Angels Of The North

by Ray Banks

  "You know, I saw you." He watched her; she barely moved, but there was a definite bristle as he spoke. "When I came round on your birthday. I saw you in the upstairs window. You know that, right?"

  She didn't say anything. She didn't acknowledge his presence.

  "You know, I asked your mother, could you be there? And she said yes, so I'm not blaming her for this. I know you were there, I know she did her best to keep you there, and I know she was just making excuses for you when I turned up. But I don't know why, so you're going to have to help me out on that."

  Nothing.

  "Danielle—"

  Her voice was high-pitched and harsh. "Don't you ever shut up?"

  "What?"

  "You talk all the time. You always did. Think you're being clever, or you're being good, making us talk about stuff all the time, but you're not. You're stupid and you're wrong." There were tears in her eyes now. "Why do you have talk about everything? Why can't you just leave it alone?"

  "Because I don't understand—"

  "Then you're fucking dumb, aren't you?"

  Brian couldn't say anything; the words wouldn't come. He felt something, though. He felt as if he could slap the kid off her fucking chair. He felt the tingling, the electricity running through his muscles, the tension in his fingers. And the pain, the knot of pain in his chest. He swallowed. Breathed out through his nose. He couldn't say anything now. It was too late for all that. The silence between them was cold.

  "Can I go home now?"

  He shook his head. "No."

  "I just want to go home."

  "I know you do."

  "So why not?"

  "Because you're an ungrateful little pig."

  Her voice became shrill. "I just want to go home. Why can't I go home?"

  Brian felt people turning to look at them. He lowered his head. If he had his way, he would get up and leave her, because here was the thing: Danielle was right. Deep down, and after the shock of her insolence had been absorbed, he knew she was right – he did talk everything out. It was what he did. It was his talent. He knew how to debate, he knew how to argue and he knew how to get people on side. Lynne knew that, too, which was why when she left him she didn't give him the opportunity to state his case, which made him even more determined to do so, which led to the phone calls late at night, the letters, the stalking ...

  He ran a hand over his face. He couldn't stay angry at Danielle. She was still family, and they still deserved the opportunity to work this through somehow. He was fucked if he knew how to do it, but it was something that needed to be done. She was the shining jewel amongst the wreckage of his marriage, and he wouldn't have her tarnished for anything. But there'd be other chances. Nothing worthwhile came easily.

  So, then. Best to give it up as a bad day.

  "Okay, come on. I'll take you home."

  They drove back to Low Fell in silence. When Danielle got out of the cab, she didn't say anything, didn't so much as glance over her shoulder at him as she ran up the steps and rang the doorbell. Her mother answered. Lynne looked surprised that she was back so soon. They talked for a second and then Danielle went inside. Lynne came down to talk to him. She appeared at the passenger-side window. He wound it down a little so they could speak without shouting.

  "What happened?"

  "She didn't tell you?"

  "Not really."

  "Well, she can tell you later on. There was a mix-up with the film. Didn't work out."

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "It's okay. Nothing you can do about it."

  "What are you going to do now?"

  "I don't know." He looked at his hands. "I've got the day off, but I might go in to work. I could always use the fares."

  "Okay. You'll remember the appointment?"

  He nodded. Started the engine. "Deal's a deal."

  He pulled away. His hands were tight around the steering wheel. He could feel the tendons in his fingers moving. His right hand still ached from slapping the window. He looked in the rear view, saw the house disappearing, Lynne walking back up the steps. He sighed, then went looking for a fare he could take to Dunston Park, even though it was a bright afternoon, and the dealers were all asleep.

  41

  It was too warm in here.

  It was too warm in all of these places – down the dole, the banks, the doctors, the courts, the recruitment office, everywhere. A government-sanctioned temperature come hail or heatwave, designed to highlight the anxious and tranquilise everyone else. Joe prayed for a breeze, for someone to leave a door open or jemmy one of the painted-shut windows. He shifted in his seat, smacked his dry lips. Every time he breathed he tasted a cocktail of other people's halitosis. He needed distraction. There were magazines on the table in front of him, but they all involved homes, holidays or health, none of which particularly appealed. He glanced across at Michelle. She was reading Woman's Weekly, an article about Charles and Diana – "SIX YEARS INTO A THOROUGHLY MODERN MARRIAGE!" He felt tired just looking at it.

  The old man had won; that was why they were here. The only condition was that he didn't accompany Joe to his appointment, so Michelle had come along instead. Now the charade that he was functional and self-reliant had been smashed to bits, it was obvious that the methadone wasn't the cure-all he needed, and that, yes, he probably needed to talk to someone about his feelings and shit like that. The old man and Michelle were out of the question, and the bairn might have provided some comfort but her advice was bollocks. So he needed a third party, and seeing as there wasn't a priest available, Joe had been forced to come here and see Dr Kelly. And when the woman with the Deirdre Barlow glasses called his name, he went on in.

