All the Lonely People

by Mike Gayle

  Halfway down the path Jan stopped.

  “So, I’ll see you Wednesday for the follow-up committee meeting at Ashleigh’s?”

  Hubert detected a note of uncertainty in her voice.

  “Yes,” he said breezily, not wanting to worry her any more than he had already, “me see you there.”

  In the days leading up to the meeting, in an effort to keep from fretting about facing everyone for the first time since his outburst, Hubert kept busy. He mowed his lawn, spoke to Rose, did his shopping, and caught up with all his jobs around the house. To a degree it worked, and he neither worried about the meeting nor thought about David, but then when Wednesday evening came around and he found himself pressing the buzzer to Ashleigh’s flat, he felt his earlier anxiety return.

  Ashleigh greeted him with a hug.

  “It’s so good to see you. I’ve been dying to pop round but Jan said you needed some space. Are you okay now?”

  He nodded sheepishly.

  “Good, then we’ll say no more about it. Everyone’s already here, so I’ll sort you out a tea and then we’ll get started.”

  When Hubert entered Ashleigh’s tiny living room, everyone greeted him warmly but made no mention of Saturday’s episode. Fiona, Tony, and Randip, who were squeezed together on the sofa, chatted to Hubert briefly about the fruit trees in his garden they’d been admiring earlier from Ashleigh’s kitchen window. Jan, who was sitting on a dining chair in the corner of the room, struck up a conversation with him about the latest plot twist in EastEnders, while Maude was thankfully prevented from saying anything inappropriate by Emils, who was perched on a step stool next to her armchair, plying her with a fresh batch of cupcakes. They were all clearly making such an effort to put Hubert at ease that by the time he had a cup of tea in his hands, he almost felt as if Saturday hadn’t happened.

  Ashleigh addressed the room.

  “Right, first item on the agenda: feedback from Saturday’s publicity drive. Who wants to start?”

  When no one volunteered, Ashleigh made eye contact with Tony.

  “Tony, you said you would count up all the potential volunteers who put their names down on Saturday. How many have we got?”

  He pulled out a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket.

  “Er… six… and I’m pretty sure two of the names I’ve got down are made up, that is unless there really is a Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Butts.”

  “Four? Is that all? I thought Randip and Fiona got a whole stack before lunch?”

  “We did,” said Randip, “but then I left the clipboard in McDonald’s and by the time I realized and went back for it, it was gone.”

  “I don’t want to be that person,” said Tony. “But we could get done by the data protection police for a gaffe like that.”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Randip.

  “It’s fine,” said Ashleigh, “it’s not the end of the world. Fiona, did we at least manage to get rid of most of the leaflets?”

  “ ’Fraid not,” said Fiona. “We’ve got two carrier bags’ worth left over and there were so many on the ground afterward that I wouldn’t be surprised if we were fined by the council for littering.”

  “Great,” said Ashleigh despondently. “Did we get any good feedback from people on the street?”

  “Not really,” said Jan. “Most of the ones I spoke to seemed to think it was an okay idea but weren’t interested in getting involved.”

  “Same here,” said Tony. “Although, to be fair, it was pretty hard to hear what anyone was saying from inside my bear suit.”

  “People are thinking I ask them to give to charity,” said Emils, “so they avoid me.”

  “Maybe next time we should give out cakes,” said Maude, her mouth full of lemon and blueberry muffin. “People like cakes.”

  “So, what we’re essentially saying is we’ve wasted a Saturday morning and over a hundred quid’s worth of the vet’s money they gave us for flyers, and all we’ve got to show for it is four extra volunteers and a possible fine for littering?”

  “Hold on,” said Hubert, seeing the dismay on Ashleigh’s face. “Let’s not get downhearted. It’s still early days. We all spoke to people who thought it was a good idea, so maybe we just try again this Saturday. Set up a stall or something, maybe a few balloons, you know, make it look appealing.”

  Emils raised his hand.

  “I can make cake. Not enough for all of Bromley but some to attract people to stall.”

  Ashleigh wasn’t convinced.

  “I don’t think a stall and a few cakes are going to cut it. I don’t know, maybe we’re wasting our time. It’s like everything else; people want something doing, they just don’t want to do it themselves.”

  “Well, we’re all here and we want to do something,” said Jan defiantly.

  “I know, Jan, but there aren’t enough of us. We wanted to put on a show, to do something really big to get Bromley’s attention. We just can’t do this without more help. We’ll have to put on our thinking caps again.”

  Tony made a suggestion.

  “How about a bit of direct action? You know, stage a sit-in at the town hall. It might attract a bit of media interest.”

  “I can’t set foot in the town hall,” said Maude. “I’ve been banned! I’ve got it in writing that if I go within fifty feet of it they’ll have me arrested! I don’t want to go to prison at my age.”

  For a moment Hubert considered asking Maude for more details, but he thought better of it.

  “I could see what other costumes we’ve got in storage,” said Tony. “I’m pretty sure there’s an ostrich somewhere but there might be a rip in one of its legs.”

  Fiona spoke up.

