I have tried to find a Therapist for Abigail and, so far, I have failed .
Ages ago, Abigail went to the Doctor and the Doctor said she would refer Abigail to a Therapist but she didn’t refer her, so I rang the Doctor who said that another Doctor would refer Abigail, but she didn’t.
I said to Abigail that she should ring the Doctor because she is, after all, 18 and I was beginning to think that the Doctor was beginning to think that I have Munchausen’s Disease By Proxy and was trying to draw attention to myself through Abigail.
Abigail said that the reason that the two Doctors hadn’t referred her was because they didn’t think there was anything wrong with her.
I must say that I think Abigail has a point because she doesn’t look as though there is anything wrong with her. She looks beautiful, in a thin way.
My mother rang and said that I shouldn’t care what I thought the doctors thought but that I should get Abigail a Therapist.
‘People die from this illness!’ she said ‘And I think it very odd that you can find yourself The Best Dermatologist in the country yet seem unable to find someone to see Abigail.’
Actually, I didn’t find my Dermatologist, Fran did because Fran is very glamorous and sophisticated.
Had Fran had anorexia, she would have been able to find a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist to cure her and I would have simply rung her up and asked for the number of her Brilliant Therapist and the problem would have been solved, not that I am wishing anorexia on Fran but it would have been helpful.
Anyway I went into the kitchen and found Abigail sitting on the counter eating a bowl of cereal like a normal person. Then, I imagined her dying, like Lena Zavaroni, on the floor of a bedsit in The Midlands with her dear hands curled into small blue hooks and I went to phone the Doctor again.
The Doctor phoned back and said the whole thing was quite wrong and she was so sorry and that she would send Abigail the numbers of some Private Therapists.
I don’t believe she will.
Two days later a letter came with the Therapist’s number.
It is the wrong number, and I phone a man three times before he tells me that he is Quite Busy actually and that no, he is not a Therapist, but is trying to run a Small Restaurant in Tottenham, if I really want to know.
Then I phone the Tavistock who put me through, then they put me through, again and I leave a message.
Then I phone the Royal Free who put me through, say that The Eating Disorders Department has moved to King’s Cross and give me the number.
I phone The Royal Free Eating Disorders Department in King’s Cross and they say that they don’t take referrals from this area.
I listen to Radio 4, for a bit and then I get a call back from the Tavistock.
I tell the Therapist about Abigail and she says Abigail needs Comprehensive National Health Inter-disciplinary Care not a Private Therapist.
I say, ‘I think she has to unlearn a few bad habits, that’s all.’ I say, ‘Actually the world is full of women from Actresses to Models to Dancers, Jockeys and Gymnasts who have to restrict their weight for professional reasons and that Abigail probably needs a Nutritionist rather than a Therapist.’ I don’t know why I said that.
The Therapist says that in any case they don’t do Cognitive Behavioural Therapy at the Tavistock.
She calls it ‘CBT’. I toy with the idea of using the term ‘CBT ‘in my next phone call and decide against it as I will sound too Clued Up and Munchauseny.
Later Ellis ring me up.
‘Shall we go to a party?’ he says ‘It’ll be fun.’ he says Marco and Saskia are having a Joint Birthday Bash. You’ll love it.’ he says.
‘I haven’t been invited.’ I say, I am a bit unsure about going to a party to which I haven’t been invited.
I’m at Claire's.’ says Ellis ‘Why don’t you come over and we’ll talk about it?’
‘But I haven’t been invited there, either.’ I say.
‘Come over and have some wine.’ says Claire, in the background.
‘See you in a minute.’ says Ellis.
So, I go to Claire and Paul’s. Paul is still at work. We talk about the move to Stalybridge. we talk about Claire and Paul’s ‘Goodbye Party.’ We talk about the Party I am about to Gatecrash.
‘Marco and Saskia sound awfully posh.’ says Claire.
‘No, they’re not posh.’ says Ellis, ‘They are Maverick.’
How nice to be described as ‘Maverick.’
I go to the party with Ellis.
John gives us a lift but he cannot possibly come himself because he has Work To Do. Also, I am fairly clear that John would never Gatecrash a party, not even a Maverick one.
The party is very Old School.
