A to Z of You and Me

by James Hannah

  Yeah, I’m sure.

  I try a little look across the seat to Becca, and she smiles at me, takes up my hand. I want to tell her we have to have a plan, we have to get our story straight, because you’re not on placement this time, you’re home, studying the night away, and I need to have an explanation. But I can’t herd my feline thoughts. Becca has my hand. She’s stroking it reassuringly, tenderly. It’s nice, it’s nice.

  Out again on the street, your street, and I’m being walked along the pavement—a long, straight terrace street stretching off into the distance, and I’m measuring out my paces along the pavement, slab by slab. Tiny ups and downs, wobbly wonky. I’ve Laura and Becca on either side, and they’re supporting, and there’s no… Where’s Mal?

  Jangle now as Becca retrieves her keys for the front door. Laura’s at my other arm, but I can feel her becoming softer, more uncertain. Less and less support. The front door unjams and judders, rattling the knocker familiarly beneath the mail slot.

  “You’ll be all right from here, won’t you?”

  Words from Laura to my right, and now her presence drains away, leaks off back down the street, back off to…to Mal?

  And now it’s your room, and it’s you. Urgent, attentive, professional.

  I look up at you as you tend to me, your forehead frowning, your eyes precise.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Unscary daylight. The safe, spacey morning-after wooziness. And you’re being so gentle and kind.

  I don’t deserve any of it. Look at you, you’re shattered.

  “Can you remember what happened?” you say, climbing in at the foot of the bed, giving me a bit of room. “Becca was a bit hazy on details.”

  “Just fucking stupid,” I say. “I forgot my insulin, didn’t I? I left it there on your desk. And I was in the club and, you know, I felt a bit weird, and I knew I was having this hyper. I thought I could ride it out.”

  “So you forgot your insulin…and that’s it?”

  “So stupid,” I say.

  “So why did Becca bring you back? I thought you were out with Mal and Laura?”

  There’s a significant edge to your tone, and I feel you holding my glance a little too straight. You’re scanning, scanning.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say with a wash of unfocused guilt. “No, Becca was there too. Mal and Laura and Becca.”

  The events of last night are captured only as still images, swelling sounds. It remains aching in my limbs and squealing in my ears and my soul. Tired but alert. Remnants of trippiness in the head.

  “Are you all right?” you ask. The fatal question.

  “Yep, yeah. I’m fine,” I say.

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.” I smile. Sort of.

  Maybe if I vented everything, maybe it would all work out OK. I can actually feel the tip of my tongue tensing against the top of my mouth to say…to say what?

  You’ve tipped your head to listen, eyebrows expectant.

  Launch.

  “Listen,” I say, “I wanted to tell you…”

  And straightaway your face grows concerned. You look away, fearful.

  Bad start, bad start. Start more gently.

  “It’s OK, it’s OK,” I say. “It’s nothing major. Don’t worry. But it’s just…it’s something I want to feel that I can talk freely with you about.”

  “Drugs?” you say, looking up at me swiftly and directly. “I’m not blind. Your pupils were like dinner plates.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  You look at me a moment and reflect. “You don’t have to apologize to me. I’m not your mum,” you say. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Well, I don’t know. It’s not something you can easily talk about, you know? And then…I don’t know. I got scared because…” Again I hesitate.

  “Because what?”

  “Well, there’s your dad and all the stuff you went through with him. And then there’s the fact that you’re a nurse and everything.” I quickly add this on at the end, because your face falls at the mention of your dad.

  “The fact that you can’t take your insulin properly,” you say. “That’s what the nurse is unhappy about.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  I’m relieved to see some of the anxiety has passed from your face. I think maybe you thought my big revelation was going to be about Becca after all.

  “Listen,” you say, “I’m not a fun killer, and I absolutely refuse to be the one who’s telling you what to do. Don’t paint me like that, Ivo, because we won’t survive that.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’ve got to look after yourself. You’re not like Mal and all the others—you’re just not. You’re not in your body, and you’re not in your mind either.”

  As I sit there, the scale of all the lies expands around me. Lies to myself, I suppose. But now that you’re here, and you care, they’ve become lies to you. Missing insulin jabs since I was twenty—maybe one a day, every day. And the drugs too—not just pills. Do I need to declare it all? What can I get away with? I feel like I want to tell you everything but…would that be poisoning it for no reason?

  “What’s the matter?” you say.

  “It wasn’t only last night. There’s been a few nights. Quite a lot of nights.”

  “I don’t doubt.” You shrug. “Do I want to know?”

  “On and off since…well, before you and I were together. On and off.”

  “And while we’ve been together?”

  “The odd weekend…you know, when I was stuck at home and you were off on night shift or on placement.”

  “So, what, more pills?”

  I breathe out unsteadily.

  “Pills. Some acid.” I wince. I hear the clicks of the corners of my mouth. “A little bit of powder.”

  “Powder? Well, what, cocaine? Or—”

  “Cocaine, yes.”

