“I’ve brought the newspapers. Mum said I shouldn’t, but you’ll find out anyway. I thought . . . I thought you’d want to know. I can get rid of them if you don’t?”
She stared at him questioningly, her hands hovering over the pile of newsprint.
His stomach curled and tightened.
“I want to see.”
Nodding slowly, she laid them out for him.
GUILTY! RUGBY THUG SENTENCED
[Read the full story on page 7]
JUDGE SLAMS RUGBY BULLY
Girlfriend’s tears of relief as abuser is found guilty [Page 23]
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, her eyes glassy with tears. “It’s reported quite fairly inside, quoting the magistrate that you didn’t mean to hurt Molly. I’m sure people will . . .”
“Remember the headlines,” Nick finished wearily.
There was a painful silence.
“It’ll get better.”
Nick turned slumped into a chair and rubbed his head.
Trish slid one of the paper coffee cups toward him.
“Do you want some breakfast?” She took one look at his face. “Maybe not.”
Trish stayed for a while, not wanting to leave him alone, but with nothing else to say and nothing to do, Nick’s silence and sullen indifference, she left shortly after.
Nick spent the day in bed, staring at the ceiling. Depression settled over him like a thick fog. No matter what he did, he just couldn’t see a way forward. Everything he’d worked for was gone.
He rolled face down on the bed, burying his head under a pillow.
He knew that he should return his agent’s calls. Hell, he should probably take a shower and brush his teeth. But he didn’t. Instead, he opened another bottle of whiskey and drank steadily.
For the next week, Nick brooded in his room. He’d long ago stopped charging his phone, let alone answering it, and only left the house once to buy more whiskey.
The single good piece of news was that Steve Jewell had phoned his parents and left the name of a top orthopaedic surgeon who could fit in Nick’s operation in the New Year. They’d been shocked, not realising that a further surgery was required. Nick had shrugged it off, and kept everything locked inside, then slowly numbed himself. He intended to spend every day before the operation drunk out of his skull.
If he bothered to have the operation.
The days passed in a blur. Nick knew he needed to do something, something to fix himself, but the effort of moving from his bed seemed too much. He’d stopped shaving after his court appearance, and the thick scruff on his face was turning into a full beard, dark and untamed.
He’d also stopped exercising and he was beginning to lose muscle tone, but he’d also stopped eating. Right now, all his calories came from whiskey.
He was slowly and methodically falling apart.
Maybe for some people breakdowns came quickly, shatteringly fast. For Nick, it was a slow descent, like walking through swampy ground. Each footstep sucked you down, deeper and deeper, sucking the life out of you, one slow step at a time, until you couldn’t move.
Visualize it, plan for it, make it happen.
Anna would be appalled if she knew what he was doing, but he pushed away the creeping guilt . . . and opened another bottle.
He didn’t think he could have sunk any lower, but every day seemed to prove him wrong. Something about hiding away and drinking himself into a coma appealed, but he knew, he knew it wasn’t an answer.
His dad threatened to pour the whiskey down the sink, but Nick just locked his front door and carried on drinking. His parents didn’t know what to say or what to do.
He ignored every attempt from his family to help him. A guilty conscience needs no accuser.
December arrived with the first snowfall of the year.
Nick watched the world turn white and sat shivering in the ruins of his house. He hadn’t paid the electricity or the gas bill and both had been cut off. His court fines had all been paid, but that left only enough money to pay his mortgage for the next two months. The letters that came through the door all seemed to be printed in red. So Nick ignored them.
The house had been his refuge but it had become his prison.
One day, he thought he was dreaming because he heard someone singing outside his window. His whiskey-soaked brain slowly comprehended that it was people going door to door, singing for Christmas carols for charity. Christmas? He hadn’t known. Didn’t realise. Didn’t care.
He reached for another bottle of whiskey, but Nick hadn’t eaten for three days and as he staggered to the bathroom, a thin stream of stomach acid spilled from his mouth.
He wiped his face, then stumbled back to the rank-smelling bedroom and picked up the first bottle he could find. His hands shook and it was hard to focus. But that was okay because whiskey would make everything easier.
The harsh bite wiped away the taste of vomit and his thoughts became hazy. As he slumped against the headboard, he started singing to himself, an anthem that he’d heard in many rugby grounds, sung loudly, sung badly, sung loyally, but never had the words seemed more poignant, now when he couldn’t seem to find the strength to go on.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home. . . .
As Nick drifted into an alcohol-induced sleep, he felt a certain satisfaction in hitting rock bottom, a quiver of relief that it was nearly all over. No more raging against the dying of the night. Just a cool, quiet room inside your head where a voice whispered,
“It’s alright, lad. You did your best. Not your fault you weren’t good enough. No harm in failing. It’s what people expect anyway. You’ve lost everything. Best get on with it now. Erase yourself from the world, nice and tidy. No one will miss you. No harm done.”
I believe in you, Nick.
Who said that? Who? Was it real or did he imagine it? Real or not . . .
His last thought before he passed out was that living was harder than dying.
