The Face of It

by Rosie Williams

  Dylan smirked and settled back down.

  ‘Have you spoken to Mum and Dad today?’ Taylor asked, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

  ‘Mum texted this morning saying she loved me. Nothing from Dad.’ Dylan started playing with the spoon in his cup, slowly scraping it around the inside, while tapping his foot.

  ‘They do love you, you know,’ Taylor said gently, reaching out for his hand, partly to comfort him and partly to stop the unpleasant noise.

  ‘I know. That makes it worse,’ he said, sighing sadly. ‘You’re not supposed to hurt the ones you love.’

  ‘But you didn’t do it on purpose!’ Taylor said, grasping his hand in both of hers. ‘It was Mark, he’s the -’

  ‘I knew! Alright?’ Dylan said, snapping and pulling his hands away as if burnt. ‘I knew he’d put alcohol in it. I could taste it on the very first sip. But everyone was having such a good time and I thought it had been so long that it’d be OK, that I could be normal about it all.’

  Dylan picked up his mug and squeezed it until his knuckles turned white. Taylor didn’t know how to respond. She had convinced herself that this wasn’t his fault. She had been prepared to dedicate her whole self into helping him stay on track, and move past this ‘accident’. But deep down she’d known, too. It was just easier to believe the sugar-coated version of the truth. Having blind faith in him allowed her to shove her fears into a small box, lock it, and bury it somewhere, never to see the light of day; because this wasn’t his fault. Except it was.

  ‘Lor?’ Dylan said quietly. It had been several minutes and she still hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, getting quickly to her feet. ‘We still need to find bedding and coat hangers.’ She picked up her bag and charged off, leaving him in her wake. He scrambled to his feet and jogged after her.

  ‘Lor, can we -’

  ‘No, Dylan.’

  ‘But -’

  ‘No. We’re going to carry on shopping, get your things, get in the car, and go home and spend the rest of the day putting flat pack furniture together. How about these?’ she said, pulling a bedding set out at random and shoving them in front of his face.

  ‘They... they have unicorns on, Lor,’ he said quietly, glancing down at the bedding and then back to her.

  ‘Oh. Right. So they do,’ she said, properly looking at them for the first time, before handing them to him like she had been burned. ‘OK, you pick the bedding. I’ll go find coat hangers.’ She turned on her heel and marched off. Dylan just stood there staring after her, holding a unicorn-covered pink duvet cover with matching pillowcases.

  Taylor made it as far as next room before her eyes started stinging with tears. She took a deep breath to steady herself. Not here. Not now. She stopped a passing staff member to ask where the coat hangers were, her voice still a little shaky. The obviously confused staff member pointed her in the right direction, and she marched off again, still taking slow, deep breaths.

  The coat hangers were next to some light blue fabric storage boxes, and even as she reached up to grab the hangers she couldn’t help but stare at them. They were almost the exact same colour as Paige’s shirt had been. Despite all the emotions she had bubbling under the surface, a small smile crept across her face as she remembered that evening in the restaurant, and how she hadn’t laughed like that in so long. The memory helped calm her as she carefully retrieved the coat hangers and made her way back to her brother.

  ‘Here,’ she said, dumping the hangers in his arms. ‘That’s everything?’ she asked. He nodded in response, trying to juggle the hangers as they started to slide from his grasp. They walked in silence to the section of the store where they had to collect the bigger items on their list. The cavernous space was packed floor to ceiling with nondescript cardboard boxes. Taylor snorted. She’d spend most of yesterday getting rid of boxes and here she was, surrounded by them, inviting them into her house. Dylan grabbed a nearby trolley and started scanning the aisles for the correct product code. Taylor aimlessly wandered off in the other direction, looking at the few un-boxed products littering the aisles. She used the opportunity to pull out her phone and text Paige; but, when she opened the text screen, she found she didn’t know what to say. ‘Hi, how’re you? My brother’s an alcoholic and just fell off the wagon’ didn’t seem to cut it somehow. Taylor stared at the flashing underscore on the screen, awaiting her input. Eventually she settled on just a simple ‘Hi, how’re you today? x’. Her finger hovered over the send button, before she went back and removed the ‘x’ from the text. Satisfied, she returned her phone to her pocket and went off in search of Dylan among the walls and walls of boxes.

