Ice and a Slice (17 page)

The phone rang and she danced across the room to answer it.

“Hi, SJ, it’s Michael. I was wondering if Tom still fancied squash tomorrow night. I’ve just booked a court. Can you get him to give me a ring, please?”

“Sure,” SJ murmured, as a sudden picture of Michael playing squash in a summer dress, his hairy legs pounding the floor, sprang into her mind. Perhaps he shaved them. She giggled, tried to stop herself, and snorted loudly instead, which struck her as incredibly funny.

“SJ – are you still there?”

“Mmm.” It was incredibly difficult to keep it together for some reason. Far away in her mind the voice of sanity urged her not to laugh.

“Do you want to speak to Tanya while I’m on? She’s right here.”

“Er no – bit busy,” SJ mumbled. “Paperwork to do for my poetry class. You know…” She waved a careless hand and then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Bye Tom. I mean Michael. Cheers.”

She’d nearly called him Liz. Who on earth was Liz? Remembering his alter ego and feeling sweaty with panic because she wasn’t supposed to know about it, let alone start discussing it with him, she crashed the phone back on the receiver and sunk onto the sofa, which wasn’t where she anticipated it would be.

She found herself on the floor instead – well, half on the floor, half on the coffee table, which was exceptionally hard. Bloody coffee table. Bloody floor. Cursing softly, she rolled completely onto the floor and sat up.

She’d been going to do something. Ah yes, she had to open a bottle of wine for Tom. Stumbling to her feet and swaying across to the bar she looked at the rack. Now what day was it? He didn’t like her to open expensive wine unless it was the weekend. Was it the weekend? It had been Sunday yesterday, or was it Sunday today? Best be on the safe side and open a cheap bottle.

The corkscrew wasn’t in its usual place. Not that they didn’t have plenty of others – but most of Tom’s collection were in locked glass display cases and she didn’t know where the key was. When she finally found the functional corkscrew she discovered two empty bottles beside it. Ah, it must be Sunday then. They’d have had these with their tea. The phone was ringing again, but she ignored it and opened another bottle.

“SJ… SJ, wake up. Wake up, will you? SJ, for God’s sake, please wake up …”

Fragments of voices swam through the confused blackness. They sounded urgent. They sounded cross. With an immense effort SJ opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Tom’s face loomed into focus and then out again. He wasn’t happy. She felt like someone had given her a good kicking. Why would anyone do that? She groaned. Something bad had obviously happened. Her body felt bruised and sore and her head was so fuzzy she didn’t know what day it was – or what time. Squinting at her watch she saw it was seven thirty, which didn’t help much, was it A.M or P.M?

“Get her some coffee or something, can you, Tom.”

That sounded like Tanya’s voice. What was Tanya doing here? Suddenly remembering Michael’s phone call, SJ hauled herself into a sitting position. She seemed to be on the floor in the dining room. Glancing around her frantically for the phone and then remembering it was in the lounge, she tried to collect her fragmented thoughts. What had she said to Michael?

“It’s okay, I’m fine. What’s happening?”

Tanya, who was now crouching beside her, was wearing a pale blue T-shirt and jeans and leather flip flops with sparkly stones set in them. As always she looked both cool and stunning. How lucky was she to have ended up with such a gorgeous best friend?

SJ tried a gorgeous smile of her own.

Tanya didn’t smile back. Her green eyes were narrowed and angry, but her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly soft. “How are you feeling? Pretty crap, I guess?”

“Very crap. Very very very VERY crap. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my whole life.” At least she didn’t feel sick. “What are you doing here? Did Tom ask you to come?”

“It was me who phoned Tom. I was worried about you. Michael said you’d called and you sounded odd. I guessed you might have been drinking.”

Hang on – hadn’t he called her? Something about a squash game. Oh well, it was an easy mistake to make.

“I haven’t drunk much – I’ve been cutting down. Honest.” SJ swung out an arm and hit what turned out to be a half empty bottle of red, which would have fallen over if Tanya hadn’t caught it deftly and transferred it to the dining room table. “See…” She announced triumphantly. “…I’m on half bottles now.”

“You didn’t get in this state by drinking half a bottle of wine. We found two other empty bottles. Do you remember anything at all?”

SJ certainly didn’t recall drinking two bottles of wine. There was a blank in her head where her memory should have been. But she didn’t think she ought to confess to this. Tanya now looked more sad than angry.

“Are you okay, Tan?” she asked, suddenly aware of how selfish she was being – lying on the floor in a heap when Tanya had obviously come round to unburden herself. 

“I’m fine, SJ – but you’re obviously not…” She broke off mid-sentence and glanced up, and SJ realised Tom had come back into the room.

“Is she alright?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that. But at least she’s conscious.” Tanya stood up and faced Tom.

