Painkiller (10 page)

That was all on the first page. I make a quick mental calculation. Seventh of July. Nearly two weeks’ time. I’d better ring them as soon as possible before it slips my mind.

I go into the study, put the envelope in the shredder, and read on to page two.

The letter lifts my mood, and my mood lifts some of my pain. I’m always amazed how emotions – anxiety, happiness, anger, joy – all either feed or starve my Angry Friend, if only for a short time. I even give Dominic a sunny smile when I sit down to the dinner table.

Dominic has decided to cook. He sits me down and brings in prawns in avocado, with rocket salad and tomatoes. One of the simple, healthy meals that he’s mastered to spare me lifting pots and pans.

‘OK, this is your starter…’

It’s only after he is sitting down that I realise. ‘Did you say “starter”?’

‘
Mais oui, mademoiselle
. Did you sink ah would be starving you tonight? Zis is merely the first course in ma leetle
déjeuner
. Not a
petit déjeuner
, mark you; zat would be breakfast. Zis is merely ma leetle
déjeuner
. ’Ow are you off for waine?’

I notice he has a tea towel draped over his arm, like he’s pretending to be a head waiter. I smile and get into the act. I waggle the stem of my glass. ‘Are you sure this is wine in my glass? It looks like cranberry juice to me.’

‘
Non
. It iz zee finest waine, made with ze finest grapes squashed wiz ma finest feet.’

I sip from my glass, and yes, it’s wine. It’s deep and makes my lips feel warm and fuzzy. It tastes expensive.

He turns the lights down and I look around the darkness in wonder. ‘Is this romance?’

He sipped his wine. ‘Could be.’

‘Oh.’

‘If that’s all right,’ he says, suddenly cautious.

‘It might be, only…’

‘Only…?’

‘If this is romance then I have to have a candle. It’s the law.’

‘Right, you asked for a candle, zen Madame gets a candle.’ He springs up again and I hear rummaging in the kitchen drawers.

‘Your avocado is getting cold.’

‘Don’t worry. Carry on eating. I’ll be there in a minute.’

And then he’s back, and he sticks a birthday candle on the table with a blob of Blu Tack. He takes out a box of matches and a tiny pathetic flame rises out of the candle.

‘
Voilà
.’

I smile. ‘So you remembered.’

His smile freezes. ‘Remembered? Remembered what? Nowhere near our wedding anniversary. Not your birthday. Definitely not your birthday. Phew. Safe there.’

‘It’s an anniversary. Of sorts.’

‘It is?’

‘It’s five years this week, since I had my accident.’

His eyes go cold. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I do. It’s in my calendar on my laptop.’

‘Well, OK. Hm. Let’s get this straight. I just want to say. All this…’ he gestures to the food and the candle, ‘this was not to celebrate five years.’

‘I thought you were being positive. You know what the websites say: embrace it. Celebrate it.’

‘Sod that.’

‘I’m joking, darling. Of course this isn’t to celebrate. You were just being romantic. I know that.’

We carry on eating in silence.

‘I got my appointment today for my treatment. The one where they cover you in chilli oil and fry you over a naked flame.’

‘Right.’

‘Here’s the letter.’

I offer it to him. He doesn’t look like he wants to take it, like he wants to carry on eating, but he does, and flips the stapled pages back and forth. It doesn’t look as if he’s reading very carefully.

I chunter on. ‘It’s looks like it’s quite a major treatment. They do say that someone has to be with me afterwards. I can’t drive home or anything like that.’

‘Have you finished?’

‘No, I really want to talk about it now.’

He smiles. ‘I mean, have you finished your starter?’

I laugh. ‘Yes, I’m finished.’

He takes up the plates and comes back with two plates of chilli con carne.

I look at my food. ‘This is lovely, darling.’

‘Thanks. I wish I had picked a better day.’

‘You picked a perfect day.’

We eat for about a minute before he says: ‘Monica, I’m not sure this is a good idea.’

‘No, it’s a lovely gesture. Really.’

‘Not the meal. The treatment.’

I look at him, astonished.
Did I hear right?

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Did you read this?’

‘Of course I have.’

He holds it up and reads it anyway, out loud. ‘“During this time you may experience heat and burning in this area and you may need extra pain relief to help this settle down…”’

He stares at me and shakes the letter, so it flaps like a wounded bird.

‘Extra pain relief? Extra pain relief on top of all the other pain relief you’re taking? What kind of treatment asks you, of all people, to take
extra pain relief
?’

‘It’s a different kind of pain. It’s on the surface.’

‘It’s a lot of extra pain, and for what? And I did some more reading on their website.’

‘Bully for you.’

‘Don’t be like that,’ he sighs. ‘You know in the past I’ve always taken a huge interest in how to help your condition. I’ve put in hours on the internet finding out new treatments for you. The thing is, this capsaicin trial… Yes, they’ve had results, but the actual treatment might be as nasty as the pain, and all the results they’ve had are temporary.’

‘Yes, but the trial is in its early days, they’re still finding out what the effects are on people like me.’

‘You don’t have to be their guinea pig. There are other people out there, with less pain, people they can experiment with to their heart’s content and it won’t be such a big thing to them.’

We eat in silence. Somewhere, somewhen, the evening has taken a wrong turn, as it so often does these days. The atmosphere has cooled, and I know that both of us regret it, but neither of us has the energy or the temperament to turn it around.

Finally, I say: ‘I’m a big girl, Dominic. I can take it.’

‘No you can’t. I know you.’

‘I think
I
know
me
a lot better.’

‘You might get a month or so of pain relief, and then it’s back to normal…’

‘Isn’t that good enough? Isn’t a month of
not
feeling like this good enough for me?’

