Sorrow and Bliss

Sorrow and Bliss Plot Summary

Introduction

The iron balcony on the fourth floor of the Goldhawk Road house was rusted and coming loose from the wall. Standing barefoot on its grille floor one winter night, Martha Russell stared at the long black rectangle of garden below. The pain was unbearable—not just in her feet, her chest, her lungs, her scalp, her knuckles, her cheekbones—but the very fact of existing. She had known since sixteen that something was wrong with her mind, but nobody had given it the right name. Now at the precipice, Martha considered how the fall would end her suffering. She stayed there until the wind picked up, feeling the balcony sway beneath her. Martha didn't jump that night. Instead, she went inside, reasoning that she couldn't do that to her father, or make her sister fail exams. But most of all, a thought stopped her—the worst thing she'd ever admitted to herself: she was too proud. Too clever and special to be just another statistic. This pride, this flaw, would save and damn her throughout her life as she navigated relationships, especially with Patrick Friel, a man who had loved her since they were teenagers. Their marriage would become the crucible in which her undiagnosed condition burned hottest, threatening to destroy not just her happiness, but her very ability to recognize that she was loved at all.

Chapter 1: The Weight of Inheritance: Family Patterns and First Symptoms

Martha Russell was born to unconventional parents—her father Fergus, a poet who published one acclaimed poem before being permanently blocked, and her mother Celia, a sculptor who created menacing oversized birds from repurposed materials. Their narrow house on Goldhawk Road in Shepherd's Bush was perpetually unfinished—walls half-painted in terracotta, damp towels rarely changed, a kitchen where her father cooked chops each night on layers of accumulated tinfoil. The Russell household operated on chaos. Biannually, her parents would separate, with Fergus taking his clothes and typewriter to the Hotel Olympia at the end of their road. During these "Leavings," Martha's mother would retreat to her shed in the garden, working all night to the sound of folk music while Martha and her younger sister Ingrid lay top-to-tail in one bed, listening to metal tools dropping on concrete. Martha would collect the empty bottles so Ingrid wouldn't see them. Eventually, their mother would send one of them to fetch their father back, and upon his return, they'd throw wild parties that flooded the house with London's self-proclaimed artistic elite. "Your mother had a recurrent throwing-out of our father," Martha explained years later to her husband Patrick. "But the parties were our mother's chief contribution to domestic life, the thing that made us forgive her inadequacies." At sixteen, something broke inside Martha's mind. On the morning of her French A-level exam, she woke with no feeling in her hands and arms, tears already leaking from her eyes. In the exam, she couldn't read the paper and wrote nothing. When she got home, she crawled under her desk and stayed there for days, unable to sleep at night or stay awake during the day, her skin crawling with invisible things, terror gripping her at every noise. "Martha's under her desk again," Ingrid would call out. "Martha will come out when she wants to," her mother would respond, refusing to engage. While her sister and mother dismissed her behavior, Martha's father stayed up with her through the nights, sitting on the floor against her bed, talking about unrelated things in a very quiet voice. Eventually, he took her to a doctor who diagnosed glandular fever—"kissing disease"—and offered nothing but rest. This would become a pattern: medical professionals misdiagnosing Martha's condition throughout her life, leaving her to suffer without understanding why.

Chapter 2: Failed Attempts at Normal: Jonathan and the First Marriage

At twenty-five, Martha Russell was working at World of Interiors magazine, writing descriptions of chairs. At a summer party, she met Jonathan Strong, an art broker with wet-looking hair and a wristwatch "the size of a wall clock." He approached her with champagne, stood inches away, and said, "I'm Jonathan Strong, but I'm much more interested in who you are." "You have the brilliant eyes of a Victorian child who would die the same night of scarlet fever," Martha told him. Jonathan laughed excessively. Despite resolving to hate him, Martha found herself surrendering to his extravagant energy within minutes. After dinner at a sushi restaurant where Jonathan ate half a slice of sashimi and put the remainder back on the conveyor belt for other diners, Martha went home with him. She mistook his confidence for humor, his intensity for love. Within weeks, they were engaged, and Jonathan threw a party to announce it. "He proposed in front of my entire family," Martha recalled. "I said yes because I didn't want him to get down on one knee in that crowd. The room went silent before my father started clapping uncertainly." Then her mother shouted: "Whoop de doo, Martha's pregnant!" "What? No she isn't," Ingrid interjected, rushing to Martha's side. Martha wasn't pregnant, but Jonathan's reaction revealed the first fracture in their relationship. He turned to her father with mock horror and said through gritted teeth, "She better not be!" When her father didn't laugh, Jonathan repeated it to her uncle, who did, and the laughter spread through the room. Their marriage was brief and devastating. The honeymoon in Ibiza consisted of Martha returning alone to their villa each night while Jonathan partied until dawn. Back in London, she fell into a deep depression, unable to leave their bed for weeks. Jonathan grew increasingly distant and cruel, eventually telling her to "skedaddle" during a business trip. "God, you're like some kind of black hole sucking in all my energy," he told her one evening. "A force field of misery that just drains me." Ingrid came to rescue Martha, helping her back to their parents' house. The marriage had lasted forty-three days. Martha would later discover that Jonathan had been addicted to cocaine and that his manic enthusiasm had masked a person incapable of true empathy. "Jonathan is a shit," her mother said simply when Martha returned home, broken.

