Waving Not Drowning 16: The Drunken Elephant Loses it

Have you ever imagined what it feels like when you’re drowning? I’ve already mentioned the burning in the nostrils. Did I mention your head feels like it’s about to burst? But it's not just that. You’re still struggling to follow normal rules. The one thing you focus on is how far you will keep going before you bob up again. Will you bob back up? I remember (after we let go of one another) pulling my arms into my sides, trying to make myself more streamlined, subconsciously thinking that the faster I went down the faster I would get to the bottom. Of course I didn’t realise that I’d never touch the bottom and besides it wasn’t a place you wanted to go. Where all the bones lay undiscovered year upon year.
Basically all the creatures that’d never bobbed back up.

That was when I saw Stephen. Through the thick, brown water he’d looked as if he was standing on his head. And in that second that my eye flew open, involuntarily almost, he was swimming into a creeping patch of shadow, as black as an oil slick.

* * * *

We sat on a bench overlooking a sea that was grey, sludgy and indistinguishable from the sky. I wrapped my hands around my polystyrene cup of tea and huddled in close.
‘It’s shit here,’ Stephen said.
‘No it’s not, smell the fresh air, it’s lovely,’ I said though my inner teenager was nodding in agreement.
‘None of the games work properly in that arcade, that fella ripped me off, he only gave me forty pence in change when I gave him a pound,’ Stephen grumbled.
He then bit into his fried egg roll, the yellowy yolk running down his chin, then dripping onto the enormous waterproof coat I’d bought him. I’d counted on the fact that it would be warm, that it would be sunny enough to sit on the beach. I’d even had visions of us swimming. So far it had rained continually. In the short periods when it stopped, the wind started, a wind so cold that it made your nose run and made snot freeze to your face.
‘We’ll do a bit of exploring tomorrow eh?’ I said trying to sound positive.
Stephen shoved the rest of the roll in his mouth, pulled the plastic hood up around his ears and looked at a space somewhere between his feet.
‘I hope I don’t see anyone I know,’ he mumbled into the concrete.
‘Why would it matter?’ I asked.
‘I would die if anyone saw me wearing this,’ he said holding one arm limply in the air.
‘It’s got a hood on it hasn’t it?’ I said grumpily.
We’d only been here for three days and already I’d turned into his mother. Soon I’d be nagging him about going to Sixth Form College and telling him to put a scarf on before he went outside.
Stephen pulled out his mobile and started texting, his fingers moving so fast I couldn’t follow.
‘Who's that?’ I asked trying to sound casual.
‘Just my sister, she wanted to know where I was,’ he replied.
I wanted to believe him. I had to. If he was texting Danny we’d both be finished.
‘Let’s go back to the B&B,’ I said.
Stephen shrugged. I tried to link arms with him as we bent into the force of the wind but he pulled away and ran off towards Cliff View.

I’d like to say that Cliff View was a wonderful place, a kindly place, a place ruled by friendly people who cooked you breakfast and placed your wellbeing and happiness at the very core of everything they did. Instead it was ruled by an old witch who didn’t believe in central heating and forced the inhabitants to get up at seven thirty in the morning if they wanted any breakfast and even if they didn’t woke them up with sounds of hoovering, sighing, tinkering cutlery, moving furniture, clanging milk bottles together, anything she could think of to get you out of bed, out of your room and expelled into the bitter cold.

Already she’d made it obvious that we weren’t her idea of desirable B&B residents. At first I’d pretended that Stephen was my son (I probably could have passed for his Gran at this stage) but on the second day at breakfast the Cliff Witch overheard Stephen call me Jess. In the moment that her eyebrows catapulted up into the roots of her white, wispy hair it was clear she'd made her mind up. From then on she’d eyed us with nothing but suspicion and antipathy.

Once inside our room (a mix of custard powder and mothballs permeated everything), I cracked open an extra strong lager and lay down on the bed which had one of those thick textured bedspreads like the ones they’d had back in Shady Sands. Tucked in so tight that you woke up in a panic in the middle of the night convinced you’d been mummified.
‘Can I borrow a couple of quid?’ Stephen asked slumping onto the small stool next to the dressing table on which stood four beers, two packets of cigarettes, a half bottle of vodka and a copy of Playstation magazine.
‘We’ve only just got back,’ I said looking over at the bedside clock. It was one thirty and we had hours to kill before nighttime. Night was the bit I looked forward to most because by then I was properly drunk, not just whoozy and irritable. I opened up my throat, employing a ‘direct strike’ pouring the lager straight to where it was needed most. If I could have injected it straight into my head or liver I would have done, I wanted it as fast as possible. I then gestured for Stephen to take a can, which he did somewhat more reluctantly that usual I noticed (was he growing bored of our rock and roll lifestyle? Surely this was every teenage boys dream!)

