by Penny Parkes
‘Ambulance is here,’ called Jenny from the front door, her voice tremulous with relief.
With the hustle and bustle of handing over notes, agreeing on the cause of the anaphylaxis and making Lindy comfortable on the stretcher, there was no real chance for Dan to say any more to his patient. He closed the door as the ambulance pulled away and ripped off his latex gloves. The high of the drama left him wiped but jangled at the same time.
‘Jog home?’ suggested Taffy, knowing exactly what Dan needed to settle himself after what had just happened.
‘Cool,’ said Dan, wondering at what point his friend would come out and say what was really on both their minds. He cleared his throat and set out at a swift pace, Taffy comfortably keeping step beside him. ‘Thanks, Taff. I owe you one.’
Taffy said nothing, he just clamped a hand on Dan’s shoulder before picking up the pace and jogging the long way back to Dan’s house through the pouring rain.
Chapter 10
Julia looked down at her shredded cuticles and mentally reprimanded herself to get a grip. It was yet another sign of weakness she would struggle to hide. Even as she castigated herself for her lack of control, she felt the dense, metallic taste of blood fill her mouth, where her teeth had compulsively torn at the inside of her lip.
Friday night and here she was, scrolling through her contacts, looking for company. She reached T by the time she was forced to admit the truth – there was not one friend listed in her phone that was going to make her feel better. Not through any fault of their own of course, but because Julia had created a little world where nobody knew of her troubles and therefore nobody could be blamed for their lack of support. Hers was a world of smoke and mirrors – a carefully crafted edifice of lies and half-truths – specially designed to dodge prying questions and well-meaning sympathy.
Julia hated sympathy.
Even as a child, the compassionate head tilts of her friends’ mothers as they oh-so-casually asked how things were at home, had driven her to distraction. Sympathy made Julia feel weak: weak and vulnerable, to be precise, and that was not something she would allow any more. Wasn’t that half the joy of being an adult? The ability to selectively edit one’s past until it fit with the idea of how one’s present should look?
She glanced up for a moment, habitually running through the mental checklist of her life. Looking around her beautiful home, her gaze flitting across the mantelpiece where an array of photographs charted her recent travels, Julia slowly exhaled. Images of herself in Hawaii, Patagonia and Borneo soothed her anxiety. Every image had been carefully selected for the story it told. Not the common or garden holiday anecdotes of ‘oh, wasn’t it hysterical when the waiter thought I ordered the octopus head’, but because every image reinforced the brand message of success, beauty and perfection that Julia strived so hard to project.
Julia didn’t really need the photos. Everything about her home screamed affluent and tasteful. There was no chaos or clutter to mar the physical perfection or sophisticated palette. Not a cushion or orchid out of place, nor even a cosy dent in the sofa cushions that might suggest casual relaxation.
No, Julia habitually sat in the leather Eames chair in the corner, looking out over the little oasis she had created for herself. The chair represented her freedom and was the one item of furniture in the room to look careworn from use. It had been her first purchase when she bought this house. Saved for, longed for and adored.
Julia ran her hand down the side of the glass of wine beside her, fingertips trailing through the condensation. As she circled the stem, she managed a smile. This was her own personal Everest. Every night, Julia Channing would pour herself a glass of wine. Every night she would leave it untouched, before pouring it down the sink at bedtime.
The shrink that had told her that addictive personalities were hereditary certainly had a lot to answer for. So now, instead of savouring the occasional drink, Julia would test her resolve. After all, she would reason, any fool can ignore something that isn’t there.
This way, Julia could prove to herself that she had total control – this was her test, her nightly challenge, to prove again and again, the strength of her own free will. She needed the constant reassurance that history would not be repeating itself, that she at least could conquer the treacherous pull of her DNA.
She opened her leather-bound notebook and set to work. This was no time to drop the ball – not when she was so close to achieving her professional ambitions. The TV show had long been her secret dream and she cursed George Kingsley for deciding to up and leave now. She wanted the TV slot, but she needed the validation of becoming Senior Partner and now her focus would be split.
She smoothed her hand over the clean page in front of her and quickly slashed two hard lines with her pen to give her four sections. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats – everyone may laugh at her business-like approach to medicine, but at least she knew how to evaluate her own performance.
Tapping her pen against her newly whitened teeth – she had no desire to appear on national television looking anything other than polished – she quickly began to fill in each quadrant. She quickly filled the Strengths box, no interest in false modesty there, and paused as she considered those Threats against her. Her mind immediately going to Dan Carter and taking her focus with it.
She was so sorely tempted to call him. She hated herself for still knowing his number off by heart, but Julia’s mind didn’t know how to forget. It was both a blessing and a curse. She remembered all the wonderful and all the ghastly times in equal, precise detail. Even with the passage of time, she knew she had behaved appallingly to Dan, had pushed him away just as he was getting closer. Even as she’d been so vile to him, so thoughtless and disrespectful of his feelings, a part of her had been hoping that he’d call her on it. That he would be the one to see past her hard, brittle exterior to the girl beneath. The girl that loved him. The girl that was terrified by the prospect of being in thrall to another person – vulnerable yet again. But no.
