He got off at Preston. A girl with a dog met him and they kissed.
At Crewe, an old woman with a yellow face asked me to get her case down for her. It was huge. I told her I was sorry, I couldn’t, I’d hurt my back. I knew she didn’t believe me.
At Euston, I panicked when I couldn’t see Sean. I searched frantically for his face in the crowd. I’d told him what carriage I was in. I didn’t know whether to stay put or get a trolley and start walking up the platform. My holdall weighed a ton even though I was only visiting for a week. Nab had carried it onto the train for me. Suddenly Sean was behind me. Hey there, sister with the degree! He hugged me and grabbed my bag. It’s heavy, I said. You know me, I can’t travel light. It’s fine, he said, throwing it onto his shoulder. C’mon, I’ve got you a ticket already.
Descending into the Tube was like going into another country. I steadied myself on the escalator. Take my arm if you want, said Sean.
It feels so international here, I said. It even smells international.
Sean smiled, he was trying to be blase about the fact he knew his way round.
Even the buskers are more sophisticated, I said.
We didn’t have to wait long for our train, but there were no seats.
It’s only three stops, said Sean. We change at Holborn.
I shut my eyes and hung from the hand-grip, thinking of soft pillows. How can you do this every day? I asked.
You get used to it, he said.
You love it, don’t you?
Yeah, he said, grinning. Are you knackered?
I feel jet-lagged, I said. I was up at 7 a.m.
You can lie down when we get in. Are you hungry?
A bit. I had horrible sandwiches on the train. Mum made me some but I had to buy more.
I stocked up for you coming, he said. We’ll get a carry-out tonight, there’s a good Chinese place near us. Amber’s looking forward to meeting you.
Who’s Amber?
She’s one of my flatmates and we’re kind of going out.
Does she work for Ford?
Nah, she works with the deaf.
I thought all of your flatmates work for Ford.
Two of them do. This is us, he said, yanking my arm.
He led the way and we battered our way through Holborn and changed from the black line to the red line. The train jolted off and I hung with my arm burning, wanting more than anything to lie down. Do we have to change again after this? I said.
We could stay on ‘til Newbury Park but it’s too far for you to walk. We’ll just change at Stratford and get the main line to Seven Kings. The house is a hop and a skip from there.
Can we not get a taxi from Newbury Park? I said. I’ll pay.
If you want, but you always have to wait for ages.
I’d rather wait than change again.
Okay, it’s up to you, he said.
I tried to study the Tube map through the swaying of the train. What’s the yellow and green line? I said.
That’s two different lines, he said. Circle and District.
God, I must seem like a hillbilly, I said. It looks like the earth wire on a plug.
It takes a while to absorb it all, he said.
I closed my eyes and hung and thought again of soft pillows. I prayed I’d get a seat by Bethnal Green.
We can come back into town tomorrow night if you feel up to it, said Sean.
I think I’ll be happy just staying in your flat.
See how you feel, he said. Or we could leave it ‘til Sunday.
Sean didn’t mean it, but the pressure was already on to be okay to go out.
By the time we got to his house, I felt as if the balls of my feet had been caned. The street reminded me of Festive Road, where Mr Benn lived.
The house seemed tiny inside compared to the flats in Glasgow I was used to. The hall had a swirly carpet and a teak telephone table. Bubble glass doors led into the other rooms. I went into the living room and sank into the brown fake velvet couch.
I’ll just put your bag upstairs, said Sean. You’re in my room.
Wait a minute, I said, I’ve got something for you. I dug into the side zip compartment and gave him the small silver package: the silver ribbon I’d curled was flat and lifeless.
Is it a tape?
Open it and see.
He ripped it open. Thanks a lot! I really like The Fall. So does Amber.
I was slightly hurt that he hadn’t noticed the funky wrapping paper. Ivan’s into them too, I said.
They’re brilliant, aren’t they? he said, galloping off upstairs.
