Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

  I’m not good

  Queenie

  But I’ll be fine

  Darcy

  Take your time! There’s no rush!

  Queenie

  Of course there’s a rush. I’ve felt bad for so long. I just want to be better. I want to be normal

  Darcy

  A lot has happened to you, Queenie. It’s a huge amount to process. But you’ll get there!

  Queenie

  I guess

  Kyazike

  Ah, fam. I know it’s mad, still, but you’ll be back to yourself in no time. Trust me. In the meantime, you ain’t missing out on anything. I haven’t even been on any dates I can entertain you with

  Queenie

  Ha

  Queenie

  I think I’m going to go off-grid for a bit, if that’s all right. Talking to you just reminds me that I’m a shell of the Queenie you were friends with

  Darcy

  You’re Queenie! You don’t have to be one way or another for us to love you. But you take your time. We’ll always be here. Xxxxxx

  Kyazike

  Exactly. What Darcy said. Love, fam

  That night and the night after, I lay awake, thinking about how best to approach the introduction of counseling to my grandparents. I didn’t entertain the idea of lying to them; since I’d been staying here, every second of my time was accounted for, logged, and discussed.

  On Friday morning, after our porridge, I decided that after I’d taken a letter to the postbox for my granddad would be the time to tell first my grandmother about it, and then, judging from her reaction, navigate how to tell my granddad.

  “I heard you fall out of bed last night,” my grandmother shouted from the kitchen as I walked down the stairs.

  “Sorry,” I shouted back. “Second time that’s happened this week. Maybe I should put some pillows on the floor!”

  “You’re not putting anyting from the bed on the floor,” came the expected response. “And what’s this?”

  “What’s what?” I said, walking into the kitchen. She sat at the table, arms folded like a mob boss.

  “Close your dressing gown when Granddad is around.” She tutted, unfolding her arms and sliding a letter across the table toward me.

  I picked it up and saw the National Health Service header. An apology left my lips before I could read any farther.

  “You trying to shame all ah we?” she asked. Her eyes burned like hot coals.

  “No, but I need help, don’t I?” I half-asked her. “And a- a nurse referred me, and I didn’t want to do it, because I know that we should just be strong and try to get through these things bu—” This one wasn’t going to go well.

  “You know how much pain me carry?” My grandmother slammed her hand on the table. “You know how much pain I have to tek tru’ my yout’ and my twenties and beyond? You know what my madda, your grandmadda, woulda said if me did tell her me ah go seek psychotherapy? You mus’ be MAD.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I need to go and speak to someone, Grandma. I feel ill, I have this weight on my chest, I lost my job, I’m not well.”

  “None ah we well. Look at yo’ mudda, livin’ in hostel after that man bruk up her life and beat ’er and tek ’er money. Yuh tink she ah go psychotherapy? Ah you mek yourself lose your job becah you nah hold it together. You are nat going.” My grandmother was shaking.

  “Maybe I should leave here, then, and go—”

  “Where you ah go stay? Cyaan stay wid yo’ mudda, yo’ fadda swannin’ around in Jamaica wid young gyal, Maggie cyaan tek you in. Das why you’re wid us, under our roof.” My grandmother’s accent had become so thick I had to work hard to keep up with what she was saying.

  “I’ll go and stay with friends, then,” I said. “Grandma, I never ask anything of you, I never do anything to bring shame on anyone!” I tried to say calmly, to not anger her any further. “I was the first person in this family to finish school, to go to college, to get a degree, to get a full-time job—”

  “Yes! And di firs’ person to go to psychotherapy!” My grandmother hit the table again. “I am telling you. You are nat going.” She folded her arms. The conversation was over. “And dat is dat.”

  “What’s going on, Veronica?” My granddad shuffled into the kitchen, trailing his walking stick across the linoleum. “What coulda ’appen to make you speak such strong patois and bruk up di table?”