Even now, knowing that this partnership battle would set them against each other, part of Julia still wanted to talk to him, check he was okay. She had noticed him struggling recently and had wondered if the flashbacks were tormenting him again. The stress of George’s announcement could easily be enough to tip him over the edge. So now she had a choice to make. Even though they were no longer together, she couldn’t change the way she felt about him, and he might be in need of support. On the other hand, there was the Partnership.
Julia watched another bead of condensation carve a path down the glass of wine, conflicting scenes playing out in her head. She ran the smooth barrel of her ink pen through her fingers as she analysed scenarios, putting aside her residual feelings for Dan and taking comfort in logic.
She shook her head lightly as her brain spat out its duly considered conclusion. Dan Carter had other friends. He didn’t need her. He certainly didn’t want her. Let him go to them for support. This promotion was hers for the taking and she wasn’t going to let Touchy-Feely-Dan pip her to the post. It was bad enough that he’d ruined all her plans for their future by breaking up with her; he wasn’t going to ruin her Plan B as well. All she had to do was stay focused.
Her pen flew across the page as she filled in her quadrants. This, at least, was something she could do on her own.
Her phone trilled beside her and Julia sighed with resentment at the interruption, as she saw the word ‘Dad’ flash up on the screen. As she answered, she knew only too well what his first words would be, before he’d even said hello.
‘Call me back, Joo. I’m on the mobile. This is costing a fortune.’
Julia listened to dead air, as her father had already hung up, and mentally prepared herself for yet another stressful discussion. She breathed slowly and calmly in an effort to keep her cool as she dialled his mobile. ‘Hi, Dad, how are you both?’ she asked, quietly crossing her fingers and hoping that today would be that rare and elusive thing – a
good day.
She heard the tremulous tone in her father’s voice as he spoke, even though he was clearly trying to disguise it, and her eyes prickled with unshed tears.
‘I just don’t know what more I can do for her at the moment, Joo. I’ve been into the doctor’s every day this week, trying to get her into an NHS programme, but they keep saying the same thing . . .’
Julia sighed. ‘That it has to be court-ordered, or with the patient’s consent,’ she finished tiredly. She wondered how many times it was possible to go over the same ground, with her mother determined to deny that she had a problem. ‘How much is she drinking now?’
Julia’s father cleared his throat. ‘I thought we were making progress, Joo, I really did. And then I found out she’s been hiding three bottles of vodka in the back of the airing cupboard. I mean, how desperate do you have to be to drink lukewarm vodka?’ The disgust and exhaustion was obvious with every word and Julia dropped her forehead into her hand. ‘I need your help, Joo.’
‘Okay, let me see what I can do. I’ll look into the private programmes again, but Dad, the last one set me back nearly twenty grand and she was drinking again inside a week. I just can’t afford to keep writing cheques like that.’
‘I know, love, I do. But on what I earn? It’s bad enough doing the night shift at Tesco so I can be here during the day, but then trying to stay awake to keep an eye on your mother . . .’
And your wife, interrupted Julia silently, wondering why she only ever had any ownership of this dysfunctional family when there were bills to be paid.
‘I’ll do what I can, you know that,’ she replied evenly, struggling not to lose her temper and ask how the sodding vodka had got into the house in the first place.
‘Or we could still come and move in with you?’ he replied. ‘We could sell the bungalow and make a fresh start in Larkford. I’d love to see you more, Joo . . .’
Julia swallowed the sudden rush of bile in her throat at the thought of her mother’s drunken outbursts shattering her own carefully constructed world in Larkford. She’d worked too hard for too long to get away from their claustrophobically toxic house, for her parents to simply up and follow her here.
‘We’ve talked about this, Dad. I don’t think you both moving here is the answer . . . but I’m up for a big promotion here soon and I’m hoping that will help.’
‘Yes, well, we both know you’re very busy. What’s it going to cost, though? I bet they want more money off you, don’t they?’
It was astonishing to Julia that her father was always so protective of his daughter’s finances, when the biggest drain on them was, and always had been, her own parents. Maybe that explained it? He wasn’t looking out for her, just protecting his own little cash cow.
‘If I’m going to be Senior Partner, I will have to invest to hold the majority shareholding, Dad, but it’ll help in the long term.’ She hated the slightly supplicating whiny tone in her voice, as if she were actually trying to justify her own investment.
‘Hmm,’ said her dad, with no sign of pride in the potential promotion. ‘It’s the short term I’m worried about! Just don’t forget your mother when you’re doing your sums.’
As if I could, thought Julia. ‘I’m doing my best,’ she said quietly, before making her excuses and getting off the phone.
She looked at the sheet of analysis in front of her and calmly added a line to the Weaknesses box in neat, tight script. ‘I will never escape them,’ she wrote.
She put aside her notebook and picked up the glass of wine. As she walked into the kitchen, she could feel her stomach churning. The longing to make herself sick was there, as always, niggling away at the back of her mind, promising relief. Slowly, with total control, Julia poured away the glass of wine and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. She opened the cupboard under the sink and began to clean the already immaculate kitchen.
