Ice and a Slice (26 page)

“How’s it going with Tom?” he asked. Maybe he had picked up on her thoughts, after all.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any happy reconciliation. Tom’s not in a hurry to divorce me, but he doesn’t want me to move back in either. And I really don’t blame him.”

“But you haven’t been tempted to drink on that?”

SJ shook her head. “I get tempted occasionally, but I’m not going to do it. I only have to remember what happened last time.”

He raised his eyebrows, and she said quietly, “When Dad gave me that gin and tonic at the party – complete with ice and a slice – I had no idea what it would lead to...”

“Congratulations,” Kit interrupted, and she looked at him in surprise.

“What?”

“You got the right drink,” he said with a smile. “It’s the first drink that does the damage. It takes ages for most alcoholics to get their head around that. They think it’s the fourth or the fifth – or the final bottle they can’t even remember guzzling.”

She blushed. “Yeah, thanks very much for reminding me of that!”

“You’re welcome,” he said, unrepentant. “You’ve got a very good sponsor too, haven’t you?”

“Dorothy’s amazing. I don’t think I could have done it without her. And I’ve made a few friends at meetings.” That had surprised her. How normal people were – and yet also how diverse. She’d met nurses, teachers, waitresses and office workers; not a tramp on a park bench in sight. The only thing they all had in common was they couldn’t drink like other people. They couldn’t stop at one.

“So you’ve got plenty of support then?” Kit said. “Plenty of people around you who’ll help you stay sober?”

Suddenly realising what he was getting at, SJ nodded. “I should stop coming here, shouldn’t I? Free up the appointment for someone who needs it more than me?”

“I’m not saying that. I’ve told you before – you can come as long as you need.” Kit’s face was serious.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? I can’t keep coming here forever. I have to stand on my own two feet sooner or later.”

The thought of not seeing him any more left her feeling impossibly bleak. And ironically it was this that decided her.

Deep down, she knew she only kept coming because she was a little bit in love with him. And while the old SJ would have found this a perfectly good reason to continue, the new more mature SJ knew it wasn’t.

When they stood up at the end of the session, she looked at Kit and said softly, “Don’t book me in next week. I think I can probably cope from now on.”

“Are you sure?” He stood a few feet away from her, his dark eyes solemn.

The prospect of never seeing him again filled her with grief. A massive ache had started in her heart and was rising up into her throat. She couldn’t swallow.

Clinging to her self-control, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “I can phone if I change my mind, can’t I?”

“Of course you can. We’ll still be here.”

She had to get out before she lost it completely. The ache was increasing. In a minute it would spill over and she would cry. And that would be silly – she should be thrilled she no longer needed to come to an addiction counsellor, not devastated.

“Stay safe, SJ,” Kit said softly, and she nodded again. Bloody emotions – they’d been far easier to deal with when she’d been able to bury them. There was so much she wanted to say, but she knew she would never get the words out.

In the end, all she could manage was a mumbled, “Thanks,” before she fled. But when she was outside once more on the familiar street, it struck her that Kit didn’t need her to go into long thank you speeches anyway. He probably knew exactly how she felt. He always had.

Chapter Thirty-Four

SJ told her parents she was an alcoholic on Christmas Day, just before dinner. She was amazed that the subject hadn’t come up before, but it hadn’t although, in some ways, perhaps this wasn’t so surprising because her parents’ views on alcoholics were the same as SJ’s had once been. They were sad old men in raincoats who sat on park benches swigging bottles of meths.

SJ’s troubles – while they might have involved alcohol – clearly had more to do with her marriage breaking up than anything else. Her time in hospital hadn’t been talked about since. It was as though her parents wanted to forget it had ever happened. SJ wanted to forget it had ever happened too, but she couldn’t leave them in happy ignorance about her alcoholism because from the moment she’d arrived they’d been trying to press a glass of shandy on her.

“I can’t have just the one, Dad, I really can’t.”

“Don’t be so bloodeh ridiculous,” her father responded, with a slightly drunken grin. “We won’t let you near the hard stuff, don’t worry.”

“But I’m an alcoholic, Dad. That means I can never drink anything safely again.”

Her mother banged down the Yorkshire pudding tray – they had Yorkshires with every roast, even turkey – tucked a strand of damp hair back off her hot face and also smiled.

“Pack it in, Sarah-Jane. We had enough of all that nonsense at the party.”

“It’s not nonsense, it’s true,” SJ said, with a growing sense of unreality. “I’m not drinking because I’m an alcoholic – a recovering one. That’s what we’re called when we stop.”

