I’ve developed a grudging respect for my disease, it’s merely fighting to survive same as me; both of us were unwitting guinea pigs of doctors who misdiagnosed us, then prescribed inappropriate treatment, courtesy of the deplorable Sackler family. It was an osteopath in the end who felt the adhesions under my skin, with more skill in her fingertips and common sense than the scores of medics who had assessed me before. What precisely are they trained for if they can’t spot a disease as common as diabetes that only occurs in women?
“Can you draw your voice, Theo?” says the therapist. She gestures to the felt-tip pens, screaming with artificial brightness on the table.
I want to shout in her smug face. “You think I’m going to draw a bird in a cage or some shit like that? A bird of prey, too dangerous to set free? Forget it. I’m thirteen, not three.”
I don’t say it, of course. But my eyes must tell her because she sighs and stares at her ugly vegetarian shoes.
Walking through the early morning mist, I remember years ago thinking I was walking on clouds. When the mist was higher it would wrap itself around me pulling me to the old mansion.
It all started with a dare that I could not refuse: entering the local haunted house. I pulled the board from the entrance and an earthy musty smell raced out, as though it had waited too long to escape, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Opening the entrance further, I caught my first glimpse of the damage inside. Stairs were misshapen, lurching this way and that. Rustling erupted, balls scurried into the depths away from the light. Once inside the dust swirled around my feet and a breeze caressed my cheek like fingers, but I didn’t feel threatened.
It isn’t hard to ruin the life of a thirteen year old. I seem to do it all the time. Take yesterday:
‘Mum, you are ruining my life. Everybody has an iPhone. You need it to look things up in class and to talk to people. I’m completely humiliated without one. Who knows what people are saying about me?…’
‘I accept that your life is in tatters, and I’m sorry for you. But in 20 years you will come and find me, throw your arms around my neck, and thank me. You will be able to think without the help of influencers and you will not have a repeating backdrop of porn movies and pile-ons to spoil your dreams.’
You know why I hired you? Because convincing a halfway decent person to go out with me is an impossibility.
Recall Sam Jackson yelling and waving a gun in some poor bastard’s face. All the poor bastard can do is say “what” over and over again because he’s too terrified to even think.
Alfie disappears into the classroom without looking back. It swallows him whole. That’s good, I tell myself. He’s happy and I’m free to be ‘me’ again. It’s terrifying.
Turning towards the gate, I focus on the shiny new stilettoes that I hoped would bring me confidence. But I feel ridiculous. A pool of sweat is collecting beneath the too-tight waistband of my trousers, the material straining to contain my bulging flesh. Why did I let Ben convince me to pursue a career again, at my age? Asking his university colleagues to consider me for a job? They’ll see right through me. Inadequate. Embarrassing. Fat.
Feeling totally confused, Jaxon lay there. He could hear lots of noise, occasional conversation that seemed to be about him. His eyes refused to open; where the hell was he? Drifting off, the bleeps seemed to soothe him.
Out of nowhere appeared a boy about his age, wearing funny clothes like you see in the black and white photos his mam had. When he started to speak to him, Jaxon’s mind went into overdrive.
This morning, my algae soup tasted even blander than usual. Lifeless. Flavourless. Purposeless.
“Seems familiar,” I mused, granting myself a rare indulgence – not washing the bowl. Why bother? It joined the stack of unwashed dishes, each marking days of the same hollow thought.
Outside my house, I stood before the only soul who would have cared. She would have made me wash up; she made me a better man. Kneeling, I placed a small metal flower upon her makeshift grave. Its subtle blue hue was a stark contrast to this monochrome underground world of dirt and metal.
‘Could I actually just go in there and…? Let me think. Smother him? Yes, yes I could.’
‘We might not need to, Natasha. I’ve not been feeding him.’
‘You’ve been cutting back on his meals?’
‘I’ve not given him any food in seven days. Just water.’
‘He’s looking very gaunt, Annette. Do you mean you’ve been deliberately…?’
‘I want him dead. I hate him. This way we just say he wouldn’t eat, we say he…’
‘Refused food… we say he didn’t want to live any more with the pain of the cancer… we…’
‘We wait two more days. He can’t last out if we starve him.’
/
In his studio they looked at the paintings, many of them of themselves in the first flush of puberty, thin, uncomfortable, unhappy, all naked. Natasha remembered him painting Annette many times, then her turn came. She didn’t quite know what was going on. It’s art, darling, her mother insisted, keep still for Daddy and stop complaining. Her mother had practically pimped her. Creation from exploitation? That wasn’t art. Post-Jimmy Saville his reputation had crashed. Now he was reviled by many, his works removed from galleries. Quite right. Burn them all. A vile paedophile.
