Room Empty

by Sarah Mussi

  ‘You mean the boy who was in this room?’

  ‘Yes, the boy who was in this room!’ I’m shouting. It’s not her fault. Why is she being so stupid?

  ‘You don’t know?’ she says.

  Obviously not.

  ‘He left,’ she says.

  ‘Left?’

  ‘He’s no longer on the programme,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not my business to talk about the clients.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘The boy who was in this room checked out of the programme late last night,’ she says. ‘He’s not coming back.’

  I can’t take that in.

  I don’t know what to do. I can’t believe he’s not here.

  The woman stops stripping down the bed. She looks at me like she just wants to get on with the job. But I can’t leave. It’s like roots have grown out of my feet and attached themselves through the carpet to the floorboards beneath.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ I whisper.

  She shrugs. ‘You need to ask Mr Tony,’ she says.

  The roots on my feet wither. I leave the room. Behind me, in a whirlwind, is the Alien. I know he’s following. I don’t turn round and look at him.

  Out on the landing, I slam my back against the wall. I push it with the palms of my hands. Then I take out my mobile. We’re not supposed to use our mobiles openly in public places. We’re not supposed to use our mobiles at all.

  It goes to voicemail.

  I punch in Fletcher’s number again.

  It goes to voicemail.

  It goes to voicemail.

  It goes to voicemail.

  It goes to voicemail.

  It goes to voicemail.

  It goes to voicemail.

  ‘It’s me. I’m sorry. You didn’t have to go. It’s not too late. Please come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve got things to tell you. I’m sorry.’

  I walk down the stairs.

  I try his number seven more times. Seven more times it goes to voicemail.

  I stand in the hall outside Tony’s office.

  Tony’s in there. I can hear him talking to somebody.

  My knees are shaking.

  I try again. He has to answer. He’s not there. Voicemail. He’s not there. He’s not there.

  I knock on the door.

  The conversation inside suddenly goes quiet.

  I wait.

  I hear a chair being shoved back.

  I wait.

  The door opens.

  Judith walks out.

  She gives me one of those looks. It says: We have boundaries for a reason. Boundaries keep us safe. Her look says: You are an addict; you have no boundaries. You were born without them. You grew without them. You don’t know who you are – what is you, what is not you. I am very sorry for you. You are out of touch with your feelings. You flood out everywhere. You drown people. You are a nightmare. I thank God I am not you.

  I barge into Tony’s office.

  Tony’s office is very male. Black leather armchair. Smooth, polished black desk. Dark laminate flooring. Empty white walls. Concealed glossy black shelves. Chrome filing cases. No pictures.

  ‘Where is he?’ I say.

  ‘Sit down,’ he says.

  I stand.

  ‘Where is he?’ I repeat.

  ‘Dani, you can’t walk into this office and demand answers. There are protocols. We have to follow them.’

  I laugh. I laugh in his pockmarked, middle-aged, prison-challenged face. Is this the same person who was up in Fletcher’s room only yesterday, bawling him out?

  Then I get it. We must all put on our fake faces. I wonder if Tony wears a bulletproof suit like mine. I haven’t got my suit on now. Hundreds of bullets are going right through me.

  ‘I want to know where Fletcher is.’

  Perhaps there’s something in the tone and pitch – in my shrieking. Perhaps Tony recognizes something of himself. Some shade of last night, some shadow of the person he might have been if whatever happened to him had not happened.

  His voice gentles. ‘At least sit down.’

  I sit. I put myself on the edge of the visitor’s couch.

  ‘Please,’ I say.

  He sighs.

  I can see he’s suffering too.

  ‘Fletcher has misused his chances. He was asked to choose between deciding to embrace his future somewhere else, or waiting for the centre to ask him to leave. He chose to go. He was asked not to make any contact with other clients. He’s gone.’

  ‘I don’t want the official line,’ I say.

  ‘You know very well what’s happened.’

