More Than Us

by Dawn Barker

  I knew that under my make-up, my face was drained of colour. My heart pounded. ‘No, no, of course not, I’m just saying…’ What the hell was I saying? I shouldn’t have said anything, now I was ruining Tilly’s special night because I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, and she would know when she saw us afterwards that we’d had a fight no matter how much we tried to hide it from her.

  I took a deep breath and spoke quietly. ‘I just mean… But haven’t you noticed how much calmer he is now in the mornings? I’m not shouting at him to hurry up and he’s not storming off to his room—’

  ‘That’s because we’re all different now. I’m different, I understand myself so much better, and you’ve changed too. Everyone is happier, because we’re getting back to who we are, Emily.’

  ‘It might also be that I’m not yelling anymore because he’s better. It works both ways, you know?’

  ‘No, it’s because we have stopped putting terrible things into our bodies and our brains. We’ve gone back to what’s important: real food, real relationships, no YouTube and Facebook and all the crap that the screens do to their brains. That’s why he’s different.’

  There was a hush coming over the theatre now and people turned to face the front. ‘I just meant to say that he struggled but now you’re back, everything seems so much better,’ I whispered.

  ‘If he needs help, he can stop putting all that crap into his body and he can come with me to the Phoenix meetings and learn about himself. No doctors. Seriously, Emily. I don’t want him near a psychiatrist. He’s just a kid.’

  I nodded. ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry, I just wanted to let you know.’

  My face flushed with the lies that were tripping off my tongue, as I knew that now, there was absolutely no way that I could tell him about the medication. I should stop it.

  I should.

  Twenty

  Paul

  Alasdair was already waiting for me when I arrived. He was sitting at a small round table in the back corner of the café, wearing dark blue jeans and a business shirt, open at the collar, his sunglasses on his head. I had planned to be early, to give myself a chance to settle my nerves. Damian had said it would be hard to see people from my old life for the first time. He wasn’t sure I was ready yet, but Alasdair had been calling me for weeks and I couldn’t fob him off. He knew where I had been, and why; Emily had told me that she’d had to tell him after that night at the casino. Besides, how could I ever prove to myself, never mind Damian, that I could cope unless I tried? Alasdair had suggested a drink; I told him I couldn’t do that yet. He had paused and then suggested breakfast. Safe. Yes.

  I had an odd sense when I saw him out of the corner of my eye that Alasdair was a stranger. It had been months now since I’d seen him, but it was more than that. Everyone seemed different to me since the change; I supposed I did to them, too. I could see things around me that I never noticed before, the things placed there to tempt and trick me. But I knew I could resist those things now, see them for what they were.

  Alasdair scraped his chair back and half stood up as he saw me approach. I raised a hand in a wave, then walked towards him, squeezing past the other full tables on my way. He held his hand out, which threw me a little. We didn’t usually shake hands, but I clasped it, gave a half-hearted shake then clasped my other arm on his shoulder. I kind of patted his back; he cleared his throat, pulled away from me and we sat down.

  ‘You’re looking good,’ he said.

  ‘Cheers. You too. You haven’t taken up cycling, have you? You got some lycra shorts under those jeans?’ Alasdair had always hated sport; he was the smart one.

  He shrugged and smiled. ‘Jane was on at me to join her gym, so I’ve been going to these boxing classes. It’s good. Nothing like you used to do…’

  I shook my head. ‘That was a long time ago.’

  We both sat in silence, looking at the menu. A bearded waiter appeared, with one of those holes in his ear with a black plastic disc in it. Alasdair ordered a flat white. My mouth watered at the thought of coffee, but I knew that giving into one craving could only lead to other things far more dangerous than caffeine. I ordered a peppermint tea.

  ‘Interesting.’ Alasdair smiled.

  ‘The tea or that ridiculous hole in his ear?’

  ‘Both are… unusual.’

  I smiled. ‘Gaping holes in wobbly earlobes is perhaps a little stranger than my choice of beverage.’

  ‘Fair call.’