  Back at the house they sat on the floor of what was now Dylan’s bedroom, pouring over the scant instructions for the bed they had just bought. There were no words, only diagrams, and the pieces in them weren’t all that easy to identify. Every now and again Dylan would pick up one element and try it with another one, the way someone would if they were checking if a jigsaw piece fit.

  ‘No, that’s not right,’ Taylor scolded, pointing at the instructions. ‘That big bit has to go into these two smaller bits, see?’

  ‘Right,’ he said tersely.

  Taylor’s phone vibrated on the floor beside her. She snatched it up quickly, not wanting to give Dylan the chance to tease her. Paige had replied to her text, saying she was well and asking if Taylor wanted to meet for lunch later in the week. Taylor’s insides cringed as she had to ask if they could postpone until the week after, telling a little white lie about a busy work schedule. Once she put her phone down, she let a small smile drift on to her face and her eyes started to twinkle a little, a re-ignition of the spark that had been so violently put out on Friday night. She quickly shook herself, not wanting Dylan to see and ask questions, and re-focused on building the bed.

  ‘I’ve found a group that meets every evening. I’ve signed us up for Monday,’ Taylor said, paying particularly close attention to the screw she was inserting into the bed frame.

  ‘Us?’ Dylan questioned.

  ‘It’s hard to get to by bus,’ Taylor offered by way of explanation. She left out the part where she didn’t yet trust him to leave the house unattended.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Lor,’ he said gently.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I need to be able to be completely open and honest in the group,’ he said, looking away from his sister. ‘I can’t do that if you’re there.’

  ‘Oh,’ Taylor said, stinging with the rejection.

  ‘And I’ll get a taxi. There is no reason you should have to give up all your evenings.’

  ‘I don't mind,’ Taylor lied.

  ‘Yes, you do. And even if you don’t, you should,’ Dylan said, slotting one of the wooden pieces into the other. ‘I’ll be OK. I’m a big boy now’ he added sarcastically.

  ‘I know,’ Taylor’s voice quivered. ‘I’m just trying to help.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Dylan said, tossing aside the piece he was holding. ‘I don’t want to need help, yours or anyone else's. It makes me feel weak, like I’m less of a man.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with needing help, Dyl. Remember when I left Daniella? Mum and Dad had to basically scrape me off the floor.’

  ‘That’s different. You didn’t do it to yourself.’

  ‘Didn’t I? I pretended like everything was fine, but I knew what she was doing to me was wrong. Deep down I knew, and I still stayed.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘It’s not. You were a victim in that situation,’ Dylan said quietly.

  ‘And you’re not?’ Taylor asked, making him go still. ‘You can be a victim of something, as well as of someone. You’re a victim of addiction, and it’s OK to ask for help.’

  Dylan didn’t move but his eyes started filling up. He tried his best to stifle the tears and sniffed a few times.

  ‘And it’s OK to cry, you dingus,’ Taylor
said, gently shoving her brother on the arm. ‘We all do it. Put a sad film on and I can’t turn the waterworks off!’ she said, making him laugh.

  ‘Thanks, Taylor,’ he said quietly, going back to working on the bed.

  ‘Any time,’ Taylor said, smiling at him.

  They worked together to finish assembling the bed, deciding that the wardrobe and desk could wait until tomorrow. Taylor threw Dylan’s new bedding at him, telling him that he could do that particular job himself. She went downstairs and put two frozen meals in the microwave, then checked her emails while she was waiting. Her supervisor had thankfully approved her emergency leave, meaning she could concentrate solely on Dylan this week without stressing as much about work. She brought up the alcoholics support group website on her phone and re-read the ‘about’ section, taking comfort in the success stories they shared there. They met at seven p.m., meaning the traffic shouldn’t be too bad. She wondered if they chose that time as the likely time people with nine-to-five jobs would end up in pubs.

