‘Dude, you know who this is, and don’t bother looking for me. If I were really there, I couldn’t be there. Because of your stupid redness, remember.’
I touch the side of my head. ‘Is that—’
‘Logan, yeah. Now here’s what I want you to do. Step out of the bathroom without putting poison in your body. In other words, don’t be like me.’
I’ve gone completely mad. I bend over to pick up the drain cleaner.
‘NO!’ His shout hurts my skull. I cover my ears, but it doesn’t stop his voice: ‘Please. Don’t do this to her.’
There’s a her out there somewhere. I can barely remember my own name, much less another’s.
‘Don’t do this to Aura. To go through this twice, with two different boyfriends, would kill her. Not that you mean as much to her as I did, but still.’
The voice must be coming from the speakers. They’ve found someone to imitate Logan, just to torment me.
I step out of the loo into my bedroom, searching for the source, then realise: the voice was just as loud with my ears covered. So it can’t be coming from—
The door slams shut behind me. I lunge for it, but the lock clicks. A woman beyond says, ‘Thank God. They would’ve killed me.’
‘No …’ I yank the indented handle, but it won’t budge. I slam my shoulder and hip against the door, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
Finally the lock clicks. I open the door. The loo is empty, the sink bare.
Forever is forever again.
I return to Now with Gordon’s finger at the back of my mouth. I try to push him away, but it’s too late. The beer and whisky scald my throat on the way up.
When it’s over, he peers into the toilet. ‘There’s nae pills! I’m calling an ambulance. Ye need yer stomach pumped.’
I shove him back against the cubicle wall. ‘There’s nae pills cos I didn’t take any!’
‘How was I supposed to know that? I asked how many you’d taken, and ye just kept blethering about Q-Tips. You were gonnae take those pills, weren’t you?’ Gordon sways a bit – not surprising, since he’s as drunk as I am. ‘Is that why ye came in here, to top yourself?’
‘Maybe.’ I’m suddenly hot. I try to take off my jacket, but there’s no room.
Gordon guides me from the cubicle and helps me out of my coat. ‘I’m putting these in here.’ He slips the pill bottle into the pocket of my jacket, which he grips tightly. ‘Now wash up. We’ll be waiting for ye at our table.’
I splash cold water on my face for well over a minute before reaching for a paper towel. They’ve the blue ones here, like many places. That’s new since I left Scotland years ago. I vaguely remember Niall saying they’ve green ones in Dublin. Patriotic paper towels. God.
I feel totally wrecked. All I want is to lie down in my own bed, even if it’s alone.
When I return to the bar, Jen’s speaking on my phone. ‘Awright, thanks very much!’ She hangs up and hands it to me. ‘Yer mate Martin’s coming to get you. I’ll wait outside with you till he comes, okay? You probably need fresh air.’
I squint at the phone, then at her. My brain feels full of cold porridge. ‘What?’
‘We thought ye could use a friend to take ye home,’ Amy says. ‘An old friend, not a new one.’
I look at Gordon. ‘New ones are good too.’
He gives me a combination handshake/back pat as he hands me my jacket. ‘Best of luck to ye, mate.’
On wobbly legs, I follow Jen to the pub exit. Outside, the cool, moist air is a balm to my sweaty face. We sit on the windowsill of the shop next door.
‘How’d you know to call Martin?’ I ask Jen.
‘I looked up the last person you contacted. You sent him a text earlier tonight.’
‘I did?’ I check my phone. ‘Oh, no.’ Apparently I did hit Send on the hate text after all, fifty-one minutes ago. ‘Did you read this?’
‘No, I’m not nosey.’ She gives me a grim smile. ‘Are ye gonna be okay? Other than being hungover the morrow, like the rest of us?’
‘I have to be okay. I’ve people depending on me.’ I tell her about my dad’s illness, since it’s a normal thing to have wrong with one’s life.
‘They’ve support groups for that, you know,’ she says when I’m done. ‘My cousin went to one when my aunt had cancer. Ye can complain all ye want about yer sick person, and no one’ll judge ye.’