  “Shit, Ivo. Cocaine? I never thought it was anything like that.”

  I sit meekly, while you frown and drill your eyes into the middle of the bed between us, trying to work it all out.

  “So, cocaine then,” you say.

  Oh, don’t ask. Please don’t ask.

  “That’s it? You’ve not done…anything else.”

  It’s not a question. I can’t answer. It’s not a question.

  “Heroin?” you say, and your shock tops out. “Jesus, Ivo, I just don’t know who you are. Heroin?”

  You fling the covers off and start tearing clothes from your closet, wrenching on your jeans.

  “Mia,” I say. “Mia, listen—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. You promised me you’d look after yourself, Ivo. You promised.”

  “Nothing’s changed. Nothing.”

  You try to pull on a sock while standing, but stumble and have to sit down. The mattress bounds beneath me as you do.

  “I know you don’t want to hear me, Mia, but I’m the same man.”

  You pull on your shoes, tugging at the tongue and aggressively driving in your heel.

  “I just…I get bored, all right?” I say. “Bored and lonely. You’re the one who’s working all the hours.”

  “So, what, you’re saying it’s my fault?”

  “No, no, I’m not saying that—”

  “You want me to give up nursing and come hold your hand, is that it?”

  I close my eyes. Stop now. Absorb all the tension in the room. No point, no point. I will not snap back.

  “But it’s so stupid,” you say. “You’re diabetic! What do you think you’re going to say when the doctors start asking you about your history?”

  Silence.

  “What if you end up needing a kidney transplant one day? Because that’s what happens. They’ll put you at the bottom of every list. They probably won’t even
bother putting you on the list. Jesus, who are you?”

  “I wanted you to know,” I say. “I’ve done it like three times. Ever. And I’m not going to do it anymore. It’s stopped.”

  Well, there it is. There you have it: me.

  All of me.

  “Are you going to say something?” I say.

  “I don’t have anything to say,” you say.

  And you leave.

  I pick up the gun and point it at the customer’s fertilizer, watch the red laser dance across the bar code. It beeps.

  “That’s fifty-four eighty-six in total, please,” I say, the automatic words feeling good in my mouth. Trusty script. “If you’d like to put your card in the machine. And type in your PIN.”

  The old guy squints down at the keypad and thumbs in his number. It’s 1593. We wait, and I look across at Laura, Mal, and Becca as they stand awkwardly nearby. I cannot believe I’ve had to get them to come in. I cannot believe I forgot to bring my insulin with me to work.

  The printer blurts and chops out the receipts, and I pair them up with the card and hand them back to the old guy, who takes them and trundles his heavy cart away.

  “You can’t work twenty-four hours a day,” says Laura, stepping forward once more.

  “I’m not,” I say in a quiet voice. “I just want to keep busy. Keep occupied. Get paid.” I can barely bring myself to speak at a normal volume these days. I slot the laser gun back into its holster.

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She says she’s got her exams to get through and she doesn’t want to jeopardize them. She doesn’t want to see me.”

  “So do you reckon that’s it then?”

  “Sounds like it, doesn’t it?” says Mal.

  “I don’t know,” I say, miserably. “I’d say like 99.9 percent certain.”

  Another customer wanders up, and Laura, Mal, and Becca step back once more, wave her through.

  Work is good. They’ve been good at giving me extra hours here, and once you’ve been in the job long enough, colleagues start to recognize the patterns. Someone suddenly wants extra hours, no-questions-asked, you oblige.

  I’m grateful.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” says Laura, when the coast’s clear. “Why’s she looking to control everything you do anyway?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Well, why?” she says.

  “It’s not something I can really talk about. It’s a private thing.”

  “Come on, you can tell us. It’s not like we’re going to tell her. You won’t say anything, will you, Becca?”

  Becca shrugs. “Nothing to do with me.”

  “It’s a basic trust thing, isn’t it? Look, her dad was an alcoholic, and it kind of screwed up her family, and—”

  “But that’s totally different,” says Laura. “You’re not an alcoholic, are you? I don’t see why you should be the one who has to pay for whatever mistakes her dad’s made in his life.”

  I close my eyes and try not to boil up at Laura. But it’s hard, it’s hard. She will not read the signs. I don’t want to talk about it. I pray for another customer.

  “And anyway, has she never made a single mistake in her life?”

  “She’s a nice girl,” says Becca. “But, you know, maybe she’s not quite the right one for you, Ivo. Going out at four in the morning, decorating the town. It’s a bit…” She wrinkles her nose.

  I can’t answer this. I’m struck silent; the thick sort of silence where I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m choking back the tears. I clear my throat noisily and find myself exhaling like a horse. I smile broadly and mirthlessly at Becca.

  Becca’s brow knits in sympathy, and she puts her hand on my hand and squeezes it.

  “Tough times,” she says.

  I nod, tight-lipped.

  “Seriously, Ivo, you’re better off out of it, if you ask me,” says Laura. “People like Mia… I mean, she’s a lovely girl and everything, but she makes you be someone you’re not, maybe to fit in with what she’s doing, you know? You need to make sure you’re doing what you want to do.”

