me It’s too tiring using the ironing board. It’s better on the floor with a towel. Rita said she’d do it but I prefer to do things myself if I can.
Rita ran her up to Glasgow. They sat at the back of Bute Hall, watching the new graduates from Jana’s (and Helen’s) year parading by. Afterwards, everyone milling in the quads, sipping sherry in the sun. Helen had to sit down and found a bench under a cherry blossom.
Black sheep in her polkadot dress: no robe and no degree in a red tube.
Jana’s dad came over and sat down beside her. It’s so nice to meet you, he said. Now I can put a face to the name. Jana talks about you all the time.
It’s lovely to meet you too, said Helen.
It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?
Yeah, she said. We’re lucky. It poured at my boyfriend’s graduation last year. Not that I was actually there. I was too ill.
Jana’s dad smiled and gestured to one of the doors in the cloisters. You can imagine Rapunzel imprisoned in there, can’t you?
That’s where we had our English tutorials, said Helen, way up in the turrets, metaphysical poets that no one could understand. It was freezing in winter.
He laughed. I thought you did French.
I did French and English. I was supposed to do Joint Honours.
I see, he said. Such a shame.
Jana was talking to Beryl (like a black mountain in her robe, her parents were like mountains too). She came over when she saw Helen with her dad.
Congratulations! Helen said, kissing her. You look gorgeous. She gave her the graduation present she’d got her, a book on David Hockney, Jana’s favourite artist, wrapped in arty paper she’d got at the Third Eye Centre. She’d spent ages choosing it.
It’s beautiful, honey, Jana said. I’ll treasure this forever. You should have been graduating too today, she said. It’s not fucking fair. She’d mimed the expletive in front of her father.
Wait ‘til I’m a mature student, Helen said, and you’ll all be jealous of me, with your nine to five jobs.
I’m sure they will, said Jana’s dad.
After the milling with sherry, they went to the Ubiquitous Chip. The restaurant was full of black robes and proud parents.
Jana’s dad was confident in an American way when he ordered even though he still had his Glasgow accent. Helen thought he was sexy and wished she was sitting beside him. She was having half a glass of champagne. Rita’d said, I don’t think you should, but Helen didn’t care if it made her ill. Her neck was in pliers anyway.
Jana had a summer job in the Grosvenor Cinema and was talking about going back to the States in October. Helen smiled, buffered by the champagne bubbles. Nothing seemed real. Real meant being terrified of Jana leaving. Ivan was already leaving at the end of September, Sean would be moving into his own flat in October, and Richard had moved five miles away with Clare.
Halfway through her confit of duck, Jana’s granny put her hand on Helen’s arm and said, Tell me, dear, how is your condition?
On the way home in the car, Helen fantasised that Jana’s dad had fallen in love with her and taken her to California to look after her. Jana was funny about it at first until she got used to the idea. They all lived together in a big wooden house painted blue like the one Jana had shown her photos of.
13
India
I CAN’T BEAR to think of Ivan going so far away. I can’t live without him, but I will have to. People drown themselves in work to get over things. My job is crying and baking and crocheting. My summer is measured out in tears and scones and white squares.
Nellie and Sean have gone to Venice. I’m reading one of Sean’s psychology books, about traumas in childhood causing problems later on. I think of my childhood traumas and wonder if my immune system could’ve been damaged. Possible events were:
The sofa with the swirly brown and orange cover. I hated the feel of the nylon against my skin, but I would make myself rub my hands along the cushions.
Shitting myself in primary one because I was too scared to tell the teacher that I needed the toilet – I sat at my desk playing with rods (the colourful wooden units we learned to count with) and said nothing. I waddled home, a navy gusset sticking to me.
Sean peeing on me from halfway up the Michael tree. I can still feel the warmth of my brother’s urine on my scalp. He cried later and denied it.
Divorce of Rita and Peter.
