by Phil Earle
‘So why were they planning to send him here?’
‘For school. University eventually. Whatever he needed to give him his education. My father had a relative here, a cousin who had not been blessed with children. His wife was so depressed about it that he agreed to give Johnny a home, in the hope that she would treat him as her own. But when I got into trouble, they persuaded them, somehow, to take me instead.’
‘Was your brother annoyed?’
‘He had no anger in him. It wasn’t his way. And he was only ten years old. He didn’t want to leave my parents. Why would he?’
‘But you did?’
‘It didn’t matter what I wanted. I’d lost any choice when I brought that package into their house. As soon as they’d persuaded my father’s cousin, I was off, before I could bring more shame on them.’
It was hard for her to tell me all this. There were no tears, but the light that usually shone from her eyes seemed to dim as she told me about life in a new country. How the cousin who took her in tried hard to make her feel welcome, but it quickly became clear that his wife didn’t feel the same. Taking on a ten-year-old genius was one thing, but a surly fifteen-year-old?
They didn’t know the extent of the trouble Ade had found herself in back home, but at the same time they saw her as damaged goods, as a child they didn’t want to claim as their own.
‘I did not blame them,’ Ade said, painting something resembling a smile back on her face. ‘Now or then. They took me in with the best intentions, but I didn’t make it easy for them. I refused to fit in, dodged school in the same way that I did at home, threw any attempts that they made back in their faces.’
‘Did you feel like going back home, then?’
‘With what? My parents had spent their savings sending me over here. I could not ask them to pay for me to return when I was behaving like I was. I had to at least pretend I was doing well, if only to make it easier for my brother.’
‘Why, what had happened to him?’
‘What my parents feared would happen. He became aware of what was going on around him, saw the poverty people were living in, the way so many struggled to feed or clothe themselves. It pricked something in him, troubled him so much that he started to ignore his studies, became more interested in protesting instead. He joined a group of people who wanted to challenge what was going on, people who wanted to turn things on their head. He was only fifteen, but he was sharp, intelligent. When he spoke they didn’t see a child. When he spoke they listened.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that, though, is there? I mean, people are allowed opinions, aren’t they?’
‘Of course, but not when they don’t keep them to themselves. This was Nigeria twenty years ago. Put your head above the parapet and you put yourself in the firing line.’
I felt uncomfortable, fearing where this was going, hoping that I was wrong.
‘He was only fifteen years old when he found himself in the middle of a march, and for years I felt, knew, that if it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have been there. He would have been tucked away in a comprehensive school in England edging nearer to becoming a doctor or lawyer. While he was being battered with truncheons by the police, I was sat on a bench drinking cheap alcohol with people who knew nothing about me and cared even less.’
She stood up, shaking the blood back into her legs.
‘Shall we walk?’ she asked. ‘I make more sense when I’m on the move.’
I nodded, lifting her rucksack off the ground, throwing it on to my back.
‘Things fell apart when I heard the news. I don’t know what hurt more, hearing it second-hand through my new mother or the fact that I couldn’t go home for the funeral. My parents didn’t say I wasn’t welcome, but they made no attempt to arrange my return, and in my head I took that as the sign that I was on my own.’
‘That must have hurt, to not be with them.’
‘It did, but in my head it was a problem of my own making. If I had not been so headstrong and foolish, then none of it would have happened. Or at the very worst it would have been me on the end of the truncheons, not Johnny. The guilt got inside me, took up my every moment until I was convinced that I should be punished more than he had been. I have no idea why you self-harm, Daisy, but for me it was punishment, a weekly reminder of the shame I’d brought on our family, and what I had caused them to lose. It almost pleased me that, when the pain disappeared, I still had the scars as a reminder.’
It was strange to hear her reasons, so different from my own and so controlled in how she chose to do it. I thought about her scars and the preciseness of them, which, after hearing her story, somehow made sense. It was punishment, not panic that made her do it, and suddenly I was scared, terrified that whatever worked to stop her cutting wouldn’t apply to me, that I’d be doing it as long as the panic attacks kept coming.
We walked for a while, enough time for me to roll a cigarette and focus my thumping heart.
‘Is it a long time since you cut yourself?’
It seemed like a safe question to ask. She was so together now, after all.
‘Fifteen years,’ she answered, glowing with pride.
‘And you’re never close to doing it again?’
‘Sometimes, of course. It took me a long time to get here, a lot of talking to realize that I wasn’t holding the truncheon that broke my brother’s skull. I will not go back now. I’ve reclaimed what happened, turned how I felt around, and now I look at it differently from how I did. Instead of wasting my life mourning him, losing him drives me now. It makes me get up every day.’
I felt deflated at the prospect of a long process ahead of me, wanted almost to pick holes in her recovery.
‘But you’ll always have the scars, won’t you? Don’t they just remind you every day?’
‘For a long time they did, but not any more. I’m reclaiming them as well, one by one.’
I looked at her, confused, which made her break stride and roll her sleeve up to the very top of her arm.
