Eyes closed he asks Pass a cigarette? Lights and
She understood it was bad. She screamed for me all the way out. I can’t really tell you any more about that night. It was the very worst moment of my life and after it, everything soft in me slowly turned to bone.
And, sure enough, even as I watch, all the light drains from him.
I often think if I’d been a few years further on there might have been enough of me to refuse and stand my ground. At the time though, the past still dragged me around, the shame at what I’d done. Feeling I could never get it right. Not knowing that keeping hold of my child wasn’t just selfishness on my part. But I did what she wanted because I was ashamed and I’ve regretted it every day since.
So she took her away that night and it was two years before she made contact. Two years of nothing and I mean nothing at all. I didn’t know if my daughter was alive or dead. No one did, apparently. Her parents wouldn’t say no matter how much I begged. I chased down everyone I could think of but no one knew or would tell. I went to the police but I’d agreed to it so I’d only myself to blame. It was a very bad time. I lost the run of myself, almost entirely. Somehow I didn’t use again but drank myself back to the hospital instead and a lot of other things started going on too.
What kind of things? I ask. Oh you know, he says Starving myself. Getting very fucking funny about what I’d put in my mouth. Like a test, or penance. I don’t know what it was. I just remember it causing almost physical pain to eat. How about a cup of tea?
And making he wades through the lamplight, pale, thinking far inside himself. But once it’s done, poured and passed, he sits back down again. What other things? The fucking around, he says. Like with your ex? No, not even a bit. Industrial this time. Will you tell me about it? Oh Jesus, he says Okay.
Since The Seagull debacle I’d really worked on keeping my dick to myself — not that I’d ever miss a chance but I didn’t chase around after it the way I had. I didn’t want to be that man or for her to have a father like mine. Five minutes after losing her though I was bad as I’d ever been. Worse. Couldn’t see the point of not being and, God knows, I should have but you see what you want and all I could see was a life without my little girl in it. The fucking chasm in the centre of myself where she’d been and I couldn’t face it not at all. So off I went.
What does that mean? I ask, feeling the cold and his eyes doing nothing to dispel.
Remember that story I told you about the Lamb and Flag? Well, that happened three days afterwards — before I even knew that worse was on its way. I was beside myself. Had already had a bit to drink. I don’t even know what I was doing in that shop, I hate fucking Covent Garden but there was this little boy skidding about on the knees of his pants. I got talking to him, swapping sliding techniques. When his mother came along we fell into the chat. How old is he? They grow up so fast. Got any of your own? All the while she was giving me the eye. I could see she was drunk too so it was easy to mouth Fancy a fuck? over the child’s head because I knew what the answer would be. So we went to the Ladies at the Lamb and Flag. Me, her and her son. And I fucked her against the toilet door with the little boy sat just beyond — drinking a Coke I’d bought. Jesus Christ. What was that? Even at the time I thought What the fuck are you doing? But of course I didn’t stop. I did not stop myself. Instead I really shagged her hard — so much it hurt and she was loud. After, getting her knickers back on she kept mumbling Oh fuck! Oh God! When I tried to help her she said Fuck off! I saw myself then, through all her disgust, really saw myself and knew this could go exactly like the drugs. You doing this again then, are you? I thought and, because I wanted to let myself off the hook, the answer was How many things have you had to learn to live without? Poor you. Poor you. You can’t give up anything else. So Fuck you, I said to her and out I went. See you son, to hers and gave him a quid. Then I closed my eyes and I did what I wanted and I closed my eyes for years.
That was the real start of the sleeping around. Just picking women up at first, in bars, parks, at the shops. Women I worked with, met at parties. Friends’ girlfriends. Wives. Daughters. Girls working on counters. Sat at desks. Handing out fliers in the street. Clap clinic doctor in an epic move. Cyclist who fell off her bike outside. Singer-songwriter who’d only do it with her guitar on the bed then lay around afterwards putting out fags on herself. Single mothers. Solicitors. Estate agents, Christ! You know, anyone who would. And if there was too much chasing I’d ask Yes or No love? I don’t mind either way. I could always tell though. It was like a sixth fucking sense, like looking at a stranger but smelling myself. Did a second round with Arkadina too after walking into her on the street. We were both polite, asked about each other’s children. I lied. Then I phoned her later that night to say how much I still hated her and that I’d booked a room. More fool her, all she said was Where? So every Saturday for the next two years we went at it again. After the first time, she asked What’s happened to you? I said Same time next week? There wasn’t an inch of feeling left in my body and if there had been I’d have cut it out with a knife. So there was no talking or teasing. None of that wanting her there’d been. Just into the room. How are you? Fine. Fuck. Out again. I’d nothing to prove and there were no more games about who was in charge. When she pried I was cold, eventually she was cold in return. No matter how awful I was though, she kept showing up. But maybe she wouldn’t if she’d known about all the other stuff I mean there was a lot of void to fill so clubs of course and all of that. Places you could watch the worst fucking stuff but more often just depressing shit. Still had to look though, no matter how grim. Still had to fuck if I could manage it. There are places for everything, if you have time to look. Sometimes I’d appear at rehearsal so bruised I had to lie about fights — that familiarity breeding yet more contempt. Pornography helped a while until it started sexualising everything right back at the optic nerve. And the sex party bullshit. They were the worst. All the fucking away in packs. Women looking like they wanted to kill you, not knowing if they tried you’d probably only laugh. Half of them not even wanting to be there. Girls trying to show their dim boyfriends what nymphos they were. Couples giving their marriages a shot in the arm. Men who’d rather be with their families — if only they’d ever had one. Or men feeling guilty because they had but needed this all the same. And then the ones like me, circling all those ordinary people, working out how far down they would go. Taking advantage of their delusions. But never looking too close in case you caught sight of what lay behind. Jesus! The loneliness. And all the shit lies topped only by the shit lies I told. I’ll ring you. I love you. No, I will meet you at Morden. I’m not late because for the fourth time this month I woke up not knowing where the fuck I was or what I did last night. I just did it until I couldn’t feel, until it didn’t even matter. Christ. People. What they’ll let you do. But I did, and would have done anything, to keep that grief at the back.