  “Let yo’ granddaughta tell you,” my grandmother said, kissing her teeth and pushing herself up from the table. She went over to the sink and started to wash up so furiously that suds splashed onto the ceiling.

  “Well?” my granddad said, looking down at me. I gulped and handed him the letter. He took it from me and surveyed it, slowly. My heart was going to beat out of my chest.

  “I don’t have my glasses, Queenie, what it say?” He handed it back.

  “It’s an appointment.” I said, wincing.

  He stared at me. I’d never known him to pay this much attention to anything but the news, and this turn of events was terrifying. “Appointment? Fi what?” he finally asked.

  “To go and get some counseling. Like, talk therapy. Because—” He lifted his hand and I stopped talking, my breath catching in my throat.

  “Let her go, nuh?” he said to my grandmother. She stopped washing up immediately, but carried on looking into the sink. “Maybe if all ah we had learned to talk about our troubles, we wouldn’t carry so much on our shoulders all the way to the grave.” He turned to walk out, his stick hitting the floor with purpose. “Maybe we haffi learn from this new generation, Veronica.”

  chapter

  TWENTY-THREE

  “. . . AND SO, what brings you here today? If you could explain the events that have led you to seek talk therapy?” I looked around the room I was sitting in with a woman I’d never met before but was expected to tell all of my secrets to. “Take your time.”

  The room was cold, clinical. It didn’t have the smell that hospitals had, the smell of illness and disinfectant; instead it smelled of darkness, sadness. It smelled like the sort of space that doesn’t see light or air, candles, flowers, anything that gives a room the sense that somebody cares for the person inside it.

  “Well. I didn’t seek it,” I said finally.

  “Well, your file says that you were referred from a sexual health clinic, is that right?” I was asked.

  “This nurse, Elspeth. She thought I was being pimped out, but then realized that I was just having sex with basically everyone.” I rolled my eyes and threw myself back into my chair. “Stupid.”

  “Okay, well, we can come back to that later. For now, could you tell me why you understand that you need therapy?”

  “I don’t really know how to describe it,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek and pointlessly looking out of the window that had been frosted for privacy. “Er. I don’t know. I feel a bit like things are falling apart? Well, they’ve already fallen apart.”

  “Okay. And in what way do you think that things have fallen apart?” the woman asked softly.

  “I had a job. I lost that. And . . . I lived in a house that was kind of rubbish but at least I could pay my rent, but now that I don’t have a job, I’ve lost that, so I’m living with my grandparents, so I’ve lost any independence. I had a relationship with a guy who was probably the love of my life. But that fell apart, and that was my fault.” I stopped speaking, remembering the way Anna had tenderly put her hand on Tom’s naked waist. I took a deep breath.

  • • •

  “Could you not touch me?” I groaned, rolling over onto my side and away from Tom. “I feel sick.”

  “Oh, shit. Do you want me to get you anything?” he asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “No, get off me.” I wriggled away.

  “Will you be all right for Saturday?” Tom asked.

  “What’s Saturday?”

  “My mum’s birthday, remember?” he reminded me. “We’re meant to be
staying there for the weekend?”

  “I don’t know, do I?”

  “Queenie,” Tom started, “are you sure everything is all right? You’ve been . . . off for a while now.”

  “I’ve felt like shit for a few days, all sick and light-headed. Maybe it’s a bug or something,” I said, pulling the covers closer to me. “I’m going to try to sleep it off.”

  “Yeah, must be one of those bugs that makes you angry and withdrawn too,” Tom huffed, leaving the room.

  I lay on my back and closed my eyes but it made me feel worse. I took some deep breaths through my nose.

  “Here you go.” I opened my eyes and saw Tom standing over me with a cup of tea in the T mug.

  “No thanks.” I shook my head.

  “I’ve just gone to make it for you!” Tom snapped. “Don’t be so ungrateful.”

  “But I didn’t ask for it, did I?” I said. “When I feel like I’m going to throw up, why would I want anything, let alone a cup of milky tea?”

