Ice and a Slice

by Della Galton

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Tom, I’ve decided to give up drinking,” SJ announced, a few days after her fourth appointment with Kit. She moved the plates from where they’d been warming on the oven and hunted for a tea towel to get out the ready meals. She’d done a lot of thinking before she’d come to this conclusion. Not just about Alison and Derek, but about the time that had passed since, and she’d discovered quite a few uneasy little skeletons that she’d like to examine through the clear lenses of sobriety.

  One of them was her marriage to Tom, which she was beginning to suspect might not be the perfect union she’d always told herself it was. Especially since he’d refused to backtrack on the arrangements they’d made to go to her parents’ anniversary party, which they’d discussed heatedly the previous night.

  She glanced at him and saw he was smiling benignly – probably still trying to wheedle his way back into her good books. Neither of them had mentioned the first real row of their marriage and he certainly didn’t seem concerned about it now.

  Last night he’d suggested that perhaps Alison could give the anniversary party a miss, which proved to SJ that either he a) hadn’t grasped the facts – she’d explained several times that their parents insisted they both be there, or b) he just didn’t bother listening to her at all.

  Judging by that silly smile on his face, he probably wasn’t listening properly to her now either.

  “Did you hear what I just said, Tom? I’m going to give up drinking.”

  “Yes, sweetie. Is that forever or just for today?”

  SJ frowned. She’d expected him to treat this momentous piece of news with slightly more gravity than that, but then she hadn’t told him about Ash either. Despite Kit’s insistence that she talk to her husband, she still hadn’t told Tom how it really was for her. Putting it into words would have made it far too real. She could cope better if it was locked in her head.

  Something had changed in her since that terrible hungover Sunday when she’d had that conversation in her head with some imaginary opponent. She’d thought about that voice a lot since. She’d even given it a name: Alco – the Demon King. She imagined him as an all-powerful ruler of the alcohol kingdom, sitting on a black throne on the edge of an endless black abyss, his drunken subjects crawling submissively around his feet, holding up their empty hip flasks to be refilled while he beckoned them closer, tempting them towards the edge with one more glass. ‘Just a teensy weensy little glass, SJ, what harm can it do?’

  Picturing some crazy demon lord felt slightly less absurd than the idea that she was talking to herself.

  “I felt really awful the night after Mum and Dad came round.”

  “It’s called a hangover. Caused by too much al-co-hol.” He exaggerated each syllable as if he was talking to a child.

  “Tom, I don’t just mean in the morning. I mean all day. In the evening too. I – well – I thought I might be going mad.” She couldn’t tell him about Alco in case he agreed with her. “I was really depressed and I was tired and ashamed, but I still had another drink on Sunday night – I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “Uh huh.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was busy opening the bottle of red he’d just brought in from the bar. She wasn’t quite sure why, as they patently weren’t going to need it now. She sighed. “I don’t suppose I’ll give up forever – but I’m definitely having a few days off.”

  “You won’t mind if I don’t join you?” he queried, raising one eyebrow and pausing from unpeeling the foil around the top of the bottle.

  “Of course not – you carry on.” How virtuous was that? Obviously your run- of-the-mill alcoholic wouldn’t be able to casually sit back and watch someone else drinking themselves silly, while they sat beside them dry as a drum – it went without saying.

  “So you won’t want any of this then?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Not even a teensy weensy little glass?” He was beginning to sound like Alco.

  “I just said no, didn’t I?”

  “Okay – keep your hair on. I was only asking. So what would you like to drink with your dinner? I think we’ve got some Coke in the fridge.”

  “Is it diet?”

  “No, it’s normal.”

  “Then I’ll have water,” SJ snapped, because she could see no point at all in drinking a calorie-laden drink, unless it was also laden with alcohol. If she had to suffer, then at the very least she expected to lose half a stone in the process.

  They ate dinner in strained silence and then she escaped to the garden for a fag, which helped to ease some of the aching tension in her shoulders. Ash joined her, wagging his tail joyfully as she bent to fondle his soft grey ears.