  Dr Kelly was wide in the hips, and her double-knit cardigans made her look as though she was melting. This was his second visit, so he knew the drill. She'd write a lot and not say much. The idea was that Joe talked and she'd ask questions when the pauses dragged on too long. The problem was that Joe didn't want to talk. Just couldn't do it. And he wanted to talk even less when Kelly kept circling back to the same old topics – his army experience, his feelings about his family, his feelings about himself. Joe knew he was expected to vent about the old man, or else tell Kelly that Mam didn't love him enough, that maybe he'd suspected that Michelle had been fucking other blokes while he was away but that he'd stopped caring after the second tour. He half-wanted to make some stuff up, just to give her something to think about, like that basket case he knew in basic who used to wank his brains out under his scratchy green blanket in the wee small hours and sob afterwards. But there was a fine line here – he didn't want to get himself hospitalised.

  And she was angling for something. Because he wouldn't have been here if everything was tickety-fucking-boo.

  "So how's it been?" She sat, pen poised.

  Joe lit a cigarette. The first of many. He sniffed. "All right."

  "Still taking your prescription?"

  Joe nodded. She scribbled.

  "And how are you sleeping?"

  "Okay."

  "Better?"

  He nodded again. Took a drag off the cigarette.

  "Last time we spoke, you were going to try not to use the sleeping pills."

  "Aye."

  "How did that go?"

  "I tried."

  "Okay." Dr Kelly looked at her notes, flipped a couple of pages. "We were discussing your daughter."

  "Were we?"

  "Yes. How's that been?"

  "How's what been?"

  "Your relationship with her."

  "She's a bairn."

  "I see."

  He shrugged. "She's another week older. Got fuck all to say for herself. I don't know what you're getting at."

  "You said you were feeling disconnected from her."

  Joe remembered the look in Kelly's eye when he'd mentioned it. "I suppose so."

  "Was that the case before you went away?"

  Joe regarded her. Blinked in the smoke. "I don't know. She wasn't born then,
was she?"

  "She was born while you were away?"

  "Aye."

  "But Michelle would have been pregnant before?"

  "Yes."

  "So how did you feel about that?"

  He'd been over the moon, naturally. Because those were the days when he still fancied himself a normal human being. Happy that she was pregnant, worried sick that he was about to go over to a country where there were people who wanted to fucking kill him everywhere he went. Worried too that she was living with her dad while he was away. Something didn't seem right about it. He could've had an army house, right enough, but he'd never asked for it, because if living with his dad was uncomfortable, then living in army accommodation was fucking unbearable. You were trapped in those communities. Everyone around you was army, and if they weren't actively enlisted, then they were married or first-line related to someone who was. The army owned and ran everything in their lives. They owned you. They never let you forget it. For some people that was comforting. For Joe, it was a waking nightmare, and a commitment to a cause that he'd never really believed in. The army was an employer, not a god.

  He shrugged. "It was all right."

  "Were you looking forward to being a father?"

  He didn't remember, truth be told, but a part of him felt he should love the kid. He'd done so before and it was his fault he couldn't manage it now. "It's what you've got to do, isn't it?"

  "An obligation?"

  "Aye." He wiped his nose. "You don't have kids, people look at you funny. You got kids?"

  She didn't answer that. She didn't answer personal questions. It annoyed him, made him ask himself why he should answer any personal questions if she wouldn't. Made him feel like he was on trial. And he'd never done nothing wrong except get out of his head once in a while. And look at this bitch, she wouldn't last five fucking seconds in his head. With his thoughts. She would kill herself.

  He ran a hand over his eyes. They were stinging.

  "So you felt obligated to have a child?"

  "No."

  "You said it was an obligation."

  "No, I didn't. You did. You're the one used that word. I said people look at you funny, you don't have kids. I never felt obligated. It's just something you do, though, isn't it?" He tapped ash.

  "And do you think your feelings towards the child have changed since you've been away?"

  "I don't know how they could've. She wasn't born—"

  "Between when Michelle was pregnant and now the baby is born, I meant."

  "No. My feelings haven't changed."

  Because he didn't have any feelings, did he? Not anymore. Maybe there'd been a couple of weeks after he got back that he'd been able to look at the kid without ...

  He cleared his throat. Shook his head.

  "Something wrong?"

  "No."

  He could probably feign interest but that would just put him in closer proximity to the kid, and that didn't seem like a very good idea, because there were other thoughts – anxious, bloody thoughts – that put tension in his hands. And who was he going to tell about that? Her? Michelle? His dad? This one here? No. Nobody. Nobody would understand. They would think he was nuts. Think he was Michael Ryan, one step away from going on a fucking rampage. Thing was – thing to remember – was that Ryan wasn't a soldier. He was a civilian with fucking delusions. He'd been a soldier, you'd know it. He wouldn't have made such a fucking hash of it in the first place. He would've had some discipline. Discipline was what the army gave you. Gave you discipline in spades, so much you didn't know what to do with it. And he sat there and thought, Christ, how much of him was him anymore? How much of these feelings was down to him, and how much down to the army?

  "You're thinking about something."

  Dr Kelly was watching him. He didn't know how long he'd been silent. There was a long run of ash on the end of his cigarette. He tapped it. It curled as it hit the ashtray. He thought about taking another drag, but felt grimy all of a sudden, so he ground out the cigarette and flexed his fingers.