“Oh, isn’t she a case, Jim? Listen to her.” Her mother prodded a Yorkshire experimentally and half turned from the stove. Something in SJ’s expression must have alerted her because suddenly she stopped smiling. “I know you had all that trouble before, and I know you get carried away sometimes, but everyone does. Don’t they, Jim? You mustn’t think you’re any different from anyone else.”

It was echoes of Tom all over again. Feeling a rising sense of panic, SJ went on desperately. “I’m sorry, Mum, I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that, but I am different. I’ve been seeing an addiction counsellor. He even came to visit me in hospital. I’ve been seeing him for the last six months.”

Now she had their attention. They were both staring at her with varying degrees of shock and she wished she hadn’t said anything, but only fleetingly. If she’d been braver she’d have told them before.

Dad had been about to take a sip of his pre-dinner pint, but now he put it down so forcefully that froth spilled over the edge of the glass.

“Is that why Tom threw you out? Because he couldn’t handle living with a drunk?”

She flinched. “We’ve been through all that, Dad. And no, I didn’t move out because of my drinking. I moved out because we’re not right together. We haven’t been for a while.” ‘Ever’ would have been more truthful, but that was between her and Tom.

The inquest went on and on. How long had she known? Why hadn’t she said anything before? Who else knew? Was she sure? The latter question was asked with such regularity between the hundreds of others that SJ would have wondered if she really was sure – but for the fact that her last drink had almost ended her life.

Then again, she only had to look back on how much her thoughts and attitudes had changed since she’d stopped drinking to know the answer to that one.

The further she got from daily drinking, the clearer her head had become, and the surer she was that she’d had all of the personality traits of an alcoholic for many more years than she’d drunk daily.

With hindsight, she could see how much of a double life she’d been living. It had been necessary to have two SJs. There was the public one, who’d been a supportive wife, a dutiful daughter, a witty and entertaining tutor, and a sympathetic friend.

Then there was the private one: the SJ who’d needed to down a bottle of wine and half a dozen gins every night so she could face going to bed; the SJ who’d woken sweating and panicking in the early hours, when the alcohol-induced oblivion had released its grip; the SJ who was crumbling inside and was desperately afraid of what she was becoming.

She didn’t need to be that person any more. She could be the person she’d always dreamed she could be. The person she’d thought she was until she’d stepped into that dingy little counselling room.

Ironically, the best thing about telling her parents on Christmas Day was that they told Alison as soon as she arrived with Sophie, Kevin and the long-suffering Clive.

Alison – to SJ’s shock – was the least surprised of anyone.

“I thought you had a problem,” she said, fixing SJ with her cool blue gaze as they sat down to eat. “Table looks nice, Mum. Did you get these crackers from Morrison’s? Why have we got two each?”

“They were buy one, get one free,” their mother said proudly. “But they had a sell by date.”

Alison shook her head in disbelief. “What on earth have they got in them – food or something?”

“Luxury items.”

“Luxury price too,” their father chipped in. “Should have been half the price they were.”

SJ giggled, but no one else seemed to pick up on the irony of this.

Alison turned her attention back to SJ, who was sitting beside her at the dining room table, which was covered with a red and green holly patterned tablecloth. “Do you remember that musician I was telling you about at the party? Adam Macclesfield – the one who came in to the salon about Botox?”

SJ nodded, wondering where her sister was going with this.

“Well, he’s a recovering alcoholic – I mentioned it to you when we were chatting. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” SJ said. Mind you, that wasn’t surprising. There was so much she hadn’t remembered about the party.

“Adam’s been sober a couple of years now, and he’s got a very stressful job – what with all those groupies chasing after him. So if he can do it, I’m sure you can. You haven’t got any stress in your life, have you? Being a waitress is a doddle compared to being a rock star.”

SJ ignored her sister as she spooned roast potatoes onto her place. Once she’d have fiercely resented this slightly patronising summary of her life – but now she felt secure enough not to react to Alison’s teasing. How things had changed. “This smells delicious, Mum,” she said, breathing in the mix of turkey and cranberry sauce. “Does this sauce have any wine in it?”

“No, but the gravy does – oh my goodness. Don’t let her have the gravy, Jim. Everybody – keep the gravy away from Sarah-Jane.”

SJ wondered what they thought she was going to do – grab the jug and pour it down her throat by the spout. No one seemed to have any such compunction about leaving their brimming glasses of Cava in front of her.

“There’s no shame in being an alcoholic,” Alison went on breezily. “It can happen to anyone. It’s an illness, not a moral failing. I know you said at the party you were drinking because of Tom, but that’s not true. You were probably born an alcoholic. I was talking to Adam about it. It’s exactly the same as being born diabetic – or asthmatic, like Kevin.” She picked up her son’s inhaler from the table as she spoke. “Which is why I get so cross when I catch him smoking.

“Does anyone want any more sprouts?”

