Escaping

by Henrietta Taylor

  I was back in the arms of my favourite family, where a momentary blind eye was turned to my obvious eating and drinking disorders. Christmas was a day for celebrating friendship and family love, not for solving problems of that magnitude.

  The next few days rolled by while the snow descended from the heavens and we recovered from the lack of sleep and too many exotic foods. The last day of the year was fast approaching — not fast enough, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t wait for this old year to be over. Put it away in the memory vault and lock it up forever. Roll on 1996. What resolutions for the New Year could I make?

  My biggest worry was that, with the court battle over Norman’s will looming, 1996 would shape up to be almost as bad as the previous year. But I didn’t allow myself to think about things that were out of my control, and decided to work on changing the things that weren’t. I made a huge decision: somehow I had to find enough strength to give up all the unnatural supports. The whisky, Mogadon sleeping pills, Prozac, Zoloft and Xanax all had to go. I would go cold turkey with the lot and try to put myself back on track.

  It was a great idea in theory but somewhat harder to transform into reality. The first night without my usual sleeping pill washed down with a tumbler of whisky was so unbearable that at 2 am I weakened and poured myself a couple of stiff drinks. By 3 am, I was in the bathroom looking for the packet of Mogadon that would push me into the land of nod.

  After four days free from antidepressants, however, I convinced myself that I was on the home stretch. My head ached continually, I snapped at everyone and I’d had violent nausea ever since Christmas Day, but on the whole I was coping wonderfully well. Admittedly, I had increased my intake of Mogadon and alcohol, but that was only because of my chronic lack of sleep.

  But when I woke up on 30 December scratching and itching, eyes burning, throat on fire, gums bleeding and clumps of hair coming out, I started to feel really concerned. Just how many pills did I take per day? I had gone to two different doctors and obtained several different medications, in the vain hope that two sets of advice would be twice as effective — and twice as quick to get rid of the hideous heavy feeling I carried in my heart.

  I lay in the bed convulsing; my legs stiffened and shook, my teeth chattered uncontrollably and I couldn’t get warm. I would just have to stay in a heap in bed and ask Zoë to bring me a cup of tea. Maybe that would do the trick. When that failed I decided perhaps a drink would make me feel better; it certainly couldn’t make me feel any worse.

  Needless to say, nothing I did changed the situation at all. I told Zoë I’d come down with the flu and asked her to play snowmen outside with the children or watch TV and videos. I was having the day off.

  The moment I said I had the flu I realised of course that was the problem: I must have caught something virulent, and that was what was making me sick. Alcohol and antidepressants had absolutely nothing to do with it. But getting a doctor to visit was simply not an option, as there would be too many questions I couldn’t face answering. I would just have to cope.

  Meanwhile, Zoë had discovered that her home in Australia was to be the venue for the street’s New Year’s Eve party this year. My heart throbbed with pain when I saw her blinking back the tears. It was so unfair! All her neighbours would be there; the gorgeous boy from further down the road might even make an appearance. And here she was, stuck in a chalet in Argentière with an aunt who was sick and two little cousins who had to be watched constantly, while outside the snow was so thick and the temperature had plummeted so low that even going for a walk was impossible. Nothing was right. She wanted to go home.

  As she dialled her parents’ number I took the telephone from her, promising that we would be having a fantastic New Year. But first I had to find out from Nurse Kate what the hell was the matter with me. It was pointless trying to hide what I’d been doing; I’d figured out by now that I might just need a little bit of advice from someone medically trained.

  ‘What do you mean, you’ve stopped all the antidepressants? What exactly have you been taking? Go into the bathroom and tell me the name of every single one of the medications you’re on.’

  ‘Well, normally I start the morning with two Zolofts, then at lunchtime I take a couple of Prozacs, and often I take a few more mid-afternoon, and then before bed I take a Mogadon to make me sleep and a couple of Xanaxes in case I get teary during the night. I’m also trying really hard not to drink too much whisky.’

  The silence was deafening.

  ‘When did you last eat a proper meal? And what do you mean by not too much whisky? How much are you drinking?’

  ‘Kate, I just ate so much on Christmas Eve, then a huge Christmas lunch. I just have never felt hungry since then, because that’s when I stopped taking everything and I started feeling really, really sick.’

  ‘Listen to me. Your body is having a major case of withdrawal from that ridiculous concoction you’ve been taking. You’re going through cold turkey. This is simply mad. You’ll need to go back onto the Xanax and then come off it gradually. A doctor will be able to deal with this. You must promise me that you will call a doctor immediately.’

  I had my fingers crossed when I said yes, and everyone knows that it doesn’t count when you cross your fingers. There was no way I was going to take any more antidepressants just so I could go through all this again. As Zoë ripped the telephone from my hands, I realised I would just have to tough it out for a little longer.

  I waited by the phone for the next call to come in and it was exactly as I thought. Kate had rung Sheilagh and now she knew everything that I’d been trying to keep from her. I sat by the ringing phone, unable to pick up, hoping against all hope that she would give up and ring another day. But she was so persistent that eventually I gave in and decided to face her.

