She had assumed the sickening terror was linked to Danny’s death, the area it happened and by extension the car where the fear had first consumed her. So walking to the post office to pay her car tax hadn’t worried her in the slightest.
The post office wasn’t even noisy. But it was crowded and hot and cramped. A line of people snaked zigzag style in the cordoned-off aisles. There were two counters working but one clerk seemed to be stuck weighing a mountain of small packets for a customer. No one spoke and the air was tight with impatience. Fiona tried not to breathe in the stale smell coming off the elderly man in front of her. She could see the grime on the collar of his coat and the flakes of dandruff dotted through his hair. The woman behind her wore industrial-strength perfume which was even worse than the musty man smell.
Fiona felt herself gag. She cleared her throat then felt the ground tilt away, thick sweat broke along her hairline, on her scalp, under her arms. The fear came rolling like a wave, unstoppable, all-powerful, climbing her torso, robbing her of breath, of sense. She thought she would wet herself.
She turned abruptly, pushing past the queue, fighting her way to the door. Outside, she doubled over, her heart thundering in her ears, her mouth gummy.
‘You all right, love?’ A white-haired woman with a shopping trolley put her hand on Fiona’s arm. Fiona couldn’t reply, her throat was locked, her chest exploding. She knew there was something she should do, something to remember, but her mind was tangled.
Suddenly her stomach heaved and she vomited on to the pavement. The woman took a step back. ‘You’d better go home.’
Fiona gulped, nodded, her mouth sour, her nose and throat stinging from the acid.
‘Can you manage?’
Fiona coughed. Her breath came fast, rapid. Stars bursting in her eyes, then she remembered: breatheslowly. Joe’s words, the policeman. Fiona tried to master her breath. Took a sip, shuddered, took another tiny sip. Little bird breaths.
The woman frowned.
‘I’ll be all right, thanks,’ Fiona managed. The woman wasn’t convinced but she gave a quick nod and set off with her trolley. Fiona sipped again. Waited until she felt able to move. Then walked home, her legs unsteady, her breath rank.
You might never have another, the cardiologist had said. Liar, thought Fiona, and now what?
Almost as great as the fear of a repeat attack was the dread of becoming housebound. She could live without town and shopping (there was the internet for that) and even without work, which had surprised her as she’d always loved her job, but not being able to walk the fields and the woods, or set out along by the river: to lose that would be intolerable. So the afternoon of the post office meltdown, even though she still felt sick and scalded, she forced herself to go out with Ziggy.