Ice and a Slice (24 page)

She couldn’t stand the pain. Not for another hour, not for another second. Getting unsteadily to her feet, she went across the hall and stood in the doorway of the lounge. Tom had put a new bottle of gin on the optic last week. She had no idea why – he didn’t even drink gin, and she’d given up. But she’d blown that one, hadn’t she? Just like she’d blown everything else in her life.

Leaning forward, she unclipped the bottle from the optic and stood it upright on the bar. It was amazing how something that looked so much like water could be so lethal. There was enough here to knock her halfway to oblivion. She hesitated, feeling strangely detached. Oblivion suddenly seemed like a very good option. The only option. How many glasses would it take to get her to oblivion? On autopilot, her movements stiff and jerky like a puppet’s, she moved behind the bar and began to take out glasses from the shelf beneath and stand them on the bar.

Four crystal tumblers, two pewter tankards, five little shot glasses Tom used for whiskey chasers if ever he was in the mood, and one commemorative glass with
Sarah-Jane and Tom, married 2009
, inscribed on the side.

She lined them up carefully along the bar. She lined them up in order of size, smallest first. And then she began to fill them up with gin. It reminded her of the dolls’ tea parties she and Alison used to have as kids. They had a red plastic tea set back then and they’d used water, not tea, and they would argue over who got the biggest teacup. But gin was far better than either water or tea and, best of all, Alison wasn’t here to argue about who got what. Alison wasn’t going to get her hands on any of these glasses. They were all for her. All for SJ. Finally, she had found something that Alison couldn’t get her hands on.

She smiled as she reached the end of the line. She had rather short-changed the last glass but she didn’t suppose that mattered. She also had a thumping headache – but that didn’t matter either. Gin was the oldest painkiller in the world. That was what they said, didn’t they?

Oblivion – right then. With the same curious sense of detachment she picked up the first glass. It was one of the shot glasses. Its contents were gone in a heartbeat. SJ reached for the next glass. Gin wasn’t very nice neat. It was much better with tonic, but she didn’t think they had any. And after a while she couldn’t taste it anyway.

Oblivion.

She wondered how long it would take.

Chapter Thirty-One

Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep.
All she could hear was the steady rhythm of the monitor, measuring her heartbeats.
Beep, beep, beep
. Proof positive that she was still alive, although she ought not to be. By rights she should be dead. For a few seconds anger surged and the monitor quickstepped to its rhythm. Why hadn’t they left her to it? Why had they bothered to resuscitate all this heartbreak?

“Are you conscious …” Doctor Maria Costello was asking her now, “… of the danger you placed yourself in? Last Sunday afternoon you drank almost a full litre bottle of gin. I’d like you to tell me why.”

SJ shook her head. She couldn’t stop sobbing. She was holding the blue tablecloth-like sheet to her face like a comforter, but it wasn’t helping.

The doctor held out a box of tissues and SJ tugged out a handful and wiped her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the pain. It poured out of her, on and on and on.

“Take your time, Sarah-Jane. We’ve got plenty of time. You were at home, do you remember?” the doctor prompted gently and SJ nodded.

“What day is it?”

“It’s Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday 7th September.”

Oh God, so it was after the party then. Her parents’ party – that must have been on Saturday. Of course it had been on Saturday. She remembered standing in the kitchen with her family all looking at her in disapproval (Kevin had been there) and there was something about a pea. Had she been lying by the fridge? Had she imagined that bit? Please let her have imagined that bit.

Another more disturbing memory crawled in and she tried to sit up, but it hurt so much she gave up and lay down again. “Are my parents here?”

“They’ve been here for the last two days. They’ve just gone to get something to eat. Your husband’s gone with them. They’ll be back very soon, I’m sure.”

Two days. Where had the last two days gone? “Oh my God,” she said, finally. “Oh my God.”

SJ didn’t know how much longer the doctor sat there. Or what else either of them said. Time seemed to blur in and out. At some point she was aware of her parents coming back in, of her mother sitting by the bed and stroking her head like she’d done when she was ill as a child: a rhythmic, soothing touch that sent her drifting back off into blackness.

She was aware of Tom being there some of the time, too – pale and rigid and silent. She closed her eyes when she saw Tom. She didn’t want to face any of them. It was all too painful and raw and every time she cried – which seemed to happen all the time – it hurt a little bit more. She was still only getting snippets of memories. Fragments of the party and fragments about the conversation she’d had with Tom when she’d begged him not to go round to Michael’s to ask him about the cross-dressing. She would have given a lot to be able to have lost that conversation but she guessed blackouts didn’t work like that. You couldn’t pick and choose which parts of your life you wiped out.

