One Step Closer to You (21 page)

I sit down again, trying to get my head round it. Why now? Why wait nearly four years?

‘What are you going to do?’ Aunt Viv is saying. ‘If I were you I’d call him, say you don’t want to meet, say …’ Soon Aunt Viv is background noise. I’m seeing us in the flat the day I walked out. I’m seeing the other side of me, the me that did nothing but drink, the me that loved Louis but was a useless mum who put her son in danger. I have changed. Is it possible Matt has too?

‘We were given a second chance,’ I mutter, still deep in thought.

‘That’s different.’

‘Is it? Why?’

‘It just is. Polly, don’t forget what he did to you, and Louis.’

‘I won’t, but …’

‘And what about Ben?’

‘But what about Louis?’ I raise my voice for the first time. ‘When he’s older, and he asks more questions about his dad, which he will, he’s already asking them now, how can I lie to him?’

‘You tell him the truth.’

‘How can I tell him that his father did try to get in
touch but I wouldn’t see him, I wouldn’t give him a second chance?
He’s
the one that loses out. It’s not about me or you, it’s about my son.’

‘All I care about is you, Polly. That man has no rights. He gave those up the day he hit you,’ she says, a tremble in her voice. ‘How can you even
think
of seeing him?’

I press my head into my hands. ‘I’m not making any decision right now.’

‘You can’t let him back into your life,’ she stresses again. ‘You’ve come so far and now you have a real chance of happiness with Ben.’

‘It’s not that simple! You’re saying I just ignore him and he goes away and Louis never sees his dad again. Aunt Viv, you don’t have children …’ The moment I say it I want to take it back. She looks as if I’ve plunged a thorn in her weak side. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean, oh, Aunt Viv, I’m so sorry.’ I reach out to her. ‘But it’s not black and white. Aren’t we being hypocritical? We ask for forgiveness, look at the people we hurt, but the moment someone hurts us, we turn our backs on them.’

‘Sometimes we need to protect ourselves. I’ve never seen you this happy. I couldn’t bear it if that man comes back and ruins everything.’

‘I won’t let him. I’m stronger. I’m not the same Polly.’

*

That night I sit in my bedroom rocking chair, questions filling my head until I can no longer think straight. One
minute I’m with Ben. I feel his lips on mine, can see his face at the lift doors, but then his face becomes Matthew’s. I fantasise about him holding Louis’s hand in the park. I know there’s a void in his life; as much as we love one another there is a vital piece of the jigsaw missing. What if he really has turned himself around? I think of those times when he must have called me and then hung up. How did he get my number? Has he been doing it to scare me? Or did he really lose his nerve? Is it possible he feels remorse? I pick up my mobile, call my counsellor, Stephanie, praying she’ll answer. She says she’s always on the end of the line in case of an emergency. When she picks up, she sounds sleepy.

‘Polly?’

‘I’m so sorry if I woke you, I didn’t know who else to turn to, who can be objective,’ I say, knowing Neve would be in Aunt Viv’s camp. Stephanie tells me to slow down and tell her what it is worrying me.

‘Doesn’t he deserve a hearing, at least?’ I ask, waiting for her to say something, anything.

‘Listen to your gut,’ she says finally. ‘What is it telling you to do?’

‘Sometimes I just wish you’d give me the bloody answer.’

‘I don’t have the answers, Polly.’

Aunt Viv drops me off outside a flat on Cambridge Gardens, Ladbroke Grove. She’s borrowed Jean’s battered old car. I turn to look at Louis, sitting on the backseat, none the wiser that his mum’s messed up and off to see a shrink.

I feel like a schoolchild as Aunt Viv tells me she’ll pick me up in an hour and a half. As I head towards the front door I sense her gaze, making sure I don’t change my mind and run off. When Stephanie Green opens the door, I hear the sound of the engine, a car driving away.

