Poetry From The Back Of My Hand

The Jim Burley Affair

The air is so fresh the day they section Anne that she is almost happy. It feels as though it is raining raw meat as the rain is heavy and squishy and plops, rather than falls down. She is wearing her Sunday best dress, the one that she had worn to church only hours before, and the sweater her nan knitted her.
“Why am I here?” she asks her mum, more out of curiosity than anger.
“Because of the incident this morning at the church, and the suicide attempt in the afternoon” her mum replies. Her mum begins to cry before looking at Fiona and stopping, wiping her tears away with the cuff of her sleeve.
“What happened this morning?”
“You tried to stab the priest.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh”
“Shouldn’t I be in prison?”
“No, you used a banana.”
“Oh.”
“Why, did you do it dear?”
“I had to..”
“I see.”
“What do you see?”

They are in the little room reserved for guests that holds little more than a desk and a couple of plastic chairs, and waiting for Doctor Neil to return to assess her. She has already met him and now knows what to expect. They have been told that she will remain there for at least a couple of days while they get her settled on medication but apart from that told little more than to wait.
Anne starts to pace the floor up and down, saying “Doctor Neil must really love me” to herself.
Her mum ignores thinks that it is directed at her and leans forward to catch what she is saying, but can’t make any of the sounds that Fiona is making distinguishable from the mumbling so leans back and waits with Fiona.
“Doctor must really love me.” Fiona says to her mum this time.
Her mum is about to correct her, say something is wrong with her and that she is here for a valid reason but the door opens and Doctor Neil comes in.
Her mother has to leave the room for the assessment to take place, which relieves Anne, a fact that she does not try to hide from anyone.
“You should go” she keeps on saying to her mother, interrupting both her and the Doctor.
“How are you feeling now” Doctor Neil begins once her mum has left.
“Fine, just fine. I just want to go home now thank you very much.”
“I’m afraid that is not possible for the time being. You will have to stay.
He asks her questions, questions, which she ignores while she stares past him at the wall with posters that read ‘asking for help is the hardest part’ and ‘the Crest Team are here to help.’
“I think that you should stay here, and am going to write that in the report. Now your mum expressed some anxiety about your stay here, but I assure you everything will be okay.”
Can I go home now.”
“No. Do you want your mum in here?”
“No.”
“I think that you may be suffering from psychosis. This usually occurs when there has been a severe incident in your life such as a loss. Has anything unusual happened to you recently?”
“I, umm I.”
“It’s okay, you can take your time.’
“My dad died, and… and”
“Yes.”
“I lost my job.”
“When did you start feeling down?”
“After my dad died.”
“when did he pass away?”
“Three months ago.”
“And when did you loose your job?”
“A month ago.”
“It says here that you self harm, when was the last time you hurt yourself?”
“I’m… I’m not sure.”
“Okay, that’s enough for now. I am putting you on Risperidone. You can leave here once you’re safely settled on it and a home treatment team will visit you.”
“Okay.”
“You can go to lunch now.”
Still dressed in her Sunday best she looks out of place in the food hall. The patients seem to walk around like zombies, with their hands stretched out in front of them. Compared to them she is normal. She doesn’t quite understand why she is there. She understands that the Doctor has a thing for her and that he had used his power for his advantage, but other than that understands little else.
She starts talking to herself, using her hands to articulate her thoughts, “why, didn’t he just say he liked me? does he suspect I don’t like him that way? Have I met him before today? No, I would have noticed such a shiny baldhead, seen its shine from my church pew or wherever I was at the time. He must be simply an opportunist. I must be part of the staff as they haven’t given me any medication yet, maybe I can learn to like him, and he is a Doctor after all.”
Anne fetches her lunch, which consists of fries, a casserole and peas and sat as far from the other patients as possible, which means she sits next to the staff. She looks around for the Doctor’s baldhead, before realizing that he must eat separately from them and wonders whether or not he is watching her and the others eat. She stops eating and looks around at the other patients, but they don’t seem as if they are being watched, so continues eating.
The first person she meets is Bridgette in the television room after afternoon tea. Bridgette is a little older than herself and not obviously ill like the others. She approaches Anne, extending her hand out for her to shake before saying her name and smiling. Anne is as polite as she can be as she wants to create a good impression, but she doesn’t talk to her the way she would have spoken to someone before today, but chooses to go and lie on her bed.
She rests her head on the flat pillow, curls up like a foetus and starts humming. She closes her eyes, and tries to think about something other than that day, but all she can see when she closes her eyes are the priest’s peculiarly big blue startled eyes opening then frowning after she had stabbed him.
She holds her hand over her stomach and feels a kick deep inside her. It is the same dull kick that had earlier made her think she was pregnant and subsequently tell her mum about the overdose. She knows that without the kick she would be dead now and the thought that she might be pregnant makes her smile then laugh and roll over on her back.
She sees herself on her bed at home cramming tablet after tablet in her mouth. She had laid out in front of her a Friends video, the book ‘PS I Love You’ and a letter that she had written to him, her old manager’s manager Mark. It had made perfect sense at the time the way apples made sense but knew she could not explain it to anyone else, as they wouldn’t even understand who he was in her life.
She missed him though, the way she missed her old boyfriend and began to cry the way she had when she had broken up with her boyfriend as if nothing could stop her and as if she would cry forever.
Mark, or Marcus as she called him, was actually Mark Mitchell, head of her section of the bank and not some one who dealt with her directly. He shuffled past her desk a few times a day, and seemed to be walking on air when he did walk past.
The first time Fiona met Mark was the first time she fell in love with someone at first sight. At a little over five feet seven inches he was small in stature and petite compared to her at five feet and eight inches. In heels she was six foot and towered over Mark, a thing she liked to do. In a short space of time he became important to her for the simple reason that he represented something that was unobtainable.
She hadn’t thought of him until recently when her dad had died and failed to make the connection between them that made her think of one every time she thought of the other.
She closes her eyes sees Mark at his desk, with his hair carefully gelled backwards and tells him to visit her where she now is. Once she sees him next to her in the room she smiles and says hello to him.
In the middle of summoning Mark to her room she hears a knock at the door, it opens and Bridgette comes in. Dressed in hospital paper-thin pyjamas, with a body that is thin and wasting away, Bridgette looks like a toilet roll holder. Fiona tries to turn away, after staring bleary eyed at her in the doorway. Bridgette comes in though and sits on her bed, gently clasping Fiona to her chest. She let herself crumble in Bridgette’s arms and begins to sob uncontrollably. She stays that way until the bell for dinner rings.
They go to dinner hand in hand, this time sitting away from the workers. She isn’t one of them it is clear to her now, but what isn’t clear to her is who she is in here. She doesn’t feel like Fiona, doesn’t see herself when she looks into the mirror. Someone else stares back at her, someone that is suffocating her and stopping her from seeing herself clearly.

After dinner, she goes straight to Bridgette’s room, who sits on the bed plaiting her hair. Together they dress up in Bridgette’s dresses and stared at themselves in the mirror, dancing to r’nb music then hip-hop.
“Why are you here?” Bridgette says once the dancing had finished and they were smoking on the floor.
“”They say I have Psychosis”
“What’s that?”
“I hear voices and see things which aren’t there.”
“Oh.”
“How about you?”
“Not sure.”
They start dancing again, and this time don’t stop until it’s time to take medication and say goodnight. When Fiona leaves, Bridgette is tucked up in bed and falling asleep.
Fiona is tired but can’t sleep properly that night even though her medication makes her drowsy. Instead she drifts in and out of sleep, hearing her notes read out to her in between dreams of him.
He comes to visit her in her dreams, and hugs her. For a moment she is the centre of his world as he is hers.
She wakes up at five in the morning and at first thinks that the bell for breakfast has gone off, but when she looks outside it is still dark, and still very much night time.
Things weren’t always this bad, weren’t always this confusing, there was a time when she was happy and though that time was far away from the present, didn’t feel untouchable. If anything it felt very much obtainable but somehow not real as well.
She falls asleep again just before the bell for breakfast goes, so sleeps through its rings. When she wakes up this time there is a hand covering her mouth and a body on top of her. It is Bridgette. Fiona screams through the fingers that are clasped around her lips, but doesn’t hear any sound come out of her mouth. She tries again to scream, to utter a single sound or syllable but nothing comes out. Instead the fingers tighten their grip on her. She gnaws away at them, as it is all that she can do under Bridgette’s weight but does little more than tighten the grip again.
At last the fingers come away from her mouth and she can breath, and now no longer scared she pushes Bridgette off her. Now free from Bridgette, she peels herself off her bed and begins to cry. This time Bridgette does not comfort her, but starts to laugh uncontrollably and then hiss like a snake before clasping her own hand to her mouth and leaving. As she leaves she beckons Fiona to follow her, and so she does. The hall is empty as is the television room in which they sit down.
“Why on earth did you do that for? You scared me.”
She does not get a response though.
“You could have killed me” Fiona continues, pulling her fingers through her hair.
“Should have. You lied. You said you like me but you weren’t there for breakfast.”
“I didn’t lie, sometimes things just happen, things you can’t stop.”
It takes Fiona a while to realise Bridgette is changed, she seems more out of control, and like the others walks as if blindfolded with her hands stretched out in front of her.
“They’ve put you on meds haven’t they?”
“So.”
“Bastards, you don’t need it.”
‘Yes I do. Go away leave me alone.”
Fiona purses her lips together and then bites at them. “I am not going on meds” she says emphatically just as Nurse Aldgate walks in.
“Yes you are dear” Nurse Aldgate says. “Everyone does in the end. It’s better that way.”