  ‘It’s part of my treatment,’ I said. ‘Like a whole life transformation, you know. No caffeine, no alcohol, no gluten, no dairy…’

  He nodded slowly. ‘No taste…’

  I forced a stiff laugh and swiped at him with the menu. He ducked and put his hands in front of his face like a boxer. He was always such a dweeb.

  We both looked at our menus again. There was hardly anything on here I could eat, and I knew Alasdair would comment on what I ordered. I started to feel my face heat up.

  The coffee and my tea arrived. Alasdair spoke seriously. ‘How are you doing, Paul?’

  ‘Yeah, you know. I’m working lots now, trying to exercise, when my knee is up to it, meditating, working on myself.’ I looked down, swirling the tea bag around in my cup by the string.

  He was nodding slowly. ‘Emily told me about… Well, you know she called me that day you disappeared.’

  ‘Yeah. I was a dickhead. But I’m better now. I’ve learned so much about myself, and the world. It’s all clearer now.’ I couldn’t look up. ‘Have you spoken to Mum?’

  ‘No. Well, I have to speak to Mum almost every bloody day – now she’s worked out how to use Facetime – about some complaint she has about the neighbours, or the BBC, or the Tories in London, but not about you. No point.’

  ‘No, no point. I’ve spoken to her a few times, but not about this. It would only worry her.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Anyway, Paul, it sounds like you’ve got it under control. So, I think if you need to drink herbal tea and eat rabbit food to get yourself back on track, then that’s a pretty good compromise.’

  ‘Thanks.’ My voice was quiet, and I only just got the words out.

  ‘So,’ Alasdair said loudly in a cheery voice. ‘They got any tofu and sprouts on the menu?’

  I smiled, relieved at his humour, and managed to look up at him. ‘I reckon I can find something tasteless here. Bit of extra Tabasco on it and anything tastes good.’

  After breakfast, I walked out of the café lighter, with the relief that it had gone well. My brother was fine with me changing my life, and that meant a lot. I was fine with it too, more than fine, but doubts still crept up every so often, a little voice asking me what harm a coffee would do. The voice was soothing, familiar, persuasive, seductive. I’d heard it many times before.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, I fixed a smile on with the camera pointing at my face. The photographer had already barked at me to point at the menu, to shake Damian’s hand, to sit at one of the outdoor tables with a slice of pizza in my hand gazing into the distance with a glass of red to my lips. I knew that my face was frozen into my media grin, but I had done this so many times that I felt like me again.

  All the doubts I had before meeting Alasdair vanished. These past few months had been amazing; there is no other word for it. Everything that they’d told me while I was in Treetops, everything they had told me about how my life would turn around if only I believed in Phoenix, had come true. I was as fit and healthy as I’d ever been, I was not only working, but the restaurant was ready to open and couldn’t be going better. Damian had given me a pay rise, and so even after paying a percentage to him and to Phoenix, some of the financial pressure was off. People looked up to me, and I held my back straight now. My mind was bright, and life couldn’t be better.

  Even my relationship with the children, and Emily, had improved. I could sense Emily was a little wary of me, by the way she hesitated when I said things about the way she still chose to li
ve, but she was changing, and I knew she’d come round, as would the kids. I didn’t blame her; I had been wary too, I had resisted initially. But now, she’s at least respecting what I say about not filling our home with negativity and poisons, allowing us to get back to the way we were always meant to live. We are all going to be amazing.

  I stretched subtly as the photographer asked me to stand in front of the glass doors of the restaurant, just to the side of the lettering on the glass door: ‘PAULIE’S’.

  ‘You’re the man, Paul,’ Damian had said when he told me. ‘It’s perfect. You’re the face of this, you’re the reason why it’s going to be a huge success because I’ve seen what you can do when you believe in something.’

  ‘Just need to make me a bit Italian, though, eh?’

  He had shrugged and laughed. ‘They’ll love your Scottish accent, but the Scots aren’t famous for their pasta and pizza, eh?’