  I perch on the edge of the sofa. I don’t know where to start, whether to nod my head or not. I have no idea what’s happened. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED. I cannot accept anything that has happened.

  ‘Here we try to learn to embrace the now. There’s no point in fighting what is,’ Tony says.

  I just look up at him and wait.

  ‘Fletcher made his choices,’ he continues.

  I still wait.

  ‘Fletcher misused his chances,’ Tony repeats.

  So that’s it? We only get so many chances in this life, and when we misuse them we’re returned to the crap heap? But Fletcher obviously left before he’d missed three meetings anyway. Tony is spouting rubbish. I open my mouth to tell him.

  Tony pre-empts me. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know Fletcher didn’t stay on to exhaust his chances. And for that, Dani, I think I respect him.’

  Respect him? You should have stopped him. You didn’t try hard enough. It must be somebody’s fault. I’m going to blame YOU, Tony.

  I don’t want to blame myself. It’s all my fault though. I sit struggling with whose fault it is.

  ‘He did the right thing,’ Tony says.

  How can leaving your recovery programme unfinished, staying unrecovered for ever, be the right thing? How can going back to where he came from, to all the pressures and the pain, be the goddamn, effing RIGHT THING?

  ‘Recovery is not easy, and Fletcher recognized he wasn’t ready to do the work.’

  How can facing all that alone, without me, EVER be the right thing?

  ‘The right thing for the centre too. Fletcher recognized that he wasn’t ready to use his place here properly.’

  Tony turns his gaze to the window. Broken eyes. A life gone stale.

  ‘We can’t change people or control them,’ Tony says sadly. ‘Fletcher has to make his own choices.’

  Oh, spare me!

  ‘I think you need to do a little bit of stocktaking too,’ Tony says.

  Stocktaking? Excellent! So now it’s my fault. I’m a Director Of The Universe and everything that happens is my responsibility!

  I’m in control of the world.

  Blame me if everything goes wrong.

  ‘There are many roads to Rome,’ Tony says uneasily.

  I notice that I may have picked bald a patch of pile on the sofa. I try to hide the fluff in a little ball. I cover the bald patch with my hand.

  ‘Take heart,’ says Tony. ‘Even if Fletcher didn’t show the commitment needed to his recovery this time round, it’s not the end of the story.’ He smiles at me through gold-capped, half-missing front teeth.

  But in the dead centre of his eyes, I can see he’s a zombie. He has drunk the blood of the goddess Kali. Last night when he pushed past me on the landing, his eyes were alive. He was awake and on fire. The real person was there. Now he’s completely undead.

  And lying.

  In this programme they don’t allow failures. Everybody is a success. If you look like you’re not going to make it, they’ll force you out. They must be so pissed off about Carmen. Why can’t Tony just say it?

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you that information, Dani.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know exactly why not.’

  ‘He�
�d want me to have it.’ I know he would.

  ‘When a client leaves this programme,’ Tony says, ‘we make them aware that they must not contact anyone still within the programme. It isn’t healthy. It would negatively impact the recovery of others.’

  I look at him. There are some things I just don’t get about this real world.

  ‘We can’t pass on any confidential information, even if we wanted to,’ he says in that kind way adults have of trying to tell some juvenile the unacceptable. ‘It’s not allowed under the Data Protection Act.’

  Enough.

  Hiding behind the Data Protection Act.

  I stand up. I face Tony.

  ‘You’re a fraud,’ I yell. ‘You’re a fake, phoney, empty con man. You were probably more real when you were in prison. You should’ve stayed there. Look at you.’

  I just scream, ‘LOOK AT YOURSELF! LOOK AT YOURSELF! LOOK AT YOURSELF!’

  I turn round to leave.

  I’d like to run, but I can’t.

  I slam the door instead.

  51

  I slam my bedroom door behind me too.

  Thank God I don’t have a goddamn roommate. I sit down on my bed. I smack my head down on the pillow. He’s gone. He’s left me. He doesn’t care. Nobody ever cares. It’s because I’m ugly. Because I’m fat. Because I’m the wrong shape. My legs are too short; my ankles are too thick. I’m a mess. I’m a monster. I drove him away. It’s my fault. I always drive everyone away. I never do the nice thing, the caring thing. I’m a monster.

