ve been crying or sweating. And trust me, it isn’t cute.’
She had a point, but I was scared of my GP. She was tall and thin and seemed to be looking down on me, literally and metaphorically. She had no facial expressions as such and had been last in the queue when they were giving out sympathy. I decided if I was going to be told devastating, life-changing news about my health, I didn’t want it delivered by a robot. So I ignored Jody’s advice to call my GP and instead I started to write a will, which worryingly Storm said was a good idea.
However, on realising that Mrs Christmas and my first edition of The Christmas Cake Café were my only earthly possessions, I decided to do what I always did in times of stress – bake a cake. I was all over the place, but a couple of hours and a few tears later I was eating a big slice of coffee cake and feeling much better, convinced I would live forever.
The sugar rush must have been the reason I called the girls that afternoon and invited them over for the evening. I was missing Jon and Ella and wanted to remember Switzerland so I hosted a Christmas dinner in spring. I made Christmas cocktails and to remind us of Christmas in Switzerland, I sprinkled fake snow everywhere, baked fresh gingerbread and a proper German Christmas cake.
‘Ooh, Christmas is great any time of year – and I think from now on we should always have two Christmases. The queen has two birthdays, so why not?’
‘Yes, let’s make it a girls’ tradition that every March we revisit Christmas and remember Switzerland,’ Lola sighed, no doubt thinking of Hands-on Hans, who she still spoke to on Facebook. He was even planning to come over to the UK later in the year. Who’d have thought it? It seemed like we’d all left our hearts in Saas Fee.
‘This is delicious,’ Jody said, taking a huge bite of chocolate cake between sips of her Christmas Orgasm. ‘What’s the secret ingredient, Jen?’
‘The salt from my sweat and tears,’ I joked. ‘It’s Jon’s recipe and it’s just like the one we ate at The Cake Café in Saas Fee.’
Kate put her hand on my arm. ‘You miss him, don’t you?’
‘You could say that… This is good,’ I said, nursing the non-alcoholic cocktail I’d christened ‘Hormones in the Snow’. I hadn’t felt like drinking since that alcohol binge in Switzerland. At my age I couldn’t take it any more.
My spring Christmas with the girls empowered me, and I spent the next few days determined to shake off this malaise before I embarked on the serious stuff like leaving work and booking my flight. So I armed myself with luxury scented wipes, Evening Primrose oil and a tub of floral remedy donated by Storm. I’d bought a book called Mind over Menopause that basically said the condition didn’t exist and if you denied it long enough it would go away. I liked this philosophy – I didn’t have time for hormones and I had to live my life, buy stuff to take to Switzerland and have a new passport picture taken as mine had run out. So I approached these tasks like a post 9/11 New Yorker in defiance of the terrorist hormones rampaging my body. I will go about my business, and you won’t stop me, I thought, wiping my forehead and sipping tea at Costa. Oh no, mister, you will not win! I smiled as I handed over my credit card for some delicious new pastel winter wear to take away. ‘You will not destroy me,’ I mantra’d at the Vista Print shop while a nervous man took my passport picture and I dripped sweat all over the seat. And for the next few weeks this is how I soldiered on – until April when a worried Jody physically dragged me to see scary Dr Boyle.
I envied people who had a doctor who didn’t look at her watch as you walked in and even gave you a few seconds above the allotted time. I dreamed of a GP who engaged in small talk – a ‘How are you?’ would have been nice – but I was convinced she hated her patients, begrudging even the most poorly specimen. The day Jody made the appointment and forced me there was no different, and I knew if Dr Boyle had bad news it would be delivered like the evening news, emotionless, unbiased and with no feeling. I was glad Jody was with me, and I tried to take my mind off my imminent death in the waiting room by flicking through Woman’s Own and gasping at the so-not-beach-ready bodies of diet-lapsed celebrities. I looked up from the body-shaming pull-out and glanced at my sister. She was looking right back at me, concern all over her face, and in that moment I felt loved. Here she was, the only relative I had left, holding my hand and helping me to face whatever was ailing me, and she was doing this totally for me. I smiled at her, knowing that whatever news the doctor had to tell me, my little half-sister, the one I’d resented for most of my childhood, would be there for me.
Little did I know how big the bombshell would be that day in the doctor’s surgery, and how much I would come to rely on Jody – how I’d need her like I’d never needed her before.
Chapter 19
Sick, Dope and Very Gassed!
As soon as I was before Dr Boyle I began to tell her all about my ravaged and unpredictable emotions, my inability to keep food down (including my beloved doughnuts) and my permanent, tropical sweat.
When I’d finished, she looked at me for too long without speaking. I was used to this, but Jody wasn’t and stirred uncomfortably in her seat. The only reason I knew Dr Boyle was still with us was a slight curl of the lip at the very mention of doughnuts – which had the opposite effect on me and made me hungry. I was in a constant state of flux.
‘Pee in this,’ she suddenly said, thrusting a tube at me and returning to her computer screen.
I did what was asked, then Dr Boyle sucked some blood from me and told me to wait in the waiting room and she’d let me know what my urine results were. ‘The bloods will take a couple of days, but I’m ruling nothing out,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’
Twenty minutes and three Hello! magazines later, we were tannoyed in the waiting room and asked to return to the surgery.
We both sat down together, Jody holding my hand, both thinking we were ready for the worst but not ready for what we were told.
‘Lie down,’ Dr Boyle barked. I looked around the room, saw the bed behind the curtains and climbed up.
‘Baby’s due around the end of September,’ was Dr Boyle’s sensitive way of announcing the cause of my nausea, and the hormone imbalance creating night sweats and emotional upheaval.
‘I told you I wasn’t ruling anything out,’ she barked without waiting for my response as she hoisted up my top and
began kneading my stomach like dough. I felt like I was being assaulted, emotionally and physically.
I couldn’t speak. I was in shock – and Jody, who was also in shock, just kept murmuring things like, ‘Is she okay?’ and, ‘What happens now?’ I nodded, my head moving almost involuntarily like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
‘But I was having a… the menopause… I didn’t take precautions because I haven’t had a proper period for a year. It was Christmas…’
‘Well, it must have been an immaculate conception then,’ she said, and without looking at me, she pulled down my top and whizzed back on her wheeled chair to consult something far more urgent on her computer.
I sat up, and Jody helped me off the bed. My legs were shaky and it wasn’t the most elegant dismount. I’m not exactly sure what was said after that; despite desperately trying to listen and understand what was happening, I felt like I was trying to wake from a dream, but the more I pushed, the more I remained locked inside it, at the mercy of whatever happened next. The room was swimming, Jody was speaking but I heard nothing, just watched her mouth moving. I was aware Dr Boyle had dismissed us, and when I climbed into Jody’s car, I still hadn’t spoken.
‘You weren’t having an early menopause,’ Jody said finally as we pulled up outside hers. ‘You were so upset about everything with Tim it had probably affected your periods… but not, it seems, your fertility.’
‘I just hadn’t even considered this… not for a moment.’
‘Do you think, subconsciously, you wanted this – you made it happen?’
Jody was right, I had wanted this to happen, but I couldn’t make it happen – this was wonderful, glorious fate and I was delighted, if shocked and scared by the news.
I spent the next couple of days with Jody, trying to get my head round the situation. I desperately wanted this baby of course, but I wasn’t sure how Jon would feel. And there was Ella to consider.
‘I’m going to love this baby so much,’ I said, through tears.
