Blink(40)

I felt my face burning. It was so kind of Jo but I didn’t feel ready to let someone I had just met fully into my life yet. Still, her concern had helped a little. Just knowing she had personal experience of something similar made me feel a little more normal.

‘Thanks Jo.’ I smiled. ‘That means a lot.’



* * *



The Friday-night traffic driving home was particularly heavy and the car crawled along in gridlocked queues for several miles. A fat raindrop exploded on the windscreen, followed by another and another. Within minutes, the shower turned into a torrential downpour. The windscreen wipers were unable to cope and suddenly I could barely see the car in front of me.

As the traffic was continuously crawling and then stopping, I had to wind the window down and keep wiping the windscreen with a grimy old cloth I found in the door pocket. The whole of my right-hand side was getting thoroughly soaked.

Thankfully the downpour eased quite quickly, but still, after the day I’d had, it was all too much.

Heat and pressure welled up inside my head and tears began rolling down my cheeks. That rotten feeling I’d hoped was finally behind me, the feeling that everything was going wrong again, well, it was back with a vengeance.

I found myself wondering if things could actually get any worse.





35





Three Years Earlier





Toni





Evie was in a foul mood when I eventually arrived home, a full forty minutes later than usual.

Throughout the journey, I confess I’d kind of hoped that Mum had taken Evie back to her house for a couple of hours after school. A bit of down time alone, to try to get my head straight, would’ve been more than welcome today.

‘I can’t do anything with her,’ Mum whispered behind her hand as we watched Evie jamming Lego bricks together so hard it was only a matter of time until she nipped her fingers.

‘Calm down, poppet, it’s Friday,’ I said lightly, even though I probably felt as frustrated as she did. ‘That means no more school until Monday.’

‘I don’t want to go anymore,’ Evie scowled, staring down at her bricks. ‘I don’t like it there.’

‘What don’t you like, Evie?’

No response.

‘I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me about it,’ I pressed, feeling my heartbeat speed up a notch. ‘Is someone being unkind to you in class?’

‘I just don’t like it,’ Evie repeated. ‘I hate it. I hate everyone there.’

Mum turned to me. ‘It’s not helped, Toni, you getting this new job.’

‘Mum, please.’

‘Well, it’s true, love. Evie needs some stability at this point. She needs you to be there, not chasing a career all over again.’

‘I wouldn’t call a few part-time hours a week “chasing a career”,’ I snapped. ‘There are bills to pay and I take Evie to school every day, which is more than some mums are able to do.’

‘Yes but their kids haven’t been through what Evie has been through, Toni. You need to—’

‘Mum.’ I cut her dead. ‘Just leave it. Please.’

Mum was so bloody brilliant at telling me what I needed to do, how to run my life, how to raise my daughter. The list went on.

‘Tell you what, why don’t I just take myself off home?’ she said tersely, standing up and snatching her handbag. ‘I know where I’m not wanted. Bye, Evie, darling, Nanny will call you tomorrow.’

She blew a kiss across the room but Evie didn’t respond.

‘Mum, please, I didn’t mean to—’

She stalked by me and slammed the door on her way out.

My neck ached and I felt queasy and hot.

I looked longingly at my handbag a few times, imagining the relief that awaited me, tucked away in the zipped inside pocket.

It was the weekend. I’d had one hell of a week, in all the wrong ways, but I didn’t have to drive tonight and I didn’t have to keep my wits about me at work. Now, I could finally relax.

I was so pent up, I could do with a little help. What was the harm?

Something about it being still the afternoon felt prohibitive, like having a drink mid-morning. Only alcoholics did that. Maureen, the ex-manager at the estate agency where I used to work, would disappear into the back office like clockwork every morning.

The mints didn’t cover the smell of alcohol on her breath when she came back out, but she was so much more chilled out after her first few swigs of the day. It was a secret standing joke amongst the rest of us and I hadn’t really understood back then why Maureen did it.

But I understood well enough now.

When Maureen retired, I had been successful in applying for her job. I wondered where Maureen was now and if she still had her mid-morning tipple.

Sometimes it felt like I might be turning into her.

At the same time, I also knew I was a million miles away from having a serious problem, like Maureen obviously did. The odd pill was neither here nor there. It wasn’t as if I was addicted or anything. In the end, they’d had Andrew dosed up with so much medication he didn’t even know what day it was most of the time. A blessing, as it turned out, for the short, painful time he had left.