 

The air was so fresh the day they took Anne into the asylum that she was almost happy. She felt as though it was raining raw meat that afternoon as the rain was heavy and squishy and plopped, rather than fell down. She was wearing her Sunday best dress, the one that she had worn to church only hours before, and the sweater her nan had knitted her.
“Why am I here?” she asked her mum, more out of curiosity than anger.
“Because of the incident this morning at the church” her mum replied.
She had gone up to the altar that morning and nearly stabbed the priest. The priest though,  had been able to confiscate the weapon from her and subdue her, as if she had been no more than a puppy.
“What happened this morning?” she asked in a matter of fact way.
“You tried to stab the priest.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh”
“Shouldn’t I be in prison?”
“No, you used a banana.”
“Oh.”
“Why, did you do it dear?”
“I don’t know. I think I thought he was some kind of Alien of some sort.”
“I see.”
“What do you see?”
They were in the little room reserved for guests that held little more than a desk and a couple of plastic chairs, and waiting for Doctor Neil to return to assess her. They had been told that she would remain there for at least a couple of days while they got her settled on medication but apart from that told little more than to wait.
Anne started to pace the floor up and down in the little space available. Doctor Neil must really love me, she thought to herself. He must really want to be with me to risk his reputation and his career.
Anne seemed to pace the floor for hours before the Doctor finally turned up, but was assured by her mother that it was only a matter of minutes.
Her mother had to leave for the assessment to take place, which relieved Anne, a fact that she did not hide well from anyone in the room at the time.
“You should go” she kept on saying to her mother, interrupting both her and the Doctor.
After the initial assessment, which consisted of questions that amused Anne such as “do you think that you have any supernatural powers” she was allocated a room and sent to lunch with the other patients.
Still dressed in her Sunday best she looked out of place in the food hall. The patients seemed to walk around like zombies, with their hands stretched out in front of them. Compared to them she was normal. She didn’t quite understand why she was there. She understood that the Doctor had a thing for her and that he had used the minor incident this morning for his advantage, but other than that understood little else. Why, for instance, had he not just approached her before? Had she known him? No, she would have noticed such a bald head as his, seen its shine from her pew or wherever she was at the time. He was then, simply an opportunist. Then it occurred to her that she must be part of the staff as she certainly wasn’t a patient and that maybe she could learn to like the Doctor, after all he was a Doctor.
Anne fetched her lunch, which consisted of fries, a casserole and peas and sat as far from the other patients as possible, which meant she sat next to the staff. She looked around for the Doctor’s bald head, before surmising that he must eat separately from them and wondered whether or not he was watching her now eat her casserole. She stopped eating and looked around at the other patients, but they didn’t seem as if they were being watched, so continued eating.
The first person she met was Bridgette in the television room after afternoon tea. Bridgette was a little older than herself and not obviously ill like the others. She approached Anne, extending her hand out for Anne to shake before saying her name and smiling. Anne was as polite as she could be, this was after all her first day at work and she would be judged on how she interacted with the patients.

 

He knew he was about to think of Maggie, recognised the dull throb that started in his throat and worked its way to the tip of his belly. It was as if he was about to regurgitate something unpleasant. He didn’t though, he just lost his footing on the path momentarily. It was Nurse Aldgate that caught Jim in her arms as his body lurched towards the ground.

As she straightened his body and patted his shirt down he began to think of Maggie the way he always did, as if she was still there and looked around the garden of St Sebastians old people’s home to check where she might be. It was only when the pain reached his stomach that he realised his mistake and felt the tears begin to form under his eyes. He fought them at first, fought them for the little pride he had left, but the pain was too strong, and his cheeks were soon damp.
Nurse Aldgate gently guided him to the park bench, and wrapped him with a blanket even though the sun was out and there was barely any wind, before leaving him there. From the corner of his blurred vision he saw Sadie playing poker with Mike and tried to concentrate on them and the present moment by breathing deeply, but everything about the way she moved her lean body reminded him of Maggie.
He looked down at his brown suit, the one Maggie had bought for him just before they told her that “there was nothing they could do”, and it was “only a matter of months” before the inevitable happened. He was wearing it today because it was the anniversary of when they had first met, and it was apart from a few photographs and his wedding ring the little he still had from her.
It was a moment in the shower that started it. Everything had been okay until she had as she always did, checked herself. The lump didn’t seem that big from the outside, didn’t seem the size of a grapefruit, which is what Doctor Thompson said it was. And when his hand slowly grazed it beneath her bathrobe, didn‘t seem threatening. He had read that the breasts change shape every month and that it wasn’t always cancer, read it among the literature that she had given him before, when her mother had been diagnosed with it. While he was calm and was able to comfort her, she was a complete mess, crying throughout the night. It was as if she had felt it coming even then.
They went to the Doctors together. It had rained for three days beforehand and was suddenly sunny the day of the appointment. This he had felt then, meant something and he tried to tell her this through her crying.
She only got worse though telling him that “the same thing, the same thing that had happened to” her “mother was happening” to her.
Once inside the Doctor’s office she became calm and collected, asking questions when needed. It was him who fell apart from the seams as the Doctor mentioned the c word.
“Tests would have to be carried” out of course the Doctor said in a voice that sounded as if he was reading from a set of instructions.
Jim went red and rose out of his chair, and was about to remind the Doctor that it was his wife he was talking about and not some object, when Maggie stopped him. They were given an appointment at the hospital and sent away to wait out the time, which seemed to slow down. The days and nights grew longer and all of a sudden things didn’t flow, and events did not adhere to time.
He wrapped the blanket around him tighter and closed his eyes. He still smelt the geraniums in her hospital room, still tasted the metallic hospital food that she refused to eat, choosing instead to nibble on the rich tea biscuits and ham sandwiches that he snuck in.

The days began to wane, and the nights lengthen. She would be asleep for most of the day, only waking towards the evening and then only for minutes at a time. She wanted to be at home but he hadn’t been able to cope alone. They had never had children and he had never regretted it until then. It was help they needed, but their friends although helpful couldn’t offer enough support for them to be anywhere but the hospital.
She died sometime before sunrise on a Tuesday. Her heart rate monitor’s beeping waking him from his dreams of embracing her. Doctors came to help of course, but nothing could be done. She never regained consciousness.
They buried her at Herne Hill cemetery next to her parents and a vacant plot where he would one day lie. The funeral was short with only two other people attending, and kept simple the way she would have liked it. He could still feel the arid air on the nape of his neck. Still smell the pollen from nearby daffodils.
Jim’s chest suddenly felt tight, and his breathing became shallower. He undid the top button of his shirt, only for the tightness to increase and for it to hurt. He dropped the blanket around his waist and tried to concentrate on his breathing but couldn’t. He closed his eyes as his body dropped to the floor. The last thing he saw and heard was a pair of black lady’s shoes near his ears and his name called out to him. It must be Maggie he thought as he lost consciousness.

It started with a phone call placed on a Saturday morning. The phone call was made by a Kate Langton, assistant analyst to a John Cardito in a private bank. The conversation went a little like this;

“hello”

“yes, who is it?”