‘I’ll think about it. Maybe take my mum.’
‘Go on yer own.’ She gives me a gentle elbow jab. ‘So you can be honest.’
‘Zachary!’
I look up to see Martin running awkwardly over the uneven surface of the lane. He nearly twists his ankle.
‘Ach! Fuckin’ cobblestones. Christ.’ He comes up to Jen. ‘You the one rang me?’
‘Uh-huh.’
He pulls her into a long, hard hug. When he releases her, she staggers out of his grip, embarrassed.
Then she smiles at me. ‘Gies a call if you want to hang out again. With less alcohol next time. Maybe none.’
‘Oh.’ I reach for my phone. ‘I don’t—’
‘I entered our numbers into your contacts.’ She winks. ‘I put mine in yer favourites list.’ Jen struts away, with astounding grace for one so blootered.
Martin watches her go. ‘Cheeky wee besom, so she is. ’Mon, let’s get ourselves home.’
‘Sorry about that text,’ I tell him as we walk down the narrow lane, stepping up onto the strips of normal, flat pavement on either side of the cobblestones. ‘I didn’t mean it.’
‘Yes, you did.’
I steady myself on the whitewashed wall. ‘I was drunk when I sent it.’
‘But not when you wrote it. I could tell cos there were nae typos.’
We find a taxi in no time, it being Saturday night in the West End. I put on my safety belt, and for once Martin doesn’t mock me for it. Perhaps it’s an encouraging sign to him, that I want to live. But it’s mostly that I don’t want to die suddenly.
I hit the privacy switch next to my seat so the driver can’t hear. ‘I’m sorry I broke your brother.’
‘Ah, Zach.’ Martin rubs his forehead hard. ‘I cannae believe I said that. What happened to Finn wasn’t your fault, it was mine. If I’d not been so drunk that day, I could’ve saved him myself, and maybe he’d be okay. And you wouldnae have this.’ He taps his own chest in the spot where my scar lies.
‘What’s done is done.’ My head pounds harder, and I just want to sweep it all away – the past, present, and future. But more needs to be said. ‘Also, sorry I tried to chuck you out of the house. I said I’d never do that.’ When Martin doesn’t answer right away, I add, ‘You probably thought telling Aura about my, em, condition was the right thing to do.’
‘It was the right thing to do. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t also wrong. I – we – I made you a problem tae solve, just like ye said.’ His whisper twists with self-incrimination. ‘I reduced you.’
I sink down in the seat, swallowing another wave of nausea. Reduced. That’s exactly how I felt. Small enough to fit on a microscope slide.
‘But I protected you too,’ Martin adds. ‘I never told Aura how bad things really were. I gave her enough tae seem like honesty, so she’d stop questioning you, but she doesnae know the half.’ He braces himself against the door as the taxi takes a hard turn onto our street. ‘And I’ll never tell her about tonight.’
Tonight. There’ll be a reckoning for what I almost did to myself. ‘Don’t tell Mum and Dad either, okay? About the pills?’
Martin’s silent. It’s too dark to see his expression, but the faint red glow of the taxi meter reveals the hard set of his jaw. He’s got limits to his secret-keeping when my life is at stake.
‘Don’t tell them,’ I repeat, ‘cos I need to tell them myself.’
* * * *
I knock softly on Dad’s half-closed door,
then push it open. He’s still awake, sitting up in his corner bed reading the latest Ian McEwan novel. Mum’s in the other bed, watching something on her laptop.
They glance up at me, then stare with alarm. Mum yanks out her earphones.
I must look a mess. Probably smell like it too. My mouth is desert dry, and my tongue feels like a wool sock. But it’s time for them to know how bad it is. I’ve lost the strength to pretend.
So I tell my parents about the evening’s adventures, and the events leading up to them. I omit what I learned about Finn’s brain damage due to my redness, as well as what happened to me in 3A. I leave in the fight with Martin, the drinking, the flashback in the loo, the attempt to end my own life.
I was prepared for their tears, but not for my own. The last time I cried was the day I arrived in Glasgow. Since then I’ve wanted to weep, could sometimes feel my eye sockets ready to burst from pressure, but tears would never come.
