by RL McKinney
Just don’t ask me how I am.
That was from a song. That singer Mum likes. Suzanne Vega.
Stop now. Don’t go there.
I’m here. Wherever here is. Tell him what he needs to know.
‘Calum, just … to save you asking, I’m not ill and I’m not on drugs. All right? Trust me on that.’
‘That’s a start, at least.’ He smiled at this and watched her tear a chunk from her burger with her fingers and nibble at it.
She wished she hadn’t let him buy her beer. Even after half a pint she felt light-headed. The world was soft and broken around the edges, filtered through a pale green haze. It was a milder version of the wooziness she last felt when she was with Kyle, that same feeling of falling, less a memory in her head than in her body. There were images of what had happened that night floating behind her eyelids, as if she had seen the event from outside herself, and now she had started to wonder if it had happened the way she now saw it, or if it had happened at all.
She was going to tell her dad. That had been the brave plan. Tell him, so he’d know and her mum wouldn’t. All the way here on the bus, she had rehearsed how she was going to say it. But it could go wrong. Very badly wrong. You couldn’t know how he’d respond. He might not believe her. He might think it was her fault.
What did Calum need to know for, anyway? If it was talked about, it would just stay around, a real thing, an event that dominated her life. She had to forget about it. Pretend it was a bad dream.
‘I was hoping you’d let me stay for the summer,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay my way. I’ll get a job.’
‘That’s easier said than done around here. Cat, it’s … ’ he paused and looked away.
‘No … look, forget I said that. It’s fine. I’ll just stay a day or two and … ’
‘You can stay, it’s just … I’ve got my bloody mother and she’s a nightmare.’
‘Your bloody mother and now your bloody daughter.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I know you’ve always hated it when your family get in your way.’
‘Oh come on, that’s a bit low.’
‘True though.’
‘So why did you come?’
She shrugged. Why did she come? ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered. When’s the next bus back to Fort William?’
‘Stay, Catriona,’ he said. A grizzled dog backing down in the face of tougher opposition. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just bad at this. I do want you to stay, but … why don’t we just take it a day at a time, all right?’
She lifted a shoulder and tried to show him that she didn’t care one way or the other. ‘If you’re sure. I didn’t even know if you’d be nice to me.’
‘Cat … if you thought I was going to be awful, I’ve got to ask again what you’re doing here.’
‘Dunno. To get at Mum, maybe.’
‘For what?’
‘She says you don’t give a monkey’s about me.’
‘She is absolutely wrong about that.’
‘Why does she hate you so much?’
‘I got her pregnant when she was younger than you are now and wouldn’t marry her. I was an arsehole about it.’
His bluntness jarred her. ‘Why wouldn’t you marry her?’
‘I got offered the chance to manage a project out in the Gulf, and it would have meant living apart most of the time. You’re probably right, I was selfish that way.’
‘So why did she keep me?’
‘She wanted to.’
‘Did you want her to?’
‘She made it very clear it wasn’t up to me.’
‘That’s a no, then.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Catriona, what do you want me to say? I felt differently about a lot of things after you arrived.’
‘I think Mum wishes I’d never been born.’
‘I can’t imagine that’s the case.’
‘I can.’ She couldn’t imagine it was anything other than the case.
Calum looked away and was silent for a period of time. Men were strange, hard beings, with their bristles and straight angles. Skin that looked thick, almost impenetrable, like you couldn’t cut through it, almost like they were another species altogether. Like you could say things to them, cruel honest things, and it would hardly touch them because they didn’t speak the same language as you.
‘You’ve hardly touched your lunch,’ he said.
‘The burger tastes funny.’
‘It’s venison.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’ll take it home. Your granny’ll be glad of it.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’ He took the plate and carried it to the bar, came back a couple of minutes later with a polystyrene box. ‘You ready?’
‘Yep.’ She followed him back to the Land Rover and climbed onto the sticky seat beside him. ‘Don’t you ever clean this thing?’
‘Not often.’
‘Is your house this dirty?’
‘It isn’t.’ He glanced at her. ‘Cat, whatever’s going on, I’ll do my best to help you, if you let me.’
So much for pointless blethers. She should have known. Jenny always said, didn’t she? He was a conversational oddity. It was like his big hand had just gone straight through her sternum and grabbed hold of her heart. Her eyes burned. ‘There isn’t anything you can do, so don’t worry.’
‘Whatever it is, honestly, I promise I won’t think less of you. I’ve been there myself, right?’
‘No, you haven’t.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window. ‘I am one hundred per cent certain you have never been where I am, Calum.’
HOTEL CALIFORNIA
I’ve been there myself, right?
Still a bloody hard thing to say. He knew how awful he must have looked the last time she’d seen him, but he’d come through the worst of it by that point. It. He had never been able to name the thing that had happened to him. Once upon a time you would have called it a nervous breakdown, but you weren’t supposed to say that anymore. The psychiatrist made a pronouncement and treatments followed, including medication that muffled the panic and boiling anger but made him feel like all he’d done was lock the devil in a room somewhere at the back of his head. It felt wrong. The whole process felt wrong, like it was doing him more damage than good: psychiatric treatments that focused down on him – his inner conflicts, his triggers, his responses – as though he alone was responsible for his crash.
