Getting Over It (9 page)

Chapter 11

A
S
I
SEE IT
, if you’re a man in your twenties, your friends live to make life hard for you. They tell you you’re ugly. Your job is sad. Your car is shite. Your girlfriend is going to leave you. It’s their way of being supportive. But I am a woman. And the entire point of being female and having female friends is that however hideous, stupid, or unwise you look, act, or behave, they are biologically programmed to tell you you’re wonderful, your hair looks fab, and that you did the right thing. It’s their job!

So when I tell Tina about my “date” with Alan, I am amazed and aghast when she dares to be unsympathetic. “If you didn’t want to go, you should have said no,” she says flatly. I explain it was a ploy to make Marcus jealous. “But, Helen,” she replies, “Marcus doesn’t give a toss.” I’m outraged. Not even the courtesy to humor me?

“Tina,” I snap, “it’s scientific fact that men always want what they can’t have.”

She replies smoothly, “And women, apparently.”

I scowl. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Tina snorts. “You know what it means. Marcus is, at kindergarten level, a laugh. He is, if you’re into the Incredible Hulk, fit. But he’s also an arse, with a dick the size of a weevil. You’re in a state over Marcus because he doesn’t give a toss. And, because of him, you’re about to waste an evening of your life with some creep. It’s mad.”

Mad? It’s incredible. It’s incredible that one of my closest friends—who I rely on to confirm that, yes, I did make the right decision to trim my bangs with nail scissors in a fit of boredom/spend two weeks’ salary on a pair of shoes so high I wore them once and suffered severe backache for five days/ sleep with Jasper on the first night even though he then asked, “Do you always sleep with a man on the first night?”—isn’t agreeing with me!

I ignore her and don’t bother consulting Lizzy for a second opinion because I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll be just as male about it as Tina. In a form of silent protest, at 1
P.M.
, I eat my tuna sandwich and Dime Bar at my desk while browsing through the
Daily Mirror.
Then I realize Tina’s out on a fashion shoot, Lizzy’s attending a perfume launch, and I’ve done myself out of a lunch hour. I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to keep up with Laetitia’s unstoppable flow of “little tasks” and feeling irritably conscious that my breath smells of tuna. I leave work at six on the dot and go straight to my mother’s.

I ring the doorbell. No reply. I ring again. Most unusual. I ring again. Finally! A figure glides slowly down the stairs and approaches the frosted glass.
Clank, clank!
and the front door is slowly heaved open. “Since when have you bolted the—” I begin as I step inside. Then I look at her, I see my mother. And I am frozen with shock. She looks like death.

She has always been slight (I take after my father) but in the three weeks I haven’t seen her, she has shed at least fourteen pounds in weight. Her hair hangs in clumps, filthy and lank, her wan face is devoid of makeup, and her skin is dry and papery. This, a woman who scours the beauty pages of
Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire,
and
Vogue
every month (she doesn’t bother with
GirlTime)
and can differentiate between Berry Kiss and Crimson Shimmer at a glance! Who cleanses, tones, and moisturizes religiously, flosses after every meal including lunch (she keeps a toothbrush and other equipment in the staff room), and showers once in the morning and again before bedtime. And what is she wearing? A knitted brown jumper five sizes too big for her and saggy black leggings. She looks like a student.

“Oh my God!” I say, when I recover the power of speech. “Oh my God, look at you! Mum, you look terrible, terrible! You’re a skeleton! And that horrible sweater! It’s summer! You look like an urchin!” She stares back at me dully. Her eyes are blank.

Then she says, “It belonged to your father,” and starts to weep. Huge, gulping, hiccuping, gut-wrenching sobs. I grab her, and in an awkward half-hug, carry her to a chair. Jesus! She’s lighter than Fatboy! Which admittedly isn’t saying much, but you get my point. The sight of her, weak and emaciated, is so repellent I find it hard not to cry myself.

“Oh, Mum,” I whisper, “what have you done to yourself? When did you last eat, for Christ’s sake! The state of you! Shit! Why didn’t you call me?” She is sobbing so hard the words are swallowed almost as she says them. But while they are indistinct, I hear them and her answer is like a knife slashing at my heart: “I did.”

She starts to cry again. I crouch and rock her and stroke her flat greasy hair, and the sobs become deeper and more savage until she is yowling like an animal in pain. “Owww,” she howls, “I can’t
rememberrrr
. . . .”