  I’m an Alien.

  My hair is too thin. My eyes are too small. Face too fat. I hate my cheeks – my great, round, podgy, soggy, pudding cheeks. And I’m going bald.

  Something looks in at the window. Tap tap.

  I look up. A little head is poking itself over the sill. It smiles wistfully at me. It’s a smile that says: I’m still here, you know. I’m still your friend. Just let me in again.

  I sit up on the bed. I think I’m going to open the window and invite the Alien back in.

  But as I move across the room, I look out through the window, across the garden, past the honeysuckle wall, out into Berkshire. I remember those eyes, Fletcher’s eyes, that day when we made our first pact – about being real, about promising to be buddies.

  What happened?

  How did it all fall apart?

  The Alien gives me a winning smile. It looks like a little kitten with a little white spot on its nose. Little pink tongue and big, big, blue-brown eyes.

  But I sit back down on the bed. I swallow a piece of steel. I made a promise to Fletcher. I promised I would be there for him. And I haven’t been.

  So I give up?

  Is that the deal?

  Conditional love?

  Limited liability?

  I don’t want that kind of love any more. Because I was loved. And I realize it’s true. Fletcher loved me and my mother loved me.

  My mother loved and loved and loved me.

  Unconditionally.

  When your mother loved you and died for you, conditional love is not enough any more.

  I’ve grown out of being the kind of person who tries to do a little bit less and get a little bit more.

  I want to be unlimited.

  My mother starved to death for me. She gave me food when there was none.

  So I sadly shake my head at the Alien. It sticks out its pink tongue, which becomes black and poisonous and huge.

  My fingers flutter. A shaking starts inside. There’s a quivering going on in my stomach. A tsunami starts somewhere in the mid-Atlantic and builds.

  I know that I’m breaking one of the innermost rules of my being.

  I MUST ALWAYS DO WHAT THE ALIEN WANTS.

  But I’m not going to.

  I’m not going to be someone who goes back on a deal. Fletcher was my recovery buddy. Whether he’s here or not, I have a responsibility to recover because my mother died for me. Because I was loved.

  I sit up. I pick up my hand mirror.

  I’m going to try a recovery exercise.

  I look at my face in the mirror and, standing over my shoulder, I imagine the person I love most in all the world.

  I gaze into the mirror. I don’t even know who I love most. I try very hard to see the face of my mother. But I cannot. My eyes fill with tears. I can’t remember her. The tsunami grows seven metres tall. I feel like I’m going to vomit.

  If I went back into the room, would I find her face?

  Would I remember her?

  Judith showed me the way. Go back to your earliest memory. Open the door beyond it. My heart pounds.

  I must find my mother.

  Her face lies behind that door.

  In the empty room.

  I go back to my earliest memory. I go back to the closed door. I start to hyperventilate. I put my hand on the doorknob. I twist. I push. I can’t open the door.

  It’s locked against me.

  I stand up. I do three little jumping jacks.

  I’m not going to do jumping jacks any more. They belong to the poor, disordered, old me.

  I sit down on the bed again. I pick up the mirror a second time.

  I look into the space over my shoulder to see the face of the person I love most. In the gloom behind me, somewhere on the blue wallpaper, is the face of Fletcher.

  I’m surprised. Is that who I love most?

  Unconditionally and for ever?

  And the tsunami hits.

  A flood washes over me.

  I love Fletcher?

  I didn’t even know.

  I didn’t know this feeling was called love.

  I love Fletcher.

  I love him in a totally unlimited way.

  And I must recover.

  I say to Fletcher’s face, ‘You’re ugly. You’re fat. You’re misshapen. Your hair is too thin. You’re going bald. Your ankles are too thick. Nobody can love you. Look at you. You can’t stand up straight. You’re too short. Your fingers are too stubby.’ I tell him everything that I’ve been telling myself.