His sister though believed they had aesthetic value, said each haunted portrait revealed her mixed feelings: fear of her father and her unbreakable connection to him.
My mother tells me my middle name should be misfortunate. She blames it on my being born on Friday the 13th, sliding into the world feet first, causing her intense pain, which she still remarks on today.
”AS IF ITS MY FAULT I DIDN’T ASK TO BE BORN”
I had the misfortune to have very curly brown hair and green eyes, unlike the rest of my family. Mother is still convinced that I was swapped at birth.
This was it. I’d had my share of bad luck. After decades of caring for my ailing parents and alcoholic husband, then losing all of them, one by one, it was time to put myself first. Midlife, I decided, would be a new beginning. The mid-point of a novel, after all, isn’t the end of the story, but the moment the protagonist takes charge of their own destiny.
Where better to kick-start a change in fortune than Las Vegas?
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Nina slurred, and we all clinked glasses.
“Don’t look now,” she shout-whispered into my ear. “Hot guys, by the Blackjack table.”
I cringed. “We’re old enough to be their mothers!”
If you see this, just know that I held down the fort for as long as I could.
I scrunched up the letter in my hand, letting it squeeze through the gaps between my fingers. He’d been gone so long I wasn’t sure he was coming back, and my hope was draining. I decided to look after the shop while he went out for more supplies, although I doubted there was much left outside for us.
The shop, once bustling and filled with guests every fifth of November, was now empty, with only me and a few mice that scuttled from corner to corner for any sign of food. Its rich history cemented those bricks together, lived in the floors and lived in me.
How stupid do you have to be to fall down a well? Pretty stupid, I’m sure.
When I was eleven I did the very same thing when collecting water with my brother. Even after my mother, peeling and chopping a pile of potatoes over the sink, apron soaked with water and littered with small potato skins, warned us.
“Careful round that well,” she declared, eyes stuck to the potatoes. “You remember what happened with Dorothy’s poor wee lass.”
Fortuitously, the window was wide open when Greg hurled Alexa through it.
‘I’m so bloody sick of that voice that knows everything and patronises me and drives me completely round the bend. Good riddance. I hate you, Alexa.’
Poor Alexa. She had understood that things were not going too well, but this was beyond bad. Leaking and whining she fought her way, with the remains of her power, to a small grove which offered a bit of protection.
Billy Thomas and his little gang were sitting around a table at the back of the rugby club sipping their shandies.
The steward was keeping a watchful eye, the club was busy after a local derby. Both teams were strutting their stuff to impress the girls. They in turn were pretending they weren’t interested while quietly sizing them up.
The gang looked on from afar. Finally Owen Parry piped up.
”Don’t know why they bother, bitches all of them.”
They nodded as they knew Owen had fallen heavily for a girl, showering her with gifts only for her to turn him down when he asked for a date.
The land that surrounds me was, up until fairly recently, a lifeline to man’s very existence. There was a time when it was a valley of black waste, tall chimneys, steam powered locomotives and the pit head winding gear. Some men worked and some men died for a meagre pittance with which to feed their families. It was a place whose narrow seams crippled the people that produced the wealth for the owners. It was somewhere I used to work, not anymore. I kept telling myself that I’d never return to this hellhole. Since its closure, I find myself once again plodding over this once industrial landscape.
I have reached the age where wraiths of the dearly departed,-siblings, parents, babies lost before birth, partners, friends,- slip unbidden into the monochrome days and restless nights. They dart and hide at vision’s edge, ever eluding the spotlight of full consciousness. Yet as the procedure progresses, notwithstanding this lack of clarity, they appear more substantial, more tangible, than the creature standing beside me on hind legs.
I take a drag, the nicotine hit combined with the rush of seeing you again proving a heady concoction. My legs twitch with such an urgency to run that I fear they’ll carry me down the hill, unbidden, towards you. I force myself to remain seated, hidden from view.
You’re smoking now too, leaning against our tree, our connection as natural as thunder and lightning. I can’t believe you’re there. In the place we said we’d meet in twenty years’ time if things hadn’t worked out.
My love for her echoes the unconditional love she has for me. She has watched me laugh and cry from the day I was born and made sure she raised me as a sensitive, loving person. There has always been respect for decisions I have made in life and she has corrected many mistakes I have made. Her guidance has made me a more rounded person. The commitment I have for her will always be there.
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