  “Oh, right, so I’m a bad boyfriend for not being able to read your mind?” Tom slammed the mug down on the bedside table and crossed his arms. “You’re impossible lately!”

  “I didn’t say you were a bad boyfriend, did I? Why are you overreacting?”

  “Me, overreact?” Tom asked, wide-eyed. “Me? You feel a bit nauseous and you’re acting like you’ve been to war!”

  “You do realize that you’re having a go at me because I feel sick?” I narrowed my eyes. “Do you know how stupid you’re being?”

  “Oh, so I’m stupid for trying to be nice?” Tom threw his hands in the air dramatically.

  “You’re not trying to be nice, though, you’re trying to fix things immediately,” I told him. “Just go away, let me sleep.”

  “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d just taken the fucking tea.”

  “Don’t swear at me!” I yelped. “I’m very fragile!”

  “You just told me to go away!”

  “Yes, fucking go away!” I shouted. “Get the fuck away from me!”

  “Fine, Queenie, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.” Tom slammed out of the bedroom door and out of the flat.

  • • •

  “Why was it your fault?”

  “I pushed him away. I didn’t know why I felt so bad, I didn’t know how to talk to him about how I felt, and by the time I knew what was wrong, it was too late,” I said. “I’d had a miscarriage. And, yeah, even though I didn’t want a baby, I still lost one. So maybe that doesn’t count, in my theme of loss,” I tried to joke. “And my friends, I think they’re just bored with my problems. It’s not the same with them. I seem to piss them all off, or just burden them, and one of my best friends, Cassandra, she’s moved to the countryside with her boyfriend, some guy that I slept with without knowing—sorry, this probably all sounds really silly, doesn’t it. Like playground drama.” I tried to wrap it up, not yet understanding the limits of what you should say to a therapist and what you should write in your dear diary.

  “Queenie, none of this is silly at all,” Janet said, smiling. She was plump and small and had a kind face puckered with dimples, and her slightly tanned skin was dotted with tiny moles. She spoke slowly and chuckled often, her voice deep and precise, with a lilt that told me she was from up north but had been living in London awhile.

  Her short hair curled around her face, auburn mainly but gray at the temples. I’d started off calling her Dr. Cosima as the letter had said, but she’d asked me not to, telling me that she didn’t want me to feel as though I was being examined.

  Janet laughed gently before she continued. “Try to remember that we all encounter many issues, big or small, and that they’re all relative to us. They impact each of us in different ways. There’s nothing too trivial. It also sounds like you are dealing with some quite big losses, in a concentrated period of time. Could you tell me a little bit about how these things have made you feel?”

  “I don’t know. I feel like I can’t breathe a lot of the time. Sorry, I don’t know how best to say these things, like I should know technical terms, or something.”

  “It isn’t for you to know technical terms, that’s my job. Just try to relax, and tell me, in your own time, how you feel. Even if it’s physical pain, discomfort, if it’s tiredness, sadness, anything at all.”

  “Okay? Well, yeah, I feel tired a lot. Like, exhausted. I feel like I’m always trying to concentrate on being normal again. And I don’t really sleep that well. I feel worried, like something really bad is about to happen, but I can’t pinpoint what, and then I feel even more worried because I can’t work out why I feel the way I do. I feel frightened, like, properly scared. Especially at night. I have these nightmares, this sleep paralysis. I end up physically fighting everyone I share a bed with in my sleep, which is not cool.” I stopped to catch up with myself. “I feel nervous about really small things that I used to be able to do without even thinking about them, like going to the shop, or eating—and I used to really like eating. I don’t feel sick, but my stomach is always flipping over and over, and when I get really upset sometimes it feels like my stomach is, like, closed off. So I don’t have an appetite, is what I’m trying to say. Sometimes I feel frantic? And I feel like everything has just spun out of control, out of my hands? I don’t know. Like . . . I feel a bit like for a while I’ve been carrying ten balls of wool. And one ball fell, so I dropped another to catch it, but still didn’t catch it. Then two more started to unravel, and in trying to save those I lost another one. Do you know what I mean? Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, Queenie.” Janet smiled. “I understand what you mean. You used a term that I don’t really like to be used here—”

  “Oh, sorry. What was it?”

