When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

There’s a lot of characters like him in this neighborhood. The Chinese lady who comes out of the corner store with a jug of milk strapped into a stroller like it’s a baby. The Indian lady in her Technicolor saris who always wears socks with flip-flops, even in the rain, even in winter, and walks the streets picking up abandoned newspapers, re-folding them and then packing them into her rolling shopping cart. The old dude with the long white beard on the mobility scooter who drives down the middle of the street daring the cars not to give way to him. The bald lady singing Polish folk songs and feeding the birds in the Waitrose parking lot. The people most people see and try not to look at with stories they don’t want to know.

Once I’m in the store, I walk around noticing the displays that have changed since yesterday. Today there’s samples for a new salted-caramel Taste the Difference cake. I grab some on my way to the wine aisle. There’s another mother there with a toddler who’s making her crazy and a baby sleeping in a pram. She’s not one of the toned Pilates mums you see around here. Neither am I. We’re both fat, exhausted and defeated, but we feel no solidarity. We just glance at each other to see which one of us is smaller, because if you’re the smaller one, well, at least that’s one person who’s fatter than you.

I put two small 200 ml bottles of wine in my basket for elevenses later. Elevenses in Britain is your mid-morning snack break. But at 11 a.m., instead of tea and cake, I have my first glass of wine. Just one. Just to stay calm. Same thing at 2 p.m., then at 4 and then one between 6 and 7 p.m. to get through the bedtime routine. Every few hours, like medicine. Wine wraps my feelings in gauze and then they don’t feel so sharp. I don’t yell so much. And I’m not the only one.

In America, unless she did it all in private, a mother couldn’t drink this way all day. But here it’s easy to do, and there’s lots of us who do it. You know us. We’re the ones taking the kids to PizzaExpress after school so we can get a glass of wine at 4:30 on a Monday. The ones at parents’ evening who take the first polite glass and then grab a “cheeky” second one on the way to the curriculum meeting because at private school your fees get you wine in a bucket at the door to the classroom. It’s not hard to find wine during the day. It’s right there in the supermarket, the corner shop, the gas station, the playdate, the soft-play center, the kids’ party, the children’s museum cafe. Sanity, clarity, a healthy marriage, a therapist—those are all a lot harder to find.

I buy little bottles, two or three at a time, enough to have a glass every four hours. I take the empty ones with me when I leave the house so Harry doesn’t see them. I don’t throw them away; I faithfully recycle them in the glass bin outside Sainsbury’s as penance. I know how ridiculous that is.

I step up to the cashier with my mini wine, formula, chocolate Hobnobs and toilet cleaner—a summary of my life laid out on the checkout conveyor belt. The teenage girl in her bright pink hijab at the register says, “Hello,” smiles and makes eye contact. She recognizes me, I’m in here enough. She politely averts her gaze, as she always does, from judging my shopping, but she’s too young to sell me alcohol so she has to raise her hand to get the floor manager to clear the purchase for her. How I must look to this girl, how feeble and pathetic I must seem in my daily pilgrimage for tiny bottles of wine to hide from my husband while she’s in here working, probably saving money for school. I wonder how her mother raised her to be such a good kid.

She says, “Aren’t they lovely when they’re asleep,” gesturing at Rocky in the stroller.

“Best part of the day,” I say.

She smiles and she thinks I’m joking, but I’m not.

8 p.m.

Another end to another day, which could have been yesterday or the day before and will be the same as tomorrow. The baby’s asleep, Johnny’s in his PJs watching David Attenborough. Harry’s finally home. Johnny runs to him. They wrestle, read a story, and Harry puts him to bed. I kiss Johnny good night. He hugs me tight. He still loves me, but I can feel his relief that Harry’s here and the day is over. Or that the day with me is over.

I’m in the kitchen microwaving some frozen dinners. I wonder when Harry will notice the window. Right away, it turns out.

“What happened here?” He points at it, loosening his tie and reaching for a bottle of wine in the fridge.

“Neighbor kid, hit a cricket ball over the fence.”

“Well, have you spoken to them? Will they pay for it? Do they know what these cost?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. It was an accident. They offered to pay right away. I talked to them. I called the company to get a quote.” Lies. I realize too late that the glass is broken from the inside, pushing the glass out. It’s not dented inward like it would be if a ball hit it the way I said it did. This is a major hole in my story. Harry must be tired because he hasn’t noticed. Or maybe he has but he doesn’t want to know the truth, because knowing the truth will mean that he will have caught me in a lie. Will mean that he knows something is wrong with me. Will mean that he’ll have to do something about it.

He sits down at the table and I put a