‘Everyone’s incontinent!’ Mrs EverDry declares. She looks at Alastair, and her tone softens. ‘Well, maybe not you. You’re perfect.’
‘I have more things wrong with me than you could ever imagine.’ Alastair thinks he’s being charming but I agree with him.
Mrs EverDry studies Tim. ‘I’d say you aren’t incontinent either.’
‘I’m too young,’ Tim says.
‘And too uptight.’
We all snort with unexpected laughter. Mrs EverDry is our most important client, but you couldn’t help liking her.
Now she turns her gaze on me. ‘I couldn’t claim incontinence,’ I say apologetically, ‘but my bladder certainly isn’t what it was.’
‘Maybe not everyone’s incontinent yet,’ Mrs EverDry concedes. ‘But soon they will be. Because we’re all living too long.’
Which is exactly the point that Hugh had been trying to make when he broke his terrible news to me. The tiny pilot light of hope that Maura’s visit had lit is abruptly extinguished and, once again, I’m sad and scared.
3
I’d been well aware that Hugh was suffering – his dad had died, it was only to be expected, and as his mum had been dead for eight years he was now officially an orphan.
None of my family of origin had died yet, but I’d absorbed enough from our Dr Phil culture to know that bereavement affects everyone differently and all I could do for Hugh was be there for him. But although I urged him to cry, he didn’t shed a tear. And, though permission was tacitly granted for a spell of excessive drinking, he stuck to his usual few bottles of ludicrously named craft beer. I even offered to accompany him snowboarding, in spite of being worried about the state of me in the padded clothing, but he had no interest.
I tried to keep his life as stress-free as possible – which mostly involved defusing tension between him and Neeve – and I’d often ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’
But talking was the last thing he wanted to do.
Not much riding either, since we’re on the subject. And maybe we weren’t, but it has to be said. In fact, in the aftermath of his dad’s death, very little of his time was spent in bed. He stayed up late, binge-watching crime things, and was always awake before me in the mornings.
Then one Thursday, maybe four or five months after the funeral, I’d bumped awake around six a.m. Hugh wasn’t in bed with me and his spot was cold. Although his car was still outside, he was nowhere in the house. Extremely uneasy, I rang him, and when he didn’t pick up, my imagination went to the darkest places. We hear so much about men and suicide, how it happens – seemingly – without warning.
Hugh didn’t do anguish. As a rule, he was very steady and, paradoxically, it was this very steadiness that had me convinced he was in the danger zone – too much of a stoic, bottling stuff up. In a panic, I threw on some clothes and drove around Dundrum, searching for him in the March dawn.
Marley Park seemed like the obvious choice – all those trees – but no one was there so I circled the residential streets in our neighbourhood for probably an hour, a very long one, until my phone rang. It was him. I’d worked myself up into such a state that I could hardly believe his voice. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘Where are you?’
‘At home.’
‘Stay there.’
He claimed he’d gone for a walk. I believed him, but it was deeply unsettling. Running, even middle-of-the-night running, is fairly normal, right? Walking, though, seemed a bit weird.
‘I was worried about you,’ I said. ‘I thought you might have –’
‘No. I’d never do that.’
‘But I don’t know what’s going on with you.’
‘Yeah.’ He’d sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with me either.’
‘Sweetie,’ I’d said. ‘I think it’s time you saw someone about anti-depressants.’
After a long silence he’d said, ‘Okay.’
Then I was really freaked out. Hugh would do anything to avoid going to the doctor – if his leg fell off he’d dismiss it as a mere flesh wound even as he hopped in place to stop himself toppling over.
But he went and he got a prescription for Seroxat. (Which I knew were ‘entry-level’ SSRIs – as a middle-class, middle-aged woman, my life was filled with people who had either been on anti-depressants or knew someone who had.)
Even though he took the tablets, Hugh continued to disappear regularly in the middle of the night, and when I told my sister Derry, she said, ‘You don’t think he’s, you know, dropping in on some unaccompanied lady?’
Of course the thought had crossed my mind, but instinct told me that whatever internal tussle was taking place in Hugh, it wasn’t about extra-curricular riding.
So I sat him down for another chat and suggested he see a grief counsellor.
‘What would that achieve?’ he asked, his eyes dead.
That stumped me. I knew nothing about the ins and outs of counselling sessions. But … ‘Lots of people who’ve been bereaved find them helpful.’
‘How much would it cost?’
‘I could find out.’
‘How many times would I have to go?’
‘I think it varies.’
‘You think it might help me?’
‘Well, it helps other people. Why should you be any different?’
‘Okay.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘Maybe I’d better.’ Then, ‘I can’t go on like this.’
That terrified me. ‘Sweetie, what do you mean?’
‘Just … I can’t go on like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Everything seems pointless.’
‘Tell me. Please.’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing to tell. Just everything seems pointless.’
I knew better than to say that things weren’t pointless. But to witness his pain and be unable to reach him was maddeningly frustrating. We, who’d been so, so close, were light years from each other.
Alastair was my go-to person for all matters related to emotional growth. He gave me the name of a psychotherapist who specialized in bereavement. ‘She’s spendy,’ he warned me.
But I didn’t care. Any money was worth it if it coaxed Hugh from his silent, flat-eyed misery.
After the first session I asked Hugh, ‘How did it go?’
His face expressionless, he said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you go again?’
‘Yeah. Next week. She says I have to commit to ten weeks.’
‘Okay. Good. Great, Hugh. Well done.’
He stared at me, as if he didn’t know who I was.
So, for several Thursdays in a row, Hugh went to the counsellor. I tried not to quiz him about it, but always managed a breezy, ‘How’d it go?’
Usually he shrugged and made noncommittal noises, but towards the end of the course, he said, his tone without inflection, ‘I don’t think it’s working.’
My spirits plummeted, but I forced cheer into my voice and said, ‘Give it time.’
What kept me positive was the hope that once we’d got past the first anniversary of his father’s death things might ease up for him.
Then the most horrific thing happened: Hugh’s friend died, a man he’d known since he was five years old. The nature of the death was particularly dreadful: Gavin had been stung by a wasp and gone into anaphylactic shock. No one had known he was allergic to wasp stings – the entire thing was a bolt from the blue.
I was sorry for Gavin’s wife, for his children, for his parents and sibling – but, to my shame, I was more concerned about Hugh. This was bound to impact on him profoundly. Any healing he might have done in the months since his dad had died would surely be negated.
And so it proved. Instantly Hugh abandoned his counselling sessions and left the room whenever I brought up the subject. He began skipping work and spent hour upon hour watching Netflix. He stopped seeing his friends, opted out of all family events and barely spoke.
In July, he, the girls and I went on holiday to Sardinia, me desperate with hope that the sunshine might effect some healing. But all he did was sit in silence and watch the sea with a six-mile stare, while the rest of us tiptoed anxiously around him.