It is Saskia’s birthday. In the garden there is a fire pit and Ellis’s youngest lights a roaring fire and everyone is very impressed.
Ellis brought his youngest with him to the party because Hannah has a social life in Enfield and Hetty is spending the weekend in Cumbria with Delia Smith’s Food Photographers Ex.
We sit by the fire. Saskia has a beautiful singing voice and long blond hair. Saskia sings and Marco gazes at her while he plays the guitar. A fox slinks along the back garden fence and by the time we all realise it is a fox, rather than a cat, it has gone.
I love London foxes, they are so socially able.
A Drummer comes to sit next to me by the fire.
‘Hi,’ he says, in a very Old School way. ‘I’m Guy and this is my partner Suzuki.’ Suzuki is very pretty and nice and Guy begins to talk about Drumming and offers me a puff of his joint.
‘White Stripes?’ I say ‘Don’t you just love Meg?’
Guy The Drummer hasn’t heard of the White Stripes.
‘Nick Mason?’ I ask.
Guy has heard of Pink Floyd, luckily.
‘Are you into The Floyd?’ asks Guy.
He really is very Old School and , I notice, American. I like Americans, they are very good mannered.
‘No I’m not into “The Floyd.” I say ‘But did you know that every household in the UK statistically has a Pink Floyd recording?’ I am surprised that An American Drummer hasn’t heard of the White Stripes.
‘Bonzo Bonham.’ I say ‘The Jimmy Hendrix of drumming, surely.’
‘In that he is also dead.’ says Guy the Drummer. ‘Do you want a drink? I’ll get you a drink shall I?’
Suzuki is standing behind us by the fire. She leans forward to say. ‘Oh, as long as she’s got a drink, everything’s OK is it?’
I decide to go and find Ellis.
It is 3.30 and Ellis’s youngest has fallen asleep on a heap of velvet cushions under the dining room table. He looks like a cherub.
I phone Premier Cabs and we say ‘Goodbye’and, picking up the cherub from his velvet nest, we go home.
I Love Premier Cabs.
Monday 12th May 2008. Athena. IQ.
Athena comes for coffee. Athena has been in this country for 42 years, she is a Greek Cypriot. She used to be my next door neighbour.
When we moved into our last house I was very pregnant with Zac and Abigail was 20 months old.
Abigail had no shoes because, what with the move and everything, I had had no time to buy her any, so we arrived in Cumberthorpe Road in disarray and.... shoeless.
I looked up and down the street and noticed, for the first time, the number of boarded up hoiuses.
I noticed the derelict cars and I noticed that the house we had just bought was actually a bit of a slum.
Suddenly, just as Zac was doing his third head flip inside me, due to massive doses of adrenaline and other mutitudinous stress hormones, the door of the downstairs flat next door flew open and Athena stood on the step.
‘Why has that child no shoes?’ she asked. ‘I will look after her. You move into your house and I will make coffee. I am Athena.’ she said ‘I own this street. 34 years I have been here. I look after my grandson during the week. How is it your child have no shoes?
I have loved Athena ever since.
Athena taught me to make stuffed vine leaves. She taught me how to make thick sweet Greek coffee. She made dyed Easter Eggs for my children at Greek Easter Time. She made special Easter Bread.
Athena told me that the Greeeks and Turks get along fine but they can’t really stand the Kurds who are ‘Mountain people.’ Athena taught me to say ‘Bloody mens.’ when John annoyed me and she taught Abigail to speak Greek. She even persuaded Zac to eat a sausage when he was three years old.
‘She invited Zac to play with her grandson one Wednesday afternoon. ‘Is there anything he won’t eat?’ she asked.
‘Meat.’ I said ‘He doesn’t eat meat.’
Three hours later she returned Zac, flushed with triumph. ‘He does eat meat!’ she said ‘He ate three sausages.’
John’s sister, Byzantia, says that Greeks don’t fully understand vegetarianism.
Anyway, now, Athena lives in Harringey and she comes for coffee. I make thick, sweet Greek coffee, just as she taught me, and Athena tells me her news.