  “We could try collecting signatures again. But this time in the form of a petition to present to the government. Apparently if you get over one hundred thousand signatures it can be considered for a debate in Parliament.”

  “It’s a good idea,” offered Randip. “But how are we going to get a hundred thousand signatures when we struggled to collect just a handful of names last time?”

  “And how long would it even take to get that many signatures?” said Jan. “More than a couple of Saturdays going around Bromley town center, that’s for sure.”

  Ashleigh got to her feet.

  “Guys, we’re in danger of getting depressed by the whole thing, or at least I know I am. Why don’t I put the kettle on, make us all a nice drink, and we’ll come back and try and dig out the notes from the last meeting and see if there’s any ideas we’ve missed.”

  “Good thinking,” said Tony. “And in the meantime I’ll have a search around the Internet and see if I can find out how to add an online petition to our Facebook account.”

  “Great idea,” said Ashleigh. “How many friends have we got?”

  Tony checked his phone.

  “Two… and one of those is a porn site, and it’s pretty much the same story on Twitter. Still, better than nothing.”

  As Ashleigh disappeared into the kitchen, the living room filled with chatter. Some began checking things on the Internet, others brainstorming new ideas, and in the case of Maude, asking Emils whether he had any more cake.

  When Ashleigh returned to the room, her face was pale with shock and she was staring at her phone openmouthed.

  “You okay?” asked Hubert, getting to his feet as the rest of the room turned to look at Ashleigh. “You don’t look right.”

  “I… I don’t feel right either,” said Ashleigh. “We’ve just had a bit of a weird email to the committee’s account.”

  “Weird how?” asked Hubert.

  “Weird in that it’s from a journalist. You’re never going to believe this but… BBC London wants to put us on the telly!”

  30

  THEN

  March 1989

  Joyce twisted the tissue she was holding in her hands, refusing to make eye contact with her husband.

  “I just can’t do it,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “
Not today.”

  Hubert sat down in the empty chair next to her and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. She’d been quiet since they’d woken that morning, but he’d thought it was just the prospect of the day that lay ahead.

  “You not feeling well?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, it’s not that. I just can’t face it, Hubert. I thought I could but I can’t. Just go without me.”

  “But he’ll be expecting you.”

  “I know,” said Joyce. “But I’m just not up to it. I’m sorry. Tell him I love him and that I hope he’s doing well and that not a moment goes by when I don’t think about him.”

  “And when him ask where you are?”

  Joyce thought for a moment.

  “Tell him the truth: that I couldn’t face it, that this was one time too many, that my heart’s broken enough as it is. Tell him that no mother, no matter how loving, wants to visit her only son in a drug rehabilitation center on his birthday of all days. It would tear me apart.”

  Angry tears sprang to her eyes, one after another, and she dabbed each one away with her tissue before standing up and gesturing toward the hallway.

  “His presents and cards are in a bag by the front door.”

  She bent down and kissed Hubert on the cheek.

  “Drive safely, won’t you?”

  She left the room, and he listened as she made her way upstairs into the bathroom, where she closed and locked the door behind her.

  At the bottom of the stairs Hubert stood listening to the sound of his wife crying, then turned around, scooped up his car keys and hat from the hallway table and the bag by the front door, and left.

  This was David’s sixth time in a drug rehabilitation center in the past eight years. The first time had been when he was hospitalized following his collapse from inhaling solvents after Rose’s graduation. That whole episode had been such a shock for the family, none of them having had the faintest idea that David was involved in anything of that nature. He’d always been headstrong and rebellious, but nothing out of the ordinary, no different from other boys of his age, or so they had thought. So to see him lying in a hospital bed, all sorts of tubes sticking out of his arms, left, right, and center, looking so small and weak, had been nothing less than devastating.

  A grilling of David’s friends had revealed the true extent of his drug use: how since leaving school, as well as smoking and getting drunk like everybody else, David had begun abusing solvents. At first it had been an occasional thing, but over time it became something that he was doing more or less every day, and no matter what his friends said, David refused to give up.

  Hubert had relayed all this information to their family GP, Dr. Marlow, who had been wonderful, going above and beyond to get David into a center that would treat him for his addiction and help him turn his life around.

  As soon as David was well enough to leave the hospital, Hubert had driven him to the south London unit, where he had stayed for six weeks before returning home. Convinced that he was cured, Hubert and Joyce did their best to put the experience behind them, and as David, helped by Gus, secured a job working for London Underground, his future had looked brighter. But then just eighteen months later, after moving out to live with a girlfriend, David relapsed and was booked in for a second stint in a rehabilitation center, this time in Sussex.

  So began the cycle of recovery and relapse, hope and disappointment, that was to continue over the next eight years. Spells spent in various treatment centers around the country, both state-funded and later paid for by Hubert and Joyce with savings they had once hoped their son might use to put down a deposit on a home of his own, just as they had helped his sister and her husband to do. And as the pot of money dwindled, so too did Hubert and Joyce’s hopes that David might recover for good. Not that they would ever say this to him, or for that matter to each other. Instead, each time, they would assure one another that this time would be different.