“Hey, I am here, you know. I can speak for myself.”

Both of them ignored her. Tom turned back to Tanya. “I didn’t know things were this bad. I had no idea.”

“Didn’t she tell you she’d been going to a clinic about her drinking?”

“Well, yes, but I thought she was overreacting. She is a bit of a drama queen sometimes. Hell…” He sat on a dining room chair, put his head in his hands, his long fingers ruffling his dark hair, and SJ felt fleetingly sorry for him – until she realised he was talking about her. The cheek of it. She never overreacted. It was Alison who was the drama queen.

“I don’t know why you’re making so much fuss,” she began, clambering unsteadily to her feet. “I just got a bit drunk, that’s all.”

“SJ, that was past drunk.” Tanya came across to her. “You were unconscious on the floor. We’ve been trying to bring you round for the last half an hour. And I know it’s happened before because you’ve told me about it.”

SJ flicked a startled glance at Tom.

“You’ve been having blackouts, too, haven’t you?” Tanya carried on relentlessly.

“No idea. I don’t remember. What are blackouts, anyway?”

“Periods of memory loss.” Tanya’s lips twisted in a wry smile. She was obviously trying to make a joke of it.

SJ decided to join in. “Everyone has memory lapses at my age. It’s called early onset Alzheimer’s – or senior moments, if you prefer!”

“SJ, please just shut up and take this seriously for five minutes.” Tanya’s usually husky voice was slightly shrill.

Alarmed, SJ shut up and decided she’d feel better if she sat down again. She slid down the wall until she was on the floor once more, her legs bent in front of her. Her leggings were grubby and covered in dog hairs. She tried to remember when she’d last vacuumed and couldn’t – a further example of her fading memory, obviously.

“Do you remember phoning Michael earlier?”

“Of course. But I didn’t phone him – he phoned me. Something about squash.”  

“You phoned him back.” Tanya bent and her fingers closed tightly around SJ’s wrist. “You were rambling – you were talking about someone called Liz. But when I came on the phone you hung up. Do you remember any of that?”

SJ felt herself break into a cold sweat, as she looked up into Tanya’s green eyes – eyes that, at this moment, were filled with a mixture of pain and worry.

“No... No, I don’t. What did I say?”

“You were pretty incoherent from what I can gather,” Tanya continued quietly, before flicking a warning glance at Tom, who looked bemused at the turn the conversation was taking.

“Liz is a student,” SJ said quickly, hoping to salvage something from this awful mess. Michael might have guessed she knew something she shouldn’t have known, but it was obvious Tom had no idea what they were talking about.

“I’ve been seeing her after class to talk about this poetry book she’s interested in publishing. Tell Michael I’m sorry. He didn’t need to listen to all that.”

There was a long moment when, even in her befuddled state, SJ knew she was apologising for a lot more than nonsensical ramblings to Michael. She had no idea if he was aware Tanya had told her about his fondness for women’s clothes. Tanya didn’t seem to think so but it was no thanks to her – she couldn’t even remember the conversation. Horrified with herself for being so out of control, she closed her eyes.

“I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “He must think I’m a complete idiot.”

“He’s not the only one.” Tanya let go of her wrist and rocked back on her heels. “You need to get this sorted out, SJ, before you really hurt someone. Or yourself – but I think you’re already doing that, aren’t you?”

SJ nodded, darts of shame shooting through her. It was much worse to hurt other people than yourself. And Tanya was the last person she wanted to hurt. She followed Tom’s example and rested her pounding head in her hands.

Then Tom roused himself from the dining table and she heard him coming across the room. “This is all my fault. I’ve been too tied up with work to notice what’s been going on. I haven’t been here for you.”

“It’s not your fault,” SJ glanced at him stricken, as guilt piled upon guilt. Tom looked really upset. His face was pale and there were circles of tiredness around his eyes. Had one afternoon of over-indulgence really made him look like that? She wished she didn’t feel so tired and fuzzy.

“Actually – if you two don’t mind, I think I’d like to go to bed. I don’t feel all that well.” It was the coward’s way out. She knew it was. But it was true. She couldn’t remember feeling so bad since… Well, probably since the last time she’d drunk too much, too quickly. The awful thing was that she knew exactly what would make her feel better – another glass of wine from the half bottle that was still sitting on the dining room table.

“Don’t even think about it,” Tanya warned. “Go and sleep it off. We’ll talk later.”

“Yes, we will,” echoed Tom.

SJ slunk away before either of them changed their minds.

