The State of Me

by Nasim Marie Jafry

  It makes me think of Hansel and Gretel, I said.

  Why?

  The witch tricks them with a fancy gingerbread house with diamond windows. It’s so dazzling, she lures them in.

  I’m lucky I got to see it so early in the morning.

  You’re lucky you got to see it, full stop.

  I know.

  I really loved all your letters, I said, I could imagine I was there with you – did you like getting mine – did you even read them?

  Of course – it was lovely to get them.

  Did you get my photos?

  What photos?

  The black and white photos I developed.

  No.

  You didn’t get the bins or Agnes?

  No.

  I’ve got tons to show you.

  Can I see them next time – it’s getting late? I need to go. I can’t face your mum and Nab.

  I better try on my dress before you go. If it doesn’t fit you can give it to Dr Joyce.

  Stop it, he said. You’re like a pancake, flipping between calm and crazy.

  Can you blame me?

  Not really.

  Please stay tonight. I’ll try and be more Zen, I promise. Please. (Feminists would have shot me.)

  I’ll stay but I’m going first thing in the morning, okay?

  We went to bed before Rita and Nab were back. I couldn’t face them either. He borrowed my toothbrush after assuring me he was amoeba free. I hid the Swatch watch in my drawer. I’d lost enough dignity for one night.

  We lay like spoons and he put his arm round me. I could feel him breathing on my neck. It was like agony iced with hundreds and thousands.

  He left in the morning before Nab and Rita were up.

  I put my fingers in my ears so I couldn’t hear his car on the gravel. I went back to bed and wrapped my pillow in the orange dress and cried as quietly as I could. A microscopic part of me felt sorry for him for having the pain of telling me it was over, and if I was extra honest I could feel a tiny scrap of relief that I wouldn’t have to worry myself to a pulp anymore, wondering if he still wanted me.

  I managed to sleep until lunchtime. Before going downstairs, I made sure my dressing gown sleeves were down.

  I’m not really surprised, said Rita, who was dishing up bacon. At least he came and told you to your face. I admire him for that. It can’t have been easy for him either.

  He’s going to phone tonight.

  It’d be better if he didn’t phone. You won’t get over him if he keeps phoning. It’ll just get your hopes up.

  But I need him to phone, it helps me cope.

  Well, it doesn’t help me cope. I’m the one who has to listen to you crying your eyes out. Ivan has to do one thing or the other. He can’t have his cake and eat it. I can’t cope with your heartbreak.

  He’s just worried about me.

  And Nab and I aren’t?

  I didn’t say that. What do you want me to do, Mum, be banished to a nunnery because I’m ill?!

  I don’t know what to suggest anymore, Helen. I really don’t.

  Not having Ivan’s like having my arm chopped off. I feel amputated.

  Nab came through and cupped his hands round my head. Don’t worry, these bleak feelings will fly away soon. He rubbed my ears. Your ears are soft and lovely, like your mum’s.

  I lifted my arms to touch his hands and remembered the red cross. Thanks, Nab, I said.

  I hated them having to see my pain. I folded a piece of dry toast in two and shoved a slice of bacon in.

  I feel so stupid getting all done up for nothing.

  You shouldn’t feel stupid, said Nab.

  I was like an advert for The Body Shop!

  Rita sighed.

  It was like being jilted, I said, all that build up to the big day then nothing.

  You’ll laugh about it all one day, said Rita.

  I doubt it. How’s Grandad anyway?

  I’m not happy about his cough, said Rita. He was delighted with the Nevil Shute.

  I hope it isn’t lung cancer.

  Please keep your morbid thoughts to yourself, Helen.

  Well, he’s always glued to his pipe.

  She sighed again. I’m going out to the greenhouse later. You could come out.

  Did you tell Grandad I was asking for him?

  Yes.

  I’ll visit him when he’s not infectious. I can’t risk getting what he’s got.

  I know you can’t. I’m doing a coloureds wash later, have you got anything?

