by Adrian Laing
Davy looked as if he was deep in thought and then pronounced judgment. “That’s real nice, Sarah-Jane. I like that.” Davy raised his little glass towards Sarah-Jane to thank her and looked over at Mark who seemed to be reading Davy’s mind.
“Don’t worry Davy, I’ll role play the slave,” said Mark, relived that he could now laugh out loud, and on cue Sean started to laugh openly.
“Well, I’m glad we’ve sorted all that lot out. Come let’s finish up and then Sagi No Sun can take us all through some well-deserved Tai Chi, yes?”
Sagi No Sun looked over towards Helen.
“It’ll be my pleasure,” said Sagi No Sun in a clear north London accent. “Maybe in the garden or even over the Heath, what would you all prefer? You can call me Edmund by the way, I’m from Finchley. I don’t really like being called Sagi. Don’t ask; it’s a long story.”
29
“I don’t understand it, dad. I was up at five this morning looking for places that sell newspapers. I waited at King’s Cross station for the first editions of all the papers, searching for spoilers on the net. At 5.30 this morning I get this copy of the Sunday News. We’re not in it. Nothing. I thought today was our D-Day. But there’s nothing, I don’t understand. You been pulling tricks dad? I’m so relieved, I can’t tell you. Do you think they’re just holding off to get more dirt for next week or what? I mean has the storm passed, blown out or is it about to hit us next week – or the week after? I mean what’s your take on this dad?”
David smiled as if he knew all along that there was nothing to worry about.
“I told you JC, there was nothing to worry about. Would daddy lie to you?”
JC made an exaggerated ‘phew’ sound and sat back as if he had just been given the best news ever. “Oh god, I’m so relieved. Can this day get any better?”
“This seems to be as good a time as any I think,” said Helen cryptically.
“As good a time as any for what, Helen?” asked David; the same thought was in JC’s mind.
Helen continued confidently, as if she had been thinking about this for some time. “It’s time to really take stock, you know, seriously appraise The Place, think about what we do – and what we don’t do – who we let in and don’t let in; what we charge, the therapists we use – I mean remind us David how we brought in ‘Edmund from Finchley’ – what activities we use – and why – what doesn’t work, whether we need more staff, eating arrangements, sleeping arrangements, I mean everything.”
David and JC, a bit taken aback, looked at each other with some concern.
David decided to cut to the chase. “OK, I put my hands up to the Sagi No Sun cock-up, or should I say misunderstanding? Edmund, from Finchley. I thought from his website he had trained as a monk from birth at the Shaolin Temple – you know the sort of centre of the universe for all the real Kung Fu stuff going back hundreds of years, near the Pagoda Forest in China. I should have read his website a bit more closely. I really expected something more… authentic, that’s all. When he said he’s a frequent visitor to the Pagoda Forest I think he must be talking about the Chinese take-away in Golder’s Green. I thought his real name was Sagi No Sun. Turns out his students used to call him saggy, and he’d say ‘saggy’, wave a finger, and say ‘no son’ which he then decided, as a name, was pretty cool. That’s what Henry told me anyway. No harm done; I guess the tai chi session went alright, didn’t it?” Helen and JC tried not to smirk; it didn’t seem fair.
“Anyway,” said David, quickly checking that it was OK to move on, “maybe what we really need is a holiday. Somewhere real special, away from The Place, you know just for a few days and mull things over. What do you think?”
“OK, David. Maybe you’re right, I’ll have a think. But that’s the point you see. Because it’s really just the three of us who run The Place there’s no opportunity for us to relax – I mean really we’re all on duty twenty-four seven. It’s wonderfully balanced right now – there’s only Davy, Mark, Sean and Sarah-Jane here, but as we know that can all change in the blink of an eye.”
David took the opportunity to change the subject. “And what about Sarah-Jane? I can see that Mark, Davy – even Sean – are all about ready to leave, but I can’t see the end in sight for Sarah-Jane, can you Helen?”
