Putting Alice Back Together (8 page)

It was so positive. All I had to do was write lists (well, there was a bit more to it than that, but I went straight to
the good stuff) and tell the universe what I wanted in a partner.

And not some vague wants either, a specific order.

So I did.

I did everything Yasmin told me.

Well, except the clearing-out stuff part, but Nicole had had a big tidy before she left. And I didn’t bother with the cleansing shower to get rid of past loves, and visualising and snipping the threads that bound and letting them go and all that mumbo-jumbo crap.

Be sure that you are ready, Yasmin warned, and that you’ve done your preparation.

Oh, I was ready.

I
loved
this book—I toddled off to the kitchen and made another jug and got some scissors so I could cut out the pyramid that came with it.

If I had ink in the printer.

I did.

It was all aligning that night.

I had to write what I wanted—I could be as specific as I liked and for a second there my mind did flick to Dan, though Yasmin had warned me not to manipulate—and really, even if I could turn Dan straight, would I want to? I mean, you’d never relax, would you? Anyway, Yasmin said it was better to trust the universe, that the right guy would always come back if he was the one.

I had to print out the pyramid again because when I was cutting it out I chopped off the end.

God, I was pissed.

And, yes, I trusted the universe and everything, but not completely.

I wanted blond or raven, not someone with my
affliction. I mean, I had to think of our children and, anyway, people might think we were brother and sister when we went out. So I knew it couldn’t be Hugh. Nicole’s cousin held no charm for me, but perhaps he was a means to an end. One look at me, and Hugh’s eyes would widen. ‘There’s the type of girl to take to the neurosurgeons’ Christmas party. That’s the type of girl who would look marvellous at the Kids with Cancer Christmas fundraising ball.’

Well, maybe not Kids with Cancer, just underprivileged or burn victims or something and I’d be there, radiant and smiling all ready to meet the love of my life.

I added a few little extra requests, and then I wrote MR.

It stood for Mr and Massive Ring.

Clever, huh? No one, if they found my list, would work that out.

I followed the instructions as best as I could, but I didn’t have a compass, so I guessed as to the south-west corner of the flat. And then, given I was sorting out my love life, I decided I might as well go the whole hog so I went back to the computer and read again the application procedures and the qualifications required to be a music teacher. I even filled in some forms to ask for them to send me some forms. It was all so daunting—the more I looked, the more overwhelming it seemed. Impossible, actually.

I had barely scraped through my exams at school. Even if by some miracle I was accepted, how could I give up my job? I was in debt to the eyeballs as it was.

I thought of the pile of unopened envelopes stuffed in my drawers and under my mattress, the credit-card
statements that were too scary to open—let alone think about—so I didn’t.

While my credit card was behaving I bought an online tarot reading and then poured another margarita instead.

Ten

I woke at two.

Just shot awake, wondering what had woken me, my heart racing and trying to catch my breath, sure that I must have had a nightmare—except I still couldn’t breathe.

I was soaked in sweat, and I dragged myself into the bathroom, gulped icy water from the tap—it didn’t help. I had to concentrate on breathing. It wasn’t happening. Every breath was an effort and I couldn’t seem to get enough in.

I rang Roz—I knew she was on a date, but surely she’d be home by now. I didn’t even care at that point.

‘Roz…’ I could barely get the word out as her voice came on the phone. ‘I can’t…’

‘It’s okay…’ I could hear she was groggy and asleep but just the sound of her voice calmed me. At least someone knew, I mean, if I collapsed this second Roz would send for help. ‘I’m on my way.’

She didn’t even dress—mind you, Roz’s sleepwear is pretty much the same as her day wear: tracksuit bottoms
and a vast T-shirt, except, horror of horrors, she wasn’t wearing a bra.

All this I noticed as she bundled me into her little car. My breathing was a bit better. Since I had known help was on the way, it had improved a fraction. And as we drove to the hospital I managed to get my breathing into some sort of a rhythm right till we got to the doors. Security was waving her on.

‘You can’t park here, love.’

‘She can’t breathe!’ Roz said.

‘Then she’s in the right place, but patient drop-off is down there.’

Roz was muttering and swearing and then I saw my hands do this strange thing: they were tingling but it was like my hands were spastic, my fingers all curling up, and I couldn’t straighten them.

