Saving Grace (25 page)

‘If I ever did, which I never would, because I love my husband very much, thank you all the same, fucking anyone would be the last thing on my mind. And really, Patrick. Do you have to say “fuck”? It’s so . . . crass.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Would you prefer “making lerrrve”?’

‘Yes, actually. I think I would.’

‘Well, you can make lerrrve with Robert, but if you were with me, it would be a fantastic dirty fuck.’

‘You’re still impossible.’

‘And still loveable.’

Then, for many years, Grace would fly over to stay with Lydia and David, sometimes with Clemmie, sometimes without, and wouldn’t even see Catherine, Robert, or Patrick.

Catherine was living in Australia with her husband. Robert was in Scotland with Emily and five children, and Patrick was becoming a rather well-known film director. He had made most of his films in the UK, but had moved out to LA for a while to see how it went.

David died suddenly of a heart attack ten years ago. Grace went to the funeral and tiptoed around the house, bringing Lydia cups of tea and glasses of Scotch when the tea didn’t do the trick.

She barely spoke to Robert – he seemed too immersed in chasing his children around the house to try and keep them from destroying everything in sight – and Patrick seemed distracted and a bit full of himself.

Grace has only been back three times since then. The last ten years went so quickly. She emailed Lydia, of course, all the time, and they spoke every couple of weeks, but life had raced along and suddenly it has been six years since she was last in Dorset, six years since she felt Lydia’s arms around her in a reassuring hug.

G
race wakes up in her old bedroom, unchanged since she was last here, unchanged since she was a student: the Laura Ashley sprigged wallpaper, the pretty yellow and white quilt, the mahogany dressing table and little stool. On the bed, where he has always been, is Buff – the knitted teddy bear Patrick gave her for Christmas one year, his knitted paw clutching a knitted red rose.

Grace slept clutching Buff, too exhausted by all that had happened to even talk about it with Lydia. She had fallen into Lydia’s arms, allowed herself to be guided to the car, where Lydia switched on Radio 4 as Grace was lulled into a state of calm.

Straight to bed, where she slept the sleep of the dead, waking up to see the view she has always loved – through the many-paned windows straight out to the fields opposite, the cows gently grazing next to the pretty old brick farm.

Waking up, shuddering with horror at the previous night spent on a park bench. Unwashed. Unfed. No longer living with the fear of turning into her mother, but the realization that – only temporarily, thank God – her fears had been fulfilled.

It is deathly quiet. She had forgotten how quiet it was here. Sneden’s Landing was never noisy, but the birds sang, the water rushed, their house built of wood allowing all the noises of nature to pass through the walls.

Here the stone mutes everything. It is still. Peaceful. It is the sound of
safety
, Grace thinks, throwing her legs over the edge of the bed and examining herself in the mirror.

Tall but now round. She turns to the side to look at her stomach, her breasts that were always so tiny, now pillowy and large. She wishes she could accept what she now looks like, wants to feel beautiful, regardless of her size. Her shame is just as much at how unaccepting she is of her new shape, how harsh her judgement is of herself.

She turns and pulls her pills out of her bag. Sybil hadn’t grabbed the pillbox in which Grace diligently empties every day’s worth of pills, but instead had grabbed every pill bottle in the medicine cabinet and had swept them into a bag.

Thank God I wasn’t stopped by customs, thinks Grace. They might have arrested her for being a walking pharmacy.

Automatically she empties out the pills she is supposed to take today: Lexapro, Lamictal, Provigil, Phentermine. She looks at them, then back at her reflection in the mirror. There is no doubt that her exhaustion, her weight gain, the dullness of her life is connected to these pills. The pills she never wanted to take in the first place, took only because she had no other choice.

She cradles the pills in her hand, considering. She has spent her life terrified she might have the same disease as her mother, which is perhaps why, when Frank Ellery made the diagnosis, some part of her accepted it, even though she didn’t believe it; even though she read copious amounts about it and struggled to make it fit.

Surely, as Sybil said, taking medication is supposed to make you more of yourself? Make you better? Bring you back to your best self? What is the point of taking medication that makes you feel nothing? That has turned you into twice the woman you once were? That, if anything, has stolen your life?

She honestly doesn’t know what to do, so she does the easiest thing. Taking a gulp of the glass of water next to her bed, she swallows the pills. Sometimes not thinking too hard is the easiest thing of all.

L
ydia is feeding the cat when Grace comes downstairs, dressed now in the clothes she was wearing yesterday, the clothes she had flown in.

Lydia looks up, beaming. ‘Did you sleep well? Oh, Gracie. I’m so horrified you weren’t able to reach me. I still can’t believe you slept on a bench. I’m just mortified I wasn’t there.’

‘I can’t believe it myself,’ says Grace. ‘The whole thing feels completely surreal. Had that kind gentleman not offered me his phone, I’d still be there. I had no idea what to do.’

Lydia gazes at her. ‘You must have been thinking about your mother.’

‘Oh, Lydia.’ Grace wells up. ‘It was all I was thinking about. This all-consuming shame at my mother being homeless, this fear that anyone would find out, that I might somehow end up in the same boat, and there I was. It has been months and months of hell, of me dreading I was like her . . . and then the culmination on a park bench.’

‘It was one night,’ Lydia says. ‘Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere. They usually say that we are mostly frightened of the fear itself. The worst thing imaginable happened to you, and you survived it. You are, I suspect, much stronger than you know.’

‘I survived it because it was only one night, and because of you.’

Lydia shakes her head. ‘No. You survived it because you are a survivor, Grace. You always have been. You don’t get to come from a background like yours and get to where you have got, carve out the life you have carved out for yourself, without a reserve of enormous resilience and strength.’