I gulp. “What can’t you remember, Mummy?” I’m terrified. I don’t want to know.

“I—I can’t remember him,” she yodels, “just the hospital. I want to remember him alive but”—now screaming—“I can’t! I can’t! Why can’t I?”—now yowling—“I can only remember him dying.”

I close my eyes. I have goose bumps and a hard painful lump in my throat. “Oh, Mum,” I whisper. The tears are pricking at my eyes, but not out of grief—out of guilt. I picture myself necking tequila, lolling in bars, rolling around naked with Ape Boy instead of calling my mother, and the pain is acute—I shudder and shrink from my thoughts as if they are blows.

And yet. I feel a fraud. Separate . Untouched. The feeling is like an out-of-body experience—as if I’m watching my mother and myself, dispassionately, from another place. The yowling continues until my mother exhausts herself, then it subsides to a whimper. I keep stroking her hair and its greasiness is sticky on my hands. I also notice that she smells. Unwashed. Stale. My mother stinks. I clutch her shoulders—ugh, I can actually feel the bone sharp underneath the skin—and give her a little shake.

“Mummy!” I say in a stern voice as if she were a small child. “Listen to me! I am going to run you a bath and if you like, I will help you wash your hair. I’ll even wash between your legs if you can’t manage it yourself. What do you reckon?”

My mother stiffens in horror—rather as if her own daughter has just offered to give her a naked body massage. “Certainly not!” she squeaks in a voice so high and loud it would deafen a bat. “How could you suggest such a thing! Disgusting! I’m perfectly capable of washing myself!”

Thought that’d snap her out of it. All the same, I escort her to the bathroom, turn on the taps, pour in a liter of bubble bath, and alert her to the whereabouts of the shampoo. “I want you to stay in there for half an hour and get your hair squeaky clean,” I say. “I am also going to put some clean clothes for you to change into on your bed.” My mother hovers uncertainly on the bathmat. Wafty as she is, I give her a gentle hug. “You just relax in that nice warm bubble bath,” I say, uncomfortably aware that I sound like Lizzy at her preachiest health ’n’ beautyist worst. “I’ll get you a clean towel from the linen closet. Take your time. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

I leave my mother to undress, dig out a towel from the linen closet, and march to her wardrobe. I select white knickers and matching bra, a light blue cotton blouse, a beige belt, and a navy pair of what I believe elderly people call slacks. Sunny, tasteful, but not too garish in the face of death. I am laying this outfit on her bed when I catch a whiff of the sheets.

Now I don’t mean to boast, but I am not overly pristine. I keep as many cheesy green, fluffy mold-filled coffee cups under my bed as the next woman. But when one’s sheets reek of stale sweat and mature Brie, even I recognize that it is high (and I mean high) time for a spin in the Maytag. I strip the bed of its top sheet, bottom sheet, and pillow cases—an old nightshirt flies out, so I grab that, too—punch the whole lot into the washing machine, pour in a generous slug of Tide, and twist the dial to hot wash. Then I plod downstairs to the kitchen.

My priority is to force my mother to eat. I open the fridge—the fridge that I always make a beeline for whenever I visit my parents in the secure knowledge that it will always contain: A, chocolate mousse; B, smoked salmon; C, exotic fruit; D, expensive cheese; E, homemade vegetable lasagne; and F, pure pineapple juice. In other words, everything my own deprived third world fridge never contains. Today, however, my parents’ corporate fatcat fridge is bereft of its bounty. Its contents: A, one tub of peach yogurt (a week past its sell-by date); B, one wrinkly tomato; C, a micro-portion of Edam cheese; D, a small bar of Dairy Milk chocolate; E, a packet of corn flakes; and F, a copy of
The Firm
by John Grisham. Jesus. (I don’t mean Jesus is in there, I mean… goodness me.)

I place the corn flakes in the larder and
The Firm
on the bookshelf. I don’t know what else to do. Should I run to the 24-hour convenience store for supplies? Or should I vacuum the lounge? I reason, if my mother has starved herself thus far, she can go hungry for a few more hours. I’ll tidy up the hallway and work my way through the house. I am, to be honest, fearful of what I’ll find. And my fear is justified.

I peer into a plastic bag minding its own business by the umbrella stand and discover that it is stuffed full of envelopes. Brown and white envelopes—all unopened. With a sinking heart, I snatch one out. It is addressed to Mrs C. Bradshaw. On the back, in small green print, it reads, “If undelivered, please return to: John Lewis plc… .” I rip it open. It is a statement of my mother’s account, as of a fortnight ago. She owes £43 for a Philips Kettle.