  “We’ll show them, boy, won’t we?” she crooned. “We’ll show that silly counsellor that he doesn’t know the first thing about unresolved issues.” She would show Tanya, too, who had taken to texting her each morning to see if she had a hangover, which actually was quite touching because she knew Tanya cared.

  She hadn’t told anyone how it really was for her – although Tanya knew quite a bit. It struck her suddenly that she didn’t have any other close friends to tell. How had that happened? Until her marriage to Tom, she’d kept in touch with a few people from college and uni. A couple of them now had families and were too busy to socialise; Joanne had moved to London and they’d lost touch; and the rest had just drifted away.

  Tom hadn’t been keen on socialising with her friends – he wasn’t very comfortable around groups of women, he was good on a one-to-one basis, and he was good at certain subjects, particularly sport or breweriana or his work, but he didn’t really do small talk.

  She could still have kept in touch with her friends via Facebook, which was what a lot of her work colleagues did. Tanya spent a fair bit of her spare time on Twitter and Facebook too. But social networking sites didn’t really appeal to SJ. She’d let her friends drift away, she realised with a small shock. As her drinking had increased she’d become more isolated, and as she’d become more isolated her drinking had increased even more. It was a vicious little circle that she hadn’t even spotted, and yet now, as she stared out across the yellowing August lawn to the sunlit trees beyond, the truth was impossible to avoid. Her friends – all but Tanya, who was more tenacious than most – had slowly been replaced by a glass of gin and tonic, complete with ice and a slice.

  The next two days were hell. Up until that point, SJ hadn’t seriously considered she might have a drink problem. She certainly hadn’t expected going without alcohol for a couple of days would present any difficulties. But suddenly her mind, which was normally in a fairly scatty but comfortable and familiar place, no longer felt as if it belonged to her. For a start she couldn’t sleep – it wouldn’t let her – it raced with unpleasant thoughts and emotions, all sorts of crawling little demons that wouldn’t be quietened.

  For some reason Tom featured in many of these thoughts. Tossing and turning, she lay beside his quietly snoring body, hoping against hope he wouldn’t wake up and want to make love. She didn’t know why this was, because Tom was a skilled and considerate lover. He did all the right things. His idea of foreplay wasn’t just a quick poke in the back with his erection which, according to the problem pages she’d read in magazines, happened to a lot of ‘happily marrieds’ and would definitely have been cause for complaint. He always took his time and made sure she was ready before he clambered on.

  ‘Ready’ – for SJ – meant she was in that happy fuzzy half-world of inebriation when he finally entered her. And this took a fair bit of co-ordination. Too much alcohol and she wasn’t interested. Too little and she was like a dry and terrified virgin. She knew from previous experience that no alcohol at all turned her into a nun – her sex drive simply disappeared. She’d rather have done anything else instead – even iron shirts or wash the floor on her hands and knees, both of which she did as little as possible in the normal scheme of things.

  At four a.m. on the second sleepless nigh
t, SJ came to the conclusion that there must be something seriously wrong with her. Tom was her husband, her soul mate. She loved him. Okay, she knew their marriage wasn’t quite the amazing rollercoaster of joy and pain she’d had with Derek. It was far more your dodgem car ride – mostly on the level with the odd bump, which suited her much better. Everyone knew rollercoasters made you feel sick if you spent too much time on them.

  SJ sat up in bed wondering why on earth she was thinking about fairground rides. Scared she would wake Tom with her restlessness, she went on a sleeping pill foray to the bathroom cabinet. She’d bought some at the pharmacy for her last bout of insomnia which, oddly enough, had happened when she’d been prescribed antibiotics for toothache. The bottle had said ‘Strictly No Alcohol’. SJ had blithely ignored the warning – as she always ignored ‘no alcohol’ warnings – but had then found herself throwing up repeatedly when she’d had her usual pre-dinner gin and tonic. She’d later discovered the antibiotics the dentist had given her were also known as Antabuse and prescribed to alcoholics who wanted to quit.

