Marian Keyes "This Charming Man"

This is an excerpt from Marian Keyes "This Charming Man" (2008) p243-263. It gives a good idea of someone going through depression. 

On the in breath, “I’m. ” On the out breath, “dying”.

That was the wrong mantra. It should be: On the in breath, “All”. On the out breath, “is well”. All is well. All is well. All is well. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’mdyingI’mdyingI’mdyingI’mdying.

But she wasn’t dying. She just wished she was.

…

Her soul? It felt like a tomato which had been left at the bottom of the fridge for four months. Black, reeking, rotting. One touch and it would collapse. It sat at her centre, infecting her entire being with filth.

…

Yes, yes, and remember to smile.

…

She shouldn’t have gone to Dublin. Over the weekend, putting on a cheery show in front of her family had depleted her, leaving her lower than ever.

…

There was no way of enduring it while Dr Kay found Prozac in the book, showed her the contraindications, then found the other drug.  It would probably take less than a minute, but she didn’t have a minute in her.

…

There was something a little shameful about having a short drive to work. Twenty minute commutes were for losers. Real people endured a macho hour and a quarter; it was important to have something to complain about. While she was stopped at the traffic lights on Wimbledon High Street, a bus passed in front of her, the huge letters on its side – an ad for a DVD – streaming down the street like a banner. FEARLESS. It hit like a stamp to her heart. It was a message.

Fearless. Today I will be fearless. Today I will be fearless. Today I was fearless.

But even after repeating it several times, she remained doubtful. It didn’t feel right. No, this wasn’t meant to be her message. The ad on the next bus would be the one.

But what if a bus didn’t come by the time the lights changed. Then she would have to go without a message today. She was anxious. She wanted her instructions.

Don’t change, don’t change, don’t change, she pleaded with her traffic lights.

…

As she waited for the barrier to the underground car park to lift, she noticed that she was ten minutes late. She couldn’t understand it. Shed had spare time this morning. But time played tricks on her: it jumped, stretched, swallowed itself. It wanted her to know that she couldn’t control it and this frightened her.

…

It was time for her to open her car door and join the world; instead she slumped back against her headrest. Eight hours. Of other people. Of having to talk. Of having to make decisions.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

She was as powerless to move as a butterfly pinned to a card, but her paralysis mixed unpleasantly with the knowledge that she was late again and getting later with every second.

She was moving. She was outside the car and on her feet. The lump of lead in place of her stomach was so dense, she could hardly stand for the weight of it. She felt as if she was staggering as she walked towards the life, as if her knees couldn’t support the burden of herself.

Kill me kill me kill me.

She looked at the lift call button. Her hand was supposed to press it. Nothing happened.

Press it press it press it.

Rico was the first person she saw when she opened the door. He’d been watching for her. His dark eyes kindled with warmth. ‘How are you?’

I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead. “Fine. You?”

…

Everyone laughed. Marnie managed a wobbly smile.

…

She just couldn’t talk to people anymore. She certainly couldn’t hustle for business and she couldn’t articulate precisely why. The only explanation she could find was that it shamed her. She didn’t want to bother people; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself; she didn’t want to ask for anything because she couldn’t endure the rejection.

Because she had no other choice, she forced herself to try. But she couldn’t strike the right note of breezy fun (usually with men) or trustworthy calm (women). Her true voice was buried beneath a mountain of rocks, her treacherous mouth wouldn’t say the right words, and when she tried to smile, she found that she twitched instead. She came across as pushy, strange and desperate; she was embarrassing people.

She’d thought returning to work would fix her but it had made everything worse.

…

Then Bea, the office manager, had left and Guy had suggested Marnie step into the breach. It was both a relief – at least now she had a regular salary – and a humiliation. She was a failure. Again.

…

A file was waiting – like an accusation – on her desk. One of Wen-Yi’s. It was the Mr Less sale. Her heart dropped like a rock off a cliff.

This file was cursed.  So many things had gone wrong. She had mailed the original documents to the wrong address, one of Mr Lee’s many rental properties, where they had gathered dust on an unoccupied mat for two and a half weeks.  She had sent photocopies rather than the originals to the building society: a heinous offence. She had lost – no other explanation – the direct debit form authorizing the building society to recoup their monthly payments; it should have been in Mr Lee’s file and it simply wasn’t and she had no idea, no idea all, where it should have got to. Worse, she remembered having seen it, so it wasn’t as though she could blame Mr Lee by saying he had never filled it in.

Her glitches and omissions had slowed down this sale by several weeks; she couldn't bear to let herself know exactly how many, but sometimes her brain broke free of her control and ran off, taunting her by totting up the different delays while she desperately tried to recapture and silence it.

…

Satisfied that she really had the correct piece of paper, she began to fill it in, paying such attention to the details that she began to sweat. What had happened to her? When had she bruised her confidence so badly that she couldn’t trust herself to do this simple task?

…

Guy trumped Wen-Li; she had to do the post. She moved Mr Lee’s form to the safety of her in-tray and began tearing at the envelopes with her nails.

Guy frowned at her. “Use your letter knife”.

“Of course.” She couldn’t even open the post properly. She reached for her desk-tidy and drew out a letter knife. She had a sudden flash of plunging it into her heart.

…

While she was at the photocopier, she decided to copy all the other signed documents which had come in the post. She forced herself to concentrate hard – on not mixing up the forms and on ensuring that it was the photocopies which went into the files and the originals which were put aside to be sent to the banks. It wasn’t rocket science, she was well aware of that, but so much of the time she seemed unable to get it right.

…

A coincidence, a happy one, she hadn’t counted out how many envelopes shed need, she had just happened to accidentally select the exact number.

I feel better, she thought. It must be the Prozac.

Even though she hadn’t started actually taking it yet. Simply carrying the prescription in her handbag seemed to be having a positive effect.

Then her gaze fell on Mr Lee’s form – still waiting patiently in her in tray to be enveloped and mailed – and all the light went out. She didn’t have an envelope for him. The stationary cupboard was no more than four or five yards away, but she was unable to get her legs to stand up and walk. She couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t physical exhaustion, as if her legs were tired. It was like there was a force field around her, pressing down on her with irresistible weight. She could have jokingly asked one of the others to help – Rico would do it – but it was an odd thing to request. And by now, she couldn’t even speak. Shed used herself all up.

It’s urgent. It’s urgent. It’s urgent.

But that was why she couldn’t do it: it was too frightening.

I’ll do it soon. I’ll do it soon. I’ll do it soon.

But whenever she caught a glimpse of the form out of the corner of her eye, she felt as though she were being flayed alive, so she took it from the in-tray and shoved it in her drawer, beneath a jar of vitamin B5 – ‘the happy vitamin’ and a packet of St John’s Wort.

…

She hadn’t taken any vitamin B5 all day – no wonder she felt so wretched – but when she opened her drawer she saw, lurking beneath the vitamin jar, Mr Lee’s form. Still there. Still unsent. The floor tilted beneath her. How could she not have done this? When it was so important?

And it was too late now, she had missed todays post.

She vowed, with fierce promise, that she would mail it first thing the following morning. But what if Wen-Yi found it? What if he decided to check up on her and look through her stuff when she had left for the day?

Seized with terror, she slid the piece of paper from the drawer and shoved it into her handbag in a quick jerky movement.

…

Words spoke in her head: In some place in the world, right now, someone is being tortured. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

Whoever they are, wherever they are, give them some relief.

This was her own fault. There had been an item on last night news about two teenage girls who’d been kidnapped by four men.

…

And why did no one else seem to obsess as she did?

…

She was Verity’s mother, it had to be her fault.