Changing Speed

CHAPTER FIVE: TIME OUT

We had booked and paid for the holiday and made all the necessary arrangements required to take such a break. The dog, the cat, the guinea pigs, the hamster and the rabbit had all been catered for along with the four children and my wife's parents. I'd had little to do with the arrangements, my wife and her mother took charge. I gladly bowed to their superior supervisory skills. After all, I was clinically depressed.

I had agreed to see the psychiatrist and the councillor before leaving so that I could stock up on drugs and deep, meaningful thoughts. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken their roles so lightly but it was difficult to see things in any other way. I felt I was back together again, best of friends with my wife and getting along with her parents. Being a father and playing in the group had given me all the purpose I had been looking for. Still the medical profession wanted to tell me that I was ill. I began to see their actions as a means of them justifying their existence more than their diagnosis being accurate. I was happier than I'd been for as long as I could remember. I didn't need anybody telling me that it wasn't going to last, that without the tablets I would sink low enough to be back at breaking point. I didn't need it and I wasn't going to listen anymore. I decided that I would just do sufficient to keep the sick notes coming and leave the mental health care team to look after themselves. I didn't need the drugs for a situation that I had probably manufactured. I decided that when we returned from our holiday I would stop taking them.

The two cars packed ready for the journey to the airport, I called in to say goodbye to my mother and father. By now my mother was beginning to visibly fail, her faculties allowing for only the most basic and meagre existence. I asked for their permission to go on holiday. It was yet another sudden but deep routed attack of guilt. I needed their permission to go. Without it I'm almost certain that I wouldn't have gone even with everybody packed and ready. In fact I'm not altogether sure that I still wanted to go. I was never really in any doubt that they would tell me to go with their blessing and that's what they did. For the first time since my breakdown I could feel my eyes welling up. I postponed the tears, knowing that they were more for me than my mother. As hard hearted as I can be I parked the guilt with the tears, them being available to pick up again when I got back.

We arrived at the airport over two hours early as was the habit of my wife's mother, a woman accustomed to this kind of travel. There was some considerable time to wait before our luggage could be checked in which gave my wife's father and myself the opportunity to deposit our vehicles in the long stay car park situated some distance from the airport. To my disappointment the entourage remained routed to the spot on which we had left them. I had hoped that our luggage would by now have disappeared, so heavy was it that I felt certain that our cases would have been refused. I was given the task of placing the baggage onto the scales, waiting for the airport employee to tell me how sorry she was. My wife's mother didn't help the situation, continuously referring to a kitchen sink. She took no notice of her husband's instruction to be quiet despite her attempt at humour being clearly inappropriate. The cases were stamped. Nothing was said. I still didn't appreciate the kitchen sink humour.

I followed the others into the departure lounge. There we waited out the next two hours until it was our time to board the plane. The aircraft was a massive machine with row upon row of seats, all of which were designed for a person substantially shorter than my height. Once the seating arrangements had been organised and then reorganised by my wife's mother and the compulsory boiled sweet inserted, I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Four hours later, as the plane touched down in Tenerife, I awoke.

To avoid potential problems as had been caused on the last occasion when we had hired two cars, an eight-seated minibus was waiting to be collected at the airport. We claimed our luggage and were on our way to the two apartments, our base for the next couple of weeks. Even though it was the early hours of the morning and still dark, the difference in temperature and humidity from the place we had left was dramatic. The coats and jumpers packed by my precautionary wife were to prove superfluous throughout the fortnight.