Page 18 of Take a Moment

‘It’s wonderful.’ My mother doesn’t look up from devouring hercuit rosésaddle of lamb with redcurrant and rosemary jus. ‘The dauphinoise potatoes are to die for.’

‘Super.’ Jasmine claps her hands in delight. ‘I amsopleased you are enjoying it. And the beef?’

Feeling her eyes on me, I rush to swallow my half-chewed mouthful so I can answer. I glug at my mineral water to help it along, but this causes me to choke and I start coughing and spluttering in an undignified way.

‘Oh, myword.’ Jasmine looks shocked.

I wave my hand to signal I’m fine, but Dom overreacts and slaps me on the back vigorously, making things worse.

‘Stop. Stop!’ I splutter as soon as I have enough breath to do so. ‘I just need a moment.’

All eyes round the table are on me as I compose myself.

‘The beef is really good too,’ I eventually manage to tell Jasmine.

Instead of her usual over-the-top response, Jasmine just nods and smiles sympathetically, then excuses herself. Confused by this, I look round at my table companions and notice they’re sat stock still.

‘What’s with the mannequin challenge, people?’ I raise an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Should I join in?’

My attempt at humour is returned with awkward expressions and an equally awkward silence.

‘Alex, dear,’ says my mum. ‘I think we all just got a bit of a shock there.’

‘Because I choked?’ I laugh in disbelief. ‘I’m fine. Hardly a butt-clenching moment.’

My mother flinches at my use of language. ‘It wasn’t because you choked. It waswhyyou choked. You do realise that MS can cause issues with swallowing.’

This statement flattens me like a ten-ton truck. That’s what this is about? I take in the screamingly uncomfortable body language of John and Dom. They’re all thinking the same thing. Is this how it’s going to be? Now I have a ‘disability’, perfectly plausible explanations like ‘I didn’t chew my meat properly’ are no longer viable? No, I can’t allow this.

‘Hold on a minute.’ I flatten my palms on the tabletop to channel my frustration. ‘What happened there wasnothingto do with my diagnosis.’

I stare accusingly at my mum, then Dom and John, who at least have the grace to look ashamed.

My mother shifts in her seat and purses her lips. ‘Alex, darling, you don’t need to hide it. We’re all here for you and we’re going to manage this together.’ She puts her hand on mine and I immediately pull it away in annoyance.

I almost can’t bear to listen to any more of this. I take a deep, slow breath to keep my temper from boiling over.

‘I’m not hiding anything. If you’d bothered to read up on it properly, you’d know that people with MS don’t experience every possible symptom listed, and it could also be years before I need proper care.’

‘Oh, I know that, darling.’ She tuts at me and returns her attention to her food. ‘We can talk about it another day, when you’re feeling a bit calmer.’

This final comment infuriates me, but I’m too aware of our surroundings to let this show. Instead, in a gesture of protest, I clatter my knife and fork into the six o’clock position on my plate and push it away, leaving my food unfinished.

This was meant to be a pleasant experience, an exciting adventure for a dizzy bride-to-be. Instead, all I feel is anger and dread. I had thought the worst part of being diagnosed with MS was going to be my physical symptoms and limitations. Now I’m starting to wonder – is that going to be outdone by the behaviours of those who supposedly love me most?

Chapter 8

A few weeks later – and for the first time in two months – I’m crammed into the pokey clementine-coloured subway carriage on my way to work. As I cling to the handrail, jerking from side to side, the windows of the train’s automatic doors within licking distance, I feel a mix of emotions. A big part of me is excited to get back to work and resume normal life; the independence that’s driven me all my life is still well intact. It will also helpfully show Dom that I don’t need him breathing down my neck and questioning almost every move I make – this being a continuing and rather significant bone of contention between us. But there’s also an unpleasant swirling in my stomach, which, alongside the vibration and shaking of the carriage, makes me feel a little nauseous.

I recognise the unpleasant swirling as nerves: the kind you get when starting a new job. This is annoying because I’m returning to a place where I’ve enjoyed working for several years, but the longer I’ve been away, the more detached from it I’ve felt. Add to that the question of how my colleagues will behave with me, knowing I’ve been away so long. I asked Laura for complete discretion, and I know she’ll honour this without question; however, there are other ways people could have heard. Glasgow may be a city of nearly six hundred thousand, but in the corporate sector it feels more like a village.

On top of the nerves, there’s something else going on that I can’t quite grasp. It’s more unsettling, more of a nagging feeling, like something’s just not quite right.

The subway train whooshes into my station, coming to an abrupt and destabilising halt. As the doors fly open, I alight from the carriage and move along the platform, carried by the momentum of the commuters around me. I’m relieved to be getting closer to work, where I won’t have to move around much for the rest of the day – because while the fatigue has lifted enough for me to cope with the demands of everyday life, I’m still far from where I was before my relapse.

Emerging from the underground station into the bright morning sunshine, I find myself more aware of my surroundings than I ever was. Instead of hurrying along the road, face planted in my emails, I make my way along Buchanan Street at about half the speed I might have done previously (not by choice, of course).

I take in the buzz of my surroundings: revving car engines, the whoosh from the brakes of the double-decker buses, the vibrations coming from the subway below, the strum of a guitar from an early-bird busker trying in vain to attract the attention of the passing worker bees. And people all around me. For the first time, it dawns on me how people seem to sleepwalk through their lives, locked on autopilot as they pound the endless hamster wheel of life. Like an early scene from an apocalyptic movie – but in this one, the threat to humanity is that people live their whole lives without looking up from their gadgets, then discover they’ve missed so much of what life has offered them.

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