  I feel voodoo pins sticking into my hands and arms and shoulders with every insult, until I can’t say them any more. I can’t tell him he’s ugly. I can’t tell him he’s misshapen. I can’t tell him anything so hurtful. And if I can’t tell the person I love most in all the world these terrible things then why should I tell them to myself?

  Now I try to say, ‘You’re pretty. You’re normal. You’re lovable.’ I can’t get the words out. In my mind I go over and over the words: ‘You’re lovable, you’re pretty, you’re right just the way you are.’

  I break out into a cold sweat.

  The Alien raps and raps on the glass.

  The water level is nearly window high. Outside, trees and cars race past in the flood.

  ‘Let me in,’ wails the Alien.

  I think of Fletcher out there on the streets.

  I must do this.

  ‘You are fine just the way you are,’ I say to my reflection in the mirror.

  It comes out in a whisper.

  The Alien shatters into a thousand little fragments of bone and clatters down on to the windowsill and is swept away.

  And I know what I must do, whether or not Fletcher is here.

  Step Ten

  When We Were Wrong

  52

  Slowly I go down the stairs to the refectory. It’s lunchtime. I pick up a tray from the counter. I join the queue. It’s a brown tray with a smooth wood-like feel to it. It’s moulded into a normal rectangular shape. I love normal.

  I pick up my cutlery: knife and fork and spoon. They’re normal spoons and normal forks and normal knives. I slide my tray along the very normal chrome rails of the buffet counter. And I think about what I’m going to eat.

  There’s a basket full of little rolls – some are white, some brown; some have seeds on them. I haven’t tasted bread in over eight years. I pick up a normal white roll, soft with a slightly creamy golden crust over its top. I put it down
on my side plate. I see the butter, little tiny squares in silver and gold foil. I think about the creamy taste of butter. I’m not sure I can allow myself butter, but there’s a wildness inside me, an abandonment, as if nothing really matters any more or everything matters all the more, and it’s thrumming through me . . . so I pick up one of the little squares of normal butter!

  I feel the slight squidginess of the tiny packet. I put it beside the roll. Am I mad?

  I slide my tray further on along the counter.

  The menu today is chicken and mushroom casserole with mashed potato and peas. The vegetarian option is cheese and courgette lasagne. And here’s the salad bar at the end. I long to try the creamy, cheesy lasagne. My mouth begins to salivate in a distressing way. My throat gulps.

  I get to the vegetarian section. The woman behind the counter looks at me. She’s surprised when I lift up my tray. She turns and nudges one of the other servers behind the counter. The woman stops serving a great slop of mushroom and chicken on to the next girl’s plate and looks at me.

  I try not to look back. I try to stop the negative talk which is telling me: They think I’m ugly; they think I’m bulimic; they think I’ll get fat; they think I shouldn’t be eating. They think I’ve been pretending. They think I’m a fraud.

  I stop myself.

  It’s just a plate of lasagne.

  It’s very normal to eat at lunchtime.

  I hand over the plate. The food is dished out. I put it on my tray.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  I slide the tray down to the serve-yourself salad counter.

  I’ve always longed to serve myself and stuff my plate totally full. I’m going to do it.

  I spoon on grated carrot. I pile it in a bowl. I move along a bit and scoop up a serving of chopped cucumber and tomato and little pieces of Greek feta cheese.

  I’m trembling at the enormity of what I’m doing.

  I stop and brace myself against the chrome rails.

  Two vegetarian kebabs.

  Two!

  The tray feels so heavy.

  I glance at it. I’ve become so adept at counting calories, I can see immediately that this whole plate is at least 750, probably more.

  Probably more!

  I try to shut off the calculator in my head. I’m working out the ratio of jumping jacks to calories, how many hours I’d have to walk up and down the garden to burn off that lot.

  With trembling hands I move towards the far table by the window, the table where I used to sit and eat nothing and watch the others chewing.