Waving Not Drowning 18: It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

We climbed the stairs with trepidation.
Trepidation and in my case, some difficulty. Loading up on four beers and two glasses of wine before we’d even left the B&B had seemed like a good idea. Add to that the small bottle of vodka I’d finished on the train and I was well away. Stephen carried the Play station under one arm, a carrier bag full of booze, bread and milk in the other.
‘Hurry up,’ he said glancing out the window.
‘I’m going as fast as I can.’
Setting the bags down on the landing, I decided to rest for a moment. Why the big rush? No doubt there was something terrible waiting for us. To begin with I’d imagined smelly old food festering, perhaps mouldy milk in the fridge, a few flies chasing one another around the dirty washing piled up at the end of the bed. Now it was more terrifying, a rat’s body with Danny’s head, something that would greet us snarling, its mouth covered in blood and foam. It would go for me first, knock me down hard enough that I’d fly backwards and hit my head against the neighbour’s door. I’d be disorientated, unable to find my feet, by which time it would have bitten a gash in Stephen’s neck and blood would be spurting everywhere and I would have failed and before I even had a chance to defend myself it would have dragged me into the flat. I would try reasoning with it, I’d try and get it interested in Play station, some of the violent slasher films but it would turn its nose up, whisper something under its breath in a language I wouldn’t be able to understand and then slowly very slowly it’d disembowel me with his claws.
Drinking has its plus and its minus points. On the plus side of things, you don’t have to spend time sweating and feeling like your organs are fighting their way out from under the surface of your skin. On the bad side it makes you paranoid.

I’d also been thinking about the shooting. I’d even considered telling Stephen about it. The more I turned it over in my mind, the more I realised that we’d never be on the same level until I confessed. I couldn’t put the incident behind me until he knew that it was Mother Bird who had fired that rifle. On a good day, when I was having positive thoughts I got some comfort from the thought that it had brought us together. But on a bad day (and these bad days were more the norm), I felt guilt, terrible guilt, that I’d injured someone I now really cared about. But then again perhaps Stephen would think it was funny. Maybe he’d laugh. I mean the whole thing was ridiculous. Me with a gun! Jesse Bloody James ha ha! Oh yes Stephen would laugh when I told him.
Danny, well I wasn’t so sure.
Part of my mission now we’d returned to the flat was to keep Stephen away from Danny as much as possible. It was clear that Danny was a terrible influence what with his addiction to marijuana, mugging and being generally incomprehensible to anyone but himself. Now we were back, things would change. Stephen would need to be an adult, come to think of it; I would need to be an adult. A drunk adult but an adult nevertheless.

With all the power that manifested itself in my weak, pickled body, I struggled into a half standing position and leaning heavily on the banisters proceeded upwards step by faltering step. Stephen waited until we were both at the top and then produced the key. Instinctively I closed my eyes, waiting for Mum/Dad/Ruth/Rat Monster Danny to slap me across the face.
But there was no one there.
Nothing but the stale smell of cigarettes and flat beer.
‘Home Sweet Home,’ I said heading straight for the kitchen and the bottle opener in the drawer.
‘Playstation!’ Stephen shouted.
As long as we never opened the door again we’d be fine.

As Stephen hooked the Playstation up to the television, his hands shaking, not being able to wait a moment longer, I started satisfying my own addiction. Sitting down on a kitchen chair, I poured myself a large glass of red, then lit a cigarette. The first glass went down easy so I poured myself a second, then put some fish fingers under the grill for Stephen’s tea.

After throwing the contents of my bag onto the bedroom floor, I decided my next task would be to speak to Ruth. If I could convince her that everything was okay, then she’d reassure Mum and Dad, then I’d be left to get on with my drinking… until I really wanted to go back to Shady Sands which would be soon?...who knew?

