Whenever Howard thinks he’s in trouble, he plays the ILEX card. He encourages me to become a legal executive. It would mean four years of exams, a personal cost of around £4,000 - £5,000 and a lifetime sentence as a legal executive, probably working for Howard. He raised it after learning Philip had overheard his last public announcement:-
“Eva doesn’t mind what I say. She doesn’t know any better. Look at her! She’s been treated like shit by every man she’s ever known. Her father, her husband...”
Someone nudged him to warn Philip was listening.
That afternoon something frightening happened. I couldn’t read the letter I was typing. I struggled to focus on the words. It was like my brain had disconnected with my eyes and then – WHAM – these crazy zig-zags swam across my right eye.
I couldn’t see Howard properly when he came over to give me work. I felt weird. I told him I had to pop outside for air. I didn’t tell him I suspected I was going outside to die of a brain tumour.
“Wait a minute,” Howard said.
Perhaps he could see the seriousness of the situation – offer a final word of kindness.
“Take these letters with you. There’s only a few. You can put them in envelopes out there.”
Sobbing with self pity and panic, I left the office and stumbled down the side of our building. Mercifully, the alley was free from smokers. This is how it ends, I thought - me at the end of an alley - found dead on a pile of discarded cigarette butts and clutching a pile of Howard's stupid letters. I cried for a few minutes. Then the jagged lines eased a little. Maybe it wasn’t a brain tumour. Socked by a thunderous headache, I realised it must be a migraine. I’d never had one before. When I got back to my desk, shaky and exhausted but thankful to be alive, I squinted in pain at Howard's latest e-mail.
“You should give serious thought to the ILEX.”
I already know what I want. I want to be a writer one day. It may never happen, but it absolutely won’t happen if I give up on my little dream. When I confessed the ILEX wasn’t for me, Howard wasn’t happy.
“Any excuse for being too scared to try. Face facts, Eva - your brain is fucking lazy. ” he said.
It’s not that my brain is lazy. On the contrary, my brain appears to be going into meltdown with stress related migraines, which makes the whole ILEX thing a no-brainer. My head’s not in this job any more than my heart is.
Just like the migraine, I suspect the ILEX leads straight up a blind alley.
See you soon,
Eva x
1 comment:
Migraines are strange like depression..if you ve never suffered one you don t know what has hit you!I have hed only one with visual disturbance when I could only see half of everything...I hope you have stopped getting them..There seemed to be no one noticing anyones pain in that office..
I have done a top up course after much avoidance and six months of university and a shambles of a new course with ridiculous demands and deadlines and AGAIN NO support and left with a qualification no one seems to understand recognise or value..am left really jaded with further education..am emperors new clothes if ever I saw one! As with university degrees these days you wonder that any youngster would put themselves through these with no guarantes of a good carreer at the end!
Post a Comment