“its me, Marie”

“Oh why are you calling?”

“I’m calling because I want to meet up with you.”

This would have been a reasonable suggestion, had it not been directed to a Joseph Tylka, head of her section of the bank. It would also have been reasonable if she had been a colleague on his level or if the reason she was calling made sense. It did not make sense though. She was calling to report her manager for harrassing her and for spying on her; events which had not occurred. The telephone conversation continued, painfully slowly with Kate crying and Joseph sighing.

“I can’t meet up with you” and “no” were the only responses that came from the end of the line.

Kate sat up, put the phone down and continued crying in the hallway outside her apartment that she lived in. She had left the apartment so as to not wake anyone up. As she sat up straight and wiped her eyes on the cuff of her pygamas she realised that she had gone too far. She immediately pressed redial but was greeted by an answering machine this time. She did not leave a message but continued to dial numbers into her mobile phone.

So thats how it starts with a simple misguided phone call placed first thing in the morning.

She’s walking into work the next day and her palms are sweating and she’s pulling at the nape of her shirt as she can not seem to breathe. She wants to arrive early, wants so badly to see Joe, to set things right, to make it all make sense. She is convinced that he would have gone to meet her had it been possible and is misguided in her view of him. She wants him, needs him to be a part of what is going on or a part of her life, she does not mind which.

As soon as she arrives in the office she sees her mistake, he does not care, does not like her or believe her. She is pulled into an office meeting and ignored by a rather solemn Joe who does little more than look at her. John is there. The meeting is short and precise like a full stop at the end of a sentence.

“We’re here to discuss what occurred during the weekend” John begins “and what will happen as a consequence.”

“I know that you have a crush on me” she interrupts rather too quickly because she is soon met with coughing on Joe’s part. She continues “I’ve known for some time” and ignores the feelings of regret growing inside her stomach which begins to gurgle.

“I don’t.”

The next thing she hears after this is “what can we do to make you feel differently about it” to which she says nothing.

The following minutes fly past during which nothing is decided. She leaves the meeting with feelings of uncertainty and feeling a bit edgy and can not concentrate at work after.

When she arrives back at her desk instead of working imagines what would have happened had Joe said yes to her proposed meeting. She runs through the scenario in her head. He would go, not because he needed her, that was clear or even because he liked her, but out of curiosity. Or he would simply go to correct her, to show her that he was a superior and not someone to be called. He would argue with his wife, she was sure. His wife would blame him for being interrupted woken and would say things like “she thinks you’re her saviour, you must have led her on, whatever you did.” Then they would argue and he would realise that she understood him more than his wife and knew why he had agrred to meet. There would be no doubt as to who was sharing the thick quilt of trust.

She continued to build the scenario up in her mind, gently closing her eyes as she did.

“I didn’t do anything, just looked after her that’s all.”

“You’re still doing it, even though you know the consequences.”

“No I am not.”

“You are going to meet her, so of course you are.”

Her day dream is interrupted by her phone ringing. She ignores it instead waiting for the machine to answer it. What problem did she really have with John’s constant checking. She tried to think about it rationally. She couldn’t think of a reply to her own question. There didn’t seem to be a problem now. Maybe that was the problem, she wanted one so badly she was prepared to make one, even if it wasn’t there.

The phone rings again but this time she answers. It is her brother who wants to meet for lunch.

“How are you? Are you okay?” He asks if she wants to meet for lunch and she answers yes almost as slowly as he asks it.

1o’clock arrives and she finds herself sitting in a café opposite an empty chair, her brother, unlike her is never punctual, so is running late. he has called citing difficulties at work and with the reassurance that he will be joining her promptly. She looks around the cafeteria and tugs at the chequered red and green table cloth. Apart from her there is a pair of lovers who are sharing a pizza and a dozen city workers carrying sandwhiches in and out almost as quickly as they are being handed them. There is also an old man who is eating a salad as slowly as he could possibly be eating it and who keeps on looking at her and then shaking his head as if saying that he knows why she’s there. He is also sighing and seems distracted and for a moment she wonders why. She imagines that his wife is ill or dead or that he has just realized his own mortality.

It is as she is musing on the old man’s life that her brother strolls in talking on his hands free set. He catches her unawares so automatically assumes that she is in a distracted mood. Their greeting is short and succinct as he is talking to another person at the same time, their hug laboured. The previous month’s argument as to who exactly should care for their elderly mother and at what cost still hanging in the air. His only argument that it should be her as she is of the same gender shows her for the first time that things have changed and that he is no longer her younger brother but an individual who she simply shares a past with. He is only in town because there is a problem at work, otherwise he would be in London not New York and with his girlfriend not his sister. He would not even be here today and particularly not calling to arrange lunch had she not made it very clear on her message that there was another problem. He loved problems and it is within them that he was able to thrive as he simply took the higher ground, ignored them and then treated himself afterwards.

“How are you, are you okay” he says without saying bye to the person at the end of the line. She taps her fingers on the table, then nods and waits. She doesn’t know if he’s talking to her so waits and then hears the question again “how are you? are you okay?” She knows he’s going to ask her again whether or not she gives him an answer, so she would rather not give him one for now. Just as before he looks at her again and asks, “are you okay? You don’t seem okay.”

It is after this last attempt to gauge her feelings that she answers “yes” and goes to continue but is interrupted.

“Yes that’s fine” he says into his handset before continuing “Why didn’t you answer me before ”

“No reason?” he continues. What did he expect the person that he was talking to reply?”

“Because I didn’t want to, because I couldn’t. she continues in her head. Why had he come out of his office like this to talk and not talk to her at the same time. His hands free set confused her as he hands her a white envelope and disappeares, coming back sandwhich in towe. She looks down at her coffeee and smiles nervously.

Still she tries to connect herself to his conversation as she opens the envelope. She tries to remember when she couldn’t talk, when she was too young, dumb or weak but can’t and the reminiscing causes him to look at her again, or she thinks it does and she asks herself again “are you okay?” he asks this time to her, she presumes.

“Yes she replies meekly” but he still doesn’t reply.

Suddenly she has his full attention and she is. She is staring at a four thousand pound bill in her name for her mother’s nursing home. She is about to interrupt with a comment but he starts speaking first so she simply slides it into her bag. All he wants to know about is what the slurry speech about how to ruin your career is about and is shocked when he hears what exactly has happened during the weekend. It’s not the phone call that she makes on the Saturday morning that scares him but the fact that she still finds herself dialing his home number even now just to hear his wife Melissa’s voice. She whispers it to him down the phone as she tightly grips the white chord “I don’t know why, I just feel the need to connect I guess.”

“With her?”

She hadn’t told him of her love for Joe or problems with Jake which is what she had told her girlfriend at home but had simply said that there was a possibility she may have lost her job and could he pay for the home this month. Their meeting at lunch after a month of stiff silence  but their conversation is muted and distant even now. She tries to cover her ground with more lies “I’m thinking of moving, I mean leaving work, just for a bit.” Now that he has handed her the envelope she is distracted and allows her mind to wander to the late night phone calls to Joe’s house just to hear his voice and the way he seemed to know it was her the next day at work. She doesn’t know why she makes them simply that they must be made before she can sleep. When he doesn’t answer at home she phones his work phone a dozen times during any one period just to listen to his answer phone.

“Are you okay?” This time she knows that the question is directed towards her and he frowns, purses his lips together as if they’ve been sewn together and narrows his eyes. “I mean its not like you, you love your job don’t you. Is it about him? You can’t leave because of him especially now with all the job losses. Oh I got your message, there’s the envelope.”

“That’s just it. I might be cut anyway and besides its just a job isn’t it.”

She tries to lie but he moves his lips again and moves his head from side to side and says “no.”

The rest of the conversation doesn’t make any sense, to her at least and she finds herself repeatedly saying that “yes she’s okay” and “yes she’ll reconsider her decision. They leave after half an hour as she has yet another report to do and she grabs a bottle of water on her way out, forgetting to pay for it. It is her brother who has to pay for it and when out side tells her that no, she is not alright.”

“We’ll talk again, soon.”

“Yes fine, but I really am okay, just tired”

“You’re not, you’re more than that and you know it. You need someone in your life and I can’t always be there for you.”

“I know” she says smilling “I’ll find someone who can be.”

