A User's Guide to Make-Believe

by Jane Alexander

  They set off, heading west; she didn’t ask where.

  ‘You’ve not been back to the group.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor has Lewis.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘None of my business, but you’re here to talk, so …’

  ‘I knew you’d be—’ She was going to say worried, but that was a presumption. Why should he worry about either of them? ‘Concerned.’

  ‘Was I right to be?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And are you going to tell me about it?’

  She didn’t answer.

  They were near the cathedral: St Mary’s, she thought it was. ‘Here.’ Jake turned down a path that led round the side; there was an expanse of grass, and a bench. She followed him, and they sat.

  Side by side was good. You could talk, and you didn’t need to look the other person in the eye.

  She spoke first. ‘I want to tell you,’ she said. ‘If I could explain, it would all make more sense – but it’s just …’ She paused: just what? Fear, still keeping her quiet? Fear that stopped her talking to someone as rock-solid as Jake? But in the last weeks she’d taken far more serious risks – and right now she was planning the biggest risk of all. Not fear. It was just too hard to explain. Too much to expect that anyone could believe. ‘If I tell you me and Lewis are the same. With both of us, it’s not drink that’s a problem, and it’s not drugs.’

  ‘But it’s something you have an addiction to.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Lewis?’

  ‘The same. It’s not – I know we’re meant to avoid it, that kind of relationship, not let it derail your recovery – but it’s not like one of us dragging the other down. I don’t think it’s that. It’s both of us.’ She turned to face him. ‘It’ll swallow my life,’ she said. ‘Just the same as if it was drink or drugs, I know that. It happened before, and now it’s going to happen again.’

  ‘Going to. It hasn’t happened yet. You haven’t relapsed.’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but—’

  ‘It’s still your choice, Cassie. You can be in control; you don’t have to let it control you.’

  ‘But I want it to happen again. I really—’ Her breath let her down. She stopped, inhaled. Saw her feet sinking into the uncut grass: white daisies closing their eyes for the evening, and the grey of her grubby trainers. ‘There’s someone who matters to me more than anything.’ She looked at Jake, a sideways glance. ‘Not Lewis,’ she said, ‘not that Lewis doesn’t matter, but … not him. And I lost him, this person, and I thought he was gone for ever. The man – the boy that I … Anyway. Now I’ve found a way to get him back. To get back to him.’

  In the quiet that followed, she thought of all the questions Jake could ask. But the traffic rose and fell in the near distance, and a seagull cried overhead, and he didn’t ask anything.

  ‘You know,’ he said at last, ‘the only way it can work, staying free, is to want it. Whether it’s drink or drugs, and if you say it’s the same – your thing, whatever it is – you have to find a way to want that.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t.’

  ‘Well then.’ Jake shrugged. ‘What are you here for?’

  She stared at him in dismay.

  ‘You’re looking at me like I don’t care. That’s not true, but what I’m saying is it’s up to you. You came here wanting to speak to me; you’re asking for my advice, but it seems like what you want is for me to tell you it’s OK. It’s OK to let go, stop trying, let it swallow you. And I’m not going to tell you that.’

  There was something black, an ant or a tiny beetle, scaling the toe of her trainer. She watched it, hard, keeping her eyes wide open and her lips pressed shut.

  ‘So if you still want my advice: try. Try and find something else that matters. It may not matter as much; nothing’ll maybe ever matter as much. That’s what we live with, isn’t it? That’s the shit we all live with.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘To paraphrase: what’s so special about my shit?’

  ‘If you like. And you know, eventually … if you’re lucky, something else will matter. Really matter. I love my wife, you know? I love my kids. And I don’t bang on about it, but – this. This matters.’ He meant the cathedral. The faith it stood for.

  She turned her face away. She didn’t have what Jake did, had never believed, though faith was a life raft for many people at the group. But she’d had a family, once. And she loved them still, even if they’d forgotten all about her. She breathed a couple of long breaths, and after a bit she said, ‘OK. I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad.’