  ‘Hello, Henrietta. I’ve just spoken to your sister, who has told me what you’ve been up to. I don’t like it at all. You are completely irresponsible. I’m going to cancel our plans for the New Year and get on a plane to bring you all home. I can tell you now that I am not pleased. I knew from the very beginning that this was a harebrained idea of yours. I knew you couldn’t manage. You’re just not well enough.’

  No one would ever guess this woman was seriously ill. It’s scary how mothers can reduce you to jelly even when they’re thousands of miles away. I was such a coward. I decided she could have my life, push me in any direction she thought was best. I was waving the white flag. Yes, whatever you want, Mother. It’s only my life and I am no longer having a say in it. I had tried to cope but obviously I couldn’t. How pathetic that at thirty-seven, mother of two, widow, aunt, slightly (and even that was debatable) dependent on drugs and alcohol, I needed to run back to the safety of my mother’s skirt. Yes. That was the best solution. Please come and rescue me.

  As she continued her diatribe, I mumbled at all the correct pauses to give the impression that I was listening, but my thoughts were really lying in a thousand scattered pieces on the floor. I didn’t care what she thought of me, or indeed what she intended doing. I just wanted to lie down and sleep and make the dreadful feeling go away.

  A few hours later, she rang again with the news that the airline was unable to get her on a flight until after the weekend, which meant she wouldn’t get to us until the middle of the following week; the earliest possible departure date would be 2 January. The airline classified me as a non-urgent emergency, since I wasn’t actually dying. Sheilagh would be on standby the whole weekend with the vague possibility of an early departure. Again I would ruin her New Year.

  Early the next morning, Sheilagh rang back to say she was on a flight for 3 January and that she would be taking us all home next week — almost three weeks earlier than planned. Nobody was going to mess with her three grandchildren, especially not her own daughter. Superwoman was on her way. What a terrifying thought! I had barely seven days to straighten out completely before Sheilagh turned up; surely that was impossible.

  The next d
ay the two little children were fortunately too young to care about celebrating New Year’s Eve, and by the time eleven o’clock struck even Zoë admitted defeat and struggled off to bed, leaving me clutching a glass of sparkling mineral water to see in the New Year alone.

  But as I sat there I came to a decision: it was time to get serious about my New Year’s Resolution. I had to force myself into some sort of positive action. My parents couldn’t continue to prop me up in life. It was time to do things my way and pray that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. I swore to myself I would completely stop drinking, and I put all my medication into a plastic supermarket bag and threw it away.

  The following morning, the day before Sheilagh was due to depart, I rang home. ‘Jack, Dad, it’s me. It’s Henrietta. Dad, don’t let her come. Cancel the flight. Really, I mean it. Things aren’t great, but they’re improving gradually. Don’t you see how important this is to me? The children aren’t at risk. I would never let anything happen to them. I love Zoë as though she was my own and of course I simply adore my own children. Please don’t let her come.’

  ‘Don’t you see that we’ve gone beyond thinking that you can cope?’ my father replied. ‘The fact is, you aren’t coping, and I’m not sure whether the children are best off with you or not. Kate says you’re drinking and taking medication of some kind.’

  ‘Jack, listen to me, I’ll make you a deal. No Sheilagh and I’ll ring you every night and tell you exactly what I’ve consumed during the day. I promise I’ll be honest. Please, Dad, I’m thirty-seven. This is my life. I want to do it my way. Please, Jack. Please.’

  By the end of our conversation I had managed to stave off Grandmother’s arrival and had promised faithfully to tell the truth every morning. I’d never done that in my life. What was I thinking?

  But somehow I managed to keep my word and call every morning with an update of the previous twenty-four hours. I started to feel almost like a whole person, a little torn on the inside but almost a functioning person.

  Within days the weather had improved. Zoë and I went skiing on the nursery slopes, where all the beautiful virgin snow had been neatly graded. She progressed brilliantly.

  We caught the train to Verbier one day to visit Marcus Bratter, whose life was a mess because his two boys were living with his ex-wife in Mosman while he was here on the other side of the world. It certainly helped put my own problems into perspective.

  The children were finally accepted into the very popular village kindergarten at the end of the busy New Year period, and were divinely happy cutting out, pasting, reading — and speaking French. This was something that had never crossed my mind. When I’d spoken to Chantal, the woman in charge — or rather when Chantal had assessed me — I’d just assumed everyone would speak to my children in English. So when Mimi sat at the table one night and asked her brother to pass her the bread in French, my mouth dropped open.

  ‘What did you just say, Mimi?’

  ‘I said the right thing, Maman. I said, “Je voudrais le pain, s’il te plaît, Pomme.” Chantal ignores you unless you say “je voudrais”. You aren’t allowed to say “je veux” — it’s not polite.’

  ‘Yes, darling. That’s quite right.“Je voudrais” is very correct, my darling. But why are you calling your brother Pomme?’

  ‘Oh, Maman, please. You know he only likes apples. So that’s why everyone calls him Pomme.’

