‘You don’t realise how addictive it is …’
‘Give me pethidine!’ I insisted, like a vengeful spirit.
‘Listen …’
‘Pethidine!’
He fell silent.
He went across the room, opened the door and swung round.
‘No more noise.’
5
At last there was no pain. For the first time ever. No pain. So this was happiness. His bed was very soft. His room was spacious, spanned with an A-frame of beams. A furled mosquito net hung down like a whip, twitching in the breeze. My body was strangely empty, waiting for something to fill it up. Was this love? I called his name, but he didn’t answer. He just stood there, looking at me as if I shouldn’t be so happy, as if it wasn’t me any more, as if it was only me when I was sick and racked with pain. I had no right to be happy.
‘To be honest, I wasn’t really in love with you before,’ I said.
I didn’t care if he was shocked, if he was angry. He’d forgive me and take me in his arms. But he just sank down on to a chair. I felt so sorry for him. I stretched out my arms to embrace him, but he jerked away as if a terrifying hole had opened up before him. Was he so inhibited he couldn’t take happiness when it was offered to him?
‘It’s true!’ I said. ‘Honestly. All I really wanted before was that … ’
I pointed to the empty syringe on the bedside table. He shot out of the chair and rushed over to pick it up, jabbing his hand on the needle. I grabbed him and started to suck at the wound. I loved him. But again he jerked away, as if he had been electrocuted. I put my arms around him and held him tight.
‘It’s all my fault! Blame me, hit me if you want!’
He pushed me away and stood up
‘I’m taking you home.’
‘I’m not going!’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and sleep in the office.’
‘No!’ I screamed. I threw myself at him. He backed away, as if scared by the warmth of my body. My pain flooded back, a sharp pain like a cold wind blowing over a rotting tooth. My happiness had gone up in flames, disappearing like a smile on a photograph thrown on to a raging fire. Why couldn’t he stay?
‘Just give me a little bit more!’ I begged him, grabbing at his arm.
He wrenched away from me, terrified, and leaped for the door, still clutching the empty syringe and dripping blood.
I grabbed it from him and he yelled ‘What are you doing?’
I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that it hurt, just like when I was a child lying in the dentist’s chair. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to kill myself. Or I wanted to make myself hurt all over, to be saturated in pain and happiness. Or I wanted to cut out my emotions, I wanted to kill them. I jabbed the syringe at my chest. He threw himself at me and snatched my weapon. I hung on to him like grim death.
‘You’re crazy!’ he yelled. His body reeked of formaldehyde.
So the world thinks I’m crazy. The world is dead to me.
6
He turned himself in, saying he couldn’t forgive himself for prescribing pethidine illegally. He got off scot-free. Pretty soon he was the mainstay of the unit, hailed as a model doctor. He probably did a deal with them.
When he took me to rehab he told me he no longer believed I was in love with him. They tested my blood and my urine — there was nothing wrong, but they wouldn’t let me out all the same. Maybe they were just jealous I had felt the ecstasy of pethidine instead of the pain of ordinary life.
‘Did it really feel that good?’ they would ask, greed glinting in their eyes.
‘Try it for yourselves.’ I said.
‘We can’t do that,’ they said, suddenly serious. ‘We’re here to make you better.’
They told me my family had come to see me. They led me down the corridor to the visitors’ room, past the noticeboard full of press cuttings about the assistant’s high principles, the banner with the glorious slogan: ‘Say goodbye to drugs! Make a new life!’
He was standing with my mother — I hadn’t expected that — his arm around her shoulder as if she was an old woman. She smiled as if she was being looked after by a dutiful son. But she was just putting on an act, trying to make me forget real happiness.
‘We’re waiting for you,’ he said solemnly, as if it was something to do with him.
‘Waiting for me to do what?’
‘To come out!’ Mum said.
‘Come out and do what?’
‘Just come out…’ she smiled. ‘Silly girl. We can begin a new life.’
I smiled too, and said with a touch of pride: ‘But you don’t understand pain.’
Are you sure about this?
You can shut the book now.
Do you choose to read on?
Kidney Tonic
1
Let me tell you this: I lead a pretty good life. We’re always being told how much better off people are nowadays, but in my case it happens to be true — I’ve got plenty of cash. Ten years ago I took a few risks and I struck lucky. Then — because wealth and beauty go together — I married my beautiful wife. We live in a seventh floor flat in a smart residential district, with a lift, of course. From our balcony I enjoy a pleasant view over a landscaped garden — complete with a European-style arched gateway and fountain — where people from the neighbourhood stroll around or do tai-chi. The couple from the flat upstairs used to walk there every evening, the man whispering into the woman’s ear, the woman smiling — they were about the same age as us. They’d take an evening stroll whatever the weather, their heads bent together under an umbrella or sunshade. Once they’d done a tour of the garden, they’d leave and come back across the main road.
There are some flash cars parked there, slotted bumper to bumper like a colourful jigsaw — the beige Honda Accord with the cuddly toys piled up in the rear window is ours. The toys belong to our daughter. Yes, we have a daughter, and very pretty she is too. As the saying goes: marry a beautiful woman and you’ll never have an ugly child. I tease my daughter all the time. I love pinching her until she goes red in the face and begs for mercy. ‘What a doting daddy you are!’ my wife says, poking me with her elbow. The pinching is just my way of showing how much I love her — she’s too adorable for words. As soon as my wife and I start talking, she tries to talk over us. There’s no way she’s going to be left out of our grown-up conversation. She’s a natural at butting in. When we go to bed at night, she pushes right in between us. As you can imagine, that means her mum and I never get up to anything. But why should that matter so much? We’re a happy family, we have a lovely kid, we’re quite satisfied as we are. Our daughter sleeps between us — my wife tucks in the quilt on her side and tells me to tuck in the other side.
We always used to feel very secure. We only shut the windows at night when we had the heating on, or the air conditioning. Of course that was mainly because we’re seven floors up. So it was a shock to discover there was someone watching us from the building across the street. I noticed them while I was doing my exercises on the balcony. There was a flash from the window directly opposite — I shut my eyes out of instinct. I thought I must have imagined it, but as soon as I opened my eyes again there was another flash. A shadowy figure was watching at the window. I rushed back inside the flat.
I don’t know why I was in such a panic — my wife and I had no secrets — but I rushed round shutting all the windows. All the details of our daily routine — everything we did, what my wife was wearing — started to prey on my mind. For example, my wife always went around in her nightie. Here in the south lots of people go out shopping in their pyjamas, but I was still uneasy. To my mind certain things are private, like the way you go to bed or what you wear while you’re sleeping. No matter how proper my wife’s nightie was, it was no one else’s business. I had to hide it from prying eyes.