A Sentimental Education Ch. 03

I felt a bit numb. Annie could see there was something wrong, but did not press me. Lunch passed in a blur.

"Hunn, you, okay?"

"Just feeling a bit under the weather - this rehab is getting to me."

"But you are getting better, Pixie. Look, tell you what, how are your weekly massages going?"

"Good, but it would be better if I could have them more often."

"Pixie, I am a trained physio, so how about if I do your ankles for you a few evenings a week?"

The idea of speeding up my recovery was hugely appealing, and I agreed before thinking too much about it.

"But Annie, I can't let you do it for free!"

"Well, tell you what, let's have dinner once a week and we're all square,"

I agreed.

I phoned June that night. We talked about Mum, about the jobs and about my rehab and physio. There were heavy silences. I have never like silences, my mind reads into them. When we rang off, I wondered what on earth was going on? She had never mentioned being at the hospital. But then I had never mentioned my physio.

Annie came round, as arranged, on Monday morning. We had coffee and then she took me to the physio suite.

"If you sit there, Pixie, that's it, lie back on the cushions and let me deal with your feet. Here, let me help, you don't need those tights."

I felt a little self-conscious as she helped me onto the couch and out of my tights. She put my feet in the stirrups and then worked on my ankles. She has such a light touch, and as she worked me over, I told her she was much gentler than my regular physio.

"Well, she's a bit of a tartar, Pixie. I have a soft touch."

She did too. It felt good. So did the conversation. She was interested in me. She was interesting.

"Saw your June the other day, Pixie. Is she your wife?"

"Yes," I said, "we married the year before COVID. Why?"

"No reason, just wanted to check."

She left it there, so did I.

I didn't phone June that night. She did not phone me.

When she finally phoned on Wednesday it was to apologise.

"Just so busy darling. Did you not try me?"

"No, my love, it is okay, I understand. I knew you must be busy, so I did not want to bother you."

"Aww, thanks my love."

We discussed the usual: Mum was still stable and happy to be at home; June was busy all the time; and I was getting better. It felt like we were stuck in a place neither of us wanted to be.

"Do you mind if I don't come round Saturday, Pix, I really do need to catch up with stuff."

"No, it's okay," I lied. "I understand," I said, which was not a lie.

Annie came the following morning.

"Pixie, you seem very tense. That's not good for your muscles, how about I relax you first? I can give you a full massage then work on your ankles when you are relaxed."

I smiled and agreed.

"Okay, kit off then hunn. Oh, sorry, you need help. If you stand, I'll get you out of these things."

I stood, uneasily, and she helped me out of my dress and tights. She looked at me.

"Shy?"

"A bit."

"Hunn, I am a nurse, no need to be shy. Get 'em off!"

She was making a joke of it, but from the way she was looking at me, I knew there was more to it."

As I stepped out of them, she smiled.

"I do love tiny tits, Pixie, yours are so lovely. Oops, sorry, not appropriate. Here, let me help you onto your tummy."

As she poured massage oil on my back and backside, I felt something stir. Ever since the operation I had zero libido, but as Annie's hands kneaded my glutes and back and shoulders, I felt a tingling between my thighs.

I was rather embarrassed. Of course, I said to myself, she would not know. But then came the question of whether she might smell my scent? But the massage was so good that I just relaxed into it.

I lay in the same position as she worked my feet and ankles. There was still pain, but after ten weeks, it was lessening.

"At this rate, Pixie, you can go home this week. I'd be happy to pop round if it helped. But if June is there...?"

I was not quite sure what the question left hanging in the air was. Was she asking if June was there, or whether it would be okay to come round? Not being sure, I just said it would be fine.

"Right, hunn, time to get dressed. Here, let me help you,"

I still needed help, standing unaided being a difficult affair still. I felt her eyes on me as I parted my legs to get off the couch. She seemed to like what she saw as she helped dress me.

Afterwards I was not sure what I felt about what had happened. At one level Annie had been supremely professional, recognising my fragility and helping me as needed. But at another level...?

The medics decided I was well enough to go home. So home I went. June could not be there; she had an important business meeting. I think I had been hoping for flowers or some sign of "welcome back." There was nothing. I busied myself with cleaning up as best I could. The house, like our relationship, looked neglected and dusty. The first I could do something about; but the second?

June did not ring that night. Rather petulantly, I decided not to bother. She was no doubt busy.

On Saturday morning, when she would usually have come round in the old days, she texted to remind me that we had agreed that she couldn't as "I have a lot on." My heart sank. I had forgotten, and done so because I needed to forget.

I phoned that night. Mum took the call. I asked how she was and then if I could speak to June.

"She's out love, she needs a bit of relaxation, and I have had a good day."