  A smile, a nod, and it’s Becca who finally reads me right.

  “Come on,” she says to Laura. “I want to buy some cut flowers.”

  “Over the other side, by the aquatics,” I say.

  They move away, but Mal hangs around and watches another couple of customers drift through the checkout.

  “So where’re you going to go?” he asks. “Back to your mum’s full-time?”

  “Ah, I don’t know,” I say, feeling a bit foolish now to be so low.

  “Listen, I was thinking,” he says, “between you and me, I’m going to be getting my own place soon, I reckon.”

  “Really? What about Laura?”

  “Laura’s place has always belonged to her, and I’ve always meant to get my own place; I just never got around to it. C’mon, what do you reckon? We could move in together. Get a bigger place, if we pool resources.”

  My absolute instinct is no. I’m still hooked on the idea of you and me: you and me living together, and if I move in with him, that’s like saying good-bye forever. Like it’s never going to be OK again.

  “Listen,” he says, “I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but”—he reaches over and tugs the laser gun out of its holster, starts targeting things with its dancing beam—“well, there’s nothing in this world that’s all bad, you know? There’s different choices now.”

  “Yeah.” A dead yeah.

  “We’d be able to do what we wanted. We could hire a big TV, get a new console. Have tourneys, man. Have a bit of a smoke, you know, get the pizzas in, beers. Get Kelvin around, maybe.”

  “I’ll have a think, man, yeah?”

  “OK, yeah. I’m going to look into it meantime.”

  “Yeah…yeah, all right.”

  • • •

  The light flicks on outside. The garden is flung into being once again.

  Or was it just me opening my eyes?

  I can’t be sure. I can’t be sure.

  “Are you OK, lovey?” Sheila’s in at the door in a second.

  “Ugh.” I knuckle my eyes. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who complains about lights—”

  “I know, I know. I’m so sorry. We’ve got the contractors coming in again tomorrow or the next day, and they’re staying until they’ve ironed out the problem.”

  I frown and scratch at my bristly face. “Were you waiting out in the corridor?”

  “You what?”

  “You came straight in.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m keeping vigil outside your room every minute of the day, sweetheart. And it’s only a coincidence that’s where we keep the cookies.”

  J

  Jugular

  “There’s a way,” says Mal. “There’s definitely a way you can kill someone. If you know the right pressure points.”

  He grabs Kelvin at the base of the neck. “It’s to do with the jugular.”

  Kelvin’s like, “Ow! Get off!” He squirms to get away.

  Mal keeps a grip. “It’s around here somewhere.”

  Kelvin seriously thinks he might actually die. “Get off!” Definite note of panic in his voice.

  Mal lets go, and Kelvin hops out of reach and twists to inspect himself.

  “Fucking hell, look at that!” Red fingertip marks now begin to take hold around Kelvin’s neck and shoulder.

  “See?” says Mal. “It’s somewhere around there.”

  • • •

  The door unsticks again, and Sheila’s footsteps return.

  “Well, well,” she says.r />
  “What?”

  “It was nothing to worry about. It was a visitor. It was that man who was here before with your sister.”

  “Kelvin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “Don’t worry. I sent him away. I don’t think he was too surprised. He didn’t put up much resistance.”

  I hide my face in my hands. “I don’t need this. I don’t need it.”

  “Now come on, there’s nothing to be worried about. Honestly, there isn’t.”

  She comes and sits down, and I’m a little surprised when she takes up my hand and holds it. Dimly wonder whether they’re supposed to do that sort of thing anymore. It feels nice. She strokes the back of my hand tenderly, and the assortment of rings she has on her fingers clink reassuringly. Reminds me of a gypsy. Sharp twinkle in the eye.

  “This panicking’s not going to do you any good,” she says gently. “You’ve said it yourself, haven’t you? You know it’s true.”

  I nod. Frown and try to keep my anxiety down.

  Everything’s so close to the surface now.

  “Sheila, can I say something to you?”

  “Anything you like, lovey. Anything at all.”

  I sniff and catch my breath, exactly like a little child who wants his mum.

  “I can’t let it go,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I try to let it go, all these things, these anxious things. But I can’t. They just keep coming back to me.”

  She strokes my hand tenderly.

  “It’s invading. Even playing this stupid game, it’s like it’s invading me—it feels like every body part brings it back to me. Every part of me wants to tell the same story. It feels like maybe, maybe it’s meant to be that way.”

  Insane to even think it.

  Embarrassing.

  But it’s possible to think it might be true.

  Sheila looks at me, unembarrassed, and with calm collectedness. “I know. I know, lovey. I know. I can see it. And is there no way you want to talk about these things? Share the problems? I’m all ears.”

  She puts her fingers behind her lobes and dinks them out sideways.

  Silly.

  Silly woman.

  “Listen,” she says, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I ought to tell you these accumulated problems would benefit from… Well, if you’re still dead set against the morphine solution…”