Gilliflowers (37 page)

My throat constricted at the threat, but I made no comment. He towel dried my hair and then cast the towel aside before ordering. “Give me a kiss.”

He made no effort to bend towards me. Standing on the balls of my feet I reached my arms around his neck and primly pressed closed lips to his. He gave a gurgled little laugh. His arms came round my waist and he lifted me, his tongue breaching my lips, darting into my mouth, making the pup jump with pleasure. It was all too brief.

He released me.

“Go on, whelp. Get dressed. I’m going to shower. Dick will be home soon. Let’s be ready for him.”

I obediently dressed and went to finish off preparations for the birthday do.

So did I enjoy the party? Yes and no. There were pleasant moments, chats with friends, one or other of the boyfriend’s arms around my shoulders or waist, but a part of me remained resentful. Resentment is hard to cast off. It’s like a strong weed. You have to kill it at the root or it keeps coming back and that takes time and hard work. I wasn’t there yet.

There were times during the evening when I wanted to slip away and be properly alone rather than part of something I didn’t actually feel an integrated part of. I didn’t dare. Both Dick and Shane were keeping tabs on me. I received frowns from them and caused a few general cries of spoilsport when I declined to sing a song or two, laying claim to a sore throat and leaving Dick to perform solo. Singing without a drink to warm my confidence held no appeal.

To my dismay I woke up next morning feeling like I’d felt the previous morning, foggy minded, tired, irritable and generally like shit. I couldn’t understand it.

I was halfway down the stairs on my way to the kitchen when my aura struck. It was triggered by sunshine flickering through the glass in the front door. My brain short-circuited. The muscles in my arms and legs went into spasm and in a matter of seconds I lost my footing on the stairs. I couldn’t grab at the handrail to stop myself falling and tumbled the rest of the way down, landing in a winded heap on the hall floor. I was badly jarred, but otherwise unhurt, though my heart was pounding hard enough to burst.

The fall intensified the usual waves of irrational fear sweeping over me and to my shame and disgust I lost bladder control, leaking urine into my shorts. Thankfully I’d gone to the loo before descending the stairs so my bladder wasn’t full, otherwise there’d have been a yellow river flowing down my legs and across the floor.

My heart wasn’t the only thing to almost burst. My eardrums flinched as the house reverberated with the sound of my name and footsteps crashing on the stairs as the boyfriends came running.

They were shocked and concerned. I was angry and embarrassed. It was a volatile mix. Shane demanded to know whether I’d had a drink on the sly the night before. I hadn’t.

I shouted it was pointless banning alcohol because, I furiously slammed the heel of my hand against the side of my head, the fucking episodes would continue regardless. They might as well have me put down because I was as useless as tits on a bull.

Shane caught my hand before I could head slam again and did some slamming of his own, applying his palm once to my backside while sharply telling me to cut the hysterics. I started crying and to my utter horror so did Dick.

He looked at me and said “oh, Gilli, see why we worry,” in such a sad voice and then tears started to fall from his lovely brown eyes. It brought home what a fright he must have gotten when he heard me fall. I lurched into his arms sobbing apologies for scaring him.

Shane offered comfort in his own inimitable fashion. He told us to pull ourselves together and get back to bed before he lost all patience and gave us both something to cry about. Dick quickly composed himself. Swinging me up into his arms he carried me upstairs. He helped me change my shorts and we lay down together, comforting and kissing each other’s tears away.

Shane came up bearing a tray containing my morning medication and three mugs of milky hot water masquerading as tea. I’m sure a psychiatrist could make something of the way my two make tea. It probably reveals hidden aspects of their personality.

He joined us in bed and again asked whether I’d drunk alcohol the night before. I confirmed I hadn’t and nor had I ingested any other narcotic substance. The sun glinting through the window rather than anything I’d consumed had triggered the episode. I mentioned I’d felt tired when I’d woken up, which had probably predisposed me to succumbing to the trigger.

“Tired?” Shane leapt on the word like Bulldog Drummond leaping on a clue.

“You said you were tired yesterday morning too. Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, Shane. I slept well enough. I just felt sluggish when I woke up.”