Frantically, I tip the plastic bag upside down and shake its contents onto the floor. Gas bills, telephone bills, credit card bills, electricity bills. There is also a letter from our solicitor, Alex Simpkinson—dated fifteen days ago—stating that my father’s assets, debts, and liabilities need to be ascertained in order to complete the probate papers, that my mother should forward any demands she doesn’t wish to deal with on to him, that he’ll be in touch as soon as he is in possession of all the relevant details, but in the meantime, should she require any advice, she shouldn’t hesitate to get in contact. I am trembling with—I don’t know what—stress? shock? sadness? But I grimly, methodically, open every envelope and place each communication in one of three piles according to status. I don’t have the strength to tackle my mother on this subject right now. And right now, I don’t think she has the strength to be tackled.

The rest of the downstairs is, thankfully, reasonably tidy. It is in the living room that I make my next shock-discovery: a crisp pink pristine stack of the
Financial Times.
Twenty-four copies to be precise, including today’s, neatly stowed behind my father’s easy chair. His reading glasses and a heavy wood humidor of Cohiba cigars are on the side table, his red velvety slippers underneath it. I feel like Hercule Poirot. And my mother has mutated into Miss Havisham. This gloomy suspicion is confirmed by an earsplitting shriek from upstairs.

I gallop up to the master bedroom, two stairs at a time. What now? My mother, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, screeches, “You stupid girl, what have you done?” I bite back my instinctive response, which is, “You ungrateful mad old witch,” and say—gallantly attempting to keep my voice even—“What have I done?”

What I have done is to commit the most heinous, mindless, criminal act of vandalism in the history of the world. I have washed my mother’s bedclothes and my father’s nightshirt in a Maytag washing machine with lashings of Tide at the extremely high temperature of 95 degrees, thus exterminating the immeasurably treasured lingering scent of Maurice Bradshaw forever.

I spend the rest of the evening apologizing, tidying, cajoling, consoling, and forcefeeding. I make an emergency dash to the supermarket and buy spinach soup, strawberries, avocados, cottage cheese, bananas, wholemeal bread, butter, fresh pasta, ready-prepared fresh tomato sauce, salad in a pack, fresh salmon, and a packet of Brazil nuts. Most of this is on Lizzy’s advice—I call her on my mobile while overtaking a truck on the A1. Apparently, my mother needs oodles of Vitamin B6 which, says Lizzy, will “cheer her up”—which I doubt—and is found in “Meat, fish, nuts, bananas, avocados, and whole grains.”

I am too embarrassed to admit I don’t totally know what a whole grain is, so I buy everything else. I also use my initiative and purchase Sugar Puffs and toilet paper. I am less than thrilled when my mother manages half a carton of spinach soup and one slice of buttered toast, then announces she’s “full up.”

I growl, “At least you ate something,” and vow to work on her tomorrow. I make her eat a vitamin pill, send her to her freshly laundered bed, and tell her I’ll return to check on her first thing in the morning.

When I finally stagger into the flat, it’s nearly midnight. I smother a cross, wriggly Fatboy with unwanted affection, then march to the phone and ring the oily Alan. “Hello?” His voice is groggy as if I’ve woken him up.

“Michelle’s friend Helen here,” I say in a sharp assertive tone.

“What time do you ca—” he bleats.

I interrupt. “I’m calling to say I won’t be meeting you tomorrow night, or any other night. We have nothing in common, so there’s no point.”

I am about to replace the receiver when he butts in, sounding wide awake and spittle-flecked with fury. “You ring me up, at this ungodly hour! To announce that you in your infinite wisdom are writing me off! And I suppose you’re also going to inform me that it isn’t me, it’s you—”

I override his reedy petulance with loud daunting disdain. “This is a courtesy call to say please don’t contact me again. I asked you not to at the U-Bar but, in your infinite arrogance, you did. And no, Alan. It isn’t me, it’s you.” Then I take the phone off the hook and fall into bed. I am buzzy, dazed, and dizzy with unease about my mother. But even so, after calling Alan, I feel a teeny, tiny, weeny bit better.

