The Accidental Life of Greg Millar (34 page)

35.

A
fter two weeks, Greg tries writing again, this time in long
hand. One evening, I’m glancing across at him. Spiral
notebook
on his lap, he’s spending more time sucking his pen than using it.

‘Why don’t you forget Cooper? Write something else.’

He takes the pen from his mouth, looks over. ‘Like what?’ The question lacks optimism.

‘I don’t know. Something completely different. Something from the heart.’ I think for a second, then shrug. ‘What it’s like to have depression?’

He groans.

‘Why not?’

‘Too depressing.’

I smile and rethink. ‘How about just documenting what you’ve been through.’

‘I couldn’t put that in a book.’

‘You wouldn’t have to. Do it for yourself.’

‘Why?’

‘Just to get you writing again.’

He seems to consider it.

‘You could give it a simple structure. Something short, like a letter . . .’

He’s listening.

‘You could write it to me. To help me understand what it was like for you.’

He looks hesitant. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’ve always said you find writing easier than talking.’

‘I don’t know, Lucy. Let me think about it, OK?’

‘OK.’

Two days later, he begins to write. I don’t ask what. He’s off, though. That’s the main thing. He writes longhand at first, then transfers back to the computer. Soon, he’s flying.

We settle into a new routine. Greg drops the children off at school and writes in the morning while I head to work. On the two afternoons the children are with my parents, he also writes.
Otherwise
, he’s there for them. Sometimes, after dinner, he disappears to his office for another hour or so.

Two months after the coming-off-lithium scare, he has
forgotten
all about it. He is engrossed in his writing and his life. I feel it’s time for him to become fully independent. We agree that I should move back to the apartment.

It seems very quiet there.

For months, Greg writes. In April, he gets a call from his editor wanting to know how he’s getting along with the next Cooper book. That focuses his mind.

‘What’ll I tell her?’ he asks me.

‘You’re working on another project?’

‘That would make me in breach of contract.’

‘Oh.’

‘And, anyway, what I’m writing is not for publication.’

I look at him.

His expression softens. ‘It’s for you. My trip through psychosis.’ He smiles awkwardly. ‘I’m bringing you with me. If you still want to come.’

I sit on his lap and snuggle into him. ‘I do.’

‘There won’t be a Cooper book this year, at the rate I’m going.’

‘I suppose you’d better tell them.’

He does. They’re not impressed. They’ve promised the book trade another one. What will they give them instead?

I remember a book cover I did for a collection of articles and essays by another well-known novelist. I thought it a bit of a cop-out at the time. Now I see it as a way out. I suggest to Greg that he publish a collection of short works he’s already written. He takes the idea to his agent, who passes it on to Copperplate like a relay bat
on –
embellishing it before handover. Copperplate buys it. It means nothing to them that little effort will be required from Greg. All that matters is that the book will sell. International publishers share Copperplate’s enthusiasm. Greg has time to breathe.

We spend summer in Dublin, Greg writing, me working and the children attending summer camps with their friends, something they’ve always missed out on by going to France.

By mid-August, Greg’s finished. He holds what has become an entire manuscript in his hands.

‘Are you sure you want to read this?’ he asks.

‘Try and stop me.’

He hesitates. ‘There are things in here I haven’t told you. Couldn’t.’

‘That’s OK,’ I say, but I’ve started to worry.

‘I love you, Luce. I want you to know that before you read it. I’ve
always loved you, however low I got. I want you to understand that.’

Oh, God. What’s in it?
‘I do, Greg. I do.’

He hands over the wad of A4 pages. I smile to hide my fear. Will I be able to hide my reaction to what he’s written, though? ‘
I need t
o read this on my own, Greg. Is that OK?’

He nods. ‘Better, actually.’ He smiles then, and I know I’m not alone in my fear.

Suddenly, I want to throw it away. Not know. Things have been so good between us.

He takes me in his arms and holds me tight. He kisses me, then lets me go. And when he looks into my eyes, it’s as if he’s hoping it won’t be for the last time. I want to thrust it back into his hands, tell him we’re fine now, we don’t need it. But he has taken this step, this hugely courageous step for me, for us. And I can’t stand back from it now. It’s what I’ve always wanted, to share his journey. I just have to find the courage. From somewhere.

In the apartment, though it’s half eleven on a Saturday morning, I climb into bed with the truth. I take a deep breath and turn the cover page.

He starts by taking me back to when we first met, explaining that, driving to the meeting, he was feeling the best he’d felt in his life, the most energetic, powerful, alive. Why? Because he was hypomanic.

