Jon McGregor - So Many Ways to Begin

He was having lunch with a colleague at work when he found himself saying she's not so good actually Anna, she's not very well at all. He hadn't expected to say it, and he regretted it almost as soon as he had. Anna put the remains of her sandwich down and looked up at him, leaning a little closer.

Oh, she said, lowering her voice, what's wrong? He was embarrassed, immediately, and he wished he hadn't said anything.

No, he said, no, it's nothing really, I mean, it's nothing serious. She's just been feeling a bit under the weather lately, you know. She pushed her plate to one side and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin.

David, she said, reaching across the table and touching his arm, it's more than that, isn't it?

No, he said, really, thanks. I shouldn't have said anything, sorry. He moved his arm away. She stood up.

Oh, she said, okay. Well, if there is anything. I mean, if you need to talk about something. He nodded, looking down at the table, looking at her crumpled napkin smeared with lipstick and food.

Thanks, he said. I will.

It's hard to explain, Eleanor insisted, when he asked. She said, you know if you're on the phone and something distracts you, like someone outside the phone box or something on the TV and suddenly you can't concentrate? I mean you're listening but you just you can't quite hear what they're saying on the other end of the line. I mean, you can hear the words but you can't put them in order, you can't make them make sense, you know? It's like that. It's like there's always something distracting me but I don't know what it is, she said. It's like I just feel distant from everything and I don't know how to get back.

He tried so many things to make her better. He tried taking her for walks, day trips, dinners out. He bought her flowers, presents, bottles of wine. None of it did any good, but he couldn't help trying.

She said it's not you, it's me. She said, I'm sorry there's nothing you can do. She pushed him away. She wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face in her lap.

What do you want me to do? he asked.

Nothing, she said, her voice muffled against her skin and her hair. I want left alone, please; there's not anything you can do.

She said, I don't know what it is David. But don't worry, I'll be fine. Smiling as she said it, looking up at him, the ends of her cardigan sleeves unpicked and frayed, a wet tissue clenched in her fist.

These were things which shouldn't have been discussed, no matter how often someone said, are you sure? or, is every thing really okay? or, you shouldn't keep these things bottled up you know. But he sat with Anna on the bus and he told her about it.

She seems to change so completely when she's like that, he said; I hardly recognise her. She's always been so fearless and now she's terrified of even leaving the house. Speaking quietly, so that no one else would hear. So that Anna had to lean closer to listen to what he was saying. I want to fix things for her but it just seems to upset her when I try, he said. It feels like it's my fault but I don't know what I've done.

Anna had a way of looking at him while he said these things, then, and later, her head tilting slightly to one side, her eyes widening, her front teeth biting sympathetically into her bottom lip. It was a way of looking which made him feel better about the things he was saying, even as it made him feel guilty for saying them to her.

I'm sure it's not you, she said.

The pill bottles were bigger than any he'd seen as a child; translucent brown, as big as a fist, three months' supply at once to save the trouble of too many trips to the surgery. The pills were small and colourless, stamped with illegible codes and offering no clue as to what was inside them or what function they might perform.

The prescriptions were always identical: a date, Eleanor's name and the name of the drug, the doctor's signature, all written in the same frenzied scrawl which suggested the sheet had been torn from the pad even as the prescription was being written. Which perhaps it had, the words inscribed as she went in through the consulting-room door, the doctor standing and saying hello Mrs Carter and what can we do for you today, nodding and mmmhmming as he handed over the illegible paper, saying perhaps you should try and get more sleep, more exercise, find a new hobby, saying he'd see her again in three months' time.

Each day she came down for breakfast the first thing she would do was reach for the pills, shaking one out into the palm of her hand, a blank puzzled look in her eyes, while he stood at the sink and poured her a glass of water. She would swallow it with a hard gulp and a wince and only then think about starting the day, eating something perhaps, having a hot drink, even getting dressed, as the colourless pills sank down inside her, turning over, breaking open, spilling their powdery cargo into her stunned bloodstream. Each time he would want to stop her, his hands fat and useless by his sides; each pill felt like a failure on his part, like something he hadn't done for her, another mark of his inability to help. But he would watch, to be certain she'd taken them, and then he would pick up his briefcase and head out for work, kissing her lightly on the cheek or the top of the head, saying goodbye and take care and I'll be back soon while she gazed flatly at the window or the wall.

Sometimes she would still be in bed when he was ready to leave and he didn't have the time, or the energy, to persuade her out from under those heavy covers, into a dressing gown and down the steep stairs. He would bring the pills up to her instead, and ask her to please at least sit up. Sometimes she would only stare emptily back at him, and he would have to prod a tablet into her mouth with his thumb, holding the glass of water up to her lips. He would open the curtains, slam the door, and call out his pointless goodbyes from the bottom of the stairs.

Sometimes when he came home he would find that she hadn't eaten all day, and couldn't be persuaded to eat any tea, and he would look on helplessly as she poked at the food on the plate and said that she really couldn't eat a thing.

Sometimes she would stay up all night, unable to sleep, watching television or reading in the spare room or staring out of the window with tears pouring down her face in the dark.

This isn't me though David, she said to him once, despairingly. This isn't what I'm like. She waved a hand around the bedroom, at the heaped bedclothes, the empty mugs, the drawn curtains. I thought I was tougher than this, she said, I really did.

But mostly she denied there was even a problem. It's nothing, she'd say, when he asked. I'm okay, really, I'm fine. I just need some rest. Or she'd say it's not you, there's nothing you can do. I just want to be left alone a while.

But there were things he could do, and he did them. He took her to the doctor's. He made sure she swallowed the pills. He cooked her meals, usually badly, often burning the sausages or letting the vegetables boil dry, but he cooked them and served them and encouraged her to eat when all she seemed to want to put in her mouth were the bitten ends of her fingernails. He opened the curtains when she tried to leave them closed, walked with her to the end of the street, the park, the shops, trying to help her push back the boundaries of the world that had closed in around her like a clenched fist. He asked her what she was afraid of when she went outside. You never used to be worried, he said. You know this area now, what could happen to you out there?

Anything could happen, she said, her eyes wide and unblinking, looking up at him as if it was important that he understood. Anything could happen out there.

And he found himself talking to Anna about it more and more often, feeling even as he did so that there was something underhand or deceitful about telling her these things, but unable to keep himself from saying the words. She was alright for a while but she's back on the prescription now.