The Kindness of Jude

“I’m sorry about your hand”

Jude stopped stroking my arm for a moment and looked down at it. It had been half an hour or more since he’d had to force the bathroom door open, to get me out, but it was still bleeding a little bit around the knuckles. He smiled;

“It’s ok – it hardly hurts at all now”

Even though I was still pretty out of it, I could tell he was just being polite. It must have been really uncomfortable. I looked at him and tried to focus on his face, but it kept going blurry

“Thank you.”
‘
He smiled again. He looked a little bit like a troll in a fairy story – he was quite short and stocky, and his face was ugly, but in a nice way. He always wore an odd little hat; I’d never seen him without it.

“I didn’t know you could do that – make yourself sick, I mean. It was nice of you to show me”

“Yes…..well, it’s what you have to do……are you feeling slightly better now?”

I tried to sit up to show how well it had worked, and he helped me, propping me against the wall, rubbing my back with gentle circular movements. I could feel the warmth of his hand through my tshirt – it was so comforting. I nodded. Being sick hadn’t actually been all that nice, but I definitely felt a little better. I thought I could even possibly stand up, although perhaps I’d wait a bit before I tried. The room was still going around, but not quite as much as before, and every now and then it stopped all together.

Suddenly, he stopped smiling, and squatted down to get closer to me, looking intently into my face. His voice sounded more serous, and quieter;

“You’ve got to stop this you know, it’s not good”

Instantly I was on the defensive. I looked away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

He shook his head, sighed, and got up

“I’m going to fix my hand up. I’ll be back in a minute ok?”

I closed my eyes, and didn’t reply, and a moment later, I heard the door opening, and then shutting again, and I could hear the sound of the tap running in the bathroom. Once I was sure he’d gone, I opened my eyes. At first, I didn’t do anything. I just sat, feeling empty, looking at the familiar things around me - the walls, which they’d covered with little drawings, the dirty floor, the overflowing ashtrays, the bits of torn up cardboard, the plates with melted candle wax on them.

After a while, the emptiness receded and I began to feel annoyed. I was still grateful to Jude – he’d been really kind, but that didn’t give him the right to lecture me as if I were a child. He had no idea how awful everything was – how dreadful I felt. It was none of his business either. If I wanted to sleep around, take all that stuff – it was up to me. Not anyone else. I would if I wanted. What did it matter? Nothing could get worse, and it made me feel better when I was out of it. Ok,, I might have overdone it a little this time. Got confused and taken too many – whatever they’d been – tuinals, secanols, mandies – I couldn’t remember exactly what for the moment, and it had been nice of him to help me out, but it still didn’t give him the right to tell me what to do.

I rubbed my face. I just felt so horrible all the time. And when I was wrecked it didn’t matter so much, and when I had sex with someone it made me feel less lonely for a while. Also it stopped me thinking about Max, and how I’d been such a failure at everything. I was fine anyway. They could all go and fuck themselves. Especially Max, but Jude could too. And then, now that I’d lost that lovely empty feeling, I began to cry again, slowly, because I didn’t want to carry on and everything was so black.

Jude came back in and put his arms around me for a minute, and then he went off and returned with some loo roll, and I blew my nose, and he pushed the hair out of my eyes and started speaking very quietly, saying things I knew weren’t true – about how I had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen, how nice I was, how I could do so much better, how I needed to stop drowning myself in all this, how I didn’t need to sleep with all those people, and then he hugged me, and made a funny face, which made me laugh. He asked me to promise him to think about what he’d said, and I told him I would. Then he ran a finger down my face, and smiled again;

“That’s better. You should sleep it off now – I think you’ll be ok in the morning. Here .. you can borrow my mattress…..I’ll sleep on the floor. I won’t be far.”

He gave me a kind of little push, to make me lie down properly, and I could feel him pulling off my boots – very gently. I remember looking up, expecting him to get in next to me, even after what he'd said, but he shook his head, and then he covered me with his sleeping bag, and it was so warm and comfortable, I must have fallen asleep almost immediately.