Angus Farrell rubbed his eyes hard again and his mouth dropped open. The crooked lower teeth were worn down to dark, ringed stubs from the months he had spent grinding them when he first came here. His head ached all the time. He rubbed his eyes harder. "God almighty," he whispered. "I did it, didn't I?"
Chapter 7
It was a warm evening but the room felt damp. it always felt damp. The gray carpet squares were beginning to curdle in protest. Ten group members were sitting in a circle, sipping tea and coffee from Styrofoam cups and nibbling at the lovely chocolate biscuits Liz bought from Marks & Spencer every week.
Sheila, a tall woman in her fifties with an eating disorder, was the Incest Survivor Group's convener. She wore her graying brown hair up in a leather clasp and dressed in shapeless shirts and long skirts, as if trying to deny that she had a body. She raised her elegant English voice and cut across the chatter. "Let's convene this week's meeting with a reminder." She held up the laminated page and read through it. It was a poetic rendition of a series of group rules. No directional advice would be given by members of the group unless requested, no one would interrupt another member while they were sharing.
Maureen zoned out and took out a cigarette.
"I want to speak tonight." Colin leaned forward into the circle as he ran a hand through his hair. Behind him, tall Alex sighed and folded his arms. Colin always wanted to speak first. He spoke every week, and every week he said the same thing: he wasn't coping. His ex-wife wanted him to look after their child but he couldn't. Colin had only realized that his abuse was still a live issue when his son reached seven. When he got angry he wanted to hurt the boy. He could control the urges if he saw him during the day and didn't spend too long with him. His ex-wife wanted him to take his son for weekends. If he told her why he couldn't do it she'd stop him seeing the child altogether. He stared at the carpet, wringing his hands, the anxious sweat on his palms smacking noisily, making him even less likable. He was going to have to stop seeing him, he knew that – he was afraid for him. He loved him. That was all he had to say. Any advice would be welcome.
When she was sure he had finished, Sheila thanked him and asked whether someone else would like to come in. Tall Alex lunged forward and began his tirade against whoever had pissed him off that week. He was angry. The focus of his fury changed from week to week but the content was always the same. Everyone was picking on him, they underestimated him, he wasn't going to stand for it. Every week he had a new revenge fantasy – he was going to show them. The revenge was always small, a slight or a slap, spreading a rumor. A blind dog in a drunken stupor with no clinical training could have identified the pattern: Alex was just angry and he was angry because he was afraid, but no one was allowed to say that. Every week he finished by saying that advice would not be welcome. If anyone attempted to talk to him afterwards he'd speak from the body of the hall the next week, railing against know-all bastards, glancing pointedly at the offender, threatening petty Armageddon.
Hugh McAskill had told her about the group during the investigation into Douglas's death. She hadn't really understood why he was so kind to her at the time; it was only afterwards when she came to the group that she realized how much his experience matched hers.
She didn't associate Hugh the policeman with Hugh the responsible group member. The damp room felt separate somehow, like a grubby gray antechamber to real life where each member's darkest moments could be touched on and safely left behind, lingering in the smell of moldy dust, waiting for next week.
Although the group was composed predominantly of women the men always spoke first. The usual form was that Hugh would speak next, calming everyone down with his soft voice and sad demeanor, talk about aspects of his own struggle that reflected the previous speakers', but Hugh wasn't there tonight. The silence lasted longer than was comfortable and they began to look around at one another expectantly. No one wanted to come in before Hugh had set the atmosphere right.
"Anyone else?" asked Sheila, and sat back.
The meeting room was on the third floor of a small building, abutting a large red sandstone chapel in Partick. The outbuildings had developed chaotically, and twenty feet across the lane a newer hall had been built. It was used on Thursdays for Irish dancing classes and they could hear a skirl of tinny music through the open fire exit. Of a sudden, a hundred tiny feet simultaneously stamped about the distant pine floor.
"Surely someone else wants to speak tonight?" said Sheila.
Maureen found herself coming in. "I'll speak, Sheila," she said, and Sheila sat back gratefully, giving her the floor.
Maureen hadn't thought about what she was going to say and it all fell out in a jumble. "I've been trying to enjoy the weather today," she said, following Hugh's style of sharing and starting with something positive, in the present. "I've been working really hard at enjoying everything I can. Feeling good, happy, spending time in the house and at my work and not being sad or frightened."
She had wanted to say that she was happy and coping, that she was getting on with her life, but knew she sounded miserable and confused, as if she was lying to herself. "I'm getting the money together for my debts because I don't want to leave debts…" She hadn't meant to say that. She sounded as if she were going to die. "Not that I'm leaving." Trying to lighten up, she let out a hollow, lonely laugh that smarted off the damp walls. She looked around but no one was looking back at her: they were nodding at their laps, picking their nails, everyone frowning heavily except Alex, who was watching her with his arms crossed, sucking his cheeks in, looking amused.
"I dreamed about my dad last night. It was the same dream and I was sweating." She wasn't thinking about suicide, she should make that clear. She looked up. "I'm not going to kill myself," she said. Sheila looked worried. Alex sniggered because someone else was making a tit of themselves. Maureen gave up the attempt at sounding cheerful and her chin sank to her chest. "I think bad things are about to happen," she said, and her hot eyes dripped tears, her face slackened. "Now my dad's back in Glasgow, I can't think about anything else. Nothing else seems real or…" She sat forward, letting her tears fall onto the soiled carpet. The group had heard it all before but she couldn't stop saying the same things. "When my sisters brought him back from London I couldn't believe it. They paid for him to come here even though they knew, even though I'd told them what he did." Her chin crumpled and she couldn't speak. She breathed in, fighting the pressure from her heavy heart to sob. "They don't believe me. I can cope with that. But Una, she's having a baby soon, next few days. She's chucked her husband out. She'll give the baby to Michael, to prove that she believes him, to prove I'm wrong. I'm the only one who can do anything about it. No one else is going to do anything. I feel as if I'm dying."
She covered her face, feeling like a histrionic arsehole, wishing she could control herself, but her nose was dripping onto her lip and she couldn't catch her breath. She didn't want to cry, especially not in front of Alex, and in the effort to suppress it she let go a high-pitched, piggy squeal. Across the lane the tap-dancing children clattered their way to an untidy climax. The group was waiting for Maureen to wrap up but she couldn't speak. She put a hand to her head and dug her nails into her scalp, dragging them back on her head, and the clear, searing pain drew the breath back into her body. She sat up and managed a wobbly smile. "So, I'm trying to enjoy these last few days. Trying to savor things. Enjoy things." She licked a hot tear from her lip. "Any advice would be welcome."
She sat back, drawing tremulously on her cigarette, and the group looked away from her. It was like the reaction Colin got every week. There was no solution to the problem, there was nothing to say. They'd pat her shoulder on the way out. A couple of them would hug her awkwardly. Liz the Christian would promise to pray for her, and they'd all go home. Sheila asked for another speaker and Alice came in to talk about her insomnia. She was wearing a long-sleeved top despite the hot weather, pulling the cuffs down over her hands as she spoke, and they all guessed that she had been cutting herself again. She didn't mention it.