  The ant-beetle creature was gone. Vanished in the grass, or crawled into her trainer, through a hole in its worn-out sole. ‘Time’s up, I guess,’ she said. ‘You’d best get home, or she’ll be wondering where you are.’

  ‘Yep.’ But he didn’t move. ‘Listen, I don’t know if you heard about April.’

  April. Recaller of names, pourer of tea. Wide-eyed, and perpetually surprised.

  ‘She was found by her daughter – last week. Overdose. It wasn’t an accident; she meant to. Sleeping tablets.’

  ‘Oh. God. That’s awful. Of all the people.’ She wasn’t sure how close they’d been, April and Jake. Whether she should be sorry for him. Said it anyway: ‘I’m so sorry.’ They were the right words, and she meant them; she just couldn’t quite feel them the way she knew she should.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s always a shock, whoever – but yeah. I don’t think any of us had an inkling. Anyway, I thought I should tell you.’ He stood up. ‘The funeral’s tomorrow, if you wanted to come.’

  His voice was weighted, weary, and she thought of him suddenly as an Atlas: bearing them all on his broad shoulders, bent almost double. Leaning on that faith of his, and trying not to show how he struggled with the load. She wished he’d stay, protective and bearlike beside her. Wanted to give him a hug, though she wasn’t sure who would be comforting whom; knew anyway that he would set her aside, gently, firmly, and she’d feel a total idiot.

  Instead, she nodded as he told her where and when. Promised she’d be there. Promised, once more, that she’d try.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The park was thronged with kids, halfway through their summer break. From the west, the sky was darkening. By evening, it would crack open; thunder was imminent. Cassie could feel it in her aching jaw, could sense it taking an in-breath, ready to let rip. Children shrieked, their wildness muffled by the muggy air. Heavy clouds bore down on their shrill games; parents were called on to adjudicate and console, as laughter swung to hysterics.

  From her bench between the swings and the climbing frame, Cassie scanned the running, kicking, climbing mass, looking out for Ella and Finn – because this was the Good Park, where they always came. Where they had always come. It was a priority maintenance area, occupied by well-off families and frequented by tourists: while the scraps of green near to Meg’s flat were mined with dogshit, needles, broken glass, here the grass was neat and the flowerbeds tended. The swing-chains were unrusted, the roundabout spun smoothly on its axis, so this was where Cassie used to take the kids to give Meg a break, though it was a long walk from the flat, for Ella especially. Ella would always beg to be carried, would plead and sulk and cajole and eventually Cassie would give in because Ella was only three, after all, and a small three at that and her legs were short for all that walking. And then Finn would complain. Five was old enough to walk, she’d tell him, but still he’d whinge – till she distracted him with a story starring himself. And that’s how they would make it there and back to the Good Park.

  Ella had turned five now, of course, and Finn was nearly seven. Both old enough to walk. A few times over the last year she’d seen them here. Always she’d kept her distance. Protecting herself, from Meg’s indifference. Protecting the kids, from her own carelessness.

  This was where they always came, but today they were nowhere to be seen.

  Cassie might have bee
n a mum, grabbing ten minutes to herself while the kids let off steam, except that she’d been there five hours already. Five hours during which she had missed April’s funeral; but there would have been plenty folk there to remember her, and this – sitting here, waiting – was more important. She was only sorry to have broken her promise to Jake.

  I love my wife, he’d said. I love my kids. She knew Jake’s story. Where she was closed like a fist, he laid his past open. What Jake had lost: a mother and father (dead, from drink); a little brother (dead from drugs); eight years (prison, assault and possession with intent to supply); a first wife and a daughter (estranged, and living on the other side of the world). And still he could say, If you’re lucky, something else will matter. His luck was a woman who knew what he came from and loved him all the same – enough to give him a second chance at love, marriage, kids.

