Drift Stumble Fall

by M. Jonathan Lee

  They are calling to me.

  I repeat my movements, another stride closer. And again, and again. I pause between strides, catching my breath. Swallowing my own body as the blood flows from the opening in my tongue and down my throat. I can see their faces now. They are smiling.

  Another stride.

  Not far now.

  I pull myself forwards again and I hear a sound that is familiar to me, though I don’t know why. A whooshing sound that comes quickly from behind me. The sound is accompanied by darkness which sweeps around my entire body. Almost immediately, the shapes of my family have gone; the air around me is black. Sand whips my face and arms and legs. The wind comes from all directions, swirling and twisting around me. The eye of the storm.

  Although the gusts are strong, because they come from all directions I manage to stay on my feet. Using the wind, I stumble forward a step in rapid time. Then I am still as I push my body weight against the sandstorm to stand my ground. I feel movement behind me and go with it to get another pace toward my family. I just hope that somewhere in the blackness they are still there.

  The wind threatens to blow me over, but I manage to take three steps forward before it changes direction again and I am holding firm against it. I am drained and I am confused by where my strength is coming from. Perhaps it is simply coming from the hope that everything is going to be okay.

  The wind switches again and I am moving forward more quickly than I can walk. And then, out of nowhere, I am utterly weightless.

  I feel the wind, now fresh and clean, rushing from beneath me, filling the thousands of tiny holes scratched into my skin. I spin uncontrollably through the air. The blackness thins and then lifts instantly, and it takes a moment for me to realise that I am falling at speed; a canyon of red rock. As I spin, I notice that beneath me is a dark river that gets closer and closer as the moments pass.

  I manage to look above me, and I see my family again. They are waving and cheering. Their smiles are no longer hopeful. They are full of pleasure. Their smiles become laughter, their teeth bared, joy flowing loudly from deep in their throats. I see Oscar lift his arm, and moments later the bottle of water passes me, hurtling toward the river below.

  I don’t know how many times I had the dream during the night; I lost count. As I believe is normal, I never reached the end of the dream, though I expect I crashed to my untimely death or just remained suspended in time (and in pain) for the remainder of my life.

  Once again, I am staring at the bedroom wall. I can hear Lisa breathing behind me. I reach onto the bedside table and pick up my phone. Then I shuffle over to the edge of the bed and, holding the phone near the floor, so as not to disturb Lisa, I press the power button.

  The new-found darkness of the room simply serves to illuminate the phone screen further. It is incredibly bright, and I squint – and Lisa moans. I catch the time quickly before switching the phone off again. For all my thoughtfulness, I may as well have opened a fridge in a cave.

  tuesday 18th

  CHAPTER_THIRTY-FIVE

  Yes, of course; it’s, like, a weekly thing.

  It’s half past seven. I can’t lie here any longer; it’s time to get up. Quietly, I pull on jeans and a hoody over my pyjama top and tiptoe out of the room. Through the window at the top of the stairs I can see the sun beginning to rise outside and the greyish blue of the morning sky. The moon is still visible.

  I walk downstairs, careful not to make a sound, and I am relieved to find that all the doors that lead to the hall are closed. This means that nobody has been downstairs before me today. I push out air between my lips in what is meant to be a ‘phew’ sound but comes out more like a whistle. I am then left standing in the middle of the hall, wondering which way to go next. I quickly discount the lounge and dining room, because they are separated only by ceiling from where Hannah and Lisa, respectively, are sleeping. This leaves either the kitchen or leaving through the front door (I have discounted the cellar door on the basis that my sitting down there at this time of the morning in the freezing cold and darkness looks utterly creepy, and I could be branded as a serial killer or worse by my entire family).

