The State of Me

by Nasim Marie Jafry

  You’re right.

  Maybe we can have coffee soon.

  Okay, he said.

  I’ll phone you.

  I’ll be in Skye next week, he said, I wanted to talk to you before I left.

  I’m glad you phoned me.

  I’m glad too, he said.

  As soon as he’d hung up, I wanted to phone him back and ask him to come over, but I didn’t.

  Fabio brought me an Easter egg last night, we’ve had coffee a few times and are trying to be friends. I had to get the morning-after pill today. I’m cloaked in nausea. He might be moving to Inverness. I told him it was a great opportunity.

  stranger How are you? It’s ages since we’ve spoken.

  me Jana called me, Kavi and her are getting married!

  stranger Will you go to her wedding?

  me I’d love to go, she wants me to be her bridesmaid but it’s not practical. I can’t wait to meet Kavi Kavi!

  stranger Why d’you call him Kavi Kavi?

  me After kava kava – it’s a herbal ingredient derived from a Polynesian plant with heartshaped leaves. It’s good for anxiety and tension.

  stranger Will Fabio go with you?

  me Fabio and I broke up ages ago, just after New Year.

  stranger I’m sorry, I didn’t know. You seem okay about it.

  me We weren’t right for each other from the beginning, but we still got really involved. It was very passionate. We had sex at Easter.

  stranger It happens.

  me It was awful, the condom broke, I had to get the morning-after pill. I felt so ill after taking it.

  stranger How’s your health generally?

  me Good days and bad days. In between days. I still sleep for eleven or twelve hours, but I’d say I’m a bit better than a year ago, though I still feel grim if I overdo it. And when I have a cold, my symptoms get much worse, my legs are horrible for weeks. But I’m managing my voluntary job, I’ve only been off a few times. They’re really understanding and don’t pressure me. If I can’t go in, it doesn’t matter – no employer would be that understanding.

  stranger Do you still see Bob?

  me No, my appointments with him tailed off after the ACTH injections.

  stranger What about your friend Fizza?

  me She’s improved a bit. She’s not in bed so much, but she still uses a wheelchair for being out and about. She’s got great spirit, though she’s mortified ‘cos her wee brother’s married and she’s not.

  stranger What about Ivan?

  me What about him?

  stranger Why so coy?

  me I wasn’t aware I was being coy.

  stranger Will you see him at Jana’s wedding?

  me I don’t know if he’ll be invited, but I’ll definitely see him if I go over there. They’ve extended his contract for another year.

  stranger By the way, I read that the World Health Organization has classified ME as a neurological illness since 1969. You must be happy.

  me It’s good, I suppose, but a lot of doctors still don’t believe in it. I changed GPs recently, but I felt like I was on trial. The first one I spoke to was so nice when I had cystitis, but when I went back she said she didn’t believe in ME, but she couldn’t speak for her colleagues. I think she thinks ‘cos I went to Rome I’m fine.

  stranger It’s bizarre you still have to fight to be believed.

  me If I had MS or lupus I wouldn’t have to go through this. Still, I’ve got a really nice Indian guy now, he has no problem with my sick notes. It just wasn’t practical to stay with Myra.

  stranger Nice to see you again and catch Up. Say hello to Ivan.

  me It won’t be ‘til the end of the year, Jana wants to get married in December.

  4th July 1993

  Hey Jana,

  Happy Independence Day to you!

  Am a bit fed up so thought I’d write – ME has been crap to be honest, such a struggle doing reception work at the counselling centre. I missed four weeks and I’ve cut down my hours from five to two, it’s all so pathetic. Would be so good to see you for a night – could do with some Jana therapy! Have to admit that I’m missing Ivan since Fabio and I broke up, I find myself thinking about him more than ever. I miss Fab too, we had a good time – when he wasn’t depressed – but I think he was really just sandbagging me from Ivan, though at the time I didn’t realise it. Anyway, Fab has to get himself sorted out. I think I held back from criticising his living at home because I’m not exactly leading a dynamic, independent life, but I think a more healthy girlfriend would have been unhappy about his lifestyle. At least we are still friends, maybe because we knew all along it wasn’t the be all and end all. Anyway, he’s moving up north with work. I hope he can be happy, he’s a good boy, if a little fragile.