Nellie and Sean bring me back a Murano glass dish. It looks like an ashtray, but I don’t want to say anything. They are tanned and glowing. They say I would love Venice, though it smells and costs a fortune. They tell me about a hotel in Verona that has peacocks that chase you.
One night, they ask me if I want to see Top Gun. I don’t really, but I’m not exactly busy, and it’ll be a change from reading/baking/crocheting.
They drive to the cinema and I sit down inside while they queue for tickets outside. Nellie buys me a choc ice. I know she is trying to get in with me.
The weekend before he left for India, Ivan came to Balloch. We went to the bench and held hands. It’s funny to think this time next week you’ll be 4000 miles away and I’ll still be here, I said. I could be sitting on the bench, remembering this conversation, and you won’t even know.
You think too much, he replied.
I’d given him a Gustav Klimt card – The Kiss – with instructions to have a great cholera-free time and keep loving me. Take it on the plane with you to keep you safe, I said. He said he’d staple it to his passport. He’d given me a wee pewter Ganesh. He told me he was the God of Wisdom and Remover of Obstacles. Maybe he’ll make me better, I said.
We discussed whether we could kiss other people while he was away. (We were being mature about it.) But what if you kiss other people and I don’t? I said. It won’t exactly be Even Stevens, will it? You’ll have youth hostels of women after you and I’ll have no one.
Don’t upset yourself with stuff that hasn’t happened, he replied.
He tightened his hand round mine and I stared at the loch, not really believing that he could be going so far away.
Rita and I were watching The Way We Were. Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford had split up and Barbara was saying, Why can’t I have you?, and Robert had replied, Because you push too hard.
Ivan should be landing now, I said.
Yes, he will, replied Rita absent-mindedly.
It’s funny that you can spend the day going to India, or just stay at home and make a banana and date loaf, I said.
Barbara was sobbing her heart down the phone now, trying to wangle Robert back into her bed. Rita said she thought Robert Redford was the most handsome actor next to Omar Sharif.
He’s not as handsome as Ivan, I said, but I wouldn’t throw him out the bed for eating biscuits.
She laughed. I’ve never heard that expression.
Ivan uses it all the time, I said.
Does he?
She was lost in Robert. I was lost in Ivan. I’d already written to him in my head and was counting the days ‘til a pale blue letter landed on the mat.
Suddenly Rita said, Helen, don’t move!
I knew that tone. I jumped up and fled to the bathroom. I locked the door and shuddered, shouting instructions through to my mother. Have you got it?! Kill it! Make sure it’s dead!
I heard her banging her shoe on the floor. I waited until she called me through.
It’s gone, she said. It was a big one. They’re huge this year.
Is it definitely dead?!
Yes! Go and check in the bin if you don’t believe me.
Did it nearly crawl over me?
I just saw it out of the corner of my eye, she said – it was within an inch of your hand.
God, I hate them so much! They ruin your day – you’re minding your own business and they dance across the floor like they own the place. They plan it.
She laughed. They’re not exactly pleasant but they’re harmless.
They’re not harmless, Mum
! If one of those garden spiders touched me, I would die. My heart would stop. I read that they’ve got eight eyes!
She shivered. Now you tell me – but they’re supposed to be more scared of you than you are of them.
They just tell that to children so they’re not scared, I said. I don’t know how you can kill them, how you can get near enough them to kill them, and I don’t know how you can pick them up when they’re dead.
I use a tissue – I don’t like them but I’m not phobic like you.
Jana’s as scared as me, I said. I remember there was a huge one in our flat in Lawrence Street, and we were both laughing and crying at the same time. We put on washing up gloves and boots for protection, and Jana eventually killed it with an umbrella. Neither of us could look at it, even when it was flat. We had to go upstairs and get Ivan to bin it.
I can just imagine the pair of you, said Rita.
D’you know who’s fearless? I said – Granny – she’s amazing with spiders. She just picks them up and throws them outside.
