The Breakdown(60)

He has no idea how I spend my days. Because the

pills wear off about an hour before he gets home, I have time to clear my head, run a brush through my hair, put on a bit of make-up and get something ready for dinner. And when he asks, I invent work that I’ve done and cupboards I’ve tidied out. The way I see it, ignorance is bliss.

I want to shut off the whole outside world. I’ve been getting so many texts, from Rachel, Mary, and Hannah, inviting me for coffee, and John, wanting to chat about lesson plans. I haven’t answered any of them yet because I don’t feel up to seeing anyone, even less chatting about lesson plans. The pressure I’m already feeling increases and I suddenly decide that the best solution would be to misplace my phone. If I’ve lost it, I won’t have to get





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back to anyone. And as it barely works in the house, it’s not as if it’s much good to me anyway.

I fetch my mobile. There are a couple of voicemails and another three text messages but I turn it off without opening any of them. I go down to the sitting room and look around for somewhere to hide it. I walk over to one of the orchids, lift it from its pot, place my mobile in the bottom and put the plant back on top.

In case the pills should make me forget that I have dementia, there are always little reminders to tell me that my brain is slowly disintegrating. I can no longer remember how to work the microwave – I wanted to make myself a cup of hot chocolate the other day but had to resort to a saucepan as the various buttons no longer meant anything to me. And things I remember seeing on the shopping channel but have no memory

of ordering keep arriving in the post.

Yesterday, another parcel arrived. Matthew found it on the doorstep when he arrived back from work.

‘This was on the doorstep,’ he said calmly, even

though it was the second one in three days. ‘Have you ordered something else?’

I turned away so that he couldn’t see the confusion in my eyes, wishing I’d ordered something that would have fitted through the letter box so that I could have hidden it before he came home. Coming so close on the heels of the spiralizer that arrived on Tuesday was humiliating.

‘Open it and see,’ I said, playing for time.

The Breakdown





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‘Why, is it for me?’ He gave the box a shake. ‘It sounds


like some kind of tool.’

I watched while he took off the packaging, my brain trying to remember desperately what I had ordered.

‘A potato slicer.’ He looked at me questioningly.

‘I thought it looked fun,’ I shrugged, remembering

how a potato had been turned into chips in seconds.

‘Don’t tell me, it’s to go with the vegetable-spiral thing that came on Monday. Where on earth are you getting these things from?’

I told him that I saw them advertised in one of the magazines that come with the Sunday papers because it sounded better than admitting I got them from a

shopping channel. I’m going to have to leave my bag in the bedroom in future. I’ve got into the habit of taking it downstairs with me in the mornings in case I need to make a quick getaway, which means my credit card is easily accessible. But even if my silent caller did turn up, I’d be incapable of going very far. Because of the pills, driving is out of the question, so I’d only get as far as the garden, which wouldn’t be much help.

Sometimes I think that he has turned up. I’ll start awake, my heart beating furiously, convinced that he’s been watching me through the window. Because my instinct is to flee, I half get up from the chair, then sink back down again, not really caring, telling myself that if he is there, well, at least it would be over. I’m lucid enough to know that as well as the pills being my lifeline, they’ll also be the death of me, one way or





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another. Or, at the very least, the death of my marriage, because how much longer can I expect Matthew to put up with my increasingly bizarre behaviour?

Aware that the pills I took are already making my

head a little woolly, I have a quick shower and put on what has become my uniform, loose jeans and a t-shirt, as I’ve worked out they still look presentable after a day on the sofa. One day, I wore a dress and it was so creased by the time I finished sleeping the day away Matthew joked I must have spent it crawling through the bushes in the garden.

Leaving my bag where it is, I carry the tray downstairs, tear the toast into tiny pieces and take it into the garden for the birds. I wish I could sit for a moment and enjoy the sun but I only feel safe in the house with the doors locked. I haven’t been out since I started taking the pills regularly. I’ve been relying on food from the freezer for our evening meals and I’ve resorted to using the cartons of long-life milk that we keep for emergencies. Matthew noticed last night that the fridge was almost empty, so I’m hoping he’ll suggest going shopping tomorrow.

My limbs feel heavy as I go back into the house. I

rummage in the freezer and find some sausages and

then rummage in my brain, searching for something I can do with them to turn them into an evening meal.

I know there are a couple of onions hanging around

somewhere and there’s bound to be a jar of tomatoes in the cupboard. Dinner sorted, I go gratefully into the sitting room and sink onto the sofa.