  They’d only found out about this most recent relapse when Julie, David’s current girlfriend, who he lived with in Bournemouth, had called to say that he was in the hospital, having accidentally overdosed on heroin. Fearing for their son, Hubert and Joyce had rushed to his bedside once again and this time, determined that it would be the last, had, with Rose’s help, researched facilities that might cure David for good. The Cedars, set deep in the Dorset countryside, had come out tops, with a price tag to match. Its program was tougher than any they had encountered so far, with patients having no contact with the outside world for the first two months of their stay, but its success rate seemed to justify this extreme measure. David had been booked in on a cold, wet day in the middle of January and today, a cool but bright spring day in March, was the first time they had been allowed to visit him. That it was also David’s birthday was a poignant coincidence, one that Hubert thought he could live with if it meant that at least his son was getting better.

  With traffic, the journey took Hubert just over three and a half hours to complete. He’d whiled away most of the drive listening to music on the tape player in his car: some Motown, a bit of sixties soul, and a compilation Gus had made of blue beat and ska tunes. Gus’s tape reminded Hubert of happier times, when he had been young and carefree. Back then he could never have imagined that one day those very same songs might form the soundtrack for a journey such as this. Back then the only thing on his mind had been Joyce.

  Perhaps if David had met someone like his Joyce he wouldn’t be in this mess. Perhaps he, like Hubert, would’ve married and settled down, spent his life working hard for his family instead of getting mixed up with all this nonsense. Then again, perhaps it was being born in this country that was to blame. People back home in Jamaica couldn’t just sit around on their backsides and get money from the government and use it to get off their faces. Not to say that there weren’t drunks and so forth back home, but certainly when Hubert was growing up it was rare to see someone like this. The fact was, if you didn’t work you didn’t eat, and maybe that was enough to keep people out of trouble.

  As he pulled up in front of a long whitewashed farmhouse set in the prettiest location you could ever hope to imagine, he thought how much Joyce would enjoy being out in the countryside like this, miles away from anything. Getting out of the car, Hubert stood still and listened, and no matter how hard he strained, he found it impossible to hear anything other than birds singing and lambs bleating in the distance. It sounded like peace, real peace. A place where a broken soul could heal. If anywhere in the world was going to cure David, it would be here.

  Clutching the bag with the cards and presents inside, Hubert made his way to an informal reception area where he was met by a woman with wild frizzy hair and small round spectacles, who introduced herself as one of the center’s staff members. She led him through the house and back outside to a worn wooden picnic table that overlooked a large pond with a family of ducks swimming across it.

  “Just wait here and I’ll go and get David for you.”

  Enjoying the warmth of the hazy midmorning sun on the back of his neck, Hubert noticed a number of people dotted around the grounds. Some were occupied repairing a post-and-rail fence, others sat in small groups or pairs holding cups of tea and chatting, while one or two worked on a vegetable garden to the side of the house.

  At first glance it was impossible to tell which were staff and which were patients or “guests,” as the center’s literature referred to them, but on closer scrutiny, observing their body language and general demeanor, Hubert guessed that most of them were in fact actually here to receive treatment, just like David.

  Deliberating whether to arrange his son’s presents on the table for him to open there and then, or to leave them in the bag for later, Hubert heard a sound behind him and turned to see David walking toward him. He was thin and drawn, but looked a million times better than he had in the hospital. His hair, now in dreadlocks, was held back from his face with a sweatband, and he was wearing a navy tra
cksuit top with jeans and scruffy white trainers.

  He mumbled a greeting to Hubert as he climbed onto the bench on the opposite side of the table. The two sat in silence, David constantly playing with an ornate silver ring on his finger, all the while blinking in the sunlight as though this was the first time he’d been outside all day.

  “Where’s Mum?” he said eventually. His voice was slightly slurred and uneven and Hubert wondered what cocktail of medication they had him on this time.

  “Your mother wasn’t feeling too well. But she sends all her love and of course wishes you a happy birthday.”

  David nodded, but his eyes glazed over almost as if he’d forgotten asking the question.

  “Rose called last night too. She and Robin wished you a happy birthday, and them say you’re still welcome to stay with them when you finish up here.”

  David said nothing.

  “You want me tell them all that you send your love?” prompted Hubert.

  David nodded again. “Yeah, tell them that.”

  There was another long silence. A small group of residents headed indoors and one of them called to David, who waved in response. “So tell me,” said Hubert when he realized that his son wasn’t going to say anything, “how you settling in? What the place like?”

  David scratched the back of his head absentmindedly. “It’s fine.”

  “And you feel like you’re getting better?”

  A pause, several blinks of the eye, and then, “Yeah, definitely.”

  “What kind of thing you have to do here?” asked Hubert, struggling to keep the conversation going. “Me saw some people mending the fence. Is that the sort of thing you get involved in?”

  “They… they… keep us busy. We… we… all have to help around the place.”

  “Sounds good. Your grandmother always used to say, ‘The devil make work for idle hands.’”

  David yawned and stretched like a cat.

  “Late night?”

  “I… feel like I’m always tired these days. Even when I’ve just woken up.”