“It’s not that.”

“Fine, look I have to go, do my make up and stuff, love you. Bye.”

She leans in and gives him a peck on the cheek. In the minutes that follows this barely there greeting that takes place outside in which she looked a wreck; her hair blown and twisted itself around her neck and her body huddled together facing the wind, he volunteers a goodbye as he places his mobile down before picking it up again.

As she walks back up the block toward her building she starts imaginating what would happen if anyone were to find out about the incessant calls she made every night. He would come up to her at work and say;

“You realise you’re fired, don’t you?”

To which she would reply yes, at the same time half hoping that in the interceding moments between his question and her reply he had changed his mind.

“I was drunk.” She would continue.

“In the morning? You would still be fired.” He would say pulling the grey edges of his coat together.

“Whatever made you make those calls?”

Whatever had made her make the calls? She tried to think back, to place herself in the moment, but couldn’t. She hardly slept and had had a feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing what was happening and of being nervous which had developed on Friday after her manager didn’t smile at her but ask her what she was doing in Mark’s office, Joe’s manager. She had somehow felt, bound to do it. It felt necessary, in the way breathing did. She knew she hadn’t felt this way before about her manager she had just felt a deep seated need to be his friend, to get a promotion and to advance by befriending him. But this wasn’t to happen now. Her desk would be emptied, her name tag stripped off the wall and all traces of her would disappear. Time would pass and she would be forgotten and when she was referred to it would be to the last report she had completed.

She waits around downstairs hoping the rest of the office would come in, but they don’t so she goes upstairs to join them.

Its 7am the next day morning and she’s just about to leave for work, when the pain rises in her body. She opens the window and takes a deep breathe in before sighing. The pain rises in her body. She should be working the whole week, but even if she slows herself, which she usually find hard, the report will get done in a matter of days, not weeks. She feels a sense of pride as she looks in the mirror at her black tailored suit and straightened hair. She wants and needs this life to go on with her, she has to work, otherwise what would she be but a fragment of her unemployed dad. She had achieved something in the few months she had been at the bank, she had achieved a sense of self worth and importance. And then of course, there was Joe, she didn’t joke around with him or even talk top him but there was something about being in his presence that did it for her. She wants his life or to at least be a part of it. He is to be a new father soon, she knows this and imagines that he is writing in his journal before heading off to work : “I’m so happy, I’m so in love. 9 months from now I’ll be a father again”. Jake was to be a dad again. “The last of my family. I’ve travelled the world, seen everything, but nothing compares to the beauty in her eyes. I love her and it pains me dearly that I can’t be with her. I’ll be at work with the other one, the girl, that seems to have developed something for me.”

Of course he wouldn’t write about her, Fiona, why would he? but it suited her to imagine he would. It was strange that as she lost control of her job, she tried to gain control of anything related to it, wanted to strike up a connection, any connection especially with Joe. Joe had dark gelled back hair and today it was spiked up. It was the fact that one day he would be the type of dad you see in a catalogue that made it seem necessary that she should enter his life. If she accused him, then maybe it would be real.

She imagines Joe’s wife in the shower, rubbing lime onto her skin. She always smells of lime and sandalwood. She had noticed this the few times they had met, secretly of course. She would call her and say he wanted to meet but leave no name, putting on the best American accent she could muster and she would come into the office only to annoy her husband. If only she had met them somewhere along the line through her personal life.  She imagined the rest of the diary entry “her hair glistens like coal on fire hidden within mountainous caves as she steps out of the shower and wraps a red towel around her.” She had always assumed she would fall in love with a blonde woman not a balding, overweight man of 40 years old. Yellow like the stars she used to look at and the moon he created, when she used to say “you should be happy that you alone can create a whole world” to her manager in her mind.

She pictures him sitting near her apartment next to the Hudson and looking out at it, sitting on top of an egg and a lunch with his wife.

She is staring at him and his wife or rather imagining she is and his wife is speaking for her. “I’m not sure” she replies to him “it never seems to be just two eggs this morning.”

“So?” he replies.

It never seems to be just an egg. It always seems to be Athena’s egg. I don’t know why I did.”

It feels strange hearing Melissa mention Athena and for a moment she is outraged and tries to intercede, tell her to stop but can’t as she is there too, but as a child playing with her rattle. Or was it their child? She wasn’t sure but she felt as though she is there. Then she realises that it is a day-dream, her day dream, and one in which she is helpless.

It is the realisation that the visioned world includes his wife and that her allotted role is that of a child next to them which startles her. It makes her realise that she needs something. She still needs Athena, but knows this is not possible.

He draws her closer and says I understand, it’s okay, everything will be alright. Kate leaves the conversation at this point and leaves them to sit alone, overlooking the Hudson.

What was it she needed from him? Was it the need to tell her that Athena had not died in vain, that her one and only daughter’s life had meant something to him. Or was it that her journey to New York, to understand the other driver’s background was not a wasted one, that she would gain something from it.

She wants so badly to be a part of their life. It would be a grand one and she would never need anything again. They, unlike her parents would love her, take her in.  Maybe it is for this reason that she calls their house. How else would they be able to invite her in? They couldn’t while she worked for them and she did make him laugh. something she very much doubted his wife did. Why did he come out of his office so much, make her laugh and joke with her that the tea in the office had not been English enough. Had it all been her? Of course it hadn’t. She would have realized. When had she become so reliant on the job and him, so reliant she would die if she didn’t see him. She tried to pinpoint it to the exact moment but couldn’t, all she could remember was the moment she realized he made her as happy as she made him. Maybe it was the first signs that her mother would have to go into care and that like Athena she was loosing her too.

It was now five years since the accident but her feelings remained the same, that something needed explaining and that she wanted someone to explain it to her. She had come into the city, into another world from that of London to be able to understand his world but hadn’t grasped it. She would have to go deeper into his background, something which she could only achieve by going deep south, which is something she planned for the future.

It was Monday and she was exhausted, even though it was the beginning of the week. She felt that she had worked at the weekend even though she hadn’t, all she had done was drink too much and go out on Sunday. As she walked up the stairs from the metro at 53^rd and fifth she felt the whole of her body shiver. On Friday she had committed the most heinous of mistakes that you can commit at work.

 

Friday, the reports are all in at record time and she’s particularly quick at delivering the statistics that accompany them so she’s feeling particularly happy. It was the end of the day and she was just finishing off the last report when she felt a sudden joy as Joe walked in. All the previous months seemed to connect and the joy that she felt from the new found pride she had in herself quickly filtered to those around her, including Joe. She seemed to see him in a new light, and everything seemed a lot better. The next time she she saw him at 4pm the same day she still had a warm glow and happiness about her and seemed to connect it to him and the way his whole body beamed with happiness, like a fat man with a doughnut, as he passed her desk. She started thinking that he only ever beamed that way when he was passing her desk and that it was something about her that made him that way. Certainly, she found that everytime he looked at her that way he did, she felt a huge sense of pride. Was that it she asked herself, was it just pride in her work that she felt whenever he smiled. She started being happy when he was and sensing his emotions and it is in this way that she started to care about him.

 

As the week began she felt that she somehow had to protect him, felt an overwhelming love for him and analysed his character  traits and appearance. He was a little over 5 foot 9 and of heavy build and this week unlike others before his holiday at his holiday home he had a moustache and a tan and beard which came together somehow to make him attractive and desirable. Maybe it was the way in which it reminded her of her first boyfriend after his holiday in Greece, the one that she needed now. Somehow all her hopes, dreams and wishes of ever becoming something seemed to be pinned onto him, even her desire to be a mum. Was it that she loved him or was it simply that she had to have his lifestyle and the self assuredness he held so easily. Whatever it was something clearly changed from one moment to the next and it was with John that she no longer seemed to be in love with and work so hard to please but now with Joe. It was harder to please Joe as he wasn’t her line manager and therefore there was little or no communication with them. She was however already in love with him as it was him, who, although didn’t need to had spoken to her colleague next to her and although not directly her it had affected her. Did he have the same notion as her that if he made the one person closest to her content that it would infect her? It is these thought s and ones similar to these that she had as she smiled uncontrollably when he asked her where she was from a few weeks after her arrival.