Stephanie Green is small, with pale skin and chestnut brown hair, strands tucked neatly behind both ears. She wears simple clothes and flat shoes, barely any make-up or jewellery. She leads me up a flight of stairs and gestures to a sofa covered with a checked throw and a coffee table stacked with a few glossy magazines, along with a bottle of Evian
water and a couple of glasses. ‘Make yourself comfortable, I won’t be long.’

Alone, I fidget with the strap of my handbag, wondering what she’s going to ask me. My mind drifts to Matt. Would I be here if we were still together? Was I wrong to walk out on him when he’s about to face bankruptcy? Should I have understood why he lashed out at me? He was under huge pressure and I certainly didn’t help. I was a handicap. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt me. It was the worry and stress and … I curl my hand into a fist, trying to stamp out that persistent voice in my head as Stephanie calls me into her room.

*

‘Tell me about yourself, Polly,’ Stephanie asks, sitting comfortably in her black chair.

A big fat blank comes to mind. ‘I’m fine.’

She nods.

‘I have a son, Louis. I used to be a teacher.’

She asks me about my childhood.

Again nothing much comes to mind. ‘It was fine. My parents are still together.’

‘Do you have siblings?’

‘Hugo.’

‘What’s your relationship like with him?

‘We’re close.’

‘How are you feeling right this moment?’

I hunch my shoulders. ‘Fine.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘I’m good.’

‘Your aunt was keen I see you. Can you think why she might be concerned about you?’

Silence.

‘I understand this is hard, Polly.’ She gives me time.

I look out of the window. ‘I’ve been drinking a lot. I’m not now.’

‘How much were you drinking?’

I was expecting this question. I halve it and don’t include the vodka. ‘About a bottle of wine a night, sometimes less.’

‘And what did that do for you?’ Her expression remains neutral.

‘Er, it helped me cope with stuff.’ I look down to my lap, can’t stop fidgeting with my hands. ‘Made me feel less lonely, I guess.’

‘What’s that loneliness about?’

‘I’ve messed up my life.’

‘What makes you feel that way?’

‘Where do I start?’ I blurt out. ‘Mum said I was always a rebel, I didn’t …’

‘Let’s put your mother’s voice to one side for now. Can you tell me how
you
think and feel?’

I can’t talk about
feelings
! My head is busy, working overtime, but I don’t know how to articulate a single sentence in
this room. After another long silence Stephanie tells me not to worry. We go back to my childhood. ‘Tell me anything,’ she says. ‘The first thing that comes into your head.’

I end up telling her about rowing on the lake and visiting the sunken boat. I talk about Hugo, mentioning he’s partially sighted and went to a special school for the blind.

At the end of the assessment, Stephanie closes her notebook and takes off her glasses. ‘Polly, I have two rules when I see clients. The first is I won’t see someone who carries on drinking or using while they’re seeing me. The second is that it’s your choice to be sitting here, not your aunt’s or your mother’s, or Hugo’s. I have a gap in my diary. How does that sit with you?’

‘Good.’ I try to give more. ‘I’d like that.’

She nods. ‘Now, I need your GP to refer you to a psychiatrist. I know someone I think you’d like. Don’t worry, Polly,’ she says, registering my anxiety. ‘But it is important that you have a medical assessment. Don’t stop drinking until you’ve seen him, OK? It can be dangerous cutting drink out immediately. You’ll need to be weaned off and he might prescribe some medication to help. I’ll liaise with your psychiatrist and we’ll devise a care programme. How does that work for you?’

‘Good,’ I mutter

‘There’s one last thing I advise. Go to as many AA meetings as you can and get yourself a sponsor, preferably female.’

‘I already have one.’

When Stephanie smiles she appears more human. ‘That’s the best possible start.’

@GateauAuChocolat
Lots going on here! A pasta class on Weds so book a spot. And today is serious comfort food – braised beef macaroni & cakes galore …

It’s the morning after Emily’s operation.

The chocolate peanut butter cake is made and a coffee sponge is baking in the oven. The smell is comforting after a sleepless night spent haunted by Matthew’s voice on my machine. ‘
I have changed, Polly. I want to get to know my son
.’