“Not for me, thanks, Dad – Sophie will have some, she’s hardly got any veggies on her plate.”

“I hate sprouts.”

Alison shot her a glare. “Everyone hates sprouts. I expect it’s in your genes, Sarah-Jane. I mean, we all know Aunt Edie’s an old soak. And Grandpa George was an alcoholic too, wasn’t he, Mum?”

How on earth did she know that? SJ wondered. Grandpa George had died before they were born, and his name was hardly ever mentioned. She glanced at her parents, who were listening to this conversation in open-mouthed amazement. She was pretty amazed herself. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined Alison might understand something that Tom had completely failed to grasp, let alone be prepared to announce it to their parents, thereby painting her in a completely different light in their eyes.

“Are you a real alky?” Kevin asked, his face alight with a mixture of horror and admiration. He and Sophie hadn’t been told about her stint in hospital. Well, not the reason for it anyway. It had been brushed under the carpet like every other scandal that had ever happened in their family.

“I mean, have you done stuff like fall over in the gutter and puke all down your front when you’re drunk?” he persisted with barely concealed glee.

“Kevin, stop that kind of talk right now – people are trying to eat,” Clive said, glaring irritably at his son.

SJ winked at Kevin and offered him a cracker. “Tell you later,” she mouthed behind her hand.

Sophie narrowed her eyes in disgust, but SJ could tell she was quite interested in knowing the answer to Kevin’s question, too. Perhaps she could end up being a proper auntie to her sister’s children, after all – the kind of auntie who could be a dire warning of the dangers of getting involved with drink and drugs. Being a dire warning sounded a lot more fun than being a good example.

After dinner, while their parents gorged themselves still further with nuts and mince pies in front of the telly, Alison ordered Clive and Kevin to do the washing up and steered SJ purposefully into the conservatory.

“Is it really over with Tom?” she asked, her voice unusually soft. “I thought he was quite a sweetie at the party.”

“He was – he is,” SJ amended. “But yes, it’s really over. There’s no way back for me and Tom. I think we’ll stay friends. I really like him. But we don’t want to stay married.”

Alison twirled a lock of blond hair around her index finger. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be. We should never have got married in the first place. I know that now.”

“It’s a pity, he was much better for you than that prat, Derek,” Alison went on thoughtfully.

SJ felt her hackles rise, but where once she’d have jumped down her sister’s throat, now she didn’t. She just waited, wondering what was coming next.

“I’ve never apologised about all that stuff with Derek, have I? I know I probably should have done, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

SJ wanted to ask why, but it was obvious Alison had something to get off her chest. She’d stopped twiddling her hair, but there was a flush across her collar bones. As usual her sister looked stunning in a pale lemon blouse with tiny pearl buttons and a matching row of pearls at her throat. But SJ didn’t feel inferior any more. The endless sessions with Kit had given her so much more than a way to stop drinking.

“The reason I didn’t apologise was… well…” Alison hesitated, uncharacteristically vulnerable. “Sarah-Jane, don’t take this the wrong way, but actually I think I did you a huge favour. If he was prepared to drop his trousers for me – and believe me, he didn’t need a lot of persuading – well, he’d probably have done it for any woman. So if it hadn’t been for me, you might not have found out what a total bastard the guy was.”

SJ snorted in a mixture of amusement and outrage. She was NOT letting that one go by – no matter how much she tried to turn the other cheek these days and see the other person’s point of view.

“You don’t half talk a load of old bollocks sometimes, Ali.”

Her sister’s eyes widened in annoyance. Perhaps she should have been more subtle. Now they were finally both under the same roof she didn’t want to start a fight and ruin their parents’ Christmas. She reminded herself she hadn’t started it. Alison had – she was obviously still trying to find a way of justifying her self-seeking behaviour by pretending her motives were altruistic.

“It is not rubbish. It’s true. Derek was a…”

SJ put her hands in front of her, palms facing forward. “Enough. You didn’t get off with my ex-husband because you wanted to show me that he wasn’t worthy of me. You just had too much to drink – and you fancied him. And let’s face it, you didn’t think I’d find out.”

Her voice had been louder than she’d intended and Ali’s face had gone the colour of their parents’ terracotta floor tiles.

“What’s with all the shouting?” said an interested voice from the door. Kevin was grinning broadly and SJ wondered with a stab of guilt how much he’d heard.

“By the sound of it, Mum’s rewriting history again.” Sophie stood behind him, her lips set in a disapproving twist. “You said that Auntie SJ didn’t talk to you any more because you didn’t get on with her first husband – and you told her what a dodgy geezer he was. You didn’t say you’d actually…”

“Shut up, the pair of you. This is a private conversation between me and your aunt. And besides, you’re supposed to be washing up.”