by Adele Parks
By the time he arrived in prison, he was dry. Dry, but still an alcoholic. Always an alcoholic.
Officially, there was no alcohol permitted, obviously, but the ingenious and desperate found a way to home brew. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ his first cellmate had assured him with a sly nod and a wink. Simon had laughed hysterically at that comment because he was scared, because he was excited. He remembered his mother often used that exact expression, along with, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. Expressions that Elsie had were always positive, full of determination and resolve. When his cellmate used the optimistic little idiom, Simon saw the exhilaration and promise behind it. He’d also recognised the danger and threat, but he didn’t care. He knew alcohol abuse ruined stuff – even motivational idioms – but on another level, it solved everything. Or had for a while. On the outside, he’d lived in hope that the answers lay at the bottom of the glass, and then the bottom of the bottle, and then the next bottle and the next. And if they didn’t, it didn’t matter because he’d drank until he’d forgotten what the questions were. The idea that rules could be broken, even in here, that he’d sniff out alcohol somewhere, appealed to him.
However, despite his initial excitement, the opportunity to home brew had never presented itself to Simon. In all the time he’d been locked up, no one offered him anything. He would have to approach someone if he wanted in on the illegal brewing, the Dales probably. Slowly, it dawned on him that, yes, he wanted a drink, but for the first time in as long as he could remember, he wanted something more. He wanted to stay safe and alive. Hunting out the right people, the people who dared break the rules, and then owing them, would threaten that.
So he stayed sober.
For the first few weeks that he attended the meetings he did not say a word. He wanted to draw as little attention to himself as possible, speaking would confirm attendance, draw notice. Prison was scary as fuck. Group therapy was perilous, possibly suicidal. In prison people didn’t often talk about their crimes; confessions were dangerous. He could easily say the wrong thing, something someone could take objection to. Hell, the thought of laying himself bare, exposing himself in a one-on-one private therapy session in North London, with an earnest, bearded, vegetarian liberal had always horrified him. How could this be a good idea? He’d slouched as far back on his chair as he could, looked nowhere other than at his shoes. Countless tales were told about drink and drugs, hate and fear. What it did to a person. What addiction could strip someone down to – our snarling, animal selves. Faces smashed, knuckles bloodied. He’d pretended he wasn’t there. And anyway, he wasn’t. Not really. He let the meetings happen over his head.
After about a month, Billy had tried to draw him in. He’d asked, ‘Simon, do you have anything you want to say?’
They’d been talking about cravings. There was a new guy. He had scratched himself raw. His arms and legs were bleeding. He was jittery, agitated. High on something, coming down, despairing he’d never have a hit again. Despairing about that, more than the fact he was banged up, Simon suspected.
‘No,’ replied Simon.
At the next meeting there was a guy who was as thin as a reed but could talk for England. ‘You wake up with a hangover, but what really ruins the next day is the shame. Even if you were drinking alone, not kicking off, causing no trouble whatsoever, you are still filled with shame because it’s starts to become obvious that you’re just not able to get your shit together. You’re a fucking loser.’ Then with more honesty, he added, ‘I’m a fucking loser.’ No one bothered to contradict him. ‘I wonder how much more I might have done with my life had I not spent it drunk,’ he mused.
‘You’d have robbed a bank, maybe. Not just a couple of poxy corner shops,’ replied another con. This got a laugh. They were all glad of the joke, it eased things. Honesty was a downer. Billy mumbled something about change being in everyone’s grasp.
Another one of the inmates upped the ante. He’d decided to take this opportunity to shock or maybe scare. Certainly, to be the centre of attention. He described beating an old lady, half to death, for twenty-four pounds. He’d owed his supplier. He’d thought the old bird kept more money in her house. He’d been beaten in turn when he didn’t pay up.
The inmate admitted, ‘Now, I see I was owed that. You know. Karma or some such fuck. At the time, when they were kicking the shit out of me, I just remember hating the old bitch for not having enough cash for me to rob.’