She’s a country girl at heart.
Last time I was there, Brian was slagging me for being scared, and Granny was in her philosopher’s mode, saying you shouldn’t be ashamed of your phobias. She was telling me about a woman in Fort William who was phobic about the hoot of an owl. Not owls themselves, just the hoot of an owl. It terrified her.
Would you like some tea? said Rita, laughing.
I’ll make it, I said. You’re missing the film.
Thanks, she said. I’ll have some of your banana loaf too. It’s lovely.
Is the spider definitely dead?
Yes!
I went through to the kitchen and filled the kettle. The bin made me shiver – knowing what was in it. I wished I could phone Ivan and tell him about the spider. I wished he could be sitting on the Chesterfield when I went back through. I’d been thinking about how missing people was really just about spaces and who was in them: last weekend, Ivan’d been in the space on the bench and in the space on the Chesterfield, but now he’d be in a space on a rickety chair in Bombay, and somebody else would be in the space on the bench, and Nab or Rita would be in the space on the Chesterfield.
We’d seen him off at Central Station. He’d taken the sleeper down to London.
Polaroid snapshot of the occasion: Ivan with a rucksack the size of a house. His mum and dad and Rita. Me clinging to him.
I love you.
Just over three years ago he’d seen me off to France from the same platform. Now, I was the mournful person waving and he was the person on the train with the great opportunity.
After his train had shunted out, I’d gone to the toilets. I’d breathed through my mouth, trying not to throw up from the watery smell of bowel movements that you get in public toilets. I put three sheets of toilet paper on top of the toilet seat before sitting down but they kept slipping off.
Nine sheets later I’d sat down. Peeing and gagging at the same time, my mouth was full of slippery saliva.
I’d curled my fingers round the Ganesh in Ivan’s jacket pocket. It was only three months. It would fly by.
I didn’t want to leave the cubicle, but I was getting pins and needles in my thighs and feet. I heard someone clacking in.
It’s me, Helen. Are you okay? It was Rita.
Have you come to look under the doors and check I’m not slitting my wrists? I said.
Don’t even joke about it! she’d said in her librarian’s voice.
I’ll be out in a minute, I said. My stomach’s a bit dodgy.
When I’d come out she was re-applying her lipstick.
Why are you getting dolled up, Mum?
Just cheering myself up.
All the soap dispensers had been empty except the last one. The cream soap had spurted out like sperm.
What are you smiling at? she asked.
Nothing, I’d replied to her reflection above the sinks.
He’ll be back before you know it, she said, you just have to concentrate on getting well now. She’d put her arm round me and we’d walked back to the car. Ivan’s parents had already left. His mother had told me not to be a stranger. Halfway to the car, I had to go back to the toilets.
I’d dropped a few sheets of toilet paper into the toilet bowl so no one could hear.
Can’t sleep for the wind howling round the house. I wish it would blow the birds away. Or concuss them (just slightly).
But five o’clock comes and still they start. There’s one that sounds like a joiner, whistling and happy to be doing an honest day’s work.
Which is more than can be said for me.
I feel for Ivan’s letters under the pillow – his words are like jewels I’ve memorised: the whole of India is stained red with paan. I feel as if I’m there with him.
Me too, I’ve smoked bidis.
And tasted delicious chilli omelettes.
And bought sweet sickly chai in a clay cup from a chaiwallah at the train station.
I’ve seen the beauty of elephants immersed in the sea at Chowpatty beach.
I’ve smiled at the woman squeezing red glass bangles onto her arm ‘til it bleeds, her circulation almost cut off by her sari.
I’m sick of the Swedish guy with blonde dreadlocks who thinks he’s the son of Shiva. He was funny at first but now he’s a pain in the arse.
I almost shat myself at the rustling in the dirt toilet in a Colva beach restaurant. It turned out to be a pig.
I try not to think about the rats.