  “You’re apologizing again.” Janet laughed. “Normal. What is normal to you?”

  “Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry for apologi—you know what I mean.” I shook my head quickly as if to reset myself. “Well, you know, normal is normal. Like being happy, and being able to get up and go to work without worrying about everything, and being able to have a nice time with your friends without thinking something bad is going to happen, and being able to eat without feeling shit, you know, just normal.”

  “I think that we all need to scrap this idea that normality is something to strive toward. I personally cannot pinpoint or prescribe what it is to be normal,” Janet explained. “I think it’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.”

  “Maybe,” I tried to concede.

  “Try to bear that in mind as we go along,” she said. “I’d like to ask you something, Queenie.”

  “Go for it,” I said, trying to make myself comfortable.

  “What do you think about yourself?”

  I froze. I hadn’t realized the question would be such a hard one to even approach answering. “That I’m insane, mainly.” I quickly threw an answer at her before I could start getting into my head about it.

  Janet chuckled. “Well, you aren’t insane, I can tell you that now. I mean, what do you see, when you look in the mirror, when you think about yourself as a person?”

  “I try not to look in the mirror. I don’t know, I’m just me, I guess. I’m nothing special. I’m not pretty, I’m not ugly. I just get on with it. I don’t know.” I looked at the frosted window again. “This is a hard question.”

  Janet nodded slowly. “I notice that you haven’t mentioned your parents at all. Do you have a good relationship with your mother and father?” That question was even worse. What was she going to ask next?

  “Ha.” A bitter laugh burst out of me. “No. Ha. My dad isn’t here. He’s in Jamaica, I think? Nobody really knows where he is or what he’s up to.” I shrugged. “And my mum—” I cleared my throat, feeling something familiar rise from my stomach. “I don’t—is it okay if I don’t talk about her?”

  Janet pushed a glass of water toward me. “I think that it would be good if we could touch on your mum at some point, if that’s ok
ay? We don’t have to do it today.”

  When I walked out the door after doing some breathing exercises to stop me from panicking that only served to make me feel stupid, I decided firmly that I wasn’t going to go back.

  * * *

  Can it truly be called “living” when you’re sharing a house with your grandparents?

  Pros of living with grandparents:

  • I can honestly say that my surroundings have never been cleaner.

  • Nor my body.

  • Quiet nighttimes—eight hours a night at least. I might not be able to sleep, but it’s better than the sound of Rupert being sick or Nell crying and listening to the same sad song on repeat.

  • Haven’t had to spend money on food.

  • Even though explaining it took a hundred years and they’re still suspicious about it, I made them get broadband so I can watch Netflix (even though I have to watch everything with my headphones in).

  • Seeing Diana more, communicating with “the youth” and so being able to understand newly emerging memes and slang. Bonus pro: she doesn’t seem to be fazed by my temporary breakdown.

  Cons of living with grandparents:

  • I myself have to clean the surroundings.

  • My bathing is timed by my granddad who, after five weeks, still lectures me about the water rates every time I run a bath. What are water rates?

  • I get sent to bed at 10 p.m. and live in fear of my night terrors scaring either of them.

  • I have to eat the food my grandmother makes, most of which is too spicy for me, and then endure the “we should send you to Jamaica to toughen up your mouth” line EVERY TIME I CHOKE.

  • I also have to go and buy the shopping and pull it home in a gran-trolley.

  • My granddad turns the “Internet box” off every night before he goes to bed, and I have to sneak out of my room to turn it back on and wake up before them to turn it off again.

  • Defending myself to my grandparents and Maggie about not going to church on a Sunday.