‘Don’t pull the chairs: lift them,’ says a lady with a blonde cap of hair and some sort of flowing outfit.
I put down my chair and go up to her.
‘This is a victim support group?’ I ask.
‘We support everyone,’ she says with the benign gaze of a woman who has been on many committees. ‘Fiona’s a widow and poor Harry is only buried a week. We got her to come, didn’t we girls?’ she says to her assembled ladies.
Poor Fiona looksshell-shocked, as if she’d rather be at home in bed with her TV remote and a big box of tissues while she tries to begin the painful negotiation of life without Harry.
‘It’s for widows?’ I ask.
‘Oh no, it’s for everyone.’
Everyone except me, I think.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Wrong meeting,’ and I run back to the door.
15
Be happy – it drives people crazy!
The week trundles on. I stare at my recipe books but don’t go into the office.
I make Lorraine cancel a demo for the weekend because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will not be able to manage it.
I stop looking up sleeping pill withdrawals online and jump like a nervous small dog every time Lexi’s phone pings with a WhatsApp in case it’s Elisa asking her for another ‘coffee’.
Worse, I can barely speak to Dan.
In bed every night, he holds me and we lie there, cocooned under our duvet, while he asks me what’s wrong and tells me he’s worried about me.
‘I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘Just tired.’
Which is not a lie at all. Iamtired. My guilt at lying to him has turned into something heavy that lies in my heart but I feel too shattered to fix it.
‘Maura can take care of the children on Thursday,’ he says. ‘I can drive you to your support group meeting.’
I shake my head.
I still don’t know if I can go back to the first meeting. The threshold for pain in my heart has been reached. I don’t know how any meeting can help that. And another session with fragile old men who’ve been hurt, or Ariel with her sad eyes and herpretend-happy voice ... I can’t take it.
But I know I must.
That dingy room might be all that stands between me and falling apart.
I don’t ring Ariel to say I’m going. Instead, I climb the stairs beside the dilapidated phone repair shop on Thursday evening at five to seven and close my eyes before pushing open the door.
The crowd seems different tonight but Ariel is there, this time with hair that’sblue-tinged.
‘Freda!’ cries Ariel delightedly, standing at the tea table stirring sugar into a cup of herbal tea.
‘Sit here,’ says awhite-haired woman of my mother’s vintage and pats a sofa on the far side of the room. There goes my plan to sit near the door again. ‘We’ve got cushions and everything for your back, this is the best place to sit. And Ariel, honey, you go on my other side.’
Ariel squishes in beside her, takes off her shoes and sitscross-legged like a Yogi.
For the first ten minutes I can barely listen. My breathing is incredibly shallow and I’m just trying to concentrate. A man called Steve announces how this group has been set up to help people recover from the pain and suffering resulting from crime. It’s a bit of a broad brief, I think to myself. It’ll take more than this place to unlock all the pain inside me. And then I realise I didn’t even hear this bit the first time round: I must have been so anxious, all I heard was noise.
‘Who wants to go first?’ says Steve.