  I choose the kitchen as the practical choice. When I enter, Cliff appears less than thrilled to see me. He meanders out of his basket, by habit it seems, and rubs the back of his neck against my calf. I kneel down and hold his head between my hands, stroking his ears with my thumbs. I leave my face open, an invitation for him to lick me. For once, he doesn’t seem too interested. I wonder briefly whether he has been reading my thoughts. Perhaps he is already making preparations for my exit. I am about to sit down at the kitchen table when I hear a sound from Oscar’s room. I stand and listen for a moment, and as soon as I hear the creaking of floorboards, I know he’s out of bed.

  This sends me into an immediate blind panic, and within moments Cliff (reluctantly) and I are in the passage between our house and the neighbours’. I am wearing an old coat which was relegated to gardening wear at least a decade earlier. I have no gloves, as that would have meant a potentially perilous mission to the front door. I also have no socks on and my feet already feel like stones inside my wellies.

  I managed to get Cliff’s spare lead on, which was hanging beneath an old black fleece on a peg in the lean-to. Unfortunately, the snow on the ground reaches well above his head height and so I have to carry him to the pavement outside. I am fortunate that the snow has stopped for the moment; however, last night’s forecast was for more. At the moment, the sky looks discontented; a grey, swirling mass above me as the clouds shuffle for position. It makes me think of being inside an upturned bowl of porridge being slowly stirred from somewhere high up above.

  I glance up at our bedroom window and am relieved to see that the curtains are still firmly closed. I wonder whether

  Oscar has woken Lisa up yet. Cliff and I make our way into the middle of the road, to walk along the thin path that has been made by those brave enough to go outside before us. Everything is covered in snow, so much so that it is impossible to see the colour of the cars anymore. The rows of cars parked down each side of the street look like two giant white caterpillars. The air smells clean and fresh.

  We make our way behind a transit van parked outside a neighbour’s house, and when I am positive I cannot be seen from my home I glance at my watch. Seven forty.

  I notice that Bill’s curtains are already open. They must have been up early this morning. I suppose when there is just the two of you, you can get up when you want to – with no-one around to take up your time or bother you. Just another easy day in the peace and warmth of the bungalow. As I walk past I see Bill come to the window, and I lift my sleeve to wave. It’s too cold to expose my hand.

  He raises his hand slightly, but I get the feeling that he can’t see me. Like his eyes caught the motion outside, and he just raised his hand as a reaction. I smile at him, but his eyes are elsewhere. As I continue past he continues waving, his hand moving like a metronome, his face vacant.

  CHAPTER_THIRTY-SIX

  Yes, of course; it’s, like, a weekly thing.

  “Are you seriously going out in this?” Lisa says.

  We are both standing at the lounge window, staring at the lights outside. The snow is coming down thick and heavy, faster than I have seen since the weather turned last week.

  “Yep, it’s quiz night,” I remind her. Tuesday is quiz night at the pub. Paul and I meet on either Tuesdays or Thursdays every week in an attempt to rescue our sanity.

  “Can I come?” she says, half-joking. She has spent the last twenty minutes letting off steam about her parents, whom I understand she has now had enough of. They remain marooned. I have been fortunate enough to avoid them both for most of the day, choosing to spend my time upstairs with the children.

  I let her question pass to avoid the embarrassment of having to answer unfavourably. “I’ve not been out for nearly a week,” I reply.

  “What about this morning?”

  “Oh,
yeah,” I say. I’d forgotten that Cliff and I spent two hours hiding from the family at the local park. We only returned when I convinced myself that frostbite had set in to my toes.

  “Anyway, I wouldn’t go out in that. Too cold for me,” she snorts. “I’d rather bath the kids.”

  I know that this is just a cover-up for her not being invited.

  “I wonder if my dad wants to join you?”

  This is a clever move on her part. Push fifty per cent of her problem onto me. A problem shared, eh?

  “Er…” I have to react quickly. “I’m, like, leaving right now.” “It won’t take him a minute,” she says, and then, before I have chance to stop her, she shouts her father at the top of her voice.

  After two more shouts, Kenneth pops his head around the door.