The man who had scratched himself raw had cried when he heard the story, but Simon didn’t know if the response was genuine emotion or simply chemically induced.
Once again, Billy asked, ‘Have you anything to add, Simon?’
Simon thought about scrabbling through his mother’s bedside cupboard, looking for spirits. He thought about Daisy’s face when she caught him. But he’d never beaten up an old woman. He told himself that he wasn’t like these people. These criminals, these addicts.
‘Nothing to add,’ Simon had replied.
He kept going to the meetings, though. He was drawn, with a horrified sense of awe, to these tales about the last gasps. What people did to themselves. What the human body could endure.
The group meetings were… endless.
And part of the deal, part of the process. It took him months to work that out. One day Billy was making them talk about loss. Loss of self, loss of dignity and the loss of family support. Big stuff. Everyone watched Jeremy Kyle. Everyone knew the vocabulary of divulgence and revelation. Even cons.
‘I lost my way, right.’
‘I lost sight of, you know, like what matters.’
‘I lost everything, man. Everything.’
The things they said were so familiar that Simon wasn’t sure if he believed them and related, or if he’d simply read them in a tabloid. He was trying to decide, when Billy interrupted his thoughts.
‘Simon, anything to add?’
‘I lost my shoes once. On a bender.’
He hadn’t meant to be funny but one or two of the others laughed, then caught Billy’s eye and swallowed their laughter. Simon wasn’t sure how he’d lost his shoes. Had he kicked them off? Thrown them away? From time to time, throughout his life, he had sometimes seen a lone sneaker in the middle of the road or a shoe stranded in the hedgerow. He’d always assumed these abandoned pieces of footwear were the result of a bunch of blokes messing about; possibly a stag party, stripping a mate, throwing away his shoe, or schoolkids bullying the class swot because he was going places and they were not, maybe throwing his shoes away would slow him down. But when Simon had lost his shoes – not one but both – he’d been alone. He’d taken off his socks too. He couldn’t remember doing so but when he got home he was barefoot. His feet were cut, and he’d stood in some dog shit. He walked it right into the house, smearing the crap on the carpet. Daisy had cried whilst she washed his feet. He knew about loss.
‘Your shoes?’ Billy prompted.
‘Yeah, I lost my shoes and my wife’s respect.’
Once he’d started talking, he found the meetings were the places he most wanted to be. As his body got used to the fact he could no longer feed his craving, the physical agony began to recede, but it was replaced by mental pain. Regret, anger, depression, self-disgust, universal loathing. All the bad ones. The days were too long, his mind too dark. The yard, the showers, even the library were still full of menace and peril, the small group meetings were as near to safe as he could get in this place. He found that, contrary to his initial fears, the dozen or so cons that attended seemed to abide by the rule of non-disclosure outside the room. Maybe they were equally needy of the space, terrified of being barred, or maybe equally ashamed of their stories, therefore willing to trade silence. It was most likely some sort of self-preservation. Cons were selfish. Addicts were selfish. It stood to reason that the men who fell into both camps saw the advantages of staying silent.
Simon continued to listen to the strangers’ stories. The more he heard
, the more he recognised. He was shocked, disconcerted, to learn that he wasn’t a unique little snowflake, with a private and special relationship with alcohol. He began to understand that addiction was a player, loose. She got around.
‘Do you think there’s like an alcoholic gene, that you can inherit?’ someone once asked. Simon didn’t know his name. His hair was long, he wore it in a ponytail. He was overweight by about forty pounds.
‘There is evidence that might be the case,’ Billy replied carefully.
‘My family are always talking about that shit. By the time I was ten or something, they said I had that gene. Like having brown eyes. Something I couldn’t change. So why would I even try? They knew I was fucked, even when I was still playing with Lego. My mum, she used to carry around a flask of tea wherever she went. The supermarket, school pick-up, the park. Except it wasn’t tea.’