I took my DMs off and lay down. I could smell wine on the arm of the couch. I closed my eyes. I could see brash, hallucinated images, faces like exclamation marks – patterns invented by my hyped-up, exhausted brain.
Sean galloped back down. I asked him why there was a fridge in the living room.
Dunno. We don’t use it. It’s just there.
I closed my eyes again. I could hear mugs being taken out of the cupboard and a spoon bouncing off the work surface, reassuring noises, the kettle getting louder.
By the way, don’t drink the tap water, he shouted through. There’s bottled stuff in the fridge.
Okay, I said. I wanted to lie undisturbed on the couch forever.
Sean appeared in the doorway, holding two mugs of tea. Let’s go into the garden, he said.
I got up but felt dizzy and had to sit down again. I had faint purple zigzags on the fringes of my vision.
Are you okay?
I must’ve got up too fast. Happens all the time.
Come and get some sun on your face. Can you bring the biscuits?
I got up more slowly and followed him outside. You’re so lucky to have a garden, I said.
It’s a bit overgrown, but it’s handy. It’s been boiling since May. The weather’s much better down here.
He handed me my tea and I sat the mug down on the springy grass.
You seem really happy, I said. You’re like Dick Whittington, all settled down, seeking your fortune.
I love it here. You need a lot of energy though. You could never live here.
How’s your job?
I work with great people. That’s how I met Amber, she’s an advocacy worker and knows one of our advocacy workers.
What’s she like?
She’s gorgeous, he said, blushing. She’s half Surinamese and half Dutch. She just moved in a month ago and we really hit it off.
D’you ever hear from Nellie the elephant?
Nah – you never liked her, did you?
I really tried to like her, but she was very unlikable, and telling Mum she thought I should try antidepressants was the tin lid.
I know.
Is she in London too?
I think so, I don’t know where though. I don’t want to know.
It’s funny how you’re part of someone and then you’re not.
Bronwen and Paul, my other flatmates, used to go out but now they’re both seeing other people. They get on fine though.
How long did they go out for?
Not that long. How’s it going with Ivan?
Completely fucked. I shouldn’t be living with him, but who else could I live with? Who’d help me like he does? Don’t say anything to Mum. She thinks everything’s hunky dory.
You like living at Rez’s though, don’t you?
I love it, but I can’t stay there rent-free forever. Rez’s been dropping hints. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Can you not apply for housing benefit?
I’m going to try, but it’s just a boxroom.
But it’s a really nice flat, all mod cons. You should see what some landlords get away with!
I suppose.
It’s brilliant you got your degree though.
I’m going to look for voluntary work when I get back, maybe do a night class in October. There’s one called Understanding Flying’ I quite fancy, aeronautical engineering for beginners
You’re crazy, he said.
I worry sick if Mum’s flying, I can’t watch the news ‘cos I’m sure her plane will have crashed. Nab’s taking her to Paris for a long weekend for their anniversary. I’m really glad for her, she needs a break, but I’m dreading it.
You can’t worry about things that are out of your control, he said. It’s a waste of energy.
I just think it’s amazing that people are as unscathed as they are, given that the world is so physically dangerous, I said.
I think that’s someone home, said Sean, leaping up. He came back with a tall girl with thin hair and a black suit. Bronwen, this is my sister Helen. Helen, this is Bronwen.
We shook hands and I was terrified she’d ask me what I did.
Sunday night, Freud’s, a trendy basement bar, all minimalist and wooden. I’ve got a stool, everyone else is standing. We had to leave the last place because I couldn’t get a seat. My legs are fucked.
I really like Amber, she’s down to earth and pretty in a quirky way. She has coffee skin and corkscrew hair. She said she liked my Oxfam jacket and showed me how to say my name in sign language. Bronwen and her friend, whose name I can’t remember, are wearing sexy little dresses and Jigsaw jackets and strappy shoes I could never walk in. I feel like Cinderella with my second-hand jacket and the dress I wore to Richard’s wedding. Bronwen’s nice, but I don’t like her friend. She’s from Portsmouth. She’s in a bad mood ‘cos she wanted to stay in the last bar ‘cos an Iranian guy she fancies was supposed to come in later. Her and Bronwen could have stayed there, but Bronwen wanted to come to Freud’s with us.
