I try a little look across the seat to Becca, and she smiles at me, takes up my hand. I want to tell her we have to have a plan, we have to get our story straight, because you’re not on placement this time, you’re home, revising the night away, and I need to have an explanation. But I can’t herd my feline thoughts. Becca has my hand. She’s stroking it reassuringly, tenderly. It’s nice, it’s nice.
Out again on the street, your street, and I’m being walked along the pavement — a long, straight terrace street stretching off into the distance, and I’m measuring out my paces along the pavement, slab by slab. Tiny ups and downs, wobbly wonky. I’ve Laura and Becca on either side, and they’re supporting, and there’s no — where’s Mal?
Jangle now as Becca retrieves her keys for the front door. Laura’s at my other arm, but I can feel her becoming softer, more uncertain. Less and less support. The front door unjams and judders, tattling the knocker familiarly beneath the letterbox.
‘You’ll be all right from here, won’t you?’
Words from Laura to my right, and now her presence drains away, leaks off back down the street, back off to — to Mal?
And now it’s your room, and it’s you. Urgent, attentive, professional.
I look up at you as you tend to me, your forehead frowning, your eyes precise.
‘I’m so sorry.’
Unscary daylight. The safe spacey morning-after wooziness. And you’re being so gentle and kind.
I don’t deserve any of it. Look at you, you’re shattered.
‘Can you remember what happened?’ you say, climbing in at the foot of the bed, giving me a bit of room. ‘Becca was a bit hazy on details.’
‘Just fucking stupid,’ I say. ‘I forgot my insulin, didn’t I? I left it there on your desk. And I was in the club and — you know — I felt a bit weird, and I knew I was having this hyper. I thought I could ride it out.’
‘So you forgot your insulin — and that’s it?’
‘So stupid,’ I say.
‘So why did Becca bring you back? I thought you were out with Mal and Laura?’
There’s a significant edge to your tone, and I feel you holding my glance a little too straight. You’re scanning, scanning.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I say with a wash of unfocused guilt. ‘No, Becca was there too. Mal and Laura and Becca.’
The events of last night are captured only as still images, swelling sounds. It remains aching in my limbs and squealing in my ears and my soul. Tired but alert. Remnants of trippiness in the head.
‘Are you all right?’ you ask. The fatal question.
‘Yep, yeah. I’m fine,’ I say.
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely.’ I smile. Sort of.
Maybe if I vented everything, maybe it would all work out OK. I can actually feel the tip of my tongue tensing against the top of my mouth to say — to say what?
You’ve tipped your head to listen, eyebrows expectant.
Launch.
‘Listen,’ I say, ‘I wanted to tell you …’
And straight away your face grows concerned. You look away, fearful.
Bad start, bad start. Start more gently.
‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ I say. ‘It’s nothing major, don’t worry. But it’s just — it’s something I want to feel that I can talk freely with you about.’
‘Drugs?’ you say, looking up at me swiftly and directly. ‘I’m not blind. Your pupils were like dinner plates.’
‘I’m sorry.’
You look at me a moment and reflect. ‘You don’t have to apologize to me, I’m not your mum,’ you say. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Well, I don’t know — it’s not something you can easily talk about, you know? And then — I don’t know, I got scared because …’ again I hesitate.
‘Because what?’
‘Well, there’s your dad and all the stuff you went through with him. And then there’s the fact that you’re a nurse and everything.’ I quickly add this on at the end, because your face falls at the mention of your dad.
‘The fact that you can’t take your insulin properly,’ you say. ‘That’s what the nurse is unhappy about.’
‘Yeah, well.’
I’m relieved to see some of the anxiety has passed from your face. I think maybe you thought my big revelation was going to be about Becca after all.
‘Listen,’ you say, ‘I’m not a fun-killer, and I absolutely refuse to be the one who’s telling you what to do. Don’t paint me like that, Ivo, because we won’t survive that.’
‘I know.’
‘But you’ve got to look after yourself. You’re not like Mal and all the others — you’re just not. You’re not in your body, and you’re not in your mind either.’
As I sit there, the scale of all the lies expands around me. Lies to myself, I suppose. But now you’re here, and you care, they’ve become lies to you. Missing insulin jabs since I was twenty — maybe one a day, every day. And the drugs too — not just pills. Do I need to declare it all? What can I get away with? I feel like I want to tell you everything but — would that be poisoning it for no reason?
‘What’s the matter?’ you say.
‘It wasn’t only last night. There’s been a few nights. Quite a lot of nights.’
‘I don’t doubt.’ You shrug. ‘Do I want to know?’
‘On and off since — well, before you and I were together. On and off.’
‘And while we’ve been together?’
‘The odd weekend — you know when I was stuck at home and you were off on night shift or on placement.’
‘So, what, more pills?’
I breathe out unsteadily.
‘Pills. Some acid.’ I wince. I hear the clicks of the corners of my mouth. ‘A little bit of powder.’
‘Powder? Well, what, cocaine? Or—’
‘Cocaine, yes.’
‘Shit, Ivo. Cocaine? I never thought it was anything like that.’
I sit meekly, while you frown and drill your eyes into the middle of the bed between us, trying to work it all out.
‘So, cocaine then,’ you say.
Oh, don’t ask. Please don’t ask.
‘That’s it? You’ve not done — anything else.’
It’s not a question. I can’t answer. It’s not a question.
‘Heroin?’ you say, and your shock tops out. ‘Jesus Ivo, I just don’t know who you are. Heroin?’
You fling the covers off and start tearing clothes from your closet, wrenching on your jeans.
‘Mia,’ I say. ‘Mia, listen—’
‘I don’t want to hear it. You promised me you’d look after yourself, Ivo. You promised.’
‘Nothing’s changed. Nothing.’
You try to pull on a sock while standing, but stumble and have to sit down. The mattress bounds beneath me as you do.
‘I know you don’t want to hear me, Mia, but I’m the same man.’
You pull on your shoes, tugging at the tongue and aggressively driving in your heel.
‘I just — I get bored, all right?’ I say. ‘Bored and lonely. You’re the one who’s working all the hours.’
‘So, what — you’re saying it’s my fault?’
‘No, no, I’m not saying that—’
‘You want me to give up nursing and come and hold your hand, is that it?’
I close my eyes, stop now. Absorb all the tension in the room. No point, no point. I will not snap back.
‘But it’s so stupid,’ you say. ‘You’re diabetic! What do you think you’re going to say when the doctors start asking you about your history?’
Silence.
‘What if you end up needing a kidney transplant one day? Because that’s what happens. They’ll put you at the bottom of every list. They probably won’t even bother putting you on the list. Jesus, who are you?’