I felt a lump in my throat, my head span. June was "out" and "relaxing?"

"Tell her I called, won't you?"

"I will love, sleep well."

I slept badly.

Too busy to come round on Saturday to "relax" with me, but not too busy to go out? No wonder sleep was elusive.

Online Church was not the same as being there in person, and I came away feeling no better.

I fixed myself some lunch. Then the phone went. It was June.

"How are you?" We asked simultaneously.

"Pix, we need to talk."

My heart sank. For a moment I stopped breathing.

"I have never lied to you and am not going to start now. I have met someone else."

I stuttered something. I could hear my heart beat, which was a relief, as it meant I was still alive. But was that a relief?

"It's not your fault Pix, it's just we never get any time together, and, well, there is someone else in my life, and I am not going to lie to you about that? Do you need time to think?"

No, I thought, I need time to go away and die.

"Might help," I lied, hardly knowing what I was saying.

"Okay, sorry love, it is not you, it's me."

Not even the wisdom of hindsight helps in terms of coming up with a better response.

Somehow the afternoon passed and became evening, which became night, and sometime around four in the morning, sleep came to me.

I usually woke early, so coming to consciousness at ten o'clock disorientated me. Another of the many blessing of Turner's Syndrome is a tendency to what the medics call autism. I call it liking a routine. I am one of those annoying women who is forever tidying things away. I like order. The TS means I do not deal with disorder, or drama, very well. That's not quite true. I don't deal with it at all. I close down.

When I looked at my phone there was a notification from June.

"We need to talk, Pix."

Did we. To say what?

I am quite good at giving myself a slap when I think I am whining or throwing a pity-party for myself, so I did that. It's a way of compartmentalising rather than emoting. I wanted to close down. I wanted to find the deepest hole I could and dive into it. Instead I slapped my ego.

Be reasonable Pixie! The pressure June has been under for the last few years is something you can't even imagine, let alone cope with. What help have you been, Pixie? (Thus the self-administered slap). You're unwell, you're a burden, you've let yourself go. June is beautiful, ambitious and wants to get ahead. If you really love her, Pixie, really love her that is, you have to let her go.

So went the self-dialogue for a few hours.

I realised I had not answered the message.

"We do xx," I texted.

I decided to act. Many TS sufferers accept the limitations they are told that their condition places on themselves. I had always rejected that. "You're not normal, you need to live a sheltered life." The heck with that. "You will find interaction with others hard, and you may not have the usual levels of cognitive skills required to progress in education." Really? What is this doctoral certificate? I prefer it to a doctor's note. But it had caught up with me. I'd had to retire early. My mobility was limited. And, while I was at it, let's get real, petite non-curvy lesbians have a limited shelf span and appeal. I'd been lucky to be with June and to have had her love for as long as I had.

My day, like my spirits, was out of sorts.

June phoned that evening, earlier than usual.

We talked.

I took deep breaths. I remembered that I loved her. I needed to do what was best for her. Upper lip was stiffened, Game Face was in place.

June looked stressed. My heart went out to her. Game Face time. We talked, around and around the same things, as though in so doing, we might finally stumble on some way out of the mess. Applying a bucket of starch to my upper lip, I finally said:

"June, if she can make you happy, then good. I won't stand in the way. I want us to stay friends, we can can't we?"

I could see the tears.

"Pix, always. You have been amazing, you are amazing, and I will always love you, it is just circumstances have driven us apart."

Hindsight vision identifies "circumstances" as the ghost in the machine. I was not to blame for being a frumpy and unexciting wife, and June was not to blame for finding opportunity knocking elsewhere. Neither of us was to blame for the breakdown in communications. And heaven forbid that either of us should be expected to shoulder any responsibility for what had gone wrong, or try to put it right. No, it was all down to "circumstances." That made it okay then.

"I only want what's best for you," I said, meaning every word of it. "If you are happy, I am happy," I added, mixing a truth with a lie to create a comfortable place, rhetorically, for us both.

"We can discuss details, darling, but thank you."

There was a heart-shaped emoji coming my was after the call, I knew. When it arrived, I knew I had committed some kind of emotional treason. To do the right thing for the wrong reason was, T.S. Eliot wrote, "the greatest temptation." But what about doing the wrong thing for the right reason? Was that emotional treason? I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to be happy. I couldn't, it seemed, have both. "Don't be selfish, Pixie," had been one of Mama's mottos. I had been unselfish. Why did I feel like shit?

I'd forgotten that Annie was coming to see me on Monday morning, so was still in my night things and robe when the bell rang. Running a hand through my hair, I answered the door.

"Oh gosh, sorry Annie, I totally forgot!"

"What's up hun? Pardon me, but you look like shit."

