But exactly when did I start drinking ‘too much’? A few drinks after I’d come off stage, certainly. Only normal, everyone did that. The time of my pregnancy? Did I? I was so conflicted, never sure I had made the right decision, so alone in that decision, which seemed so out of character, so like I was out to prove a point to Howard, to the world. I am capable of motherhood and I will be brilliant and beautiful. Romantic notions, always.

Is your alcohol abuse linked to becoming a mother, Sonya? Answers, justifications, denials rush in. Of course not of course not of course not.

13

The day finally comes. Fourteen days in and it’s time for my first phone call home. The craving for my boys has taken over any other, the worst of the effects of the chemical addiction having left my body, the tremors over, except for today. With shaking hands – the most severe since day one – I try calling my father’s mobile straight after jelly-for-dinner, and it rings out and out, the unanswered dialling tone sounding like a kind of keening. The winged creatures start to push their way into my throat. ‘Fucking answer, please answer.’ A line of people stand waiting for their turn. ‘Not there, love,’ the man directly behind me says. I slam the phone into its cradle and wonder if my father is avoiding me and what I will do if he never answers.

The following day my anxiety is so high I almost rouse her, my high-kicking sidekick. She hasn’t come anywhere near me in this place, disgusted, I think, by its dullness, its routine, its grey sobriety. Perversely, I miss her.

Visiting hours are two to five, and family members and loved ones can come at any stage between these times. If it’s a minute past five they won’t be let in. He may be a cold bastard but he wouldn’t do that to us; he only enforced this situation for our good. I tell myself this even as the hours slip by, trying to push away the knowledge that he abandoned us before, when I really wasn’t coping on any level. I pace between the front desk and the patch of gravel in front of the main door, not wanting to go far. For the first time since I arrived, the rain has dried up and a few intense rays of sunshine penetrate the thick blanket of cloud. Mr Sunshine has come out to play, Yaya. I lift my face towards the sky, staring directly at the concentration of light, until black spots form and spin. Wheee! Spinnies. My body aches.

I check in at reception every five minutes. ‘You’ll call me on the loudspeaker when they arrive? I can hear it outside.’

The girl nods. ‘That’s the fifth time.’ She picks up her book and covers her face with it. The Secret. That whole ‘you can be anyone you want to be, have anything you want to have’ reductive crap. Doesn’t it directly contradict the whole concept of twelve-step ‘surrender’ and trusting in a Higher Power’s divine plan? A familiar scratchy contempt builds up as I watch the girl’s impassive face soak it all in.