Sometime around the Tuesday evening – or it could have been the Wednesday evening, she’d lost track – SJ opened her eyes and saw Kit and Dorothy standing beside her bed.

“How are you doing, hen?” Dorothy gave her a huge smile, the warmth of which made her want to cry again, but which also made everything suddenly seem more bearable.

“Food’s improved by the look of it,” Dorothy remarked, sniffing the air, and SJ realised that it was teatime and that hospital staff were bustling around with trays and cutlery. At some point she’d been moved out of ICU and on to a main ward. She didn’t remember that happening.

Kit smiled at her too, pulled up two chairs, their legs scraping the floor, and gestured for Dorothy to sit down. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and a smart brown leather jacket she’d never seen before. He looked tanned, although not all that relaxed. She had the feeling he was uncomfortable in a hospital.

“You missed your appointment,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “so I thought I’d drop by.”

“That’s well beyond the call of duty,” she managed, embarrassed, but also hugely pleased to see him.    

“Duty doesn’t come into it,” he said, and rummaged in his pocket. “I was going to get you some grapes, but I thought these might be more appropriate.” He gave her a little paper bag of what turned out to be boiled sweets. “Good for throats,” he went on conversationally.

“Thanks.” She blinked. “I think my throat might just about manage one of these.”

“Not much fun having your stomach pumped – even when you are out for the count.” Dorothy’s voice was matter of fact. “I was awake for two of mine. I swear they were rougher the second time when they forced the tube down my throat. Mind you, the nurses had all been going off to a party when I turned up on the ward, half dead. I was holding up the proceedings. They weren’t very happy.”

SJ blinked. Trust Dorothy to upstage her. “I am never having my stomach pumped again,” she said. “I am never drinking again either. God, even the thought of it …”

Dorothy leaned forward and touched her arm. Her face was serene. “One day at a time, hen, that’s all you need to worry about. Is it okay to have one of those?” SJ held out the bag and Dorothy helped herself. “Thanks, pet.”

SJ looked at Kit. “When I first came to S.A.A.D I saw a man coming out of the pub across the road. It wasn’t even lunchtime, but he was totally pissed. He could barely walk. I didn’t think I was the same as him. I didn’t think I was a proper alcoholic.”

“And what do you think now?” Kit asked, his dark eyes holding hers.

“I think I just haven’t got quite as far down the path as that man. Well, I hadn’t,” she amended.

“Well, as you know, alcoholism’s a progressive disease,” Kit said quietly. “There are stages. Some of them can last for years.”

“You don’t have to do this on your own,” Dorothy put in. “I’ve made some of the best friends of my life in AA. In the past I only had drinking buddies. Now I have friendships forged in hell.”

“Don’t you mean in heaven?” SJ asked her with a weak smile.

“No, my darling, I don’t.” Dorothy paused to crunch her sweet. “Friendships forged in the fires of hell last a lot longer than the friendships you might find in some namby-pamby heaven.”

“Some people liken alcoholism to being on a train,” Kit said, helping himself to a boiled sweet, the leather of his jacket creaking as he moved. “Once you’re on it the ultimate destination is death. But you don’t have to stay on the train. You can get off it any time you like.”

“It’s a pretty straight choice at the end of the day,” Dorothy said. “Admit you’re an alcoholic and give up drinking – or carry on drinking and die.” She smiled sweetly. “It’s a tough one, I know. It took me ages to make up my mind. But I think you might be a bit more sensible than me.”

SJ shuddered. “I’m not very sensible,” she said. “But I do know …” Her voice cracked a little as she looked into their concerned faces. “I do know now that I want to get off the train.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“I blame myself. I should have seen it coming. I should have stopped you. I should have been around more.” Tom sat at their kitchen table, his head in his hands, his voice full of self-recrimination.

It was awful. And it was made more awful by the fact they’d had this conversation many times over the past few weeks. She’d been out of hospital for over a month, but however hard SJ tried to move on from what had happened Tom wouldn’t let her.

His initial anger and distress had morphed into an endless inward look at himself. As if he was personally responsible for her overdose. It was hard to cope with and although she’d told him over and over there was nothing he could have done – she was responsible for her own actions – he couldn’t seem to accept it.