  The siblings watched a random reality television show with their dinner, laughing with and at the people on the screen and forgetting their own lives for an hour. Dylan’s jaw seemed less tense, and his forehead was no longer furrowed. Their parents called to check in on them and wish them good night, and Dylan seemed excited to tell them about the furniture they had bought for his new room. Taylor had insisted on paying, joking that it would be just like letting a fully furnished flat, only much smaller. Whilst the television show was on, she started making lists of possible man-and-van companies she could ring to move the rest of Dylan’s stuff out from his old flat. She knew they could probably fit most of it in her car but she didn’t feel safe coming face to face with Mark again. Even if Dylan had known the drink was alcoholic as soon as he tasted it, Mark had still spiked it in the first place, and then tried to intimidate her.

  Once she was happy with the list she checked her bank balance, only to find her parents had transferred her some money with the note ‘for Dylan x’ attached to it. Her insides felt all fuzzy and warm as a result, combined with a little guilt... and was it shame? Her cheeks had flushed red at least. It was a reminder that she wasn’t alone with this, and she knew Dylan really was sorry and she believed him when she said he was determined to stay sober. But looking across at him as he was laughing at the television, she couldn’t help flashing back to Friday night, when a very different laugh had passed his lips. It quickly cooled the warmth that had settled nicely in her body, as if she had been dunked in an ice bath straight from the comfort of her bed. She knew he had a long road ahead of him.

  The alcoholics support group met in a draughty church hall on the outskirts of the city. The faded wood flooring reminded Taylor of their secondary school sports hall, complete with mystery stains and an immeasurable number of chips and scratches. A table off to the side supported a large silver coffee urn that was spluttering to life, threatening to spill its contents over the white cloth it rested on. At the far end of the hall the musty-looking red curtains had been pulled back to reveal stacks of chairs and some soft play equipment. In the centre of the room, under a single, low-hanging light, was a circle of chairs with black metal frames and burgundy cushions that looked lumpy and faded. A few of the seats were occupied; the people using them either looking at their phones or staring at their hands, almost as though they were praying to be somewhere else. Around the outside of the circle there were a few pairs and groups of people, talking in low voices. To Taylor it seemed like a twisted form of the childhood game ‘duck, duck, goose’, where at any moment someone might just get up and run.

  Taylor and Dylan stood in the arched doorway, on the boundary between inside and out, between cold and... well, slightly less cold. Dylan was fidgeting with his feet, unable to stand still or keep his hands by his side. Instead, he kept pulling out his phone or his keys and passing them from one hand to the other, distracting himself from the scene in front of him.

  Seemingly out of nowhere a portly bearded gentleman popped up next to them and offered his hand.

  ‘Hi, I’m Andy,’ he said, shaking their hands quite vigorously. ‘First time here?’ Dylan just nodded in response. ‘It’s OK! We were all new once. Come in, get a tea or coffee and grab a seat. You’ll get to know everyone soon enough.’ Dylan took one last begging look at his sister before being led away by the jolly Andy, whose braces outlined his large stomach like a picture frame.

  Taylor waited a little while until Dylan joined the rest of the group in the circle, then slipped back out of the front door. The cold air immediately bit at her fingers as a breeze swirled around her. She thought she might freeze to death if she just sat in her car for the next two hours.

  The door of the coffee shop chimed as she walked in, not that anyone seemed to notice. It was a warmly decorated, quiet place, with a few patrons splattered about here and there. The coffee menu was in simple English without all the added extras that would sometimes be found in the bigger chains. ‘Perfect,’ she thought as she made her way to the counter and ordered her drink. The woman behind the till looked old enough to be her grandmother, and she pottered slowly around as she made the coffee, humming to herself the entire time.