 

She cared about his feelings, because it affected her and then that led onto her questioning her if she should care about his health too. She liked him and held a deep affection for him because when his eyes were on her she felt a deep sense of power filter through her and she felt as if she too was someone to be reckoned with and that the past didn’t matter. The days when she had looked into the future and seen bleakness and failure had gone because he was willing to spend his valuable time smiling if not at her but in her vicinity and it is with this new confidence that she felt as if she could do anything.

 

Friday and she’s in Mark’s office having to explain Thursday and Monday she would have to explain the weekend’s activities. One question seemed to pile on another one as her actions became more and more questionable and critically wrong.

 

Thursday, its just after the main reports have been done and she’s waiting for Joe to leave the office before she leaves. She’s doing everything extra slowly and deliberating over whether to interrupt his meeting with Mary. She’s putting everything away twice, doing and then undoing an action before it gets done in her mind and can be completed. She has a check-list which makes her actions seem more important and the simple action of putting a stapler away becomes an art. After she’s finished as is simply left waiting for Mary, who in her mind is taking too long and overstepping the boundaries, to leave she is sitting on her desk. She is still in this position when Joe opens his office with Mary and steps out to leave.

 

“You‘re waiting for me” he starts and then continues “I don’t like that.”

 

“I’m sorry” she volunteers, not knowing why the simple act of waiting for him is wrong.

 

Their going down in the lift and she suddenly feels foolish, what had it been that made her so attached to him she wondered. Was it simply the feelings of pride of working in such a building or was it something else. Why, because this tended to happen to her often did she become so attached to people so easily. She was normally brushed aside, told to mind her own business and told to move on, employer after employer where she had become so attached that she had taken a risk and asked personal questions. This was her first serious job though and nothing of that type had happened yet.

 

It was the comfort that the strangers provided, the way they automatically respected you. and she felt she understood McEwan even though she had not read the book what he felt. He too, must have felt the overwhelming joy at learning to love a stranger and the rush of emotions otherwise why would he have called his text that. It was the picture they held of you, and the way it only held positive views of you. Similarly it was the ability to become close to anyone important, and the way that you learnt from them which made you a better person. You could become asosciated with the most successful and have a deep sense of pride for them if you learnt to love a stranger. If you learnt to love a stranger you could go beyond your means and beyond your importance and you could do this with anyone. This meant that you could be as important in your association with them as you wanted and as a consequence as confident as you felt fit. It was these feelings and the huge amount of pride that she held for him as she travelled down in the lift. This mixed with the alcohol she had drunk at lunch with older colleagues, who should have known better than to take her out drinking at lunch confused her and she refused to leave the lift without him leaving first. He left and then she did, he went left and she went right and as they neared the office she leant in close to him, perhaps because she was tipsy or perhaps because she fell and seemed shocked that this had happened at all. She had just sexually harassed the one person she looked up to the most and as she moved away from hjim her hands fell and covered her face. Damn! How had this happened. She wanted this job more than she wanted world peace. Fuck world peace. She wanted it so badly that as she moved away from him and said sorry she felt her stomach jump up into her heart.

 

 

 

He sat down and waited. It was half past two, a half hour too soon for him to leave. He’s meant to meet her at three pm, twenty minutes away on fifth avenue and 53^rd street. He decided on the location because it was easy for him to know what they both needed and this way she wouldn’t be late as it was where they both worked. There was also a place where she could shelter from the rain just in case the whether turned bad which at the moment seemed unlikely.

 

He wants to arrive there early so he can see her coming. She sounded an utter wreck on the phone. Suddenly it dawns on him that there is an undeniable thick quilt of trust on her part towards him and he understands why she keeps on entering his office when he’s in a bad mood.

 

He’s managed to isolate everyone from her just by talking to her, and he blames himself even though he knows its not him. It’s the power and the way she seems to have become absorbed in it half of the working day. She had grown paranoid he could tell. Every time someone passed his office she would turn around and see if they were happy and if they weren’t she would make them so, even if it is just for a minute so that the infectious smile would reach them. She loved arriving at 7 am so that she could see everyone especially him arrive early and imagined him marrying her because of the way in which he walked into the office looked as if he was walking down an aisle. Her desk is to the upper left of the aisle so it is easy to imagine herself as the bride in the groom’s place, waiting for his arrival. This and more is what she would think once she had left the office drunk and reflected on how it had all gone wrong later.

 

He’ll take her to where it all began. They’ll get on the same train after New Jersey as there is only one train that comes into the station, which lies just outside the office. They would both be in the place in the photograph that hung over his fireplace that he is in as a twenty something year old; eager and optimistic. She would have to remember then, he would make her remember that he was her manager’s manager, and that’s all he would ever be. It will be hard to persuade her to enter the office, she will want to get a coffee, get a panini and see a film. She wanted to discuss work she said  and had made it impossible to do anything but go to her as she had jammed up his line. He would go merely to press hang up on her mobile. His wife had insisted on it. She had wanted to go and as he straightened his tie he felt her eyes watch him move.

 

“She thinks that you’re her saviour, you must have led her on, whatever did you do.”

 

“ I didn’t do anything, just looked out for her, that’s all.”

 

“You’re still doing it though, even though you know the consequences.”

 

“No I am not.”

 

“You’ve called a staff meeting Joe, on a Saturday, just because she called.”

 

“You’re jealous Margaret, and I don’t like that one bit. Not one bit. She’s caused too many problems and she’s got you siding with her” he said adjusting his tie. I don’t like her interfering in my life or wife.”

 

The plan was for Kate to be the last one in, so that he could talk to the team and make them understand why she had to go.  She would walk in , see everyone there and be in no doubt that this was a business meeting to discuss her potential lawsuit against her line manager, John; the person who had been put in charge of her. What had he done but smile at her a few times and come out of his office to go to the toilet? Nothing, maybe that was the problem. She wanted there to be a problem, wanted one so badly as she stared out towards fifth avenue that she was prepared to make one. It was after all, problems that you learnt most from, wasn’t it? she thought biting her thumb. It was this which she focused her energy on when deep down she knew the reason the call had been made; she wanted and needed him to be a part of her Saturday schedule.

 

If she became angry, he could control her, especially if everyone was there. As he slid his hand in his right hand pocket and felt his pocket watch he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He edged towards the front door with his wife’s eyes still on him. He hadn’t seen this particular expression on his face for a while. His eyes gleamed with pleasure and were held partly shut as if he was squinting into a darkened room and his eyebrows arched. He slid his hand further into his pocket and played with the watch.

 

“This is the end Margaret. Either way it’s going to end now.”

 

“Whatever do you mean?”

 

“It’s going to end, either way now”

 

“What?”

 

“The secrecy.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“What secrecy?” she called after him.

 

“What? Oh, nothing.”

 

“The secrecy” it hadn’t quite come out as he had wanted it too.

 

“Her secrecy, her ideas, the strange ones” he calls back. ”Marcy got her drunk,

basically.”

 

“It’s not her fault then.”

 

He fidgeted, each time alternating between the watch and his tie. He didn’t know what he was going to do with it when he got there as he wore a watch on his wrist. He took it simply because it was what would happen if he was in a film and the air around him seemed to suggest one. He would call it ‘The beginning or the end’ with a question mark denoting the open endedness.

 

He slammed his door shut and started on his journey and avoided everyone’s eyes as he hurried to meet her.

 

At first he doesn’t see much; empty cars, rubbish on the floor and the odd store window, his mind is on the meeting and he just wants to get there so the matter can finally be settled. The streets curve and slope upwards. He decides to walk as he has a lot of tension in his lower back and the air is unusually cool for this time of year. It starts raining as he arrives and he’s glad he bought his umbrella. Just as he arrives he sees a little brown haired girl standing outside smoking, he doesn’t recognise her at first and is about to ask for a light when he realises its her. She looks smaller than she normally does, she’s wearing a new suit, one from Tm Lewin and she is smoking a lot as he arrives. He doesn’t speak to her but walks straight past her, still with the image of the little girl in his mind,even though it is clear that she sees him. It is when he passes her that the change happens slowly yet suddenly. He remembers the homeless girl and the quarter he gave her and suddenly he doesn’t want this to happen to Kate. Rents are up, as are Condos and without him he feels she would surely become the other girl he thought as he turned to see her. She was lost in thought and still smoking a cigarette a minute. He stares at her eyes and it’s the flicker of green inside them, so inviting and her tiny frame hunched over that tells him to wait and not be so quick. She catches his look and stares into his eyes, their pure dark brown and black pupils.