  “Yes?” he says.

  “Do you want to go to the pub with Richard? It’s quiz night.” “Oh,” he says, “that’d be lovely.”

  “Is that okay by you, Rich?” Lisa says. I hate how she does this. I hate it even more that in fifteen years I’ve failed to develop a strategy to counter it.

  “Er, yeah…” I stretch out the word to give me some thinking time. “It’s just that Paul wanted to talk about something pretty serious.”

  “Oh,” says Kenneth again, “that’s not a problem. Don’t worry.”

  “Well, Dad won’t say anything to anyone, will he?” “I think it’s, er, private.”

  “Well, that doesn’t matter,” she says, meaning that Paul’s privacy doesn’t matter to her. “Dad doesn’t know anyone round here.”

  “Er,” is the best I can manage.

  “And Paul won’t mind.” She turns to Kenneth. “You remember Paul, don’t you? From the wedding?”

  I don’t understand why she does this to me. Surely it’s clear from my reaction that tonight it really doesn’t work for Kenneth to come along. I have nothing against him whatsoever. I just don’t want him there. I want to be away from them all. Alone, far away, free from situations like this. I wonder whether Lisa is actually going to force me to tell Kenneth directly not to come.

  “It’s fine,” I say, smiling as sweetly as I can with the taste of defeat in my mouth. I realise that this will be another ‘last time’ thing. And I realise that thinking this way means I won’t be here next week.

  I am pleased that I had the foresight to text Paul on the walk to the pub to tell him to bring his father along. I am also pleased (much as I care for Paul’s wellbeing) that since he is now living with his parents again he could get his dad to join us at very short notice. Finally, I am especially pleased that I could persuade both the pensioners that they’d enjoy a few frames of snooker. It’ll take them hours not only to actually strike the balls but also to remember the scoring system. From where Paul and I are sitting I can see both our fathers in the billiard room on the other side of the bar.

  Paul updates me about his daughter and the questionable activities of his ex-wife, and I tell him of the stresses of hanging curtains and walking sock-less in the snow.

  “Don’t you wish we were, like, twenty again?” he says.

  I smile and take a drink from my third pint of the evening.

  “No, seriously. Don’t you?” “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “Like when we could just go out all weekend.”

  “And not get a hangover,” I say.

  It’s his turn to smile. “Remember when we used to go and see bands every Friday and Saturday, without fail?” “Stoned?”

  “Yeah, absolutely battered,” he says.

  “And festivals every summer. Ticket for the whole weekend, a tent and two hundred quid’s worth of weed.”

  We spend the next hour sharing memories of the days when our little team of six friends was inseparable and unstoppable. When we went everywhere together. Did everything together. In the days before we began to settle down. We list bands we’ve seen and where. We talk of drunken nights ending up in strange houses full of strangers. Of weekends disappearing in a haze of smoke. Hospital visits. Police cells. Funerals. We talk about our adventures abroad in our early twenties, when we came so close to changing the paths we’ve taken in life. Without question changing the way our lives have now turned out.

  There used to be a very popular board game that we played when we were children. It was called The Game of Life. In it, you played a single man (or woman) who was just starting out on the road of life. The early parts of the game consisted of education and growing up. After school, you continued along the board to university, then your first job, your marriage, the birth of your first child and so on. Your playing piece was a little car that you drove around the board. It had space for six ‘people’ who were represented by pink- or blue-coloured plastic pins. You continued through life, adding to your family (up to a maximum of four children, of course), picking up your salary, going on holiday, buying life assurance and pensions, and where possible upsizing your property. From time to time on the turn of a card you would, unrealistically, switch jobs (coal merchant to doctor; stripper to stockbroker) and therefore increase the family income. The reason I am telling you this is that it’s amazing just how true to life the game is. How many people follow the same path throughout life as if they have run out of ideas for how to live? I’d guess the vast majority.