“Make an appointment with your GP on Monday. A general check up won’t do any harm.”

I nodded. Snuggling between them I fell asleep, sleeping for most of the day. I woke up on Sunday feeling so much better and brighter that I suggested there was no need to bother my GP. Shane suggested he’d bother me in a way I wouldn’t like if I didn’t do as I was told and make an appointment.

My doctor found nothing obviously amiss. He sent me for blood tests to check for anaemia, but only after cheerfully telling me that low-level disturbance in brain activity could be causing the fatigue, not enough to cause spontaneous episodes, but enough to sensitise my brain and leave it more vulnerable to triggers. He suggested I make an appointment with my neurologist. Seeing as he wasn’t Shane I ignored him.

I felt fine for the rest of the week. Whatever had ailed me had gone. I was fit and well and firing on all cylinders. High five for the houseboy…until Saturday morning when I woke up feeling like crap. I was tired, clumsy, slow and altogether woolly minded. I dragged about my duties with all the vitality of a geriatric sloth on Mogadon.

I cleared the coffee table in the lounge of Friday evening debris, taking the wine bottle emptied by Dick and Shane after dinner, the glasses they’d drunk it from, three empty Red Bull cans and a half full one left by me into the kitchen. I put the bottle and empty cans on the kitchen table ready to take out to the recycling bin. I raised the half full can to my lips hoping a shot of Red would boost my energy levels, and that’s when it happened. The eureka effect suddenly struck. Holding out the can I stared at it. I swear I could hear my brain clicking like a Rubik’s cube. Everything fell into place.

Before the booze ban I hadn’t been a big consumer of energy drinks. I drank the odd one from time to time. Since the ban I’d been drinking more and more of them and not just one at a time, but two, three or even four, perhaps seeking a substitute kick for alcohol. My mind clicked up memories of some of the days I’d woken up feeling like shit. After Lee’s party, the night previous to Dick’s party and the night after it. On all those occasions I’d consumed two or more energy drinks. I’d been drinking one when the Halifax online ad had tripped me. Red Bull might give some people wings, but thanks to my dicey brain it obviously gave me lead boots and a post consumption crash akin to a hangover. I had a temper surge, seeing it as further evidence of my growing weakness.

The can of Red Bull in my hand didn’t develop wings as such, but it flew all the same. It hit the wall, spewing a stream of urine coloured liquid down the paintwork.

Shit! I dragged out a chair and flopped down on it. It would take me ages to clean up and I didn’t have the fucking energy.

Leaning my arms on the table I put my head down on them, closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep. I woke up to find a crowd around me, doctors, nurses and a urologist who’d heard about my pissing propensity and had dropped in to offer advice. (Lie detector says I DON’T THINK SO.) Okay, that was red bullshit. It was just Dick and Shane, but they’re big enough to stand in for a crowd.

I assured them I hadn’t had an episode as such and reluctantly divvied up details.

A look of intense anger swept over Shane’s face. He didn’t say a word. He walked out of the kitchen and into the study shutting the door sharply behind him. It frightened me and I got up to go after him, but Dick stopped me.

“Leave him be, honey,” he said quietly. “Let him cool off. He isn’t angry with you. He’s angry with himself.”

Dick was right. Shane was furious for being blind to what he termed the fucking obvious. He said he’d done enough research on epilepsy to know that a high intake of caffeine could be a trigger and what were energy drinks full of - fucking caffeine, as well as other stimulants. He hadn’t given a second thought to me drinking them and he should have.

As well as being mad at himself he expressed annoyance with Dick for also not twigging about the potential seizure danger inherent in energy drinks. I said I hadn’t twigged either, but he said he expected no less than blind stupidity from me. Er, thanks, Shane.

While in the study he conducted a sweep of the World Wide Web, which confirmed energy drinks could pose a threat to seizure sensitive individuals and thus they are now a forbidden fruit. Great. Another thing crossed off my pleasures list. At this rate I’ll end up living in a plastic bubble and existing on bread and water.

