‘Do you want to know why I suggested this?’ she asked. ‘Us, meeting for evening food?’
‘Something’s wrong?’
‘No.’ Then, with a great deal of pride, she said, ‘I’m checking in on you.’
‘Oh! That’s … ah … nice.’
‘Yep. Trying to behave like a normal person.’ She was so very delighted with herself.
‘Checking in, in case I’m upset about you and Artie tryi–’ I stopped myself. ‘Sorry. I nearly said the “trying” word there.’
‘Good job you didn’t.’ And both of us laughed.
‘In case I’m upset about you and Artie hoping for a baby? Because I’m fine about it.’ Well, almost, and that would have to do.
‘Not just that,’ she elaborated. ‘I was thinking about you seeing Costello again, after what went down with your little girl. And now the old woman and her bullshit about the party. I’d say it’s a lot for you, like.’
Very surprised, I said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve had it rough. I get it, now that I’m … broody myself. Thing is, I’d probably be fuck all use to you. I’m bad at sympathy …’ She paused, her mood suddenly darker. ‘So I’ve been told. Or is it empathy? Maybe it’s both.’ Brightening again, she said, ‘But if you were stuck, I’m … yeah, here for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I repeated.
‘You’ve been good to me,’ she said. ‘When I get the Mads, you don’t make it all about you.’
I found this admission almost unbearably touching.
‘Nearly everyone else does,’ she said. ‘They can’t help it, I suppose. But you’re different.’
I swallowed hard. ‘And how are you? With everything that’s going on?’
‘It’s a pain in the hole, isn’t it?’ She sounded exasperated. ‘Wanting a baby. There’s so much more to lose. I was better off when I wanted nothing and loved nobody.’
‘Oh, Helen, no. That’s no way to live.’
‘But it’s safe.’ Her anxiety was suddenly very evident. ‘Rachel, what if I can’t get up the duff? And I go mental again? Or what if I have a baby and then get the Post-Baby Mads? Because that can happen to’ – she spoke in a dorky voice – ‘“women with a history of depression”。’ She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. ‘Which is me. Fuck’s sake! Or what if – and I’m sorry, Rachel – but what if I do get pregnant and then lose it? It’d be straight back to the nut-house for me.’
Christ.
The thing was that any of those scenarios could come to pass. Though the chances were small, the prospect was terrifying. A frantic need to protect her surged in me.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ she said. ‘I wish I had meetings to go to, the way you do.’
‘But there are self-help groups for people with depression.’
‘Yeah. I went one time.’ More eye-rolling. ‘But the others annoyed the living bejesus out of me. They were so … moany. I didn’t go again.’
When I got home after my meeting, I was exhausted. Slowly climbing the stairs to bed, I knew I’d have no trouble sleeping. And, oh God, my gratitude. Even now, the very thought of insomnia threw me back into those terrible weeks after Yara died.
The world had shifted on its axis and nothing would ever be the same again. A whole new dimension of sorrow had opened for me. It was only once I’d got a regular supply of sleeping pills that I could bear it.
Waking up every morning to live another day without Yara was always a shock. Surviving each individual minute was gruelling. But knowing that at 10 p.m. I could stop enduring and disappear into delicious oblivion gave me strength.
The only thing was, it didn’t take much to build up a tolerance to the pills. So it was no real surprise that after a week or so of taking them, I began waking after five hours, then four. For a couple of nights I tried waiting it out, hoping to go back to sleep, but it was hard, especially knowing there was a small stash of pills nearby, rolled into a pair of socks in my chest of drawers. On the third night, I tiptoed over and tried to pull out the drawer without making a noise. But with a squeak, the wood caught and Luke shifted in the bed.
‘What are you doing?’ he mumbled.
‘Nothing,’ I whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’
I pressed the pill from the card, placed it on my tongue, slipped back into bed and soon I was carried off to pain-free nothingness.