‘Every year, on the date of my brother’s death, I congratulate myself for not hurting myself any more, or for being responsible for his death. Every year, on 6 May, I reclaim one more line, to remind myself that I am still here.’ She giggled, a reaction completely at odds with the conversation. ‘My friends tell me I’m mad, that I’ve just found a different way to hurt myself. But I think they’re wrong. This isn’t killing me now. It’s reminding me that I’ve beaten it, that I’m still alive.’
With that she let her hand slide down to her waist, exposing the full length of her arm.
The scars continued above the elbow with the same precision and regularity, until they were halfway to her shoulder. There everything changed.
Instead of the dull puckered skin that made up each scar, there were bursts of blue ink, a series of tattooed lines, each one interrupted only once, where it spiked upwards before falling back into a perfect flat-line. The effect was mesmerizing, repeated again and again all the way to the very top scar. It looked like a gigantic heartbeat and I stood staring, as if watching a monitoring machine in an intensive care ward.
My jaw fell open. There was nothing to say. Nothing that could do it justice. So I did nothing, except wipe the stray tear that fell down my face.
Chapter 39
If this were Hollywood, there’d have been stirring music at this point, or a montage scene of me and Ade talking intently in different locations, fighting off all the crap in my head.
I’ve seen the films, know the scripts by heart.
It wasn’t like that, of course. Hearing and seeing her story didn’t make my guilt go away, but it did shift something. It gave me a sense of perspective, of hope maybe, although I was none the wiser as to how her story could actually help. I fought hard to hold on to the positives: that we had this in common, that we would find a way to connect. I’d doubted her for long enough and she’d tru
sted in me. That had to be worth something, especially with everything else back at Bellfield taking a nosedive.
The repercussions from our night out rumbled on. Not with Eric, who’d got over it after an apology, but with Naomi and Patrick. The speed at which they forgave each other after their fights didn’t extend to me, and aside from an occasional dig in the ribs or choice insult, it was like I was invisible.
That would have been fine had we not been living under the same roof, and besides, I’d relied on them for buying my tobacco and smuggling in the spirits.
It was almost a relief when September rolled around and classes began. At least it gave the days some focus, allowed six hours to pass without craving the company of cheap vodka.
It was a strange experience going to school without leaving the gates, a bit like being home-schooled, I supposed. Our teacher was hardly troubled in terms of pupil numbers, as it was basically two of us, me and Susie, plus Jimmy, who pitched up every now and again, taking a guitar secretively next door before huddling over it, his fingers lumbering over the fret board. As with his phone calls, he seemed to be in a world of his own making. We couldn’t hear what he was playing, he always plugged a pair of headphones into the amp, but I couldn’t imagine it was tuneful. When he was in there, doing his thing, I’d keep an eye out for the others, in the hope that I could save him from more grief.
Susie had quite a thing for him and spent chunks of every day telling me just how wonderful he was.
‘Have you ever met anyone like him?’ she cooed on one occasion.
That was an easy one to answer. ‘Nope.’ At least I didn’t have to lie.
‘It kills me when I see the others rip it out of him. He’s such an easy target.’
‘He doesn’t really help himself, though, does he? All that business with the mobile phone. People kind of notice stuff like that.’
‘He’s not hurting anyone with it. It’s just his way of coping. I just wish they knew how talented he was.’
I was confused. ‘You think all the music stuff’s true, then? All the gigs and groupies, that’s for real?’
‘Absolutely. Don’t you?’
I tried to think of a way of saying it tactfully, of not puncturing her dreams. ‘Er, it’s hard to say. I’ve never heard him sing or play anything. You?’
She looked a bit sheepish. ‘Not really. I thought I heard him once through the ceiling, got Naomi in to listen to it and everything. But she just pissed herself laughing and punched me. Told me it was the radio, that it was Coldplay or someone.’
‘And was it?’
‘Was it what?’
‘Coldplay?’ Boy, this was hard work.
She shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’m no expert. I wanted it to be Jimmy. That’s enough for me. I don’t know why it’s not enough for them either.’
Conversations like this were draining to say the least, despite how much I liked her, and it was almost a relief to try and concentrate on some schoolwork.
Time outside of lessons belonged to Ade. Ever since our talk on the cliffs, I’d feared there would be some kind of expectation to spill my own story, and the thought consumed me, haunting my every moment with her.
We walked each day after school, along the rocks that were becoming familiar, our place in a way. I’d never seen her heading there with Naomi and I was scared that she was spending so much time with me at her expense. The last thing I needed was another reason for Naomi to go ballistic.
It didn’t concern Ade, who brushed my fears away quickly.
‘At some point you are going to have to start putting yourself first and stop worrying about the others, Naomi especially.’
I shot her a look. I doubted she’d been pinned to the bed by Naomi lately.
‘I know that she is unpredictable, but that does not mean you should feel like a victim around her. Living in fear is hardly going to help you get better, is it?’
‘And walking a marathon every day is?’ It was petulant, and I cringed as soon as the words formed, but I couldn’t stop them coming out.
