“You didn’t hear me shouting out your name? I was running right behind you. Why do you think I’m so out of breath?”
I tell her I thought she was just breathless cos she’d vomited. But this ain’t even true – I didn’t think that at all. If anything, for a moment, I was hoping it was the other way round: that she was vomiting because she was breathless. Or cos she had a tummy bug. Or food poisoning. Or morning sickness. Anything except the stink of dog shit in my room. Or I think that’s what I thought. Anycase, the smell of it – it makes it difficult to think. Her vomit adding to it. I mean to the memories of it.
Later, what Naliah’ll want to know is this: why ain’t I told Ramona about my mother?
She’ll say that when she brought up the subject, Ramona was like as if my mum just had a bout of food poisoning. Followed by a bad chest infection. Followed by a broken hip. Even a medium-term timeframe can make all that shit seem unrelated.
“But don’t worry,” Naliah will add, “I did you the courtesy of not correcting her. At least for now.”
Then I’ll ask her: “And what the fuck do you know about my mother?”
“Come on, Dillon, I’ve read your social media posts,” she’ll go. “I mean your @Dhilan and @Dylan posts. You tweet about looking after her in hospital and then you tweet about the passing of her death anniversary. And then you tweet about her as if she’s just fine and dandy.”
Then she’ll ask me why I didn’t just pick completely different names? Why three different spellings of Dillon?
But all this’ll be said later on. After we’re done with the vomit incident.
Naliah starts dropping paper napkins on her puddle of puke. “I know students are supposed to live in pigsties, but how the hell are you living like this?”
“The fuck? This ain’t my mess.”
“The place is a little too poky for you to blame it on a roommate.”
Then she looks at me like I’m captain fucking dumbfuck for not getting she was joking. Then she apologises for joking – says she was just trying to cover up her shame over vomiting. Then she apologises again for vomiting.
Later, what Naliah’ll want to know is this: do I really love Ramona for real or am I just dicking her around?
And I’ll tell her: “Depends how you define dicking around.”
Also depends how you define hot and cold.
On and off.
Ask a set of strobe lights and they’ll tell you that on and off is actually on.
“Because if you aren’t really into her,” Naliah’ll say, “then why can’t you just let her move on?”
Cos I’m addicted to the smell of her thoughts.
Cos without Ramona, I’ll feel like I’m trapped in someone else’s body.
Cos I wanna fess up – swear down I wanna tell Ramona the truth. Just don’t wanna tell her about my lies.
Cos I didn’t actually mean for her to live in an alternate version of reality that I bullshitted to existence.
“Say something, Dillon – I mean, what are you? Fourteen?” she’ll ask. “You know why Ramona’s so keen for you reconnect with your dad? She thinks it’ll help you finally man up for her. Damn it, Dylan, stop being such a sadist.”
I’ll consider telling Naliah that I ain’t sadistic, I’m exploitative. But that shit ain’t the truth.
“And what the hell is with that whole platonic online harem of yours? Are those girls even real or are they your ivaginary friends?”
I could tell her I’m just keeping my rebound options open for when Ramona wises up and dumps me. Or I could tell her that to eight-time Ramona is to nine-time my mother and so I’m aiming for double figures. Or I could tell her the truth – tell her how young I was when I first went online to find me some solid bereavement rehearsal buddies.
She’ll suggest that I start this whole process of manning the fuck up by coming clean about my mother. “In fact, that’s the other thing I wanted to ask you. Why on earth haven’t you told Ramona about your mother?”
But all this’ll be said later on. After we’re done with the vomit incident.
I hand Naliah a bottle of mineral water and tell her to stop worrying herself sick about vomiting. Even if she’s just puking cos she can’t hack some dirty-ass stench. Try and make her feel better about it by pointing out that, actually, puking is probly a healthier response to the shit that someone’s smeared into my carpet – that maybe she just has a 2.0 nose. “You see, technically, Naliah, the scent of the shit actually consists of shit. Tiny particles of shit drifting into your nostrils and your mouth.”
Then she vomits again.