‘My whole clan drink, man. Blacking out is nothing to any of us. It’s like a rite of passage. Yeah?’ This came from a man who had a Scottish accent. His use of the word clan wasn’t entirely ironic.
What was it Simon’s mother had said? Not that she could be relied upon for an accurate account, since half the time she didn’t know her own name, but she had said his father drank, hadn’t she? That it was best to ignore the matter. Thinking about it, Simon realised something he’d always known, but had indeed tried to ignore: his gentle father – who Simon had admired as a boy – was a binger. Sometimes so generous and available and there. Other times absent, closed, even cruel. When it came to booze, his father had always hopped and lolloped along the path between craving and revulsion. Simon had followed after him.
Eventually, Simon had admitted to himself that maybe he should have done this on the outside. Gone to a meeting. Maybe it would have helped. Part of his brain registered that the thought was borderline optimistic. A thought still distilled with a sense of familiar regret, but there was an undeniable hint that things could change, could be improved. That was entirely new.
‘Simon, do you have anything to contribute?’ Billy had coaxed him.
So, he told them about missing Millie’s ballet recital. He told them about the hours she’d practiced, how excited she was to be performing a solo. He admitted that he’d promised her that he wouldn’t miss it for the world, that she had in fact elicited this promise three times and got him to seal the deal by clasping pinkie fingers and pinkie promising. Then he explained. ‘I was in a bar. One of those really cool ones. Full of young people.’ He hoped but doubted the longing stayed out of his voice.
‘Young women you mean?’ someone interrupted, Simon could hear the snigger.
‘I suppose,’ Simon shrugged. Other women had never interested him. He knew drunks that needed to fight or fuck once they were legless. He only ever needed another drink. And then another. The longing he was trying to hide was for the bar. ‘It was a cocktail bar. I’m not a cocktail man,’ he added hastily.
‘Is there such a thing?’ someone chipped in. There was a smattering of laughter.
‘No,’ Simon admitted with a small smile. ‘I suppose not. But, you know, sometimes cocktails are just the answer.’
‘Fast.’
‘Exactly. It was dark, with music playing, dozens of bottles were lined up. Overpriced and therefore desirable. The bartenders took pride in what they were doing. They painstakingly poured out each measure into metal shakers, added chunks of ice, and swished.’
Nobody minded that he took his time, set this scene. They were happy to be transported there. There was nowhere they would rather be.
‘The bartender shook, poured, garnished. I swallowed, gulped, re-ordered.’ Simon sighed. ‘I knew I didn’t have time to linger but it just seemed like more fun being there than being at a kid’s ballet recital.’
No one disagreed. No one said anything for a few moments.
‘So, your little girl is a ballet dancer?’ asked the guy with a ponytail. Simon didn’t like the way his man boobs shuddered as he suddenly, keenly, sat up in his chair to ask the question. Ponytail man licked his lips, coughed. It might have been polite interest, it might have been something much uglier. Simon regretted bringing Millie into the room. She didn’t belong here. Even the idea of her didn’t belong here. Fuck prison. He’d transported himself for a few moments, but it was hopeless, it was delusional. He was stuck here. Here amongst the depraved and disgusting. This is where he belonged.
‘Is she any good?’ asked Billy. ‘Your daughter? Is she any good at ballet?’
‘She was,’ Simon replied. ‘She used to be.’
No one asked anything more. They all knew his family didn’t visit him.
29
Chapter 29, Daisy
Tuesday, 11th June 2019
It’s been a busy morning at school. During summer term time seems to concertina: a crazy mash of school trips, sports days and report writing. I feel I’m always playing catch-up. I’m on playground duty today which I could do without. I’d like to use the time to write a few more reports but there’s a rota and no one is likely to want to swap as it’s not a particularly sunny day and we are all under the cosh to write reports.
