Chapter 12 #3
‘Look,’ Wendy says. ‘What you said to me… about the drinking… I’m sorry I reacted badly. No one ever said that to me, before. I mean, really, never. And then, well, some other people have, since. So I’ve had to think about it and that’s been… challenging. I’m a bit shocked.’
‘Your daughter, she says something?’
‘Yes. Amongst others. So I was thinking… would you… Could you…? I mean, if it’s not too hard for you. Could you tell me some more about your mother? I’ve never really thought about this much before. Not properly. Not seriously.’
‘Sure,’ Manon says. ‘But what is it you are wanting to hear?’
‘I don’t know,’ Wendy says. ‘I’m just trying to understand, really. Because I probably have been drinking too much. That’s true, I think. I didn’t want to… you know… acknowledge that. But it’s probably true. And I’m not sure how much is… well… too much, really. You know?’
‘I think when it is not funny,’ Manon says. ‘If you drink and it’s not funny, then it’s too much…’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Yes, I see. I was thinking the same thing this morning.’
‘My mother, for years, it is funny,’ Manon says. ‘Maybe a bit too much, but not crazy. And then she drinks more. Aperitif. Aperitif early, in the morning.’
‘Yes, I’ve been doing that, too,’ Wendy says. ‘Pushing apéro time forward to eleven.’
‘Then drinking on her own. Secret drinking. She is hiding bottles in the bedroom, the bathroom, the car. They fight. Proper fights, like this…’ Here Manon mimes boxing. ‘And then it is too much so Papa, he leaves.’
‘Why didn’t he take you with him?’
‘Oh, he lives in very small place. And he works late every day. Sometimes weekends we go to the house of Mami. This is grandmama, yes?’
‘Just grandma,’ Wendy says. ‘And even then, your mother didn’t stop?’
‘She tries, you know, but she never gets help. I’m not sure there is help then for this. But anyway it’s hard to stop. You can die, you know?’
‘From drinking? Yes, of course you can.’
‘Of course. But also from no alcohol.’
‘Oh, you mean from withdrawal?’
‘Yes. If you drink like my mother, and you stop… Sometimes your body cannot…’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Yes, we studied that in college. It’s the DTs.’
‘So, every time she has to start again because she thinks that she will die. She drinks vodka because she thinks nobody can smell this. But it’s not true.
You can smell it on the skin. And everyone can see she is drunk.
So she loses her job. And then she is home, and this is even more bad. We are dirty. House is dirty.’
Wendy looks around guiltily, and is relieved to remember that she cleaned. So she’s not the same as Manon’s mother. Not yet.
‘I’m so sorry, Manon. That must have been really awful for you,’ she says. ‘I can’t imagine. And how old did you say you were?’
‘Nine. I am nine when we come home and she is dead.’
‘That’s horrific.’
‘Yes. The worse. My brother he finds her and puts a couverture over her so I don’t see. We call Papa and he comes. Ambulance. Neighbour. Policeman… I don’t remember so much. But after this we live with Mamie.’
‘God, Manon. And – I know this must be so difficult… but – it was drink? Just drink, I mean?’
‘Yes, but also some Lexomil. This is a médicament to calm her when she stops drinking but it’s not so good with the vodka, so…’
‘That must have been so traumatic for you both.’
‘Traumatique ? Oui. For my brother more, I think. Because he finds her. This is why he drinks, maybe. The trauma?’
‘Trauma. It’s the same word.’
‘So yes, the trauma of seeing her like that. The trauma, it is given like the bad gift, from the mother to the son. You understand?’
‘Yes, from generation to generation.’
‘Exactly this. And then, me, too.’ Manon sighs deeply and glances out of the window before continuing.
‘I start drinking. I don’t think I am ever telling you this.
When I am maybe fifteen I drink too? Because I feel so…
guilty? But I can stop. I see my brother. And I think of Maman. And so, I stop.’
‘You felt guilty?’ Wendy says. ‘How could you feel guilty?’
‘Because I think… I think…’ Manon says. Tears have started to slip down her cheeks. Wendy moves closer so that she can take Manon’s hand in hers.
‘I just… I know this is not true,’ Manon says. ‘But I think if we come home more early then she’s OK. Just five, maybe ten minutes… I miss her so much.’ The emotion suddenly too much for her, she wrenches her hand from Wendy’s grasp and dashes into the bathroom.
‘It’s not your fault, you know?’ Wendy says, when eventually Manon returns. ‘You know, none of this is your fault.’