 

 They are still staring at each other through the glass window once he’s inside the building; its there and not there. She straightens up then proceeds into the office. She misses the lift he is in by a few seconds and has to do with sharing her lift with her manager. John says “hi” in an abstract way, as if looking through her and resumes checking his blackberry. The silence between them is stifling and as she glances in at him, its clear when he realises what has happened. He’s read Joe’s email and isn’t about to pretend that he hasn’t, “so you really thought that I..”

 

“No” was the only answer she could muster. “I wasn’t well.”

 

“I see” he replies clearly showing that he doesn’t.

 

They arrive on the 6^th floor and take out their plastic badges with their faces on and clip them onto their bodies and their office relationship resumes as the coolness that lasted only one second, if at all is gone. The first thing that she does is switch the computer on.

 

In her mind they stare at each other through the glass window that belongs to his office and that at this moment isn’t the only thing between them but the sound of Jake Cardito’s voice which also separates them. The glass too is there now, a physical presence.

 

“How are you? Are you okay?”

 

She taps her fingers on the table, then nods and waits. He comes out of the office. She doesn’t know if he’s talking to her so waits and then hears the question again “how are you? are you okay?” She knows he’s going to ask her again whether or not she gives him an answer, so she would rather not give him one for now. Just as before he looks at her again and asks, “are you okay? You don’t seem okay.”

 

“I’m not talking to you, don’t be rude. Why didn’t you answer me before, he continues.”

 

“No reason?” he continues. What did he expect the person that he was talking to reply?”

 

“Because I didn’t want to, because I couldn’t. she continues.

 

Still she tries to connect herself to the conversation and tries to remember when she couldn’t talk, when she was too young, dumb or weak but can’t and the reminiscing causes him to look at her again, or she thinks it does and she asks herself again “are you okay?” he asks this time to her, she presumes.

 

“Yes she replies meekly” but he still doesn’t reply.

 

She feels uneasy so goes downstairs, this time Joe follows her.

 

In the minutes that followed the barely there greeting that took place outside in which she looked a wreck; her hair blown and twisted itself around her neck and her body huddled together facing the wind, he volunteers a hello as he places his mobile down.

 

“You realise you’re fired, don’t you?” he starts after she starts typing an email on her computer.

 

“Yes. She replies, half hoping that in the interceding moments between his question and her reply he had changed his mind.

 

“I was drunk.”

 

“In the morning? You would still be fired.” He says pulling the grey edges of his coat together.

 

“Whatever made you make that call?”

 

Whatever had made her make that call? She tried to think back, to place herself in the moment, but couldn’t. She had hardly slept and had had a feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing what was happening and of being nervous. It had developed on Friday after her manager didn’t smile at her but ask her what she was doing in Mark’s office, Joe’s manager. She had somehow felt, bound to do it. It felt necessary, in the way breathing did. She knew she hadn’t felt this way before about her manager she had just felt a deep seated need to be his friend, to get a promotion and to advance by befriending him. But this wasn’t to happen now. Her desk would be emptied, her name tag stripped off the wall and all traces of her were to disappear.

 

She did what anyone else in her position would do, she kept quiet before replying “I know its not true now, in the day of light.”

 

“You may be unwell. I need your card.”

 

“I’m going in. I needd my things.”

 

“You’re not staying.”

 

Once he realises her computer is on and she’s typing an email she hears a disgruntled shout “get away from that computer” followed by a “turn the computer off, you don’t work here anymore.”

 

“Here’s my card” was all she could say before he took a long look at her and turned around to go in.”

 

“I’m not fired, he said I’m not fired” she shouted back half hoping he would say “I know, I made a mistake.”

 

She waited around downstairs hoping the rest of the office would come in, they didn’t. He had lied to his wife.

 

“The report” he said just as he reached the security desk, “it will have to be done, after that you go. Is that clear?” He gives her her plastic card back before going back upstairs. “Not today.”

 

“Yes, very clear.’

 

The report was for Mark’s manager and was of the utmost importance, Clive, the other intern, would be doing his own one.

 

“I had to come into the office, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to meet you.”

 

“Yes, okay.”

 

“Bye then.”

 

Its 8am the next day, Monday morning and she’s just about to leave for work, when the pain rises in her body. She opens the window and takes a deep breathe in before sighing. The pain rises in her body. She should be working the whole week, but even if she slows herself, which she usually find hard, the report will get done in a matter of days, not weeks. She feels a sense of pride as she looks in the mirror at her black tailored suit and straightened hair. She wants and needs this life to go on with her, she has to work, otherwise what would she be buit a fragment of her unemployed dad. She had achieved something in the few months she had been at the bank, she had achieved a sense of self worth and importance. And then of course, there was Joe, she didn’t joke around with him or even talk top him but there was something about being in his presence that did it for her. She wants his life or to at least be a part of it. He is to be a new father soon, she knows this and imagines that he is writing in his journal before heading off to work : “I’m so happy, I’m so in love. 9 months from now I’ll be a father again”. Jake was to be a dad again. “The last of my family. I’ve travelled the world, seen everything, but nothing compares to the beauty in her eyes. I love her and it pains me dearly that I can’t be with her. I’ll be at work with the other one, the girl, that seems to have developed something for me.”

 

Of course he wouldn’t write about her, Kate, why would he? but it suited her to imagine he would. It was strange that as she lost control of her job, she tried to gain control of anything related to it, wanted to strike up a connection, any connection especially with Tom. Tom had dark gelled back hair and today it was spiked up. It was the fact that one day he would be the type of dad you see in a catalogue that made it seem necessary that she should enter his life. If she accused him, then maybe it would be real.

 

She imagined Tom’s wife in the shower, rubbing lime onto her skin. She always smells of lime and sandalwood she had heard. If only she had met them when she was four years old.  She imagined the rest of the diary entry “her hair glistens like coal on fire hidden within mountainous caves as she steps out of the shower and wraps a red towel around her.” She had always assumed she would fall in love with a blonde woman not a balding, overweight man of 40 years old. Yellow like the stars she used to look at and the moon he created, when she used to say “you should be happy that you alone can create a whole world” to her manager in her mind.

 

“Mmmm that’s not a good thing he would reply to her when she imagined them talking. He’s sitting near her apartment next to the Hudson and looking out at it, sitting on top of an egg and a lunch packed because his wife and him would wait there until they spotted her. Then once they had they would explain why she had been fired, explain tlhat it was so that she could enter their lives.

 

She is staring at Tom, her manager’s manager and his wife or rather imagining she is and his wife is speaking for her. “I’m not sure” she replies to him “it never seems to be just an egg. I ate Athena’s , it always seems to be Athena’s. I don’t know why I did.”

 

“So what ? it’s just an egg.” Kate leaves the conversation at this point and leaves them to sit alone, overlooking the Hudson.

 

She wants so badly to be a part of their life. It would be a grand one and she would never need anything again. They, unlike her parents would love her, take her in.  Maybe it is for this reason that she got fired. How else would they be able to invite her in? They couldn’t while she worked for them and she did make him laugh. something she very much doubted his wife did. Why did he come out of his office so much, make her laugh and joke with her that the tea in the office had not been English enough. Had it all been her? Of course it hadn’t. She would have realized. When had she become so reliant on the job and him, so reliant she would die if she didn’t see him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hulk’s Last Boxing Match

The Last Fight

“I can’t believe I’ve graduated” I scream at my friend over Jay Z.

I’m in my brand new Mango dress, which is black and cut to the knee with glittery beads down the front and my new black high heels.

“I know, isn’t it great” she screams back.

“We’re so old” I say as I drink another bit of my third Gin and tonic. I’m at a birthday party with my best friend, and I’m drunk.

“Jane?”

I turn around and see a yellow haired boy I’ve seen somewhere before.

“You were Hannah’s friend.” He says as a means of identifying me to myself, in case I’ve forgotten who I am.”

I’m immediately taken back to my first day at school, when I gained my new pseudonym, no doubt.

Everyone’s first day at school is tough, it’s when you first meet the people you’re supposed to spend the next 6 years befriending, hating or just ignoring. It’s like fighting in a ring, but thankfully like fighting in a WWF boxing one; it looks like real life but it is anything but that. At the time you’re consumed by tiniest of nudges as you think they symbolise this or that or that they have repercussions. It’s only once you’ve left that you realise that the scenario was so fake that you always knew who would win, in that round at least.

