What Goes Around

chapter TWENTY FOUR

Gloria

‘She’s doing well.’

It annoys me that the nurse just hands Daisy back to me and starts to fill in the book. Yes, Daisy’s doing well but what about her mum?

What about me?

I think I’ve been too nice about it, I think I’ve said that I’m coping too well. I’m starting to find out that a lot of people are going through this. A few women at work, I’ve realised, are raising their grandkids. I just didn’t know and I never thought it might happen to me - that Eleanor would, if I let her, happily sign off on her child.

As I head out to the car with Daisy, I want to turn around and go back in. I want to tell the nurse that no, things are not okay.

She’s six weeks old and her mother is having nothing to do with her.

I’m sick of softly, softly.

I’m sick of my beaming smile when Eleanor deigns to give her daughter a bottle.

And I’m furious that Noel was round there the other day.

Laura told me.

He’s been round a few times.

It’s been churning inside me since I found out.

I’m sick of slowly, slowly because I’ve a feeling that this might take, oh, around sixteen years.

I’m not joking.

They’ll slot back into their perfect lives and just ignore their problem.

‘I’m going out tonight.’

I ring her while I’m still angry.

I sit in the car park and I call her.

‘Oh?’

‘So, do you want me to bring Daisy over?’

There’s silence, a long one and then she starts to cry. ‘Mum, please.’

‘Or, you can come over to mine and look after her.’

‘I’m not ready.’

‘Well guess what,’ I shout. ‘I’m not ready either. And,’ I am, I bloody well am, ‘I am going out tonight.’

I regret shouting when I hang up.

I know that I’m making a mess of things; I know that I’m being too harsh. I drive towards home and pass a take-away. I think about stopping there and getting lunch.

‘Do you really want that piece of chicken, Gloria?’ That’s what Beryl tells us to stop and do. Yes, I really want that piece of chicken. Some lovely deep-fried chicken and they do mashed potato and gravy too. I’m sick of my diet, it’s not working, I didn’t even lose a pound last week. I don’t want to go and get weighed tonight; I know I’ll have put on.

So I might as well have enjoyed putting on.

I park in the car park and I go to unclip Daisy, except she’s asleep.

She’s sound asleep and she doesn’t deserve to be disturbed.

I could leave her for two minutes, surely?

But it’s hot for May and I can’t.

I blink as it passes.

It just stops.

The urge just goes back from wherever it came.

I’ve never felt it leave before really – I mean a severe one.

I’ve always fed it.

So, instead of coming to in the front seat, face and hands greasy from chicken, with empty containers surrounding me that I need to hide in the bin, instead of hating myself further, I’m coming to in the back seat and feeling stronger.

I gaze at a sleeping Daisy.

Then I ring Paul.

He’s at work, but he can talk.

I tell him what I’ve done, what I said to Eleanor, how it’s not fair on us, that we never get a chance to go out.

‘There will be time for all that later,’ he tells me. ‘Right now, you need to sort out Eleanor.’ He tells me what I know I need to do, what I was probably coming around to myself but it sort of speeds up the process when you’ve got someone you can talk to.

It feels nice that, for the first time, I do speak to another person about what’s on my mind.

I can’t tell him everything.

Paul goes a bit funny when I mention him.

I’ve tried to explain that I don’t usually talk or think about him this much – it’s just what with him being dead and now that bloody Lucy is stalling on the kids’ payout…

Well, we don’t do very well when we talk about that but we’re doing very well talking about this.

‘Go with Eleanor to see the GP,’ Paul says.

‘She won’t go.’

‘She might now,’ Paul pushes. ‘Go round there now.’

It’s almost as if Eleanor is waiting for me. She opens the door and she just sobs in my arms. Daisy just lies asleep in her car seat on the floor beside her. I don’t cry, I’m still feeling strong.

I was strong with the GP’s receptionist too when I rang.

I told them I was picking up my daughter and we were on our way and we were not to be kept waiting for long.

The receptionist told me that I didn’t have an appointment and that she couldn’t fit me in till Thursday.

I said I was on my way.

She said there would be a long wait.

Do you know what I said?