Now they won’t stop. They clog my nose and throat, threatening to steal my voice, but I push on, punctuating the story with gasps and sobs.
When I’m done, Mum and Dad hug me and tell me we’ll get through this together, that they’ll make sure I have the help I need, that everything will be alright. I know they mean it, but those phrases still feel empty to me.
What did I expect? That I could tell them barely half the truth and they’d magically understand the depths of my damage?
‘Okay,’ I murmur as I pull away. ‘Goodnight.’
I stop at the door and look back. Their heartsick faces are tinged with relief, not just at my survival but at my newfound honesty, such as it is. I’ve finally reached out, and now they can do something.
Maybe they’re not totally wrong. It is a step forwards, small but sure.
* * * *
I go downstairs to find Martin lying on the sofa under his blanket, facing the TV. He’s watching The Snowman, an animated children’s Christmas programme made before we were born.
I stand behind the couch. ‘Channel 4’s showing this already? It’s only …’ The twenty-second of November? The twenty-third?
‘I bought the DVD yesterday.’
‘I’ve not seen it in years.’
‘Me neither. Always used to watch it with Finn and Sophie on Christmas Eve. Moira, my older sister, she never liked it. Made her cry.’
He bends his knees so the end sofa cushion is free. I sit in the space his feet leave behind. On the television, the wee ginger lad won’t stop gazing out the window at the snowman he built, even as he brushes his teeth for bed. His mother tucks him in and kisses him goodnight.
‘Can we start again?’ I ask.
Martin lifts his head. ‘Sorry?’
‘The programme. It’s not far into it, aye?’
‘Oh. No, only about five minutes.’ He points the remote at the screen, and we watch the child unbuild the snowman in fast motion.
I rub my arms. ‘It’s Baltic in here. Do ye want tea?’
‘Cocoa.’
I go to the kitchen, make cocoa for him – with a sprinkle of cinnamon over the wee marshmallows he likes – and some ginger tea for my twisting stomach. My body feels turned inside out, and I can’t stop shivering.
When I come back to the living room, Martin’s sitting up, tucked into the corner of the sofa. I take the middle cushion so we can share the blanket.
The TV screen is frozen on the opening credits, a watercolour snow owl swooping forwards. Martin hits play and says, ‘So what’s next for you?’
‘Dunno. See my doctor Monday first thing.’
‘Do ye want tae get better?’
‘Of course I—’
‘Think carefully before you answer. I want the truth.’
I watch the boy on the screen slowly wake to what he knew would be a magical day. He hurries to dress, eat breakfast, yank on his boots to play in the snow.
I can remember Better from before, but there’s no going back, only forwards. I’ve been crawling through this tunnel for months, searching for Better and finding only Worse.
Finally I say, ‘I’m just so … tired.’
‘I know, mate.’ He shifts the throw pillow onto his lap. ‘Here.’
I finish my tea in one scalding gulp, then set the mug on the floor. Gravity helps me tip over, none too gracefully, until my head lands on the pillow. It smells faintly of my mum’s perfume.
Martin tucks the blanket around my back and over my feet. ‘Better?’
Not really. My body is rigid as steel, as if muscle has frozen into bone. Another violent shiver rips through me.
Martin lays a tentative hand on my head. When I don’t react, he begins to stroke my hair. Long, simple, undemanding strokes. Not like a parent, but not like a lover, either. Just like him.
My eyes close as The Snowman’s lilting score fills my ears. Soon the song ‘Walking in the Air’ begins, telling me the lad and the snowman are flying to the North Pole now. It’s a young choir boy singing, high and clear as a lass.
My scalp warms and loosens, and eventually the rest of my muscles follow, starting with my neck and descending inch by inch.
When I was a wean and still believed in ‘Father Jesus Christmas’, as I used to call him, there’d come a certain moment every holiday season, a minute or two of pure stillness and peace. It always took me by surprise. It couldn’t be staged or planned, and it never happened in church. Sometimes it would come in solitude, sometimes among family or friends.
