James Hannah: The A to Z of You and Me

You lie up against me and murmur in my ear — ‘That’s what I was looking for’ — before heading back down, and kissing there again, right there . And now my whole back is unable to take any more, and I cry out and turn over, and I can see you there, laughing wickedly.

‘I love that bit,’ you say. ‘It’s torture.’

Awake now.

I’m awake.

What?

I can see the grey-green plane of the lawn beyond the magnolia tree through the window. Did that light just come on? Or was it always on, and it was only me who flicked on?

I’m confused.

What woke me then? I’m sure there was–

((( Uuuuuh )))

Oh, oh no.

It’s her next door again. The groaning woman and her groans. It’s at a frequency where I can sort of hear it in the wall. Thin wall, then; hollow partition.

((( Uuuuuh )))

I put my hand on my brow, and for a moment, that’s all there is of me. A hand on a brow, swashing and scrunching and scratching, and knuckling the eyeballs now. Itch, itch, itch to get this sound out of my head.

(( Uuuuuh ))

But it won’t go, of course. There’s no stopping it. I can’t believe she always starts up right when I’m trying to get to sleep, just — just as I’ve dropped off into peaceful slumber it’s–

( Uuuuuh )

It’s ruined. And it’ll get worse. It always gets worse. If it was the sort of groan that stayed the same volume, I could put it out of my mind, but it changes. It grows louder and louder. Keeps you listening. It’s like Purgatory.

The light outside flicks off again.

( Uuuuuh )

Blood

Think blood. What can I say about blood? A complete history from start to finish.

Uuuuuh

In the beginning, I was a few cells of blood and — whatever it is babies are made of before they’re properly human. The abortable mush. How is it that embryos or foetuses can develop intricate veins and capillaries and auricles and ventricles and all that stuff? Amazing, really.

Uuuuuh

So, birth, lots of blood there, but not mine, so much. The divvying up between me and my mum. Everything that was on the outside of me was hers, everything on the inside mine. And what shall we do with this bit? Cut it off, sling it away, snip snip, medical waste. We’ll not talk of it again.

They fry it and eat it sometimes, don’t they? Cannibals.

Uuuuuh

Uneventful childhood, my blood would see the light of day through kneescrapes and headbangs, testing the coagulation — no haemophilia — then pretty much just ripped cuticles, before the great event of — what, about 1982? — when my sister tied my wrist to the back of her bike with her old skipping rope and towed me off down the street on my trundle truck. I distinctly remember how I imagined the wind would riffle my hair as Laura pedalled and the streets and houses would sail by at sixty miles per hour. This was going to be great. Three thrilling metres in, I was yanked from my plastic seat, and I travelled the following five metres on my face, before Laura stopped and turned to see why pedalling had become so laborious.

Then she dropped her bike and ran away.

That’s probably the earliest drama for my blood, flooding on to my screaming face as I stumbled up the steps to my mum, the wooden handles of the skipping rope jumping and hopping on each step as I climbed. Mum had been sitting on the edge of her bed, putting on her make-up.

She told me I staggered into her room like a murder victim.

I had to have an injection.

Dr Rhys had half-glasses, and was kindly and had lollies in a tin on his desk.

‘You, young man, have a blood type of AB positive, it says here.’

The blood type struck a chord with me, because I was learning my ABCs. And AB seemed good. ABC might have been better, but, well. Maybe I should have that on my gravestone: AB positive. Alongside height and shoe size. For future generations to know, you know?

After I totalled my trundle truck, the story had to be circulated on the family grapevine. Come Sunday, I was around to my grandma and grandad’s to sport my scars. We stopped off there every week after church, even after Dad died. They wanted to see us.

‘Stop picking .’

Mum relished telling the tale of the trundle truck to my grandma, carefully crafting every last detail to make Laura seem much naughtier than she actually was. It made me guilty and embarrassed, so I stopped listening. I looked at the telly. The telly wasn’t on, but I looked at it anyway. Laura sat next to me, quietly fuming.

‘He was bleeding like a stuck pig. He looked like a murder victim. But he only had one or two cuts — I couldn’t believe how much blood … Anyway, Dr Rhys was telling him he was AB positive, wasn’t he, bab? Quite rare, he reckoned.’

Grandad leaned over to me and muttered with a mutinous air, ‘What blood type was Christ?’

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so he lifted his wine bottle and sloshed it at me.

‘Ten per cent by vol?’ He wheezed in lieu of a laugh. ‘A nice bit of Beaujolais?’ Wheeze. ‘That’d get me back to church on a Sunday morning!’ Wheeze.

I was fourteen when I started seasoning my blood. 1989. What, twenty-six years ago. Over a quarter of a century.

That’s probably the next chapter point after Laura ran for the hills and I lost my no-claims bonus on the trundle truck. That’s such a short time, 1982 to 1989. It’s no time at all, is it?

That’s actually shocked me a bit.

Vodka and orange in our school flasks. Me and Kelvin. We raided Kelvin’s dad’s drinks cabinet and filled Kelvin’s Transformers flask with vodka and fresh orange. More by luck than judgement, seeing as vodka doesn’t smell of anything, and we pretty much got away with it. I was cagier about it than Kelvin, but I sat in a haze through geography, and then in maths Kelvin was sent out of the class for being boisterous. I’ve no idea if the teacher realized. Probably. They say they always do.

Anyway, we did get caught out: Kelvin’s mum had a big go at him for taking all that fresh orange juice. It was a luxury purchase in the 1980s.

I mean, it’s amazing, blood. The quality of your blood makes for the quality of your life.

I seasoned my blood with a few choice herbs and spices. Nothing wrong in that. Everyone’s at it, in one way or another. Glug down blessed blood, or sup on fermented liquids, or draw in vapours or smoke — or whatever.

And the blood carries it around your body, flavours your brain.

And your heart.

And your lungs.

And your liver.

And your kidneys.

‘So, you have a blood type of AB positive, it says here.’

I nod. Dr Rhys is still sporting his pretentious half-glasses after all these years, like some Harley Street bigshot. What’s it been, thirteen, fourteen years? Almost fifteen, actually, since the trundle truck. He still has a tin of lollies on his desk. Will I get one today? I still suck them. We take them into clubs, big baby dummy-shaped ones, sucking them like children. Sweets and E, back to innocence, back to childhood. Pure pleasure.

‘I should update our records here. Do you — um, are you a smoker?’

I nod.

‘Roughly how many a day? Ten?’

‘Twen— ahem — twenty.’ It’s hard to talk quietly sometimes. Have to clear my throat.

‘Alcohol?’

I nod.

‘Units a week?’

I’m not sure what units are. I know pints.