  I had felt my chest puff out like I’d just scored the deciding goal in extra time. God, I missed this feeling. Success, pride.

  I put my hands in the pockets of my new grey suit, trying to look like I was slouching naturally, my head cocked to the side and smiling, and I could see in the photographer’s eyes that I looked good. It had been worth every penny to go into the centre.

  I would never go back to how things were before. I was in control of my life now, and Damian and all the others at Phoenix were there to make sure that I would never fall again.

  Twenty-One

  Emily

  Mornings became normal for the first time I can remember in our lives. It was because Cameron was on medication, and that reduced everyone’s stress. Paul bumbled around with his rabbit food and hot water with lemon, and Cameron would just… eat breakfast. No arguing, no delaying, no spending hours in the shower, no inspecting each spoonful to make sure that it was just right. He was just eating breakfast.

  And so, it was even more heartbreaking when his decline began again.

  * * *

  I didn’t notice his slide back down at first; it wasn’t dramatic. I noticed some hesitation, he began to get stuck in his own thoughts, then more preoccupied, irritable, impulsive. I told myself that maybe it was just a blip. Maybe he’d grown, and he needed a higher dose of medication, or maybe he was becoming resistant to them and, just like an alcoholic, he needed more and more to get the same effect. Or maybe it was just a bad night’s sleep, a bad day, a bad week.

  One morning, at breakfast time, I watched him staring at his Weet-Bix, muttering to himself. ‘Cameron,’ I said

  His eyes shifted towards me and his lips stopped.

  ‘You eating?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You can’t go to school without breakfast,’ I tried to say it light heartedly though the strain it took to make my voice sound light was immense.

  His eyes darted around and knew his anxiety was flooding him and me talking to him was making him sink into it. ‘I said I’m not hungry, Mum,’ he said, looking down.

  As my muscles tensed with the strain of keeping calm, a jolt of déjà vu punched me in the chest. Except it wasn’t the trick of déjà vu, this was reality. We were back to where we started.

  I looked away, grabbed a sponge, and began wiping the island bench top. ‘Off you go, then. Take a piece of fruit with you at least.’

  I wiped the bench again, then dried it with a tea towel, then wiped it again until I heard his room door close. Only then did I let out the breath I’d been holding and clutch the edge of the kitchen bench. Can you imagine if your child had cancer, and you thought he was in remission, and then one day you saw a spatter of bruises on his skin and inside, you just knew it was back? That’s how I felt. This illness was killing him. It was taking away every possibility he had in life: for relationships, for education, for work, family, for happiness. It would kill him.

  On the drive to school, I chattered on about rubbish the whole way there, aware that I was taking corners too quickly in my hurry to get him there before he was so late that he’d be in trouble, because that would set him off even more.

  ‘Did you take your tablets this morning, Cam?’ I said, casually, or so I hoped.

  He replied almost instantly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure? I know it can be hard to remember every day.’

  ‘Come on Cameron, own up,’ said Tilly from the back seat, in a teasing voice.

  ‘Tilly, not now,’ I said sharply.

  Cameron turned his body away from mine and looked out of the window of the car.

  Tilly kept niggling at him. ‘Cameron, Mum asked you a question…’

  ‘Shut up!’ he shouted, turning around in his seat. ‘I don’t see you taking tablets every day.’

  ‘I don’t need to,’ she said, ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted before she could finish her sentence. ‘That’s enough. Tilly, you’re lucky that you’re healthy. Some people, like your brother, have an illness, and a mental illness is no different to—’

  ‘Diabetes. I know, Mum…’ I knew without needing to look in the rear-view mirror that she’d be rolling her eyes by the way she drawled her words. I squeezed the steering wheel.

  ‘Both of you need to stop this. Cameron, I expect you to be honest with me. You’re turning fifteen soon; you need to start taking some responsibility and stop acting like a child.’

  ‘Stop treating me like one, then.’

  I exhaled slowly. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I trust you.’

  ‘No, you don’t! Or you wouldn’t be constantly asking me about them.’

