by Della Galton
“You don’t look very well,” Tom went on, as if noticing her pallor for the first time.
“My period’s due,” SJ lied, because this was easier than admitting the thought of being on her own scared her witless. Her marriage might have been for all the wrong reasons, but it had given her security.
“I could nip up the shop and get you some painkillers if you like? Do you need anything else? Are you okay for – you know – other stuff?” He reddened and SJ felt a tug of tenderness.
He still couldn’t bring himself to say Tampax – buying them for her was a task he’d avoided for their entire marriage – yet now they were on the rocks, he was offering.
“I’m alright for everything else,” SJ said, swallowing a huge lump in her throat. “Thanks anyway.”
He nodded, looking mightily relieved and she felt the ache inside her growing into a massive well of despair. However badly they’d started, they had been happy – well, they’d had their moments, but it seemed awfully strange to be ending it like this – two strangers, who’d never really known each other at all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dorothy came to the rescue by offering SJ her spare room.
“Thanks, but it’s not just me, I come complete with elderly greyhound,” SJ said, wanting Dorothy to have all the facts before she committed herself.
“I like dogs.”
Hugely relieved, SJ didn’t give her another chance to retract her offer and – to Tom’s obvious relief – she and Ash moved into Dorothy’s terraced house, which was in Bermondsey, not that far from where Tanya and Michael lived.
“I doubt it’s what you’re used to, but it’s big enough for a lass and a wee dog,” Dorothy had said, as she’d shown her the spare room, which was modern, with fitted wardrobes and a huge double bed with a lemon-coloured duvet that matched the walls, and a bookcase crammed full of Dorothy’s books.
“I’ll have plenty of bedtime reading,” SJ quipped.
“It’ll take you years to get through that lot,” Dorothy said with quiet pride. “There’s a lifetime of experience between those pages.” She’d hesitated in the bedroom doorway. “I don’t want you getting drunk and throwing up on the carpet, mind – it’s new.”
“I’m not drinking any more,” SJ had muttered sheepishly, and this had been met with a snort.
“Well, if you’ve a yen to start it up again, you’d best bear in mind I know every hiding place there is in this house.”
One evening, over dinner, Dorothy asked SJ if she fancied going to an AA convention.
“What exactly is an AA convention?”
“It’s the same as a meeting – except they get outside speakers and they go on for longer – anywhere between a weekend and a whole week. This one’s a mini-convention, so it’s just Saturday.”
“How much do they cost?” SJ asked, wishing money didn’t have to be a consideration for everything, but it was. She hadn’t let Tom support her financially; it was time she stood on her own two feet so she’d got a job in a bistro, which she hoped wouldn’t have to be permanent.
Although actually it was quite good fun being a waitress again – Mortimer’s was a lot more upmarket than Pizza Express. It was the lower half of an Art Deco building in Hackney and had stone floors and white lace tablecloths and a gay Spanish bar manager who enjoyed camping it up.
“Oh, not another recovering blooming alcoholic,” he muttered when he’d tried to give SJ an expensive glass of wine that had been poured out by mistake and she’d said she didn’t drink. “Still, I suppose at least that means you won’t be necking all the profits.” He tossed back his Hispanic curls and minced up and down the floor with the wine on a silver tray. And in the end SJ had fallen about laughing.
She didn’t put him right one way or the other – as Dorothy had frequently told her, the reasons she didn’t drink were no one’s business but her own. But she got on well at Mortimer’s.
The customers liked her – she got more tips than anyone else because she was always clowning around and making people laugh. Even on her darkest days she concentrated on making people smile. Making people smile felt good. It didn’t atone for all the people she had hurt so badly, but it helped somehow.
Dorothy cleared the plates from the table and SJ came back to the present with a start.
“This particular convention doesn’t cost anything, hen – and you get a free lunch.”
“Well, that clinches it, then,” SJ quipped. “When is it?”
“The last weekend in November – the 25th, I think.”
SJ felt a flicker of pain – the 25th of November was Tanya’s birthday. Whatever else had happened between them across the years they’d never missed each other’s birthdays.
“What is it?” Dorothy asked, catching her look. “Do you have other plans?”
SJ explained. “I’ve known Tanya since senior school and we always do cards and wine for normal birthdays and champagne for big birthdays. It’s tradition. And now I’m never going to see her again.”
“You wouldn’t have taken her wine this year, even if you were still close.” Dorothy’s voice was gentle.
“No, I suppose not.” SJ blinked back tears. “I can’t go near wine. I don’t trust myself. I can’t even bear to look at it in supermarkets. I have to close my eyes when I go past the alcohol aisles.” She grimaced – this had already caused two near miss accidents, one with a mum and toddler, and one with an old gent with a white stick, who was legitimately allowed to stumble into things because he couldn’t see where he was going. “Will it always be like that?”
“No, it won’t.” Dorothy took their plates over to the sink, turned on the tap and then came back to the table. “I don’t know how long it will take you. We’re all different. But I can tell you honestly that if someone waved an open bottle of Scotch under my nose now I wouldn’t be tempted. And it’s been like that for more years than I can count.”
