‘Too late for that,’ Rach says softly when the door shuts. Her opinion of Maggie isn’t one she’s arrived at independently. It comes with years of conditioning from Audrey, having sided protectively with her best friend through all the angst early on in the blended family relationship.
‘I think it’s the type A professional thing,’ I say, wanting to defend my former wife. ‘Maggie’s very ambitious. She likes to be the most intelligent woman in the room. She’s very clever. But you’re obviously—’
She’s obviously what?I look at her, standing beside me in leggings and a gym top, locked briefcase on the table beside us probably containing some sort of vitally important national security paperwork. And I remember joking about her being dull in her cat costume at the party years ago. She’s obviously not that.
Suddenly, I don’t want her to misread Maggie. ‘You know she helped me when I hit rock bottom,’ I explain. ‘Saved me, probably.’
Rach looks up, midway through dishing some rice into a bowl.
‘She came to my office, saw how bad things were, and took me to our GP. I think she was worried about the impact on Parker if I couldn’t get my act together.’
‘She was,’ Rach replies. ‘She called me about it.’
Maggie calledRachael? She never said.
‘I think it’s good that you have her.’ She passes me a bowl of food and flops on the floor beside the couch. ‘But I don’t think she appreciated the hygge.’
I choke on my dim sum.
‘She’s more of an overhead lights sort of person,’ she adds in all seriousness, undeterred by my coughing fit.
I look at her, relaxed on the floor beside my coffee table. Legs crossed, hair up, somehow managing both chopsticks and the artful rearranging of a stack of books for aesthetic impact. When she’s happy with the styling, she catches me watching her from the sofa, smiles brightly, and performs a little bow with a dramatic flourish.
Micro joys are the way we survive macro grief, she said.
I don’t know. I think the secret is borrowing a best friend from your late fiancée.
33
AUDREY
‘The worst part is, I’ve been hiding it,’ I said to Maggie’s GP the day she got me an emergency appointment. ‘My friends think I’m recovering from the shock and the trauma and the loss. I’m back in a job, not one I like, but still. I’m socialising, exercising—I mean, it’s a full-time activity looking as under control as I do. But it’s an act. Every bit of it.’
‘Look, here are the details of a local group,’ the doctor said, passing me a flyer. ‘I know it’s hard to show up the first time, but I’m certain it will be helpful for you.’
Walking out of the practice with a script for a drug to curb cravings, I looked at the information in my hand. I knew if I didn’t do this immediately, I would push it aside for months, and who knew how bad I’d be by then.Or if I’ll even be alive.
So I stood on the path outside the building and called the number. And ended the call. Called it again. Hung up. Third time around, I allowed a woman to pick up.
‘It’s been six months,’ I explained. ‘I just can’t seem to get past it.’
‘Of course! You’d be most welcome.’ Even her voice was comforting. ‘It’s just a small group at the moment. About eight people. Come on Tuesday?’
Eight people. Each struggling as much as I was.Do they have any idea how much their existence means to me?
That was two months, five million bottles, countless regrettable text messages, and an immeasurable swathe of dropped obligations ago.
I wanted to get better. I did. I just didn’t want to do it without drinking.
In the end, having gone to extraordinary lengths to hide the worst of this from Rach, I opened up to her about how truly bad things had become. ‘Whatever you’re imagining, it’s a million times worse. Maggie took me to her doctor—’
‘Maggie?’ She was affronted. Of course she was. And I get it. I’d trusted Fraser’s ex-wife, with whom little love has ever been lost, over her. My best friend since university. Addiction had taken another swing of its axe.
‘I couldn’t bear to disappoint you, Rach.’
She looked at me across the cafe table, devastated.
‘It’s thisgiant problemswallowing everything,’ I explained. ‘It’s me. Not you. And the only reason Maggie knows about it is because I did a horrible thing. I made a huge mistake, and she discovered it.’