  After two awful drink-free nights she’d abandoned the antibiotics and had the offending tooth removed instead, which had been a huge relief – in more ways than one.

  This time there was no such respite. Although the sleeping pills knocked her out there was no escape from the demons, who crawled into her dreams instead. So when she woke up she was more tired than when she’d fallen asleep.

  By late Sunday afternoon, two more endless days until her next appointment with Kit, her hands were so shaky she could hardly type out her notes for her poetry and pint class.

  By early evening she was ready to crack. She abandoned her notes and looked up alcohol withdrawal symptoms on the Internet.

  Mild shakiness

  Inability to concentrate

  Insomnia

  A feeling of dread

  Restlessness

  Mood changes

  As she scanned through the list, SJ felt an increasing sense of panic. She had every symptom. The shakiness wasn’t particularly mild either. It wasn’t just in her hands; it was in her stomach and her legs too. However she sat at her PC she couldn’t get comfortable. She was also besieged with mood swings like the kind she had before her period, when she usually stepped up her alcohol levels to compensate – for medicinal purposes, obviously.

  Her period. Of course – that was it. It was due in three days. So this was what Tanya was talking about when she said she had bad PMT. It was such a relief to discover she only had PMT that she leapt out of her chair and charged down to the kitchen for a packet of Nurofen.

  It would have been nice to wash them down with a glass of white wine but, quite apart from the fact she’d given up, it was only just gone five. She had water instead, went back upstairs, but still felt too restless to work. Perhaps she’d picked up the 200mg strength tablet instead of the 400mg. They must have changed the packet colour.

  Twenty agonizingly long minutes later she still felt exactly the same. She got some more pills and, on autopilot, she opened a bottle of Chardonnay and poured a large glass to wash them down with. The relief was instantaneous. She could feel the pills being washed to the furthest corners of her body. Her hands stopped shaking. Her legs took a little longer to feel normal. But amazingly, wondrously, her mind came back on line.

  It was such a good feeling she had another glass of wine. Then another. Now her fingers were flying across the keys. Thank goodness she’d discovered she had PMT and not withdrawal symptoms. She was reaching for a fourth glass of wine when she noticed the bottle was empty. They must be making wine bottles smaller too – she knew perfectly well you got more than three glasses out of a bottle. And she certainly hadn’t drunk much. She didn’t feel remotely light headed.

  Humming to herself, she went downstairs to find another bottle. There wasn’t one. Oh well, she’d stop there. Three glasses was well within her limit anyway. She prowled around the bar – on second thoughts, there must be something else she could drink. She really did fancy another one. Only one more – four glasses wasn’t too bad. Tom would probably appreciate a nice unwinding glass of red when he got in. She could put a bottle on the side to breathe. Pleased with herself for being such a considerate wife, she opened one of his special bottles. Fourteen per cent – oo-er, better be careful with this one.

  It tasted like blackberries and she was also getting notes of chocolate and wood – just as the label promised. It didn’t taste that alcoholic either – certainly not fourteen per cent. It was more like upmarket Ribena. Very easy drinking. Too easy. She really should take the bottle into the kitchen to breathe. Or there wouldn’t be any left for Tom. He’d be in soon. It was just after six.

  The phone rang and she danced across the room to answer it.

  “Hi, SJ, it’s Michael. I was wondering if Tom still fancied squash tomorrow night. I’ve just booked a court. Can you get him to give me a ring, please?”

  “Sure,” SJ murmured, as a sudden picture of Michael playing squash in a summer dress, his hairy legs pounding the floor, sprang into her mind. Perhaps he shaved them. She giggled, tried to stop herself, and snorted loudly instead, which struck her as incredibly funny.

  “SJ – are you still there?”

  “Mmm.” It was incredibly difficult to keep it together for some reason. Far away in her mind the voice of sanity urged her not to laugh.

  “Do you want to speak to Tanya while I’m on? She’s right here.”