  ‘Here you go, honey,’ the old woman said as she handed Taylor her coffee. Her voice was sweet and frail, her hands trembling slightly as she handed the coffee over, causing the spoon to rattle on the saucer. Taylor chose a comfy-looking seat at the back of the coffee shop and settled in for the next couple of hours. She rummaged around in her bag for the book she had been meaning to read for months, but never had the time. Before she delved into its pages, she checked her work emails by force of habit. One hundred and fifty-four unread emails stared back up at her, and a knot started forming in her stomach. One of the emails near the top of the list had a small red exclamation mark next to it, indicating the sender had thought it was important. Against her better judgement she opened it and scanned the text.

  ‘Please find attached next term’s teaching schedule for your perusal,’ she read, before opening the attachment. The knot in her stomach got tighter, as if it was in the middle of a tug of war rope. They were asking her to take on even more teaching hours, all while her PhD supervisor was on her back about how far she was falling behind. She started feeling a little sick.

  ‘Are you OK, dear? You’ve gone awfully white,’ the old woman said as she bustled around, wiping down tables.

  ‘What?’ Taylor said, tearing her eyes away from her phone. ‘Oh, yes, sorry. I’m fine, thank you. Just work stuff.’

  ‘Honey, work shouldn’t make you white as a sheet,’ the old woman said unsolicited. ‘Maybe it’s time for a career change?’ She continued picking up the used cups that were dotted around the cafe. There were only a couple of other people there now and no one at the counter. Once she had taken the now full tray of cups over to the counter, she came back and sat down sideways on a nearby chair, resting an elbow on the table.

  ‘Take this job. I could have retired years ago but I just love it. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning, I meet new people every day, and it keeps me active. Can you say the same for your job?’

  Taylor stammered slightly, not knowing how to respond to the sudden onslaught of philosophical wisdom from a septuagenarian, ‘Well, no, not right now. But to get to where I want to be, I have to get through this... less pleasant stage.’

  ‘Do you, though? Or could there be another way?’ the old lady said, getting back to her feet. Then, with a sudden change of tack, she said, ‘We close at eight, just so you know,’ before shuffling away, not giving Taylor a chance to respond. Taylor wrapped both her hands around her coffee mug, allowing the heat to radiate into her cold palms, and mulled over what the old woman had said. Was there another way? When she had signed her contract with the university there was only a minimal teaching requirement, and she’d spent the first few months of this new career falling in love with this research project. Now she had been forced to f
ocus elsewhere, she didn’t feel that same excitement and joy every morning she got up for work. While she enjoyed teaching, the real reason she’d left industry was for the research; she wanted to make a difference in the world, and maybe she was naive, but she really believed her research project could. She took a sip of her coffee, letting the warm liquid flow into her stomach and begin to loosen the knot.

  At five minutes to eight she put her book back in her bag and took her now empty mug to the counter.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ the old woman said warmly.

  ‘No problem,’ Taylor responded. ‘And thank you... for the coffee,’ she said pointedly, causing the old woman to wink at her.

  Taylor made her way slowly back to the church hall, the ends of her scarf flapping around in the wind like a bird trying to take off. Her attention turned back to her brother with trepidation. How had the meeting gone? Had he been honest? Had it been helpful? She would find out soon enough.

  Once back at her car she fumbled with the keys, trying to unlock it with cold hands. Even inside the car her breath misted in front of her, and she was glad she had put so many layers on before leaving the house. It didn’t take long for the windscreen and windows to steam up, creating a misty layer protecting her from the outside world. She dug her book back out, ready to delve back between its pages, hoping to drift away into another time and place, so she could forget about the cold.

  Nearly an hour later, the sudden opening of the passenger door made her jump.

  ‘You must be frozen!’ her brother said as he dived into the car, blowing heat into his hands.

  ‘How was it?’ Taylor asked, immediately putting her book away.

  ‘It was OK. I’m going to come back tomorrow. Andy said to go every evening this week and see which group I was happiest being a part of and to stick with that one. Each group meets twice a week, but you can always drop in on other groups if you need it.’

  ‘That sounds really positive,’ Taylor said, starting the engine.