  "You don't want to tell me?"

  He shook his head.

  "That's okay. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

  He couldn't resist a smirk. "Oh aye, right."

  Dr Kelly put down her pen. "You don't have to be here, Joe."

  He looked up. "Oh aye?"

  "You really don't. You haven't been ordered to do so by a court. There's no legal requirement. You can, if you want, get up right now and leave and nothing will happen. Nobody will blame you. If you honestly don't feel that this is of any use to you, then you're welcome to leave."

  He didn't move. Kept watching her. Kept up the half-smile. Wondering where she was going with this. Because there had to be a sting somewhere. These people didn't make their money by allowing their patients to make their own decisions.

  "I get paid whether you talk or not."

  The smile disappeared from Joe's face. He wondered if he'd spoken out loud.

  She cocked her head. "What is it?"

  "Nowt."

  "You sure? I'm not distressing you, am I?"

  "No."

  "Okay, good. Because you made the decision to be here, Joe. I know a lot of people feel pressured into attending these sessions. They put the blame on their wives or their parents – they made me do it. But ultimately, the choice has to be yours. There's no point in us talking if you don't want to be here. So if you want to leave, then you should leave. It's up to you."

  He stayed seated. Stared at Kelly. "I don't want to talk."

  "That's fine."

  "So there's no point in me being here."

  "Well, yes and no."

  "How d'you mean?"

  "Well, even if we're not going to talk, you might want to attend just to get some quiet time. I mean, we can just sit here for fifty minutes if you want." She glanced at her notes. "Strikes me that your home life doesn't give you much peace. If you want, I don't even have to be here, but I'd rather be present if it's all the same to you."

  Joe nodded at the pad. "So you can make your notes."

  She smiled. She showed one grey tooth that Joe had never seen before because he couldn't remember the last time – if ever – she'd smiled. "I do have to make my notes if we're treating these sessions as counselling, but if we're not, then I can put the book to one side." She tapped the side of her head. "I can always try to remember."

  Joe laughed. Couldn't help himself.

  "All I'm saying, Joe, is that I want this session to be as helpful as possible for you. There's no point in doing it if you're going to feel worse afterwards. And I'm going to trust you to know what's best for you."

  "Oh aye, I've got form in that respect."

  "Okay, but you know when you want to talk. You know when you want to stay silent. You know what's too raw to be touched upon. Contrary to popular belief, this kind of counselling isn't about making you cry. Funnily enough, it's about making you feel better."

  "That's a shame. I could use a good cry."

  She laughed this time. "You should try It's a Wonderful Life. Does it to me every time."

  "I'll bear it in mind."

  "Good. My point is that I know people come into this room with a set of expectations. Everyone's problems are their own, right? Especially if you were in the army. Civilians can't possibly understand."

  "You were in the army?"

  "No, but I've talked to a lot of soldiers over the years. And I know you're thinking that isn't the same, but when you've heard similar experiences over and over again, you get to understand the problems."

  "I'm not going to talk about it."

  "You don't have to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable. That's what I'm saying. But I'm also saying, if you ever do feel comfortable talking about it or anything else that's been troubling you, then I'll understand."

  He smiled. She hadn't heard this before.

  "Doesn't matter how bad, either. I've had men want to kill their children."

/>   Nice guess. He let out a short laugh and shook his head.

  "Not angry men, either. No malice. Nothing to do with their family, nothing they've done wrong, which is why it troubles them so much. They're just desperate. Wanting to push that button in their head that disconnects it all, or that might throw them out of the funk they've been feeling since they came back." She shrugged and looked sad. "I know they're working on it, but coming out of the army into civilian life, especially if you've had a particularly difficult time abroad, is tougher than most people think. And a lot of men and women find it even tougher if they don't have some support. That's what I'm here for. There's no judgement, just help. If you want it, that is."

  Joe didn't move. Didn't react. Didn't want to show it.

  "So yes, if that help is just a bit of peace and quiet—"

  "Not much of that so far."

  "No, I suppose not. Well, whatever you need. I'd just rather you left here feeling better than when you came in." She smiled again. "Kind of the reason I got into this racket in the first place."

  Joe nodded. He reached for his cigarettes and lit another one. That first drag caught the back of his throat. He rode it and exhaled. The smoke was thick and grey. It hung in the dead air. Dr Kelly put her pad to one side and the pair of them sat in silence for a short while.

  He blew a little air. The smoke swirled. "Doesn't matter that you know about soldiers."

  "Really?"

  "I'm not a soldier anymore. Did you know that?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "Not in your notes or owt?"

  "I wasn't informed."

  "No. 'Cause I never told nobody. Think it's pretty obvious now. They bounced us out. Caught us with the smack. Didn't want to make a fuss or anything, so they asked us to leave nicely. Got Michelle and my dad wondering when I'm going to go away again, they don't know that I'm unemployed. Or they do, but they don't want to talk about it."

  "Do you think you'll tell them?"

  "I'm going to have to at some point, aren't I?" He laughed. "Else I'm going to have to fuck off somewhere dangerous for three months." He took another drag and smiled. "Maybe I'll go down to Chapeltown."