‘Not enough. Not nearly enough.’

‘Dominic… I can’t believe you. I can’t believe your attitude.’

‘Don’t you understand? What if you do get, what, a bit of time with a bit less pain, what then?’

‘What then???!’

He sighs.

I hate that sigh, because he’s let slip he’s weary of me, weary of something I’ve become, something that I have no control over. There’s such a thing as ‘compassion fatigue’. Everyone gets it. My friends got it long ago, that’s why I don’t see them any more, because no one can be sympathetic for ever.

Dominic gets compassion fatigue too. He says he doesn’t, but he lies.
We both lie.

‘What if they stop the trials?’ he says. ‘What if they abandon it? What if you can’t get the treatment again?’

He waves a hand helplessly. I look down at the letter in my hand. It takes me a while to focus on the squiggles. ‘I have an appointment in two weeks. They’re expecting someone to come with me and drive me home. They’re expecting you to look after me.’

He drinks deeply from his wine and places it heavily on the marble coaster; slightly too heavily, as though he’s trying to break the glass and cause a distraction.

‘I can’t do that. I don’t want you to do it. I can’t see you get something only to see it snatched away again.’

‘But I want to do this. It’s my body, and I want to do it.’

‘I can’t in all conscience allow you to do it.’

I can’t believe what he’s saying. ‘So you don’t want to help me.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he says softly.

‘You didn’t have to.’ My scraps of patience were gone. ‘Thank you for that vote of confidence.’

He casts his eyes to the heavens and sighs. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’

That stings.
There is one thing you don’t do. Don’t suggest I’ve lost my mind. My mind is the only thing I have left.

‘I’m not thinking straight?’

He knows he’s crossed a line but, being a man, he has no choice but to plough on. ‘The pain makes you try things that you really shouldn’t try. Remember that American doctor who claimed he could shock the body into feeling less pain by causing you
more
pain? Remember that woman who put those bloody crystals on your body? We’ve been here so many times before. We’ve had so many false dawns…’

‘I’m not talking about false dawns. I want you to explain why you think I’m not thinking straight.’

‘Monica…’

‘I suppose you consider yourself the benchmark of sanity in this house?’

Dominic’s fork is twirling testily in his hand. ‘OK, fine. If you want to put it like that, then so be it. Yes, I do.’

I laugh at him, a cruel laugh designed to provoke, and his voice becomes clipped and cold. ‘Given that you’re the one who takes four different kinds of mind-altering drugs, and who rattles like a pill bottle when she walks, do you not agree that it’s a good chance that I’m the one who has a firmer grip on what is sane and insane? Is that a not unreasonable assumption to make?’

I start to speak but he holds up his hand. His knife and fork clatter on his plate. ‘Yes or no?’

‘If you put it —’

‘Yes or no???’

‘Fine, yes,’ I glower. ‘It is not an unreasonable assumption to make. I applaud you for your elegant summary of the facts. I suppose I also wasn’t thinking straight when I imagined someone pushing me down those car park steps.’

He looks surprised. ‘Well, if we’re bringing that up…’

‘Someone did push me down those steps. I told you.’

‘Three months
after
the accident, when you
also
told me that you thought the jackdaws in the garden were spying on you…’

‘That was the drugs.’

‘You also told me you were Joan of Arc in a previous life.’

‘I said that was the drugs.’

He raises his eyebrows and holds his hands up. ‘And in conclusion, your honour…’

‘You cunt,’ I say. I tip my chilli con carne on the floor. Then I run to the kitchen and slam the door. Then I go to the draining board and smash the dessert bowl on the floor.

The kitchen door opens behind me.

‘You didn’t have to do that.’

‘I never want to see you again.’

‘That’s the pain talking.’

‘Every time I say anything you don’t like, that’s the pain talking.’

‘Well it is, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe I don’t want to see you again. Maybe this is just me talking. Me!’

He goes to me and circles my body with his arms, holding me in a cage. This is the technique he has perfected; I can’t break out of it without hurting myself. I can’t cope with any more pain. I hold my arms into my body, like a boxer clinging to his opponent, holding on until the bell goes.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look at me.’

‘No.’ I keep my eyes fixed on the floor, staring at shards of glass and little yellow globs of crème brûlée.

‘You’ve ruined my crème brûlée.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘No. You don’t, do you?’

He stiffens, rage rising. He backs away, and leans on the draining board, looking at the night, or his own shadowy reflection in the darkened window. ‘Well I care. Because I made it. I did everything. But because I sighed, because I… damn well…
sighed
…
you have to ruin it!’

‘Dominic —’

He slams his fist on the draining board. ‘Of course you don’t care. You won’t have to clear it up. You don’t have to get out a dustpan and brush, and get down on your hands and knees and bend down and clean it up, or pick up that piece of paper, or carry that suitcase, or empty the bins, oh no, you don’t have to do any of those things. That’s why you don’t care what you throw on the floor, because you don’t have to do anything —’

‘I’m – in –
pain
!’

‘Change the record, Monica, I’m just worn out.’

‘How do you think I feel?’

That was what I try to say, but the tears in my eyes and the rage in my throat just vomit out a stream of vowels, devoid of sense.

I stand in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by broken glass and yellow blobs.

Dominic still leans on the draining board, breathing heavily, calming down. ‘I just want to say something,’ he says at last. ‘I care about you. And if this treatment looked like a credible way to end your pain once and for all, then believe me, I’d be the first in line to support you.’

I break away, sniffing and snorting and burbling like a coffee percolator, and lean on the kitchen surface. He follows me, ready to catch me if I faint.