Chapter 3: The Safe Harbor: Patrick and the Promise of Understanding

Patrick Friel entered Martha's life when she was sixteen and he was thirteen. It was Christmas Day, and he stood in the black and white chequered foyer of her aunt and uncle's house in Belgravia, wearing a school uniform and holding a duffle bag. His father had forgotten to book his flight home to Hong Kong, and Martha's cousin Oliver had brought him along from boarding school. During dinner, Martha's uncle Rowland interrogated Patrick: "What I want to know is what kind of father forgets to book his own son a flight home at Christmas. To bloody Singapore." "Bloody Hong Kong," Oliver corrected. "What about your mother?" Rowland pressed. "He doesn't have one," Oliver answered for Patrick, who was struggling to speak. "My mother was a doctor," Patrick finally managed to say. "She drowned in a hotel pool when I was seven." Every Christmas after that, Patrick joined the family gatherings. Martha didn't interact with him much until one Christmas when she was sick. He knocked on her door and asked if he could sit with her. They talked about his mother, and Martha felt a connection forming. Years later, after her divorce from Jonathan, Martha moved back to her parents' house. By coincidence, Patrick was often there visiting her cousins. They began talking, first awkwardly, then comfortably, taking walks together along London's canals. "Do you know what's funny?" Martha said one day. "I've known you for however long, fifty years, and I've never been to your house." When Patrick finally took her to his flat, something shifted between them. They talked until late, and when he drove her home, Martha admitted her feelings. "Patrick, do you love me?" she asked suddenly. "No," he said firmly. "Or do you mean as a friend?" "Not as a friend." "Then no. I don't." But later that night, he returned to her parents' doorstep. "I just felt like I should say, I wasn't a hundred per cent honest with you just then," Patrick admitted. "At one stage, I did think I was—you know." "When?" "One year, after I saw you at your aunt and uncle's, at Christmas. We were teenagers. You were sick." Their relationship evolved slowly. Patrick became a doctor, specializing in intensive care. Martha wrote a food column for Waitrose magazine. They moved to Oxford, married in a small ceremony, and settled into a routine of everyday contentment—walking, talking, watching television together, Patrick rubbing Martha's back until she fell asleep. "At a wedding shortly after our own," Martha would later write, "I followed Patrick through the dense crowd at the reception to a woman who was standing by herself. He said that instead of looking at her every five minutes and feeling sad I should just go over and compliment her hat." With Patrick, Martha felt safe. He was steady, reliable, and undramatic—everything Jonathan wasn't. But her illness remained undiagnosed, lying dormant until it would resurface with devastating force.

