by Jon McGregor
And what was it anyway, what had Jamesie done this time.
Something about money but it seemed like more than that.
The way Ben went at him.
And Steve weren’t even there so that should have reminded Heather that something was up. With Robert. He never liked being around people much but he never liked missing out on food neither. So she should have thought, when she didn’t see him there.
She remembered later but she was back in her room by then. And sort of what could she do then.
When Steve was, what. While Robert was all, lying on his back and waiting. Or was it, what, sitting in his chair.
Hadn’t even known Ben that long but she knew him enough that it weren’t much of a surprise. What he did to Jamesie like that. Four or five months since she’d started seeing him about the place and he’d always had some kind of trouble on him. Sort of followed him like a dog he couldn’t get rid of. Like he didn’t know no better, like he didn’t know how to avoid it. Which he didn’t did he. First time she saw him he was tapping people up outside the train station, when everyone knew that was the worst place for getting caught out in one of them clean sweeps or whatever. Didn’t normally like getting involved but what was it there was just sort of something about him. Crossed the street and took him by the arm and said You’re better off not doing that right there sweetheart, and there was a couple of community street wardens or whatever they called them right on top near enough and he didn’t say nothing he just went off with her like meek as a lamb or something.
Wardens was for dogs, when she was a kid. Times change though don’t they.
Most people would have said mind your own business, called her all names and that. But Ben just went with her. Like he’d been waiting for someone to go with. Said thanks for the help. And the next time she saw him, down one of the day centres, he said thanks again, and remembered her name. She saw him about more and more after that. She liked him, she thought he was a smart kid, even if he didn’t know much. Thought he was a good-looking kid as well, except his face was busted up half the time.
And where did Mike go. Talking on his phone like that. Like he had somewhere to be. Where did he have to be. Like he had something to do.
Steve was with Ant, in the place they’d been fixing up above the burnt-out shop. This is what, like meanwhile or something is it. Or even the day before. Ant laying out his works on a square of cloth on the floor. Steve feeding H and combing through his hair for fleas, checking his ears, checking his paws. Ant not talking much, concentrating, and that suited Steve. Suited the two of them.
Plenty to think about on a day like that though. Fucking, Christmas Day. Can’t help it. Don’t matter where you’ve come from. Always things to remember on a day like that. Things to regret and that. Plenty ways of forgetting and all though but.
The works all laid out and lined up. Like a soldier laying out his kit. Everything present and correct.
So, what. Would things have been different if Steve had been over at Robert’s instead. He would have been normally but he hadn’t been there for a few months after that fall-out they’d had. But does that make it his fault. Robert didn’t need no one looking after him. Never asked for that.
But if someone had been there. Then.
We keep sitting here waiting and these things keep coming to mind. Waiting in the dark and these things keep coming out.
Steve was the first one to start staying at Robert’s place, come to think of it. This was when, years back. Bloody, years. Started drinking outside the post office one morning, waiting to pick up their giros, and after a while they took their drinks to Robert’s front step and watched H running around making friends with the other dogs in the street. Just sat there talking, and a while after that Steve ended up staying over on the front-room floor. Weren’t like he had anywhere else to go. Two of them sat there talking all day like it was some kind of support group, like a self-help group or something.
Like no one’s here to judge or offer advice or comment. All that. We’re just here to listen and share so who’d like to get us started.
Jesus but. Everyone sitting around going I can’t help it I take smack because my old man used to hit me or my cousin raped me or they took all my fucking kids away. Whatever they call them. Encounter groups, therapy groups, support groups. Whatever. And no one ever says I take smack because I fucking like it and it keeps me well and it keeps me fucking quiet.
Don’t criticise. Don’t interrupt each other. Nothing gets repeated outside these walls.
Things you have to sit through sometimes. When you’re just after a script or a sub or some signature you need for something or other.
Let’s just go through this form together shall we. Let’s identify your needs and your goals and when we’re done I can let you have a bed for the night. Let’s talk about your risk behaviours before we start thinking about treatment shall we.
Shall we indeed. Shall we bollocks like there’s a choice.
Who wants to open up the discussion.
Who’s got something they feel they can share.
Well, Mike, perhaps you’d like to begin, perhaps you’d like to begin by maybe thinking about when you first started having these unusual ideas. What makes you think they’re unusual pal. Well, they’re new to me, let’s put it that way, they seem unusual to me. You want to start paying more attention pal this stuff’s everywhere. Well, let’s try putting it another way, let’s perhaps say when did you first start having ideas that you realised other people considered unusual or difficult or strange. All this, on and on, the doctor or whoever he was talking in riddles and circles while the others all talked at once over the top of him and it was impossible to make any sense.
Waiting for the hour to pass so the joker would hand over the script.
Robert and Steve, back then. Sitting there in the smoke and the gloom of Robert’s empty flat. The curtains closed and the windows jammed shut and the clearing up long forgotten. Like a two-man support group or something. This was when, years back. Robert telling Steve about his wife taking off with the kid, and Steve telling him to forget about it, something like that always happens sooner or later. They’re never happy though are they mate, he said, and Robert laughed and said That’s about the fucking size of it.