  Only the dress Ivan got me. I hope it shrinks.

  Don’t be silly. Ruining it won’t help.

  I wish I could go away somewhere. A long train journey to a remote island. I could come back when my grief was gone.

  I’d like to go to a remote island too, Rita said.

  Because of me?

  Well, it’s not always easy, Helen. We’re all affected by your traumas because you can’t contain them yourself.

  I’m sorry.

  There’s no need to be sorry. I’m not blaming you – I’m just saying. Why don’t you phone your friends later?

  Jana’s got exams. I don’t want to be crying down the phone to her. Richard’s too hen-pecked, he wouldn’t be allowed to come over, and Callum appears to hate me.

  Why don’t you read then?

  I’m too agitated. Anyway, there’s dried-in snot on page 60 of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I can’t read it anymore.

  That’s disgusting, said Rita.

  Can you find out who had it out before me?

  You don’t know it was them.

  You should fine them, I said.

  Rita shuddered. It doesn’t bear thinking about what people do with their library books.

  I was getting fed up with all those Aurelianos and Arcadios anyway. It’s too hard.

  You can help me with my jigsaw later if you want, said Nab.

  The last thing I felt like was creating a Greenlandic scene from 2000 pieces, but I didn’t want to hurt Nab’s feelings.

  I’ll need to have a shower first, I said. I feel horrible.

  Kneeling in the bath, I tried to wring out all my tears to spare Nab and Rita. The melon soap stung my arm.

  Nab’d done half the jigsaw already. It had been on the dining table for weeks, he’d slide it carefully up to the end when we needed the table for eating.

  We sorted out the remaining pieces by colour, and I grasped for words that would take me away from my agony.

  How was the Ben, Nab?

  Beautiful. Misty on the way down. Keith’s son sprained his ankle. We had to help him down. It was not easy.

  I climbed the Ben when I was sixteen. Richard and me.

  Did you?

  We had tomato soup in a flask.

  Mmm.

  We got eaten alive by midges – we were breathing them in, they were so thick.

  That’s a shame.

  He was engrossed in sorting out the white pile from the blue-ish white. I tried to piece an Inuit together, all the time waiting for the phone.

  It’s wonderful to get a bit that fits, said Nab, as he snapped a husky’s ear into place.

  I lasted half an hour. I had to go upstairs to bawl.

  The rest of the afternoon dragged by and he didn’t phone.

  In the evening, I watched a documentary on sea cows and waited. Sea cows are ugly and graceful and lumber about in the sunlit parts of the ocean. They seem so happy. I wanted to be one.

  You better get it, said Rita, when the phone rang.

  It was Brian. Hello, pet, how are you?

  I’m okay. How are you?

  I’m very excited. Your Auntie Ella from Canada’s coming over.

  Granny’s cousin?

  Yes.

  The one who sent the Toronto pencils?

  Yes!

  Years ago, she’d sent him a packet of bright yellow pencils with TORONTO written on them in gold letters. He’d taken them everywhere. If you borrowed one and broke it you had t
o sharpen it before giving it back and if you lost one he went mad.

  That’s great, Brian. You should ask her to bring more.

  I think I will. Can I have a word with my sister now?

  I went back to the sea cows, praying that Rita and Brian wouldn’t talk for too long, but I knew that Rita would want passed on to my granny and they would need to discuss my grandad’s chest and then the Auntie Ella visit.

  He didn’t phone ‘til after ten. I was scared your mum would answer, he said. Is she furious with me?

  Not really, I said. I think she’s more furious with me.

  Did she see your arm?

  No.

  She’ll kill you if she sees it.

  I know. I’ll need to get vitamin E oil for it.

  It shouldn’t scar. Are you okay?

  I have to be.

  I know.

  I forgot to give you your Swatch watch – I got it for you in the January sales.

  I don’t deserve it.

  I know you don’t. I’ll give it to Callum instead.

  He didn’t rise to the bait.

  I have to go. I’ll phone soon.

  I love you.

  I know.

