by Adele Parks
Why did he drink? It was a simple question, but on the other hand it was horrifyingly complex. Simon wanted to find an answer, that’s why he kept going to the meetings. There had to be one. He could feel it buzzing around his head like a bluebottle bashing against a closed window, refusing to accept the window was closed, just banging the same spot over and over again, trying to escape. If Simon could find an answer to the question as to why he drank, maybe he could find a solution to help him stop drinking permanently. He worried about that. Inside he couldn’t drink. But what would happen on the outside?
Leon was refreshingly unafraid. Simon couldn’t work out why. Maybe he knew someone who was protecting him, or maybe he knew nothing and, as yet, didn’t realise he needed protecting. Whatever the reason he was refreshingly unafraid. The only problem with that was he asked a lot of questions.
‘Like, did you get mucked about with when you were a kid or something?’ he asked. ‘You know, abused?’
‘No.’
‘No. Thought not, you’re a little posh boy.’
‘Posh boys get abused too,’ Simon pointed out.
‘Yeah but—’ The nuance didn’t compute with Leon’s world order. Inside, there was a raging need to keep things clear cut. Because nothing was. ‘You went to university, right?’
‘Yes. Southampton.’
‘By the sea. That sounds cool.’
Simon realised that Leon was imagining beaches and sandcastles. Maybe candy floss and funfairs. It hadn’t been quite like that, it had been more three-legged pub crawls, subsidised bars and all-night essay crises, but it had been great. Indisputably free. Simon had discovered that most prisoners had a reading age of twelve or under, few had been to university, or even the seaside. Prison wasn’t a place that was inhabited by those who had had opportunities. He was an anomaly. Maybe that was why Leon asked him so many questions.
‘Did you have a dad?’
‘Yes. He died just before my thirty-fourth birthday.’
‘Was he like with your mother until then?’ Leon sounded incredulous.
‘Yes.’ Simon knew what Leon wanted to know. ‘They were happy, mostly. You know, on the whole.’
‘Fuck. That’s something, right?’ Leon said this in a way that clearly indicated he thought it was everything. A fairy tale.
Simon felt an emotion that was close to protective of Leon. Leon was not much older than Rose’s boys. Maybe just two or three years older. It was unbelievable. Sebastian and Henry were out on some rugby pitch somewhere or maybe in a lecture hall or a girl’s bed. Leon was here, making hairnets. Sometimes Leon would be reading a newspaper and he’d come across a word he didn’t understand; he’d ask Simon what it meant. Simon liked that. It made him feel useful, needed. It demonstrated an element of trust that was notably lacking anywhere else in the prison. Simon was trying to encourage Leon to sign up for some of the educational classes that were made available to prisoners.
Simon didn’t want to burst Leon’s bubble, so he didn’t volunteer any information about the less palatable bits of his life. He didn’t add that his father was an alcoholic too, and that not long after his death, his mother had started to show signs of forgetfulness that they’d initially attributed to grief but was later diagnosed as the early onset of Alzheimer’s. He didn’t mention how much he resented his sister for moving to Canada at around the same time, effectively washing her hands of any further responsibility and aggravating their mother’s sense of loss. He didn’t mention the years he and Daisy had struggled to conceive, and he certainly didn’t mention the other thing. Not ever.
‘So why do you drink?’ persisted Leon.
‘Some people just do, don’t they?’ Simon wanted to flip the conversation. Move it on. Or close it down. He stayed quiet.
Eventually Leon yawned and admitted, ‘I guess everyone has their own shit to deal with.’
Simon tried not to think about what Leon’s particular shit might be. What he’d done to land him here. The cell smelt stale. Simon had always had a keen sense of smell. It was one of the least useful senses. He had never been much interested in food, which was a shame because there were several occasions when he would have benefitted from lining his stomach. He wore glasses, his hearing was average, and he couldn’t remember anyone ever saying he was a total king in the sack. So, out of smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch, it was his luck to get an A* in smell. Leon had been openly farting all evening. It was the bean curry they’d had for tea. Beside the stench of farts, there was a stew of sweat and male hormones, sour air breathed in and out, in and out. Repeatedly. Simon longed for fresh air and a breeze. Yearned for it. It would be twelve more hours until he could leave this room, and another eight after that until he could go into the exercise yard. He had to try to think of something other than smells and time dragging, otherwise he’d go mad.
