Chapter 68
My feelings were confused. They had led me to that lost night with the man in the Merrion Hotel and then to the previous night.
I had tried to carry on as normal, to ignore Lucy’s moods.
But now I had fallen off the wagon spectacularly, twice, and reverted right back to my teenage behaviour. The shame was back, tenfold.
I dried my hair carefully and dressed in jogging pants and a clean sweatshirt. My head was still pounding. ‘Are you hungry, Lulu?’ I asked as I knocked and opened Lucy’s bedroom door. She slammed the lid of her laptop down.
‘How many times, Mum? You knock, wait for me to say enter, and then you come in, okay? And my name is Lucy.’
‘Sorry, I forgot. I wanted to check that you’re okay. Feeling better? You want to come down and help me fix dinner? Your dad will be home soon.’
‘Right, are we going to play happy families again? Do you know how bored I am with this game?’
She was a smart girl. The atmosphere in the house had not been good. I had been depressed and withdrawn since her incident. My disappearance last night and the night she told us, added to Jack’s anxiety about it, must have shaken her.
‘You’re drinking again, aren’t you?’
We had always been open with Lucy about our addictions.
‘It was a slip, that’s all. I don’t know what got into me. It won’t happen again. I’m seeing Nasrin tomorrow.’ Lucy knew her and liked her. Maybe I would try to see her tomorrow.
Lucy looked up at me, her eyes pooled with unspilled tears. ‘It’s because of me, isn’t it? You drinking, you and Dad fighting? It’s because of what happened.’
Yes, I wanted to say, it’s because of you. I shook my head. ‘I promise you that’s not true. Now,’ I said, quick to change the subject, ‘would you like a proper dinner or something simple, like beans on toast? Whatever you like. Or we could order Chinese?’
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?’
‘I had a minor slip, that’s all, and it was nobody’s fault except my own.’
‘Sure.’ She didn’t believe me.
‘Please come down when your dad gets home.’ It was selfish of me, but I needed a buffer between Jack and me tonight. ‘I love you,’ I said. Did I?
‘Whatever.’
I closed the door and crept away.
Downstairs, I drank a full litre of water, a cup of tea and a can of Coke. I texted Nasrin and asked if she was free to meet tomorrow for coffee. She was the only person who knew everything. Well, not everything.
Jack came home. As soon as I heard the car, I called Lucy to come down.
I didn’t want a showdown tonight. She hadn’t appeared by the time he came in, slinging his jacket on to the hook inside the hall door.
‘Look, Jack,’ I said, ‘you were right and I’m sorry.
I had a slip, and it was bad. I ended up passed out at some party over the other side of the city.
I blacked out. I don’t remember much of it.
I’ll go to a meeting in the morning. You were right all along. ’
He didn’t say anything, but I knew by the set of his jaw that he was livid. Then he spoke, his voice trembling.
‘The first time, when Lucy came home hysterical and you just vanished that night, I believed you because I wanted to, but that was a lie too. I see that now. I could have forgiven that, but yesterday, you planned it. You lied about going to the theatre, you even mentioned the Trocadero so that I wouldn’t expect you home until late.
Things got out of control, as you should have known they would.
You threw away your sobriety rather than discussing your own experience with your daughter who badly needs your help. ’
‘Stop, please, I can’t. You don’t understand –’
‘Well, help me, then. We can all go to therapy together as a family. If you don’t, we are finished. I can’t believe you won’t help your daughter –’
‘Help me with what?’ We spun around and Lucy was standing in the doorway of our kitchen.
‘Lucy, come and sit at the table.’ Jack sat and held a chair out for her and then one for me.
‘Please, Jack, don’t do this.’ I started to cry.
‘Your mother has something to tell you,’ he said.