I bite the back of my hand.
So, he didn’t love me
. But then I remember his face when he handed the manuscript to me, and his declaration of love, as if he knew I’d need to hear it. He wanted me to keep going. I close my eyes, take a moment. And pick it up again.

Greg explains that, if he hadn’t been hypomanic, he’d never have had the confidence to pursue me; he’d have taken my refusal at face value. His optimism stills me. Rather than doubting his love because of hypomania, as I have done, he
appreciates
it for getting us together.

Reading on, I come to understand Greg’s high from his point of view: how he wanted everything to happen immediately, including marriage; how he believed that he was indestructible. He could outsmart, outwrite, outdrive anyone. He truly believed he could do anything. Bring on the adventure. Bring on the challenge.
Nothing
couldn’t be conquered. The world needed to witness his genius, his way with words, his great sexual feats. I remember that time in the restaurant. If I could have looked inside his mind back then, it would have explained so much.

I have to keep readjusting my perception of the past. Intense experiences we shared, I’m reliving from Greg’s point of view. The time I confronted him about drugs: he wished he had been on
something
because he’d have had some explanation for his
behaviour
. When he accused me of having problems, he wasn’t just trying to deflect attention away from himself, he really did think there was something wrong with me – I was doing everything so slowly. And I never knew, never imagined, that one of the reasons Greg avoided us during that time was because he couldn’t take the fear he saw in our eyes.

After the thunderstorm, when I told him I couldn’t go on, and he began to behave reasonably again, he wasn’t responsible for that. He had started to come down from his high naturally. It had nothing to do with our conversation. It was the result of brain chemicals.

The struggle to keep going, to keep doing those simple things that had once been automatic, was enormous. Everything that had given him joy became impossible – writing, reading, communicating, living. The man whose life had been books could no longer read to the end of a sentence let alone steer his thoughts into writing one. And the reaction of the people he loved only served as a reminder that something was desperately wrong.

I learn the enormity of what I was asking Greg to do in seeing a doctor. I was urging him to admit failure, to relinquish his role as hero to his children. How could he be their hero and have a mental illness? And how could he even look after them, if he couldn’t look after himsel
f
? Despite all that, he went to the doctor because he loved me and didn’t want to lose me.

And I doubted his love.

All day, I read, unable to stop, to detach, to move from the bed.

When Greg told me he was trying to protect me by isolatin
g m
e, I never imagined the extent of what he was trying to
protect
me from. When he was admitted to hospital so quickly and for so long, I never dreamed it could have been because he was
suicidal
. He thought of ending his life, constantly. He even planned it.
Genuinely
planned to take his life, to leave us. I feel my heart break, actually tear open, rip apart. The tears I’m crying must be made of blood. Because ordinary tears just aren’t enough. Pages fall, scatter. I want to shake him and scream, ‘Why?’ But the answer is lying, silent, on the bed. Waiting.

He felt so far away. He wasn’t just down; he was underground, in the dark, cold earth, already in the grave, but living. There was no escape in sleep, because he could not sleep. He’d lie awake watching the sunrise, wondering, as he’d once said to me, how he’d get through another entire day. Greg was in a tunnel with no light at the end. Then suicide became the light. It made absolute sense. What was the point in living when he already felt dead? Better to end it and save everyone the pain of living with him.

That I was so concerned with my own survival at that time, with no clear understanding of what
he
was going through, makes me feel insensitive, clumsy, stupid and, of course, guilty.

Greg took his medication with absolutely no hope that anything would improve. But slowly, very slowly, the opaque screen that had been shielding us from him began to fade and he remembered why he loved us. He realised that he needed to fight for us. There were things that helped: certain things I inadvertently said; being able to explain his condition to the children and their acceptance of him; being able to talk to Betty, then me; exercise; the hospital chaplain; getting home; and yes, even group therapy.

He has changed, he writes: quicker now to give people the
benefit
of the doubt, more appreciative of his family and the people who stuck by him, and more than willing to take one day at a time.

I put the last page down. Outside it’s dark. And quiet. One question rings in my mind. How could I ever have considered leaving this person? I check my watch. Eleven. I grab my car keys and run.

I let myself in and find him in the sitting room, reading by a blazing fire.

‘Hey,’ I say.

He looks up, his eyes searching mine.

I go to him, take the book from his hand and place it upside down on the table. I ease myself onto his lap and snuggle up to him. ‘You’re wonderful.’

‘So, you’re not leaving me?’ He smiles.

‘Not for the moment.’ I stretch up to kiss his cheek, then rest back against his chest. ‘I can’t believe what you’ve been through.’ My voice starts to crack.

He puts his arms around me, kisses the top of my head.

‘Thank you for writing this, for letting me in.’

He rests his cheek against my hair.