  Can I write to you?

  Of course you can.

  Bye…babe.

  Bye, Looby.

  The next day raw and unbearable with no phone call to rescue me. I’d been crying so much, my eyes were like slits. I looked like a snake. I wondered (again) how healthy people coped with heartbreak – I couldn’t bake any more scones. I’d asked Rita how she coped when she got divorced. She said she’d painted the house from top to bottom and got a job at the library.

  I rearranged my book shelf. The French novels were always getting on my nerves – you had to stack them upside down to get the titles on the spines running the same way as British and American books. I hated knowing they were upside down but hated the disorder of titles running in different directions even more.

  I took my Ferrar’s to bed and tried to revise some irregular verbs. The inside cover had the name of an Algerian student I’d met in Caen, scribbled in the corner. He’d pushed me round the campus in a supermarket trolley after too many kirs one night. That was the last time I’d been drunk and carefree.

  Past historic of être: fus, fus fut, fûmes, fûtes, furent. Imperfect subjunctive takes stem from second person singular past historic minus the ‘s’. It was all coming back. Fusse, fusses, fût, fussions, fussiez, fussent. My brain felt like it was shimmering in a heat wave. I used to be able to go to lectures all day then study for three hours in the evenings and six hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

  I missed my academic self. I missed Agnes at the bottom of the bed.

  My darling boy, I am empty and lost without you…

  Dear Ivan, I hate you and never want to see you again. You tricked me…

  Dear Ivan, I love you so much. Please don’t leave me…

  I sent Callum a card of Man Ray’s Larmes: Dear Callum, I want to say again that I’m so sorry for hurting you but I thought I’d write to tell you that Ivan has left me so I am also in a mess. I hope you and I can still be friends. I’d still like to come to your sister’s twenty-first if you want me to. Thank you again so much for teaching me photography. I’ll need to give you your enlarger back. Love, Helen.

  Dear Looby,

  You know how crap I am at writing but I got your three letters and want so much to explain and try and take away some of your hurt. I know this all seems unbearable for you just now. It is not easy for me either to see you so sad. I still care about you lots but I just can’t be your boyfriend just now. I think I have changed since travelling and I need some time to re-adjust to things here. I think I am bit depressed. I am so used to all the colours and smells of travelling and back here everything seems so grey and bland. And I just found out that one of the guys I travelled with has been paralysed in a car crash in Gambia.

  I also need to get my arse in gear and get my PhD sorted out. My old professor at Glasgow may have a position for me, which would be brilliant (testing a new Alzheimer’s drug, v. exciting). Anyway, what is most important is you getting well, and you need ALL your energy for that, you can’t waste it on me. I am thinking of you and will phone soon to see how you are.

  Love, Ivan.

  PS. You looked lovely when I saw you.

  I wrote back immediately. I tried to be altruistic and said I was sorry about his friend in Gambia, as well as sending the usual words so powerless and pointless when the person does not love you back.

  Scared to sleep in case I dream about him. Can’t be your boyfriend just now – I have sucked onto these words like a leech and twisted them to mean that he could be my boyfriend later. I am like a bee, stunning itself against the window over and over, never fully understanding that there’s an obstacle in the way of what it wants.

  I wonder – not for the first time – what it would be like to have drawing pins pressed into your whole body. I wonder how many it would take to kill you.

  I miss him so much.

  I can’t even make myself come. My arms are so fucked they should be in slings.

  When I finally sleep, I dream of Toronto pencils.

  16

  Madeira

  THE AIR HOSTESSES have silky hair and pillar-box red lips. The pretty ones have expensive engagement rings. The plain ones have bare wedding fingers and try extra hard to smile, to hide the disappointment sewn into their moon faces. I’m amazed they don’t sweat in their nylon tunics, I’d have huge wet circles after five minutes.

  When we take off, I dig my nails into Nab and Rita. Once we’re up, the widow across the aisle takes photos of the clouds. She told me in the departure lounge that she’d been to Madeira with her husband Alec in the ‘60s and they’d gone to Reid’s for afternoon tea and the sweat had been pouring off Alec because they’d been bombarded by waiters.

