‘Seriously?’ Her friend sat up and stared. ‘You want to go back to bed? You’ve only just got up. It’s like holidaying with Rip Van Winkle!’
‘I think if I can sleep some more then maybe we could go out for supper this evening.’ Jessica looked out towards the mountains. She hated having to negotiate with her friend and realised she might have been better off coming there alone, free to sleep and sit in her pyjamas without comment or judgement.
‘Whatevs!’ Polly turned onto her front and closed her eyes.
True to her word, Jessica drew on all her mental reserves and got out of bed, showered, and even managed to drag a brush through her long hair. She dug deep, trying to find enthusiasm for the evening ahead.
The fish restaurant was on the water, at the foot of the mountain, a stone’s throw from the shingle beach. The taxi driver that had dropped them there was a friend of the Deanes and more than happy to converse, wanting to know all about Lilly and when she would be making her debut trip to the island. Jessica had been polite but evasive.
Their table had a wonderful view of the sea and the jagged rocks either side.
‘Do you know, Jess, I have never known you be so quiet. You’ve hardly said a word since we arrived. And poor old taxi-man had to practically interrogate you to get an answer.’ Polly gulped at her sangria.
‘I’m sorry.’ She paused. ‘Matt says all I do is apologise. Maybe he’s right.’
Polly sighed. ‘I want you to know that if I met you now, I would definitely not choose you to be my best friend. In fact you wouldn’t even make the top three. You’re a bit boring.’
Jessica smiled into her lap. ‘Well, luckily for me, you chose me before I got boring and now you are stuck with me, so that’s that.’
‘Are you going to have a drink?’ Polly poured her second glass of sangria and knocked it back like it was squash.
‘Maybe a glass of wine.’ Jessica nodded. This would be her first drink in a year; she had got out of the habit.
‘Atta girl!’ Polly clapped as though her friend had given the correct answer. ‘I miss getting pissed with my girl; it was a big part of our lives. Do you remember the first time we got drunk? In your mum and dad’s back garden, swigging from a bottle of Blackthorn. I remember your dad coming out to see what we were laughing at and you’d just been sick in his conifer.’
Jessica smiled at the memory and toyed with the napkin on the table. ‘I didn’t want to drink when I was pregnant and I just haven’t taken it up again.’
‘Yet!’ Polly laughed. ‘You haven’t taken it up again yet, but tonight could be the night!’
‘Just one then.’ She smiled.
‘In celebration of my marriage!’ Polly squealed. She banged her feet under the table, beyond excited.
‘Yes. It’s great news, Poll.’
Polly sighed, concerned and upset by her friend’s muted reaction. ‘Is Matt treating you right?’ The question came out of the blue.
‘What?’
‘You heard. Is Matt being mean or hurting you in any way?’ Polly’s jaw was set.
‘No!’ Jessica laughed her answer. ‘You asked me this before and the answer is still no, he’s great. More than great.’
‘Good, because even though you are too boring to be my best friend, if he is maltreating you, I’ll go berserk. Really.’ Polly drained her glass.
Jessica closed her eyes and accepted the glass of wine that Polly poured her. She sipped it, enjoying the chilled sparkle of Codorníu as it slipped down her throat.
‘I just need to know how you are feeling and what’s going on. I am so worried about you.’
‘I know I’m boring now, Poll, but I’ve changed, things are different.’ She concentrated on the little bubbles that rose to the top of her glass.
‘You haven’t changed, Jess. You’ve only had a baby. Millions of people do it and it doesn’t change them, not really.’
‘Well, it’s changed me.’ She nodded and glugged her wine, reaching for the bottle. ‘I am permanently exhausted.’
‘Have you told your doctor or health visitor?’
She shrugged. ‘Not really.’
‘Maybe you’re anaemic?’
‘Yes, that’ll be it. Thank you, Nurse Polly.’ Jessica smirked as she finished her second glass and sat back, waiting for the booze to lower its veil for her to hide behind. She refilled her glass and ordered a second bottle.
‘Wow! So much for your one glass!’ Polly laughed.
Jessica raised her palms in submission and looked at the menu.