All in this entire trip was not how I’d imagined it would be. Stephen was grumpy, without the distraction of his mates, it was obvious that I was getting on his nerves. The previous day he’d disappeared to the arcade and when he’d returned he’d been morose, not like the Stephen I’d got to know back at the flat. He hated the cold, the sea was shit, the arcade didn’t have proper games, the shops were too expensive, the TV was too small, the beach didn’t look like a proper beach. He kept asking what we were doing here and when we were going to leave. I was disappointed that he wasn’t embracing the adventure. Here we were in a new place, with completely new surroundings, didn’t he realise that this was exciting? Except it wasn’t, I knew it wasn’t. In fact I was beginning to believe that even Shady Sands was a better option, at least there I could have a proper conversation, people listened to me and the only downer was the not drinking. But what was I thinking? Not drinking! Ha bloody ha.

Stephen wandered over to the window and looked out at the sea. It had cost an extra twenty five pound a night but it was money well spent, at least it provided some distraction, something to stare at that wasn’t the TV or one another. Much to Stephen’s despair, we hadn’t got the Playstation working so instead he’d had to pass the time reading about blowing up cars and hacking people’s arms off.
‘It’s started raining again,’ he said flatly pulling off his plastic anorak and throwing it into the corner. He switched the tiny TV on and a big jolly woman came into focus. We fell silent as we watched her enthusiastically chop a courgette into a zillion pieces, throwing them into a cast iron pan.
‘Can we get chips tonight?’ Stephen said.
‘I thought we’d go somewhere nice,’ I said pulling myself up, ‘Maybe try that pub The Crown? Do you fancy that?’
‘Spose so,’ he replied.
For a millisecond I saw everything as it really was, me on the bed staring at the back of a sullen teenagers head in a drab B&B miles away from my family, my job, my life as I’d known it. But then it was gone again and I lit up a cigarette and settled back to watch the fat lady making ratatouille.

By half past seven I’d finished the remaining beers and was back on the vodka. Stephen was reading his Playstation magazine for the hundredth time, perhaps hoping that the longer he stared at the pictures the more likely they were to start moving and he could resume play once more.
‘Read to me,’ I said staring up at the ceiling where a huge Daddy Long legs was scuttling towards one of the light fittings.
So far I’d made sure he did at least one short burst of reading out loud every day. It was important that we kept up some sort of education while we were here.
‘In this game, each player is thrown into their own nightmare survival scenario...’ he paused, ‘They can either run scared from the Grebs,’
‘Who are they?’ I interrupted.
‘Like zombies but worse,’ Stephen said.
‘Carry on.’
Stephen leaned in closer to the magazine.
‘Or they can shoot their heads off.’
‘Why are these games so violent?’ I said pushing myself into a standing position.
You do a lot of steadying yourself when you drink. Gravity is constantly conspiring against you and objects become necessary supports as the day wears on.
‘It’s more fun if it’s violent,’ he said closing the magazine, ‘It’s like stress relief when you see them explode, it’s only made up.’
‘It’s terrible,’ I said back in Mum mode.
‘Said the woman who drinks all day,’ Stephen replied.
‘Don’t be clever,’ I retorted and swayed into the bathroom to have a wash.

Later when it was time to go out, I made a bit more of effort than usual. I pulled on the only clean trousers I had (packing whilst drunk may be fun but you end up with some bizarre outfits) and my favourite cream and black polka dot blouse, accessorising it with a lopsided grin that only the true wino can pull off. We walked up to the pub arm in arm, enjoying the feeling of the fresh, cold wind on our faces after the horrible mouldy fug of the B&B. I was looking forward to an evening spent in the company of others rather than holed up in a room staring at the TV until my eyes dried shut. Tonight would be the start of something, a more outward facing existence. Perhaps the previous couple of days had just been a blip. Once we found the right environment, Stephen’s mood would improve and he’d go back to being the Stephen I liked (I hesitate to say LOVE, but it was love, there’s little doubt about that now).

Whatever happened it was obvious we couldn’t stay at the witch’s house much longer.

