You can have MiWadi like me, Yaya. It doesn’t make you go all flop or your voice all gooey.
I turn on the TV: its flickering images, its disconnected voices, its bodies with their ridiculous posturing, its too-bright colours, its tinny sounds climb inside me, setting up a jarring jangle. Turn off the racket, place my hand on my heart, feel the crazed flight, pray. Help, please help, Mother Mary, help. Nothing. Grab my keys, bag and Marmie, wrapped in Herbie’s blanket, and open the front door, rage assailing me at the sight of my treacherous neighbour’s front door – I’m going to have to learn to look the other way.
I sit in my car for the first time in over three months. The engine starts, the kitten mewls, I step down on the accelerator.
There’s an hour to kill before the meeting in the church hall closest to my house. Sister Anne printed out a list of local meetings and folded them into my pocket before I left. ‘Not optional, Sonya,’ she said. I drive hard and fast, summoning up Roberto, foot to the floor, the engine’s roars blocking out Marmie’s bleating. At the seafront I pull to a jolting stop, get out, pick the kitten off the back seat and make a sling for her out of the blanket. I pull my shoes off and run on to the cold damp sand, my feet losing themselves in the soft suck of the sea foam. Exhilarating, wind in my face, sea spitting, cat’s claws scraping. My face must be red-welted. ‘Ok, kitty, ok.’
I run until it feels as if my insides are coming up and out, snot is streaming, breath caught high in my ribcage. Stop abruptly, sit, and Marmie jumps loose, running in distracted circles. I lie on my back, make angel shapes in the sand. The kitten comes to sit on my chest and settles there. Watch the clouds shape-shift above my head and raise my arms to orchestrate their movement. Let’s sweep away the clouds, Yaya, and find Mr Sunshine! I angle my face towards the concentration of light, eyelids close and dots spin. I sit up, holding the kitten lightly. ‘Come on, sweetie. Time for my medication.’ Drag myself reluctantly towards the car, and this time drive at a reasonable speed back towards the local church hall.
I walk in, ten minutes late, and position myself at the back, Marmie squirming in her makeshift pouch. The woman to my right leans in and smiles. ‘Adorable.’ The man to my left makes a disgusted face, stands, scrapes his chair loudly, muttering. Necks crane, faces turn, expressions holding the full spectrum of human outrage and delight. I’m doing it again, making a holy show of myself – a Lara favourite that prompted one of two responses: a desire to run and hide, or to make a further spectacle of myself on stage. The whisperings intensify. They’re not saying anything distinct, just a soft susurration, like a snake charmer, hypnotic and powerful.
‘The worst times for me are the evenings, when the ache kicks in. Typical empty-nest syndrome. Since James left, it is, quite simply, agony. I don’t honestly know if I would be here if I didn’t have these rooms to come to.’
The woman is in her sixties, white hair in an immaculate chignon, black polo-neck, tailored trousers, small studded diamonds in her earlobes.
I catch her eye and am greeted by an open smile.
‘What’s the kitten’s tipple?’
The room laughs and a warmth seeps in. Permission granted.
‘She’s partial to the Pinot Grigio.’
Uproar, hilarity, grown men and women weeping with laughter. Nothing in moderation in this room.
‘Welcome,’ the elegant speaker continues. ‘That white witch in a bottle casts a very strong spell. She’s a hard bitch to escape, clad as she is in all her finery.’
I have a flash of the two of us, sipping a chilled, crisp, dry beauty with hints of elderflower and lemongrass, in the woman’s pristine white marbled kitchen with views on to the conservatory and lawn.
The meeting closes, a cup of tea materialises, Marietta biscuits and general pleasantries are bantered about. The woman stirs an ancient memory in me. Something about her scent, notes of mouthwash and rosewater, and the timbre of her voice, saccharine-sweet, yet containing within it its opposite. She offers me her card: ‘Jean Cullivan, piano teacher and masseuse.’
‘Call me any time,’ she offers after hearing that I have just been released from a rehab facility. ‘But then, I’m sure you’ve been given a list of numbers your arm’s length.’
The only number I have is David’s and I don’t want to call him too soon. I could call the communal phone in the hall, but think of the endless queues.
‘Not really, no.’
‘I never understand how they let people out of those places with no proper supports in place.’