  And so that was the way it was. I managed to stay true to my word and not drink. Zoë learnt to ski beautifully, flying down the slopes in a controlled snowplough. Mimi became a keen reader of the Katie Morag series we’d picked up in Scotland, and Harry changed his name temporarily to Pomme.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Someone Watching Over Me

  BY THE END OF January 1996, we had come to the end of our four-week stay in beautiful Argentière. It was time to go home. Mimi was due to start at Avalon Infants School, Harry needed further treatment with his ear, nose and throat specialist for his constant streaming nose and ear infections, and Zoë needed to return to her mother. We were all craving a regular routine.

  So we waved goodbye to Argentière, ready to return to the rhythm of normal life. But it wouldn’t just be the same as before. In spite of its huge ups and downs, our holiday had revived and changed me. I was starting to feel like a mother again. I was now quietly confident that I would be able to maintain the smallest possible consumption of alcohol, if not total abstinence. The daily drug cocktail I had been taking had been abandoned completely. But the biggest lesson had been learnt after my breakdown at Schiphol Airport. In order for the children and me to advance with our lives, I needed not to forget, but to let go of the negative emotions that were weighing me down, and to try to propel our family in a new and fruitful direction. Just the three of us. Just as my Park Bench Sage from Balmoral Beach had told me, I had to start all over again.

  The trip back to Sydney was uneventful — for once — and when we arrived home we found the friends of Kate’s who had been renting our house had left it immaculately tidy, with everything scrubbed to within an inch of its life.

  As I looked to the year ahead, I could see more change was in the air. I made a list of priorities:

  1. Keep Mimi and Harry happy and content.

  2. No drinking. No mind-altering substances. No pharmaceutical crutches of any sort.

  3. Go and see an alternative medical practitioner about the chronic insomnia and poor health.

  4. Start to think of our future beyond the looming court battle.

  5. Clean the oven (though already spotless).

  After midwinter in Argentière, the late January heat of Sydney was intense. The shops were filled with back-to-school paraphernalia. We bought all the notebooks, pencils and pens in the Pocahontas range to make the first day of school for a five-year-old as happy as possible.

  Soon the Big Day arrived. Mothers left the schoolyard wiping red noses and blinking back the tears, but Mimi waltzed into school, grinning and waving at children she didn’t know.

  My beach friend Angie Lucini’s little son Jimmy was also starting today. I sat alongside her in the schoolyard with black mascara running down my face, howling with despair that my baby would be absent for the entire day. Ever resourceful, Mimi popped into her new classroom, where the wonderful Miss Moore would be teaching her, took the large box of tissues from the teacher’s desk and threw it at me, saying to Jimmy: ‘Don’t worry about my mum. She does this all the time. It’s best to ignore her when she’s like this. You’re so lucky. Your mother cries silently. Come on, show me your classroom.’ And without a backward glance, she marched straight into her first year of schooling.

  Meanwhile, Harry’s ear condition was back under control, and he loved his new kindergarten in Bilgola. Number one on my list taken care of: children happy and thriving.

  As the days passed, not only did I manage to stay away from prescription drugs and alcohol, but I also tackled the issue of my ever-decreasing weight through many long sessions with a dietician and a naturopath. Items two and three ticked off.

  Angie was hellbent on ‘putting some meat on my bones’, so every afternoon we continued our old ritual of endless cups of tea and slices of cake. Angie invited other mothers with their children, and gradually my circle of friends grew to encompass two other mothers, Liz and Louise, both of whom were professional caterers and would arrive bearing gourmet delights. In class, through sheer random seating, Mimi had been placed next to a little angel called Juliet, who confided that her mother Jane was a widow too. Yet another mother was added to our circle.

  We would sit and take a little time out to chat about life and our hopes for our own futures and those of our children. Each one of us brought something important to the group. Angie’s friend, Jane Hall, also popped in from time to time with her daughter; Jane was funny and articulate, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a vast range of subjects.

  Harry soon struck up a friendship at his kindergarten with a little boy cal
led Jock. His mother, Alex, with baby Charlie on her hip, was a beautiful blonde goddess. I have always been wary of extremely beautiful people; it hurts your eyes to look at them. But Alex proved to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. Her huge garden was a paradise for all the neighbourhood children. They would meander through the brightly coloured hedges and oleander bushes, and spent hours running, squealing and falling over each other. While Harry played with Jock, Mimi gravitated towards Alex’s eldest child, Georgia. They found mischief in every part of the house. The postman saw them from the end of the street one day as they dangled from the highest part of the roof, and rushed to inform the irresponsible mothers, who were busy having cups of tea and chatting about their offspring.

  My life was becoming calmer, to the point where it was almost normal. It would soon be time to turn my mind to point four on my list and try to visualise our lives after the approaching court case.

  But the one item I hadn’t included on my list was the Latin Lover. Around this time, he convinced me to see him in the flesh, as opposed to talking to him on the telephone for hours almost every night, as I had for so many months (though less frequently overseas).

  Our long conversations had indicated to me that he was more than capable of talking about topics other than football and work; now that he was in his mid-forties, unemployed and still unmarried, he had a slightly different outlook on life. I started wondering just how different he would be. I chuckled as I remembered his propensity for taking up trousers with the aid of a stapler. I bet that some things wouldn’t have changed.