I was worried about not being able to afford a round for everyone but Sean and Amber are skint too and we’re in our own round. I’ve had one glass of wine, and am on Aqua Libra now. I love being out in London. I wish I could live here. I feel proud of Sean, he’s so kind and grown up. You can tell Amber really likes him, but she’s not clingy, she’s cool.
During the week, I sunbathed and listened to GLR, waiting for them all to come home from work. I read a Dennis Potter novel.
I peeked in all of their rooms. Amber’s was stashed with candles and incense and Indian scarves, her clothes all over the floor. Bronwen’s was anally tidy, the way mine would be if I hadn’t got ill. (When I was growing up, my jewellery box had to be at the right angle or I couldn’t sleep.) She had lots of shoes lined up and her wardrobe was full of padded hangers and lovely clothes. She had a diary beside her bed, with a purple velvet cover. I brushed my fingers over it. She didn’t seem the type to keep a diary. Paul’s room smelled stale; he had weights on the floor and a poster of Betty Blue.
Sean finished work early one day and I met him in Covent Garden. I got a taxi to Newbury Park. I was nervous on the Tube myself but after a few stops I felt cosmopolitan. I loved the adverts for museums and events – stretching dizzyingly in a diagonal down the escalators.
I bought a David Hockney postcard for Fizza. After I’d posted it, I worried that a naked man in the shower might offend her parents.
Sean told me he’d miss me when I’d gone and thanked me for doing their breakfast dishes. We went to a cheap Nepalese restaurant. I was glad to see he was eating meat again – he didn’t look so pasty. He talked about work – the guy he was helping just now had lost his ability to recognise people, after a car crash. After dinner, we went to see Sweetie. I loved it when the mad sister ate the ceramic horses out of spite.
Back in Glasgow, can’t stop crying, but I’ll rescue myself, I always do. London emphasised how fucked my life is: I saw what normal graduates do. I felt so outside everyone, so unemployed. Bronwen was telling me about her second interview with Ford and how she got lost in the lifts and was in a huge panic in case she was late, and I realised that I’ve never even had an interview, not since the Swan Hotel. And I’m fed up looking like a student. Amber said she liked my bohemian look, but there’s a thin line between bohemian and tinker. I wonder if I’ll ever have another chance to wear my graduation suit. I’m so shielded living here with Ivan and Rez: the reality is that Ivan’s researching a drug for Alzheimer’s, Rez’s saving children with leukaemia, and I’m writing a shopping list for Hoover bags and shampoo. The last time I had a position of responsibility was when I was head girl, confiscating cigarettes from first years.
Anxieties nail themselves into my head when I’m trying to sleep: what will I do if anything happens to Rita and Nab, how the fuck will I manage? I need to find a GP in Glasgow who believes in ME. I can’t stay registered with Myra forever, but I need her for my sick notes. She’s a believer.
Sat up late talking to Jab last night. He cheered me up. Jab (short for Jabril) works with Rez. He’s Jordanian. I like him because he’s so passionate and enthusiastic about everything. Words rush out of his mouth and his sentences collide as he interrupts himself. He won’t let you finish your sentences. He’s crazy about bagging Munros. He almost killed himself once, retrieving an expensive rucksack from the edge of a precipice – he said he’d rather have cut his hands off than leave his new rucksack on Ben Oss. A few years ago, he was doing post-graduate medical studies in America and was expelled for throwing a stapler at a poster of Israel in the campus travel agent’s. He said it wasn’t Israel, it was Palestine. (His parents fled to Jordan before he was born.) He thinks the Holocaust was exaggerated. You can’t say that, I said, you know it’s not true! I’m shocked at you, Jab. It’s so wrong to say what you’re saying! Helen, you don’t understand, he replied, they treat us like cockroaches, even lower than cockroaches. They want to exterminate us. He told me the proper name – keffiyeh – for the ubiquitous chequered scarves as worn by Mo. Like every good student, I supported the Palestinians and had voted for Yasser to be university rector, but he’d been beaten by the Glasgow Lord Provost. Jab doesn’t know much about ME but he’s a believer. Rita loves him, she’s met him twice. Why can’t you fancy him? she said, he’s a delightful young man. He’s really sweet, I replied, but he’s too hyper and he looks a bit like a hamster. He’s just not my type.