But it wasn’t like that. He knew it wasn’t like that even though he couldn’t explain it at the time. Now he could imagine himself like an eighteen-wheeler on a Californian highway, blowing tyres, throwing shredded rubber across the overheated tarmac but still travelling at seventy, terrified of stopping because he might damage his reputation or lose his job. Dad got cancer and died: bang went a tyre. Finn went off the rails: bang went another. Finn fell in front of his eyes: bang went three more. His relationship with Mum disintegrated: bang and boom. He abandoned Catriona in pursuit of black gold, sucking the earth dry and choking the atmosphere; he got caught up in the greed and heat and sex of capitalism; he let himself be dazzled by the American wet-dream. He’s grinding on his rims. There’s only so long you can keep going. Some things were not his fault and some things were, but the disorder was not just his. It was far bigger than him. The whole world was disordered. You couldn’t just change yourself, you had to change your world.
Carmel, California, 2009
Michelle’s foot was heavy on the gas as they entered a wide right-hander, heading north up Route One toward Big Sur. Steep hillsides rose to their right, bare earth showing through parched grasses and coastal shrubs. To their left, unstable cliffs tumbled down into the ocean. Tufts of fog sat over blue water, lower than the height of the road, reaching inland along the arroyos that cut between the hills. Above the fog, the sky was undiluted azure.
Calum hid behind dark glasses and stared straight ahead, not allowing his eyes to shift right or left from the road’s centreline. Around every bend
, he felt the wheels lift from the road. The release of gravity, the moment of lightness before it recaptured its hold. The black certainty of death. His fingers dug into the leather seat.
‘Slow down a bit, Shell.’
‘I’m going the speed limit.’ She glanced at him. ‘You all right?’
He didn’t answer. With the top down, the wind made conversation next to impossible. Most likely, Michelle preferred it that way. Not that he could blame her; he was almost incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together. He’d also gained close to thirty pounds and his body poured acrid sweat without any physical effort. Even now, with the Pacific blow dryer in his face, his back was wet against the seat. No wonder she insisted on having the top down.
The car shimmied as she came up behind a slower vehicle. She drifted over the line, trying to get a view around it.
‘Jesus.’ Calum closed his eyes, fought nausea. ‘Don’t overtake him, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Do you want to drive?’ A venomous question. She knew he couldn’t.
‘No.’
‘No. You don’t want to do anything. You just want to sit there.’
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, but the wind blew the sound away. There were words in his head – arguments, apologies, explanations – but his dry tongue wouldn’t manage them. He leaned back and looked at nothing. A thought materialised: he was in a convertible sports car on the Pacific Coast Highway with his beautiful blonde wife, and he didn’t give a toss about any of it. He had achieved every man’s fantasy and it was as meaningless as an aftershave commercial. This was what he’d been breaking his back for all these years. What a joke.
Eyes closed, he laughed and felt his new belly wobbling under his shirt.
‘What’s so funny?’ Michelle asked, eyes flicking from the road again.
‘Nothing.’
‘You never laugh anymore. I’m glad you’re still capable.’
‘I’m not, Michelle. This isn’t laughing.’
‘What is it then?’
‘I don’t know.’ The effort had exhausted him. ‘Dying, maybe. I think I’m dying.’
‘This is going to be a fun weekend,’ she said.
She checked them into the boutique hotel outside of Carmel and he lay down while she unpacked her weekend bag: sundress, shorts, swimsuit, gossamer black underwear. Full marks for optimism, anyway. It was a last-ditch Hail Mary, this trip. She had been trying so hard to help him through these last few months, but maybe only because her conscience wouldn’t let her move out while he was ill. This marriage was going nowhere but down. Even in his doped befuddlement, he knew that much. It wasn’t Michelle’s fault.
She managed to prise him off the bed and out for a walk along the beach. She gripped his hand as they walked, pulling him along so briskly that he tripped repeatedly. His feet seemed to have got too big, his legs too heavy, his lungs ineffective. He felt elderly and broken. After a short distance, he stopped and faced the pristine green tubes of surf. Sweat dampened his armpits. Breathing heavily, he sat down on the warm yellow sand.
‘I’m puffed out.’
Michelle sat beside him, her arms wrapped around her knees. ‘You just need to build your fitness up again.’
‘I’m gonna come off the drugs. I can’t stand this.’
‘Cal, you can’t stop.’
‘Yeah, I can. I have, starting now.’
‘You can’t just come off them like that. You were suicidal three months ago. You were out of control. You remember that? You remember punching your fist through our back door? You want to go back to that? If it’s not working for you, we’ll go back to Dr Rosen and try something else.’
‘I don’t get where the we comes into it. I’m the one swallowing this shit. I’m the one turning into a fucking sea cucumber.’