Robert’s laugh, the last time we heard it, was like a ruined accordion, wheezing and guttural, reeking of damp and ash. Steve doesn’t remember it being like that when they first met, but he can’t be rightly sure. Can’t be rightly sure of much, now. There are too many gaps.
And when Laura got out of that taxi and went in through the window. Two days before Christmas. The things she said. She was, what, leaving him all over again. Or it was something else, like not leaving but just. What was it.
Is there anything further you’d like to share with the group.
Didn’t take Steve long to tell Robert he’d been in the army. Didn’t take him long to tell anyone that, as it happens. Told Ant before they’d even had their first drink together. Served in the Falklands, he said. Slept out on Mount Tumbledown a good few nights. Woke up in the rain and looked down across the sodden moorland at the tin roofs of Port Stanley, the long narrow bay, the sheep on the hill, the fishing boats in the harbour, and wondered what the point of all that was for. It was a pissing contest, he told Robert, and Maggie won, and never mind all the boys who got left down there. Near enough crying when he told Robert this, and Robert didn’t say a thing.
Ant never said much neither.
Didn’t take much for Steve to start crying, once he’d had a drink. Brimful with tears that he kept fighting back, and his dark sunken eyes would catch the light and shine. My country lied to me, he would say. Clenching his fists. The first tears spilling down the webbed red lines of his face. They told me to fight for decency and rights and the rule of law and all that bollocks and it was all over nothing, it was over sheep and grass and wind, it was a pissing contest and nothing else.
Is that right
mate, Robert would say, is that right is it mate.
Ant mostly gouching out so he didn’t have much of a reply.
My country lied to me, Steve would repeat. Seemed like every time he had a story about the army he ended up with those words. My country lied to me. Like he expected any different.
First company Steve had kept for a while but it didn’t take him long to get used to it. Never would have told anyone this but one of the things he liked about being in the army to be honest was sleeping in the barracks and the camps. The sound of other men breathing in the middle of the night. Don’t mean nothing like that, just, it felt like some kind of comfort or something, in a way. Some kind of security.
First company Robert had kept for a long time as well. Since Yvonne and Laura had left.
Keep waiting to hear him breathe, now, behind that door, in the middle of the night. Used to hear him breathing all the time in the flat, his lungs creaking away under the strain. Took a lot of effort just sitting there, it sounded like. Holding up all that weight. Be a long time waiting to hear him now. We know that but we stay here anyway. With the clock, and the sinks, and the tiles on the sloping floor. Waiting for what.
Two of them used to wake up early and get straight to looking for a drink. Some days it took longer than others. Had something left over from the night before if they were lucky. But some days they were dry, and the giro hadn’t turned up, or had been spent too quick, and they owed too many people to get a quick sub anywhere. Some days it felt like they spent hours tramping around town trying to get something sorted, snapping at each other like two dogs shut up in a room. Like two men in a lifeboat or something. All that water and not a drop to drink. Jesus, the thirst, the trembling, heaving thirst. Can’t argue with a thirst like that. Can’t stop to think whether knocking over one of the old Irish blokes who drink behind the pavilion is all right or not. Only did it a couple of times. Robert got him talking, Steve clocked him round the side of the head, and they both grabbed the cans and ran. Which was them sorted for the day. Weren’t so much running as walking quicker than they usually did. What you might call scurrying or something. Fucking, scuttling. No one coming after them anyway. What would they do. Back to the flat and the two old armchairs Steve had found in a skip and not saying anything for a while until they’d made some kind of dent in that thirst. And then more or less laughing about it. And carrying on like nothing much had happened. Drinking and talking and telling tales.
Like Steve saying I was at boarding school for ten years and it weren’t no different from the army, making beds and running across fields and getting shouted at.
Like Robert saying Nine years we were married and she must have hated me for half that time and I never knew, I never fucking knew.
Like Steve talking about going to India to find his brother. Saying I’ve just got to get my passport sorted out first, shouldn’t be too complicated. And pick up these postcards I’ve got from him, they’re in a bag of stuff I’ve got in a hostel down in Cambridge. They’re saving it for me, they should be. And these postcards had an address on them, I can probably look it up on the internet or something. Once I’ve got my passport sorted out. There’s some issues to resolve first. Steve talked about going to India almost as much as he said My country lied to me. Didn’t he.
Like Robert saying You’d have thought she would have given me some fucking warning or something.
Who wants to open up the discussion.
Everyone sitting there looking at their feet or picking at their nails or stretching their arms out above their heads and leaning back to look at the ceiling. And the counsellor or whoever going You won’t find the answers up there. Facilitator. Enabler, whatever. I’m just here to enable the discussion. It’s up to you where we take things today. Why don’t we start with you, Ben?
And where was Ben. Sitting in the custody suite, still handcuffed, waiting to be processed by a custody sergeant in no mood to rush. The cells full of hangovers and black-eyes and Ben starting to jitter already. Thinking about how long it was going to take to get out, and where he could score when he did. Wondering where Mike had got to once he’d sent him in on Jamesie like that. Wondering what sort of a team that made them after all.