After that, I’m back on my hands and knees. Cleaning up vomit and shit. The Dettol and the bleach solution. The sponge, the bucket, the paper towels. All the tools and apparatus magically appearing in my bathroom as if the burglar deliberately left me a token of my misspent youth.
“Let me help you,” Naliah says.
I tell her I’m okay.
“Well, at least let me mop my own vomit.”
“I’m okay. I got it under control.”
Pro tip: take the edge off the stench by lighting a match. Take the edge off the visual by leaving the lamps switched off. Just the light from the corridor outside my still-open door. The green backlit fire-exit sign. Glow from the traffic lights behind my always-drawn curtains.
“Shouldn’t you call the police, Dylan? Or your student hall security? Shouldn’t they see this?”
I’m okay.
“Dhilan?”
“I’m okay.”
Naliah now crouching down to help out. I keep shooing her away. Fuck off, Naliah, I’ve got this. And now I even got latex gloves on. From where the fuck did I get latex gloves?
“You just mix it in like this, you see, Naliah? Then you squish it. Easy.”
“What?”
“You see that, don’t you?”
“Dillon, perhaps we should open a window? Maybe you shouldn’t be inhaling so much bleach and Dettol?”
“It’s okay. I’ve got it. The right kinda sponge can soak the right kinda shit right up.”
Again Naliah trying to help. Again me shooing her away. The stink of it. I try shooing away the stink of it.
“Why won’t you let me help you, Dillon? After all, it’s my vomit.”
“It’s mine.”
“What?”
“It’s my job. My room, my job. And this is what I do.”
It’s true – this is. This is what I fucking do. While the others are sitting in art-house cinemas or keeping it real by watching YouTube.
Naliah ain’t no longer waiting for my permission. Just walks over to the window to force it open. Can’t even open the curtains, though.
Or while they listening to some latest hip-hop tunes to convince themselves they got the faintest, foggiest, fucking clue.
Then she goes to my en-suite bathroom to look for another bucket. Er, why the hell would I have two buckets, Naliah? Why the fuck do I even have one?
And while they taking tennis and dancing lessons. Dissing some sunset on TripAdvisor.
This is what I do.
Young Carer’s Playbook #516: Carry the bucket to the bathroom and empty it into the toilet. Minimise splashback in the eyes by kneeling and, gently, tipping gently.
“Dylan, please, let me help.”
“No sweat, Naliah – this is what I do.”
“Oh no – look at your shirt, Dylan. Quick – which of these towels can we use?”
“No. No bath towels. Ain’t no good using bath towels. Always sponges and paper towels. Loo roll if you have to, but it tends to shred.”
“I’m so sorry about all this. It’ll teach me to have such a big, decadent breakfast – tell you the truth, I think most of it was profiteroles.” Grab her arm to stop her wiping her puked-up profiteroles off my shirt. The warmth of a vomit-tinged handgrip. The stickiness of dirtied bleach. So, next, I’m wiping my dirty scumbag paw prints off her arm. “What’s that noise?” she asks, clear
ly shit-scared of the answer. “Dylan, what the hell’s that noise?”
The cocktail of vomit, shit and bleach solution flushed down – I swear, it definitely did flush down. Of course the usual remnant spatterings around bowl and rim, but the body of it flushed down. The plumbing now making a sound like it’s weeping. Snivelling and retching and snivelling. And weeping. And snivelling. And weeping – turns out even my toilet weeps while it pukes.
“Dylan, what’s going on?”
Naliah now stops offering assistance. Each time the toilet backs up, she backs up a few paces herself. Freaking out not just cos of the smell, the mess, the smell, but also cos the cocktail now consists of full-on different colours. Her puke was beige, the bleach was blue, the shit was, well – you know. But the puke the toilet starts throwing up is some next shade of pink. Maroon. A kind of reddish purple.
Or while they’re complaining about some book they just read. Quibbling about the rap lyrics. Whining about the obstructed view.
Naliah now backing away into the bedroom and towards the window.
This is what I do.