Chapter 4: Unspoken Desires: The Child That Never Was

Martha never told Patrick she wanted a baby. Instead, she built a fortress of lies around her childlessness, insisting to everyone—including herself—that motherhood held no appeal for her. "When you are a woman over thirty, with a husband but without children, married couples at parties are interested to know why," Martha observed. "They agree with each other that having children is the best thing they have ever done." Initially, Martha told strangers she couldn't have children. Later, she switched to saying she didn't want them. The truth was more complicated: throughout her adult life, doctors had warned her against pregnancy because of her medication. "Take these pills," they'd say, "but don't get pregnant." Martha internalized these warnings, believing the medication had made her body toxic to any potential fetus. More than that, she feared passing on whatever was wrong with her mind—the depression, the anxiety, the unpredictable rages that had plagued her since adolescence. Meanwhile, Ingrid married Hamish, a civil servant she met when she fell outside his house and he helped her up. They quickly had children—one, then two, then three boys. Each pregnancy was a knife to Martha's heart, though she pretended indifference or mild annoyance. "I don't know when he will stop calling me Marfa," Martha said of her eldest nephew. "I hope, never." The siblings' relationship remained close but strained by Martha's jealousy, which she disguised as disinterest. When Ingrid complained about motherhood—the exhaustion, the constant demands, the endless washing—Martha seethed internally. "My sister gets to complain about all of it," Martha thought bitterly, "her ruined body, the newborns who exhaust her with their crying, the toddlers and their constant touching and constant need... these perfect, perfect, perfect beautiful boys. The best thing she has ever done." The truth finally emerged during a crisis. After five years of marriage, Martha became pregnant accidentally. She didn't tell Patrick immediately, conflicted by fear and sudden, overwhelming desire for the baby. When she finally admitted it, they argued about what to do. "I'm not going to wait for no reason," Martha told him coldly, intending to terminate the pregnancy. But nature intervened. While pushing her bike along a towpath, Martha miscarried. She called Patrick from home, and he drove her to the hospital. Afterward, they never discussed it. Martha grieved silently, naming the lost baby Flora in her private thoughts. "It was a miscarriage anyway," she told herself, a half-comfort that concealed the depth of her loss. "I tried to go back to sleep, hot and tangled and sick with guilt that I wasn't getting up and going to work. A dog was barking from the flat below, and somewhere outside road workers were breaking up the street."

Chapter 5: Diagnosis and Deception: The Secret Martha Keeps

By Martha's fortieth birthday, her marriage to Patrick was fracturing. Her depression had returned with terrifying force. She threw things—a fork at Patrick because he walked away while she was upset, a hairdryer that left a bruise where it hit him. She avoided being in the same room as him, or at home if he was there. "How long has it been since I've seen you cry?" Patrick asked one evening. "I guess you've finally worn out the mechanism. Ha-ha." That was his way of asking what had happened, but Martha couldn't answer. She only said, "Can you start sleeping in a different room?" After a particularly frightening episode when Martha ran along the towpath in the middle of the night, Patrick took her to an after-hours doctor who prescribed tranquilizers. The darkness seemed to lift briefly, but returned with the changing seasons. In May, Martha finally sought help from a specialist in London—a psychiatrist named Robert with an office on Harley Street. He listened as she described her symptoms and history of misdiagnoses. Then he spoke the word that had eluded every previous doctor, the name of her condition. For privacy, Martha would only ever refer to it as "——". "I'm very sorry for you," Robert said gently. "It sounds like it has been hard for a long time." He prescribed medication specifically for her condition—tiny, pale pink pills that began to work within weeks. For the first time since adolescence, Martha felt stable, present, in control of her reactions. "I hadn't known you could choose how to feel instead of being overpowered by an emotion from outside yourself," she realized. "I didn't feel like a different person, I felt like myself. As though I had been found." But Martha didn't tell Patrick about her diagnosis or her new medication. She used his credit card to pay for the appointment, then hid the prescription bottles around the house. More significantly, during her session with Robert, she learned something that upended her understanding of herself: contrary to what she'd been told her entire adult life, her condition did not disqualify her from motherhood. "—— is not a reason to forego motherhood," Robert assured her. "I have many patients who are mothers and do very well. I would only say that if that belief is connected to a sense that you're perhaps unstable or might present some risk to a child, I have no doubt you'd be a wonderful mother, if it's something you wanted." This revelation shattered Martha. All the years of believing she couldn't or shouldn't have children—wasted. All the chances—gone. And now, at forty, it might be too late. Her anger at this injustice needed a target, and she chose Patrick. If he was a doctor, shouldn't he have known her condition? Shouldn't he have recognized the symptoms? How could he have let her believe such a fundamental lie about herself? "I haven't told Patrick yet," she admitted to her sister Ingrid months later. "What? Oh my God, Martha. Why would you decide to tell our parents instead of your own husband?" Ingrid was incredulous. "He should have known," Martha insisted. "Why? You didn't." "I am not a doctor."

