James Hannah - The A to Z of You and Me

Their heads both do the same: lift to some kind of internal music. Some pre-agreed strategy.

‘I can’t, I can’t do that. I can’t see him.’

Kelvin contemplates me a moment, and draws in a great and steadying breath. ‘Listen, mate,’ he says, ‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but he’s up to the eyeballs in regret. He knows he’s done wrong, and he’s full of remorse about it. And he’s — he’s got no way of getting rid of it.’

I turn away. Look out of the window. Look at the magnolia tree.

Laura peers up at me nervously. One of her eyelids sticks shut briefly. ‘You wouldn’t even have to say anything. You could maybe let him say what he has to say, and he’ll go.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’

‘Please — five minutes, I swear that’s all it would need. Please just give him five minutes of your time.’

I draw myself up, and cough at the effort, but I need to get up the presence to combat this. Finally, finally, something inside me breaks. ‘When is it, right, when is it that this will just fucking leave me alone?’

Silence.

The two of them, there, looking at me.

‘When is it, that you can say, now, here, that what happened was wrong? What happened was wrong, and there’s no going back?’

‘Mal’s gone missing,’ says Laura.

Silence.

Kelvin stares pointedly at the floor.

‘Missing?’

‘He’s been gone over a week. Ten days.’

‘We’ve had a word with the Missing Persons people,’ says Kelvin in a low voice. ‘We’re supposed to try to think of a way to solve as many of the problems he was having as possible. Hopefully let him see that home is worth valuing, and he’s not coming back to the same unchanged mess.’

I look down at my hands, colourless and cold. I begin to rub them firmly together to give them life.

‘And all of it, the whole lot of it, points to you. The situation with you. We want to arrange some contact between you, if that’s agreeable to you, and if—’

‘We think he might try to come here,’ says Laura. ‘He knows he needs to — to sort things out while he’s still got time. While you have time.’

‘Here? He doesn’t know where I am.’

‘He does,’ says Laura, in a small voice. ‘I told him. Before he left.’

‘But—’

Surely, surely they wouldn’t let someone in here if I didn’t want to see them? But they let Laura in, didn’t they? My heart begins to thunder in my chest and all the strength sweeps out of my limbs. Surely this is a place of rest. ‘Get Sheila,’ I say. ‘Tell Sheila I won’t see him in here.’

‘Please, just—’

‘Get Sheila.’

Sheila returns to my room in a flap.

‘Have they gone?’ I ask.

‘Yes, yes, they’ve gone.’

‘ No visitors.’

‘I’m so sorry, I thought you knew it was your sister. I thought you were a bit more open to seeing people, because you said let her in.’

‘I thought it was— No, no. No visitors.’

‘I’m sorry, that was my mistake.’ She looks shocked. ‘Who is this person, anyway? The one you don’t want to see?’

‘It’s her boyfriend. He wants to see me. But I don’t want to see him, all right?’

‘Right — well, we do ask everyone to check in at reception, so—’

‘Is there anything more you can do? Security-wise?’

‘OK,’ she says, retrieving a sizeable set of keys from her uniform pocket, ‘here’s what we’ll do.’ Calming voice. Professional voice. ‘Before anything else we’re going to take a while and calm it down and see if we can take it one step at a time, is that OK?’

There’s a familiar tone. That’s a you tone. A keep-it-in-perspective tone. She’s saying come on, come on, don’t let the paranoia leak into everything.

‘We’re all of a dither here, aren’t we, so if it’s OK with you, I want to spend some time on this.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, first things first, I’m going to get you a bit of something to calm you down a touch, all right? Take the edge off.’

‘No — you’re not listening—’

‘I am, lovey. I’m hearing every word you say. And I just want to take the edge off so we can talk about things calmly, and do the right thing, first time.’

Her eyes stay fixed on me as her head gently nods up and down.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘OK.’

‘I’ll be back in five. Max.’

She leaves the room, picking through her keys for the meds cupboard.

I lie down on the bed, on my side, foetal. Need to focus, focus. Press my head down firmly to feel something. Man, punched deep in the pillow, it honestly actually pounds. Every pulse a hammer blow, each blow muting my hearing, recovering enough in time to be muted again. My heart connected to my head. It’s pressure, isn’t it? It’s making me scrunch my eyes up tight — tight, like tight — and that stops the pound-pound, by making it one long pound for a few moments. It’s my heart, it’s the pulses pulsing, pulsepound, and it will not stop. It’s my heart beating the blood around me, and it just will not stop. I want a stop.

I’ve got my fists up tight, clutching the bedsheets around my jaw. Beneath the sheets, the agitation. It’s all rest; restless rest. My feet shifting in the sheets, right forward, left back; left forward, right back. My only relief, to offset the hell in my head: marching through the linen like a slumbering footsoldier. Now that’s the only sound, the soft shiff, shiff, and the occasional zip of a toenail scratching against the cotton.

It’s the morphine. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why Mal’s going to come here, it’s a fucking bursting bank of clinical morphine, diamorphine. I’m not joking, I’m not joking, that’s the only outcome. He’s got Kelvin and Laura wrapped round his little finger, and they think he wants to be forgiven. He doesn’t want to be forgiven, he–

And the pain and realization shoots down my neck, and penetrates deep into my back, so deep as to come out the front into my chest, like getting kicked in the kidneys, jars out the breastbone, and blooms up through my chest, tight. Nausea blooms and churns within.

The door sucks shut in the corridor, and I look up at my doorway with a start.

It’s Sheila, finally.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’ve got a sedative here, just to get us back on an even keel.’

I sit up and look at her, and she must read my mind.

‘Do you trust me?’ she says.

I nod.

She hands me a pill and a beaker of water, and I take it.

‘Now,’ she says, sitting down on the visitors’ chair, ‘are you able to tell me a little bit about this?’

‘About what?’

‘About the visitor you don’t want to see? It helps if I know what I’m looking for.’

‘It’s a man. His name’s Malachy.’

‘And why does he want to see you?’

‘We used to be friends. He’s been seeing my sister.’

‘OK.’

‘But he’s dangerous. He’s properly bad news. He’s not long out of prison. So, what you were saying about the store full of drugs and needles …?’

She starts to show the right amount of unease. I’m getting through to her, and it’s beginning to encroach on her responsibilities. ‘OK, well, that’s helpful for me to know, at least.’

‘He could do this. I’m sure that’s what he’s after, and I think he’s going to try and come and get me.’

I know how this sounds.

Her face softens in exactly the way I hoped it wouldn’t.

‘He’s going to think I put him in prison. He’s going to wonder why I didn’t fight to keep him out—’

‘Listen,’ she says, sitting lightly on the arm of the visitors’ chair, ‘I’ll look into this, and I’ll make sure we do everything we need to do to keep you feeling safe and secure.’