Nick woke up coughing, unable to breathe, unable to drag air into his heaving lungs. He was choking on his own vomit, drowning as his airways clogged with regurgitated whiskey.
Voices, somewhere, shouting. Voices had woken him.
He was choking to death.
Below, more shouts and loud banging, and his front door exploded inward, footsteps pounding up the stairs.
Screaming his name, Trish crashed through his bedroom door, falling on her hands and knees before she scrambled onto the bed, rolling him onto his side.
His dad gripped his shoulders, holding firmly as Trish fought to clear his airway.
Finally, he coughed up the vomit he’d inhaled and sat with tears dripping down his flushed face, shivers running through his body as the surge of adrenaline ebbed.
Trish ran to the bathroom to bring him a glass of water and sat on the bed next to him, her eyes wide, her skin ghostly and grey. His dad looked as if he’d aged a hundred years. Nick sagged against the headboard, a crushing pain in his chest and the realisation that he was still here, still alive. He hadn’t even managed to get the ending right.
He sipped some water held in Trish’s trembling hands.
Or maybe it was Nick’s hands that were trembling. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything.
Only that someone was holding him. Someone who cared.
“Oh God, Nick! What have you done? What have you done!”
Trish slid off the bed, swiping furiously at the tears running down her cheeks.
She pushed open the window and breathed deeply, letting a frigid blast of cleansing air whip through the room.
“Are you happy now?” she cried. “You’re such a selfish arsehole! Don’t you think you’ve worried us enough without this? Mum’s been a mess all this time and Dad hasn’t been much better. Don’t you care about us at all?”
Nick was silent. His vomit covered
clothes clung to him and he suspected it was in his hair, too. The weight of Trish’s disgust and disappointment was drenched with fear.
He’d been so lost in his own misery for the past weeks, he hadn’t thought about how it had affected his family. He’d honestly thought they’d be better off without him.
His plan to slip away quietly without a fuss had ended up in a pool of vomit with an elephant-sized headache, a sour stomach, aching ribs, bad breath and the shakes. All that was missing was a quick trip to the psych ward.
Trish’s voice lowered to a sob.
“What if we hadn’t made it here in time, Nick? You could have died! I can’t believe you’d do this. If you don’t care about yourself, at least think about us, your family!”
“I’m so—”
“What about all the people who spoke for you at your trial? Is this any way to thank them?”
Anna’s face flashed into Nick’s mind.
“Trish, I . . .”
She held up her hand.
“Don’t even talk to me. I’m so angry with you right now. Get your act together, Nick.” She bit her lip and turned away. “We can’t lose you. We can’t!”
She slammed out of the room and he cringed.
His dad sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped and tears brimming in his eyes, those eyes that were the mirror image of Nick’s.
“I want to help you, son. But I don’t know how. Your mum and I . . . we love you very much.”
He stood slowly, as if the effort was almost too much for him. He opened his mouth to speak again, then shook his head and left the room.
Nick rested his head on the greasy pillow.
Every angry word that Trish had spat at him rattled through his brain, her outrage and disappointment lashing him. His father’s quiet desolation hit him harder. Hell, he was disappointed enough in himself—he didn’t need his family piling on the guilt, too.
Then prove them wrong, a voice whispered to him. And in his mind, that voice had an American accent.
Anna.
Fuck’s sake, he hadn’t even thanked her for speaking up for him.
New Year’s Eve, 2014
NICK HAD QUIT cold turkey. What a fucking stupid idea.
Trish had warned him. She’d Googled the dangers of stopping suddenly after binge drinking for over a month. She’d been right about all the withdrawal symptoms.
The tremors and anxiety had started almost immediately, followed by a blinding headache, prolonged nausea and vomiting
Now, his heart was racing, he was sweating constantly even though the room was cool, he was irritable and confused. He paced his room the whole night, suffering acute insomnia, and when he did manage to fall asleep in the hours before dawn, nightmares plagued him.
Over the next three days, the symptoms worsened. Trish wanted to call a doctor, but Nick didn’t want to be medicated—he wanted . . . he didn’t know what he wanted. He just wanted it all to end.
His skin itched or felt like it was burning, and he scratched mercilessly until bloody wheals appeared on his arms and legs. He started seeing things, hallucinating for hours at a time. His mum cried and his dad was at his wits’ end. Trish sat with him, talking to him, reading to him, sometimes just holding his hand.
And finally, nine days after his last drink, the fever broke.
Nick cried with relief.
February 2015
“Breathe deeply and count back from ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
As the cool anaesthetic took him, Nick couldn’t help thinking, What’s the point of any of this?
The darkness closed in, the walls shrinking around him, and his body fell limp.
The surgeon peered at the anaesthetist.
“Douglas?”
“BP is 120 over 80; pulse ox is 82; looks good. Yep, you can tee-off now, Gerald.”
The surgeon followed the black pen mark down Nick’s right calf, the scalpel slicing through the tough outer epidermis, leaving a red, bloody trail behind.
