Annie was going to be a big girl with one of the other girl’s daughters, Ruby, and it was all planned.
But Annie didn’t like the food. Or the restaurant. Or the people. Even though the last time Jason and I had taken her, on our way to buy her clothes in Selfridges as a treat, she had loved it. This time, she literally threw herself down on the floor and screamed at the top of her lungs. My friends pretended it was fine, that they had all been there, but I knew they hadn’t, and from the disapproving looks all around me, the tut-tutting and shaking of heads, I felt awash with the kind of shame I thought I had left behind a long time ago.
Annie didn’t calm down, and didn’t calm down on the bus home, and when I phoned Jason, in tears, he said I knew he’d be late home because he had some important meeting, and he was really sorry, but that maybe I should just put her to bed.
Well, I tried that, but she pounded on the door, screaming and screaming, and by the time she eventually went to sleep, I was at the end of my tether.
I went into the kitchen—we had a little house in West Hampstead by that time, the most beautiful little carriage house that had a big conservatory on the back which doubled as a sunny kitchen, and I sat in that sunny kitchen sipping my tea, as an image of a glass of wine crept into my head and I could not get it out.
I could taste it. I could feel it slipping down my throat, feel the sweet relief, the tension of the day slipping away. I tried everything to get that thought out of my head, but it was all I could think about.
When I say tried everything, I will confess I didn’t actually do the things you are supposed to do when you are a recovering alcoholic and the alcohol is calling you: I didn’t make a program call, or call my sponsor. I didn’t pick up the Big Book or a daily reader and let it open naturally, knowing it would inevitably fall open at the one story that would help me not drink. I didn’t do any one of the myriad things they tell you to do when you are a recovering alcoholic, and part of the reason why is that sitting at that kitchen table, able to smell and taste and feel the wine, I decided I was not a recovering alcoholic.
I decided that it was so long ago, my out-of-control drinking was entirely due to my unhappiness and my being single. And my God, it wasn’t like we weren’t all doing much the same thing. Of course I was drinking to excess, and of course I did unimaginably terrible things when drunk. Doesn’t everyone?
But look at me now! There I was, in my late thirties, happy, settled, with a wonderful husband and wonderful family. Everyone I knew drank, and no one I knew drank to excess. My friends would laughingly call it the witching hour, that time of day when looking after an unruly child, or unruly children, is all a bit much for us and a glass or two of wine is the perfect antidote to the stress of carrying all of this life, all this responsibility, on our shoulders.
How insane, I remember thinking, at that kitchen table, that I too should not be able to do that. How absurd that I have spent all these years thinking that I am somehow different, that I cannot do what all my friends do and have a glass of wine, or perhaps two, during the witching hour. And God knows, today of all days, I deserve a glass of wine.
I won’t have much, I remember thinking. In fact, I won’t even have two. I’ll just have one, because it’s been a hell of a day, and because I can, and because after all these years, I absolutely know that it won’t be a problem, that I am exactly the same as everybody else.
Seventeen
Jason came home that night, late, after his very important meeting, to find me passed out on the kitchen floor, empty bottles of wine, and yes, not bottle but bottles, on their sides beside me.
I would like to tell you I was so horrified by my behavior that I climbed straight back on the wagon the very next day, but that phrase