Ice and a Slice Read online

  All the way there, Tanya made her feel even worse by saying how proud she was that SJ was dealing with the issue rather than avoiding it. And all the way along Western Street, where the centre was, SJ prayed that there wouldn’t be any spaces Tanya could pull into. So far, so good. SJ stared intently ahead at the line of parked cars. It was going to be okay. It was going to be fine. And then, to her horror, a yellow Mini pulled out of a space just ahead of them, almost directly outside S.A.A.D’s entrance.

  “Parking angels,” Tanya said with a happy smile, nipping the Smart Car into the space. “They never let you down.”

  Flaming parking angels. “What are you doing? You can’t stop here. You’ll get booked. I just saw a traffic warden.”

  “Then hurry up and get a move on.” Tanya smiled sweetly and SJ wondered if she’d been sussed out. “Go on. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

  She hadn’t anticipated that either. “No need, I’ll get the tube. I’ve wasted enough of your time already. Anyway, I probably won’t be here very long. Once I’ve told them I’m fine, I expect they’ll be glad to see the back of me.”

  “It’s no trouble – I’m seeing a client round the corner. My motives weren’t entirely altruistic, as it happens. Go on, you’re five minutes late. You can text me when you come out.”

  Reluctantly, SJ stepped onto the pavement, but to her alarm Tanya showed no signs of pulling away. Even the cheery wave didn’t have the desired effect. Disconcerted, she turned towards the door and then checked over her shoulder to see that Tanya still hadn’t moved the car. Shit, it was even worse standing outside than pressing the buzzer. There were dozens of people out shopping today. One or two of them were glancing curiously in her direction.

  Why couldn’t the centre be located in some dingy little side street? Why oh why did it have to be slap bang on a main road? They might as well go the whole hog and put up a flashing neon sign. Losers Gather Here. There ought to be a law against drop in centres being in full view of everyone. Didn’t addicts deserve any privacy?

  Tanya still hadn’t moved and, feeling a wave of panic, SJ pressed the buzzer. Thinking about it, she could always go inside and wait until Tanya had left and then make her escape. The reception was upstairs so they wouldn’t even know she’d been here. Brilliant – why hadn’t she thought of that before? The buzzer released and she shoved open the door and bumped straight into Kit, who must have popped down to use the Gents.

  “Hi, Sarah, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming. Good to see you.”

  He grinned at her and she pasted on a sickly smile. He was the last person on earth she wanted to see. She’d rather be going for a Brazilian, or a wisdom tooth extraction without anaesthetic, or an appointment to talk about piles – no, maybe not an appointment for piles, which would have been equally embarrassing.

  “Go on up – we’re in room three, same as last week.”

  “I er – don’t think I…”

  The buzzer went again and she jumped out of her skin.

  “I’ll be with you in a sec.” He glanced at the door and then back at her. “We don’t want to talk on the stairs, do we?”

  Trapped, she went up, feeling her legs turn more rubbery with each step. It was worse than confessing to piles – she felt as though she was walking to the electric chair. Why on earth had she let Tanya talk her into this? She should have known Tanya didn’t trust her. All that talk about being proud of her had obviously been a smoke-screen. She was going to kill Tanya once she got out of here. Some friend she’d turned out to be.

  She pushed open the door of the little room and glanced at the bars on the window. The feeling of being trapped increased. Perhaps the bars were there for no other purpose than to hammer the point home. Once you’d walked in it was impossible to escape.

  When had she got so paranoid? Close to tears, SJ headed for the same armchair she’d sat in last week. It seemed an eternity ago. Had it really only been seven days?

  Chapter Nine

  Kit didn’t keep her waiting long. Perhaps he knew she’d run away if he did. His counsellor antennae were probably tuned into such things. Right now they must be twirling round at ninety miles per hour. She glanced nervously at him as he sat opposite.

  At least she didn’t have her bag on her lap. She’d put it behind the chair so she couldn’t reach for it in a weak moment and give away the fact she didn’t feel comfortable talking to him without having a nice solid shield to hide behind. She’d just have to make sure she remembered to pick it up again.

  With hindsight, perhaps putting it behind the chair hadn’t been such a bright idea. It was going to look awfully strange when she started shifting furniture around at the end of her session to retrieve it. He’d definitely think she was bonkers. That’s if he didn’t already. Oh, God. Bad move, bad, BAD move. Perhaps she should hook it out now – pretend she’d dropped it down the back by mistake. In complete turmoil, she tried to put on a casual smile.

  Kit seemed oblivious to her tumbling thoughts. “So how have you been?” he asked easily. “Had a good week?”

  “Yes thank you. I’ve done stacks of work,” she said, knowing that wasn’t what he meant.

  “What is it that you do, Sarah?” He sounded interested – far too interested for her liking.

  She waved a hand airily. She wasn’t falling for that one. If he knew what she did he might be able to find out who she was. At the very least he could weasel his way into her head. “Oh, this and that – you know … office work. I’m a PA.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Mmm, I love it. It’s a great company. I’ve been there since I left college.” There was a small silence as he waited for her to elaborate, but she couldn’t without telling more lies.

