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“I’m not gay. I’m so sorry. I’m not into men. I don’t do this. I don’t do this.”
My voice sounded thick; my tongue too big for my mouth. Hot, shameful tears blurred my vision. Gerard brushed himself down angrily.
“For fucks sake, mate. What the fuck are you doing?”
I backed off even further, one hand clapped over my mouth. I had a dreadful feeling I was about to puke. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I…I’ve…I’m…oh God.”
Lurching between two parked cars, I managed to turn my back on him before my guts hurled burger, chips, beer, and acidic red wine across the tarmac. From somewhere behind me, Gerard spewed a torrent of abuse. Caught between violent spasms, my stomach determined to turn itself inside out. And Gerard ceased to exist.
A LITTLE SOUL
(PULP)
MATT 2005
Question: when was the right time to leave a man who loved you very much, even when you tried your utmost to be unlovable?
Answer: at five a.m., like a thief in the night, while your generous lover slept.
Not possessing much in the way of belongings eased my vanishing act. Whereas both arms swathed in bandages didn’t. Fortunately, my destination—the bus stop—wasn’t far from Darren’s house. At dawn on a Sunday morning, the passengers slouched on the 276 to Stourbridge didn’t notice or care that my tracksuit bottoms trailed on the ground, or that my grubby bandages had begun to unravel. Or even that my face had taken on an unhealthy grey sheen and my hair hung lank with sweat across my forehead.
Another piece of good fortune was that Cartwright, my old history teacher,didcare. He cared a great deal, albeit in a teacherly, strict manner. If I’d let him, he’d care even more. His partner, Eric, a retired physiotherapist, cared also, and held the honour of being the only member of the health profession I had ever trusted.
“Phil gave us a heads up,” Cartwright said after opening his front door at that ungodly hour. Which explained why neither of them were particularly surprised to see me. My more severe depressive episodes and crawling back to Cartwright tended to go arm-in-arm. Eric’s hand landed on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
“Let’s get you up to bed, my poor old sausage.”
Cartwright wrapped his paisley dressing gown more tightly around his middle. “Are you and Darren…have you…?” Concern etched into the lines of his worn face.
I nodded, too fatigued, and nauseated to speak. There wasn’t much to say anyhow. More often than not, ending relationships also coincided with my depressive nadirs, although whether the chicken or the egg came first was hard to tell. As tempting as it was, apportioning blame for my slashed wrists on Darren’s unique brand of claustrophobic love conveniently overlooked every other precipitator, including my own sizeable hoard of demons.
The path leading to Cartwright’s neat suburban semi, on the outskirts of town, was a well-trodden one. So much so, I even had my own room, with a familiar, brown-checked bedspread. A pile of books and CDs I’d collected then abandoned, lay stacked neatly on the bedside table. Like all the other occasions over the years I’d sought refuge in their capable, non-judgemental company, I was soon changed into a pair of worn stripy pyjamas that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an air raid shelter during the Blitz. Once they had me tucked under the brown bedspread, Eric began unwinding my dressings.
I grew up in a so-called nuclear family. Two married parents and two kids. This traditional set up was held in esteem by society as being the ideal in which to raise children, as children in nuclear families received strength and stability from the two-parent structure. Yeah, right. So that was a fucking joke. The pair of queens currently fussing over my mangled arms, and a shiny-suited estate agent, were the closest thing to a family I’d ever had. And Brenner of course, bless his dead soul.
“Oooh, sweetie,” clucked Eric. “You are a pickle with all these nasty cuts. Lie back and let your Uncle Eric sort them for you.”
Cartwright said nothing, content to play Eric’s handmaiden as he redressed my arms. He never said much at first, I think he was too relieved I was still in one piece to string any words together. His assessment of my mental state and his gentle encouragement would come later after my more obvious wounds had healed.
“‘Pickle’? I was a sausage ten minutes ago, Eric. Make your bloody mind up.”
A whiskery kiss landed on my forehead. Eric reminded me of Phil’s mum in some ways, (minus the whiskers); how she used to fuss over him after he’d scabbed his knee or tumbled from his bike. I guess it was fairly standard mum behaviour if you were fortunate enough to be born to a mum who gave a shit about her kids. Between Eric’s pampering and Cartwright’s sternness, they filled the traditional mum and dad roles I’d never been lucky enough to experience.
“Sweetie, you’re not a sausage or a pickle. You’re caviar and champagne. And never forget it. One day someone else will realise, and that man will count his lucky stars.”
An alumnus of the stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-and-pull-yourself-together school of depression treatment, Cartwright had me back at work within a fortnight. Brisk walks in the fresh air, home-cooked food, and something to occupy my mind. If it was up to him, he’d chuck my pills in the bin. In contrast, Eric‘s feet were planted firmly in the medical camp, and he hovered over me three times a day to make sure I swallowed every tablet. Between us, we met somewhere in the middle, and the dull layers of smog blanketing my brain gradually thinned out.
At an unmarked moment in time, between Brenner’s brains being scooped off the tarmac of the A449 and my first serious depressive episode, my dreams of a rosy future had slid out of view. Other bouts of depressive illness followed, most memorably discovering the key to a successful hanging lay in an ability to tie a reliable slipknot. I’d regretted never being a boy scout and still had a faint scar in the shape of a ghoulish smile around my neck to remind me. A succession of McJobs followed, demonstrating I possessed neither the aptitude nor attitude to hold down a humdrum nine-to-five.
During the unpredictable windows when I was well enough, I earned my living with Cartwright, marking history exam papers for national exam boards. Totally illegal, of course, but having me alongside him at the kitchen table meant he ploughed through double the volume for double the money. He focused on medieval essay questions and I focused on the twentieth century. A win-win situation. Or a gin-gin situation, as Eric liked to call it, because as far as I could tell, that was what him and Cartwright spent most of their pensions on. Living (forty per cent) proof that booze and violence didn’t have to go hand-in-hand.
“We could always have another go at finding you a proper job,” he murmured one afternoon, as we trawled methodically through a stack of A-Level papers.
I’d been knee-deep in deciphering a dreadful essay on Lenin’s rise to power, my sluggish brain still struggling to regain an acceptable equilibrium. Days like this, when I had too little energy to achieve anything, zipped by, while simultaneously lasting an eternity. I see-sawed between an overwhelming urge to sleep, and headache-inducing jitteriness, which had me tossing and turning well into the small hours. Last night had been particularly bad, as Eric, who’d held my hand and stroked my hair, could attest. Cartwright had chosen to discuss my future at a vulnerable moment.
“There are so many online courses out there now,” he continued, as lightly as if we were debating whether to buy bacon or pork chops for tea. “You wouldn’t have to go to college. I saw a librarianship course advertised in the TES only last week.”
I knew this was coming, I just hadn’t predicted exactly when.