  Prior to travelling, after we had both finished our studies, we took the natural next step and applied for jobs. It only took seven months of working in our first postgraduate jobs (accountant and IT consultant, respectively) for us to agree that there must be more to life than this. We were greeted by the horrific reality that this was it. We were both already in our own little plastic cars. Unaccompanied for now, but it wouldn’t be long before we were joined by a pink peg and continue on the capitalist route toward the end of the game, ‘Millionaire Acres’.

  We met at the pub one night and decided that we were going to pack it all in. We were going to go out there into the world and do something different. We would travel the globe, living on our wits and working as we went along to survive. If all else failed, we would return home and start doing what we were already doing again.

  And we did leave. We travelled for nearly nine months, across five continents. Fruit picking, working in bars and sleeping on beaches. Meeting the most fascinating people you could hope to meet. Seeing the sunset in Auckland and the moon over the Nevada desert. Making just enough money to move on to the next place. It was heaven.

  And then, all else failed.

  We got tired of the movement, of being transient. We got bored of not being able to call anywhere home. The constant packing and repacking of our bags. The uncertainty of life. The indigent nature of travel, never knowing where tomorrow’s money would come from. Being so destitute that we shared one loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter for a fortnight.

  We tried to kid ourselves that we loved it. But somewhere deep down we couldn’t. And after a brief period away from our position on the playing board, we returned to where we left off. We both got back into our plastic cars, took proper jobs and… well, you pretty much know the rest.

  Reminiscing about our travels brings an end to the laughter and Paul suddenly looks very serious. At the same time, I see Kenneth on the other side of the bar pointing to his almost- empty pint glass and I put my thumb up. He nods and smiles.

  “Seriously, don’t you wish we were younger again?” Paul says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Being able to go where we want to go. No responsibilities.

  No being tied to the same place.”

  I nod. If only he knew.

  “I mean, it’s alright for you. You’ve got Lisa and the kids. A good job. A nice house…”

  The barmaid arrives and places down two pints sent over by Kenneth. I thank her and then look back to the bar to thank Kenneth. He is bent over the snooker table, so I turn back to Paul.

  “…and look at me. I’ve got a daughter I have to fight to see. No house. No partner. I mean, I live with my fuckin
g parents, for Christ’s sake.”

  I want to correct him. I want to say that just because my life looks nice from the outside, doesn’t mean it is. Just because my plastic car is full (if you count Cliff and the goldfish) and I am further along the board than he is, doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it any more than the next man. I want to tell him that the grass isn’t always greener. Be careful what you wish for. That type of thing.

  “Shit, isn’t it?” I say.

  “For me, yeah,” he says self-pityingly. He takes a huge gulp from his drink and when he replaces his glass on the table nearly half has gone. He burps, then laughs.

  “Thing is,” he says, “I’m stuck, y’know. I can’t leave here because of Ellie. I can’t risk changing jobs because of having to make sure I have enough to pay the maintenance. Can’t afford a house cos the money disappeared in the divorce.”

  I realise that none of this is covered in the idyllic Game of Life. I want to tell him that the reasons he has just given me are the exact reasons why I am leaving. The words are on the very tip of my tongue and I want to push them out and share them with him. But I stop myself. I haven’t yet decided how I am going to leave. If I decide that disappearing is better, then I want no-one to know of my whereabouts. Laying a secret like that on Paul is totally unfair. Plus, I know that he will try to dissuade me. The words he uses will sound selfless and he will list valid reasons for me to stay, but deep down I believe that he’ll try to talk me out of it. And the reason for this is that he desperately wants to do it himself and hasn’t the courage to do so.

  There is another selfish reason not to share my plans with him. The last thing I want is him suggesting that he may come with me. This is not some trip abroad in our early twenties, this is actual life. I want to make the best of what is left of mine. And doing so means being alone. Reliant on no-one. Relied upon by no-one. My happiness all in my own control.