Soon, the nausea was there all the time. It was there when Eleanor woke up and when she went to sleep. Mostly, it was dull and consistent – a low-level queasiness leaving her just enough energy to wash and dress and get Rosie and Isobel out of the house, to prepare meals and put the washing on, reply to emails, take meetings, keep on top of the publishing schedule, send thank-you cards and read picture books, but she was performing it all through a slight haze. She was never quite present; everything was tinged. Every movement, every gesture or smile, came just a little bit less easily and with a delay only perceptible to her. Some of her resources always had to be directed to dealing with the hard, bright thing in her stomach that refused to settle, and the delicate nubs of pressure on her head and face. At the top of her nose, above her ears, the back of her skull, like small fingers prodding insistently.
And then sometimes, if she had been at home for a few hours, it was intense: so intense that the pain in her head made her want to cry and she was actually sick, suddenly, violently. Something would rise up inside her and she would have to run upstairs to the bathroom, with Rosie behind her demanding to know what she was doing. She would throw up with the door open. Sometimes she couldn’t even manage that and would be sick in the nearest place: in the sink, a canvas bag or, once, into her hands. There would be a moment of light-headed relief, on her knees, clutching the table leg, Rosie asking, ‘Why did you do that, Mummy?’, Isobel screaming. But it was just a moment’s silence before it started again, slowly accumulating until she couldn’t properly listen or feel or think.
At first, she told Richard when she felt ill, and he was sympathetic and tried to help: he arranged for her to rest on weekends, persuaded her to take days off work, made her cups of hot water. But nothing helped and soon, it was happening so often that they both ran dry – she was bored even saying the words: ‘Just a headache, and feeling sick again.’ It became clear that resting every time she felt sick was not an option: she couldn’t stop participating in life altogether. She just had to live with it.
*
Richard encouraged her to find out what it was. She took four pregnancy tests. She went to see her GP and smiled politely when a friendly, detached young doctor told her that moving house was as stressful as divorce or losing a loved one. Eleanor listened attentively while she talked about rest, staying away from alcohol, drinking lots of water, scheduling in me-time, getting Dad or Grandma to help a bit more.
She did neck stretches. She stopped eating sugar. She tried yoga. She went to alternative practitioners: paid people to touch her head or her feet in a certain way, and put needles in her wrists. They at least took her seriously and there was something seductive about being listened to, but the treatments didn’t help. After each session, she wondered how long she could continue with this: sitting on low wicker chairs, turning the limp, softened pages of cheap magazines, worrying about the time off work, taking off her tights, lying down, enduring something overly intimate, then putting her card in the machine and feeling her overdraft expand.
Her doctor had told her to come back if it didn’t get better in two weeks; she tried again. She was told she had a virus and just needed to rest. The third time, the doctor seemed actively bored, as Eleanor explained the same procession of symptoms. She reminded herself that they probably had patients with cancer in their waiting rooms, but she was firm, as she’d promised Richard she would be, and insisted that they give her tests. They tested her for various conditions, none of which quite described what was happening to her. The results came back negative. She wasn’t surprised. She’d always known, somehow, that they would.
*
Every time she tried something, a small part of her remained fatalistic, because there was something she was keeping to herself. An unwelcome idea was forming in her head. When she felt sick, she had a strong desire to leave the house. Even just outside the front door, gulping at the air, she felt as though something was slowly returning to her body, an elixir injected into her bloodstream. At first she thought it was the fresh air or a change of scene. But eventually the distinction became clear: when she was on the street or at the office, the park or the shops, she felt herself getting better, stronger. The illness was at its worst, its least endurable, when she’d been in the house all day. She found herself making excuses to leave, going to coffee shops, inventing things they needed from the supermarket, walking the children round the park in the rain, while Rosie cried and begged to go home. She felt ill in the house and better when she was away from it. She didn’t see how she could explain this to anyone – certainly not to Richard.
It had to be her imagination. The next time she felt ill, she decided to ignore it. It was a Saturday and Richard had taken Isobel to Rosie’s swimming lesson. Leaving the house would be so easy – she could just go, unencumbered by buggies or nappies or arguments about coats. But she resolved to resist it. It would be ludicrous to waste these precious free hours walking round the block, when there were so many other things she needed to do.
She emptied the dishwasher, feeling the familiar discomfort turning to nascent queasiness. She tried to distract herself. She tidied the children’s toys away, while it bloomed to a full, perfect nausea. The tiny stains on the carpet made her retch. Mind over matter. The grip on her head became cruel and insistent. She wanted more than anything to go outside. She put up the drying racks and took the washing out of the machine. The nausea rose. The green of the walls seemed to intensify, until it was almost overpowering.
She thought of the miscarriage she’d had before having Isobel, how she’d not had any time off work, taken Rosie to her playdates, bled into her black trousers while talking to a mechanic about the broken washing machine. Wasn’t that worse than a headache and hadn’t she coped? Wasn’t labour worse? Wasn’t that just what women did, withstood physical pain in silence – had IUDs fitted, period pains, morning sickness, abortions and didn’t talk about it? And now, this illness which didn’t even have a name was flooring her.
She began to panic; this couldn’t be true, it wasn’t sustainable. She had to be able to stay in her house. She stared at the clothes hanging on the drying rack, barely able to remember getting them out of the machine, astonished to have completed the task without collapsing. She found herself standing in the bay window, watching the cars going past. Then suddenly she was grabbing her coat, clutching her handbag, fumbling with keys. She opened the front door and staggered down the steps, drinking the cold air. She doubled over outside the gate. Two minutes. Then I’ll go back in. But before she knew what she was doing, she was running down the street.