The Crown pub was the kind of place I would have loved had I been sober and with my family. It was full of nice middle class people in big comfy bright sweaters and flowery wellies, all chirping loudly over the menu which was basically trumped up fish and chips. However it definitely wasn’t the place for an alcoholic barista and her teenage hoodie accomplice. Everyone stared at us when we walked in and sat down at a table, the landlord, the waitress, the family beside us, the family in the corner, even the stuffed turkey in the glass display cabinet over the fireside. I tried my best to ignore them all.
What was so weird about us that we stood out wherever we went?
‘What’s Coulis?’ Stephen asked concentrating on the menu.
This was what I liked about Stephen, he didn’t care about other people, didn’t even notice when they gawped as we stumbled past them marinated in beer and vodka.
‘In what context?’ I said tapping my fingers on the table.
Exactly twenty minutes had past since I’d had my last drink. I needed a top up. Not a big one, not at this stage but a top up was definitely required.
‘It says ‘Raspberry Fromage Frais with Coulis,’’
‘It’s just a pretentious way of saying ‘Müller Fruit Corner’’ I said.
Stephen went back to considering the menu.
I wasn’t interested in food. Food was for wimps. I needed liquids. Strong liquids. Red liquids that danced in my belly and made me sing!
‘I think I’ll have the steak,’ Stephen said.
He smiled for the first time in three days.
‘Have you brushed your teeth?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
His smile quickly dissolved and he fiddled with his plate.

Once the waitress turned up she kept looking at my face and the area round my nose and then glancing down at my neck. It was most disconcerting. Stephen carried on fiddling with his plate and I pulled my hand up to my neck to see if I’d developed a goitre but there was nothing there. We ordered our meal (me Carrot and Pumpkin Soup, a bottle of wine, him Steak and Chips, a Watermelon Bacardi Breezer).
‘You’ve got white stuff on your nose,’ Stephen said once the waitress left.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
I picked up a spoon and studied my complexion. He was right. I’d been too enthusiastic applying the talcum powder to cover up the mess of red veins.
‘I’ll just pop to the loo.’

In the room that was designed exactly for that purpose, I patted at the end of my nose, distributing the powder onto both cheeks. Luckily the vodka I’d had back at the B&B was fully absorbed and I was feeling less on edge. This was the magic time, a time that was becoming more and more elusive. Everything seemed brighter, glossier, and ripe with potential. Before my drinking had become a serious habit, this feeling had been commonplace. Now it only visited me after significant amounts of alcohol and almost as soon as I noticed it, it was over. I hummed to myself, for some reason the Beach Boys were stuck in my head (Sail on Sail on Silver Girl?) went into a cubicle, pulled my knickers down and tried to pee. Nothing came. This was another thing I’d noticed; along with the red veins and the continual lust for magic, I’d stopped peeing. It was as if my body was trying to conserve every drop of liquid, whatever form it took. Some sort of laboratory experiment was going on in there, a small man with a Bunsen burner was distilling water from pure alcohol, putting it to work so my blood stayed wet and didn’t dry up. I quickly pulled my knickers up again, washed my hands and patted my hair (which was a few strands shy of full blown lunatic).

‘How long are we going to stay in this place?’ Stephen asked as I sat back down again giving the family to my left a dirty look.
I rummaged around in my stolen handbag looking for my lip balm. In another lifetime I’d been addicted to lip balm. Now I only applied it in the magic time when I felt I was a Hollywood actress and truly needed to keep up with appearances.
‘Why do you keep asking? Don’t you like it here?’ I said rubbing the balm into my lips and smacking them together.
‘It’s alright I guess,’ Stephen said.
The woman at the next table lent into her neighbour and whispered something. I narrowed my eyes and then widened them into one of those hard scary faces you do at school when you catch someone looking at you for a second too long. She quickly looked away and pretended to be interested in her napkin. The magic was rapidly making its way backwards out the door, continuing on its journey to a pub down the road where it would make someone else feel warm, bright and stupidly happy.
‘Go and see where our drinks are,’ I demanded.
Stephen got up but as he stood his jeans worked their way down so the top band of his Armani underwear was on show. He made no effort to pull them up and instead strode towards the bar until his jeans were almost at knee height and you could see the tops of his thighs. When he sat back down again I bit my lip, trying desperately NOT to tell him to pull his jeans up. I had to stop nagging. But the magic had gone and my mouth was already open, mouthing the words ‘why are your trousers so?’ when the waitress arrived carrying the drinks.
‘I’m afraid I can’t serve you an alcoholic drink,’ she said.
For a moment I thought she was talking to me, accusing me of being too inebriated to serve. I was just about to launch into a tirade, telling her exactly how sober I was when I realised she was looking at Stephen.
‘I’m eighteen,’ he said.
The waitress smirked.
‘Do you have ID on you?’
He shook his head.
‘You can have some of my wine,’ I suggested.
‘I’ll have a Coke then,’ Stephen said.
It was clear from her expression that the waitress didn’t see us as mother and son. What kind of mother would offer her underage son wine? I could never get anything right; I was either an overbearing schoolmistress or Keith Richards. I grabbed the bottle of wine she’d set down on the table.
‘Do you want to taste it first madam?’ she asked her eyes growing wider.
‘Just pour it,’ I said.
Dispense with the chitchat.
Get it down.