  The silence dragged on. He was looking at her, his gaze steady. She had the horrible feeling he could see right inside her head. She had no idea why it had been so easy to talk to him last week. It certainly wasn’t now. Perhaps he knew about the bag. Perhaps they had hidden cameras in here and that’s what he really did when he said he was making coffee – sat in front of the monitor with his counsellor mates for a good laugh at the loonies.

  “It helps if you enjoy your work.” Hah! Maybe not. So she’d won that particular battle then. She relaxed marginally, which meant that on a scale of 1 to 100 – 100 being high – she was down to about 130 instead of 180.

  “How’s the cutting down going? Did you manage to stick to your target?”

  What to say now? If she said yes, no problem, actually she’d stopped altogether so she obviously didn’t need to come here any more, then she might be able to turn things around. He surely wouldn’t want to talk to her about how much she hadn’t drunk. That would be wasting both their time and she could escape and go and find Tanya.

  If she told him the truth and said that actually she’d drunk more since she’d tried to cut down than she usually did, he was probably going to be pretty annoyed. Last week he’d told her if she carried on as she was, sooner or later she’d end up in a treatment centre. She knew nothing whatsoever about treatment centres, apart from the fact they weren’t likely to allow wine with dinner – which was one very good reason to avoid them.

  “I had a word with my husband,” she said, deciding a diversion tactic would be good. “He doesn’t think I’ve got a problem at all.” Hah – put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Counsellor.

  “I know this might be a silly question, Sarah, but did you tell him what you told me?” Kit frowned, as if trying to remember something. “Didn’t we work out you were drinking six or seven times the recommended number of units for women?”

  “Mmm, I think we did establish that,” she said, his gentle question hitting her with the same force it had the previous week– but this time a wave of guilt washed over her, too. It reminded her of a moment back in her misspent youth when she’d been called in to see the headmaster, who’d asked her if she’d attended her maths class that morning, when both of them knew perfectl
y well she’d been spotted in town playing truant.

  “I’m not sure whether I did actually mention the details to him – no,” she whispered.

  “So he might not be aware of how things are. I think we talked about this before, didn’t we? It’s very important you get his support. You are going to need his help. I can’t reiterate that strongly enough.”

  “Yes,” she said, glancing at the door. She could probably just walk out anyway. She wasn’t committed to staying. Racking her brains, she tried to remember what she’d put on that form. Nothing that meant she’d signed up for a certain number of sessions, she was sure.

  “You don’t have to talk to me,” he went on gently. Why did he have to be so damned reasonable all the time? It made it ten times harder to walk away. “But it might be a good idea if you talked to your husband.”

  There was another little silence and he went on thoughtfully. “Actually, I didn’t expect you to come back this week.”

  SJ glanced at him quizzically. He’d got that right. She’d had no intention of coming back. If Tanya hadn’t bullied her into it she’d still be safely at home doing her lesson plan. But perhaps that wasn’t what he meant. “Why did you think I wouldn’t come back? Did you think I didn’t need to?”

  A wild surge of hope rose in her as he smiled unexpectedly. He had a lovely smile, full of warmth and humour. She was on the verge of telling him he should do it more often when he went on. “No, as I said last week, it’s not up to me. Only you know whether you want our help or not. And only you can make the changes. But it takes a lot of guts to come in here – and I could see you weren’t very comfortable. You’re not now, are you?”

  “No, these chairs are bloody hard – they kill your back, don’t they? It must be hell sitting in one all day.”

  He laughed and she found herself laughing with him and a lot of the tension in the room evaporated.

  Then he stood up, and she thought for a moment he was going to suggest they sat on the floor instead. But he strolled across and gestured to a pie chart pinned on the wall behind her.

  “Did we go through this last time?”

  “No.” She joined him, relieved at the diversion. The chart was split into segments, each with a heading. She read them curiously. Pre-contemplation; preparing to change; making changes; maintaining changes; lapse/relapse.

  “Which stage do you think you’re at, Sarah?”

  “Preparing to change,” she said thoughtfully, but her attention had been caught by the last section of the pie chart. The relapse section. She hadn’t noticed it last time. She felt like cheering and doing a little dance round the room, but she didn’t realise she was smiling until he raised his eyebrows and gave her a sideways glance.

  “What’s on your mind?” He was standing quite close and he used the same cologne as Tom – Paco Rabanne. Suddenly it was all she could smell and, feeling a strange mixture of trust – because he smelt familiar – and nervousness – because he was so perceptive and Tom wasn’t; Tom never picked up on her thoughts – she told him exactly what was on her mind.

  “I was wondering how many times I could go round. How often could I relapse? Would that be as many times as I liked? Or would you only give me so many chances before you washed your hands of me?”

  He bit his lip and she realised he was trying hard not to laugh.

  “You can go round as many times as you like, but relapse isn’t supposed to be a good thing. Although I understand it might seem like that right now.”