SJ wasn’t sure how many more times she could bear to go through the same old cycle, but she tried again anyway.

“You know that’s not true, Tom. I was the one who poured the stuff down my throat, both on that Sunday and on all the other days before it. My alcoholism has nothing to do with you.”

He looked at her and she could see herself reflected in his eyes. A small brown person, somewhat diminished – that’s how she’d seen herself lately. Thanks to Kit.

The last time she’d seen him he’d put a basket of stones on the table in front of her and asked her to pick out the one she thought represented herself.

Slightly bemused, but willing to do anything he asked in the hope it might help, she’d rummaged around and had found herself right at the bottom of the basket. A small brown stone, dull and lifeless – like one of thousands you saw washed up on the beach, its edges rounded into smoothness by the constant pounding of the sea. The shine the water had given it was long gone.

“Why did you pick that stone, SJ?” Kit’s gaze had held hers and she’d shrugged. “What is it about that particular stone that reminds you of yourself?”

“There’s nothing special about it. It’s the same as millions of others, waiting for its moment to shine and sure it will never come.”

SJ had surprised herself with these words, so unthinkingly spoken. She’d expected Kit to home straight in on them and talk about self-esteem. They’d already established she had none and it was one of the areas they were supposed to be working on. But instead he’d directed her back to the basket and asked her to pick out everyone else who was important in her life.

Five minutes later, they’d stared at her collection of stones. A shiny white pebble for Alison, a lump of black onyx for Tom, a piece of sandstone for Mum, a chunk of granite for Dad, and a strikingly pretty stone threaded with blue for Tanya. The blue stone had a hole in its centre.

SJ pointed to it and whispered, “That’s where her heart should be. Only I plucked it out, didn’t I?”

She had phoned Tanya when she’d come out of hospital and Tanya had told her in barely a whisper that she never wanted to see her or hear from her again. And SJ had known that she meant it. There was no going back.

“What’s important,” Kit said, drawing her back to the room, “is the position of the stones. Look at how you’ve positioned them in relation to each other.”

SJ looked and saw what he was getting at. Her own stone – the little brown stone – was set back from the rest. The nearest to it was Tanya’s stone. The group of family stones formed a semicircle beyond that, and the furthest away from the brown stone was Tom’s.

And now, as she looked at the dark shadows beneath her husband’s eyes and the onyx blackness of his hair, she thought yes, Kit Oakley knew a thing or two about psychology. Her counsellor might not be a shrink in a suit but he had got it in one about her perceptions of distance – and he’d never even met her husband.

Only a table separated herself and Tom now, but emotionally they were aeons apart. Always had been and always would be, she was beginning to think. She got up and went across to him, but even when she was touching him, her hand on his shoulder, she didn’t feel any closer.

“Maybe you could come along to one of my counselling sessions?”

“I’m not getting my dirty laundry out in front of a stranger. It’s bad enough we’re in this god-awful situation without spilling it all out in front of someone else.”

“But that’s what counsellors are for. It’s not like we’re going to be judged. It really helps to talk things through with someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Blimey, she’d come a long way since the early days. She believed it now – believed in the power of the spoken word. She should have known about the power of words already, especially when she considered what her job was – or rather her ex-job. That had been another little bombshell God had decided to drop on her.

“Sorry, we’re having to cut some of our part time courses this year,” her curriculum leader had told her when she’d phoned about her contracts. “Another consequence of government cuts, I’m afraid.”

“But my students’ pass rate was 98%,” SJ had gasped.

“It’s no reflection on you. I’m very sorry.”

So she was out of a job, too, except for Poetry and a Pint, which didn’t make very much profit unless she had more students. Her rapidly decreasing income had hardly registered at the time. It had been insignificant amidst the rest of the chaos in her life.

“Then how about coming to an AA meeting, Tom?” she went on gently. “Or maybe even Al Anon? That’s for families.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sitting in a room with a bunch of drunks.”

“You hardly ever see any drunks,” SJ said truthfully. “They’re all on coffee – decaf, most of them. Or camomile tea. Or Lapsang Souchong. The ones that are really worried about cross-addiction drink nothing but hot water with a slice of lemon in it.”

She was trying to lighten the mood, but she could see from Tom’s tense frown she hadn’t succeeded.

