ChapterThirty-Four
I wake up the next morning with a hangover, and the feeling that I can’t breathe – that all the oxygen is being forced out of my body.
I blink open my eyes, shake my head to clear the fug, and see that Priya’s three-year-old daughter, Zara, is kneeling on my chest. She is holding a lipstick, and I suspect that I am now the proud owner of a clown face. Lower down, Kiara, her older sister, seems to be painting my toenails. What is it about me that makes little girls want to give me a make-over? I see, as I smile and gently move Zara to one side, that Larry is keeping well out of it all on the opposite side of the room. Coward.
“Auntie Ella’s awake!” screeches Kiara, leaping off the bed and running out of the door, followed by her sister. “She’s finally awake! She wants Coco Pops for breakfast!”
Larry runs after them, suddenly interested.
I rub the back of my hand over my mouth, and it comes away smeared with a bright shade of deep red that would look fantastic on Priya but is awful on me. I lift my feet up, kicking off the duvet, and see that each toenail is a different colour. Nice.
I put one hand on my chest as I stare at the ceiling, realising that even though the miniature succubus has gone in search of sugary cereals, I still feel short of breath. Still feel somehow crushed, as though there is an unseen pressure physically pushing down on me.
I take my own pulse, and reassure myself that I am not on the verge of a heart attack – I just feel dreadful. As in, literally full of dread.
I stay still, close my eyes again, and do some deep breathing, mentally counting in and out, in an attempt to set myself right.
I am unsurprised that I am not greeting my new day with joy, because even by my low standards I really did not sleep well. Partly because of the wine, but mainly because of the conversation I’d had with Priya. This tough love business is, well, tough. It was the emotional equivalent of being run over by a steamroller.
I get up, pull on a fleece over my pyjamas, and head downstairs into the kitchen. Priya is up and dressed, showing no signs of last night’s indulgence as she leans against the island sipping coffee.
“Nice look,” she says, “are you auditioning for the lead role inIt?”
I grab a sheet of kitchen roll and start to clean myself up, as she asks: “And did you really say you wanted Coco Pops for breakfast?”
Kiara looks at me imploringly behind her back, eyes huge and hands held together as though she is saying her prayers. Impossible to resist.
“I did,” I reply. “I bloody love Coco Pops.”
Priya gives me a face that tells me she knows exactly what is going on here, but plays along anyway.
She pours me a mug of coffee, and I silently watch as she pulls bowls out of the dishwasher and grabs cereal from the cupboard. The girls have taken Larry into the garden, and I soon hear them shrieking in horror as he does ‘a massive stinky poop!’ That’s my boy.
As she adds milk to the cereal, Priya looks up at me, and meets my eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asks simply.
“No,” I reply, putting down my coffee with trembling hands. “I’m not okay, and you were right last night. I’ve not been okay for a very long time. Priya, I…I think I do need help.”
PartFour
Happy Ending?
ChapterThirty-Five
It takes about three hours to drive from Priya’s house to Starshine Cove. I spend a lot of that journey dealing with a low-level sense of anxiety, but also excitement. I am returning to a place where I am unsure of my welcome, unsure of the outcome. That, I tell myself, is okay – it is natural to feel some concern, to feel unsteady, to simply feel. I am allowed to be nervous, because I am not superhuman.
I have techniques to better cope with this kind of thing now, and most importantly, I am able to recognise and accept the fact that this is challenging.
The last month has not been easy, but it has been necessary. I have had countless sessions with a therapist, I have joined a peer mentoring service run by other doctors, and I have laid myself bare like never before.
There have been a lot of tears, and a lot of frustrations, but also a lot of laughter and some moments of almost euphoric joy. I am not, by any means, ‘fixed’ – again, because I am not superhuman. I am flawed, and I will always be flawed, and that is all right. Everyone else is, too.
I am, though, now brutally honest with myself – and I find that I don’t really mind it. That the monsters under the bed disappear a lot quicker once you drag them into the light. Priya was, of course, right – the one person I could never run away from was me. Once I got to grips with the idea that I was stuck with myself, the only option was to try and make that a better place to be.
I followed her advice, and carried that honesty through into other areas of my life. I went out for dinner with Mark, and we talked about losing Lizzie in a way that neither of us had been able to before. I contacted my parents, and came clean about my issues. I picked up the phone and spoke to the GP practice, and explained why I needed a leave of absence. These were all small and positive steps, but now I feel ready to take the big ones. The ones that have led me back here, to Starshine, and to the life I left behind.
I have no real idea what will happen next, which is terrifying – but I do at least now have an understanding of what went wrong in the first place. I have exchanged messages with Connie and Dan, briefly spoken to George on the phone. All of them reacted with kindness and understanding, which doesn’t surprise me given the kinds of people they are, but still leaves me grateful.