Chapter 6: Burning Houses: The Collapse of a Marriage

Despite being on effective medication, Martha's behavior toward Patrick grew increasingly hostile. She avoided him, criticized him, and whenever they did speak, she was dismissive or contemptuous. Her outward anger masked an inward shame so profound she couldn't face it. "I don't feel married," she told Patrick one night. "I don't feel loved. In which case, what's the point?" He endured her coldness with characteristic patience, which only fueled her resentment. She accused him of passivity, of being "the outline of where a husband should be." She interpreted his steadiness as lack of feeling, his acceptance as lack of desire. On Martha's birthday, Patrick organized a party despite her protests. The evening was a disaster. Martha locked herself in the bathroom and cried, then emerged to ask Patrick not to read whatever speech he had prepared on palm cards. In the car on the way home, she told him she hated when he pointed at people, offering them drinks. "When you do that pointing thing it makes me want to shoot you with an actual gun," she snapped. Two days later, Patrick left for a work trip to Uganda. He would be gone for five months. During his absence, Martha continued her secret treatment, growing stronger while their marriage weakened. When Patrick returned, the gulf between them had widened beyond repair. The final blow came during an argument about Martha's diagnosis, which Patrick had discovered through the credit card statement and by finding her medication. "I know," he said simply when she finally confronted him. "That you went and saw a psychiatrist. That you have ——." "How do you know that? Did you call him?" Martha demanded. "I know the drug. You leave it lying around, Martha. You don't even throw the empty packets away." Martha was incensed that Patrick had known all along and said nothing. "If you knew everything, why didn't you tell me?" "I was waiting for you to tell me but you didn't. And then after a while it seemed like you weren't going to and I had no idea why." Their argument escalated until Martha revealed her deepest wound: "I've always wanted a baby. This whole time, my whole life, I've wanted to have a baby but everyone told me it would be dangerous." Patrick's response was devastating: "Do you really think I wasn't aware of that either? Babies are the only thing you ever talk about. You won't let us sit near anyone with a baby in a restaurant, then you'll be staring at them all night." When Martha accused him of letting her lie to herself, of preventing her from having the family she wanted, Patrick finally lost his composure. "I don't think you should be a mother," he said. Martha let out a primal sound, neither speech nor screaming. Hours later, she was stripping sheets from their bed while Patrick packed a suitcase. He left, only returning briefly to put oil in the car before walking away toward the station. Their marriage had burned to the ground, and Martha was alone with the ashes of what might have been.

Chapter 7: Forgotten is Forgiven: Finding a Way Back to Each Other

After Patrick left, Martha moved back to her parents' house on Goldhawk Road. She was forty-one, twice divorced, unemployed, and living in her childhood bedroom, which her mother had filled with unfinished sculptures. Her relationship with her mother had been strained since the diagnosis. During a phone call from the train after her appointment with Robert, Martha had confronted her: "Do you remember that time when I was eighteen, you took me to a doctor who said I had ——?" After initial denials, her mother admitted, "I didn't want it to be true. ——'s a hateful disease. Our family has been ravaged by it. My family and your father's." "Who in our family?" Martha demanded. "Your father's mother, his sister who you never met. One or likely both of my aunts. And my mother, who you may as well know now did not die of cancer. She walked into the sea in the middle of February." The revelation that her condition was hereditary, that her grandmother had committed suicide because of it, that her mother had known all along—these truths crashed through Martha's defenses. But in their wake came an unexpected development: her mother stopped drinking. "Martha. You asked me to stop. The day you called me from the train," her mother said when Martha noticed. "I know." "Well I stopped. I haven't had anything to drink since then. After you hung up, I tipped it all down the sink." This change created space for healing between them. Martha began calling her mother daily, sometimes multiple times, needing guidance through basic tasks. Get up. Take a shower. Eat something. Her mother answered every call, never questioning why Martha needed such elementary help. Meanwhile, Ingrid gave birth to her fourth child—surprisingly, a girl named Winnie. The sisters reconciled after a period of estrangement, with Ingrid forcing Martha to confront her behavior. "I know you and Patrick have been having a shit time for reasons I can't work out," Ingrid said bluntly, "but I wish I could understand why you can't just backburner it for one night." Martha confessed her diagnosis and her lies about not wanting children. Ingrid was shocked but supportive, telling her: "You need to tell him. You can't just keep going indefinitely, thinking you can be happy on any level, ever, if you're not telling him this giant thing." Martha began writing in a journal, examining her life and marriage with unflinching honesty. She confronted her shame, her grief over the baby she had lost, and her unfair treatment of Patrick. She realized that her anger toward him was misdirected—he wasn't responsible for her condition or her childlessness. Six months after their separation, Martha arranged to meet Patrick at a storage facility where he was collecting their furniture. She accidentally left her journal behind, and when she returned, she found him reading it. "What was it like for you, Patrick?" she asked, finally able to pose the question she'd avoided their entire marriage. "Our marriage. Being my husband." "It was fucking awful," he said, the profanity shocking from his typically gentle mouth. "I know you were sick but I was the one who had to absorb all your pain and have your rage directed at me, just because I was there." As Patrick detailed his experience—the loneliness, the walking on eggshells, the objects thrown at him—Martha listened without interruption. Then he added: "Most of the time it was amazing. You made me so happy, Martha. You have no idea. That's the part I'm finding hardest to deal with. That you were oblivious to everything that was good about it." Before they parted, Patrick made his own confession: "The thing I am most ashamed of is saying you shouldn't be a mother. It's not true. I was so angry." Martha cried in his arms one last time, mourning their lost chances. As she was leaving, Patrick called after her: "It makes a good story Martha. The way you wrote it. Someone—they should make it into a movie." "I don't think in a movie, the denouement—I don't think the final parting can take place at EasyStore Brent Cross," she replied, trying to lighten the moment before running to the lift. But their story wasn't over. Weeks later, Patrick appeared at her parents' house, asking if she would move back into their flat while he lived elsewhere. "Two people who have ruined each other's lives shouldn't get a second go at it," he said. "But while we're trying to—" "Please don't say trying to make things work," Martha interrupted. "Fine. Whatever we're trying to do, while we're doing it, I don't want you to have to live with your parents." Slowly, cautiously, Martha and Patrick began rebuilding their relationship. He rented a studio apartment two streets away from their flat but spent most nights with her. They watched television together, discussed fixing the dishwasher hinge, and navigated the complexities of loving someone they had once hurt so deeply. "When people discover that you and your husband were separated for a time but have since reconciled, they put their head on the side and say, 'Clearly you never stopped loving him deep down,'" Martha reflected. "But I did. I know I did. It is easier to say yes, you're so right, because it is too much work to explain to them that you can stop and start again from nothing, that you can love the same person twice."