Soon our food arrived. But I had no interest in it. The idea of soup was ridiculous! What sort of person consumed a liquid with no alcohol in it? I managed a couple of spoons before I began to feel queasy. The semi-solids felt strange in my mouth, unfamiliar and I tried to work them around, on one side of my mouth, then the other, I sucked on a lump of carrot and eventually spat half of it into my napkin. In contrast Stephen was throwing himself into his steak with gusto. He had a gargantuan appetite for someone so small and skinny. He carved off a thick corner of meat, shoved it into his mouth, barely chewing before he skewered four chips onto his fork and ate those. He lent forward, checking that no one was looking at us, and grabbed my glass of wine, slurping three quarters of it then setting it down again.
‘Hey, watch it,’ I said.
I filled my glass up and territorially clasped it to my chest, the soup just sat there all orange and lumpy like baby gruel. I put my napkin on top of it and sipped at my wine, each sip got rid of the horrible carrot taste and whilst it didn’t make me feel anything like before, I did feel relaxed. In fact relaxed enough that I felt now was the time for a proper talk.
No barriers or forbidden topics.
That was when it popped out.
‘Did you ever find out who shot you?’
Almost immediately I felt my stomach do a little forward lurch, surprised at my audacity, first solids, now this!
Stephen didn’t look up, continued attacking his chips.
‘Didn’t you ever wonder who it was?’
He swallowed and looked up.
The waitress brought his Coke over and quickly scurried away.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Stephen said rubbing the blade of the knife back and forth over the meat, ‘Danny will get them. And by the time he’s finished they’ll regret it.’
He puffed his chest up and took a slurp of Coke. Then burped loudly. This time no one stared. We’d become the drunken elephant in the room. Everyone knew we were here but no one wanted to acknowledge us. I looked at Stephen, tried not to demonstrate that I had anything more than a passing interest in the whole thing, keeping my voice as flat and unresponsive as possible.
‘Do you suspect anyone?’
Stephen slowly shook his head.
‘It has to be someone in the flats, it was definitely someone on the third or fourth floor,’ he paused and laughed, ‘It could have been you!’
He popped another chip in his mouth and narrowed his eyes, searching my expression for clues.
‘Don’t be stupid! What would I know about guns!’
The edge of hysteria in my voice would have made Colombo march me down to the police station and bang me up immediately for attempted double murder. But Stephen was no Colombo. He just shrugged.
‘It would be funny,’ he said.
‘Why would it be funny? Don’t you think I’m up to it?’ I said feeling more hysterical by the moment, one minute trying to protest my naivety, the next peeved because he didn’t think I was hard enough. Stephen picked up his knife and pushed the point of the blade into his palm. He pushed gently. It looked as if the tip was going into his flesh.
‘Stop it!’ I shouted, loud enough that everyone fell silent.
The drunken elephant was making a proper racket, was running through the jungle screaming and could no longer be ignored. Stephen placed the knife back onto his plate and held his palm up.
‘It wasn’t touching, it was just a trick,’ he said smiling.
Something solid was stuck in the back of my throat, I grabbed the napkin that was still balanced on top of the soup and held it to my forehead, looking down at the table and willing myself not to cry. But it was too late; tears were welling up and then quickly dripping into the congealed soup.
‘What’s wrong?’ Stephen said.
I glanced up through my blurry eyes. He was leaning forwards in his chair, his face serious. He reached forward and grabbed my hand.
‘It was just a trick,’ he repeated putting his hand on top of mine and squeezing it. I pulled my hand away and rubbed at my eyes with the napkin.
The diners were confused, should they look or not look? The drunken elephant was crying!
‘I don’t like it when you behave like that,’ I said.
‘Like what?’ Stephen said.
‘I don’t like it when you behave like ‘them’, you know the kids.’
I put the napkin down, trying to compose myself. I poured the last of the wine into my glass and drank it in one go.
‘But I am a kid,’ he said.
‘I know but you’re not one of them, you’re different. You’re better… you’re good.’
Stephen didn’t answer.
When he reached for my hand the second time I let it stay there. This time I squeezed back. It didn’t offer up much comfort. Everything felt hopeless. This trip, running away, drinking all day, thinking I could save him when it was clear I couldn’t even look after myself.
‘You need to stop drinking,’ Stephen said, ‘It’s not good for you.’
In that moment he wasn’t a teenager.
He understood what needed to happen next.
‘Can you help me?’ I said.
He shrugged.
‘It can’t be that hard can it?’