I can’t even begin to describe the thrill of being the person Neil searches for when the set is done. Probably because it’s totally new.
With grace and charm, he pushes past the well-wishers, friends, admirers old and new, and doubtless several people he’s already fucked.
“Hi, rash whisperer.” He plants a kiss on my cheek as someone hands him a beer. “Nice to see you. You look well.”
“I’m good.” I mean it, too. I also roll my eyes because we spoke by text a couple of hours earlier. But this is date night, so I’ll play along. “How have you been?”
Eyes brimming with a familiar spark, Neil tilts his head, encompassing the increasingly full bar and the DJ setting up on stage. “You know, same old, same old. Work, sleep, knocking things over, trying not to fall off the stage. But mostly, waiting impatiently for my favourite boy to show up.”
I finger my beads, more out of habit than necessity. Sun-warmed. Earthy. Real. “Well, here I am.”
“Give me five minutes and we’ll ship on out of here.”
“You’ll get the sack if you leave before the end of your shift.”
“I’ll rehire me tomorrow.” His hand closes over mine. “Haven’t you heard? Ez needs me. We’re expanding into the big time.”
Neil walks me to an Italian place not far from the bar. Apparently, he’s been a regular for years, and once I’ve tasted the butternut squash and chorizo gnocchi, I’ll become one too. The place is bright, cheerful, and packed, like all good Italian restaurants should be. The jolly owner, introduced to me as Gianmarco, claps Neil on the shoulder, then plucks a table for two out of thin air.
“Gianmarco’s brother is blind,” Neil informs me, brandishing the menu. “So there’s a QR code—look—which gives diners an audio option. There’s also a braille version. Cool, huh?” He hands the menu to me. “I don’t need it in any form, seeing as I can recite it. The shrimp risotto is also excellent.”
He’s not lying. Neil has his gnocchi, and I have the risotto, but we taste each other’s on each other’s forks. The wine slipsdown easily too. The two attractive women at the table next to ours have been admiring him all evening, not that he’s noticed. He’s barely looked at anyone but me. How did I get so lucky?
“When I was in Wales,” I tell him, mopping up the last of my creamy sauce with a crust of bread, “I tried to cook myself a risotto. It was a disaster. The cream curdled, and the rice was like gravel. I ate it straight from the pan with tears streaming down my cheeks. And not from the chopped onion.” I tear off another piece of bread. The me sitting here opposite Neil, enjoying a romantic dinner date, is unrecognisable from the hopeless lost soul shovelling burned risotto into the bin. “A clump of my hair bore the brunt of it,” I add, my hand automatically reaching for my hood. “Sorry, this is supposed to be a romantic date, not a pity party.”
Neil’s still not seen my patchy hair. Or, at least, he’s too much of a gentleman to mention if my hood slips during our nights together. He regards me over the top of his wine glass, those caramel flecks in his eyes dancing in the candlelight.
“Back in the hospital,” he says with a small frown. “When I woke from my op, you said you hadn’t been totally honest with me about how bad your mental health can be. Would… you be totally honest with me now?”
“You sure you want to ruin our date before we’ve even looked at the dessert menu?”
“It won’t ruin it.” He leans closer across the table. “We’ve got a sweet little thing going, remember? Nothing you ever tell me can ruin that.”
I top up my wine glass, since I’m going to need it. I top up Neil’s too. “Where do you want to start?”
“You went to Wales because you were starting to feel low. You told me your brain chemicals were imbalanced.” He chews his lip. “How does that feel? How do you know when you’re not simply tired or pissed off or…or miserable because you forgotyou had to, I dunno, finish a load of work admin when you had plans to chill instead?”
Neil’s expression is chockful of care, but I don’t have any neat sentences to describe the distressingly familiar internal soup of fear, misery, and frustration. Of wanting to reach out for help, to be held by someone who cares, yet, at the same time, wanting to disappear. But this is Neil asking. I trust him with my past, just as he’s trusted me with his secret. Which means that whatever I say, however weird or fucked up I sound, he won’t judge, disrespect, or think any less of me. So I give it my best shot.
“I don’t know,” I begin, honestly. “But when I was very ill for the first time, a few years ago, I didn’t recognise any of the signs, and was sectioned and admitted to a psychiatric hospital.”
I swallow another mouthful of buttered bread, chewing slowly. My belly’s full, but I don’t dare look up as Neil digests that bomb of information about me.
“And?” he enquires, as if I’m recounting a time I took a holiday to Spain. “What was that like?”
I shrug. “I don’t remember much about the day-to-day details. My brain was on another planet by then. Other people talk about black dogs, dark clouds descending, and noisy silences. I think maybe it’s different for everyone. But, building up to it, I remember being convinced I was being lured down into a dark basement. Where things ferment, where the mushrooms grow.”
Neil’s expression hasn’t altered. He asked for honesty. My only hope is that he can cope with hearing it.
I gulp my wine. “But I don’t feel that way anymore,” I add hurriedly. “I still have a community psych nurse if ever I feel myself slipping, but I don’t really need one these days. I don’t ever feel that bleak. We’ve found a combination of tablets which work well.” I take a more measured sip. “But when I come out ofmy smaller episodes, like the recent one, I don’t want people to tiptoe around me or treat me as fragile. So don’t, okay?”
“Fragile? Never.” Under the table, his shin hooks around mine. “Dangerous, maybe. Will you let me help you get through it next time it happens?”
As much as I’d like it otherwise, my depressive episodes are like aggravating cold sores. They inevitably reappear. Because Neil saysnext time, as if it’s already woven into our shared future, I agree.
“And the time after that, and the one after that?”
“Definitely.” Neil’s hand snakes across the table to give mine a squeeze. “Listen, I know it will happen again. I know you. And I’m totally in. No hesitation, no fear.” His mouth twitches. “But mostly, I’m after a free holiday in Wales.”