“Hmm. It’s a balancing act, David. The problem is that Sarah-Jane is still suffering from the trauma of her mother’s death. For nearly thirty years she’s been medicated and treated with kid gloves to avoid dealing with all the issues: the pain, the guilt, the horror of it all – it’s a high risk strategy to let the volcano go off but by the same token what’s the point of her being here if we don’t try to engage with her on some sort of real level.”
“OK,” said JC, still on a high from the relief of not seeing a hatchet job on the unholy Trinity on the front page of the Sunday News, “so what’s the problem?”
“The problem JC is that if we screw this one up I’m not sure we’ll recover. All that stuff with the Sunday News was mild in comparison to what could happen with Sarah-Jane. I’m not sure you understand how disturbed Sarah-Jane really is. I mean all I’d have to do is take her meds away for one day – I mean one day – and you’d see a very different creature emerge. We always say that we’re not about curing people and that’s very much the case with Sarah-Jane. We can’t cure her any more than we can change her past.”
“But,” said David, “we can make her emotionally stronger, let her understand herself better, give her experiences that provoke strong emotions, make her feel more alive. You know, what we do all the time.”
“David, I’m saying that Sarah-Jane is different. Mark is incredibly talented, successful – balanced even. He’s here for the ride, for the fun of it and that’s fine, why not? Davy, well I think Davy’s getting the point – whether he sees it or not – that he’s got more energy than he’s had for a long time, that’s what his book is all about. He knows there’ll come a point soon when he feels ready to get back on the road, and the timing is to a large extent out of our hands. Sean’s just a kid whose confidence needs building up and that process is happening by the hour. I’m not sure he’ll be staying for more than another day or two and then he’ll be as ready as he’ll ever be to get back into the fray. With Sarah-Jane it’s all different, as I said.”
“So,” said JC, “what are you suggesting we do with her?”
Helen looked as serious as she had ever looked. “First of all I need to talk to the dad, Charlie. I’m going to explain it as I see it. I want to do with Sarah-Jane what we’ve done with Davy and substitute a placebo – here and there – for the cocktail of drugs she’s taking. But I feel – if I’m really honest – a bit out of my depth here. I need to get a detailed opinion from Sarah-Jane’s doctor what these drugs are really doing to Sarah-Jane and what’s going to happen when we start a withdrawal process. This isn’t routine cold turkey.”
“Sounds good, Helen. What’s the problem?” David knew that there were some wild waters to navigate and to David that was simply a challenge to be overcome. “I’ll stay close to her Helen, she’ll be OK, I promise. In the meantime I guess it’s business as usual.
***
“What’s the longest distance you’ve ever run, Sean?” JC thought he was prepared for the answer and was thinking in terms of maybe eight kilometres or thereabouts.
“I couldn’t tell you exactly, JC. I used to jog all the time when I was fourteen or fifteen, sometimes for hours at a time. It was never about the distance, it was about the length of time I could keep going.”
“And you Davy and Mark? What about you two?”
“Man, I don’t know. I’ve never seen the point of running on my own, it was never my thing.” Davy clearly wasn’t going to commit himself to a figure.
“I took part in a charity event once,” said Mark. “I think it was ten kilometres but I flaked out about half way round. I’d like to
do the marathon one day, just to show people I’ve got it in me.”
JC looked at Sarah-Jane who among them all looked not quite right in her pastel coloured track suit.
“I used to do some cheerleading which I know like doesn’t really count, JC, but we’d train for hours and keep going for long stretches. What have you got in mind?”
JC didn’t have much in mind, really. He had agreed with Helen and his dad that he would take Davy, Mark, Sean and Sarah-Jane over Hampstead Heath at the crack of dawn and see how far he could push them, to the point of complete and utter exhaustion without killing them. That was the plan, to push them to their limits.
“OK, what we’re going to do is this. We’re going to keep with the slowest member of the group,” said JC looking at Davy. “We’re going to walk, jog and sprint. But the whole point is that we don’t stop. If you get really tired, then we walk but we keep going. It’s not about distance; it’s about the length of time we can keep going. Is that clear? OK, let’s go.” JC had no idea how long this little jaunt this would last for.