  “Er no – bit busy,” SJ mumbled. “Paperwork to do for my poetry class. You know…” She waved a careless hand and then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Bye Tom. I mean Michael. Cheers.”

  She’d nearly called him Liz. Who on earth was Liz? Remembering his alter ego and feeling sweaty with panic because she wasn’t supposed to know about it, let alone start discussing it with him, she crashed the phone back on the receiver and sunk onto the sofa, which wasn’t where she anticipated it would be.

  She found herself on the floor instead – well, half on the floor, half on the coffee table, which was exceptionally hard. Bloody coffee table. Bloody floor. Cursing softly, she rolled completely onto the floor and sat up.

  She’d been going to do something. Ah yes, she had to open a bottle of wine for Tom. Stumbling to her feet and swaying across to the bar she looked at the rack. Now what day was it? He didn’t like her to open expensive wine unless it was the weekend. Was it the weekend? It had been Sunday yesterday, or was it Sunday today? Best be on the safe side and open a cheap bottle.

  The corkscrew wasn’t in its usual place. Not that they didn’t have plenty of others – but most of Tom’s collection were in locked glass display cases and she didn’t know where the key was. When she finally found the functional corkscrew she discovered two empty bottles beside it. Ah, it must be Sunday then. They’d have had these with their tea. The phone was ringing again, but she ignored it and opened another bottle.

  “SJ… SJ, wake up. Wake up, will you? SJ, for God’s sake, please wake up …”

  Fragments of voices swam through the confused blackness. They sounded urgent. They sounded cross. With an immense effort SJ opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Tom’s face loomed into focus and then out again. He wasn’t happy. She felt like someone had given her a good kicking. Why would anyone do that? She groaned. Something bad had obviously happened. Her body felt bruised and sore and her head was so fuzzy she didn’t know what day it was – or what time. Squinting at her watch she saw it was seven thirty, which didn’t help much, was it A.M or P.M?

  “Get her some coffee or something, can you, Tom.”

  That sounded like Tanya’s voice. What was Tanya doing here? Suddenly remembering Michael’s phone call, SJ hauled herself into a sitting position. She seemed to be on the floor in the dining room. Glancing around her frantically for the phone and then remembering it was in the lounge, she tried to collect her fragmented thoughts. What had she said to Michael?

  “It’s okay, I’m fine. W
hat’s happening?”

  Tanya, who was now crouching beside her, was wearing a pale blue T-shirt and jeans and leather flip flops with sparkly stones set in them. As always she looked both cool and stunning. How lucky was she to have ended up with such a gorgeous best friend?

  SJ tried a gorgeous smile of her own.

  Tanya didn’t smile back. Her green eyes were narrowed and angry, but her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly soft. “How are you feeling? Pretty crap, I guess?”

  “Very crap. Very very very VERY crap. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my whole life.” At least she didn’t feel sick. “What are you doing here? Did Tom ask you to come?”

  “It was me who phoned Tom. I was worried about you. Michael said you’d called and you sounded odd. I guessed you might have been drinking.”

  Hang on – hadn’t he called her? Something about a squash game. Oh well, it was an easy mistake to make.

  “I haven’t drunk much – I’ve been cutting down. Honest.” SJ swung out an arm and hit what turned out to be a half empty bottle of red, which would have fallen over if Tanya hadn’t caught it deftly and transferred it to the dining room table. “See…” She announced triumphantly. “…I’m on half bottles now.”

  “You didn’t get in this state by drinking half a bottle of wine. We found two other empty bottles. Do you remember anything at all?”

  SJ certainly didn’t recall drinking two bottles of wine. There was a blank in her head where her memory should have been. But she didn’t think she ought to confess to this. Tanya now looked more sad than angry.

  “Are you okay, Tan?” she asked, suddenly aware of how selfish she was being – lying on the floor in a heap when Tanya had obviously come round to unburden herself.

  “I’m fine, SJ – but you’re obviously not…” She broke off mid-sentence and glanced up, and SJ realised Tom had come back into the room.