  How would her own luck come, if it came? What would it look like? Not like this. Not like a woman in a play-park with one eye on her kids on a Saturday afternoon. It made no difference how carefully she watered her umbrella plant, how often she fed Lewis’s stupid cat. In reality she wasn’t to be relied on. She’d proved it to herself. She could never be the kind of person to look after others. Funny – for years she’d thought herself strong, even brave. When her mum died she’d missed a week of school, gone back and sat her exams. When her dad left she’d carried on, navigated the end of school, got herself into university, begun her adult life. Then, true, she’d had Alan alongside her. But later, after it all fell apart – when the easiest thing would have been to do what April had just done – Cassie had put her head down and trudged on. Rebuilt a life of sorts. Tried to make amends.

  But she’d been kidding herself all along. She knew that now. She was selfish, and weak, giving in to the first real temptation.

  She made herself a rollie with her last shreds of tobacco, risking the disapproval of every adult in the park. She’d stay till teatime, she supposed – knowing they might not come, that they probably wouldn’t come. She’d stay till the crowd of kids thinned out, dragged off by parents, reluctantly home to food and bath and bed; or until the first drops of rain cleared the park. And she’d come again tomorrow, and after that … she didn’t know. She could go to her sister’s flat. Meg wouldn’t let her in, of course; since the incident, she never had. But Cassie might still catch a glimpse, and that glimpse might be enough. Might matter enough. Might help her make the choice Jake wanted her to make: the damaged present over the perfect past.

  She’d always assumed, without ever much thinking about it, that she’d have kids of her own, with Alan. It wouldn’t happen now, of course. Still, just occasionally, she found herself imagining. As a shaft of sun slipped through a fleeting gap in the clouds, she narrowed her eyes, and let herself see them. Their child – a girl – taking careful steps along the balance beam. Alan pacing alongside, there to steady their daughter if she wobbled, to catch her if she fell. Almost close enough to touch; a world she and Alan had Made together. That shimmered behind a heavy curtain of reality – and every now and then a wind got up, caught the fabric and gave it a tug, so a bright breathtaking glimpse of Make-Believe showed through.

  Cassie dragged herself back to reality. Refocused, reframed the scene. Concentrated on the splintered paint of the bench against her palms, which was rough and real but only when she made herself notice. When she let herself drift, there was no bench, no flaking paint. No dry, warm scent of trampled grass. Focus – and there it was again. Touch, smell, sound. The high clamour of children’s voices, the lower-pitched calls of the parents.

  ‘Finn, steady there!’

  The name jolted her. Rippled through her. But the voice was unfamiliar, a dad’s protective shout. Someone else’s Finn. She scanned the park for this other Finn – slide, roundabout, climbing frame – and froze. There was Ella on the swings, legs stuck out in front, and Finn pushing inexpertly so her swing circled, jerked from side to side more than it rose and fell. Beside them – taking over, now, on pushing duties – was the man who had shouted. A man Cassie didn’t know.

  She watched how he swung her niece, carefully, not hard or high, a short straight line and a steady rhythm. Ella leant with the movement, forward and back, her too-big T-shirt billowing on her skinny frame. Cassie used to lower her into the leather sling of a baby swing, push her oh-so-gently, and she’d sit with her mouth open like she was concentrating on learning through her eyes ears mouth nose and skin, would stare at her feet as though hypnotised by their swooshing above the ground. Now she squealed, giddy from sailing through the sky. She twisted round to say something to the man – and Cassie felt her legs tense, ready to leap up, her arms ready to catch, if Ella’s small hands should slip from the chains.

  ‘Hang on though, baby,’ she heard the man say. ‘Are you holding on properly? Hold on tight.’

  After a while he slowed the swing, caught it, and Ella slid to the ground so Finn could take a turn. His hair had grown longish; it blew back as he arced up, covered his eyes on the downswing.

  ‘Higher!’ he called, straight away. ‘I go higher than this, much higher! I go right to the top!’ And the man pushed harder, and Cassie could see the thrill on Finn’s face. She saw the moment it tipped into uncertainty, his feet touching level with the top bar – heard his yelp, and watched how swiftly the man stretched and braced and caught him near the top of the arc, grasping the seat with both hands, bringing it down safe and pretending not to have noticed Finn’s moment of fear.

  ‘Where next?’ was all he said.