Julia methodically and slowly arranged the kitchen exactly as she liked it. After years of chaos and uncertainty, she wanted to believe that she had enough self-control not to let one little phone call knock her completely off her stride.
Even on a good day, Julia could appreciate that she was no picnic to live with. And on evenings like this, when the niggle of loneliness and self-doubt had managed to find a foothold in her mind, she could easily understand how it had come to this. Midnight on a Friday and she was alone. Scrubbing a spotless floor and making plans to take a bath with her favourite medical text.
If she was honest, she would grudgingly admit that she even found herself wearing at times. It was something to do with the indefatigable nature of her personality – there was, quite literally no down time. If she wasn’t working, working out or keeping her house to a virtually unsustainable standard of cleanliness, then she would be playing chess, or doing puzzles or devouring medical journals. Her mind needed sustenance and distraction the way her body needed oxygen.
She knew it wasn’t normal. She knew it was exhausting – not just for her, but for those around her. But she also knew it wasn’t her fault.
Obviously, it was one thing to rationally say that and quite another to wholeheartedly believe it.
To Julia’s mind, her mother’s therapy in rehab had damaged their little family far more than it had helped. As an adult and even as a child, Julia had always known that her parents had struggled with her intellectual abilities. They simply weren’t able to relate to their ferociously, precociously gifted daughter. Knowing they resented her constant questions and her insatiable thirst for knowledge had somehow always been part of the deal.
Hearing her mother’s unfiltered opinions when drunk had been relatively easy to dismiss. Hearing the blame being laid at her feet had been hurtful but in some way understandable. Drunk people liked to lash out at those they loved, didn’t they?
But hearing those same opinions being meted out by her mother at the rehab clinic had been so much worse. Decades’ worth of spite and blame pouring forth, suddenly gaining credibility when viewed through the medium of family counselling sessions? Well, that had been harder to justify or ignore.
Julia had previously thought that knowing her mother’s true feelings about her might have been a price worth paying for sobriety; a small price, in fact, for a chance to rebuild their shattered family. But when her mother had relapsed only weeks later, was apparently drinking yet again, those blaming taunts were like fresh barbs in Julia’s psyche over and over again.
Airing all those demons had simply made it harder.
Harder to care, harder to get involved and certainly harder to write a cheque for yet another round of rehab that was destined to fail. If the very definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then by this measure, and certainly where her mother was concerned, Julia was downright certifiable.
Nevertheless, Julia pulled off the rubber gloves and picked up her cheque book. She wrote out the cheque carefully, signing it precisely in her small cramped handwriting. At this point, she had stopped paying out of loyalty or gratitude, had passed through paying out of guilt and now settled, more brutally, on a desire to just get this sorted and get on already. After all, she had a TV show to make and a partnership battle to win.
Chapter 11
Holly paused at the corner of the Market Place to compose herself and whistle off a quick text to Lizzie. She knew it was a bit adolescent, but she’d been so excited about coming to Elsie’s house this morning that she’d resorted to an early morning phone call to Lizzie about what to wear. In hindsight, it had probably been a mistake to download some of Elsie’s more famous films last night, but she’d craved distraction from her own demons and what better way than utterly absorbing classic movies? It had been an even bigger mistake to stay up, completely enthralled, until 3 a.m. Now, not only was she star struck but also exhausted and feeling ridiculously overdressed in a rather short skirt.
Lizzie had sworn blind that she could carry it off, and since Lizzie had never
been widely recognised for her tact, Holly felt that she could always bank on getting an honest opinion. Some might even say too honest, thought Holly, remembering the bikini shopping expedition last summer that had ended in tears and the purchase of the all-encompassing, hoover-action Miraclesuit. But she had to concede that Lizzie had a point – it may have taken some serious leverage to get the bloody thing on, but it did things to her figure that had only previously been thought possible with the aid of general anaesthetic – or possibly a nasty bout of salmonella.
This morning however, the chill spring breeze swirling through the valley was only serving to make Holly feel exposed and decidedly vulnerable with every gust. She was quietly glad she’d rebelled against Lizzie’s advice and stuck a pair of opaque tights on. Okay, so it slightly ruined the look, but it was worth it to avoid the worry about constantly flashing her knickers.
Of course, she’d forgotten to account for the fact that – to go anywhere in Larkford – you had to allow twenty minutes extra for chatting. Seemingly nobody in this town ever just walked past each other with a cheery hello; there was always stopping and chatting. Often quite a lot of chatting. Holly wondered how anybody got anything done around here and it was taking quite some getting used to.
Last weekend, it had taken her over an hour to walk a forty-minute loop with the twins.
Today, she’d stopped at the Spar to buy some tights without holes and lost half an hour.
Of course, that had partially been her own fault. Mrs Fry, the lovely organist from the church had been in the queue in front her, letting out volley after volley of rattling coughs.
The words had been out of Holly’s mouth before she could stop herself – are you okay? – it was a rookie mistake.
Any doctor will tell you, that in any situation – at a drinks party, a funeral, the supermarket – you should never, ever, ask this question, unless you have: (a) a genuine interest in the answer; (b) some legal liability for their health; or (c) a freely available exit route planned.