Summary

The story of Martha and Patrick is one of broken vessels—two people damaged by circumstances beyond their control who nonetheless find ways to hold each other together. Martha's undiagnosed mental condition shaped her entire existence, from her teenage years under the desk to her failed first marriage to her complex relationship with motherhood. When she finally received the correct diagnosis at forty, the revelation that she could have safely had children detonated her marriage to Patrick, the man who had loved her through everything. Through Martha's journey we witness the extraordinary fragility of human connection. Mental illness is not just the sufferer's burden—it creates ripples that touch everyone in its orbit, demanding impossible resilience from those who choose to stay. Yet despite the destruction Martha and Patrick inflicted on each other, they ultimately found their way back to an imperfect union. As Martha describes their reconciliation: "We are together in, Patrick says, injury time—time we are not entitled to—and so we are grateful." Some vessels, once broken, can never be made whole again. But with enough care and patience, they can still hold something precious.

About Author

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Meg Mason

Mason navigates complex themes of mental health and societal expectations through her literary works, crafting narratives that resonate with contemporary audiences. Her journey from journalism to fiction writing showcases her versatile storytelling approach. Starting her career with prestigious publications like the Financial Times and The Times, Mason honed her skills in capturing nuanced human experiences. Her transition to freelance writing allowed her to explore various subjects, contributing to magazines such as Vogue and ELLE, and writing humor for The New Yorker. This diverse background informs her novels, where she blends wit with deep emotional insight.\n\nIn her acclaimed novel "Sorrow and Bliss", Mason explores the intricate layers of mental health and family dynamics. The book delves into the life of Martha, a woman grappling with the aftermath of her marriage collapse, highlighting themes of medical misogyny and toxic masculinity. Influenced by literary figures like Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, Mason infuses her work with a rich emotional texture, offering readers an intimate look at personal and societal struggles. This novel won the British Book Awards 2022 Fiction Book of the Year, affirming its impact and relevance. Moreover, her earlier works, including the memoir "Say It Again in a Nice Voice", reflect her ability to translate personal experiences into universal themes, engaging a wide audience with her authentic voice.\n\nReaders and literary enthusiasts benefit from Mason's exploration of profound themes, gaining insights into the complexities of modern life. Her ability to weave personal narratives with broader societal issues offers a compelling reading experience, making her books not just stories but reflections on real-world challenges. This brief bio highlights Mason's significant contributions to literature, illustrating how her works continue to provoke thought and foster understanding among her audience.

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