Maura, oldest sibling in the Abalone household and four years older than me, is dealing with the perimenopause and is at the stage where she considers ramming cars that drive dangerously in front of her on the motorway. Nobody ever mentions that stage of the menopause but all you need to do is spend half an hour driving to IKEA with Maura, and you fear for mankind and their vehicles because she drives like a woman who longs for bull bars and an assault rifle. Forget your hot flushes and thinning skin in unmentionable places – rage is clearly the number one menopause symptom.
‘People who aren’t going through something always say that you should or shouldn’t feel a certain way about it,’ she says grimly and I sense this is about herself and her rioting hormones. ‘You feel what you feel, Freya. You had a terrible shock. But you’re grand now.’
I practise saying this: ‘It was a terrible shock but I’m grand now.’
Grand. Sounds suitably mild. ‘I’m fine, nothing to see here. Move along now.’
Scarlett, younger sister, totally understands that I was seriously shocked by the attack.
Years of preparing her body for the babies who have never taken seed there means Scarlett is into candlelit yoga, writingnamasteat the end of her emails, and cleansing vegetable juices which she and Jack drink every day as part of their fertility schedule. But even she says that after what happened to me, safety would be high on the list of priorities. With enough wine inside her, she even goes so far as to say that I ought to buy a baseball bat, which is veryun-namaste. She did not comment on the wild speed with which we put our home on the market and bought this one or how I managed to convince Dan that this little pocket of a village close to the city will be perfect for our children.
I may have lied about my motives.
Even though I tell Dan I am fine, I know he doesn’t believe me.
His chief worry is that if I amfine, then why do I need sleeping tablets?
‘Do you think you should still be taking them?’ he asked one night about two months after the mugging as he saw me popping one into my mouth with the ease of a Smartie.
‘I need to sleep, Dan,’ I said but I was instantly angry.
How can he even say this? I bloody need to sleep! Nought to sixty with anger is quite common in people who are suffering from ... er, who have been victims of crime.He doesn’t understand you, shrieks Mildred.
‘Of course, I understand,’ Dan said. ‘But Freya, love, it’s been a while and you can’t go on taking sleeping tablets long term ...’
Fury erupted out of me.
‘You have to come off these things slowly,’ I yelled at him. ‘Plus I have a cookery book to research so there are new recipes for the TV show, and we have to pay for this house.’
This is a low blow because it’s my TV career that allowed us to put in a bid for the new house, not Dan’s career. Mentioning that you might have – briefly, or not briefly – earned more than your man is on a par with giving him an instant vasectomy.
‘I don’t need to move,’ he says grimly. ‘You want the new detached house. I’m happy where we are.’
His voice is even but Stone Age men could make tools out of each syllable.
Interesting fact: we never have screaming rows. Never.
I hate those people why say fighting makes a relationship stronger. Utter rubbish, in my opinion. Fighting makes you say things you regret.
But when I think back to that evening, the car park, the feeling of someone’s dirty hand over my mouth ... I can barely breathe thinking about it. Which is why I don’t think about it except at night, when I can’t sleep. Cue sleeping tablets. Cue hating being on sleeping tablets. Cue not being able to stop being on sleeping tablets, butI can’t tell Dan.
Worse, I’m nearly out of them and I have to face another trip to the doctor where he will do his best to tell me that I can’t continue on a diet of sleeping pills. Or that he can’t continue prescribing them.
‘I’ll come off the sleeping tablets when my sleep is back to normal,’ I said to Dan, anger – yes, anger! – rising in me. ‘As if you care.’
‘How can you say I don’t care,’ he yelled back angrily. ‘But you won’t talk to me about it. You act as if you’re fine most of the time, so how do I know when you’re not?’
‘Because ... because ...’
Because you’re supposed to know without me saying anything, I said silently.
‘I think you haven’t dealt with it all and you’re fuelling your own stress with taking stupid drugs at night,’ he said harshly, ‘because you won’t let go of it.’
I had the sensation of being punched in the stomach.Dan. Saying this.Being winded is a horrible thing and I should know.
I wouldn’t let go of it?
It wouldn’t let go of me. That was the problem.
