Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Having to look after the home and Daisy when she was born became too much.
I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, if I was honest. I had never felt so exhausted.
It was as if a heavy weight was pressing on me, making me ache, sleep longer and generally be unaware of my surroundings.
Some days I struggled to get out of bed at all.
Because of how I was feeling, I slipped into a depression and Richard didn’t like that.
He would chide me about being unable to function properly, annoyed that he’d had to care for Daisy.
He’d take her to his studio a lot of the time while I slept.
I know it wasn’t ideal, but I was unable to do anything about it.
My head felt so woolly at times with the tablets prescribed by the doctor that I couldn’t even protest. If I had anyone close to talk to, I would have told them I was a failure.
Richard told me that too, constantly. That I was no good at anything.
Sometimes I would look at Daisy and fear for her life. It was good that Richard was there to look after us both or else I don’t know what would have happened.
Two months later, I still felt like a walking zombie, unable to shake off the brain fuzz and the feeling of impending doom. In the end, he agreed to take me to see the doctor.
I was nervous when I sat in the surgery. Richard was holding Daisy, looking very much the doting dad to whoever smiled at him. He had the illusion down to a tee.
‘Mrs Sykes-Morgan.’
I stood up to go into the consultation room. Richard followed suit and I looked at him in desperation.
‘I’ll be fine on my own,’ I said.
‘Nonsense. I’m coming with you.’ He picked up Daisy’s carry-all and flipped it over his shoulder. ‘Get a move on.’
Doctor Alliott was in his mid-forties, slim, with a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ he asked me, a smile on a round face.
He hadn’t known me long and I tried to explain as best I could how I was feeling exhausted, suffering headaches and nausea constantly.
But Richard began to talk over me.
‘She’s been a little bit down in the dumps, doctor, that’s all.’
‘How long have you been feeling this way?’ Doctor Alliott spoke directly to me.
‘Far too long,’ Richard replied. ‘Daisy is eight months old now.’
Doctor Alliott stared at me for a little longer than necessary. I think he wanted to make me understand that he could see right through Richard.
‘Are all these questions necessary?’ Richard went on.
‘Do you think you could wait outside for a moment while I talk to your wife, please?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Richard looked at Doctor Alliott but, after a moment, he backed down and left in a huff.
‘Are you okay?’ Doctor Alliott asked me. ‘I can give you medication for your condition. It seems from your symptoms that you have postnatal depression. Unless there is anything else you’d like to add?’
I shook my head quickly. If Richard was listening outside the door, I’d be in for it later.
Doctor Alliott waited a moment for me to speak, but when he realised I wasn’t going to say anything, he gave me a faint smile and wrote out a prescription.
‘Take one of these every day and come back to see me in a month. I can judge your progress then and decide whether to up the dosage or lower it. I hope you get on okay. And any time you need to talk, just make an appointment. Yes?’
I nodded and got to my feet.
Outside Richard was sitting in the waiting area. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
I nodded and took Daisy from him. It had been such a relief to talk to someone else about what was going on, even if Richard had been there for the most part, putting words into my mouth.
Doctor Alliott told me I wasn’t a failure, that the birth of Daisy had affected me and that I would bounce back with the tablets he’d prescribed.
But I didn’t.
I became much worse. I hadn’t realised at the time how much of a shadow of myself I had become. Richard was so clever about undermining me. At first I had no idea he was doing it, and then, when I realised, he’d make me doubt myself. He ground me down until I didn’t know what to believe.
Why hadn’t I realised how manipulative he was?