Chapter 12

M
Y MOST HATED SCHOOL
subject was music. I loathed it even more than I loathed math. I was a music illiterate. No matter how long and loud I was shouted at and made to squawk “doe ray me far so larrrr tee doe,” the notes remained a collection of mystifying black squiggles on the page. To me, a quaver was a type of crisp. Yet, aged seven, I was still bullied into learning to play the recorder. During my lunch hour! I dreaded those lessons even more than I dreaded the Child Catcher in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
All I remember is cowering in the music room with a huddle of fellow unfortunates while they played “Frère Jacques” and I mimed it.

Then, one fateful day, I was asked to play solo and the fiasco was up. I was brandished in front of the entire class as a tone-deaf fraud. I wanted to disintegrate with shame. However, the following morning I awoke feeling different—light, excited, and wondrously free. No more recorder lessons. Ever. And when I look back on my life’s greatest traumas—recorder lessons, not being allowed to have my ears pierced—I see that each one has something in common. No matter how life-shattering they felt at the time, there was an end to them. The trouble with death is, there isn’t an end to it.

It goes on and on and on. Sometimes, I’ll forget it’s happened. Or I won’t believe it. But then I’ll remember. And I can
not
believe it as much as I like, but it won’t go away. My mother pours over photo albums obsessively. As if—because the image of my father is evident in glorious Fuji technicolour—he can’t be dead. I, meanwhile, am at a loss. I don’t know if my mother is in such a state because she loved my father or because she is on her own.

She certainly perks up when I tell her Jasper and I are no longer together. Until I reveal that I am single—ridiculous phrase! Every person in the world is single, even Tina who has been sensationally outed as a my-husband-and-I type—my mother is sullen toward me. As if my father’s “passing,” as she terms it, is my fault! Well, excuse me, but I didn’t cook the final cholesterol-laden straw. She continues to make barbed comments like, “He was my one soul mate. It’s all right for you, you’ve got your support network.” And what “support network” would that be? Luke telling me to keep my chin up? Michelle berating me for being “a bitch” to Alan and asking me if I’m “losing it”? Laetitia, who declares—when I explain I’m late because I had a huge fight with my mother over cancelling the
Financial Times
—“Shame. But you must be relieved he went so quickly. You wouldn’t have wanted him to suffer.”

But when my mother snipes, I don’t snipe back. I don’t, for example, say, “He was my one father. It’s all right for you, you can remarry.” Instead, I spend the entire week fussing and fretting and trying to make her eat more. I buy the
Good Housekeeping Recipe Book
—an oppressive 576 pages—and decide that from now on, I shall devote every Sunday, plus Monday and Wednesday evenings, to fattening up my mother and distracting her from widowhood. Unfortunately, this plan necessitates me forfeiting my social life and learning to cook.

I also ring the local estate agent who called my mother this Wednesday (I persuaded her to start answering her phone on Tuesday) and announced he’d heard “she was thinking of moving.” Translation: He’d heard her husband had stiffed it, presumed the widow would downsize to a cottage, and decided to procure himself a nice fat profit by browbeating her into selling up through him.

Traditionally, I welcome confrontation as I welcome a Jehovah’s Witness to my dinner table. But strangely enough, I enjoy the call. The elation of out-pompousing Alan must be addictive. I ring Rodney & Carter, having jotted down a few venomous notes in advance. I stand up (Lizzy swears this promotes assertiveness) and demand to speak with Mr. Rodney. Then I assume the voice of Linda Blair in
The Exorcist
and snarl, “My father died thirty-six days ago and my widowed mother is numb with grief and you, you ambulance chaser, ring her up and try to make money out of her! I hope you’re proud of yourself! You disgust me—you grave robber!” Judging from his servile cringing bleat of an apology, even estate agents fear demonic possession.

I also ring a few of my mother’s friends. According to my mother, they have “abandoned her.” From what I can gather, this is not strictly true. I play back the string of ignored messages on her answer machine and discover that her old pal Vivienne has called nine times. Nana Flo has called fourteen times. I cringe as I listen to her cracked splintery voice. She sounds lost. “Cecelia, are you there? Hello? Hello? Is this machine broken? Hello?”

I’d forgotten about Nana Flo. Oh, all right, I’d forgotten about her in the way that you forget about a dental appointment. I’ll ring Vivienne first. Vivienne’s early messages are along the lines of, “Cessy, it’s Viv. I do hope you’re bearing up, give me a tinkle when you have a moment. You know I’m here if you need a shoulder to cry on. Call any time, day or night.” Her later messages are along the lines of, “Cecelia! Vivienne here. I’m very concerned. Why haven’t you called? Have I done something to offend you? Do call. I’m dying to—I’m desperate to see you. We should do lunch.”

