Listen (28 page)

Back in the kitchen, Laurence was on his second bowl of soup, but he was looking grim.

‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we need to talk about yesterday.’

Meredith winced. Her last memory of the day before was of her niece Olivia standing at the front door looking frightened and shocked, and Daddy beside her looking… how had he looked?
Not well
, she thought now. Definitely not well. But after that, nothing until she woke up with a bursting bladder and a mouth like old kapok.

‘You were a mess,’ Laurence said. ‘You were worse than a mess, you were a disgrace. Too pissed at, what was it, one o’clock or something, to help your own dad when he needed you. You don’t even know what happened, do you?’

Meredith shook her head. For once she didn’t change the subject or flounce out of the room. She sat back down at the table. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Lemme have it.’ He told her what had happened, and she felt ill, actually nauseous with shame.

‘I’ve had it, Mum.’ There was an angry tone of finality in Laurence’s voice that she’d never heard before.

‘I know,’ Meredith said humbly. She was still for a while, staring at her folded hands resting on the table. There was a sign in her mind that she was reading; it was hanging there, lit up like neon.
The end of the line
. Finally she looked up at him. ‘I can’t keep doing this. I don’t
want
to keep doing this.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘AA, I guess.’

‘No!’ Laurence yelled. ‘You’ve tried AA before and you always fuck it up!’

‘I know I’ve
tried
– but I wasn’t really trying. This time I’ve got to get real. Not skip meetings. Call them if I feel like I’m gonna backslide. The real deal.’

‘
No
. I think you’ve got to go into rehab.’

Meredith felt panicky.
Who’ll keep things up for Daddy if I’m not there?
But if she didn’t get on top of the booze, who was going to look after him anyway?

‘Laurence, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I’m sorry about yesterday and I’m sorry about – everything. Let me try AA first. If I fall off the wagon I’ll go into a rehab clinic. I promise. I swear.’

‘I’m
serious
, Mum, I want you to know that. I’m deadly serious. This is my final year of school and it’s
important
. I have to get a really high score to get into any of the courses I want. I need some support here, you know!’ Her son’s voice quavered and Meredith felt
tears sting her eyes. ‘I don’t want to live with you being a drunk any more.’

‘Fair enough. You shouldn’t have to,’ she said.

‘Okay then, start by ditching it,’ said Laurence, his eyes not shifting from hers as he jerked his head from the fridge to the sink. Meredith took a deep breath, got up, and did it: poured every bit of alcohol in the place down the sink. She even got her emergency bottle of vodka from the bedroom and poured that out, too. Laurence came and stood beside her at the sink as she rinsed the last of it away.

‘Good one, Ma,’ he said.

‘Easter Sunday.’ She looked up at him, risking a cheeky little grin. ‘I’m reborn. Resurrected.’

‘No need to go all religious on me.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Just get with the program, okay? And stay with it.’

Meredith got a new job, four days a week as a kitchen hand in a cafe quite close to home. The pay wasn’t nearly as good as bar work, especially without the tips, but it was just enough, and it kept her away from alcohol. She went in there at twelve each day and washed dishes from the lunch crowd, then cleaned the whole kitchen top to bottom and prepared the salads and vegetables for dinner. She finished at six o’clock, when the night shift started. Six o’clock: a dangerous time for a drinker.

Twice a week she went straight from work to a yoga class held in a hall across the road. A friend had talked her into trying it, and Meredith found that yoga suited her. There was no peppy music or bouncing around, just a quiet, thoughtful sort of concentration. She’d always been naturally flexible and the physical work she did had kept her fit. But this was different: she could feel and then actually
see
how her body was toning and strengthening. And she soon realised that it wasn’t only her body that benefitted: she left each yoga class feeling more settled, somehow, in herself. That was encouraging.