‘My grand-daughter has diabetes.’ she says. ‘My daughter is so shocked. We can’t believe this.’ she says. In Cyprus they are saying prayers for her. They have sent us Holy Oil. My daughter is taking her to Lourdes.
‘Poor little girl, she has to be injected with insulin 3 times every day.’She is only 9 years old.’ she says ‘Honest to Gods, if I could have this illness instead of my grand-daughter I would take it.’
I am very shocked.
Athena taught me something else when we lived at Cumberthorpe Road. She taught me to shrug and say,
‘Well...what can we do ?’
I am very Intelligent, or very Modern or very Middle Class.
When I was 18, I did A level Sociology and I learned that IQ is not a test of intelligence but rather a test of Middle Classness.
When I was 20 I met John’s family. I met his small bespectacled step-brother who was a member of MENSA at just 12 years old.
Upon learning this fact, I told John’s step-father that IQ was a test, not of innate intelligence, rather one that simply tested one’s Middle Classness.
‘The higher your IQ the more Middle Class you actually are.’ I said over-stating my case.
‘You are only saying that because you couldn’t pass an IQ test.’ said John’s step-father and I have thought, ever since, that this may well be the case... until yesterday.
I am a genius! ( or Middle Class)
There was an IQ test in The Observer and I did it all in 1/2 and hour.
I got it all right.
It was easy.
I am horribly Middle Class or, according to the article that accompanied the test, irredeemably Modern.
Yay!!
But I am absolutely not going to join MENSA... ever.
Wednesday 14th May 2008. Neil Diamond.
John and me are going to see Neil Diamond who is doing a Live Show for BBC Radio 2 at BBC Television Centre. John sends a cab to pick me up. John will meet me at BBC Television Centre straight from work.
The cab driver says that his wife is going to see Neil Diamond on Thursday on the Jonathan Ross Show. He says that his son is a BBC Electrician and can get tickets for various things. He asks me what I do. He says,
‘That’s weird, the last person I had in my cab was a writer too. She’s sold a million books...lives in Crouch End.’ he says ‘Small world.’ he says,
I say that my husband John has just interviewed Neil Diamond which is why we have tickets to his show.
‘He’s recording it at the BBC for radio 2.’ I say ‘I don’t love Neil Diamond or anything but he’s a bit of a legend.’ I say ‘He wrote ‘I’m A Believer’ you know. John stood on Neil Diamond’s foot during the interview.’ I add.
I get out of the cab at Portland Place.
John texts me. John is going to be late so I sit on the steps of All Souls Church in Langham Place. All Souls is made of honey-coloured Bath stone. There is a warm wind blowing up Regent’s Street and people are sitting out in cafes, smoking like mad..
Apparently All Souls is the only surviving John Nash church, and although one can have too much of Nash, I am glad it is still here..it contrasts quite starkly with the BBC Building which, in my opinion, would be much more aesthetic had Nash designed that too or indeed if it wasn’t here. ‘Come friendly bombs etc...’ it is quite ugly.
John arrives on time by the skin of his teeth. He had to change the front page from ‘Suicide Bomber Aged 8!!’ to ‘Suicide Bomber Aged 16 !!’ which wasn’t very interesting so he had to change it again to ‘Amy Winehouse / Drugs / Crack yadayadayada..’
John has a very complicated job.
Neil Diamond is a legend.
He tells us he didn’t leave Brooklyn for Manhatten until he was 16. He says he was very poor. He sings Forever In Blue Jeans and dances around with the audience who are mostly a Sub Culture of Die Hard fans in their sixties. He sings Sweet Caroline and the audience hold hands and sing along.
Neil Diamond has the very best Brass Section in his band that I have ever seen. They do Jazzy Moves. They are The Temptations + +. They stand solemnly to attention during the sad numbers. The Trombone player is having the time of his life.
Afterwards, Neil Diamond goes back to The Dorchester (I wonder if Katya’s Father’s ex-lover has her eye on him) and John and I go to Ping Pong next to Libertys for Dim Sum.
Thursday 13th May 2008. Therapist.
I phoned the Doctor this morning to get the correct number for the Therapist that the Doctor had recommended. The Receptionist said that the Doctor would phone me back.
He phoned me back and said he didn’t have the number off the top of his head but that he would ask his colleague for the number and would phone me again.
