‘And had you taken anything?’
I look across at you, and your eyes are blazing. My first instinct is to look away. I try to suppress it, but by the time I do it’s already too late.
‘I was really low,’ I say.
The clock of our footsteps on the pavement echoes off the walls and parked cars as we square the slabs away behind us, off down the street. ‘I don’t understand it—’ you say. ‘I do not understand first why you can’t just stop it. You’re not addicted, you’re not dependent, it’s just a bad habit you will not kick. And I don’t get how these people, these friends and family, can stand by and let you do this to yourself. And to us.’
‘There was no us at the time. There was no us.’
I can see your eyes are stressed and weary. It’s happening again. The whole thing is going to shit again.
‘Just — tell me what happened,’ you say.
‘OK, look, you’ve got to try to remember how it was — it was a hard time. For us both. It was, wasn’t it?’
You don’t reply.
I sigh unsteadily.
Honesty. Full honesty.
Finally.
‘We were in the club, and a woman was dancing with me, and I was feeling — I was upset over you.’
You frown deeply, processing.
‘And we went into a back room and — I don’t know what happened. We kissed. I remember we kissed.’
‘Do you know who it was?’
You’re looking up at me with hard eyes, scanning, scanning, your irises moving minimally from left to right to left as you look in each of my eyes.
‘Time for more bedsore meds, I’m afraid,’ calls Sheila as she breezes through the door with a smile. She stops in her tracks. ‘Oh, lovey, what’s the matter?’
I’m crying. What is it I’m doing, the grotesque dry twitch, voice, rasping awfulness. I cannot get it out. I want to shed tears but I cannot drink enough water to make tears.
Sheila fixes the door shut and hurries round beside me, but she doesn’t know what to say. She simply stands there and holds my cold hand, strokes the back of it.
‘I should never have started this,’ I say.
‘Started what, my darling?’
‘It’s too painful to remember these things.’
‘Oh, lovey, I’m so sorry, it was only supposed to be a silly game to keep you occupied.’
‘No, no,’ I say, steadily regaining some kind of equilibrium, ‘it’s not you, it’s not you. It’s me.’
Am I imagining it? I’m shocked to see she seems a little choked. Double shine in her eyes.
‘Sheila — could I —? Morphine?’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course. Give me a sec.’
T
Tear ducts
THIS IS IT: I cannot make the tears come. And anyway, boys don’t cry, do they?
But if you don’t cry, does it mean you don’t care?
If I could just cry it out.
Maybe it’s better I don’t.
Maybe I haven’t earned that.
Crying isn’t about sadness. Crying is to sadness what cold is to a cold. Unrelated.
The stupid reasons I’ve cried.
I cried at my dad’s funeral, but I remember absolutely that it wasn’t for the reason everyone said it was. It was because everyone called me poor little love, and said aw bless. And if enough different people say aw bless to you in one day it’s going to make you freak out. A congregation of over a hundred and fifty. Each and every one of them must have said aw bless to me.
I finally broke down when my grandma offered me a biscuit. I said I didn’t want it. She said, Come on, you can have it, it’s yours. But I said no, because I was feeling like I wanted to honour my dad by not having the biscuit.
‘Go on! You know you want it!’
Everyone looking at me.
Me, flushing hot, and unable to stop the tears from coming.
‘Aw, bless …’
Fuckers.
Where are they now, eh?
So here I am, once again. I thought I’d escaped. I was stupid enough to allow myself to think that maybe you and I had finally got it together. But I find myself back in my boyhood bedroom, in my boyhood bed with its collapsed mattress, dressed up in my dad’s old pyjamas. I’m pressing your blanket to my face. Its scent fills my nostrils and I am awash with a renewed wave of sorrow. Deserved sorrow.
There’s no coming back from this.
There’s no coming back.
I hear my mum on the stairs. The slip-slap of her slippers. In a moment she’ll appear at the door, break the spell of solitude. I look up. There she is. Never changing, always the same.
‘Can I come in?’
I say nothing. She comes in. She’s carrying a bowl of chicken soup, and sets it down next to my alarm clock. She sits beside me on the bed, and we creak in closer to each other.
I take the crochet blanket up, pull it safely towards me.
I look up at my mum. ‘The blanket smells of her.’
‘Oh, bab.’
We are crying.
She cradles my head, places her palm on my hair, and gently, gently presses all over.
She wants to talk about it, but I can feel my anxiety burning within. I don’t have anything to tell her. All there is to tell would break her heart. She doesn’t even know I smoke. How would I tell her about — everything else?
I can’t tell her anything, so we sit there in silence as the soup cools before me. I don’t have any appetite. I only wanted her to make it so she would have something to do. Something away from me.
I’m sorry, Mum.
I don’t mean to be mean.
I’m just sitting here, pushing the crochet to my nose and mouth and tightening for crying.
Mum kisses the top of my head, my hair.
‘It was cruel,’ she says now. ‘She was too cruel.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, she’s not been cruel.’
‘Do you want me to wash it for you? I’m sure I could put it on a hand wash or something, if you want to keep it.’ She starts examining a corner of the blanket to work out how best to wash it.
‘No,’ I say, ‘no thanks.’
Mum leaves me.
I want this blanket to keep your scent. It will remind me. I can change. I can do this, and then you’ll come back. And we will wrap ourselves in it.
Mum reappears at the door, holding a freshly pressed blanket she’s drawn from the airing cupboard.
‘Here we are, bab, why don’t you take this one, eh? Have this blanket.’
Laura’s all in my face, and the people at the other tables in the café are starting to get a whiff of scandal. I wish I wasn’t still in my work shirt.
‘Why aren’t you talking to my boyfriend?’
‘Laura, I’m just trying to eat my lunch, all right?’
‘Why aren’t you talking to Mal?’
Mal stands sheepishly behind her, trying not to catch my eye.
‘I’m not.’ I mean I’m not not talking to him.
‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘you aren’t. And I want to know why.’
I consider my Nik Nak-powdered fingers, at a loss as to what I’m supposed to say. She’s giving me a soap opera, like this is how people are supposed to talk to each other.
‘I think it’s totally shitty, what you’re doing,’ she says.
I’m not engaging with this. I start to methodically de-powder each finger with a deliberate lip-smack.
Mal benignly pulls out a chair adjacent to mine and sits.
‘How is it Mal’s fault?’ demands Laura.
‘No. Laura—’ says Mal ‘—he’s all right, yeah? I never should have said anything. It was a mistake, OK? I thought she knew. You told me she knew.’