Or the beggar with one arm and no legs, wheeling his torso along on a skateboard.
Or the children’s outstretched arms as you get into a taxi in Bombay.
Or the homeless woman rubbing mustard oil on her naked baby.
Or the smell of farts on trains.
His last sentence, written in Goa: The women here are beautiful but not as beautiful as you.
Everything is bearable.
I get up and go downstairs. There are no bananas left. I’m glad – I’m sick of them, I only eat them for the potassium. I take a shiny Granny Smith. It has a rotten bit underneath that looks like a septic blister. I slice it off and take the apple back to bed.
I’m dying for a mango lassi.
November 1986
Today we’re looking through the arched window. Maybe we should have a chat with Helen and try and cheer her up! She looks like she’s been crying.
stranger How are you today?
helen I’m sick of these gales. You can’t sleep a wink. The wind’s like a bad-tempered wolf howling round the house all night.
stranger Is that not a tautology, ‘bad-tempered wolf? You don’t really get good-tempered ones, do you?
helen You know what I mean. Anyway, I’m sure there are some pleasant, mild-mannered wolves.
stranger I’m sorry, I’m being pedantic.
helen It’s okay. Tell me this: are you ever trying to read and you can’t focus on the book ‘cos you know that you’re reading and you know that your eyes are sliding back and forth? Or when you’re watching TV, you can’t really focus ‘cos you know you’re watching it. You can see yourself sitting on the sofa, watching Brookside. It’s as if everything you do’s been previewed. It’s the same when you’re having a shower, you can see yourself standing in the shower before you even go in.
stranger Sounds like you’re thinking too much.
helen You do when you spend a lot of time on your own and your boyfriend’s gone to India and you can’t do aerobics.
stranger What about a hobby?
helen I’ve been writing poetry but it’s terrible.
stranger Can I see some?
helen I’d rather not. Rita brought me an anthology of American poetry from the library and it put me in the mood. I’ve discovered Edna St Vincent Millay. I’d never heard of her before.
stranger I have to confess I don’t really like poetry. I can never understand it.
helen Edna’s easy to understand, you know what she means. She’s
all about the brittleness of love. I read she died after falling down the stairs. She left a glass of red wine on the landing.
stranger She must’ve been drunk.
helen No one really knows. She was addicted to morphine for a while. It’s really sad.
stranger [bored with poetry discussion] So, what happened to your photography lessons with Callum?
helen I’m waiting ‘til after I’ve had the ACTH injections. I’m going to buy a camera with my savings. I’ve got a catalogue.
stranger What kind of camera?
helen A Praktika, I think. Nothing too fancy.
stranger Have you saved a lot of money?
helen Not really. £500. I’m always buying books and tapes, and I give Rita a wee bit, a token gesture. I only get £50 a week.
stranger What about your yoga? Are you still doing that?
helen It’s not real yoga. It’s more stretching exercises that I make up. I’m still pretty flexible even though I’m weak.
stranger Well, you don’t want to seize up, do you?
helen No, not really.
Dear Travelling Boy,
Did you know there are no woodpeckers in Ireland? The things you find out when you’re an armchair traveller!
I can’t believe it’s only four weeks ‘til you’re home!!! Just cannot wait to spend New Year with you. Last night, I dreamt I was swimming in the loch with a black-faced sheep that had swum all the way from Goa. I woke myself up shouting, What did Ivan say?! The sheep said it was a secret!
So, I’ve had my first ACTH injection. I got a warm sense of well-being straight afterwards. It was lovely. That horrible clenching weakness in my muscles seemed less but it only lasted a few hours. I’ve to have another four jabs over the next couple of months. Fizza’s getting them too. She seems to be getting worse again. It’s awful. I don’t know how she copes. Her mother’s been praying for her with chickpeas. You pray over the chickpeas and on the third night you throw them in the river, so the fish eat them and can pray too. It’s so magical, I love it.
The State of Me Page 11