As a trickle of customers come in and I begin on the meringues, Aunt Viv stares at me like a hawk from behind the shop front desk; she’s been watching my every move since I arrived. As I whisk the egg whites in a porcelain bowl, I think about Louis and how blissfully ignorant he was this morning. I have to confront Matthew at some stage, I reason, watching the egg mixture thicken. Vaguely I’ve made a plan in my head that I see him first before I involve Louis, and then I can make a decision.

My mobile rings. The knot in my stomach twists again. When I see Ben’s name lighting the screen I turn the whisk up to full speed instead of turning it off. ‘Bugger!’ I screech, egg mixture splattering everywhere before finally I switch it off. I consider screening since I haven’t had a moment to think about what happened between us last night.

‘Emily’s been discharged,’ he says when I pick up. ‘She’s back at home, watching television and eating a chocolate bar, basically being spoilt rotten.’

‘Oh good,’ I say. ‘Send her my love.’

‘Polly, about last night. You being there, it meant a lot.’

‘I’m glad I could be with you.’ How can so much have changed in the last twenty-four hours?

‘So,’ he continues, ‘I was wondering about our date. I thought maybe I could take you out for some Thai food, we could try that new place …’

I catch Aunt Viv staring at me again. ‘Ben, I can’t talk right now. It’s a bit busy in here.’ Distracted, I wipe some egg mixture off my cheek.

‘Sure, sorry, but are you free this weekend?’

I pace the kitchen, dodging out of Mary-Jane’s way. ‘Can we talk later?’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Are you sure? Have you changed your mind?’

‘Ben, I can’t do this now.’

‘You can’t chat now, or you can’t do us?’

I hesitate, feeling cornered in by everyone and so tired I want to scream. Quickly I head outside for privacy, avoiding eye contact with Aunt Viv.

‘Matthew called.’

There’s a lengthy pause. ‘I see.’

‘I need a bit of time, that’s all I’m saying. I can’t think about us right now, but that doesn’t mean …’

‘I understand,’ he cuts in, his good mood buried. ‘Are you going to meet him?’

Listen to your gut, I hear Stephanie saying.

‘It’s not just about me. If it were, it would be simple. I have to let him see his son.’

Until I meet Matthew, I can’t rest. Despite everything I owe it to Louis to see if his father has changed.

As I wait to see Stephanie, I flick through
Hello!
magazine, thinking how much has happened over the last three and a half months since I first met her back in December. I have been to ninety meetings in ninety days – ‘doing a 90/90’ as they call it in AA – Neve reinforcing again that if I can drink heavily for years I can make time to go to an hour’s meeting each day for three months.

I am enjoying AA, if that is the right word. Slowly I’m getting to know Harry in his oversized tweed jacket and Denise who chews nicotine gum manically, her hair turning a more buttery yellow by the week. I have a crush on Ryan. He’s a music producer in his mid-twenties. ‘What I like about it in here is there are no docs, no men in white coats,’ he’d said during our last meeting. ‘No shrinks. We’re all equals who have one thing in common, to stay sober.’

I have confided to Neve that at times I feel like a fraud,
especially when listening to how the man next door to me was brought up in poverty and became a drug dealer by the age of fifteen, and the woman on my other side was haunted by a violent childhood. ‘You can’t compare,’ Neve said. ‘We all need the same help.’

A turning-point for me was towards the end of the first month, when finally I raised an arm and said, ‘Hi, I’m Polly and I’m an alcoholic.’ My heart was pounding and I felt sick with nerves sharing my story, but saying it out loud changed something inside me. It was as if, at long last, I was opening a locked gate. When I told them I hadn’t touched alcohol for twenty-four days I could feel the waves of support in the room.

I like working the steps with my sponsor, Neve. She’s funny and compassionate, but she’s also tough. We’ve found a lot of common ground, especially in our relationships. She had an affair with an abusive man, but kept on going back for more at the cost of her marriage. ‘I couldn’t be intimate with
anyone
, not even my husband. In my messed-up head this guy was perfect for me, I thought he was what I deserved for being such a screw-up. You were brave, Polly, you escaped from Matthew. Some stay in abusive relationships for years and don’t know how to leave.’