She stared at him. ‘You have to.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’ He lay back in the sand and thought, I get it, Finn. I get it now. I understand. I’m sorry.
Michelle lay on her side and ran her hand up his arm. Golden hair blew across her eyes. He was surprised she even wanted to touch him. ‘You don’t want to get well?’
‘I don’t know what you call this, but it isn’t getting well.’
‘But you will.’
‘Will I?’
‘Of course.’ She moved her body partly over his and kissed him, sliding her fingers through his hair. ‘I know you will.’
‘With or without the little pink pills?’
‘Plenty of people take antidepressants for years, Cal. Maybe all their lives. If it helps, then what’s the problem? You’ve gained weight because you’ve stopped working.’
She acted the part well when she wanted to, but she wouldn’t want to much longer. He looked up at her and was sure he could see the impatience there, behind the smile. The glint of disgust in the corners of those dutiful wifely blues.
‘Maybe,’ he murmured. She was right about one thing. Three months ago, he’d have shoved her into the sand and set into her. Now he didn’t care enough to respond one way or the other. It was easier by far just to lie on the beach and let her think he was listening.
‘You want to go to dinner?’ she asked.
He sat up, brushing sand out of his hair. ‘Yep. Best idea you’ve had all day.’
‘I knew that would wake you up.’
He put his hands on his belly. It felt like an overstuffed haggis. ‘Clam chowder. In a sourdough bowl. Chips. A big ol’ steak.’
Michelle shuddered. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t eat that kind of stuff right now.’
‘My taste buds are the only part of me that are still alive, Michelle. Don’t deny me.’
Michelle ate a spinach salad with chicken breast and mango. She cut the green leaves into small pieces, chewed meticulously, and sipped white wine. He tried to eat slowly so he didn’t finish his steak before she’d made a dent in her pile of foliage. He needed the taste of the meat on his tongue. Little bursts of sensation, reminders of what it was like to feel anything other than exhaustion. If he could just keep eating, he’d be okay.
Calum imagined what the other diners would see: athletic brown woman with fat white ogre. Beauty and the beast. Must be loaded, what else would she see in him?
‘What do we do now?’ he asked between mouthfuls. It came out unintentionally, a question which announced itself to the world because it couldn’t be contained any longer.
‘Well the spa looks amazing.’
‘No, I meant … ’ He swallowed hard. ‘I don’t mean tonight.’
‘We don’t have to talk about this right now.’
‘Yeah we do. I want to go home.’
Her face drooped and she closed her eyes. ‘Cal … ’
‘I know you hate it, I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t hate it. It’s just … cold and grey, and … foreign. It’s great for a visit, but it’s … ’
‘It’s where I come from, Michelle. My daughter’s growing up without me. I think I’d be better there. I like to feel the rain sometimes. It reminds me to appreciate the sun.’
‘It didn’t do your brother very much good, did it?’
‘I don’t see how California’s doing me any good. I’m not going back offshore, I’ve decided that.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since about five minutes ago.’
‘You can’t just say these things, Cal. I mean, you need a plan. We need to talk about this with Dr Rosen.’
‘Dr Rosen isn’t the master of my fate.’
‘And you are?’ She snorted softly.
‘I used to be.’ He pushed his plate away and wondered about the dessert menu. The ever-expanding waistline could always accommodate something sweet. Soon it would be an unrecoverable situation. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘For how long? I don’t know if work will let me go.’
‘You could get something over there.’
Michelle raised her napkin and drew it down very slowly over her mouth. ‘I don’t wan
t to move to Scotland.’
‘Think about it. Please. You’d like it if you gave yourself the chance.’
‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath and looked for the waiter. ‘I’ll think about it. Let’s get out of here.’
‘I might need some cheesecake.’
‘You do not need cheesecake.’ She stood up and put on her cardigan.
They made love after a fashion: he lay on his back and tried to remember what it was supposed to feel like while Michelle bounced on his gelatinous gut like a trampoline champion. This is a ridiculous thing to be doing, he thought. All this slavering and shoogling to achieve a few seconds of pleasure. Creaking beds and embarrassing expressions. He was sure he used to enjoy it. He could remember a version of himself that loved the feel of her skin, the brush of her hair over his chest, the warm must of her private places. That old version of himself could be aroused just looking at her, even with her clothes on. Other men were too; she was that kind of woman. Other men used to envy him.
‘I want a shower,’ he said when she’d finished with him. He pulled his boxers and shirt on, embarrassed to let her see his profile silhouetted in the moonlight, and shuffled into the bathroom. He ran a bath because his legs were wilting stalks, folded himself into the tub and looked down at the convex curve of his belly: a great white moon of flesh. It still shocked him to see it. So did the baggy face in the mirror, which surely had to belong to somebody else.
He closed his eyes.
He opened them to Michelle banging on the door, practically screaming his name. His heart did a little dance. The water was cold.
He heaved himself out of the bath, grabbed a towel and opened the door.
Michelle was sobbing. ‘Oh my God, Cal. Are you all right?’
‘Of course I’m all right. What’s wrong with you?’