He hasn’t.
Friday 14th May 2008.
Police State. Carer.
Boris Johnson has put 13,000,000 police onto the London buses.
Where did he find them all ?
I am beginning to feel very uneasy about Boris Johnson’s Mayoral Reign.
Zac is on study leave.
I take Zac to Islington to change his Building Society details. Zac is 16 and he has to sign things to say he doesn’t have to pay tax on any interest accrued on his account.
The whole of Islington Green is crawling with police waving scanners about and shouting into their radios.
Zac says it’s a good thing because Hoody Gangs, armed to the teeth, are a big issue on London’s buses. Then he says,
‘It’s quite scary actually. Where have they all come from?’
Hoodies are scarce in today. On the way to Islington, we see a few, in the upper reaches. They lurk in the entrances to estates and scuttle furtively along the broad tree-lined avenues of Highbury.
We don’t have Hoodies around us, because the Turkish Gangters run our area and they are intolerant of interlopers and opportunists. But there are a lot in Islington.....or there were. Where will they go?
We change Zac’s Building Society details and come home.
There are no police around our area because the Turks have got it all covered and sewn up.
When we come home I check my e-mails. There is an insane one from a man saying he is coming to fit some railings in our back garden on Thursday. That the cost will be £980 and that these railings will keep our rabbit safe from foxes.
I only asked him for an estimate.
This e-mail freaks me out a bit. Is he completely mad?
I reply, that actually we have decided against putting up fox proof railings and have bought Boris Johnson a fox proof hutch instead which is much more cost effective.
My next e-mail os from an Eminent Specialist in Eating Disorders at the Maudsley Hospital.
She will see Abigail on Tuesday.
Hurray!
She has e mailed Tests and Questionnaires for me and Abigail to fill in and bring with us to the appointment. This is a bit stressy and I am not sure I want to be examined in relation to Abigail’s Eating Disorder. I don’t want any of the focus off Abigail and on to me. The Specialist refers to me in the e-mail as Abigail’s ‘Carer’. I will have to clear up this confusion on Tuesday and tell her that I am infact her ‘Mother.’
I phone my Doctor and tell him that I am very fed up with their lack of response to our problems. The Doctor is very nice and says that he will make me an appointment with the Doctor who saw Abigail initially. He says that I should go to the appointment with Abigail so as to overcome any privacy issues which may arise because she is 18.
‘Does our area not have any provision for Adult Eating Disorders?’ I ask.
‘No.’ he says.
I will go to the Doctor on Tuesday with Abigail. this is getting more and more complicated.
I am very stressed.
Ellis comes over and says he will sort the whole thing out because he is a Psychiatrist and knows People Who Know People.
We drink tea and I tell him how stressed I am about Abigail.
Ellis is very stressed because Hannah didn’t get a scholarship to the Hogwarts School in Wales and that now Hannah will not be able to lie around under trees reading poetry but will have to spend the next two years working like a fiend in her Selective State School.
I can’t help Ellis or sort the whole thing out. I don’t know any People Who Know People.
Ellis is also very stressed about his builders who are failing to understand the concept of a non-fitted kitchen, because they are Australian.
Ellis says he wants a Pale Pink Rubber Floor and Gorgeous French Free Standing cupboards. His builders think he is mad.
I tell him to get Jan to do the painting, because Jan is a brilliant painter and will understand Ellis’s design concept perfectly and that Farrow and Ball do some lovely Pale Greys.
I just know Jan and Ellis will get on like a house on fire.
After Ellis goes, Sylvie’s mother comes over to drop Sylvie off to stay the night.
Sylvie’s mother is a very successful Professor of Sociology. She has spent the last few weeks working on pitching for a grant for an entirely new Sociological Discipline which she is having to invent.
I may be an IQ Genius but my brain begins to hurt.
‘How can you invent a new Sociological Discipline? I ask. ‘’What have you come up with?’
‘The Interface Between Design and Sociology.’ says Syvie’s mother.
Sylvie’s mother is a Real Genius.
Later I get an e-mail from the Rabbit Fence man. ‘I have made the fence and the paint is drying.’ it says.
I am not going to reply....he is clearly bonkers.
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