Chapter Twenty

“My counsellor thinks it might help if I go to an AA meeting.” SJ told Tom this with a little shake in her voice. Sometimes she felt as though this part of her life was happening to someone else. It was someone else, not her, who joked her way through the Tuesday lunchtime appointments at S.A.A.D; someone else who had agreed to venture into the shadowy underworld of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Tom asked. He’d taken to coming home earlier, bringing his paperwork with him and doing it on the kitchen table.

SJ shook her head. “Thanks, but no, it’s okay. I phoned the helpline and they’ve arranged for me to meet someone outside so I know where to go.”

“Don’t they tell you that then?” 

“They tell you the name of the building, but not which part of it. I guess they can’t tape a big sign on the door, can they?
Alcoholics Anonymous meets here
.” She gave a hollow laugh. “It wouldn’t be very anonymous if they did.”

Tom put his arm around her and she tried not to flinch away from him. Why did she find it so difficult to accept comfort from her own husband? When Kit had given her the list of meetings his arm had rested casually against hers and she’d wanted to lean against the warm broad warmth of him, hear him tell her, as he so often had, that she was doing really well, that she didn’t have to cope on her own.

Shrugging away such uncomfortable thoughts, she got up. “I’m going to a meeting in Hammersmith.” That should be far enough away for her not to meet anyone she knew.

“I could always drop you off and …”

“Go for a drink while I’m in there? No thanks.”

“I was going to say I’d wait in the car park.”

She glanced at him, saw the flash of pain in his eyes and knew he was doing his best to support her – now he’d finally acknowledged she had a problem. She felt a wave of guilt. Why did she never say the right thing?

“Honestly, Tom, I appreciate it, really, but there’s no need. This is something I need to do for myself.”

Anxious not to be late, SJ arrived at the community centre in Hammersmith ten minutes before the agreed time. She and the woman she’d arranged to meet outside hadn’t exchanged descriptions – not even of their cars, let alone themselves – and she wondered how she’d recognise her. To her surprise, there were already quite a few people hanging around the entrance of the centre, both men and women, puffing furiously on cigarettes.

She could hardly wander up to one of them and say, “Hi, are you here for AA? – Oh sorry, you’re here for the line-dancing, are you? Yeah, me too.”

So she stayed in her car and spent the first five minutes trying to guess what her companion would look like. She’d sounded quite posh on the phone – she’d reminded SJ of a school teacher she once had. Oh God, what if it was her old school teacher? Her heart started beating rapidly and she had to take several deep breaths to calm down. If it was her school teacher then she was obviously going to recognise her as soon as she saw her and she’d simply say she’d made a mistake and leave. Easy.

Working on the assumption it wasn’t her school teacher, SJ went back to conjuring up a mental image to fit the voice on the phone. She’d probably be wearing a tweed suit: brown, with sensible brown brogues, brown perm and bifocals. Or possibly she’d have her hair tied back in a bun and her face scrubbed clean of make up in honour of her new sober lifestyle and she’d be wearing an A-line dress to cover her ample curves. Yes, she’d had a plump kind of voice so it followed she’d have matching curves.

SJ fidgeted and bit her nails while she waited and wondered if her own black trousers, pale blouse and dark jacket – even though it was far too hot for jackets – looked demure enough. She had on a trace of make up, but not much: foundation, mascara, a stroke of blusher and a conservative peach lipstick that had come free with a Woman and Home magazine. She wanted to give the right impression – middle class, but not as if she’d never had a good night out in her life.

Not that she was expecting she could compete with proper alcoholics – the ones who downed two litres of whiskey a day without as much as a whisper of a hangover. But she didn’t want them to think she was here under false pretences either, in case they thought she’d just come along for a laugh at their expense. The last thing she wanted was a bunch of snubbed, demented, raging alcoholics chasing her out to her car with machetes. God, she was paranoid. Why on earth would they have machetes?

It was too hot in the car to be wearing a jacket – which seemed to be tighter now she was sitting down than the last time she’d worn it. It must have shrunk at the dry cleaners. She shrugged it off and noticed her blouse was tighter than usual too. The buttons across her breasts were under a lot of strain and the top one kept popping open.

Wanton hussy was definitely not the right look. She’d have to wear the jacket, and then she could hold the edges together and avoid any embarrassing button-popping moments. It would be even better if she could stand up all evening – preferably at the back of the room behind a cupboard. In a cupboard would be better still.

Perhaps her companion was already here. She wished they’d agreed to carry something so they’d recognise each other. Something appropriate – like an empty wine bottle, although a full one would have been better.

One thing was certain; she couldn’t stay in her car. It was too hot. Maybe if she wandered across to the entrance she’d be spotted and rescued. It was like walking the plank. SJ was afraid her knees would give out halfway. At the entrance, aware of one or two curious glances, she got out her mobile and pretended to check her texts, which took all of five seconds as she’d cleared them earlier.