She did join AA. Two meetings a week, one straight after a yoga class. Some of the people irritated the crap out of her,
but hey
, she thought,
I’m probably just a teensy bit irritating myself at times.
She knew she’d do better this time if she had a sponsor, and at the end of the first meeting she approached a woman named Carmen, a bit older than herself, smart and unpretentious and funny. Carmen agreed; they talked seriously and exchanged phone numbers, but still Meredith felt she shouldn’t bother her. Should be able to do this on her own. Carmen usually phoned her a couple of times a week, mostly to have a chat and a laugh but she would always ask, with that meaningful edge, ‘How are you getting on?’.

‘You know why I want to talk with you regularly, don’t you, Meredith?’ Carmen asked her one day.

‘Um, because I’m such a great gal?’ Meredith ventured.

‘As well as that. Because I want you to be in the habit of talking to me. Because if there’s an emergency, I want to be the first person you think of to call. Before you buy a bottle. Before you lift a glass to your mouth. Call me. I want my phone number engraved on your brain. That’s how it’s gotta be. Get it?’

‘Got it.’

She didn’t see her old friends much: they were all drinkers so it wasn’t safe. She had dinner with Alex a couple of times a week, and spent more time at home, fiddling around with her journals, making things. She saw more of Laurence. They talked more often, and more deeply. Mothering him had always seemed like the easy bit of her life; sometimes the only bit that made sense. She’d never been much of an authority figure, but then Laurence had never seemed to need much authority. No matter how shitfaced she’d been, she’d always got up to him in the night, always made his school lunch and sat with him while he ate his Weet-bix in the morning, even if her head was pounding and she felt like she was going to throw up. And no matter how much of a mess she was, he’d always been sweet to her. Tolerant.
How lucky I’ve been
, she thought now, fervently glad that
she had come to her senses before all of that got lost forever in the alcoholic swill.

Every day before work, Meredith went over to her father’s. He didn’t seem any worse after that incident at Easter time. She made sure he took an aspirin each day, along with the tablet to keep his blood pressure down, and the new medication that was supposed to help his memory get better, or stop it getting worse.

She kept his house looking good. Though the big clean-up had been done, there was plenty of maintenance. Plenty! Besides, Alex didn’t have his own car any more – Robert had spirited it away – so anywhere he needed to go, for errands or outings, Meredith took him. A couple of times her father asked where his car was and Meredith said airily, ‘Oh, it’s in at the garage for a service’, an explanation that seemed to satisfy him.

‘I don’t miss driving one bit you know, darling,’ he told her as they were heading off in her car one day. ‘A lot of maniacs on the road these days. It was getting so bad I hated it.’

‘Is that so, Daddy? Better off without it then!’

‘Yes, that’s what I think. In fact, I’ve been thinking, when they’ve finished fixing my car up, why don’t you have it? I know you love this old Corona of yours, but I do think – no offence – that mine’s a much better car.’

‘Oh, Daddy, that’s so kind of you!’ She turned to him, delighted. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Better you make use of it,’ he said. ‘Especially since you spend half your time driving your old dad around anyway.’

‘I don’t mind!’ she said. ‘You know I don’t mind a bit.’

‘I know you don’t, poppet. Bless your little cotton socks,’ her father said, settling back contentedly in the passenger seat.

She told Robert about Alex’s offer. He said that it sounded sensible but that the others would have to agree, too,
of course
. The next day he cc’d her a copy of an email he’d sent to Deborah and James. Reading it gave her an unexpected prickly feeling. She knew
Robert had to do the right thing, but she still felt put out.

Why did they have to complicate things? After all, Daddy had always helped her in little special ways. She was the youngest, don’t forget; she needed more help than the others. But as she was making this internal complaint another voice countered it, quite unbidden.
So what?
it sneered.
So what if you’re the youngest?
Well, of course the youngest one needs more help, she answered, astonished. Everyone knows that!
What crap!
said the voice. Y
ou just wanted more help because you were a little sniveller, and then a hopeless drunk.
But… but don’t I deserve some reward for giving up drinking, at least?
What, for not killing yourself? A reward, for being a normal adult human being? Get over yourself!

That set her back on her heels. And then she realised, too, that since she had never actually admitted to anyone in the family that she was an alcoholic, she couldn’t very well now start claiming special privileges for the fact that she was trying hard
not
to be, could she?

