James Hannah - The A to Z of You and Me

I close my eyes. Yeah. Come out feet-first in a box.

The silence swells in between us on the air conditioning.

He wants me to say something. Give him a sign.

In all the world of words, I can’t think of a single thing.

‘Do you know why I’m here? I hoped you’d know.’

Here we go. Here we go now.

‘I want to make everything better, but I can’t make anything better. Can’t say anything. Some stuff is too big, you know? Too complicated for words. But I didn’t just want to leave it, man. You need better than that. I wanted to be here. I haven’t got all the fancy words, you know, but I thought, if I bring myself and something good might come out of it. Do the right thing, yeah?’

He snorts quietly, nibbles anxiously at a cuticle.

‘But fucking hell, you know, even saying this man, feels fake. Oh , you know, I don’t know what to say. It feels like I’m just saying it to make you feel sorry for me, but I’m not, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry to you.’

He chokes suddenly, unable to continue.

I look at him. Sympathy.

‘I promise I was trying to do the right thing, but — well, it’s just words, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘I wanted to say, there’s a lot of things I should have said and done, you know? And a lot of things I shouldn’t have said and done. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Too much time. You know that. I bet you’ve been through that, haven’t you? I know you have.’

I have.

‘You find suddenly you’ve done all these terrible things for — for no reason, almost. Things that didn’t seem terrible at the time, you know? And not for a long time. But you find that — you know, your whole world’s changed because of them. Lots of people’s worlds. You’ve made your mark, whether you like it or not.’

I look up at him, now, and he seems small. It’s like I’m looking on him from a long way away. The little man. A little man in a chair, next to me, here, a little man in a bed.

‘So here I am, you know? Here we are.’

‘Mm.’ I frown and attempt to swallow. Get halfway and unswallow.

I can’t–

‘I don’t know why I’m here, man, if I’m honest,’ he says, looking over at me almost shyly. ‘All those years you know, of imagining what it would be like to meet up again, say what I’ve got to say. I knew it’d never be the same as I’d thought. I had loads of things to say. Sitting there. Thinking it all up. It’s gone, you know? It’s not important, is it? Words don’t change anything. Don’t change what’s happened.’

‘No.’

‘You know man, if I could I would — in an instant I’d go back and change everything. I wouldn’t let you stay at that party. I wouldn’t have let you leave that party. I wouldn’t have fucking got in that car. I wouldn’t have done any of it man. It was all my fault, man.’

No, no. Too raw. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to have this out now. Have it out later if we’ve got to have it out at all. Have it out later. But he’s focused on me, intent on going through this. He’s going to sit there and make me go through this moment by moment.

‘No,’ I say.

‘It was. I was right there, I should have stopped it. I know I should.’

‘I don’t—’

‘You’re a dying man, yeah? Let’s not fuck about with this. You’re dying. And that’s my fault too, isn’t it? I never told you, did I? When you were fucking yourself up in the clubs every night, I never said anything. But that’s because I didn’t know, man. I didn’t know how bad things were with you. But I should have known. I should never have stood by and watched, and I’m so, so sorry.’

He’s fixing me with a desperate stare.

‘And if there was anything, anything , I could do to make it all better, I would do it, straight away, you know what I mean?’

The piercing glare in his eyes flickers, and is finally diluted, and a tear swells in his right eye, breaks over the lid and flees down the side of his nose. He drops back now, back into the seat. Exhausted with the effort of it all.

I close my eyes again.

It’s me. The outline of me, could have been a chalkmark, scrawled on the floor of our flat. Our shared flat. I’m looking up, amazed at the bicycle wheel hanging craply from the light fitting. Amazed at seeing a vision. A vision of glowsticks and smoke.

Amazed enough to propel me to your front door, declare myself amazed.

Your face, not amazed. Not amused.

Your voice, alarmed. Trip to A&E for me.

Back seat of the car for me, looking up at you.

You and Mal, uneasy alliance.

All for me.

All because of me.

I am a passenger.

You, there in the hospital bed, me cradling your hand.

Me, here in the hospital bed. Because of me.

It’s because of me. All of it.

I look over at Mal. He’s not looking.

I need to get him to look at me.

‘Mal.’ He looks up.

His face is grey and drawn. The trace remains of the fallen tear.

I hold out my hand. He edges towards. Takes it. Takes my hand by the outside. His palm to my knuckles. Wraps it gently into a fist.

‘You’re all right,’ I say.

He exhales and sniffs graphically. He doesn’t try to snatch back the blame. In truth, I think it lies between us. But — no use for truth.

A large stream of snot begins to dangle from his nose.

‘Ah, shit man, sorry,’ he says clapping his hand to his face and wiping with his cuff.

I smile. It actually makes me smile. I can feel it spread across my face.

‘Sorry,’ he laughs.

I breathe.

It is good. This feels — it feels good.

It was the right thing to do. All things fall into place.

A broad, happy smile fills his face, right to the eyes.

And the relief, the relief in him. I didn’t expect that.

And they were right, of course, they were right. Sheila. Kelvin. Laura, even. About — about what?

To see him so broken — he looks — forgiven. And that’s not right.

‘Sorry, man,’ I say.

He looks back up at me. ‘Don’t be soft.’

And oh, the relief of it: in him and now in me … I can physically feel it here in my body. I’m lifted with it, the weight of it gone. That’s what they told me would happen. A weightlessness, it’s true. This is definitely a thing. Definitely a real feeling.

It’s you I want now. It’s you I want to forgive me.

I cough. My body coughs without me. I have to wait to let it pass.

I look beyond him, gaze over at the window. Painful light.

One fluttering relief: the heart, there. Your heart in the tree.

Close my eyes.

So, so glad this is all over.

Seems so easy, it’s embarrassing. I can feel from my heart up through my back, through the pain, through my limbs to the fingertips an overwhelming surge of love and goodwill.

Drifting, I can feel the time slide around me.

The coffee machine works up again and ceases, and Mal, close by, remains. The sense of a hand in my hand remains.

And I don’t know if it’s there, and I don’t know if it’s you, crossing our hands to make a bird. A fluttering bird. Up against the sky, fluttering in the blue. Mingling in the wind. No more blur.

The relaxation, I can feel it, creeping up my spine and into the base of my cranium, up through and around the thick bone of my skull, around to the deepest recesses of my brow. But in the depths of my deep frown, I can feel the resistance. I’m trapped in the room. We’re still in the beige, dry, air-conditioned room.

Overwhelmed by the surge. I can feel my face crumpling, but no tears come. Tight throat.

‘Oh, man, are you all right?’ says Mal’s voice, close.