***
“Well, how long did it go on for, JC?” Helen couldn’t quite believe it, nor could David.
“Roughly,” said JC proudly “all day. I thought Sarah-Jane would drop out quite quickly but she just kept going. I mean it was an art to balance out the walking with the jogging and to keep the sprints to a minimum but, all day, really. No food at all, only water and some energy drinks taken along the way.”
“No wonder they’re so quiet, reckon they haven’t slept so soundly for years. I mean all of them.” David was impressed.
“Listen JC, well done I really mean that, this is perfect. You know I spoke at length with Sarah-Jane’s doctor and he said if you’re going to mess around with her meds you’d better have a plan to substitute the effects of the drugs. He thought he was being cute when he said ‘you’d need to keep her exercising for hours, and I mean hours’. This is a big step forward, JC, thank you.”
“My pleasure, Helen. I like Sarah-Jane you know. Sometimes I feel as if she knows exactly what her problems are, but what’s heart-breaking is that they’re so deep rooted, like some unspeakable truth.”
Helen looked as if it was all going to plan. “OK, we let them sleep for as long as they want. We take a healthy breakfast to their rooms and then straight into a Gootsy finale.
30
“Good evening one and all, welcome, welcome.” Gootsy shook the hands of Sarah-Jane, Sean, Mark and Davy one by one as if he was letting them know that this was their last session with him.
The Encounter Area looked ominous. In the centre of the room were placed a number of armless white cushioned seats which fitted together to form a semicircle facing the mirrors. Gootsy signalled to the group to sit, which they did reluctantly not knowing what to expect next.
“Today, my friends, no props, no tricks, just us.” Gootsy sounded very sad and bowed his head.
Without warning the lights went out and Gootsy’s face appeared on the mirrors. “Fooled ya,” said the image and the lights came back on as if nothing had happened. But no one was laughing, least of all Gootsy.
“Today I don’t want you to trust me, not for one moment. I may lie to you, in fact I already have, and I will lie again. Today is the end day, the day when you can say what you want, it doesn’t matter. Anything you want, you understand, it doesn’t matter.”
The group tried not to sneak a look at each other as if to reassure themselves it was alright but they had a feeling it wasn’t alright. Gootsy looked down at the floor, his legs crossed and twiddled his foot round and round as if he was expecting something to happen and then looked up at the group.
“Why are you looking at me? Have you nothing to say for yourselves? Is it my job to put words into your mouths?”
Davy, Sarah-Jane, Sean and Mark began to fidget collectively.
“You know what I want to talk about my friends?” said Gootsy. “What I want to talk about is life and death, but not in that order. First of all, I want to talk about death. Is that OK? I mean does anybody mind? Perhaps someone thinks death has got nothing to do with them. Sean, do you think about death, or are you too young for such matters? Maybe you think you’ll live forever and ever, happily ever after in a castle maybe with a beautiful princess who will bear you lots of nice little princes and princesses. Is that what you think?”
Perhaps it was because of his marathon expedition the day before or the magnificent sleep that followed or maybe it was the King’s breakfast earlier in the day, but the fact was that Sean felt great.
“I’m nearly an adult, Gootsy. You remind me of one of my uncles – the one who died of cancer when he was forty. This type of crap doesn’t freak me out; I’ve been more scared on a roller coaster or in a house of horrors in Great Yarmouth. Sure I think of death. Like I think, I better get out there and do my stuff before one day, soon, I won’t have a choice because you know I’ll be like dead.”
Sarah-Jane was quick off the mark. “Hey, Sean, well hello to you. I thought you said that no one close to you had died.” Sarah-Jane’s tone was slightly sarcastic, as if she was trying to catch Sean out.
“Yeah, I did, Sarah-Jane. My uncle died before I was born, I never even knew him. My dad showed me a picture of him and he kinda looked like Gootsy, you know when he was dying after the treatment, all slap head-like and everything.”
“Tell it like it is, brother.” Davy seemed quite happy for Sarah-Jane to be put in her place.