Meredith tried to think differently about why she was entitled to have Alex’s car. She wished she could tell the others that she deserved it for other reasons, good reasons: that she was helping Daddy with all his shopping and housework, taking him to appointments. She had an urge to fling her secret at them, cry out,
See! See everything I’m doing for Daddy
! Especially when she saw the snotty email from Deborah suggesting
Meredith could make more use of this city’s public transport system, as I do
. But Deb’s response also renewed Meredith’s fear that her sister (bossy cow!) would never understand the need to keep Alex in his own home. No, she must keep her efforts on her father’s behalf secret. James didn’t care what happened to the car, of course, and in the end Deborah agreed it was better put to use within the family than to have it sit there idly. No one talked about selling it; that would be admitting something none of them was prepared to face.

Just as Meredith was feeling like she was out of the woods, she caught herself speculating that one little drink wouldn’t be such a
bad idea.
Fuck off!
she told such notions ferociously, and rang Carmen. Carmen was brilliant at talking her through it, strengthening her resolve. But it got harder. A lot harder. The craving came daily. It would start about 4 o’clock, the time she finished wiping down the last benchtop in the cafe kitchen. She wanted it so much she could just about
see
that glass of wine sitting there, a reward for all her hard work, ready for her to take a little sip from every now and then while she did the food prep, chopping and dicing and slicing.

Some days she just ignored the craving, kept herself busy and it went away. Other days it wasn’t going anywhere: it stuck around, and stuck around some more. Then one morning Meredith woke up feeling like she would kill for a drink. She got on with things, tried to keep her mind off it, but by the time she was nearing the end of her shift at the cafe her hands were shaking.
This is really bad
, she thought.
Time to call Carmen
. But she couldn’t reach her. Not at her home, not on her mobile. She left messages on both and kept working, but by the time she finished at six o’clock Carmen still had not phoned her back.

It was not a yoga class evening, or an AA meeting. Meredith could see in her mind’s eye the drive-in bottleshop she passed on her way to and from work. It was
all
she could see. She imagined herself pulling in there. A bottle of wine? A cask! No, a bottle of vodka, much better, harder for anyone to smell it.
No, no!
She rang home, but there was no answer. Then she remembered Laurence had hockey training after school tonight, and wouldn’t be home till eight.

She felt so desperate she actually moaned out loud. She thought of Robert, how steady and sensible he was.
I wish I could ask him for help
, she thought, and suddenly it hit her.
I can! I can at least ask!
She keyed in his mobile number, fingers trembling, and he answered straight away. ‘Robert McDonald speaking.’

‘Hello, Bobbit, it’s Merry,’ she said, trying to sound upbeat.

‘Merry, what’s wrong?’ her brother said, his voice urgent. Oops, clearly the upbeat thing wasn’t quite happening. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. But I just wondered… what are you doing now?’

‘Right now? I’ve just finished a meeting here at the school, I’m locking up my office. Has something happened? You sound… stressed.’

‘Can – can I come and see you?’ she asked, her voice shaky now. For once, she wanted
not
to cry; she was holding back the tears, trying to keep the whimper out of her voice. What could she say? How could she tell him?
Oh, just spit it out!
‘Robert, I haven’t had a drink for three and a half months and I think I’m about to fall off the wagon. I can’t reach my AA sponsor. I need help.’

There was a silence on the other end of the phone, then, ‘Are you all right to drive? Or shall I come and get you?’

‘No, I’m okay,’ she said. She felt dizzy with relief.
He’s going to help me! Thank heavens!
‘Maybe… do you think we could meet at, um, that Lebanese place, Habibi? That’s about halfway. And I could use some baklava, I think I need a sugar hit.’ Meredith gave a little shaky laugh.

‘Yes, that’s fine, I’m getting in the car now. Merry, just don’t panic, okay? Take some deep breaths, long slow deep breaths, that’s what I do. That helps.’

‘Okay. And I know what I should do, I should drink a boatload of water. Why haven’t I done that already? I’ll go and do that now.’