  A moment’s thought, then Finn was running, and Ella too. Towards her – past her – no more than a foot away. The man even gave her a sort of smile as he brought up the rear. Cassie turned her head to watch as Finn boarded the roundabout, and Ella scrambled astride a bouncing yellow duck.

  Find something else that matters. This was her trying, just as she’d promised. Trying to find the something else. And they did, they mattered; but what good was that? They had run straight past her. They didn’t know her any more. It was she who didn’t matter. Her sister’s kids came to the park with a man who was a stranger to her: he mattered. A man unconnected to her family, with no ties of blood. He seemed a kind man. You’d think he was a great dad, if you didn’t know.

  Cassie watched till the kids grew tired of playing, started a campaign for ice cream. From where she sat, their voices were lost in the babble. She saw Ella pointing at the van, and both of them tugging, one on each arm, till the man gave in and they joined the queue. She would have liked to see them more closely, now they were standing still. See how they were growing up, how like their mum they were, or their grandparents, or their aunt. She thought about joining the ice cream queue herself. She could hover behind them. Even speak to them. She could do that – say, Hello, you won’t remember me, will you? Ask, Did you like the book I sent? The idea squirmed inside her, made her sit up straight, ready to act. If he left them, just for a moment. If he turned to speak to someone else. But it was too late; now they were at the counter, choosing their ice creams. Now they were turning, heading for the gates. Ready for home. Finn and Ella hand in hand, eating as they walked.

  Hand in hand. It was how they must have gone when they left her flat, the last time she’d looked after them. The last time she was family to them. The time when they were lost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  You fall asleep, exhausted, cross the border between Make-Believe and dreams, and wake back in the real world cold and stiff, lying wet in the empty bathtub.

  You ache from hours unmoving on a hard surface. You’ve wet yourself, again – but that’s OK. That’s why you were in the bath in the first place. Your knickers, your T-shirt, are cold and clinging and sweet-sour smelling. You haul yourself up, bones painful against the enamel. Wrap your arms around your legs, head bowed against your knees.

  It takes a couple of minutes to remember yourself.

  Every time you land back here, you lose him. You lose
Alan. You lose yourself: the self that you are with him. Return to a self you can’t recognise.

  You stand, unsteady. Peel off your soiled clothes and throw them in the sink. You told yourself you wouldn’t do it. Tonight – last night. You would stay in the real world, stay and look after the kids.

  The kids— But they’ll be sleeping still. An adventure for them to stay overnight, sleeping in your big bed, with Meg away out on her first date since their dad left. When you picked them up last night all three of them were giddy, Meg in her glittery top, flushed and giggling, Finn and Ella tearing about like mad things. It took a while for the kids to settle – but when you crept at midnight from the spare room into the bathroom, you made sure to look in on them by the light from the hallway, and everything was fine. The two of them breathing deep, under the covers: Finn flat on his front, Ella stretched like a starfish.

  You tilt your face up to the showerhead. Let the steaming water clean you, comfort you. You stand for a long time, till you feel yourself thawing, coming back to life. Then, wrapped in your dressing gown, you go to check on the children.

  The bedroom: empty, duvet pushed back. They must have got up, gone next door to the lounge, amused themselves with the TV or by jumping on the sofa.

  Except: no sound. Not in the lounge. Not in the kitchen. Not in the spare room. The flat deserted – the front door open – outside, the corridor empty – God, what time was it? How long – how long had she Make-Believed?

  She shook as she tugged on her clothes, tied her shoes. Grabbed her keys, her screen, ran out of the flat. For a moment she stood helpless, skin prickling with horror. The building had twelve floors, a lift and two staircases. Surely the panel for the lift would be too high for Finn? But he’d reached the snib of her front door— They liked the lift, sailing up and down in it … She made her choice, pressed the button. Heard it respond, with infinite slowness. As it hauled up from ground level, she thought of Meg. The impossibility of telling her. Reached for the wall to hold herself up, knees shaking. She had to find them. She’d do anything, she’d destroy her receiver, would stay real for ever—