In Denial: A Relapse Story

“Do we pity Lady Macbeth? Does she get what she deserves? Show of hands, who thinks she is a villain?” A gaggle of hands went up, some rising sheepishly only because they thought that was the “correct” answer. Rachel hoped for a better showing for the follow-up question. “And what about those who think she isn’t a villain?”

Rachel - Ms Buckland to her students - scanned the room, seeing even fewer hands up this time. More girls had their hands up than men, though the numbers overall were hardly inspiring. Specifically, she trained her eyes on her star, her strident feminist among the boorish boys and ditzes, the one she knew her mother would absolutely love: Clara Davies. Shockingly, however, Clara’s hand was not raised. In fact, Clara was hardly paying any attention at all, preferring to gaze out of the window at the dreary playing fields that stretched out to the far fences backing onto the nearby housing estate. The girl traced her finger down the window pane, following the path left by a rain droplet.

Rachel’s star pupil took no notice today. Indeed, the past few days had seen Clara disassociating more than once in class and ignoring teachers when they greeted her. Something must have been wrong, but Rachel could not dwell too long.

“Right, well, that’s your homework for the weekend. I want to see a proper essay on the question ‘Is Lady Macbeth a villain?’ on my desk or in my hands by the start of our next lesson on Monday, right?” Some groaned, others dutifully wrote it down in their school planners, and Clara just ignored the request altogether. Just then, the bell rang and the class got up in unison to make their leave.

“Clara, could I speak to you a minute?” Rachel called out to the back of the classroom. Clara gave a lethargic nod and slouched down in her chair before pulling her backpack up on her desk. Rachel waited a few moments for the rest of the class to file out before stepping forth to Clara’s desk. The 16 year old had her eyes cast firmly downwards and her hands fidgeting in her lap. Rachel pulled a chair from the adjacent desk and sat down to meet Clara’s gaze.

“Clara, I don’t want you think I’m telling you off, but… but I’m worried. For the past few days, you’ve been really different in class and I just want to know wh-…”

“Nothing.” Rachel leant down further as she caught a flicker of Clara’s eye. “It’s nothing, just… just leave it.”

“Clara, I’m not trying to pry but…” Clara turned her face and pulled her hands out from her lap, slapping both on the top of her desk.

“You wanna know?! Fine! My mum’s relapsed and it’s fucking weird and I hate being at home!” Rachel’s stomach turned to knots. A relapse was now widely considered natural, even normal, but it didn’t just affect the woman in question: every student who had a family member relapse could be left indelibly scarred by the process.

“Clara, I’m so sorry. I know it must be difficult. If there’s anything I or the school can d-…”

“You? What can you do? Are you gonna change her fucking nappies and watch her play with stupid toys all day?! Nah, didn’t think so, miss.” Clara hissed the last word like it was an insult, like there was some slur she wished she could substitute.

Rachel was powerless. Even worse, she felt sick at the mere mention of relapse. All her life, from her mother and all her mother’s friends, she had learned that the relapse was an awful and ugly thing. What was widely considered “natural” was treated with disdain and suspicion by her mother’s radical feminist coterie. Though she held back at the bile that rose to her throat, Rachel’s face must have looked like a pale and dumb image to young Clara, who looked her straight in the eyes and refused to break gaze for even a second. It was an intense thirty seconds that they looked at each other wordlessly. Then, Clara stood and forced Rachel to back off with a swing of her backpack.

Barging her way past her English teacher, Clara didn’t even bother to look back as she exited the classroom. Rachel was sat, stunned by the interaction and internally weeping for the poor girl. Clara was right, though: what could be done for her? What could be done for her mother, now unable to walk or talk beyond meaningless babble and reliant upon - worst of all - a man to look after her? What had been so normalised had been anything but, once upon a time, but Rachel had never known a world without relapsing.

She felt too shaken to dawdle, too worked up to chat casually with any of her colleagues as she usually did. So, with barely another word spoken until she got home, she left work and left the day’s disquieting end behind. Home is where she was headed and home was where she would find some solace in the arms of her husband, Adam.

When the front door opened, Rachel was greeted by the smell of a simmering pasta sauce and the sight of Adam, his apron over his button-down and a glass of red wine ready at-hand. She threw her bags down and immediately snatched the glass, gulping it down without a breath and half-jokingly presenting it once more for a refill. Adam looked down at her, beaming with his dark blue eyes and his cheeky smile.

“So, it was that kind of day?” he asked gently. She leaned into him and kissed his lips to punctuate his question. He kissed back, intently and yet softly, and then pulled away to disentangle the empty glass from Rachel’s grasp. “Let’s get you another, my lovely…”

Rachel followed him into the kitchen and rested her side against the doorframe to talk to him while he finished up that evening’s dinner. She had the perfect vantage point from which to view her tall, handsome, multi-tasking husband - and debrief about her exhausting day. After another half of a glass and running through some of the less exciting details, Rachel ended up at her Year 11 class at the very end of the day.

“… so, anyway, we get to the last period and I’m so tired. I think things are going well, the kids seem interested, but it’s Clara again. She’s just… she’s not been the same lately. So, anyway, she’s not engaging and when she doesn’t even notice that I’ve assigned her next essay, I take her aside after the bell rings.” Adam had a plate piled high with his signature penne alla boscaiola in each hand and gestured for Rachel take one. “Oh, thank you darling.”

Once sat down at the dining table, Rachel continued her story.

“So, yes… I took her aside and asked her if something was going on at home. She barely makes eye contact, she doesn’t want to talk, but I can tell something is wrong at this point. She swears at me, won’t say anything, and I just don’t know what to do. I press again and then she just blurts it out! Her mum recently had a… you know…” Adam looked up from the plate of mushroom and bacon pasta to see his wife making insinuative gestures with her fork. Rachel stopped short of tapping her temple with the fork but it was clear enough.

“Oh god, she… relapsed? Poor girl, her poor mum,” Adam chimed in. A look of sudden realisation then flashed across his face. “That reminds me! Your mum called.”

As if the day couldn’t get any worse, Rachel’s mum was now calling her husband while she was out at work. She wondered what it could be this time to have driven her mother to such drastic measures. If Sheila Buckland could avoid speaking to a man, she would avoid it by any means necessary. It had to have been important.

“What’s so important,” Rachel grumbled, “that she’s calling you in the middle of the day?”

“She says she invited you over for her birthday tomorrow night and you hadn’t confirmed, so… she just wanted to check. I said I was in Manchester all weekend but-…” Adam looked so attractive in Rachel’s eyes, even as he was explaining how he had gotten himself out of spending time with her mother while she was still plumb out of worthy excuses.

“God, consider yourself lucky you have to work. I love her but she’s not exactly cheery company, is she?” Rachel considered that the understatement of the century. Still, part of her wished to see her and get it over with for a while. If she went now, she could ride out the Christmas and New Year period on this high and she wouldn’t be called back to her mum’s Kensington flat until Easter at the very earliest. When she thought about it for a few seconds, what seemed like the worst idea started to sound like a half-decent plan.

“Okay,” she continued, “I will go. I will message her to say I’m coming but! But! I’m telling her you were in charge of getting her a gift.”

“But… I haven’t got her a gift?”

“Precisely,” Rachel replied with a grin and an exaggerated jab of her fork.