By the end of the evening, the girls were drunk and happy, giggling and picking at their spicy paella as they chatted.
‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to have found Paz!’ Polly raised her glass. ‘Here’s to me, who is actually going to become Mrs Veggie Bonkers Hippy Bloke!’
‘I’ll drink to that!’ Jessica slurred. ‘And you need to give me credit for coming to that horrible smelly class with you. And I only did it because of Conor Barrington and his cheese-and-onion breath and octopus hands!’
The two girls roared and banged the table. An older couple on the table next to them looked over to see what the sudden noise was.
‘A promise is a promise!’ Polly giggled. ‘And you promised to help me find my man and you did.’ She closed her eyes and was tempted to keep them closed as her head lolled onto her chest.
‘I promise to always be there for you, Polly. You are my girl. After Matt, you are my number one!’ Jessica raised her glass in salute.
‘No, no. Lilly is your number one! You are a mummy now, with your own little girl. So, so cute.’
And just like that, the veil was lifted and Jessica was reminded of the sadness and fear she dragged around inside her like a rock. ‘Sometimes, Polly, you’re such a dickhead. Why do you have to spoil things? I’m going for a walk,’ Jessica shouted as she wove her way across the restaurant terrace and down onto the shingle beach.
‘Okay, Mrs Moody!’ Polly mumbled, lifting her glass to her absent companion. Her mouth and mind were having difficulty coordinating. The other diners were not oblivious to the drama, the pair having drawn so much attention throughout the evening. Their whispers echoed around the tables.
Jessica welcomed the solitude as she stood on the pebbles, staring out into the blackness. The water was a dark pool of tar. The waves crashed and foamed in their relentless battle against the pull of the moon. The pretty beach that tomorrow would see lovers laughing as they ran into the water and families unpacking picnics, tonight felt like a place of foreboding. Jessica longed for the morning and the return of the light.
The red glow from a moored yacht swayed on the horizon, a tiny speck that could be swallowed up in one gulp by the vast, endless ocean. The chill breeze made her shiver; it took her breath away, causing her chin to dip involuntarily towards her chest as she tried to muster some warmth. She remembered lying back in the ocean, safe in Matthew’s arms, partially submerged and feeling as if she was flying. ‘Fly high, golden girl. I’ve got you.’ That’s what he’d said.
The wind was loud in her ears as fine strands of her hair meshed with her long eyelashes. A squall suddenly skittered across the calm, expectant sea. The incoming clouds were beautiful, a rich palette of mauves as the storm brewed behind them. Where they split in the distance, flesh-pink sky was revealed; it would be warm tomorrow. The tempest was almost upon her, yet still no rain had fallen. A plastic chair crashed along the patio. It was coming.
Jessica glanced over her shoulder at the curtains that billowed from the upstairs windows of the fish restaurant; no longer simply sheets of fabric, they now assumed sinister shapes and forms. Darkness closed in quite suddenly, as though a heavenly shopkeeper had decided it was time to draw a blind on the day.
Jessica wasn’t particularly angry with Polly. She was angry with herself, angry and disappointed. How had her life gone from being so perfect to such a bloody mess? ‘What is wrong with me?’ She shouted into the darkness,
knowing there would be no response. Please, someone help me! Show me what to do, please!
Her thoughts were interrupted.
‘Jess!’ Polly shouted through the wind as she tottered up the beach, pulling her pashmina around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I upset you.’ When she finally reached her friend, she was slightly out of breath; she hung on to Jessica’s arm, with her head hung low, eager to make amends. ‘I never thought I would say this, but I just don’t know what to say to you any more. It’s not like you, Jess.’ Polly’s legs swayed beneath her, the alcohol seemed to have gone straight to her knees. ‘Paz and Matt said they thought you might be depressed and I told them that you didn’t do depression, that you weren’t that kind of girl—’
Jessica turned to face her friend, shrugging her arm free of Polly’s grip. ‘Not that kind of girl? What kind of girl am I then, Polly? You don’t know! You don’t know anything about me!’ she shouted.
‘I do. I do know you! You’re my best friend and you always will be.’ Polly’s bottom lip trembled.