Realising she still had her hand on his shoulder, which felt as hard and unforgiving as stone, she moved away, perched her bum on the edge of the washing machine and looked at him.

“Do you want us to get a divorce, Tom? Do you think there’s any point in carrying on?”

It felt weird to be asking him that. Weird to be standing in the warmth of their dream house in their dream kitchen, which was still toast-scented from breakfast, and asking him if he wanted a divorce.

For a moment she let her gaze travel around the untidy room. Their breakfast things were still on the side. There was a smear mark of something on the dishwasher and on the hooks above the kitchen shelf one of the cups was hanging the wrong way round. Tom would have noticed that once, and corrected it. He hated lack of order. A large bluebottle was in its death throes on the terracotta window sill. SJ chewed the nail on her thumb – the only nail she had with some chewing capacity left in it – and wondered what he’d say. Was their marriage in its death throes too? It certainly felt like it.

“I don’t know what to think. I keep wondering if this is just a phase. Your alcoholism, I mean.” He stumbled over the word and SJ could bear it no longer.

“It’s not a phase, Tom. I’ll always be an alcoholic, if that’s what you mean? For the rest of my life I’ll have to go to meetings.”

This thought, which had once made her shudder, now calmed her. She felt safe at meetings. For that brief hour and a quarter she knew she wouldn’t drink. Neither would she be tempted – there were too many reminders of the devastation it caused. The rooms where she’d once felt out of place – as though she’d stumbled into a nightmare life that wasn’t her own – now felt like home.

“I’ll always have this problem,” she said, more softly. “But it is my problem. You don’t have to deal with it.”

“I don’t think I can deal with it.” He met her eyes, still shaking his head as if in recognition of his own thoughts. “I’ve always done what I thought best by us, SJ. I’ve always worked hard to get the things I thought you wanted.”

“And I’ve always messed it all up again,” she said quietly, knowing he was struggling to ask for the truth that was at the heart of all this. Did she love him? Or had she really only married him because she couldn’t face being hurt again? Because she’d given up on love?

He screwed up his face. Here it came.

“What you said at the party – about not being in love with me when we got married. Was it true?”

She could see what it had cost him to ask her. Ask her in the coldness of daylight, when there was no glass of wine to hide behind, either for him or for her – when they were on the level playing field of reality. Such courage deserved honesty. There was no point in giving him false hope. Because whatever else had changed within her, she couldn’t change the facts.

“I didn’t love you in the way I should have done,” she said, wishing it could be otherwise. For Tom’s sake, as well as hers. He was a good man. He deserved to be loved. Everyone did. Hard as it was, she had to give him the chance to walk away, to find that happiness with someone else.

For a long moment he didn’t speak, but his shoulders had slumped. Now it was he who looked diminished. SJ watched him silently.

“I don’t want a divorce – not yet, anyway.” His voice was gruff with pain and she struggled to keep in her own tears. She’d made self-pity into an art form. It was time to be strong.

“But I think it would be best if we had a trial separation.”

“Do you want me to move out?”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll pay for you to live somewhere. Give you a chance to get yourself sorted out with another teaching job. It’s the least I can do.”

It was a generous offer in the circumstances, and she was torn because he couldn’t afford it. She’d seen his bank statement when it came with the morning post.

“I’ll stay with a friend,” SJ suggested. That would be tricky – she didn’t think she had any left.

The same thought had obviously occurred to Tom. “You could stay with your parents?” he said.

“Yes, I’m sure Mum would let me have her spare room.” She was just as sure she didn’t want to go there. Mum had been on her case constantly since the hospital and while SJ wasn’t surprised and while she felt terribly guilty that she’d put her parents and Tom and even Alison through such a trauma, she couldn’t have faced going back to live at home.

She had put off going round for A Proper Chat too, which was what her mother had been nagging her to do for the last couple of weeks. She said she was busy preparing lesson plans for the coming term. Mum was going to find out that was a lie sooner or later, but the truth was she couldn’t face anyone at the moment.

It was difficult enough to look at herself in the mirror, let alone make eye contact with anyone else.

“What about Ash?” Tom’s face was freer now – less haggard, as if the decision had lightened him. “I can’t look after him – I’m not here enough.”

“I’ll take him with me.” Wherever I go, she added silently. Because no way was Ash going into some dog sanctuary. She might have devastated everyone else in her life, but she wasn’t abandoning her beloved dog, too.

“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.