No – now backing away from the window and towards my open doorway. Trying to make it out into the corridor. Next, it’s as if the doorway starts retching and heaving and retching – Naliah hurled back into the bathroom like she’s gonna smack me. Instead, she leans over the basin and begins another bout of vomiting. And finally – once a-fucking-gain – I find myself kneeling and vomiting in sync.
Afterwards Dhilan and Naliah don’t talk about it.
Trust me, you never do.
Even more hush-hush than all that post-non-penetrative awkwardness.
Despite all the supplies in his en-suite student bathroom, Dhilan’s all out of air freshener. Ends up unloading a whole spray can of Lynx. Two cans. Even sprays his bedsheets as if he’s trying to get inside her night socks. Chucks the emptied spray cans in his bathroom bin. Along with the empty bleach bottle and another bottle of spent Dettol.
Naliah asks him if he knows what the burglars even stole. He lies and tells her a laptop. Then she follows him to the window. Chaos of essays and invoices beneath the window. He starts sorting through the mess, separating the essays from the invoices from the bank statements. Notices the way the bleach solution has started to fade the carpet. Just like he knew it would.
Naliah asks if I’ll at least let her pay for the carpet cleaning – by which I’m guessing she means professional carpet cleaning.
I tell her that you can’t clean a bleach stain. Not even with a pack of never-used ladies’ hair dye.
“Well then, let me pay whatever you get fined for the damage.”
I tell her I don’t need any money.
“It’s not a problem, Dillon – I make a decent enough amount.”
“From foot modelling?”
“Yes, of course – what else from?”
“You don’t need to bullshit me no more, Naliah. We’ve puked together. We’re connected.”
“I’m not bullshitting – I can afford to pay for the cleaning. Okay, I’m not saying the money’s great – just like any other body-part model, we foot models don’t get royalties and repeat fees every time an ad is shown. But, on the upside, because we’re pretty much unrecognisable there are no conflicts of interest or divided loyalty issues when it comes to working for competing brands.”
“Here’s a handy tip for lying: don’t overdo the prep. It shows. Trust me, I know this stuff.”
“You want me to take off my shoes and prove it to you? Only, do you think we could first clean up the rest of the mess?”
I tell her I got a better idea – how about she tells me why she wanted to meet me today.
“Because there are a couple of things I can’t ask you in front of Ramona. Well, technically three things.”
Later, the third and final thing Naliah’ll want to know is this: why the Dillon and Dylan and Dhilan?
“They’re just online identities,” I’ll tell her. “Ain’t no big deal.”
“Okay,” she’ll go.
“Why is it okay?”
“Because they’re just online identities.”
“But you already know that they’re more than that.”
“And you already know that I know.”
“All you know is they roughly correspond to different states of my mother’s well-being.”
Naliah will shrug and start getting ready to bounce.
“My dad wanted it spelt D-Y-L-A-N,” I’ll blurt before she goes. “But my mum wanted it spelt D-H-I-L-A-N. They used to have big bust-ups about it. Apparently there were five drafts of my birth certificate – turns out they become void if you cross shit out.”
“Or if you delete them with big black marker pen.”
And you’ll go: “What the fuck did you just say?”
She’ll point to a patch of unbleached carpet: “There’s a copy of your birth certificate lying among all your bank statements and stuff. Couldn’t help noticing that you’ve blacked out your name with marker pen and spelt it D-I-L-L-O-N.”
“Ah yes,” you’ll go. “That’s the way I been spelling it ever since I was ten or eleven.” Then you’ll let out what’ll probly sound like a laugh. “I told Ramona all the teachers before secondary school had been spelling it wrong. That’s why she’s never bothered following anyone called Dhilan on social media.”
Naliah’s sharp. She’ll know it weren’t no laugh. She’ll press her fingers against her forehead and then drag them down to protect her nostrils from the odour of bleach and disinfectant. And the truth. “Fuck,” she’ll say. “Fuck, fuck, I get it now, Dillon. All the lying and lying and lying you must have done over the years to keep that up – she’ll forgive you for the big lie but never for all the little ones. No wonder you can’t ever tell her about your mum.”