Daisy.
He thought of Daisy opening the windows in their house, the mornings after the many nights before, the place stained with regret which she tried to budge with a fresh air breeze. He wished he had happier go-to thoughts but somehow the uncomfortable ones always seemed to bubble to the top of his mind. He remembered she would inch towards him, like a caterpillar. Slowly but purposefully. A bit weird and creepy. In the early years, she used to try to keep it casual, maybe she’d laugh (albeit a bit shrilly). ‘Wow, last night was certainly something.’ Then, as the years passed, it was the same crawl towards him but different words, ‘Do you remember what happened last night, Simon?’ And then eventually, no façade, ‘Please, please, get your act together.’
During those awkward conversations about what had occurred the night before he would listen with disbelief. She had to be joking, making it up. Lying. She was a liar. The worst was having to admit how little he remembered, how little he knew of his own life. It was easiest to just nod. Pretend he not only remembered but also regretted, as she expected him to. Yes, he remembered telling his boss he was a boring tosser. It was in jest. He’d sort it out. Yeah, yeah, he was sorry that he was caught pissing up against his neighbour’s car. He totally remembered getting up on Rose’s table and singing. Yes, and the striptease. No, he was never actually going to take off his underpants. Right, agreed, he shouldn’t have let it get that far. It wouldn’t happen again.
Another lie. His, this time.
She had tried to understand. He supposed. But she was limited. Limited by her own reasonableness. Her own ordinariness and it felt like she was letting him down by not getting it. ‘Why can’t you just give it up? Just stop. You know. Just say no,’ she’d plead.
She might as well have asked him to stop breathing. Drinking was like sending rocket fuel through his body, he could do anything, be anything. He didn’t admit, not even to himself, to the fact that in the next moment, the rocket plunged from the sky and crashed. Leaving him drained, desolate. Dead, or as good as. He hadn’t connected the two. High and low. Cause and effect didn’t run in the same way for him as they did for other people. Normal people. Not until the thing with Millie. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he saw her fly off the bonnet of the car, bounce like a ball. He understood then, cause and effect. Taking responsibility for your actions. He didn’t tell anyone he had any recollection at all. His history as someone who blacked out served him well. But he did remember. Everything.
Simon breathed in deeply, tried to stay calm. It meant he took in the male mustiness of the cell.
Daisy used to be concerned about his blackouts. He’d laughed at her fears, teased her. Patronised her, he supposed. For being so pedestrian, for not comprehending. ‘Not blackouts Daisy, time travel. I’m like Doctor Who. My Tardis is a whisky bottle. I punch through the mundane rules of time and space that you mere mortals must live with.’ He had lost so much time through blackouts. A night gone in the click of his fingers, but inside, time dragged. Crawled. Limped. Sometimes he thought it moved backwards. He could not tolerate living in the moment, an achingly slow moment that lasted an hour, a day, a week, a
nd yet he had no choice.
If only. If only he could time travel.
33
Chapter 33, Daisy
I just about manage to drag myself through the week, although I’m barely fit for purpose. For many years now, I’ve managed on less than six hours of sleep per night. This isn’t an Iron Lady thing. I’m not trying to sound hardy and extraordinary, I don’t set my alarm clock for an early start, so I can go running, or do some school work or even tackle the ironing pile; I have heard that some weird and wonderful women do this. I’m just someone who doesn’t sleep very well. I tell people I don’t need much sleep, which makes me sound stronger and more energetic than is the case. It’s a lie. Another one. The truth is I can’t find sleep. I hunt it like I’m chasing the elixir of eternal youth, but it eludes me. I’ve tried hot milky drinks, limiting screen time, playing soothing music, putting oxygen-producing pot plants in my room, sleeping with the window open. I’ve also tried tablets.
They say there’s no rest for the wicked.