Matthew hasn’t been in touch. What did I expect? I threatened that if he ever came near me again I’d report him to the police. I had witnesses in Aunt Viv, Hugo and my ginger-haired neighbour. Sometimes I miss what we used
to be. I find myself wondering if he thinks about me too. Is he relieved that he no longer has any responsibility? Were we ever happy? Deep down I know he never wanted a child. Was it just about the sex? What is he doing now? When Matt was in control, he was attentive, funny, loved to spoil me with gifts. The moment things spiralled out of control … Questions crowd my head. What if, what if, what if … ?

I’ve been through Steps One to Five with Neve. Step One was the most powerful for me, writing down a list of all the times that I had put myself, or others, in danger because of my drinking. One thing that strongly came through was the guilt I felt, and still feel, for drinking when I was pregnant.

Along with AA and Neve, I have been seeing Stephanie twice a week and my psychiatrist once a month. None of this would have been possible without Mum and Dad. They have been able to pay for it since my father has a family health care plan that covers my treatment. ‘It’s a relief it’s being used,’ Mum had said, in her twisted kind of way of showing support. ‘We’ve paid into it long enough.’

‘It’s no wonder I can’t show emotion,’ I told Stephanie during my last session. ‘Mum is so tight-lipped. She didn’t do hugs with me, only with Hugo. I wasn’t allowed to cry, I had to be the grown-up sister. When Hugo went to boarding school I had to pull my socks up and get on with it.’ I told Stephanie that my father has never really played much of a role in my life. He’s always been Mum’s puppet. I have also told her about Aunt Viv being kept a secret and the time
when this mysterious figure had turned up on our doorstep, such a contrast to my own mother in her navy skirt and silk blouse.

I flick over another page. Aunt Viv has been my fairy godmother, letting Louis and me live in her rented shoebox, as she calls it. She laughs, saying aged fifty-four she still has no roots, no home, she’s never had a mortgage – will she ever grow up? I pray she’ll be staying put for a while yet. She’s very much made her flat her home, with her pictures of her travels and the things she’s brought back from abroad, like her Moroccan lantern and kilims.

When I suggested to Aunt Viv that perhaps I was invading her privacy (something Mum had strongly hinted at) she shook me by the shoulders. ‘Getting you to meetings and to your appointments with Stephanie is all that counts right now.’

In return I made her promise to let me at least cook, and this is when she suggested I work temporarily in Jean’s café. ‘I remember how much you used to enjoy cooking,’ she’d said. Aunt Viv had it all worked out. I could take Louis to the shop, or she could look after him on her days off, or we could employ a childminder temporarily and arrange for him to go to nursery. A job will give me independence and restore my confidence.

I chew my thumbnail. My interview is tomorrow morning.

‘Polly,’ Stephanie says, holding the door open.

*

‘How are you feeling today?’

‘Fine.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

I knew she was going to ask me that. Fine will never do. Fine means ‘fucking incapable of normal emotion’. ‘I’m OK,’ I say, knowing that will be rejected too.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘You sound … ’

‘I’m fine!’

She waits.

‘All right, I’m a bit nervous.’

‘Tell me why.’

‘I have this interview tomorrow, for a job.’ I explain where it is, before adding, ‘It’s not a big deal really, don’t know why I’m so worked up.’

Stephanie nods, not giving anything away. ‘So what are the physical sensations you’re feeling?’

I rub my palms together. ‘I’m a little sweaty,’ I whisper, as if someone can hear me. ‘And I’ve got this tightness in my chest, as if something’s stuck in here.’ I tap my heart. ‘Like some nasty chunk of meat that I haven’t swallowed properly and each time I breathe it feels odd … Oh, I can’t describe it.’

‘You’ve described it well. These are feelings of anxiety. They are an entirely appropriate response to you having an interview tomorrow.’