  There’s a cute Gestalt therapist where I volunteer, I’ve been to his house for dinner, but of course he has an equally cute girlfriend – they always do! Anyway, how are things with Kavi Kavi? Are you still very much in love? I hope so! Am glad you’ve postponed getting married ‘til springtime, December is dreary, better to be a bride in the sun. Did I tell you Rez and his girlfriend are very serious? I think she will move in and I’ll be moving out. Everyone’s nesting up! I just don’t have energy to look for somewhere else, would be ideal if I could move into Ivan’s and kick Wendy out.

  By the way, I finally saw The Piano, I loved it, I think there is always a moment when you want to chop off your lover’s fingers, though I had to look away. Dare I ask, have you seen Ivan recently? Is he still dating that Stanford med student, he was very sketchy in his last letter. He knows I’m not with Fab anymore and doesn’t want to rub in his happiness.

  Write soon with news of lovely things,

  Lots of love,

  Helen xxx

  I’m lying on my bed, wearing my new grey sweater, thinking that Ivan would like it, he always liked my breasts best. I’m going to be thirty in a month. I think about what I’ve achieved, what I can put on my CV. I don’t see why you can’t include your relationships, let your potential boss know that you’ve been through hell, you have experience.

  NAME

  Helen Fleet

  WORK EXPERIENCE

  Waitress

  Serial volunteer

  EDUCATION

  Four Highers: French (A), English (A), Maths (A), Chemistry (A), 1981

  Mystery illness (has taught me a lot), 1983 – present Ordinary Arts degree, MA, 1990

  Certificate in Counselling Skills and Theory, 1992

  TRAVEL

  London, France, Zakynthos, Madeira, San Francisco, Rome. (And inter-railing in 1981, but we got homesick and came home early.)

  RELATIONSHIP EXPERIENCE

  Penetrative sex with three men: Hadi, Ivan and Fabio. Still in love with Ivan.

  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

  I have a mini hi-fi and a pine bookcase, and an expensive leather briefcase (got it in the January sales after Fabio and I had finished) and a suit I haven’t worn since my graduation.

  I need to go out, I’ve been in all day. It’s brightened up after raining for most of the afternoon.

  I put on my coat.

  I walk to the delicatessen on the corner, happy in my grey sweater, and buy some over-priced chocolate peanuts.

  Part Three

  29

  A Pale Blue Dress

  JANA’S GETTING MARRIED today. She will just be waking up. She’s marrying a man I’ve never met.

  I just couldn’t have managed the flight.

  I’ve come to the bench. It’s May, but you still need a coat. The sky and the loch are the same colour – they are grey, the colour of fish.

  I’m phoning her in an hour, at four my time.

  A couple of months ago, I bought a pale blue dress for her wedding. I kept trying it on in the flat, hoping I could go, imagining myself there, but I didn’t dare book – it was too much money to lose and you’re not covered for pre-existing conditions.

  She’s getting married in
the Chinese Pavilion in Golden Gate Park.

  I’ve had a lump in my throat all day. Rita’s trying to cheer me up. She asked if I’d like a video tonight and an Indian takeaway.

  Ivan’s going.

  A few days later, I’m back in Rez’s flat, waiting for the washing machine repair man. I’m wearing leggings and an old sweater of Nab’s, my hair needs washed: I feel like a dart player’s wife. The pale blue dress is hanging in the cupboard as if the woman it belonged to died before she got a chance to wear it.

  Rez’d called on Monday and asked if I could come back for Wednesday ‘cos the repair guy was coming. I should’ve said – No, I can’t come, my head’s compressed and my arms and legs feel like chopped meat, but I didn’t want to let him down.