My relationship with sleep became strained when I was young, before Millie was conceived. I often used to lie awake at night praying, dreaming, imagining, hoping for a family. That particular non-sleeping stage was caused by a mix of anticipation and anxiety, and was characterised by something hungry and possible waiting inside me. And then I was pregnant, and then a new mum. Sleeplessness hit a whole new level. I’m not alone in finding it difficult to sleep whilst you wait to pass the milestone of the twelve-week scan, or when you are towards the end of your pregnancy and you’re elephantine, uncomfortable and really terrified about pushing out a cantaloupe melon. I was just like every other mum-to-be. At least, I like to think I was. And then, when she was born, oh, the responsibility, the joy, the demands, the relentlessness of being needed. It’s very normal to only snatch two or three hours of sleep in a row, before being woken by the hungry screams of a newborn. When Millie did settle into a regular sleeping pattern and managed to go through the night, I found I still woke every few hours. People with secrets rarely sleep soundly. Fact. I used to wander into her room, watch her sleeping in her cot, transfixed by her small chest rising and lowering rhythmically. I was at once reassured and horrified. She was alive. She existed. I told myself it had all been worth it. That I’d made the right decision. That I didn’t have a choice. But there had been a choice. There is always a choice. I would sneak downstairs, express some breast milk, make a hot drink, read a few pages of a book. Try to pretend everything was OK. But it wasn’t, not really, because nothing is ever OK in the dead of night. Fears magnify. Sleeplessness has an ever-tightening stranglehold on sense and reasoning. There were times when I thought I might choke. Suffocate.
When Millie started to toddle around, filling the house and our hearts with her noise and joy, I allowed myself to relax, marginally. I enjoyed a few years of more regular rest. After a day playing with and chasing after an exuberant toddler, I often slept for seven hours on the trot. If I dreamed at all, my dreams were pleasant, interesting, sometimes even sexy. I awoke refreshed and invigorated, ready to start the day. We were happy. All three of us. Or at least I thought so. But then Simon started drinking again, so I guess he wasn’t happy. Or at least, he wasn’t happy enough. He said he was. He said that drinking was celebratory; just a way to make a Friday and Saturday night buzz, to make a Sunday glide. Then he said drink was his reward too; a beer after a hard, long day at the office. Nothing was as good as the hit of it. Like diving into a lake on a red-hot day, he said. And then, I suppose it became more like drowning in a sludge. I just didn’t notice. I wasn’t watching him carefully enough.
Since the accident no one can really expect me to find a regular eight hours. It’s an unreasonable ask. Recently, my dreams have become increasingly vivid and disturbing. I dream about the collision with new horrifying detail. I dream details such as the light from streetlamps falling on the wet roads. The radio is blasting. Simon screams at me, ‘Oh fuck you.’ Vile. Millie dashes across the road. She doesn’t look. She just steps out. I wake up sweating and crying.
Since Daryll’s call, things have only got worse. I don’t think I’ve managed to sleep more than ninety minutes in a row. My eyes sting, my shoulders and back ache with tension, my head feels fluffy. Spongy. Ineffective. I don’t know what to do next. I’m lucky that it’s summer term and the timetable is disrupted with rehearsals for the Year Six leavers’ assembly, music concerts and sports day. I’m not sure I could have stuck to a rigid timetable, if I could have taught anything useful these past few days. I’m in the classroom in body only and it’s all I can do to read the class register.
He has not turned up at the school gate since Tuesday, nor has he called, and yet he is all I have thought about. He swims around my head, I feel him over my shoulder, behind each door and around each corner. He is just a breath away. Every afternoon I repeat the pattern of Tuesday; I hurry Millie home, vetoing a stop at the ice cream shop, I put the chain on the door as I shut it behind us, I draw the curtains even though it’s light until nine, nearly ten o’clock. Millie has noticed that I’m jittery, so I’ve allowed her an unprecedented amount of screen time, I find this stops her asking too many questions or being concerned that I’m not my usual self.
It’s Friday evening and we’re going to Connie and Luke’s for supper. Connie invites us over most weeks. This is kind of her. She wants to make sure that our weekends are standout, not afterthoughts. Following everything that happened – the incident, Simon’s imprisonment and Millie giving up ballet – it was far too easy for time to become something we filled or even killed, rather than explored and enjoyed. The vast majority of the western world traditionally fill Friday night with excitement, relief and anticipation. Not me. The structure and demands of weekdays are a comfort to me; at weekends I’m aware I could be visiting Simon. That I am not. The two of us feel small on Friday evenings. I don’t so much anticipate the weekend, as dread it. Connie’s family provides a shield.