It emerges, when I quiz my mother, that Vivienne did visit her twice, three weeks ago. The first time, she popped round to invite my mother “for a casual bite, Monday lunch” and to disinvite my mother to a dinner party, Saturday night, arranged five days before my father selfishly popped his brown Church’s lace-ups and put out Vivienne’s table plan.

On her second visit, Vivienne bought my mother a sponge cake, a shiny copy of
OK
magazine, and a complimentary ticket to a fringe theater production of
Hamlet
that her Rupert Everett wanna-be son Jeremy has a minor part in (he plays Rosencrantz). Her exact words: “You won’t be needing more than one, will you?” I tell my mother that while Vivienne has done ill, she means well, and to give her another chance. Meanwhile, I tell Vivienne—I catch her on her mobile between Harley Street and the hair salon—that my mother has no intention of pinching anyone else’s husband just yet and furthermore, Sainsburys now sell chicken breasts in single portions. So, the odd hussy out won’t be a problem, and on that basis, I trust her dinner invitation is reinstated with immediate effect.

Vivienne is flustered and blustering. “Helen, she’s more than welcome, you know that,” she trills. “But you have to know I was, first and foremost, thinking of her. We’re going to be five couples! Us, the Elworthys, the Williamses, the Schnecks, and the Struthers! The last thing I wanted was to rub salt into the wound.” I overlook the glaring fact that at least three of these guests are having affairs and explain, while it will certainly be painful for my mother to sit amid these shiny prototypes of married bliss, she would doubtless prefer it to sitting at home on her own eating a piece of Edam cheese in front of
Casualty.
The upshot? My mother—dressed in black from obstinate head to defiant toe—goes to the ball.

I, meanwhile, sit at home on my own eating a piece of Edam cheese in front of
Casualty.
It is a joy and a pleasure. The only bluebottle in the ointment is Fatboy, who picks at his food like a sixth-grade girl on a diet then hoity-toits off to the hallway where he yowls, meows, and scrabbles furiously at Marcus’s beige carpet. “
Shut uuuuuuuup
!” I screech from the sofa. I am drained of the resources needed to pacify a problem child.

Five minutes later, I plod into my bedroom to get a cardigan and see Fatboy squatting in my underwear drawer. For a split second, I’m confused. Why? A hissing, pissing sound makes the enigma rapidly, unpleasantly clear. “You little shit!” I mutter, as I realize that—unless I want a hysterical abstract wee scatter all over my bedroom floor—I can do nothing but wait until he’s finished. I slink toward the drawer and stealthily move my lacier, frillier, sexier lingerie away from the target area under his peeing bottom.

As a responsible pet owner, I am aware that companion animal behavior counselors strongly advise against any form of ‘punitive technique.’ Too bad. As Fatboy leaps triumphantly from my urine-soaked drawer, I see him on his way with a medium-sized wallop. He speeds off, crouches like a furry Nemesis at the far end of the hall, and remains on hunger strike throughout Sunday. On Monday morning I ring work, explain to a frosty Laetitia that I have a “toothache,” and take my cat to the vet. Megavet. I am jittery with anticipation and fear. I wince as I recall my recent shameful exchange with Tom. Maybe another vet will be on duty. And yet… .

Tom waves me into the surgery without a glimmer of recognition or warmth. “What’s the problem?” he says, as I empty Fatboy from his Pet Voyager—he clings frantically to its vertical side like a passenger on the sinking Titanic—onto the surgery table.

“Well,” I say nervously, “he’s lost his appetite. And he’s blanking me. He’s also had diarrhea.”

Tom’s expression turns even more disapproving. “How long has this been going on?” he says coldly.

Isn’t that a line in a song,
I think, but don’t dare say. I am desperate to beg Tom’s forgiveness but too certain of being rejected. “Well, I’m not entirely sure,” I say, squirming with guilt but [gulp], “Maybe a week, two weeks.”

Tom raises an eyebrow, “And have you tried to make a previous appointment?” he says in an incredulous tone.

“No,” I begin, “I didn’t think—”

Tom interrupts. He seems to have turned into a crankier version of my old junior school headmaster. “No, you didn’t think,” he snaps. “Is there anything else? Vomiting? Is the diarrhea ongoing?”