‘She’s going unconscious…’ I could hear Roz panicking, but the security didn’t panic, he rolled his eyes and got a nurse, who helped me out of the car. She didn’t seem to be particularly worried either.

They took me straight into the triage room; the nurse put a little probe on my finger and told me to calm down.

‘I can’t breathe…’

‘Your oxygen saturation is ninety-nine per cent’ There was a bored note to her voice which infuriated me as she wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around my arm. Did she have any idea how hard it was to get it to that? Breathing should be natural, you shouldn’t have to think about it, but I did. I had to pull in air and hold it in, and it still didn’t go deep enough. My hands were doing strange things, and she was giving me a bloody paper bag and telling me to breathe in and out slowly.

‘You’re having a panic attack.’

‘No!’ I pushed the bag away.

‘How much have you had to drink tonight, Alice?’

What did that have to do with anything? ‘I’m allergic…’

‘To what?’

‘Hazelnuts.’

‘Okay…’ the nurse said, ‘you can wait in the waiting room. Just keep breathing into your paper bag.’

‘I can’t.’ I couldn’t. I could not face going out there, but the fucking nurse wouldn’t budge. ‘Your girlfriend can let us know if you get worse.’

Now, a quick explanation here. In Australia, and it took me a while to get used to this, but a friend who’s a girl is called your girlfriend. I’ve been back to London and it’s used more that way there too now, but there was something about the way she said
girlfriend
that had me frown. I looked over at Roz, who was blushing bright red and then she led me out.

‘She thinks we’re…’

‘I know,’ Roz mumbled, blushing to her roots. ‘Just breathe into the bag.’

It wasn’t helping. My lips were tingling, there was just so much noise, so much going on, I couldn’t stand it. I stood up and paced. I honestly didn’t feel safer in the hospital. I actually thought I might
die
here, and then they’d be bloody sorry. Panic attack indeed!

I was up at the big plastic shield that separated the staff from the waiting room now, and the nurse was refusing to look over. I could see stars and spots and I was like a cartoon character then, pressed to the glass. I thought I was dying and Roz was calling for help. Finally
they realised that I wasn’t putting it on, that their stupid paper bag wasn’t going to work, because a buzzer went and a nurse came with a wheelchair and I was sped through.

Okay, not sped, and I didn’t end up in Resus with George Clooney saying, ‘On my count…’

Instead I was given a gown and told to get undressed and put it on, and Roz helped. I couldn’t have done it on my own. My lips were completely numb now. Then this twelve-year-old that was dressed up as a male nurse asked me to explain what had happened.

I wheezed away as he put an IV into the back of my hand, which hurt, I might add, as Roz did the talking for me.

‘We were in with the same last week. She’s got a nut allergy…’ And finally I got a response, because the twelve-year-old looked worried. He checked my blood pressure then dashed off to get a doctor as Roz wrapped her arms around me and told me I was going to be fine.

‘Just keep breathing into the bag, Alice.’

‘It’s not helping.’

Well, my ten seconds of concern lasted till the arrival of the emergency registrar, which coincided with the arrival of my old notes. He listened to my chest and confirmed the triage nurse’s diagnosis.

‘She’s having an anxiety attack.’

‘No…’ I shook my head. I was crying, and not able to breathe. ‘I woke up and my lips were swollen and tingling…’ Well, they hadn’t been then but that was what they had asked me last time. The emergency doctor sort of hummed and haaed for a minute before he wrote me
up for 10 mg of diazepam and some oral steroids. ‘In case a mild allergic reaction triggered the anxiety attack.’

Bastard.

Still, I didn’t argue, I didn’t have the breath. And in a moment the twelve-year-old had returned with a little plastic cup with six pills. The white ones, he explained, were prednisolone and I would have to take a reducing dose for the next few days. The blue one was Valium.

I took the blue one first.

It took about twenty minutes—actually, maybe a bit less. Roz was so kind and reassuring, and the bright lights and all the equipment were starting to reassure me too, and when twelve-year-old took my pulse and said it was slowing down, I forgot about my breathing for a moment. I lay back and it was such a relief to not have to remember to breathe. Of course, as soon as I remembered, my breathing got harder and I had to remind myself to do it, but gradually it was just happening, even when I thought about it.

