Like Scarlett is now.
I stare at my sister sadly. She is so tall and thin that she could possibly walk the catwalk, but her face doesn’t have that lush fullness of the usual young, beautiful girls who step out for the designers. Her face is that of an adult, a hollowed mask of grief.
‘He’s always been there with me. Friends of mine used to say, they couldn’t understand that he was such a part of this, that it wasn’t just me wanting a baby and him going along with it. No, he wanted children, like his brothers, wanted everything I did. And I can’t give him that. This stupid bloody body of mine has failed.’
She grinds the words out as if she’s ready to take a kitchen knife to herself and start cutting into her flesh.
I know how easy it is for people to hurt themselves when they are this devastated. When their world has fallen apart, the need for physical pain to block out the emotional pain can become fierce. I immediately think, would she start doing that now? Cutting herself? I have never seen Scarlett like this before and she’s not unhinged – that’s not the word, that’s a cruel old word, but she’s suffering so much grief that I honestly don’t know what she’s going to do.
A phrase from my support group comes at me:you have to learn to live with it.Because stuff happens and life goes on.
‘It’s another woman,’ she insists. ‘I don’t know who she is, I don’t know what woman, but that’s where he is: with someone else. I can’t give him what he wants, so he’s gone to find someone who can.’
Mildred says nothing, mercifully, so I run through the options of what I can do: take Scarlett to the nearest psychiatric hospital or bring her home to our mother?
Our mother, I think. The golden woman who can heal all – except her own pain, I admit.
But then, healing other people is easier than facing yourself.
‘Come on,’ I say briskly to my sister, ‘upstairs.’
I manage to gentle her along in front of me without even making the normal detour to the kitchen for the all curing cup of tea of the Abalone family.
I can’t see Scarlett being able to drink anything, anyhow.
Somehow, we get upstairs.
She’s weak, like Granny Bridget is weak and that scares me.
I sit her down on the bed in their bedroom and take on the brisk persona of Chef Freya cooking inSimplicity with Freya.
‘Let’s get you organised.’
‘Freya Abalone could command and control an audience of thousands,’ said one reviewer and boy, have the whole family teased me about this. Zed calls me Commander when he’s in the mood. Today, I channel this talent because I think it’s the only way to get Scarlett out of this house and somewhere safe where we can reassess.
I know where she keeps her suitcases: neatly stacked on a wardrobe in the spare bedroom.
Because Scarlett is very unlike me, almost on the verge of OCD with her organisational abilities, it’s very simple to find knickers, bras, sloppyT-shirts, comfortable around the house sweat pants and cosy sweaters because even though it’s summer, I know she’ll be freezing. The shocked, thin and elderly are always cold and Scarlett scores two out of three in the trifecta. I throw in her trainers, a pair of jewelled thong sandals I know she loves, and her fake Ugg slippers.
She doesn’t have my shoe thing: she has acomfy-around-the-house thing. I find little nightie sets and in the bathroom just sweep toiletries into another small case.
Beside the bed there’s the usual tangle of cables and I unplug a whole load of them and plop them in the top of the case too.
What else? What else do I need to bring? There are pictures of all of us everywhere: the Abalones; Scarlett with Jack’s family complete with endless children, photos which must crucify her when she sees them every day; beautiful holiday pictures of the two of them; that gorgeous one of them on their honeymoon at the Indian elephant sanctuary.
I carefully put that into the suitcase. I was grabbing a fluffy dressing gown, have stuffed it in and am about to close the bag when I realise that Scarlett is barefoot and shivering in a littleT-shirt. I hastily extract the dressing gown and her slippers, wrap her in her dressing gown, shove her feet into her slippers and say: ‘Come on, we’re going.’
Downstairs, I rush around making sure all is safe, while she sits mutely on the couch and I very quickly text my mother.
At Scarlett’s, she’s in a bad way. Mine or yours? You have enough on, but I think possibly being with you and Granny Bridget would help.
I don’t want to burden my mother with too much when she’s dealing with so much already, but I have this instinct that being with my mother is the right thing for Scarlett. Despite all the people my mother cares for and the craziness of each day, the text pings back within seconds.
Bring her here.
My mother is at the door when we drive up. We’d driven in pretty much absolute silence and I’d kept the radio on low on a talk show, so there was some sort of indistinct mumble in the background. Scarlett had sat and looked out the window like somebody who has witnessed something absolutely terrible and can’t focus on the real world anymore.
Maybe bringing her to my mother’s wasn’t enough, I panicked as we drove. Maybe she needed to go to the doctor immediately.