Again I didn’t really have a solid plan in place. It would be encouraging to think that perhaps having realised that Southwold wasn’t the right place for us both to settle down, I was now carefully plotting our next move, reading through the school league tables, meticulously selecting the best location where Stephen could go to school and I could get a job. And under the surface, somewhere in my subconscious, next to some horrible Rat Monster perhaps I was. But it’s difficult to make plans when you drink. It’s difficult to even make sure your hair is brushed properly. You have moments when you think ‘Yes that’s it. I’ve got the answer!’ And just when you’re rushing round to find a piece of paper so you can write it down, because it’s such a clever thing, a solution to a problem that generations have struggled with, generations…just at that moment it’s gone. And you’re staring at a fish finger that is now burnt black.
‘What’s that smell?’ Stephen said running into the kitchen, his face flushed with the joy.
If I’d been more cynical I would have thought Playstation was the only reason he’d wanted to return.
‘Tea might be a bit late,’ I said, ‘Can you make me up some of that pear stuff while I see if there’s anything else in the freezer?’
Making tea.
Phoning Ruth.
See I was finally getting my life together!

Sitting on the bed, I dialled Ruth’s number. Whilst the phone was ringing I noticed a rather lovely handbag that I’d never seen before peeking out from under one of Stephen’s sweatshirts. It looked like one of those proper vintage handbags that cost an absolute fortune and I was just about to call Stephen in to ask him where it had come from when Ruth answered.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s me,’ I said turning the handbag round so I could get a good look at the label.
Mulberry. Weren’t they really expensive? I felt around inside with one hand to see if there was anything, any upmarket cosmetics, any fancy jewellery in there. Surely no one would care if I borrowed it for a while? Besides it had probably been up here for ages. If someone had missed it, well they would have come and got it wouldn’t they? I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, poor, old deluded soak.
‘Jess! Where are you? Oh god we’ve been so worried!’
Ruth’s words spilled out fast and her voice was annoyingly high pitched, like a pin stabbing into the back of my neck. I instinctively dropped the mobile and it rolled onto the floor. It was amazing how one moment you could be speaking on the phone to someone and the next so incredible sleepy. Now seemed like the perfect moment to recover from the long journey.
I awoke to Stephen shaking my shoulders.
‘I just spoke to your friend like twenty minutes ago, she said you hung up on her.’
I looked up.
If he’d said it was now 2011 I wouldn’t have been surprised. My mouth was dry and the room was dark. I made a noise a bit like a bear coming out of hibernation only to find out that it is still the middle of winter and they needn’t of bothered.
‘I hope you didn’t tell her I was here.’
Stephen looked at the floor.
Then the doorbell went.
Struggling to my feet, I noticed I was still clutching the Mulberry bag in one hand.
Disorientated doesn’t go far enough to describe it.