As if to echo my mood the weather turned a bit Noah in the days following Dick’s birthday. It began pissing down with enough ferocity to warrant building an ark. To be honest I rather hoped it would keep pissing down for the simple reason Penny and the Muppet were due to visit on the fourteenth of August. With a bit of luck the rain would keep up and the Met office would issue flood warnings. Penny would then be forced to cancel the visit due to inaccessible roads. Knowing her though she wouldn’t let floods deter her, she’d fly in on her broomstick, either that or charter a boat.

To my annoyance on the Monday evening prior to the visit Penny phoned to

announce she and hubby Chas wouldn’t be the only houseguests I’d have to cater for.

The cheeky cow had invited a cousin she was friendly with, a woman called Ruby.

I was put out. I had words with Shane. In my opinion Penny had no right to foist other people on us without asking if we minded first. It was a matter of manners if nothing else. I said he was quick enough to pull me up when my manners fell short of expectations and maybe he should pull Penny up about hers. She hadn’t asked, she’d just told.

Shane put me straight on a few things. It wasn’t for me to mind, it was for him, and he didn’t, not in the slightest. It would be nice to see cousin Ruby. He hadn’t seen her in years. I said he might change his tune if he was the one that had to cater.

He issued a cold reminder: it was part of my
paid
duty to cater to houseguests and to do so with good grace, so I could stop complaining and get on with it. A cold statement followed the cold reminder of duty. He was sick to the back teeth of my attitude towards Penny. He claimed I’d get on better with her if I acted like an adult around her instead of an unpleasant disrespectful adolescent with a chip on my shoulder.

I didn’t take the slap down well. Temper flared. I stormed out of the house after telling him to find a boyfriend his own age if I got on his nerves so much. I felt like going down the pub, but I knew if I did I wouldn’t sit nursing a pint of orange juice on my own, I’d end up drowning my sorrows with Stella.

I called on Eileen instead, but she was on her way out. She was off to the pictures to see Mamma Mia with a friend. She invited me to go with them. I didn’t fancy being a chaperone so after checking it wasn’t wannabe boyfriend Reggie she was going with I accepted. As a chipped and unpleasant disrespectful adolescent I saw it as my duty not to bother letting the boyfriends know where I was going. I was in a fuck ‘em mood and not in a good way.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the film, but I did. It was one of those silly, but uplifting films that carry you along despite yourself. It has to be said, Pierce Brosnan might be fit to look at, he could certainly Mamma my Mia any day of the week, but he can’t sing. He more or less spoke in time to the music.

It was late when I got home. I was in bother. They’d been trying to contact me, but my phone was off. I explained about the pictures, sarkily adding it was cinema policy for folks to turn off their mobiles, no exceptions or dispensation for people in a relationship with megalomaniacs Shane considered my cinema jaunt to be sheer unruliness, another example of me pushing against his authority instead of submitting to it with grace. He said my actions were a calculated show of insolence towards him personally. He turned stern Dominant and gave this wilful sub a long lecture about his shortcomings. It was ended and underlined by a single powerful stroke of his belt to the seat of my jeans as I bent over touching my toes.

Dick was disinclined to be sympathetic. He sent me on my way upstairs with a

slap to my backside, saying I was selfish for worrying them. I lay in bed that night feeling like the wet spot on the sheet after sex, the bit no one wanted to lie on.

The cinema outing proved to be the last moment of leisure in what turned out to be a hectic rest of August for me. The house felt more like a hotel than a home. I seriously considered applying for accreditation from the English Tourist Board. I reckoned I deserved at least four stars and a quality rose. I didn’t have a moment to call my own.

First there was the Muppet the Witch and the Ruby. I was all prepared to dislike cousin Ruby, but ended up feeling sorry for her. She was a lot older than I thought she’d be and really a rather sweet, undemanding lady. It was a pleasure to do things for her because she always seemed pleased. Penny bullied her dreadfully, which is typical of her. She’s never happier than when ordering someone around and telling them what to do and think. I didn’t say anything. For once I kept my renegade gob in check and went out of my way to be accommodating and pleasant.

There was a close moment on the first evening of their visit when Penny made a comment about me not drinking wine at dinner. Shane, to my serious annoyance, told her I’d given it up because of my epilepsy. She sniffed and said it might also help improve my manners, as I tended to be obnoxious and foul mouthed when under the influence.