I haven’t heard Hannah’s name in years, and hearing it makes me squirm. I place him at my primary school, focus my eyes in on him and automatically start hating him. He knows my past and must be shut up.

I want to say ‘oh, really’, in the most sarcastic tone I can muster, but he’s just insulted me by describing my distinguishing feature as being someone’s friend and the wound is still fresh and unpackaged. That’s all I am then, to them at least.

I picture the redness of his face mixing with the blackness of my new dress, and the thought revolts me. He’s the past and must stay there. I take one step back, away from him as if he’s going to spill onto my new dress.

“It’s Ralph from St Sebastians” Now I have a name to focus my hate on and I start mocking it, before he’s even opened his mouth again.

“Oh! how are you” I reply a bit too excitedly. I’m a bad actress as I tend to overact, but now the move is deliberate. I want him to know my ambivalence at meeting him. So now you feel like talking to me? I want to ask him, but don’t, as I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

I try to come up with an image of a blonde ten year old boy called Ralph but all I come up with is one called James, the one I want it to be.

Was there another blonde boy in that class I think to myself before checking his roots; there are none, so there must have been.

I don’t know this blonde boy. I try to place him and fail. I blame my gin and tonic for the failure, but the truth is I’m not trying. He’s an irrelevant part of my past, and I can’t be bothered.”

“Great!” I lie before starting the ritual of nodding my head every few seconds to give the impression that I’m listening to what he’s saying, while really all I’m doing is trying to picture a three foot version of him at the same time as singing along to Britney.

Aaaa! I say. I‘ve placed him and nod at him as if to let him know. I join in the conversation just as a silence ensues. He must have asked me something I think, so I quickly say “yes” and nod my head, to what I still don’t know. The thought that I could have just agreed to marry him leaves my head at the same speed at which it enters. As no ring appears and he’s still on his feet I don’t think I’m in any real danger of anything back firing on me.

Up until now, he’s been the one who’ s pushing the conversation along, with me on top, adding to the weight, so I decide to take charge, for a little while at least.

“Have you heard from anyone” I ask, “what is everyone doing?”

“Michelle’s a slapper, Sally’s a nurse, Ben has 5 kids. Do you remember that James was going out with Vanessa?”

I nod, but am thinking “how can you remember that? I can’t.

“Well he’s engaged to Linda now, I’m an assistant, Tom is in a mental asylum and, he pauses for one second, and that’s when I know who he’s thinking of, he’s trying to decide what to call him. He has three choices, he could call him 1) Hulk.

Hulk

I first met a boy that I will refer to as Hulk Hogan on that infamous first day at school. He was without a doubt the cutest boy in the class and like Hulk destined to be the craziest. I remember the way he first walked into the classroom, even at age 5 he had an air of self-righteousness about him; he was cute and he knew it. The first thing he did was to check his coat in; while the other kids gave their coats to the teacher reluctantly; he demanded that his be taken from him the moment he had walked into the classroom. After that he spent the next 10 minutes schmoozing his way around the classroom, by the end of which he had 2 Cadbury’s Cream eggs and a Mars bar, his favourite. He also had a nick name- Hulk- because he carried around the very much wanted miniature version of his hero as he walked around greeting the rest of the class. The price? a promise to draw 2 Kangaroos and a rabbit for Tracy, Sandra and Kelly. Everyone, but me. He showed everyone a picture that he had drawn of his mother and everyone wanted a picture drawn by little Hulk, even me, the last little girl to walk into that room and consequently the only one to never be able to order one, no matter how many bars were offered. Everyone was already in their group huts when I entered, their doors clearly shut off to me. I did the only feasible thing- I went towards the only little girl that wasn’t in a hut and built one with her.

Once the school bell rang at 9am it was time to choose our seats. The Hulk was one of the first to choose his seat and picked the one that was right at the back of the room in the hope that it was not visible from the front. We raced to be as close to him as possible, as everyone wanted to be his friend. Once in them we fidgeted as if our live depended on getting out of the seats we had coverted so much; we wanted to be anywhere but tied down.

Hands were placed in ears, fingers in noses and chins on desks. Girls played with their hair, twisting it round their fingers and boys drummed their feet, hands, anything to drum the beat they so wanted in the classroom.

It was only once we were seated that anyone bothered to look at the room itself, you could tell that we had simply ignored the room up until this point as everyone was deep in conversation and speaking at 100mph, trying to get pet names, hobbies and siblings out of the way.

“Now it’s time for the register” Mrs Bell’s voice beamed over us and sent a shiver down our spine as we were forced into silence for what turned out to be the first of countless instances of her shouting to regain control of the classroom.

Countless hands and voices went up as her words finally reached us and she spent the next 5 minutes answering questions like “what is a register?” and “can I have one?” and explaining to those like Hulk who had simply shouted that their hand had to go up in the air before anything was asked. Hulk reluctantly raised his hand up and asked “when is our lunch.”

“Sally Ann?”

“Yes Miss”

Rupert Town?”
No answer.

“Rupert Town”

Everyone looked around until a faint “yes Miss” was heard.

“Beth Smith?”

The list continued for what seemed like the whole day. Would we really have to remember all of the names? we thought as the list seemed to grow longer and longer.

Mrs Bell noticing that we were still trying to look at our room then slowly went about describing “the room that we will spend the whole year in.” Our imaginations quickly told us that we were not going back home for a year, and images of us sleeping huddled up into balls on the carpet, having dinner at our desks and then washing at the only sink in the room crept into our minds. We all did the same, we all looked at the person next to us and frowned, and Sally, the little girl at the front cryed.

“That does n’t mean that you don’t go home. You are just here during the day.” Our panick striken faces must have alerted her to a problem. Mrs Bell’s lame efforts to comfort us made everyone giggle at themselves and look at their next-door neighbour and boast “I knew that.” Sally, still crying, ran out of the room.

Once the teacher had managed to calm Sally down and regain our attention she set about pointing at the room’s main features. To the left of us was a huge blank board, which had purple paper stapled onto it, and to our amazement we were to claim it as our own by putting our work up on it. Hulk smiled as were told that “yes, that includes anything you draw James.” We all blanked his real name out of our ears and Frances, the little boy sitting next to him corrected the teacher- “It’s Hulk Miss” he called from the back. Everyone laughed.

The back wall, even bigger than the one on our left had pictures of animals; the alphabet and numbers in bold red lettering. Our heads bolted to the right as our teacher pointed at a large blue-carpeted area on which stood a book-shelf that was “full of books, which we could look at.” The carpet we were told was for readings. Everyone, including James, smiled at the prospect of being read to.

By lunch we had already settled into what we were told was “the first day of our new lives.”

By the end of the year at school, the Hulk had drawn over fifty pictures, which he sold on to us; a bar a piece.

They say that you never forget your first day at school because there is only ever one, but with the Hulk every September was ‘the first day at school’ because he always repeated those first things that we had seen him do; schmooze and take orders for the year; his first commissions.

I like to think that somewhere in his mind now James remembers that first day or at least part of it, but I can’t be sure of anything concerning him as so much has happened in between the years of forgetting and trying to move on.

2) He could also call him Leornardo-

Leornardo

At about the age of ten we had to do a project about one figure in history we would most like to emulate in our lives. All the blonde girls chose Marilyn Monroe and most of the boys chose football legends or figures like King Henry the viii, or William the conquerer. James chose Leornardo. That’s when a couple of us stopped calling him Hulk and tried to start calling him after the “greatest artist that ever lived” (a direct quote from James’s presentation.) We were tired of Hulk and aware of what we were turning him into; someone whose love of art was fading fast and being replaced by the love of the brutality of fights. Among the various bits of information I picked up that day, I learnt that James wanted to “beat Leornardo.” Everyone, including the teacher laughed as he presented us with a picture of himself punching Leornardo Da Vinci in a boxing ring.

That’s when I froze him ; he’s up in front of the classroom, he’s happy and proud to show off his work. He’s showing us one of the sketches that he’s done of himself, it’s how he wishes he would be like as an old man. He has grey hair and he’s still standing in front of a blank canvas, paint brush in hand. He’s just about to paint his last master piece. Click. Flash. I’ve taken a picture of him in my mind and frozen him in time. The next time I see him I still expect him to be that ten year old happy boy that could have been something great.