  The guy was supposed to be here at ten – a hideously early start for me, I had to set the alarm for nine – but he’s late, it’s quarter to eleven and he’s not here yet. I’m angry that I had to get up early for nothing. At quarter past eleven there’s a knock at the door. You’ve got a faulty washing machine, he says, as if it’s my fault.

  I thought you were coming at ten, I say.

  I got held up at the last job. And I couldn’t get the van parked. Sorry.

  I show him into the kitchen.

  What’s the problem then?

  It’s overheating, I say. It’s shrinking delicates and woollens.

  He opens the washing machine, grips it from inside and inches it out slowly from under the work surface, dragging it across the lino. He’s flushed with the effort – I’m scared he’ll ask me to help. His gold chain bracelet has left a mark on his arm.

  You’ve got a mothball in here, he says, holding out a white pellet.

  My flatmate must’ve had it in with his clothes, I say.

  You’d be surprised at what gets left in, he says, standing up and taking the lid off the machine. It’s probably a new thermostat you’re needing.

  Can you do it today?

  Depends on whether I’ve got the part in my van, he says. Have you got an old towel for the floor? I’ll need to start a cycle so I can get a temperature reading.

  I get him a towel and ask if he wants some tea.

  Two sugars and no milk, he says, starting the machine. So have you got no classes today?

  No, I say. (I can’t be bothered explaining.)

  The students have an easy life of it, he says.

  It’s a lot of work, I say. Getting a degree is a lot of work.

  I’m not much of a reader myself, but I like to go to the library.

  Why do you like libraries if you don’t like reading?

  I love browsing, he says, I can spend a couple of hours just browsing – I wouldn’t read a novel though. When I was younger, I used to read James Bond books – I can still remember the description of a scorpion and a spider, it was so clear, I thought I was there.

  There’s nothing better than a book that pulls you in, I say.

  But I wouldn’t read a novel, he repeats emphatically. I prefer browsing.

  You prefer non-fiction, I say, handing him his tea. Sorry, there are no biscuits.

  I prefer stuff that’s real, he says.

  I’ll just leave you to it. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.

  We’ll just wait for the temperature to peak, he says.

  I go into the living room and lie on the couch. I close my eyes and wonder what Jana’s doing. She’ll be on a beach in Maui with Kavi Kavi, having great sex and cocktails. Ivan phoned me after the wedding. He said I was greatly missed. He said he’d get the photos developed at a 24-hour place and send me copies.

  He sounded sad.

  I just wish the repair man would go, so I could go back to bed. I am close to tears.

  A week later, the photos arrive. I’ve been looking out for them everyday. I tear open the padded envelope and devour them. Jana is beautiful. I look through them quickly, searching for Ivan. He’s only in three. I scan the group photo, wondering if he’s with anyone, then I go back and study Jana, feeling guilty that I’m more interested in Ivan. I’ll need to get a frame for her.

  I can’t take another ten years of this: being ill is too lonely.

  I am fed up having no money and weak legs.

  I think again of how it would be better simply not to be, but then I think of the stories you hear of how everything leaks out of you when you’re dead, even your spinal fluid.

  And the body bag. Apart from anything else, it would all be so humiliating.

  30

  A Death

  I’M HALF ASLEEP. There’s a glass of water at the side of the bed, I keep meaning to lean over and pick it up, I’m so thirsty, but I’m too tired to move and then I think I have picked it up, but I haven’t, I just imagined I had – like thinking you’ve got up to pee when you haven’t, you just hoped you had – and I’m still thirsty and my thumb’s throbbing. I snagged it on a knife in the sink tonight and it bled for an hour. I went through half a toilet roll. It wasn’t even that deep. Rez said hands bleed for ages because they are so fleshy.

  I don’t know why I’m so thirsty. I force myself to lean over and lift the glass and drink. It’s solid and comforting in my hand. I lie back down and amuse myself again with the impossibility of flying to San Francisco and surprising Ivan, arriving fresh and beautiful (no jet lag), and phoning him from the airport. He’ll leave work early to pick me up, incredulous (and delighted) that I have come.