  “Do you?” She wondered whether she should ask him how he understood that. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “So you used to be an alcoholic too, did you?” But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She knew she’d be disappointed if he said he hadn’t. Most of the time she did feel he understood – either that, or he was a very good actor. In fact, if they’d met in different circumstances she was sure they’d have got on well.

  “Do you want to cut down – or are you happy to go on the way you are and increase the harmful effects alcohol has on your brain and central nervous system – not to mention the harm it will do to your job and relationships?” He’d got his serious face back on now, but suddenly she felt as though she did want to cut down. It was no fun having hangovers every five minutes, and seeing the chink in his counsellor armour had made her want to tell him the truth.

  “To be honest, I’ve had a totally crap week,” she confessed, meeting his eyes and reassured to see no recriminations. “I’ve had well over a bottle most nights. Even though I did plan to cut down – I really did – but ... well, it was a lot harder than I thought.”

  Bugger! That had probably been too much honesty, even for her. The same thing had happened last week; perhaps they put some sort of truth drug in your coffee. Yes, that had to be it. She resolved not to drink coffee if she ever came here again.

  “Sorry,” she added, as an afterthought. “I’m wasting your time, aren’t I? I’m a hopeless case. Perhaps I should go now and you can concentrate on someone more deserving.” She took a step towards the door.

  “Hang about, Sarah.” He gestured they sit down once more, and nervously she complied and waited for the lecture, which surely must be coming. It must be blatantly obvious she hadn’t taken this seriously.

  He wasn’t quite smiling, but he didn’t look disapproving either. Come to think of it, he never did. He leaned forward. “You’ve been honest with me, Sarah. That’s a very good start. You could have strolled in here and said, ‘Great news, Kit, I’ve stuck to my target,’ – even if you hadn’t. I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” She sighed.

  “You could have stayed away. I think because you didn’t do either of those things it proves you really do want to change. That takes guts.”

  God, he was an optimist. Obviously the type of person who could see good in everyone – even when they were lying through their teeth, like she was. She held up a hand. It was no good. She couldn’t accept credit where it wasn’t due.

  “I wasn’t going to come back today, that’s the truth. The only reason I did was because a well-meaning friend dragged me here, kicking and screaming. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d still be at home, sorting out my teaching stuff.” She blushed madly; she hadn’t meant to say that last bit. Now he’d know she was a complete and utter liar. She was right. He zoomed straight in.

  “So you’re a teacher? Not a PA?”

  “Mmm – yes, I do a bit of teaching. Adult education, not children.” Deciding she might as well go the whole hog, she added, “My name isn’t exactly Sarah either, it’s Sarah-Jane, but everyone calls me SJ – it’s a nickname.”

  “More honesty!” To her amazement he was smiling again. “Then I reckon, SJ…” His eyes danced with amusement and she wondered if he’d known all along Sarah wasn’t her real name. Or perhaps Tanya was right and it hadn’t been such a clever alias as she’d thought. “…That we’re making pretty good progress, aren’t we? So how about we go back to the form I asked you to fill in. Did you bring it with you?”

  “Mmm,” she said again, not that she’d put much on it. She certainly hadn’t put anything in the thoughts and feelings section. Neither had she put anything very truthful in the totals section, thinking that might be a fast-track route to one of those awful treatment centre places.

  “You don’t have to show me what you’ve written. That’s personal to you. But I want you to think back to the time when you first started drinking more than socially. How long ago would you say that was?”

  She considered this. Factual questions were a lot easier than thoughts and feelings ones. “About three years, I guess.”

  “And did anything happen around the same time – any major life-changing event you can think of?”

  “I got married. I suppose that was pretty life-changing.” She stared at him in alarm as she realised what she’d said and began to backtrack hastily. “Getting married had nothing to do with me drin
king – definitely not. Tom’s lovely. Not a bit like my first husband. He was a bastard.”

  Chapter Ten

  There was a long pause and SJ would have given up at least a day’s wine allowance – maybe even a couple of days’ worth – to have been able to rewind the conversation and retract that last comment. Now Kit had an unresolved issue to beat her over the head with.

  The silence stretched on and she looked at the floor and clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t be the first to break it. She knew all about long silences – and how stressed-out people would gabble on about any old rubbish, rather than let them go past a certain point. She could feel her face burning and her throat was raw with vulnerability. It was an immense effort to drag her gaze away from her shoes and meet Kit’s eyes without speaking.

  “There’s usually a reason why we drink,” he said. “But you don’t have to tell me what it is. That’s not why we’re here.”

  She breathed a huge sigh of relief. She felt like a fish that had been caught by a sportsman, carefully measured, then laid on the riverbank just long enough to think its time had come before being put gently back into the water – the wonderful, life-giving haven of its natural element. She almost felt like giving a little wriggle before she sped away downstream.

  Instead, she took the lifeline he’d offered and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m not usually like this.” She wanted to tell him she was scared, so scared that she really did have a problem, but instead she coughed and said,

  “Does it get easier to cut back after a while?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Are you sure about that?”