“Vertical and medial incision . . . good God! Look at this mess,” said the surgeon, poking with his scalpel. “The ruptured tendon looks like the head of a mop. There’s rotten tissue in here—I’ll have to cut it out. There’s only a tiny string of good tendon to work with. I don’t know what butcher performed the last operation . . . very shoddy. What did you say this fellow does again? Footballer?”
“Rugby,” replied Douglas. “Or he was. Had a bit of a hiatus.”
“Hummph,” said Gerald, cutting into the frayed tendon. “Poor sod should have come to me in the first place.”
“He got here in the end,” said Douglas, watching the monitor closely, his round spectacles sparkling in the light from above the operating table.
“Retractor!”
A surgical nurse slapped the Gullis hook retractor into Gerald’s waiting palm, watching as he tugged Nick’s skin and tissue out of the way then squinted at the wound and sighed.
An hour later, Nick was wheeled into recovery, his bandaged foot adjusted to hang above his prone body. As he started to come around, he couldn’t feel his feet and some bastard had stuffed his head with cotton wool.
He heard the sounds of people moving around him.
“Is he famous?”
“Don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t watch rugby.”
A woman laughed.
“I might if they all looked like him.”
More laughter.
“He’s waking up. Nick! Nick, can you hear me? That’s it, you’re doing really well. Just breathe normally. That’s it, that’s it. Can you open your eyes for me, Nick?”
Nick breathed deeply, listening to the nurse’s calm voice. He peeled open one eyelid, trying to remember . . . he had an important question to ask . . . what was it . . . ?
“That’s it, Nick. Both eyes. The surgery went well.”
Oh yeah. That was it, the important question.
“Okaay?” he slurred.
“Yes, you’re going to be fine.”
His eyes closed again and he drifted, a tiny ship in the middle of the ocean, rudderless, powerless, in danger of sinking. Drifting . . . drifting . . .
The next time he woke up, Nick knew exactly where he was: flat on his back in a hospital bed with a raging thirst, a fiery pain in his right leg, and a cloud of depression settling over him like a cold mist.
“Hello, luv. How are you?”
His mum’s voice was close by, and he opened his eyes to see her leaning over him, her anxious gaze belying the smile on her face.
“Alright,” he said hoarsely. “Thirsty.”
She helped him take a sip of water.
“Dad and Trish send their love. They’ll visit this evening. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Nick loved his mum. But she was a terrible liar.
Nick was back at his parents’ house again, back in his old bedroom.
He stared moodily at the pale blue walls of his childhood, still covered with posters of sporting greats Sugar Ray Leonard, Chris Eubank, and Nigel Benn—all boxers—and the obligatory Pirelli calendar from seven years earlier. He couldn’t even smile at the ‘improvements’ Trish had doodled on every busty model.
He knew the routine and was trying not to feel daunted by the recovery regime. Trish had also told him point blank that every drop of alcohol in the house had been removed, even his mum’s Amontillado dry sherry.
Trish was also strictly monitoring his use of painkillers. The last hour before he got his next fix was excruciating and worse than after his previous operation. Trish was worried that he’d become addicted to painkillers. Nick was worried that the pain would drive him crazy—crazier.
“You’d better be a model patient,” she said, leaning over him threateningly. “It’s been a shit Christmas and New Year.”
Nick sighed as Trish eventually sat down next to him.
“And stop being all mardy, it’s giving me a headache.”
Nick cracked an eye and scow
led at his sister.
“Is this what they call tough love?”
“Who says I love you? Yeah, fine, call it whatever you like. You’re going to get better.”
Nick looked away.
“You don’t know that.”
“You’ve got to think positive!” she snapped, her patience waning. “And the surgeon said the operation was a success.”
“So did the last one,” Nick pointed out.
Trisha was silenced. She smoothed the duvet and avoided his eyes.
“Nick, have you thought about what you might do if you’re right and you can’t play rugby?” She hesitated as he closed his eyes. “I’m not trying to be mean, but after . . . well, you know. Do I have to worry about that . . . again?”
He opened his eyes to meet her worried gaze.
“I won’t try to drink myself to an early grave again.”
“Promise.”
“Yeah.”
“Promise you won’t . . . try anything else either?”
Nick sighed.
“I can’t promise I’m going to be all sunshine and rainbows. But . . . I won’t try to off myself. Okay?”
Trish didn’t look completely reassured but nodded.
“Well, seeing as you’ve decided to join the land of the living again,” and she gave him a weak smile, “I’ve got you a new phone with a new number. The only people who’ve got it are us and Mark Lipman.”
Nick glanced up.
“Has he called?”
“Yes, he wanted to know how the operation went. I told him what your surgeon told us. He was pleased. He said he’d be sending out your CV to a few clubs.”
Nick grunted.
“Good luck with that. No one will touch me—post-surgery, criminal record.”
Trish slapped him lightly across the head.
“You’re supposed to be thinking positive.”
Nick shook his head, irritated.
“I’m supposed to be realistic.”
Trish grimaced.
“What?” Nick asked, anger and frustration leaking into his voice.
“I went to your house to pick up any letters.”
“And?”
Undefeated Page 12