‘No!’ Jessica shook her head. ‘No you don’t. You don’t know me any more! I’m not funny old Jess who you knock for on the way to school, or good old Jess that lets you come into her house and nick her food! Game for a laugh Jess, the first to get pissed, the last to leave. Let me tell you about me, would you like that?’ she yelled.
Polly’s tears fell in silent response.
‘Listen to this, Polly.’ Jessica turned to face her; her words were loud and slow, delivered with consideration. ‘I hate being a mother. I hate it! I can’t do it and I can’t understand it. I am so crap at it; I can’t even hold her bloody head properly. I wish I’d known how I was going to feel because I honestly would have tried harder not to get pregnant. I hate every second of my life now, and I want my old life back!’
Polly sobbed. ‘Jess… Jess, no…’ She reached for her friend’s arm, but Jessica backed away.
‘Yes, Polly, yes! I don’t love Lilly. I don’t love her. I don’t even like her!’ She was now screaming. ‘I hate her fucking name and I hate her room in my house. I hate seeing her things in my kitchen and I don’t want to spend any time with her, none at all! And I hate myself for saying such a terrible thing, even for thinking it, but it’s the truth.’
‘You don’t mean it, Jess! You’ve had too much to drink…’
‘Oh, I mean it! I mean every word of it! The sound of her waking is like torture to me. I wish we’d never had her.’ Jessica balled her hands into fists. ‘I don’t know who she is or why she is in my life! Who the fuck is she? I wish I could wind back the clock to when it was just Matt and me in our lovely house. When I was happy! I was so happy!’ Jessica thumped her thighs as her tears broke the surface. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t. And I can’t tell Matt because he loves her and that kills me too. I don’t want him to love her, I want him to just love me.’ Jessica collapsed onto the beach as the rain came. She cared little that the stones bit into her knees or that the fat raindrops plastered her hair to her face. ‘And I don’t know what to do…’
Polly sank down beside her friend and wrapped her arms around her. ‘It’s okay, Jess. It will all be okay.’ She held her shivering form tight in the rain.
‘How? How, Polly? I feel like giving up. I am so, so sad and I can’t go on like this. I just can’t. Everyone is telling me how lucky I am and how much support I have, but it makes no difference, none at all. I’m going mad.’
‘Shhhh….’ Polly soothed. ‘You are not going mad. We’ll find a way, Jess. We will find a way to make it all better. I promise.’
The two lay side by side on the pebbles and let the storm wash over them. Polly held her friend tight as she sobbed into the rain. They cried and talked until morning broke and the sun crept over the horizon and the sea became calm again.
Birds circled overhead, eager to scoop up any spoils that the storm had brought to the surface. The two friends sat on the beach with their elbows resting on their raised knees, each replaying and analysing the previous night’s events. Jessica’s revelations sat between them like an unwanted third person that demanded their attention.
‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ Polly asked quietly. ‘I’ll nip up to the bistro and grab us a couple, if you like?’
Jessica nodded.
‘Will you be okay? I shan’t be a sec.’
Jessica nodded again.
Polly jumped up and wiped the sandy residue from her bottom. She returned a quarter of an hour later with welcome china mugs of hot, dark coffee and resumed her place next to her best friend on the beach. They sat in silence for a while longer, until eventually Polly felt able to phrase the words that were tumbling around inside her head.
‘How are you feeling now?’ she whispered.
Jessica looked up through swollen eyes and smiled briefly. ‘A bit better and a bit worse.’ She sipped her coffee, comforted by the warmth as it slipped down her throat, which was raw from crying. ‘Better because I’ve told someone and worse because I’m so ashamed that you know how I feel.’
Polly sighed and nodded. ‘I think you were very brave to tell me how you are feeling. It can’t have been easy for you.’
‘I was drunk.’
‘Drunk or not, now you’ve had the courage to say it, we can start to put you right.’
‘You make me sound like a broken thing, like a doll whose arm’s come off or something.’
‘I… I think you are a broken thing, Jess.’ Polly’s voice was small.