SJ sighed. She couldn’t imagine not wanting to drink, which had come as quite a shock. She had thought that the horror of taking an alcohol overdose would have been big enough – painful enough – to make the prospect of ever drinking again abhorrent. But it hadn’t been like that.
The further away that nightmare time got, the more she began to think that maybe one drink wouldn’t hurt after all. Quite often she could smell alcohol, even when there was none around to smell – some sort of weird olfactory hallucination. And to think she’d imagined she didn’t have a drink problem.
Dorothy patted her shoulder and the gesture was so tender that SJ felt the tears come properly now.
“I don’t think I can do this.” She could feel her voice husking over the words. “I don’t think I can stand it. The thought of never having a drink again – ever in my life – is terrifying.”
“Och! It’s not forever though, is it? It’s just for today. These next few hours, these next few minutes if you like. Just keep it in the day.”
Over the next couple of months life at Dorothy’s settled into a pattern: walking Ash, going to work, and meetings. SJ was pretty much left to her own devices. Dorothy spent ages tapping away at the keyboard of her Apple Mac, which lived on a bureau in her lounge.
“I keep it there because I like having the telly on while I write,” she confided.
“Doesn’t it put you off?” SJ asked, surprised. “I’d have thought it would be really distracting.”
“Not at all. If I find something distracting, I allow myself to be distracted and watch it for a while. Sometimes it’s helpful for my story, and I just weave it into the plot. I find writing is like knitting. The raw material of fiction is life and I reach out for it and knit it into my stories. You can’t reproduce life without living it a little.”
Dorothy smiled serenely while SJ digested this.
“Life for a recovering alcoholic is about balance,” she went on. “We tend to be extremist by nature. That’s often how we got into such trouble in the first place. You take a look around
the rooms, Sarah-Jane. Most of the people in meetings are self-employed. That’s because they don’t get on very well working for other people. They don’t like being told what to do, for a start. They’re far too rebellious.”
“Mmm,” SJ agreed. She could relate to that at least.
“Many recovering alcoholics do so well at their own businesses that they become millionaires,” Dorothy added.
SJ nodded. That was good news. She would have liked to work for herself – she didn’t need to be a millionaire, but some more money would be nice. She smiled at her thoughts. Waitress to entrepreneur millionaire was probably a bit of a quantum leap; still, there was no harm in aiming high.
“But to go back to what I was saying, we do need balance in our lives. I don’t work because I need to. I’m sixty-five, you know – I could have retired ten years ago, financially. I still write stories because I enjoy writing them. If I let it take over and didn’t get a little distracted at times, my life would be all out of balance.”
Dorothy was very wise, SJ reflected, not for the first time. She hadn’t realised she was a pensioner. She didn’t look like one.
“So have you thought any more about this convention? Do you think it’s something you might enjoy? Or don’t you fancy hanging about with a load of ex-drunks for the day?”
“I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing,” SJ replied, realising with surprise that it was true.
“And will you be sending your friend a card for her birthday?”
“Yes, I will.” SJ wished she didn’t feel so upset about Tanya. They’d had rows before, across the years, but nothing that had ever come close to this. It still filled her with grief that she and Tanya would never again go for a girly chat and swap confidences.
When she’d moved into Dorothy’s, she’d sent Tanya a change of address card. There had been no response – and she hadn’t been surprised. A small part of her still hoped they’d be friends again, one day – but the realistic part knew they probably wouldn’t. Some things could never be forgiven.
Nevertheless, she spent ages choosing a birthday card for Tanya. Her hand hovered between the My Special Friend cards and the more jokey variety they usually bought each other. Neither seemed appropriate and in the end she’d chosen a card with a skylark in full flight across the backdrop of a setting sun. Inside, she’d written simply: Happy Birthday. Hope you’re okay. Thinking of you. SJ x
Then she’d posted it before she could change her mind. Afterwards, she’d wondered if perhaps she should have left out the kiss. But it was too late now. Tanya probably wouldn’t answer it anyway. Why should she?
Rather to her disappointment, because she’d hoped he might, Kit didn’t show up at the convention. She told him all about it at her next session, and he smiled at her enthusiasm.
“What?” she said, pausing for breath.
“I was just thinking that if you could see yourself now, compared to the person you were when you first walked in here, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“What do you mean? I can’t be that different.”
“Oh, you are, SJ. You’re much more relaxed, happy, confident – it’s great to see.”
“How very rewarding for you,” she muttered, feeling slightly irritated that he obviously still saw her as a client, and was oblivious to her as a woman.
He laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’ve lost masses of weight,” she pointed out, deciding to give him a helping hand on the old perception front.
“I’d noticed,” he said equably, and SJ found herself wondering when exactly he’d noticed. She’d never once caught him looking at any part of her except her face, which was exasperating because she spent a lot of time on her appearance when she came to see him – as she did when she went to meetings. It was something she’d noticed the other women did too. There were some beautiful girls in AA.