Apparently two hours had passed. After several failed attempts Ruth had been able to leave a voicemail. Then some ‘strange child’ had picked up the phone and told her that he was ‘playing’ in my flat. What was he doing in my flat? What was I doing in my flat? Every question led to another question so it was easier to let her in and answer them all in one session rather than talk through the intercom (not that I really knew any of the answers anyway). I buzzed her in and waited for what seemed an age for her to arrive. When she did she was breathing hard. She was fat enough that you could see that something was going on, her face was slightly pinker than usual.
‘Don’t even think about closing the door!’ she said as I thought about doing exactly that.
Ushering her in, I motioned for Stephen to go into the front room; I then led Ruth into the kitchen which was the one room that looked messy but not so messy that she would call social services immediately.
‘Do you fancy a drink?’
‘Oh god,’ Ruth said.
I followed her eye line and saw the row of empty wine and vodka bottles next to the kitchen sink, then the burnt fish fingers which were lying on the floor (how had they got there?) like four charred little corpses. I raised the bottle of Pear Pleasure to my lips. Luckily it was disguised in a bottle of lemonade so she’d never guess.
‘Is that Schnapps?’ she said.
I nodded my head but made no effort to put the bottle down. I would drink for as long as I could, I would slow down each moment so I could really savour it. No one would stop me. Not Ruth. Not Danny the Rat Monster.
‘You’re sick,’ Ruth said, ‘You’re terribly terribly sick. Come with me, I’ll drive you back. I’ll even stay with you tonight. You don’ t have to be on your own.’
I put the bottle back down on the table.
‘No way.’
My plan of convincing Ruth that everything was okay was flying out the window. Why were people always coming into my flat to ask me questions? Back when I’d been a chief barista things had been so much easier, no visitors, lots of peace and quiet.
‘Who is the boy?’ Ruth asked wrinkling up her nose.
‘He’s not ‘the boy’, he’s Stephen. Actually you probably remember him. I mentioned him to you ages ago.’
Ruth frowned, trying to cast her mind back to a time when we’d spoken on the phone regularly, long before I’d gone on the run with a teenage reprobate.
‘You know the one who gave me the finger. That’s him, it’s funny isn’t it?’
Ruth didn’t laugh.
‘Why is he here?’
‘We’re really good friends, that’s all,’ I said.
Ruth’s bottom lip quivered and she stood up. The bump was more noticeable from the side and I moved towards her, trying to put my arms around her shoulders. I had a moment where I saw what a terrible friend I’d been and how much she needed me. She was pregnant! She was going to have a baby. What kind of support was I?
‘Don’t,’ she said and moved towards the front door.
Then the doorbell went. It was a regular little, Piccadilly Circus today!
‘I’ll get it,’ Stephen shouted above the din of someone having his head minced up by a robot with rotating chainsaw arms.
Ruth span round and stared as Stephen padded towards the door, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, his designer pants hanging out of his trousers again.
‘So how are you?’ I said trying to change the subject.
‘How am I? How am I?’
Ruth muttered this over and over to herself in a sort of syncopated rhythm as she walked in a slow circle round the kitchen. Then Danny suddenly appeared in the hallway. I was taken aback to see he looked much the same as before. No rat body, no knife, he hadn’t grown any taller or more intimidating. He nodded, not really looking either myself or Ruth in the eye (but this was normal, he rarely got eye contact with anyone, these kids were allergic to eye contact), helped himself to the only clean glass on the counter, opened the fridge, hummed for a moment, then took out a beer and disappeared into the front room. Stephen was in the doorway and smiling, he quickly did the ‘thumbs up’ sign (not cool, he wouldn’t have done that if Danny had still been standing there), then the sounds of the chainsaw monster started up. Why had I been so paranoid? Everything was back to normal! Ruth shook her head very slowly as if she was trying to work out whether her neck still worked properly.
‘I’m not leaving until you explain what’s going on.’
There was nothing I could make up to explain it.
‘I’ve got a couple of new friends and as you can see, I’m drinking again,’ I said raising the bottle to my lips.
Ruth gave me a look like all I had to do was pack up my bag and she’d drive me straight to a safe place. It made me sad because we’d always been so attuned to one another, always known what the other was thinking but at this moment she couldn’t have been more misguided. I would only go back to Shady Sands when all the shops, pub, bars, restaurants in the land stopped selling alcohol. And not just alcohol I liked, literally all alcohol even that green minty stuff that you drink when you’re a teenager, that makes your sick all green.
‘Are you ready to go back?’
‘What do you think?’
Ruth nodded, bent down and picked her bag up off the floor.
‘What shall I tell your parents?’
‘The truth,’ I said.
As she walked towards the door I felt a twist in my stomach, like someone was tightening a band around it.
‘I split up with Jim,’ Ruth said as she reached the door.
‘Oh god, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.’
Then she shut the door and was gone before anything more could be said.
I finished what was left in the bottle and went back into the bedroom. I couldn’t face Danny, or Stephen not now. Danny wasn’t a monster, he was just a leech. Maybe Stephen was a leech as well. One worry disappears and another replaces it. I hadn’t considered how bad I’d feel seeing Ruth. All I could see were rat monsters and bizarre scenes out of slasher films. Now my friend had gone. And I was in no position to help her. She’d split up with Neil, the father of her baby. The couple that I’d imagined would visit me in the drunken old ladies’ home and bring me a bunch of grapes and a copy of Take a Break. The couple who would have lots of children who I would borrow on the weekends and take to the park and tell stories to and buy silly clothes for that Ruth would disapprove of.
I threw the handbag on the floor.
It was a stupid bag. For sad arrogant fashion victims. People who thought that a bag replaced a functioning brain and interesting conversation. I was happy it had been stolen. I would have stolen it too. I would have whacked it around the stupid fashion victim’s head so hard that the pocket with the stupid fake plastic lock would have been imprinted onto her cheek. Hey look how cool you are sucker!
I sat up and kicked the door shut.
It gets worse before it gets better.
Well that was just horseshit.