  I’m wondering if we’ll kiss madly at the airport or wait ‘til his apartment to tear our clothes off, when the phone rings. It’s after midnight and I wait for Rez to answer, it’ll be the hospital, but he doesn’t answer and I get up, scared something has happened to Rita. I pick up the phone and Ivan is crying. His mother has died.

  God, what happened?! I hear myself ask. My question seems lame and pointless.

  She was drinking and took a lot of stuff, he says.

  I’m so sorry, Ivan.

  I say it again, almost whispering.

  Can you meet me at the airport? he says. I’m coming back tomorrow.

  Of course, babe.

  Even in this awful moment, I wonder if it’s okay to be calling him babe.

  It’ll be the day after tomorrow that I actually arrive, he says.

  I’ll be there.

  It was Molly’s birthday, she’d have been twenty-eight, he says.

  God, I didn’t know. D’you think that’s why—

  I don’t know.

  Your poor dad.

  He’ll cave in when it hits him, he says, letting go of a huge sob.

  Come home, Ivan, I say. Just come home.

  I’ll call you with my flights.

  D’you want me to get Rez?

  No, you tell him. I have to go.

  Bye, babe. I’ll see you when you get home.

  It’s a fucking mess.

  I’m so sorry.

  I know.

  You know I love you, I say. Whatever you need, tell me.

  Bye…I love you too.

  I put the phone down and start to dial Rita but decide to wait ‘til morning – there’s nothing she can do, and I don’t want to alarm her. I feel guilty, like I’m somehow responsible for what’s happened – I’ve got what I wanted, Ivan saying he loves me, but his mum had to die first.

  I knock Rez’s door, but there’s no response. I go in and touch the quilt mound, he’s not there. He must’ve gone out after I’d gone to bed. He always goes out at strange times. The room smells of him. I don’t want to be alone. I curl up on his bed and sink into tears for Ivan and his mum. I wonder what drugs she overdosed on, if she meant it. I think of the last time I saw her: she’d dropped in on her way back from Glasgow Airport a few years ago. She’d given Ivan a red and green plate from a Spanish marketplace and later he’d used it for crisps at his house-warming and someone had used it as an ashtray. I wish he was home and I could hold him and shield him from it all. I think about calling Jana, maybe she can help him, take care of him �
��til he comes home. I sit up, wondering where I’ve put her new number. She sent me a change of address card months ago. I devastate my room searching for it, finally finding it behind the laundry basket.

  I go into the hall to dial. My hands are shaking. I get Jana’s answering machine. She’s not there, it’s the weekend, she’s out with Kavi doing sunny things.

  I leave a message and can’t stop my voice from breaking.

  Fizza would say that everything happens for a reason, everything’s God’s will. Obviously, I don’t agree – I think everything is random and cruel, but sometimes you look back and you think it couldn’t have been any other way.

  Thirty-six hours later, Rita and I meet Ivan at the airport. He is tanned, but the strain of his mother is stamped on his face. We take him back to Rez’s, and Rita asks if there’s anything else she can do.

  When she’s gone, I hold Ivan and his grief crashes against me like waves.

  Rez is driving him to Dundee later tonight.

  When the coffin slides away behind the red curtain, you assume it’s going straight into the furnace, but it can be put into a holding pattern – like a plane waiting to land. You just have to hope the ashes you get are the ones you want, and not a stranger’s, someone you may have hated had you known them.

  Ivan is stoic at the service, even more handsome in his grief and black clothes, but the pain on his face is like skin stretched on a drum. The last time he’d seen her was when his parents had visited him six months ago. She’d loved Haight Street and said it made her feel young again.

  His dad shakes people’s hands professionally, like an actor playing the part of a widower. Every time I look his way, I’m afraid I’ll see him crying.

  The reception is in an upmarket hotel. The sandwiches, brown and white, are not dry and curled up like the usual buffets. The waitresses pour tea and coffee from huge pots, and I wonder how they can lift them without their arms collapsing.