  When we land, I dig my nails into Nab and Rita. The runway’s on stilts in the water. By the time we get to the hotel, I am pummelled and dizzy and my ears are ringing. I feel as if the floor is sloping.

  Our second week. Madeira is warm and beautiful, exotic flowers everywhere: bougainvillea, birds-of-paradise, mimosas and flowers that look like red toilet brushes. Yesterday, we got a taxi to the exotic bird garden. We saw an albino peacock – when it opened its feathers, it looked like a male bride.

  I know I’m lucky to be here but Ivan burns into my head. I wanted to send him a postcard on the second day. I wrote it and hid it my case so that I wasn’t tempted. I lasted ‘til Day Five. I’m wearing the orange dress he gave me. You can see my nipples through it. It’s been four months since he left me. I used to dread dreaming about him, but now I look forward to it.

  He is all I want. And to be well.

  Rita and Nab walk into Funchal every day. I keep hoping to get the bus in and meet them but haven’t managed yet. I prefer to stay on the veranda and look at the beautiful garden. There are palm trees that remind me of Tina Turner.

  Today at the poolside, I saw the headlines of an English newspaper. There’d been a bad train crash and Prince Charles was visiting the victims in hospital. It’d be bad enough being seriously hurt in an accident without waking up to find the royal family at your bedside. I can’t think of anyone who’d be comforted by their presence – apart from Brian. He collects royal souvenirs.

  Tonight we’re eating out. (Self-catering’s all very well, says Rita, but all you’re doing is washing dishes in a different sink.) Nab’s pouring over the wine list, and Rita’s holding her cigarette to the side so the smoke doesn’t blow in my direction. I look round at the other tables. There’s a hunchbacked woman with her elderly son – or husband, it’s hard to tell – and there’s an Anita Brookner woman on her own with a bottle of red wine. The waiter’s Spanish, he looks like Hen Broon and says ‘begetables’.

  How can there be so much sadness in one dining room?

  Part Two

  17

  FAQs


  WHAT’S THIS?! WE’RE looking through the round window and it seems that Bob wasn’t exactly honest when he told Helen she’d be better in five years: Maybe he just didn’t know!

  It’s been five years and two weeks now, though she is improving. She’s been volunteering at the adult literacy class at Rita’s library, when she’s able. Going back to uni’s still out of the question though.

  Even to do one class?

  No way, Jose. (Nab’s favourite joke: Did you hear about the Mexican twins who were firemen? Hose A and Hose B.)

  Frequently asked questions by well-meaning strangers in the late ‘80s

  stranger I feel tired all the time. I think I’ve got the mystery illness.

  me It’s much worse than feeling tired all the time. You feel like toxic waste and you have to have the symptoms for six months before they’ll diagnose you.

  stranger Is it like flu?

  me It’s like flu (without the mucus) PLUS glandular fever PLUS a vile hangover every day. You have to stay in bed. Your life stops and you can’t function. There are subsets of symptoms within symptoms. You discover new kinds of pain, new kinds of weakness, neurological sensations you didn’t think possible. And, if you’re lucky, you might have irritable bowel syndrome, allergies and tinnitus throw in.

  stranger You don’t feel better after a good night’s sleep?

  me Don’t be silly! You can sleep for twelve hours and you’re still exhausted when you wake up. And often you can’t sleep.

  stranger Why can’t you sleep if you’re so exhausted?

  me They think there’s disturbance in the hypothalamus, which controls the sleep cycle. Very vivid dreams is another symptom. Last night, I dreamt that Bruce Forsyth gave me a massage and wrapped me in Sellotape.

  stranger Have you tried Bach Flower Remedies? Hornbeam’s recommended for those who are floppy and tired.

  me I’ve tried everything.

  stranger Have you tried magnesium supplements? You can get muscle weakness and numbness and tingling if you’re deficient.