Being on playground duty requires me to stay alert and focused. The noise is extraordinary: cheers, chants, chatter, laughter and arguments abound. It’s a teacher’s job to filter, survey, always be on the lookout for the next squabble or scraped knee. I’m vigilant, my eyes constantly scan like searchlights. Millie stands out like a beacon to me, whether she’s sitting alone on a bench or huddled in a gossipy group. I’m sure this is true for all mums, our eyes zone in on our own, just checking, keeping them safe. But when I find myself watching Millie as she moves around the playground, I am not reassured; I feel stung with guilt. Her right leg drags just a fraction, pulling behind her, a constant reminder. I try not to be obtrusive when I’m monitoring her, she doesn’t like it. More than once she’s mentioned how she’s really looking forward to moving to big school because she’s sick of going to the school her mum teaches at. She used to see it as a perk but now I cramp her style.
I’m happy to report that other children don’t find me quite as embarrassing. Today, as usual, various kids are hanging around, desperate for my attention. The little ones pull on my arms, they want to hold my hands, the bigger ones eagerly shout about where they are going to go on holiday this summer: Salou, Disneyland, Whitby. Teachers always attract the extremely shy ones and the biggest show-offs. I don’t mind them clamouring for attention, they are fun and make me laugh. I’m doing just that when Keri Thornton, Year Five, charges up to me, yelling.
‘Miss, Miss.’ I’m not a Miss and haven’t been for a long time but the catchall name is used on all female teachers in moments of heightened excitement. ‘Oli Jordan and Aafa Khan are smashing each other’s brains out near the climbing frame.’
I set off at quite a pace, charging towards the climbing frame, unsure what I’ll find. ‘Smashing each other’s brains out’ thankfully turns out to be an exaggeration, they are rolling about scrapping inexpertly and messily. The odd lucky kick does however cause considerable pain, although the moment I use my biggest ‘teacher voice’ and yell at them to stop, they do so, probably with some relief.
‘What’s going on?’ I demand. Both boys glare at one another and refuse to meet my eye.
Predictably the age-old excuse is spat out. ‘He started it,’ says Oli.
‘No, he did,’ snaps back Aafa.
I swore I’d never trot out the expressions everyone uses. I’ve always wanted to be an enlightened, perceptive and different teacher. But still, I find myself thinking, I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it. That sort of gruff response isn’t good enough nowadays though, there are procedures. This might be a squabble over nothing or it might be part of an insidious bullying campaign. I need to investigate. I also need to get them patched up. I can see that Aafa has a badly scraped knee, Oli has some marks on his cheeks, I can’t yet work out if it is a nip, a bite or a bump. Their bre
athing is fast and shallow, I don’t know either boy very well, they’re a year below my class, I won’t teach them until next September, but I can tell they are panicked. My plan is to take them to their own form tutor, she’ll know if there’s any historical beef between these two and will be better placed to sort it out.
‘Right, inside now,’ I instruct. The three of us walk at a fast pace towards the school office. It’s then that I see him. He’s standing at the school gate, where parents usually congregate at pick up. I haven’t seen him for three years, but I recognise him instantly, my body registering him at the same time as my mind. My stomach flips, my legs turn to liquid. He realises I’ve noticed him and raises a hand, waves at me, smiles. I don’t wave back. He rattles the school gate. It’s one of those that has a coded lock. He can’t get in, I remind myself. He can’t reach me.
‘Can you open this thing?’ he yells. ‘We need to talk.’ I put my head down and quickly usher the boys indoors.
I spot a dinner lady. ‘Mrs Wilson, will you take this pair to a member of staff? They need first aid and a talking to. They were fighting in the playground.’ I garble my instructions.
‘Which member of staff?’ she asks.
‘Any. Tell them the boys need to explain their behaviour.’
She tuts, showing her displeasure at being embroiled in this matter. ‘You know we’re not supposed to supervise the children.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I have to go. I have an emergency.’ She stares after me, questioning. I’m aware that I am a constant source of gossip at the school.