The tangerines moved along the supermarket belt. I could see myself peeling one later and eating it. The preview filled me with dread.
I was trying not to think about Rita flying, especially as I’d read Bronwen’s diary when I was in London. I knew that she’d never had an orgasm with anyone until Paul, and I was sure I’d be punished for this knowledge by my mother in a plane crash.
The woman in front was paying, her wallet had fallen open at a photo of her and her husband. I wished I had a happy couple photo in my wallet for people to see at the checkout. All I had was a photo of Agnes. I’d recently dreamt that I was carrying her around dead in a knapsack. The Azande think that a bad dream is an experience of witchcraft. I was a witch, I shouldn’t have read Bronwen’s diary.
I got a taxi back to the flat.
Ivan and Rez and Jab had gone to Skye to climb the Cuillins. They’d all be showing off, and Jab would be rushing them along the ridges, Yella! Yella! Because of the rock type, compasses don’t always work properly so I was worried they’d get lost and die.
In a way, I liked having the weekend to myself, I could rest as much as I needed, no one would disturb me, and I could watch what I wanted on TV, though there was nothing much on except cricket. I thought I might visit Jana’s granny on Sunday. I hadn’t seen her for ages.
On Saturday night, I microwaved a fish and potato pie and watched a documentary about dancing bears in Bulgaria: they’d been captured when they were cubs and were undernourished and constantly chained. Their noses and mouths were shredded by the rings. Stupid bastard tourists paid to see them dance (the tourists should have been chained and made to dance for bread and water). The head of the gypsies said one bear supported ten people. The gypsies had been persecuted but they had no fucking right to brutalise the poor bears. I couldn’t stop thinking about the shredded, infected flesh round their noses. I wished I didn’t know. (There are some things you just don’t want in your head.) There was a sa
nctuary for released bears in Turkey. I wished I could work for them.
I felt utterly sad and decided to give myself a facial. I tore my room apart, searching for my hair-band, cursing myself for being so scatty – I was so tired of losing things – and steamed my face over a Pyrex bowl in the kitchen.
I squeezed out the last of my Dead Sea facial clay and smeared it on. I lay on the couch ‘til my face stung. I rinsed off the mask, leaving smears of green all over the sink and towel. I felt scrubbed and lovely, but my loveliness was wasted, there was no one to see me, no one to kiss my breasts.
I started to shave my bikini line, for no particular reason, probably out of boredom, and ended up shaving off all my pubic hair. I didn’t like the effect, it looked childlike and pornographic.
Afterwards, it itched like crazy.
stranger You look cheered up, what’s happened? You’ve had a face like a wet weekend recently.
me I know, I’ve been quite sad since graduating. When I look at jobs in the Guardian and Glasgow Herald, I get demoralised that I can’t apply for them. I feel like an impostor when I go into the careers office. I’m scared I’ll be found out.
stranger What job would you do if you were well?
me I’m not sure. Maybe something in the NHS, or something in arts administration. I keep changing my mind.
stranger It must be difficult.
me Seven years of ME takes its toll. I’ve also realised how much time I’ve spent on my own since getting ill. You’re either in bed being ill, or sleeping extra hours, or staying at home because you can’t join in what every one else is doing.
stranger So what’s cheered you up?
me A letter from Jana, she’s had a bonus at work and has offered to pay my fare to San Francisco as a graduation present! I’d love to go, I miss her a lot.
The State of Me Page 21
