Z) The Day Before.

She probed her depression gingerly, the way one might investigate a
tender bruise to the temple. Ouch, it felt bad, worse than she had at
first thought. Surely the girls could get themselves off to school this
morning, they didn't need her fussing and forcing them to eat a
breakfast they didn't want. Janet snuggled back down into the soft
feather pillows and realised that bed was one of the only pleasures she
had in life, bed and medium-dry white wine. They were her two best
friends.

At thirteen and fifteen the girls were hormonally evil, they missed no
opportunity to make her feel inadequate and superfluous to their needs.
And if they ever bothered to talk to her at all, it was only to either
ask for money or berate her for being such a terrible mother. 'Kewl'
was in, nurturing and plenty of fresh fruit and veg was out. The ideal
mother had a deep purse, a tank full of petrol, a closed mouth, and a
credit account at Pizza-Hut. Janet fell immeasurably short of the
maternal ideal. Well today they could go hang. They didn't have to eat
a healthy breakfast if they didn't want to and if they forgot their PE
kits then that was their look out. Janet was going to have a lively
glass of something fruity and alcoholic for her lunch and until that
time she was going back to sleep in the blessed hope that at least her
dreams might be pleasant.

Geoff hadn't come home again last night; it felt strange to Janet that
she had passed the point where this bothered her. Let him lie with
whichever anorexic floosie he liked, it no longer mattered. After years
of living their sham life he had finally got around to mentioning the
Big-D on Sunday, but bless him he was provoked.

It was his mother's birthday, and it was tradition that when the wicked
witch of the west had a birthday Janet had to fling herself into the
occasion with gusto to make the day special for the old cow. While she
was buying presents, baking cakes, planning surprises and cooking
extravagantly, Geoff played golf and later basked in the glory of being
the perfect son. The girls had the right idea; they made their excuses
and bolted before dear Grandma chugged into sight on her broomstick.
Grandma's birthday treat was cast in stone seventeen years before when
Geoff and Janet had been married less than a year. The women hated each
other then, and hated each other now and the only thing that had
altered was the intensity of the venom. Of course it was all thinly
veiled and covered with an oily veneer of tolerance. The daggers
weren't so much drawn as finely sketched; they got to add their own
shading.

"Have you dyed your hair Janet?"

"No Mother, those are grey bits."

"Oh silly me, of course they are, I can see that now, I thought you had
suffered a bad experience at the hairdressers, but I didn't like to
say. Are these carrots quite cooked Dear? They seem a little crunchy.
Geoffrey likes them mashed with black pepper you know? He never was one
for crunchy carrots "

And so the barbs were passed back and forth with the minted peas and
lumpy gravy, the women smiled their eighteen-years-practised sickly
smiles, as one by one they scored points off each other.

What had made last Sunday different?

There was no catalyst that brought about the sudden change in script,
no camel crippling straw, she had just had one dinner too many hearing
what a paragon of virtue her errant husband was. Listening to his
mother's clipped accent screeching of Geoff's Godliness had given Janet
an eighteen year indigestion and that particular Sunday the gasses had
built to pressure release. She had already heard countless times how he
sounded like an angel when he sang Ave Maria solo in the church choir
and how his mother had cried like a baby when his voice broke.

"It's a pity he didn't sound so heavenly at four o clock this morning
when he puked three quarters of a bottle of whiskey all over the
bathroom floor" Said Janet in the same tone of voice that she'd used to
remark on how well the squares-for-refugees
knitting appeal was going.

Mother closed her mouth and lowered the fork speared brussel sprout
back to her plate as she curled her nose in diastase. It passed through
Janet's mind that maybe people didn't talk about puke at the dinner
table in her little world; perhaps they contented themselves with
listening to her husband's sloppy eating.

There was a long awkward pause; her father-in-law chewed noisily with
his mouth open and Geoff glared at her with a look that told her she
was in for it later.

"Well," said mother trying to cover the gaping silence with a blanket
of hasty words.

"I love the cardigan you bought me darling, how clever of you to
remember that I'm fond of Mauve"

"He didn't buy it" cut in Janet. "I did, he was too busy shagging his
latest tart, he likes it doggie style you know, and he doesn't come
unless you talk dirty to him."

She smiled slightly as she remembered the look on her mother-in-law's
face. Game, set, and match, you old bitch. She thought as she slumped a
little bit lower into the warm bed.

Janet had been gaining weight for years. It snuck up on her, a pound
eased on seamlessly when she wasn't looking, another when she turned
her back. It was underhand, sneaky an enemy that played dirty, wouldn't
come out in the open where she could get a clear shot at it. Gradually
she sunk into her chins much as she now sank into her pillows and
surrendered.

She was fat and bored and depressed. Would anyone miss her if she
wasn't there? It was a question that refused to be cast from her mind.
The thought lingered in the sludge of her mind like anthrax. What would
it feel like to die? Did she have the guts to do away with herself?
That'd show them wouldn't it? Her mind was racing as she heaved her
body out of bed. In the bathroom cabinet she found a plethora of
deathly connotations. Pills to overdose, razor blades to cut, peroxide
to poison, and thick cord left over from the curtain ties from which,
if need be, she could hang. The heater trailing into the bathroom on an
extension wire seemed to mock her with one blink of her eye and invite
her with the next. It would be a quick way to do it, as good as any
other. She put the plug in the bath and ran the hot tap. She wanted to
make sure that she smelled clean when she was found, so she squirted a
good stream of richly scented bath cream into the water. Unfortunate
that she would be naked when she was discovered, she felt like the
North Pole, about to be truly seen for the first time. She was going to
show the world the exposed Janet Mason, bared to her soul.
Electrocuting herself in the bath wouldn't be messy but it would be
damned ungainly. She contemplated putting her animal print swimming
costume on but decided she would look even more ridiculous in death, if
she looked like a fried leopard. The water felt good and she closed her
eyes.

But all that was the day before.
The next day Janet's life changed forever.

Because the following day Janet went for a walk, a long walk. Her calf
muscles screamed in agony, her lungs felt like balloons at the mercy of
an overly enthusiastic child, and sweat by-passed seeping out of her,
and unleashed a flood as if a dam had burst under such unfamiliar
exertion. It hurt, and it felt good.

She walked through miles of green fields, and the air was fresh and
clean, and so as she breathed it in, she felt fresh and clean. As she
leaned over a fence to stroke a friendly horse, it pushed its velvet
mussle towards her and whickered its hay-sweet breath into her face.
She watched rabbits flee as she approached them and she talked softly
to curious sheep.

That night for the first time in years she had something to look
forward to, and before she went to bed she laid her trainers by the
front door ready for the following morning.

Janet met her divorce face on, and every day she remodelled her life a
little more than the day before, and it all started with a single walk
in the country.