  I glanced at him then back at the road in front of me. ‘Okay, darling, let’s talk about this later.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

  I shook my head and exhaled slowly to stop myself reacting. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Some days I wished I could drop them off and just keeping on driving.

  I dropped Tilly off at her school first, then Cameron, and then I parked around the corner from school and called Dr Davidson’s office. Her secretary took a message and said she would return my call the following week, when she was back in the office. That was too late. I needed her now. I ended the call then threw the phone down on the passenger seat. Where was she when I really needed her? It was times like this that I realised how far apart Paul and I had grown. In any normal relationship, in this situation, a wife would call her husband, wouldn’t she? But he didn’t know. It was impossible to think that he hadn’t noticed the difference in Cameron. But then again, he’d been spending so much time out of the house at his meetings or whatever the hell he did that his life seemed to be moving in a different direction to ours.

  * * *

  Paul didn’t get home until after ten that night; I was watching a re-run of a renovation show, wishing I could go to bed, but unable to calm myself enough to sleep until I knew Paul was home, pushing away the fear that he was lying to me and he was back at the casino. I focused on the show: the tinkly music and the deep voice of the presenter were soothing, and I loved to see other people’s lives go wrong when they went over budget and had to live in a caravan, but it always ended up good at the end. The house was always built, in the end.

  Paul’s keys grated in the lock. The door closed, and I heard the two thuds as Paul took his shoes off, then he walked through to the living room.

  I forced myself to smile. ‘If you’d headed straight for the shower, I was going to check your phone for messages from your girlfriend.’

  He frowned, scanning my face to work out if I was joking, then smiled too. ‘Can’t think of anything worse. Who would have the energy to start dating again?’

  ‘And you’d have to have her kids. Think of that – nappies, sleepless nights, toddler tantrums. Best to stick with what you know, yes?’

  He was still making himself smile. ‘I couldn’t do much better.’

  I tried to smile. ‘How was it?’

  ‘Good,’ he said, nodding. ‘Good.’

 
‘Still can’t tell me anything?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  I nodded now, sighed, then followed his gaze to the television. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, it’s a reno show.’ But I switched it off.

  I stood up, picked up my mug and the biscuit jar from my feet and walked towards the kitchen. As I poured the cold tea down the sink and put the mug in the dishwasher, he went into the bathroom. When he came out, his face was shiny and clean looking. He looked younger, like when we’d first met. I had to admit, being a teetotaller suited him. I thought back to the couple of glasses of wine I’d had with my reheated curry from the back of the freezer. Maybe I should give it up too. But I had needed it today. And it was Paul who became addicted to things, not me.

  I reached up to touch his cheek and held it there for a moment. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  I smiled. ‘You love you too?’

  He smiled a tired smile. ‘I’m just going to read before bed.’

  ‘Me too. I’ve been waiting up for you. I wanted to chat with you about Cameron.’

  He sighed. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Paul!’ I snapped. I stopped myself from saying that I’d been to work too, picked up and fed the kids, checked their homework, tidied up, folded the washing and left it in little piles outside the respective bedrooms while worrying about the fact that Cameron’s light was still shining beneath his door, and then waited up for him. ‘I’m worried…’

  ‘Emily.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m really tired, it’s been a long day. Is it anything new, or can we talk about it tomorrow?’

  ‘Never mind, then,’ I said, then stormed off to the bedroom. While I waited for the doctor to call me back and Paul to have enough energy to talk to me about our children, Cameron was getting sicker. And I could not stand by and watch that happen when I knew exactly what he needed.

  I tapped on Cameron’s door before I went to bed. ‘Just me,’ I said, waiting for him to answer. I wasn’t silly enough to just barge into an adolescent boy’s room. But there was no answer; I knocked louder. I knew he’d be sitting on his bed, headphones on, doing something on his computer. I used to insist that the two of them only went online if they were in the family room, where I could keep an eye on them, but, like a lot of other things, I gave up on that. Paul didn’t know they were on the internet in there, when they said they were doing their homework, but I did, and at the moment, I didn’t care.