And the same time or near enough there was Steve, sitting on his bed, watching Ant with the spoons and the lighter and all the rest of it. A bed, more like a mattress on the floor. But better than most of the places he’d slept in. Taking off his boots and laying out his socks to dry and massaging his feet with the rough calluses of his hands. Waiting.
We can all wait. Here in this room. Sitting and standing and leaning against the wall. In this cold dark room. And it’s easier to think of him, now. His body in a bag.
We’re used to it already, what’s happened to him. What’s happened to us.
Get used to anything, after a while. The mind adapts, quicker than the body does. Even when the body can’t.
See here, where the skin has fallen away.
See, here, where the maggots have eaten his flesh.
Get used to insects though, living like this. Flies, bedbugs, maggots, lice. All sorts.
Like when that bloke at the day centre went to see the chiropodist, and warned her that he hadn’t taken his boots off for six months, and it turned out he had trench foot so bad there were things crawling around in his toes.
Jesus. Give that girl a medal.
Cut his socks off and all bits and pieces came with them, skin and rotten flesh and everything, and she never said a word.
What was his name. Didn’t see him around too much after that. Maybe he ended up behind one of the doors in here. And who would know if he did.
Steve went to see the same chiropodist once, as it happens. Sat and waited and when it was his turn he took off his boots and socks and stretched out his feet for her. One thing the army taught him was how to look after his feet, and he always made sure he had a pair of dry socks to be going on with, always aired his boots at night if he could. Some things, when you’ve been doing them every day for years, you get stuck doing them no matter how drunk you are.
Nothing wrong with these feet, the chiropodist told him, cupping one in each hand and running her thumbs along the tendons and joints. You must be doing something right, she said, smiling.
Didn’t forget that one. Things like that stick with you, even with all the gaps. Things like then she washed and dried his feet, and cut his toenails, and rubbed away the hardened lumps of skin with a pumice stone before giving him a new pair of socks and asking him to send the next one in. Most people going out of their way not to touch you all day, to not hardly brush up against you or even catch your eye or anything. And then that. Washing and drying and holding his feet, one in each hand. Things like that stick with you, on the whole. Could sit and wait all day for a thing like that.
Watching Ant stirring away at the mess in the spoon and remembering all this. Waiting.
Same with the hairdressers, when they go running their fingers through your hair. Same with the nurses, changing your dressings or taking your blood pressure or listening to the crackling in your lungs, they got to touch you with their clean soft hands and no one says nothing about it but it all helps oh Christ but it helps.
Same with having a dig. When someone else does it, and even the most cack-handed old smackhead does it slow and tender and gentle like. Like a gift. Like rubbing at your skin till the vein comes up, easing the needle in, slowly pushing home the gear. Like in a war film when someone lifts a drink to the lips of a wounded and dying soldier, cradling his head in one hand and letting the cold water trickle into the desperate mouth.
Wait all day for that.
Can’t wait another minute.
Like Ben in the cells that night, couldn’t wait but he had to. Doing his rattle. Doing his nut in. Ringing the alarm and going Please I’m sorry can you get me a doctor, can you get me a script? I just really need something to hold me until I get out, please, sergeant?
The way he
talks, when he’s asking for things like that. All Excuse me, sorry, please. I’m sorry to trouble you. If I could just take a moment of your time. With this look on his face like, what, beseeching. Fucking beseeching. Wringing his hands and all that. Like he’s still a little boy, which he near enough is, which he looks like near enough. With his big brown eyes and his long eyelashes and his matted brown hair falling over his face, looking up at people and wringing his hands together like he was going for a part in a musical or something, like Pardon me sir and all that bollocks.
Usually works for him but. Looks even younger than he is and people go for that. Young enough to give him a chance, they must think. Like he can still better himself or something. Pardon me sir. If you could just.
Usually works for him but not that night. Custody sergeant weren’t interested. Told him to sweat it out. Which meant he didn’t know fuck all about withdrawing. Or it meant he knew exactly all about it, and he thought Ben rattling through the night like that was some kind of what some kind of joke.
Lying on his mattress in the cell. Curling up, straightening out, standing up, sitting down. Squatting right down and lying on the floor. Can’t keep still when it’s on you like that. Can’t get comfortable. Pretty fucking hard to bear. Pretty fucking, unbearable.
And Steve lying on his mattress in that room above the burnt-out shop. Waiting for Ant to finish whatever he had to do to get the stuff ready. Still thinking about that last bust-up he’d had with Robert, and what he was going to do about it, and wondering what Robert was doing now. Remembering the first time Robert had kicked him out of the flat, after he’d crashed out in Laura’s old bedroom and pissed himself in her bed. All the wrecking Robert had done in that flat but he’d kept Laura’s room more or less intact and now Steve had gone and done that. What had he been thinking. Weren’t nothing he could do to make up for that. Kicked him out and didn’t see him again for years. What was it, years.