Jessica stared at her friend. ‘I don’t know why this is happening to me. I don’t understand how my mum and my nan and everyone else can just cope, get on with being a mum, but I can’t and I… I don’t want to.’
‘Don’t get mad with me,’ Polly said, ‘but I just called Paz and spoke to him.’
‘Did you tell him?’ Jessica’s chest heaved at the thought of him knowing her horrible secret.
Polly shook her head. ‘Not the detail, no. But the outline, the basics, and he agrees with me: you are poorly, Jess. This isn’t something that a week in Majorca or a good night’s sleep can cure. You need to go your doctor and be as honest as you can.’
‘What will Matt think?’ Jessica wondered aloud.
‘Knowing Matt, he will just be happy to know what is going on and that you are getting it sorted. He meant every word of his wedding vows, Jess: in sickness and in health. He loves you, he really does.’
Jessica glanced at Polly. ‘He is always going on about how strong I am and how capable and clever, but I’m not. I’m a mess and I don’t want him to leave me.’ She buried her head in her arms and cried again.
‘He’s not going to leave you, Jess. He loves you. He really does.’ Polly ran her hand over her friend’s hair.
Jessica straightened up and nodded through her tears. ‘Okay.’ She held the mug between her palms. ‘Can I ask you something, Poll?’
‘Of course you can, babe. Anything.’
‘Do you think I can get better?’
Polly reached out and gripped Jessica’s hand inside her own. ‘I think that you can do anything, my lovely mate, anything you set your mind to, and you won’t be doing it alone. We will be with you, every step of the way. I’m taking you home. We are going home today and we are going to get this sorted out. I don’t know how it works, but we will do it together, one step at a time. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ she mumbled.
Jessica watched as the sun shifted higher in the sky, throwing its warm rays across the ocean and falling on her skin. She lifted her head and smiled. She felt warm, as if a chill had shifted from the pit of her gut. Warm and hopeful.
10th January 2015
You Are Not Alone: Post Natal Depression and its Aftermath. These are the words I am digesting. Whenever Paz visits, he always brings me a new book to read. I haven’t read any of them so far – I don’t want to listen to some doctor who has no idea what I have been through talking about hormones and telling me how my brain is messed up. But this book�
�s cover awoke something inside me, and yesterday, I opened it in the middle and started reading. Then I went back to the beginning and I have just finished reading the whole thing. And I feel, god, how do I feel? Shocked, sad and strangely relieved. Paz is right, people need to know more about this, people need to talk about it because I think that maybe if I had known more about it, known what was happening to me and just how many women it affects, then I wouldn’t have felt so alone, so frightened and so isolated. I have been wondering, had I known how common it was, would this information have helped me in any way and I think it would. I think I would have found it easier, knowing I was in a club of many thousands, rather than a club of one. The scariest thing has always been how it crept up on me, throwing its dark cloak over my head so I couldn’t see what was happening. ‘You know it’s an illness?’ the psychiatrist asked me this over and over again, practically every week since I arrived here, but I just never really believed her. I suppose I couldn’t believe that an illness could make you behave in such a terrible way. I didn’t want to let go of the guilt. Today I told her about the book and how I was beginning to see it.
Nineteen
Jessica sprinted around the kitchen table at the sound of the front gate creaking. ‘Daddy’s home! Ah! Daddy’s home! Quick, quick, come on, let’s hide.’ She grabbed Lilly, who squealed with delight, and ran up the stairs before jumping onto their bed. She tugged the sheet over their heads and wrapped her daughter in her arms, inhaling the scent of her as she pulled her towards her chest, cuddling her like a soft cushion. Lilly giggled and kicked her feet.
‘Where are my best girls?’ Matthew called, shutting the front door behind him and placing his briefcase on the floor.
Jessica heard him throw his keys on the console table and pad around the kitchen. Next came the click of his wedding ring on the banister and the sound of his tread on the stairs.
‘Well… they are not in the bathroom!’ he shouted.
Lilly yelled out an excited response.
‘Oh, dearie me, I think I need to bash the lumps out of this very bumpy mattress. Like this!’ Matthew gently thumped the space to the left of his wife, who chortled gleefully, as did their daughter.
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