Then she became aware someone had detached themselves from the group and was approaching. Not a woman, but a man with a cigarette in his hand and a friendly smile. Definitely not a line dancer – he was wearing jeans and Doc Martens. She tugged her jacket around her, in case her blouse had done its button-popping trick, and smiled back uncertainly.

“Are you here to meet someone, love?”

She nodded.

“What’s her name, she’s probably inside. I’ll nip in and see if you like?”

SJ told him and he hurried away and returned a few moments later with a woman who was tall, slim, and looked as though she might be on her way to a wedding – only she didn’t have a hat. SJ felt woefully underdressed.

“Come along in,” her companion ordered kindly. “You don’t want to hang around out here with these smokers, do you?”

“No,” SJ said bleakly, although there was nothing she’d have liked more than a fag or six to calm her nerves.

“Come in and have a drink and I’ll introduce you to some of our ladies.”

SJ’s heart leapt at the prospect of a drink until it became evident her companion meant coffee in a plastic cup – yuck. But she sipped it obediently and smiled politely at everyone she was introduced to without trying to remember their names. There didn’t seem much point as they weren’t likely to meet again. There was no one in the room she knew. Thank God for small mercies.

Her plan to skulk at the back was thwarted when she was told to, “Sit here, love, next to me. It’s best to sit at the front.”

SJ spent the first half of the meeting wondering how quickly she could excuse herself and the second half in tears.

The tears were completely unexpected. One minute she was tapping her foot and surreptitiously glancing at her watch, and the next she had started to shake. She rested her head in her hands and then her shoulders joined in on the act and she realised she was no longer just shaking, but sobbing. Her whole body was shuddering with silent grief.

No one took any notice – perhaps they were used to people going to pieces. Then she felt a hand touch her shoulder. “Shall we slip outside for a wee while, hen?”

The voice, with its faint Scottish accent, was horribly familiar. SJ felt an increasing sense of dread as she turned to find herself looking at Dorothy from her poetry and pint class. Dorothy must have been sitting behind her all the time. What on earth was she doing here?

But Dorothy’s blue eyes were kind. And through her distress, SJ noticed her exchanging an it’s-alright-I-know-her kind of glance with the woman who’d brought her in.

Supremely embarrassed, because now she was bound to be the centre of attention, SJ gulped and nodded, stood up and allowed herself to be led through the swing doors and into the balmy summer evening.

They sat on the low wall outside. “I’m really, really sorry,” SJ gulped, rubbing her face and blowing her nose on a tatty old piece of tissue she’d found in her bag. “I don’t know why I’m so upset.”

“Is this your first meeting?”

SJ nodded. It felt surreal seeing Dorothy out of context. As usual her face was beautifully made up, her black hair was pinned up in a chignon, and she was wearing the Dior suit she’d once told SJ she’d bought for a wedding and needed to get plenty of use out of to justify the cost.

Images of her favourite student flooded SJ’s mind: Dorothy’s steamy novels with sex scenes that were as tender as they were explicit; Dorothy’s tales of her grandchildren; Dorothy’s passion for Byron and Pam Ayres; Dorothy’s own rather clever poetry, which always bubbled with merriment. SJ had to admit they were conflicting images, but none of them seemed as wrong as the fact that she was here now.

“First meetings aren’t easy.” Dorothy’s voice was gentle and SJ blinked.

“But you’re not…you can’t be…. You’re obviously here in a professional capacity.” SJ searched wildly for an explanation. “You’re doing research for your books, aren’t you?”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic, pet.”

“You don’t drink. You always have a Britvic orange.” SJ had a sudden vivid memory of Dorothy laughing with the boys as they sipped pints of Guinness and she nursed her small glass with its slice of orange floating in the top.

Dorothy gave her a sweet smile. “I stopped drinking twenty-five years ago.”

This news was even more shocking. SJ was about to ask her why she still came to meetings if she was cured when Dorothy spoke again.

“SJ, pet, why do you think you broke down in there just now?”

“I’ve no idea. Probably because I’m in the wrong place, and when that woman was speaking I just realised it.” The words sounded hollow, even to her.

“Or could it be that the opposite is true?” Dorothy held her gaze. It was impossible to look away. “Be honest with yourself. Could it be that on some level you’ve already recognised you’re the same as that woman and it was the shock of that realisation that caused you to break down?”

“Absolutely not.” SJ stared back through the window where the circle of people – all kinds of people: men and women, some casually dressed, some scruffy, some smart, some fat, some thin, some tall, some short, some blond, some dark – sat with serious faces.

But on some level she was no longer sure. On some level Dorothy’s words resonated. Then Dorothy added something that swept away the last of her reservations.

“SJ, pet. In all the years I’ve been coming here, I’ve never met anyone who walked in through these doors by accident.”