29
SIXTH TIME YOUR mum told you she had the C-bomb you ran away. Fled the scene of the crying. Not to go AWOL or nothing. Not to blow off steam, or vape, or vandalise a payphone or whatever the fuck it was that moody teenagers were meant to do. You hopped a bus to some nearest Waitrose. Some slap-up gourmet superfood – plus profiteroles in place of her traditional after-news-of-new-tumour cherry and raspberry mousse. That was your way of rebellionating – of sticking it to the system: stealth-stocking your mummy’s fridge with healthy food. Coulda gone Tesco but you wanted a proper three-arm candelabra. Goblets and napkin rings. Also flowers, bath salts, lavender oil, scented candles, bag of floating rose petals. Google had told you it was up to her partner to properly pamper her. Reassure her that she weren’t no less of a woman.
First time she mentioned the side effects, she warned you she’d have her good days and her bad days. Didn’t never say nothing about the good minutes and bad minutes. The woman minutes and man minutes. Hated yourself for even thinking about her womaninity, but she was the one who called those pills her “man tablets”. Technical term for it was anti-oestrogens.
Your mummy limped down the stairs and was like, what’s all the commotion? Took her a whole minute to clock the dining table. Then hiding her eyes behind her camerafone. Sometimes you told yourself to just call these things practice runs in case you ever got married or something. Couldn’t just stick with kitchen table stir-frys and blended breakfasts in bed. Increasing resistance so increase the dosage. Just enough to make her smile, but not too much, not to set off all her weirdness facial stuff. Like as if she was peeping into some future in which both of you somehow stayed together.
Then she started cold-staring the chocolate profiteroles.
Oh gimpdick – what the fuckery was you thinking, serving dessert same time as the food?
You were thinking: chocolate was the thing she missed the most whenever the chemo shot her taste buds to shitness. All them times you’d got her to eat some breakfast by lacing her Coco-Pops with Nesquik chocolate milkshake powder. How the milkshake stopped her from sealing her lips shut. If every decision or dilemma could be boiled down to a trade-off between
making her happier or healthier, then chocolate was the appetite booster that did both. Other times just basic blender action. You like a boy-shaped fruit fly, liquidising her food before she chewed it. (Later, making sure there weren’t no air bubbles in the liquid.) (Pulling back the plunger on the nasal feeding tube to check for gastric juice.) (Trying not to push down the plunger too quickly or too slowly.) (Your hands always shaking to shitness.)
Cos fuck all them side effects. Those anti-sickness tablets that listed nausea as a side effect. You knew better than to even read the side effects in the Origami Olympics Before-You-Take-This-Medicine leaflets. Anycase, Google clued you in on all the need-to-knows. Told you the reason for the anti-oestrogens was cos most breast cancers needed oestrogen like babies need milk. Cut off the oestrogen and you cut down the tumour’s food supply. Younger women make oestrogen in their ovaries, whereas older women make oestrogen by file-converting the male hormones in their muscles, fat cells, liver and whatever breast tissue the C-bomb hasn’t bombed yet. The conversion involves a chemical called aromatase. But they couldn’t just give your mummy meds to block her aromatase cos she was still producing oestrogen in her ovaries. Cos she hadn’t hit her menopause yet. Cos she was way too young to be fucking dying.
“Dhilan, the profiteroles … ”
Couldn’t tell if the vibes on her voice were sandstorm or sherbet or old-school TV static.
“ … they look so yummy. Chocolate is the thing I miss most whenever my taste buds go.”
“Well, just as well I foned you from Waitrose, Mum.” And you realised that, actualtruth, it was your voice, not hers, that had all the hostile vibes on it.
Back in Waitrose, you’d spotted some woman in navy-blue pump-style shoes with plunging white-trim top-lines. She wouldn’t go ballistic over some minor-level feeding-regime fail. The brunette in beige suede ankle boots – she’d just laugh if your DIY shelving unit collapsed. If you used too many pans to boil the pasta.
“But you didn’t need to phone me from Waitrose, Dhilan – you could have just surprised me. This whole dinner is so beautiful.”
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