Grace says nothing for a few moments. ‘Thank you,’ she says eventually, her voice quiet. ‘It has been a very long time since I have felt resilient and strong.’

‘But you are.’

‘I was,’ Grace says. ‘And I will be again.’

‘Here. I have croissants for you. And delicious yoghurt my friend Judy makes. Can I do a pot for you? With honey?’

‘That sounds gorgeous,’ Grace says, settling down at the table, ravenous suddenly.

‘Tea?’

‘Actually, do you have any coffee?’

‘Ah! I always forget you Americans drink coffee in the mornings. I think I have some ancient, horrible old instant somewhere in the back of the pantry. Will that do?’

‘It’s perfect. I’ll get it.’ Grace rustles around in the cupboard that is Lydia’s pantry, amused at how little food is there. When Grace used to visit, during university, Lydia’s pantry was always stuffed.

‘Where’s all the food?’ she calls out to Lydia, easily locating the jar of Gold Blend. ‘It looks like the pantry was burgled.’

‘It’s only me now,’ says Lydia. ‘It’s only ever full these days when the family comes to visit.’

Grace flicks the kettle on before sitting down at the table again, where Lydia has placed the croissant and yoghurt.

‘Are you ready to talk?’ Lydia sits opposite her, cradling a large mug of tea. ‘I completely understand if not, and I know a little, but . . . there’s so much more, isn’t there, Grace? Months and months of hell? What has been going on?’

Grace pauses. Lydia knows about her mother. Would she judge Grace when Grace reveals her own story? Would she sympathize? Would she question the diagnosis, as Sybil had done, leading Grace to try and convince her that the doctor knew best, even though she wasn’t convinced of that herself.

‘I’m not sure I even know where to begin,’ says Grace.

‘How about at the beginning? I find that’s usually best.’

So Grace does.

L
ydia does not speak until she has heard the whole story. When Grace grinds to a halt, Lydia takes a deep breath as her eyes fill with tears.

‘Oh God, Grace. I’m sorry. I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I know you have been feeling so awful for so long?’

‘Because it started to feel normal. This became . . . the new normal. I’d forgotten that I felt anything other than depressed, dull, fat.’

‘You’re not fat. You’re cuddly.’

Grace lets out a bark of laughter. ‘Thanks. I think.’

‘You are still beautiful.’ Lydia lays a hand on hers. ‘And this is medication weight. You will lose it as soon as you stop. Can we talk about that? The drugs? The diagnosis? Can I give you my opinion?’

Grace nods.

‘I have known you since you were eighteen years old, and there is absolutely no way on earth you have bipolar disorder. And just in case you think I don’t understand what the diagnosis is, and what it means, I have an aunt who has it, and I am very well aware of what it is like, which means I am also absolutely qualified to know, deep down in the core of my being, that you do not have it.’ Lydia shakes her head in disgust. ‘We all hear about American doctors and how they over-medicate and how huge the pharmaceutical industry is, but darling girl, I never thought you would be a victim. I think this doctor . . . what was his name? Ellery? He should be bloody well struck off for what he’s done to you. Lithium! Are they insane? You certainly aren’t, and you should never, ever have been put on these drugs, not least because you do not have, nor have ever had, bipolar disorder.’

Grace sits mutely, unable to speak. Lydia is voicing everything Grace has been trying to suppress. Everything she has thought for months, refusing to acknowledge because Frank Ellery is a doctor at Columbia! Frank Ellery has never been wrong! Frank Ellery must surely know her better than she knows herself!

‘I want you to go and see Dr Harry, my doctor. He’s in Sherborne, and he’s known all of us forever and he’s a big believer in alternative remedies. I know he’ll be horrified by your story, but most importantly, he’ll help get you off.’

‘Couldn’t I just stop?’ Grace says, wishing she hadn’t taken her pills this morning.

‘Lord, no!’ Lydia says vehemently. ‘You have to be terribly careful coming off medication, particularly, I would think, ones as strong as you’ve been taking. Let’s get an appointment with Harry and see what he prescribes. It’s worth looking up on the computer too. Have you done any research on the drugs?’

Grace feels stupid saying no, but she hadn’t done much. Frank had told her not to look up the side effects, had warned her that there was much misinformation that would scare her, and said if she had any side effects or issues, to come straight to him. Of course, Grace had gone straight to him every time another side effect raised its head and his solution was to prescribe more pills, which was the very last thing she wanted, although she would have done pretty much anything in a bid to try and feel better.

‘When do you think we can go and see Dr Harry?’ Grace asks with urgency. Suddenly, she wants to be off the pills as soon as possible. ‘Today?’

‘I’ll try.’ Lydia smiles. ‘I do think that if we take this one step at a time, the first step has to be getting you better, and the only way to do that is to get you off these drugs.’

‘What’s the next step?’ Grace reaches for a Danish pastry.

‘I think perhaps getting your life back. Finding out what the hell your husband is thinking and figuring out what it is you want.’ She leans forward, peering closely at Grace. ‘Do you know what it is you want?’

‘Yes.’ Grace nods resolutely. ‘I want what I had before. I want the life I used to have. I want to feel like me again, to have energy. I want to be cooking again. Of late I can’t be bothered to do anything except lie in bed and read. I want,’ her eyes fill with tears, ‘my house back. I want to be believed. I want to be respected again.’

There is a pause. ‘And Ted?’ Lydia says.

‘Of course!’ Grace says. ‘That goes without saying, doesn’t it? I want my life back and Ted is the centre of it. I want everything to be exactly the way it was.’

O
n her fifth day at Lydia’s, Grace wakes up at three in the morning with a band of pain around her head, unlike anything she has ever experienced. Gasping, she staggers to the bathroom and reaches for a bottle of ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet, tipping three into her hand and swigging them down.