‘No,’ Manon says, still standing, visibly angling to leave. ‘I know. I see a… you know a doctor? For the…?’ She points at her head to make her meaning clear.
‘A shrink?’ Wendy suggests. ‘A counsellor?’
‘Yes, this. So I talk about it. But Bruno, my brother, he does not. He will not talk about this. He cannot talk about it. So…’
‘So you think that’s why he drinks?’
‘Yes,’ Manon says. ‘Yes, I think this is why. Or maybe it is génétique, too.’
‘I’m so sorry that happened to you.’
‘It’s OK,’ Manon says, then, ‘Well, is not OK. But we live with this. Because we must.’
‘Well, thank you for telling me.’
‘We are friends…’
‘Do you think… just… tell me to stop if this is too much. But do you think there’s a reason your mother started drinking in the first place?’
Manon nods sharply. ‘Yes. It is her father.’
‘Her father?’
‘He is not a good person.’
‘A drinker, too?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. But no, he does worse thing.’
‘You mean drugs?’
‘Oh, no,’ Manon says. ‘No, this I do not know. But he is bad to my mother. Very bad. Worse kind of bad. But this I cannot… I’m sorry, look…’ Here she holds her hand out so that Wendy can see it trembling. ‘This is too much now. I must go.’
‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…’
‘It’s OK,’ Manon says. ‘And you will be OK?’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Of course.’
‘You will not…?’ Here she raises one hand and makes that French ‘drunk’ gesture around her nose. ‘Not too much, I hope?’
‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘No, I promise. There’s nothing to drink here anyway.’
‘Good,’ Manon says. ‘This is good.’
Once Manon has left, Wendy makes coffee and smokes a cigarette, followed by another cigarette, then a third which she lights from the second.
She wishes she’d bought more cigarettes while she had the car because if she carries on like this she’ll be running out within days.
She needs to stop chain-smoking and do something.
She’s nervous, she realises. She’s nervous about facing this day without a drink, which is as absurd as it is true.
She decides to walk up to the radar. It’s the only thing she can think of to kill the next few hours and at least it will be better for her lungs than sitting here chain-smoking.
She imagines stopping off at the bakery on her way home for a bottle of wine, and has to forcibly change the narrative.
No, she has food – she can avoid the bakery for now.
She makes herself a packed lunch, fills a bottle with water, and even though her head is still throbbing, she heads out.
The day is delightful, the sky a gentle baby blue dotted with wispy veil-like clouds. The sunlight hurts her eyes, and she’s thankful for her dark sunglasses. The temperature is in the high teens and it feels like a beautiful late spring morning back home.
She asks herself what she means by ‘home’ these days. Does she mean England, or Maidstone, or that house she bought with Harry, the one they decorated and furnished together? She really isn’t sure.
Half an hour later she reaches the base of the walking trail. There are seven cars parked there this morning. It’s perfect hiking weather, after all.
Just as she starts the climb, she receives an incoming call from Jill which she ignores, switching her phone to silent. Just as a shop selling wine is the last place she needs to visit, Jill would be the worst person on the planet for her to speak to today.
But even though she knows this, and even though she has refused the call and slipped her phone into her pocket, she hears Jill’s voice banging around her head, as well defined and Jill-like as if she’d chosen, instead, to answer.
‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ the voice says, ‘you’re not an alcoholic!’ And, ‘If you’re an alcoholic, then everyone’s an alcoholic!’ And, ‘God, please don’t become one of those people! Please don’t become a bore!’
Wendy would certainly be bored if she stopped drinking. And she’d probably be fairly boring, as well. Is that really what she wants?
She catches herself using the conditional tense in her head. She would be bored if she stopped. Honestly, she thinks. Ten seconds of imaginary conversation with Jill and I’m already beginning to backslide.
So, no, she will stop drinking – well, as long as she can humanly do so without dying.
Seeing her son get married depends on it.
And she’ll stop for… For how long? Until the wedding?
But that’s months! Just long enough to prove to herself that she can, then.
But how long would that be? A month? A week?
Christ, even the idea of a week without a drink sounds like hell.
She crosses paths with two early-bird hikers coming back the other way. They are young (maybe thirties?), blond, fit and beautiful.
When Wendy was their age she’d believed that if you did enough exercise you could prevent ageing altogether.
She really had thought that creaky, cranky old people got that way because they hadn’t put in enough effort.
But no matter what you do the aches and pains come, and no matter what creams you slap on, the wrinkles and sunspots appear.