I shake my head miserably. “Just one bout, I thi—. I’m pretty sure.”

Tom glares at me. Then he says, “Describe it.”

How very romantic. “Well,” I say in a slightly condescending tone, “it was brown and runny. Rather like diarrhea, in fact.” Jesus, what does he want from me? Tom looks disgusted, and I’m not entirely sure this relates to my poetic description of liquid pooh.

He snarls, “In a young cat, symptoms like these can be the first signs of leukemia, Feline AIDS, or FIP—a horrible disease which starts with diarrhea and snottiness about food and ends with respiratory problems. There’s no vaccination against it.”

I am stunned. “Leukemia, AIDS, or FIP?” I whisper, unaware that FIP existed until a second ago but now certain Fatboy has it, AIDS, and leukemia—and it’s all my selfish, neglectful fault.

Tom nods grimly. “So,” he says, “if it’s not too much trouble, I want to know, did his feces contain any traces of blood? Was it stringy? Bile-like? And has he been drinking and peeing more than normal?”

I shake my head to the pooh question and whisper, “I’m not sure about the peeing.”

Tom continues, “I’m going to have to run some bloods. A young cat like this should not be having problems in these areas, he should be eating, drinking, peeing, poohing as normal. If a cat has diarrhea, you don’t hang about. If he reaches twelve to fifteen percent dehydration he’s dead.”

I gasp, “Oh, no!” and in a small piteous voice add, “Fatboy won’t… he won’t… die, will he?” I am near tears and about to report myself to the ASPCA. The side of Tom’s mouth twitches and he says, “We’ll get the lab results tomorrow.”

I am weak with remorse and shame and terror. I watch in silence as Tom feels Fatboy’s lardy abdomen, prises open his jaw and peers down his throat, and pushes his lip into a sneer (Fatboy’s, I mean). Then he gently presses Fatboy into a crouch, restrains him in a firm hug and—to loud hissy indignation—slides a greased thermometer up Fatboy’s bottom. “All right, big chap,” he murmurs in a soft, low voice.

My heart flips. Eventually, Tom removes the thermometer and says sharply, “He has a slight temperature.” I nod sadly. He then summons the vile, pouting Celine, trims a tiny square of fur on each of Fatboy’s front legs, swabs each shaven patch and—while Celine holds down Fatboy, who I will to bite her, and if he does have AIDS, transmit it—takes a squiddle of blood from each vein. He squirts it into two transparent tubes, one pink topped, the other orange.

Considering his rollercoaster ordeal, Fatboy isn’t as outraged as he should be. He emits a deep, low, angry growl but doesn’t attempt to bolt. The traitor even allows Tom to weigh him while I, the evil abuser, choke back my tardy tears of penitance. Tom leans down, strokes Fatboy’s head, and plops him back into his Pet Voyager.

He glances at me, seems to hesitate, then says in a firm, but not terribly hateful tone, “That cat is taking on the proportions of a boudoir madam. But I’m sure he’s fine. He probably just ate something crappy. Or picked up on a recent upset or stress. Any change in lifestyle, even moving a sofa, can send the most stable cat into a huff. Often conveyed via the distinctive brown letter of complaint. I want you to starve him for today, and I’m going to give you three days supply of special bland cat food. Then, providing he’s okay, I’m putting Fatboy on a weight reducing diet. And I’ll let you know when we get the lab results. But if he pukes or squirts again, bring him in immediately.”

I nod meekly and whisper, “So there’s a sliver of hope for Fatboy?”

Tom turns away—I think, to cough—then says sternly, “More than a sliver. You want to know his real problem? He’s a mummy’s boy!” With that, he totals the (extortionate) bill, hands over the “recovery pack,” and nods in his next client. He says, ‘ ”Bye,” but looks a fraction past my ear as he says it. I go home, groom Fatboy, and feel ashamed of myself.

I award myself compassionate leave for the rest of the day and stay awake all of Monday night praying. Tom rings me at work on Tuesday at 11:39
A.M.
to inform me—in a brisk tone—that Fatboy is fine apart from a small increase in his red blood cells, indicating he may have worms. I rush to Megavet straight from work. Tom appears briefly to hand me a worming tablet and a quarter (because Fatboy is so fat) in a blue and white envelope. “If he pukes within half an hour, it hasn’t been digested,” he says, sounding about as warm as a deep-frozen polar bear. “If he pukes any later, it’s worked, it’s just upset his tummy.”