‘It’s not like it’s some hot City job though, is it? It’s only working in a café.’

‘You’re putting yourself down. It’s a step forward and any kind of change is unsettling. In this life we often have a dangerous sense of entitlement, that things should come easy. Life isn’t easy. There are times when we’re supposed to feel anxious, scared or uncertain. Job interviews are one of those times.’

‘
I’m sure Jean will give you the job
,’ Mum had said on the telephone last night, again trying to be reassuring, but not understanding how hurtful she can be.

I’m biting my lip, trying to hold my anger in.

‘It’s all right to be nervous,’ Stephanie reassures me. ‘You’re meeting life on life’s terms.’

‘When I got my teaching job, do you know what my mother said to me?’

She shakes her head.

‘She said, “Well done, but I doubt many other people applied.”’

Stephanie doesn’t react in the way I’d hoped. I want her to slam the desk and say, ‘What a thing to say!’

Instead she asks me, calmly, ‘Are you scared of being angry?’

‘No,’ I say, rage building up inside me.

‘Your anger is a battery to change, Polly. Let it drive you, not hold you back.’

I want to scream, but I can’t.

‘Anger isn’t always negative. Don’t be scared of it.’

‘I’m not scared,’ I lie.

‘Let’s have a look at your mother again.’

‘Nothing I’ve ever done is good enough! Nothing!’

I think of that evening when I’d overheard Mum and Dad talking about Hugo, the day we’d driven him to school for the first time. Dad was furious that Mum was having a go at him for drinking. ‘“It’s hard not to love Hugo more,”’ I say out loud, recalling her words vividly, like a stab in the heart.

I look at Stephanie. ‘I was sitting on the stairs. I should have been in bed. They were talking in the kitchen. She said, “It’s hard not to love Hugo more,”’ I repeat, not even aware I’d been carrying this conversation around with me for over twenty years. ‘She doesn’t love me the way she loves Hugo. She never has and never will. I was always a disappointment. And here I am. No job, no prospects, I’m nothing but a waste of space.’

I stop; hesitate.

‘No one’s here,’ she says, as if she can read my mind.

I scream, and then I scream again, before I begin to sob.

*

‘You know, Mum wanted me to go back to Norfolk.’ I wipe my eyes at the end of the session, wishing I didn’t have these feelings poisoning me inside. ‘She hates me staying with Aunt Viv, but it’s nothing to do with me, it’s her being jealous, nose out of joint, you know. She tolerates Aunt Viv but, after all this time she still hasn’t forgiven her. She hates
us being close. Aunt Viv has paid for what she did. Even Granny Sue hasn’t forgiven her. I thought parents loved you unconditionally, no matter what.’

‘You wouldn’t go back home?’

‘No way.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s where all my problems started,’ I say, without even understanding I’d felt that way. I pull another tissue out of its box. ‘Can you help me?’

‘You’ve started doing that yourself.’

‘When will it go away, all this pain?’

‘You can’t force it. You need to give yourself time and we’ve only just begun. We need to work from the inside out, Polly. You’ve held on to a lot of things from your childhood and it’s time to let them go. You’re doing really well today.’

‘Mum called Matthew, “that man”. She was right about him, but of course I didn’t want to listen. I thought I was in love. You know that feeling of being intoxicated with someone?’ I close my eyes, smile. ‘It can be better than sex. For the first few weeks I had that rosy glow, that sweet sense of anticipation. I want that again, but with the right man. I want to feel alive. I feel dead inside, bankrupt.’ I open my eyes. ‘Without drink there’s nowhere to park my feelings.’

‘You have to acknowledge them instead. It’s painful, but to change we must suffer. You can be happy. There’s nothing stopping you from meeting someone and falling in love again. You can have all those feelings, but I have some advice
that I often give my clients. Steer clear of relationships in the first year of recovery. You need to fix your relationship with yourself.’

‘That’s what scares me.’

‘What is that?’

‘Finding out who I am.’