"Good, I feel that way."

"Look, if it is inconvenient, I can come back another day."

I felt like company. Well, to be brutally honest, I did not feel like being in my won company (how pathetic is that?), so I invited her in for a coffee. As I burst into tears as I put her cup in front of her, it was hard to avoid giving a reason for my distress.

"Hun, that's so hard. But it is brave of you."

That was me, doing the "hard," the "brave" thing; the "good girl," my Mama had brought me up to be; upper lip stiff, little Miss Stoic. That was me.

We talked. Annie did my ankles. She was so gentle and skilled that I ended the session in far less pain than usual.

"I ought to pay you Annie," I said at the end.

"Hey, you, welching out of that dinner you promised me?"

That made me laugh - as if.

I sensed something, but she said nothing.

The next few days passed in a blur. Texts and emails between June and I, trying to envisage and then construct bridges over which we might withdraw with dignity.

I still had my flat in London. It was on a two-year lease with a tenant, but it was there if I needed it at some point. But June was fine with my staying as long as I needed in our house. I assumed her new girlfriend's was where she would stay.

Again, and not just with hindsight, the TS cast its odd blessings. I could focus like mad on the detail and forget the big picture; except I couldn't do it all the time.

My Mama rang, asking what was up as I had not phoned her for days, adding that June had not returned her calls. I told her, waiting for her to say: "I told you so." Sometimes she wrong-footed me; this was one such time.

"Are you two out of your minds?"

"But Mama, I thought..."

"Sometimes, Pix, you think far too much. You and I both know that you have a big heart, and so does June."

"But I thought you disapproved..."

"Of you two? I did when you did that thing, what was, 'came out,' but June suits you. She's sensible, down to earth, and practical, the perfect foil to you. While you are sweet, loving, and romantic, just what that girl needs in a partner. You are a pair of numpties, Pixie, you both are."

"But Mama, it is for the best. It allows June to move on."

"Oh, does it? Is that what you want?"

"I want her to be happy!"

"What do you want?"

"Her to be happy."

"Don't come the stoic with me Pixie Peters, I am your mother; tell me."

By now I was in tears. But Mama, not being the sentimental sort, was not about to let me off the hook.

"Well, Pixie, what do you want? Do you still love her?"

"Of course, Mama, but..."

"But nothing my girl. Did you tell June you wanted her still, or did you give her the sentimental drivel you just gave me?"

"Ouch!" I thought. That was Mama, all the tact and diplomacy of the late Attila the Hun. I must have inherited mine from my Papa, as Mama had not a shred of either quality.

"Mama, I can't have this conversation."

"At some point Pixie you are going to have to face your feelings. I know, better than anyone save June how hard you find that. But Pixie, you will have to."

"Yes Mama," I said, ending the call and dissolving into tears.

The phone rang.

"Annie here, Pixie, how'd you like to meet at Marco's tomorrow night?"

Marco's was one of my favourite Italian restaurants, so I agreed.

The day passed as my days tended to now. I did some baking. Found that my walking skills were up to doing a spot of cleaning and dusting, and three hours later ("a spot" is a moveable feast) stopped for a bite to eat. I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

"No wonder June wants someone else," I thought. My hair was a mess, I was hot and sweaty, and looked like I was auditioning for the role of Mrs Mop in and 1930s musical. "Oh sod it, I thought!"

I went to the shower room, stripped, and gave myself a thorough clean. That felt better. Then I went to my knicker drawer and found some nice white panties with a lace trim and a little bow on the front. It was part of a set with a lace bralette, so I put both on and looked at myself in the mirror.

"With a bit of slap and your hair done, you don't scrub up too badly for a midget," I thought to myself.

I found my favourite blue and white striped dress, which came down far enough to be decent, but did show a lot of leg. Then I spent the best part of an hour deciding how to plait my hair before settling on a Dutch braid. I added a touch of lippy. Even I thought I looked nice. Of course, I could not set the ensemble off with heels, but as it was summer, my sandals would not look out of place, even if they did tend to emphasise my size. There was a text.

"B there in 5, A xxx"

There was a ring at the bell six minutes later (not that I was counting). I grabbed my shoulder bag and opened the door.

"Sorry, who are you and where is Pixie?"

I giggled.

"You like?"

She looked pretty good herself. The sun dress she was wearing emphasised her curves, and my eyes could not but stray to the cleavage on show. (Really, Pix, they could not help themselves? They operate separately from the rest of you? Listen to yourself, girl!).

"Very, Pixie."

We had a nice meal. The seafood there was always good, the pasta made on the premises, and the wine seemed to slip down very easily. Back home that was not the only thing that slipped down easily.

I woke in the early hours. What the heck had I just done?