‘Not in isolation, no. But we are going to bring a weapon walking with us every day, something that will gradually wear down these thoughts of yours.’
‘Oh aye, and what weapon’s that, then?’
‘Logic.’
I stopped walking and stared at her. Was she having a laugh?
‘I’ll bring the logic if you bring some trust.’ There was a tinge of impatience to her voice. ‘If you can’t manage that, Daisy, then this time will be wasted. I don’t mind spending my time with you – in fact, I can’t think of a better way to pass my shifts, because I can see how confused you are, and I know, with some trust, that we can beat whatever is ruling you at the moment. But without trust?’ She paused, her brow furrowed. ‘Then you can forget it. You might as well go back to the house and wait for Naomi to slap you again. Is that what you want?’
I shook my head slowly. Of course I didn’t.
‘Then we start here and now.’ She swung the rucksack off her back and unzipped it carefully, pulling a clunky-looking box and lead out from inside.
It was a Walkman, an oversized hunk of plastic that she must have had since the 1980s. It was older than me, almost heavier too as she thrust it into my hands.
‘What are we going to do with this?’ I turned it over in my hands, wanting to heap further scorn on her idea.
‘You are going to speak into it. This wonderful-looking thing is going to train your mind, teach it to dismiss all the untrue thoughts that are in your head.’
‘You are kidding me?’ Apart from playing tinny-sounding music, I didn’t see what use it was going to be.
‘No, I’m not kidding. I know it looks unlikely, but this machine played a big part in me finally dismissing the belief that I killed my brother.’
I didn’t get it and told her so, politely this time.
‘Bear with me. It will become clearer, I promise.’ She beckoned me to sit next to her. ‘The one thing I know about you is what the doctors told me. That you feel you are responsible for your dad dying. Is that correct?’
I nodded.
‘Despite not being in the car when he crashed. Yes?’
Another nod.
‘Even though you were nowhere near the bypass when the accident happened?’
‘It was still my fault.’ I believed it too. Stronger than ever.
‘My argument to you is the same as my therapist’s with me. Your thoughts are wrong. They are empty and without substance. How could you cause a car crash that you were nowhere near? Or how could I kill my brother from another continent? Do you understand what I’m getting at? These thoughts of yours, or thoughts of mine, they are illogical and we shouldn’t waste our time entertaining them.’
I could see what she was saying, what she was trying to do. But she didn’t know the full story, did she? Didn’t know my track record.
‘What I’m going to show you is how to make your mind dismiss these thoughts. How to recognize, with the help of logic, that they are not true, that they don’t belong to you. As soon as you truly understand and believe this, they will simply crumble away and you will have your mind back.’
She’d told me this before, given me the pep talk, and as brilliant as it sounded, I still didn’t see how a cassette player was going to get me there.
‘So what do I need to do?’
‘You need to start wearing these thoughts down. To make your brain so tired and bored of hearing them, it will start to see them for what they are. So that in time it will start to reject them for the nonsense that they are.’
She took the Walkman back and plugged the lead in, before passing me the other end of it, a small microphone covered in black felt.
‘Find yourself a quiet spot, here on the bench or by the cliff, wherever you feel most comfortable. When you are ready, press the red button and start to repeat the same sent
ence into it: “I killed my dad. It was my fault.”’
I felt my stomach tighten.
‘The tape is twenty minutes long, so you are going to have to repeat that statement until one side is full. If you need to have a break that is fine. Just hit stop, take a few breaths and start again.’ She stroked my back and leaned into me reassuringly. ‘I know this is a lot to ask, but I promise, a hundred per cent, that it will help.’
I didn’t want to do it. Didn’t know if I physically could, but I forced myself to think of the alternatives, of letting the thoughts rule me, of being at Bellfield around Naomi until they kicked me out at the age of eighteen. Slowly I pulled myself to my feet, studied the machine’s buttons and ambled to a bench by the edge of the cliff.
It took me a few moments to steady myself, to persuade my finger to stop shaking and apply enough force to the red button, but eventually I managed it.
‘I killed my mum and dad. It was my fault.’
It was slow work at first and I had to pause on a couple of occasions to centre myself, but I did it. After about ten minutes, the words seemed to mean less. It was still me saying them, obviously, but they didn’t have the same power, the same meaning, which gave me hope in itself.
Throughout the twenty minutes, Ade was there, twenty metres behind me, her eyes meeting mine each time I needed them without ever invading my space, and I took strength that she’d sat there at some point, recording her own fears just as I was doing. In the end I found a rhythm and a deadpan tone to my voice that made me comfortable enough to fill the tape, the click of the red button cutting me off mid-sentence. I only hoped that when these thoughts finally left me, it would be just as sudden.
Coiling the microphone lead around my fingers, I climbed to my feet and breathed out deeply to sea. All right, I’d only spoken into a tape for twenty minutes, but I’d never have entertained the idea at the start of the day. It had to be worth something, and as Ade’s arms snaked around my shoulders, pulling my head next to hers, I had no doubt, no doubt at all, that I’d made a start.