‘Added up, I have probably spent six months of my life politely waiting for Doctor Carmody to see me. I’ve never complained and I’ve never made a fuss, so tell him, between patients, that Gloria Jameson is on her way with her daughter and, if anything, I expect Doctor Carmody to be waiting for me!’

I still can’t believe that I said that, but honestly I did.

I pile Eleanor in a car that is free of chicken takeaway boxes and I clip Daisy in the back. The snooty receptionist is pissed off when we walk in but, instead of being told to take a seat, we are taken straight through to the treatment room!

‘Gloria!’ Dr Carmody comes in about ten minutes later. He’s a lovely man. He’s been my doctor since before Eleanor was born. He’s seen me at my worst – far worse than Eleanor is now, let me tell you, and he knows I don’t like to make a fuss.

He talks to Eleanor, who says little at first - just that she can’t stand to be near the baby. That she can’t stand how she can’t stand to be near the baby.

That she wishes it had never happened, how she wants it all to go away.

‘Do you want the baby to go away?’ Dr Carmody asks her.

I don’t start crying or sobbing when she nods, nor when she voices her thoughts.

Better out than in, I tell myself.

They’re no worse than the thoughts I once had.

I just look at Daisy who’s still sleeping and Eleanor starts begging me not to go out tonight.

‘I’m not going to leave you with Daisy.’ I tell her.

I’m not.

For all that everyone moans about the NHS, if you get a GP like Dr Carmody, you really have nothing to complain about. For forty minutes we are in there and we’ll be back again next week, I tell the receptionist, as I make the appointment and I thank her for getting Eleanor seen.

For the first time in six weeks we have a plan.

‘Eleanor has to be at my house at nine o’clock every school day,’ I tell Paul as we walk with Daisy to the slimming club. ‘And I don’t care if she just sits in the chair, Eleanor’s got to come. She’s on medication.’ Paul holds my hand over where I’m holding the pushchair as we walk. ‘Doctor Carmody is ringing around the mother and baby units but hopefully things will start to improve now.’

‘They will.’ He gives my hand a squeeze as we reach the centre.

‘We still haven’t been out on a proper date.’ I feel terrible for him I really do, it’s night-time feeds and nappies and I’m constantly exhausted.

‘We’re a couple with a new baby,’ Paul smiles as he looks at Daisy. ‘We’ll get a babysitter at the weekend, if you want to go out.’

‘I don’t mind not going out,’ I tell him. ‘I just feel bad for you.’

‘Gloria,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been this happy in a long time.’

He says the nicest things sometimes. ‘I really don’t want to get weighed,’ I admit. ‘I might not bother.’

‘Come on,’ says Paul and steers me in there. We line up in the queue. I bite my lip as she writes down my weight and then I get back my little book. I don’t look at it till I’ve sat down.

Paul’s lost one pound.

He doesn’t gloat.

I ask to see as I always do and when he shows me his, I show him mine.

Except, I’ve put on three pounds.

Imagine if I’d had that chicken?

The meeting starts. Beryl has a life-size cardboard cut out of her, from before she lost all her weight. She carts it around to all the meetings she holds in different venues and then, presumably, she takes it home. I could think of nothing worse than being reminded of how big I was, but it must work for her. She asks who’s had a loss and they get a gold star and then she asks if anyone has had a gain.

‘Three pounds.’

Normally I wouldn’t have answered. In fact, normally I wouldn’t have even shown up for the meeting.

Beryl goes through my food journal and we both know I’m lying, that I haven’t put everything I’ve eaten down.

‘What about exercise?’

‘I’ve got a six week old baby to look after.’

‘You have to make time for you, Gloria.’ Beryl says.

‘When?’

Beryl opens her mouth to give one of her long, convoluted answers, but I get in first. ‘I stopped to get chicken takeaway today,’ I tell her and I tell how badly I wanted it and how upset I was.

‘Did you ask yourself if you wanted that piece of chicken?’

‘I did,’ I say. ‘And, I did.’ Beryl purses her lips. ‘But a few minutes later it passed,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t end up going in.’

I get a round of applause from the attendees and Beryl gives me a pat on the arm and yes, I’ve gained three pounds this week, but I’ve gained other things too. Like strength and knowledge and a plan for my daughter and a man who makes me smile.

‘I’m back on track,’ I tell Beryl.