I thought I’d outgrown this peace, that I’d experienced too much of the world to ever settle fully into any moment. But it’s happening now, of all times, when I’m teetering between life and death.
A jolt drags me out of drowsiness. I lift my head to see the closing credits roll up the screen. The camera pulls back on the boy kneeling beside his melted snowman, holding the magic scarf he got from Santa.
Martin sniffles hard. ‘Sorry, did I wake ye?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just finally – I get now why this made Moira cry. It’s so fucking sad.’ He lets out a sob, and I realise that was the jolt that woke me.
I squint blearily at the screen. ‘It’s the same programme we watched as weans, right? They’ve not changed it?’
‘It’s the same, but different. Why do kids love this? The snowman dies in the end.’
‘Snowmen don’t last forever. That’s why they’re special. Children get that.’
‘Children are stupid. They don’t know what it’s like to watch someone melt.’
My heart seems to stop. I try to speak his name, but only the barest breath comes out.
‘I won’t lose you, mate.’ Martin pounds his fist on the arm of the sofa. ‘I won’t lose you like I lost Finn. Banish me all ye want, but I won’t leave yer fuckin’ side until you’re with Aura. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ I fumble for the remote control. ‘Can we watch this again?’
He lets me start the DVD over, and this time I keep my eyes open. I can’t decide if the ending is sad or beautiful or both. It makes me feel a thousand things at once.
I do know one thing, lying here with my arm wrapped around Martin’s knees as if his lap were a life raft: I will never love or be loved again with such purity of heart.
Chapter Sixteen
Monday noon finds me at Dr McFarlane’s office. Mum’s taken the day off work to accompany me, though she stays in the waiting room.
My psychiatrist and I talk for over an hour about nothing but my suicidal thoughts:
—When they started (this summer, though I share no details of my time in 3A. Hopefully it seems reasonable to want to end one’s life when one’s life appears to be that of an eternal prisoner).
—How often they happen (I tell her it’s only when I’m drunk, cos there’s an easy cure for that: not drinking. If I tell her how often the thoughts truly come, I’ll be locked up, and frankly I’d rather die).
—How many attempts I’ve made before (none, technically, as I never drank the drai
n cleaner).
She seems to know I’m holding back, perhaps because the teddy bear in my lap is at serious risk of decapitation.
So I admit to the flashbacks as well. Again, no details, just that they take me back to 3A. They turn Then into Now and Now into Never. And when I slide into Never, I’m completely lost.
Dr McFarlane sets her pen upon her notebook and removes her glasses. ‘Normally with attempted suicide and the blurred reality that you describe with your flashbacks, I would strongly recommend full hospitalisation. Your safety is of primary importance.’
I squeeze the bear’s head, digging its button nose into my palm. Should I run now before the men in white coats come through that door, or is it already too late?
‘However,’ she continues, ‘given your incarceration this past summer, my concern is that institutionalisation could be counterproductive. We want you not only safe, but also capable of learning and making real progress. Feelings of being trapped or powerless might hinder that.’
‘Yes, they would.’ Locked up in a hospital, I’d be in a constant state of panic. And then what? Lifelong sedation and captivity, like Finn. I’d never see Aura again. ‘I can’t do that.’
Dr McFarlane gives me a reassuring smile. ‘There’s another option, partial hospitalisation, what they call a “day hospital”. Basically, you’d go there from eight a.m. to six p.m. weekdays. A psychiatrist would manage your medications closely to find the combination that works best for you. You’d participate in group therapy and meet with an individual therapist as well.’
It sounds awful. ‘But I’d go home at night?’
She nods. ‘The fact you live with your parents and you’ve so far been compliant in taking your meds makes you an excellent candidate for this modality.’
Sometimes I wish she’d speak English instead of Medicalish. ‘How long would I have to go?’
‘Depends on your progress. Anywhere from a week to a month is my guess. And if down the road you find yourself in crisis again, it’ll always be an option for you.’
‘So they wouldn’t lock me up?’
Shattered: A Shade novella Page 13