“Let me tell you something my friends,” said Gootsy solemnly. “I too have cancer, prostate cancer, inoperable. My days are numbered, but I am happy, really quite joyous – do you understand that?”
The group went silent.
“Oh, man that’s really sad, Gootsy, I’m sorry to hear that, really, I am,” said Davy.
“I don’t know what to say, Gootsy,” said Sarah-Jane, “that’s really awful. Can’t the doctors do anything?”
Gootsy smiled. “Do anything, Sarah-Jane? Maybe I can buy immortality? Death is a certainty; we can influence the timing, for what it’s worth, but in the end it makes no difference. We come, we go. An eternity of silence interrupted briefly by a few tears and some smelly bits.”
Suddenly the mirrors came to life and there on the big screen was what looked like a home movie from many years ago. The images were of a young boy building a sand castle on a beach somewhere. It was such a beautifully crafted castle, with a moat and turrets and a little flag flying from the castle wall. The boy stood back admiring his work, turned to the camera and then fell backwards, arms spread out wide with a big smile on his face, little spade in hand and fell full on the castle, flattening it.
Gootsy laughed out loud. “Yes, that’s me. I still remember that moment as if it were yesterday. My parents always thought I was a bit odd – I always had this peculiar sense of humour. I remember thinking that the castle was so good, so perfect, that it wouldn’t last. I knew someone bigger than me would come along and stamp all over it, or the wind would come and blow it down, or the sea would come in and swallow it up. I thought ‘I built it, it’s mine, I created it, so I want the pleasure of flattening it.’”
The images disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. “I’m sorry, my friends. This should be about you, not me.” Gootsy seemed genuinely apologetic and started to sob gently. “I may seem sad my friends, but I’m very happy inside,” said Gootsy as he continued to sob.
Sarah-Jane moved over to Gootsy and gave him a big hug. “Jeez, Gootsy. What can I say?”
Gootsy snuggled closer to Sarah-Jane and took his time before responding.
“What can you say? I’ll tell you what you can say, Sarah-Jane. You can promise me you’ll make a decision. Decide whether to live or die. Is that too much?”
Gootsy looked deep into Sarah-Jane’s eyes. “Tell me Sarah-Jane, really, in your heart of hearts, do you want
to live or die?”
Sarah-Jane stared into Gootsy’s sad, old eyes. “I’ll tell you what, Gootsy. I want to live, I really do.”
There followed no theatrics or effects or surprises of any kind. A group hug just sort of happened, even young Sean clinging on to the others as if in a little boat lost in the midst of a wide ocean and there they remained in silence for what seemed like a very long time.
31
Helen took a long, hard look at Sean. “So, Sean, you’re ready to leave. Are you sure you’re ready to throw yourself back into the snake pit? What have you got left? Is it four or five days before the live final? Do you have any routines you need to learn?”
Sean looked at Helen, David and JC. To David, Sean almost looked like a different person to the one who had been brought to The Place only a few days previously.
“I’m OK. I haven’t been rehearsing anything but when I’ve been running with JC I’ve been going over some lines of a song I’m going to do at the right moment. That’s what goes through my head. I’ve been getting texts from my mentor and I reckon I’ve got my head sorted, you know enough to get back in there and not fall apart. I really feel as if I’ve been rehearsing a game plan, if you know what I mean.”
“I think we know what you mean, Sean,” said Helen maternally. “You remember what you were like when you first arrived? I’m sure I speak for all of us Sean when I say you’ve changed so much over such a short period of time, it’s really impressive. We’re really very proud of you Sean.”
“Helen, JC and David, listen, thank you. It’s funny you know. I do feel different. I guess I’ll tell people I had a swim, went for a couple of runs, watched a movie, slept well, ate well, did a bit of Tai Chi, met some funny old geezer, just like any old holiday really. But I know it was a lot more than that. Maybe the difference was the people I’ve met – they seem so much more real than those I’m used to dealing with. Maybe that’s it. Anyway, I’m feeling great, thank you. I don’t know what to say really.”