I lay there thinking about hypnosis tapes as Roz held my hand.

I’d bought loads, I had the lot, but I hated that they all, at some point, told you to concentrate on your breathing and the natural rise and fall of your chest, or the effortlessness of breathing. As soon as they said that, I swear, it didn’t happen naturally. If I could find a shagging self-hypnosis tape that didn’t tell you to concentrate on your breathing, I would have given up fags and booze and kept all my new year’s resolutions years ago.

‘Better?’

The doctor roused me from my slumber. Roz had just gone to the loo, he explained, and he wanted to have a
word with me. Now that I wasn’t dying I noticed that he was actually nice looking, in a sort of Hugh Laurie
House
-type way. Well, actually he was ugly, really, but he was a doctor and sort of crabby, and that reminded me, I had one coming to stay in the morning. I toyed with telling him, maybe it would give me reciprocal rights or something, maybe then he’d believe me.

‘Much!’ I said, but then I remembered twelve-year-old saying that the steroids might take a while to kick in. ‘Well, still a bit itchy,’ I said, scratching at my ribcage.

‘Itchy?’ He sort of hauled me up and checked my back then laid me flat on my back and looked at my stomach and then my legs, and then he scratched the inside of my arms with the end of his knee-jerker thingy and I willed just a little welt to appear.

It didn’t.

Had I brought my handbag I could have whipped on some lip plumper made of cayenne pepper and he’d have believed me, but my bag was sitting at home. I looked towards the curtains he had pulled and willed Roz to appear. She’d put him right, but he must have read my mind.

‘I’ve asked your friend to wait outside so that I can talk to you. How much have you had to drink, Alice?’

‘A friend came over,’ I said. ‘He made margaritas, I’ve never had them before, maybe I’m allergic…’

‘You had a full-blown anxiety attack.’

‘I didn’t,’ I insisted. ‘I was asleep… though I did eat some leftover Chinese; I think I saw a cashew…’

‘Alice, you might convince Brent, but you won’t convince me—that was a full-blown anxiety attack. The tingling, the numbness, the hand spasticity were because
your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels were out of balance—that’s why we got you to breathe into a paper bag.’

‘I wasn’t anxious,’ I insisted. ‘I was asleep.’

‘Is there anything on your mind?’ I remember feeling sort of vaguely touched. The place was steaming, there were
really
sick people, I could see the trolley wheels and feet whizzing past beneath the curtain, hear the shouts for help, and House was being nice to me. But there wasn’t anything on my mind—okay, I had more than fifty grand in credit-card debts, but he was hardly going to write a cheque. Still, I did concede a touch.

‘I’ve got a few money problems.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m getting on top of it.’

‘Good,’ House said. ‘Anything else?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘You tell me.’

He smiled at me and he actually wasn’t so ugly, he was really quite nice looking—with a bit of luck he was thinking of breaking his ethical code.

I gave what I hoped was a sort of brave smile.

‘Nothing…’ I racked my mind for something that would make me sound stoic and brave, but there really was nothing.

‘Anxiety doesn’t just go away, Alice. A lot of people have money problems, but they’re not in emergency at four a.m. with an anxiety attack. You need to talk to someone.’

‘And I will,’ I lied.

‘Good,’ he clipped. ‘Right, Brent will dispense your script—I’ve given you a reducing dose of steroids. It’s important that now you’ve started you take the
course—you have to finish them, Alice,’ he reiterated, ‘and I’ll write you up for twenty diazepam tablets, one or two a day as required… You need to go and talk to your GP and give him this letter, I’ve suggested that you see a psychologist.’

Well, he could suggest what he liked. There was no way I was going back to Lisa—except I wasn’t really listening to him now.

Twenty
diazepam.

If you counted tonight, that was three weeks’ worth.

I
would
give up drinking. Take tonight. Had I been able to relax, to switch off, I wouldn’t have had so much to drink. But now I had three weeks’ supply. I would go on a diet too—absolutely no carbs. No, better than that, I would do the lemon detox diet. I would start it this very morning. I would buy nicotine patches, and cleanse my body and exfoliate every night, and in three weeks’ time I’d be glowing and calm and radiant.