Someone Else's Shoes

1

Sam stares up at the slowly lightening ceiling and practises her breathing, like the doctor advised her, as she tries to stop her 5 a.m. thoughts congealing into one enormous dark cloud above her head.

In for six, hold for three, out for seven.

I am healthy, she recites silently. My family is healthy. The dog has stopped that weeing-in-the-hall thing. There is food in the fridge and I still have a job. She slightly regrets putting in that still because the thought of her job makes her stomach clench again.

In for six, hold for three, out for seven.

Her parents are still alive. Although admittedly it can be hard to justify including that in a mental gratitude diary. Oh, Jesus. Her mother is going to make some pointed comment on Sunday about how they always visit Phil’s mother, isn’t she? It will come at some point between the small sherry and the over-heavy pudding, as inevitable as death, taxes and these random chin hairs. She imagines fending her off with a polite smile: Well, Mum, Nancy has just lost her husband of fifty years. She’s a bit lonely just now.

But you visited her all the time when he was still alive, didn’t you? she hears her mother’s response.

Yes, but her husband was dying. Phil wanted to see his dad as much as possible before he shuffled off this mortal coil. We weren’t having a bloody knees-up.

She realizes she is having another imaginary argument with her mother, and pulls it back, trying to put the thought into a mental box, like she read in an article, and place an imaginary mental lid on it. The lid fails resolutely to shut. She finds she has a lot of imaginary arguments, these days: with Simon at work, with her mother, with that woman who pushed in front of her at the checkout yesterday. None of these arguments ever leave her lips in real life. She just grits her teeth. And tries to breathe.

In for six, hold for three, out for seven.

I am not living in an actual war zone, she thinks. There is clean water in the taps and food on the shelves. No explosions, no guns. No famine. That’s got to be something. But thinking about those poor children in war zones makes her eyes prickle with tears. Her eyes are always prickling with tears. Cat keeps telling her to go and get HRT but she still has periods and occasional hormonal spots (how is that fair?) and, anyway, there is no time to book a doctor’s appointment.The last time she rang they didn’t have a single one available for two weeks. What if I was dying? she had thought. And had an imaginary argument with the doctor’s receptionist.

In real life, she simply said: ‘Oh, that’s a bit far off. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks anyway.’