Millie loves the Friday suppers at Connie’s too. Not only does she get to spend time with Sophie but, for a couple of hours, she basks in the glow that older girls bring to a nine-year-old’s existence. Fran and Flora talk to her about music, apps, clothes and TV. They don’t care about whether she’s eaten her lunch at school or done her homework, questions that inevitably fall from my lips if we’re alone together. We’ve all known each other so long that we don’t stand on ceremony, Millie and I are treated like part of the family which is a relief and a compliment. Everyone enjoys whatever food there is – pasta, sometimes a takeaway pizza – and then the girls go about their business. Sometimes I’m asked to help with an English assignment or French plaiting of hair, other times the older girls are moody and uncommunicative and scamper off to their rooms, occasionally they’re outright rude and we sit through door-slamming and rows about how late they can stay out. I don’t mind. I like it. Friday nights are carefree, noisy, chaotic. I look forward to them just as much as Millie does. This week, more than ever, I’m desperate to pop on the tube and get to Notting Hill, get there as quickly as possible. I realise it is Connie that has brought Daryll back into my life, but she did so inadvertently. Tonight, Connie and her family will put me out of his reach.
Millie and I quickly shower and change. She likes to cast off her school uniform, put on a pretty top and jeans. I also make an effort, if only to stop Connie fretting that I’m letting myself go and therefore must be depressed; a charge she lands at my feet every few months. Tonight, it’s important that Connie doesn’t notice the bags under my eyes or the concern in them, so I take time with my makeup, I blow-dry my hair and even dig out a pretty necklace. It’s like donning a disguise. It’s not the first time I’ve had to do this.
When we arrive at Connie’s, Sophie opens the door. As usual, she is giddy with excitement. She’s inherited her mother’s irrepressible passion for life and so whilst jumping up and down on the spot, she squeals that Millie, ‘Must come and see’. I never find out what
Millie must see because Sophie is already halfway up the stairs and my daughter is hot on her heels, despite her limp. Their squeals quickly convert to whispers and giggles.
Connie emerges from the kitchen. She looks incredibly glamorous. Sometimes, on a Friday evening I find her in a T-shirt and joggers (admittedly very stylish, high-end ones); tonight, she’s wearing a sleek black jumpsuit, heels and silver statement jewellery.
‘Been at a client meeting?’ I ask. Connie looks vague. ‘You’re all dressed up,’ I prompt.
‘Oh, this old thing.’ She chuckles as she gestures towards her almost certainly brand-new outfit. ‘Well, I know we can be utterly laid back and make literally no effort for one another but tonight I have asked a few guests to come around, so I thought I better, you know, scrub up.’
She shrugs her shoulders endearingly, unaware that her words are the equivalent of dousing me in icy water. Meeting new people is a trial for me. Sooner or later the conversation gets around to whether I have or haven’t got a husband. I never know how to answer. Sometimes people realise who I am. Connie doesn’t make a secret of the fact that she visits Simon in prison. I think she covertly revels in the fact that her visits show she is at once fearless and compassionate. Since I don’t visit him, logic dictates that I have neither quality. People who work out who I am are either embarrassed or morbidly curious and as a result I’m blanked or battered with difficult questions. Neither thing is pleasant. So, I don’t ever relish meeting new people, but tonight I’m particularly disinclined. I was longing for a quiet, cosy, comfortable feet-up Friday.
‘Come on through, meet Jess and Kyle. You’ll love them. Jess works with clay and makes the most wonderful art. Kyle made a fortune developing a very clever app and now dabbles in the stock market. You know, just for fun.’ Connie always gives a quick precis of her guests. I suppose the idea is so that we can find common ground. I doubt it. Jess, who ‘works with clay’ just sounds a bit pretentious. I can’t imagine she’ll value the fact that I sometimes work with Play-Doh. I have no resources to dabble in the stock market. The closest I come is totting up my nectar points to see if I might have enough to cover entry into a theme park, so that Millie and I can have a free day out.