Last of all, he could just call him by his name, James. James was the guy that came from the local council estate and loved nothing but fighting.

The Fights

The fights were fun, it was a sport, and unlike in ‘Fight Club’ never ended with anyone being admitted to hospital. This is how they happened; someone would pretend to insult someone and then walk off and then it was up to the other person to initiate the fight or accept the insult. In the case of insulting James, you would simply remove his title and call him, like the teacher’s did by his Christian name.

It was n’t just the boys that were interested in the fights, the girls were too but their aim was to stop them as someone inevitable got hurt. That person was then nursed and kissed better by one of the other girls. The girls would crowd round the boys and try to get into the circle and few got in, most of us, me more than the rest, were shoved out before the inevitable happened- the short sighted playground assistants would be informed of the fight and break it down. The blame would be placed on me, but everyone knew it was her. She was trying to save her man, his reputation, as he inevitably lost. She didn’t care, he was the wealthiest and when she kissed him, that’s all that mattered. Two detentions and a day later, the fight would be on again.

The fight that nearly ended all fights was the one that gained Hulk a black eye, I need and want to call him James, but am stopped, by the image he’s created in my head.

James always won the fights, if only because his supple joints and quick left hand meant that his competitor never knew where his left hand was; he would always end the match with a final blow from his left.

It started off as a normal fight, Hulk was winning and everyone was cheering. Let me slow it down so that you can see what I saw. Hulk, insulted by Frances, chose to fight him.

“Come on then” Hulk shouted out before whistling and laughing. His facial muscles tensed into the cutest growl he could muster, one that amounted to a puppy’s bark.

He pulled his right arm and slammed it into France’s chest. Frances bowed down as if in prayer before kicking Hulk.

“Boo” Everyone was with Hulk, Hulk never kicked. Hulk pulled out his left to end the game as his best friend had broken the rules.

“Why are you mad?” James shouted out to Frances.

“You don’t like her, I do” was the response he got as he prepared to muster the strongest left hook he could with a weak leg.

Then as if she was called, like a dog on heat; she appeared at the front of the circle, held her hand to her lips and blew a kiss.

That’s when it happened. James smiled and Frances sent him falling to the floor with a quick right hook.

The girl? She smiled at Frances and walked off.

After this the fights grew stronger and then eventually stopped as everyone agreed, it just wasn’t the same anymore.

The Last Fight

“Sorry, what did you say happened to James?” I rejoin the conversation just as he’s started talking about something else.”

“Oh, I said he’s gone mad on cocaine”

I take a long swig at my drink. I picture a ten year old snorting cocaine, before realising that he like the blonde boy in front of me must have grown, put on weight round the middle and changed.

“Oh! I try to smile but it’s obvious by looking at my eyes, which he is, that I feel sad.” It’s not the thought that his life has been wasted, that he could have been something else which makes me want to drink, it’s the thought that I’ve beaten them. I’m a success and their not. I should be happy, but am not, which confuses me.

“I feel sorry for James” I say before turning around. I’ve been as friendly as I can be bothered and just want to continue dancing. Sean Paul has just started playing and I want to go to my friend. This time it is him who steps back. I know he wants to say something, and I know that it is his stupidity that prevents him, so the fact he doesn’t congratulate me means nothing.

The gossip wheel is still very much turning and I find myself thinking what he’ll say of me when he meets the others, and how, if at all I’ve affected the spinning wheel, but not for long.

I turn around, see him staring at me but am too absorbed by Sean Paul to care. I take a swig at my drink and start talking to my friend again.

Cleaning

My mum had a thing about cleaning. As a boy she used to use different rocks on me; she used to rub the soles of my feet until they were apple red using different rocks; different colours and different shapes. She also had a thing about men’s suits.

I am ten and she’s just woken up, she’s putting on her jacket; it’s a black loose one that hides her curves. It’s made out of cotton and has stripes going down the front. It’s a two-piece and has matching trousers, which are loose and also hide her body.

She works in a bank during the day and has normally left the house by 8am; this means that apart from the few hours spent in the evening together the morning is all we have. She’s washing our dog when I wake up; she’s always meticulous about things like this. She lays out a towel on the floor so that it just touches the outside edge of the shower; the point at which all the daisies join and then showers his solemn looking face; its always too early for him.

The next thing in her morning routine is making the porridge; she weighs it out on our hard, plastic creamy weighing scale that has a little square on top; 60 grams exactly; the recommended daily dose on the side of the cereal box. She then pours out the milk into a measuring jug; checks the back of the box and resumes to pour it into the bowl. She does the same for me, but uses different calculations.

As I am eating my porridge and sprinkling out the seeds she’s laid out for me, I get the sinking feeling that she’s been laid off. It’s nearing nine when she leaves her room again, this time to tell me that she has an interview in the afternoon. We spend the morning together; something we never do, and I find myself having more and more fun as the day progresses but before long its time for her to leave.

I find myself outside in the garden, staring at the bleached white towels and sheets. The sheets are hung up high and I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach them just in time to pull them down, away from the rain that’s beginning to land on my shoulders. I am reaching for the last sheet when it happens’ I fall and slip in the mud. My bum hits the mud and as I lean towards my stomach I begin to relax and get an erection. I am having sex with the dirt, which I find liberating. I find all the blood leaving my face, heading downwards and the feeling is that of tension. I don’t know what’s happening all I know is that I have pins and needles on my face and across my cheeks, but before I know it, it too has left and I find myself in the midst of an explosion with a cool liquid going down my trousers as my mum leans over and picks me from the ground.

It’s hard learning what I have to do; five times a day. At first I feel as if I need to wash five times a day and end up living in the bathroom. Then however I get used to the feeling, get used to standing over the toilet as my mum embarks on one of her many cleaning duties around the house. It’s the only time I have to myself now that she’s been made redundant from work. It’s the beginning of what they call ‘the credit crunch’ and it’s us who has to pay, even though it’s not us who’s managing the banks and therefore not us to should be ultimately blamed.

I open the Financial Times only to read that one of the major bank’s that has just gone down has paid out million dollar bonuses to its bankers. “Its not fair” I say to her as I’m handing her the page “isn’t that your bank?”

“It is” is all she replies. She tends to leave her sentences very succinct and short like she says ‘cool succulent meat.”

From then on everything changed. Cleaning seemed to be mandatory instead of perfunctory. Rocks necessary, not needless. She began to get back earlier from work, clean less; expect somehow for it to be done by the time she got back. Coats remained on seats, magazines on table; it’s as if she expected everything to change after that explosion, I was somehow meant to grow older. She had seen it and grown distant. She was back earlier but around less. She stayed on the phone, in her room, or in the garden. Strange men arrived more and the fact that my dad ever existed disappeared. The photos that were on the mantelpiece weren’t there when I got back from school one day and I didn’t bother asking where they were, because a real man was. He was a little over 5foot 8 and had dark brown hair tucked into just behind his ears, it was smooth as if there was a hole around the back of his hair.

My mum became talkative, but only talkative to him.

“Hey honey.”

“Hi mum.”

“Sorry love I’m talking to Steve over there.”

I went up to my room, clearly demonstrating I was dissatisfied with her behaviour. A half hour later I heard the clinking of glasses and it wasn’t until one full hour had passed that I heard a vague and meek “Chris.”

I am not sure about the timing of events, but it seemed to be like this; erection, loss of mother, gaining of a father figure. I became less susceptible to things more and more as he would volunteer bits of advice such as “you’ll get over it” and “go on my son “ The latter one was a joke at the fact that I had had a dad, and that he was more of a boyfriend to my mum and a stranger around the house.

They stare at each other through the glass window  between them; its there and not there.

“How are you? Are you okay?”

She taps her fingers on the table, nods then waits. She knows he’s going to ask her again whether or not she gives him an answer, so she would rather not give him one for now. Just as before he looks at her again and asks “are you okay? You don’t seem okay.”

“I’m fine” she forces herself to answer this time. “Why didn’t you answer me before?”

“No reason.” What did he expect her to reply? because I didn’t want to, because I couldn’t.” She tries to remember the time she couldn’t talk, when she was too young, dumb and weak but can’t and the remanising causes him to look at her again, repeating “are you okay?”