She’d suspected she might see Kit differently without the aid of alcohol-tinted glasses. She’d also thought that splitting up with Tom might be sad enough to bring her back to reality where men were concerned, but if anything she liked Kit more than she had before. It still touched her that he’d come to visit her in hospital, but it went deeper than that.
She liked the warmth in his eyes and the tiny lines around them that crinkled up when he smiled. She liked the way his short brown hair spiked now he’d had it cut. She wondered if he used gel or if it was natural. She liked his hands, with their strong stubby fingers and short nails – she’d spent many a night in bed at Dorothy’s imagining what it would be like to feel his hands moving over her skin.
Now and then she’d allowed herself a brief fantasy about what it would be like to kiss him.
“SJ…” His voice broke into her thoughts and she jumped guiltily. “Talk to me – tell me what you’re thinking?”
No way was she telling him that. If she confessed to one tenth of what was in her head, he’d suggest she see another counsellor – and then she’d never set eyes on him again. And he was the only bright spot in these days of abstinence.
“Why?” she asked, playing for time as she tried to conjure up a suitable answer – one that wouldn’t have him marching her out of the door.
“Because that’s what we’re here for – and because – well – you looked happy for a moment there – so it’s not all bad, is it?”
His voice was unusually hesitant. He never sounded hesitant. Maybe he felt the same. After all, it happened, didn’t it? Counsellors fell in love with their clients all the time – well, they did on telly. There’d been a plotline about it once on Sex and the City. She couldn’t remember the outcome – bugger, she wished she’d paid more attention.
SJ smiled. For a brief moment she visualised herself telling him he was the reason she was happy. That actually she was in love with him – well, a little bit in lust with him at the very least. But she knew if she told him that she wouldn’t be able to retract the words. He’d be morally obliged to insist she didn’t see him again. And she couldn’t bear not to see him again. Life would be a great deal emptier without him in it. No, it was far better to keep everything on a nice safe fantasy level.
“How’s it going with Tom?” he asked. Maybe he had picked up on her thoughts, after all.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any happy reconciliation. Tom’s not in a hurry to divorce me, but he doesn’t want me to move back in either. And I really don’t blame him.”
“But you haven’t been tempted to drink on that?”
SJ shook her head. “I get tempted occasionally, but I’m not going to do it. I only have to remember what happened last time.”
He raised his eyebrows, and she said quietly, “When Dad gave me that gin and tonic at the party – complete with ice and a slice – I had no idea what it would lead to...”
“Congratulations,” Kit interrupted, and she looked at him in surprise.
“What?”
“You got the right drink,” he said with a smile. “It’s the first drink that does the damage. It takes ages for most alcoholics to get their head around that. They think it’s the fourth or the fifth – or the final bottle they can’t even remember guzzling.”
She blushed. “Yeah, thanks very much for reminding me of that!”
“You’re welcome,” he said, unrepentant. “You’ve got a very good sponsor too, haven’t you?”
“Dorothy’s amazing. I don’t think I could have done it without her. And I’ve made a few friends at meetings.” That had surprised her. How normal people were – and yet also how diverse. She’d met nurses, teachers, waitresses and office workers; not a tramp on a park bench in sight. The only thing they all had in common was they couldn’t drink like other people. They couldn’t stop at one.
“So you’ve got plenty of support then?” Kit said. “Plenty of people around you who’ll help you stay sober?”
Suddenly realising what he was getting at, SJ nodded. “I should stop coming here, shouldn’t I?
Free up the appointment for someone who needs it more than me?”
“I’m not saying that. I’ve told you before – you can come as long as you need.” Kit’s face was serious.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? I can’t keep coming here forever. I have to stand on my own two feet sooner or later.”
The thought of not seeing him any more left her feeling impossibly bleak. And ironically it was this that decided her.
Deep down, she knew she only kept coming because she was a little bit in love with him. And while the old SJ would have found this a perfectly good reason to continue, the new more mature SJ knew it wasn’t.
When they stood up at the end of the session, she looked at Kit and said softly, “Don’t book me in next week. I think I can probably cope from now on.”
“Are you sure?” He stood a few feet away from her, his dark eyes solemn.
The prospect of never seeing him again filled her with grief. A massive ache had started in her heart and was rising up into her throat. She couldn’t swallow.
Clinging to her self-control, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “I can phone if I change my mind, can’t I?”
“Of course you can. We’ll still be here.”
She had to get out before she lost it completely. The ache was increasing. In a minute it would spill over and she would cry. And that would be silly – she should be thrilled she no longer needed to come to an addiction counsellor, not devastated.
“Stay safe, SJ,” Kit said softly, and she nodded again. Bloody emotions – they’d been far easier to deal with when she’d been able to bury them. There was so much she wanted to say, but she knew she would never get the words out.
In the end, all she could manage was a mumbled, “Thanks,” before she fled. But when she was outside once more on the familiar street, it struck her that Kit didn’t need her to go into long thank you speeches anyway. He probably knew exactly how she felt. He always had.
Chapter Thirty-Four
