Free Putting Alice Back Together by Carol Marinelli Page B

knee-jerker thingy and I willed just a little welt to appear.
    It didn’t.
    Had I brought my handbag I could have whipped on some lip plumper made of cayenne pepper and he’d have believed me, but my bag was sitting at home. I looked towards the curtains he had pulled and willed Roz to appear. She’d put him right, but he must have read my mind.
    ‘I’ve asked your friend to wait outside so that I can talk to you. How much have you had to drink, Alice?’
    ‘A friend came over,’ I said. ‘He made margaritas, I’ve never had them before, maybe I’m allergic…’
    ‘You had a full-blown anxiety attack.’
    ‘I didn’t,’ I insisted. ‘I was asleep… though I did eat some leftover Chinese; I think I saw a cashew…’
    ‘Alice, you might convince Brent, but you won’t convince me—that was a full-blown anxiety attack. The tingling, the numbness, the hand spasticity were becauseyour oxygen and carbon dioxide levels were out of balance—that’s why we got you to breathe into a paper bag.’
    ‘I wasn’t anxious,’ I insisted. ‘I was asleep.’
    ‘Is there anything on your mind?’ I remember feeling sort of vaguely touched. The place was steaming, there were really sick people, I could see the trolley wheels and feet whizzing past beneath the curtain, hear the shouts for help, and House was being nice to me. But there wasn’t anything on my mind—okay, I had more than fifty grand in credit-card debts, but he was hardly going to write a cheque. Still, I did concede a touch.
    ‘I’ve got a few money problems.’
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘I’m getting on top of it.’
    ‘Good,’ House said. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Isn’t that enough?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    He smiled at me and he actually wasn’t so ugly, he was really quite nice looking—with a bit of luck he was thinking of breaking his ethical code.
    I gave what I hoped was a sort of brave smile.
    ‘Nothing…’ I racked my mind for something that would make me sound stoic and brave, but there really was nothing.
    ‘Anxiety doesn’t just go away, Alice. A lot of people have money problems, but they’re not in emergency at four a.m. with an anxiety attack. You need to talk to someone.’
    ‘And I will,’ I lied.
    ‘Good,’ he clipped. ‘Right, Brent will dispense your script—I’ve given you a reducing dose of steroids. It’s important that now you’ve started you take thecourse—you have to finish them, Alice,’ he reiterated, ‘and I’ll write you up for twenty diazepam tablets, one or two a day as required… You need to go and talk to your GP and give him this letter, I’ve suggested that you see a psychologist.’
    Well, he could suggest what he liked. There was no way I was going back to Lisa—except I wasn’t really listening to him now.
    Twenty diazepam.
    If you counted tonight, that was three weeks’ worth.
    I would give up drinking. Take tonight. Had I been able to relax, to switch off, I wouldn’t have had so much to drink. But now I had three weeks’ supply. I would go on a diet too—absolutely no carbs. No, better than that, I would do the lemon detox diet. I would start it this very morning. I would buy nicotine patches, and cleanse my body and exfoliate every night, and in three weeks’ time I’d be glowing and calm and radiant.
    I was delighted.
    ‘You will see your GP?’ House checked, and I gave an assured nod, signing for my goodies when Brent appeared. I was dressed and ready and actually smiling when an anxious-looking Roz was allowed back in.
    ‘All okay?’ she checked.
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘What did the doctor say?’
    ‘That I have to see my GP…’ As we walked out to the car park the cool night air hit me and I was a bit wobbly and shaky, and Roz took my arm. ‘He thinks I have an underlying allergy, though they’re not sure to what. I have to have some bloods and that done.’
    ‘You poor thing,’ Roz fretted, seeing me in first, then walking round to the driver’s seat.
    It was nearly five