James Hannah - The A to Z of You and Me

Maybe.

Where is—?

I hear Becca giggle, for maybe a quarter of a second, but I can tell it’s her — her timbre. Her teeth. She’s standing, over the other side of the room, straight ahead.

She takes my wrist, draws me forward, and down, and we sit, and she lets go of my wrists, shifts her hand down across my body, and she strokes me tenderly, her fingernails giving precision to every flex of her fingers.

This feels like the wrong thing to be doing. My thoughts flit to you, to my commitments to you — but they are redundant thoughts, leaking out into the dark, no home to go to. Any loyalty to you is only a habit now. You don’t need it any more.

‘Poor boy,’ says Becca, plosives on my earlobe, ‘no need to think, just feel.’

And from out there, from the pitch black, the rich black, unfamiliar lips press themselves passionately to mine. They open, and my lips open, open together, drive deeper, a tongue pushes between my lips.

This is supposed to be all right.

When I picked up the phone it was still light outside. And still deep in the comedown from last night at the fetish club, I was so pleased to hear your voice. Like coming home. I can shut this down, I can shut it all down and bask in the comfort of your voice.

I’ve since slithered down to sitting on the stone kitchen floor with the big old phone cradle on my outstretched legs, and I’m clutching the receiver firmly by the mouthpiece like a cricket ball. My ear’s getting hot, but I won’t swap. Not yet. I press the earpiece against my ear until the plastic creaks in protest.

This silence has been going on surreally long. More silent than silence, because you can hear the electrostatic crackle poised and ready to catch any sound. I draw in a great breath, exhale through my nose, and the digital noise fills my head. And yours too, no doubt.

‘This is nice,’ I murmur. ‘Spending time with you. Even when you’re two hundred miles away.’

‘Yeah,’ you say. ‘It is.’

I run my finger in between the numbers on the keypad of the phone cradle.

‘I really miss spending time with you,’ you say. ‘Even more than I thought I would.’

Silence. I can feel my brow furrowing. Are you trying to say something?

‘So — I’m wondering if—’

You sigh, the bits and bytes flowing into my head, into my brain, making me close my eyes to tolerate it.

‘Ohh — what are you saying ?’ I groan.

‘I don’t know what I’m saying. What am I saying? I’m saying I look at us, and I ask, why can’t they sort it out? And the only person I want to ask is you. I want to step back from it and talk with you about how you think it’s going to turn out for them.’

Short crackle. I risk a switch of ears with the receiver.

‘You’re not like the rest of them,’ you say. ‘But I have to be careful, Ivo. With a background like mine, you’ve got to understand, I have to be careful.’

‘I want you to be careful,’ I say. ‘I really, really want you to be careful. I mean, to the point that, if I’m going to bring you trouble, then — then I don’t want it to be me.’

Doot!

‘What was that?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ I say. ‘I had my finger on the “5” and I accidentally pressed it.’

There’s an added crackle on the line, and I know exactly the breathy chuckle you’ve just made.

The heat rises from my relieved lobe. Imagine it now, glowing in the gloom.

Doot!

‘What was that?’ I say.

‘That was a “1” out of ten for not saying anything positive. Say something positive.’

‘It feels lovely to laugh with you again.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t laugh anywhere near as much with anyone else.’

‘No, nor me.’

Pause there.

That feels right.

That feels like what I mean.

You sigh, and another flood of static washes through my brain.

‘What are we going to do?’ you say.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Nor me.’

Long, long pause.

‘I can’t be rushed,’ you say, finally. ‘I can only take it one day at a time. One hour at a time.’

‘Yeah. Yeah.’

‘And I suppose we have to trust that it’s going to take us somewhere — somewhere better than this.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Let’s work towards what makes sense.’

There’s another great long pause, and I have an ocean of relief dammed up and waiting to cascade all over me, but I don’t want to let it. No, no. Let it drip.

‘How do you think it turns out for them?’ you say.

‘I don’t know. I really, really want it to turn out well.’

‘Me too.’

‘I love a happy ending.’

‘Me too.’

‘I’d better go,’ I say. ‘My mum’s car just pulled into the driveway.’

I start to climb to my feet to sound busy. No car. I just want to stop this now. Quit while we’re ahead.

‘I’ll call again tomorrow, is that OK?’

‘OK. Yeah.’

‘I’d better go.’

‘Yeah.’

You pause once more, and we both must realize this at the same time.

‘I want to say I love you,’ you say. ‘That’s what I used to say at this point.’

‘Mm.’

‘Bluh blah bloo.’

‘Yeah. Bluh blah bloo too.’

Shocked awake now, think — I’m fucking drowning.

Push the button push, push — I–

‘Are you all right?’

Sheila in, with urgency.

‘Drowning — I’m—’

‘OK, OK, now—’

Mask pressed to my nose and mouth. Pressed firmly.

I don’t know where.

Ask questions, ask–

What’s the day—? It’s—?

I have no idea. I don’t even know where to start to find something like that out.

What was the day yesterday?

I—?

Sheila spiders out her hands and threads the elastic of the mask back over my head. It snaps tight above my ears.

‘OK, lovey. Now breathing, yes? You know the drill.’

‘Breathing, breathing.’

‘And it looks like it’s time for a little more of the morphine solution, OK?’

‘OK, yeah.’

Yeah, yeah.

She starts to move around in the now familiar morphine routine. Methodically get the bottle. Strange, formal little movements. She doesn’t want to get anything wrong. Top responsibility, the drugs.

‘Down the hatch.’

‘Here we are, at last,’ I say, arriving finally on the crest of the hill.

You follow on behind, pushing down with your hands on your knee to lever yourself up the final incline. You fall in breathlessly beside me and slip your hands around my middle, as I drop my arm across your shoulders and squeeze you tight: the anxious clinch of a couple once lost to one another, now reunited. It feels so good to be holding each other after everything we’ve come through.

A day at a time, then a week, and all’s well.

All’s well.

‘My favourite place in the world,’ I say.

Up here we’re more in touch with this deep, deep sky than the valley down below. Huge grey-white clouds bloom epically in the blue.

Beneath us, the land drops away and sweeps off down the valley. A tiny cyclist lends perspective, cranking herself east along the dirt track towards town. She’s further away than seems possible.

‘This is where my dad’s ashes are scattered,’ I say. ‘I remember me and Mum and Laura coming out here and doing that.’

‘It’s a beautiful spot. Perfect.’

‘I think my mum left it a couple of years before we scattered him. She wanted us to be old enough to remember.’