by Matt Shaw
I reached over for the remote control and went to turn the television on. With everything going on in my mind I had completely forgotten about what happened last time I watched that. Damn. Will need to replace it at some point. Can’t go without a television; my only company. I sat there a moment in an unusual silence. Normally there’s someone banging around in one of the surrounding apartments. Someone stomping on the floor or screaming at someone else. Today there was nothing. Just silence. Quite like it. Shame I know it won’t stay. Early afternoon now, guess most of the other residents are down the local dole office or cruising the streets looking to sell their wares - be it drugs or snatch. Keep telling myself I’m here because I deserve to be. I’m with the company I deserve to keep. Glanced down to my wrists - kind of wish the job had been done properly.
Ignoring the pain in my wrists as best as I could, I pulled a leaflet out of my jacket pocket. Given to me along with the various pills, it detailed various support groups in the local area. The one Miller had told me about was at the top of the seemingly extensive list I’d been offered. Italics underneath the bold location of the group informed me they met daily and that it was free to attend. I’m tired. Been a long couple of days of constant questions and chats with psychiatrists but I’m curious to see if Miller’s story had any ring of truth to it and that meant leaving the apartment again.
I sighed heavily as I pulled myself up from the armchair. Should never have sat down to begin with. I walked through to my bedroom. Place is a shit-hole. Dirty clothes strewn all over the floor. The bedding tossed to one side from the last time I collapsed - drunk - on top of it all only to climb out the following morning without making it back up. No need. No-one to offend with my laziness other than me and I don't care anymore.
I pulled a clean top from my wardrobe. Not many left hanging in there. Carefully I unbuttoned the dirty shirt I’d been wearing for a few weeks now. Tried to ignore the damned pain in my wrists. Usually I wouldn’t bother cleaning myself up but feel - under the circumstances - it is for the best. Shirt’s coated in blood from the coffee-shop antics. Probably won’t give the best first impression. The dark trousers I’m wearing hide the stains well so they’re good to stay. I put the clean shirt on and looked at my reflection in the mirror hanging on the bedroom wall. Like the mirror hanging in the living room - it too is cracked. Another sign of my ill-temper spiralling out of control. Lucy would be ashamed.
I shook the image of her disapproving look from my mind.
No time for that now.
II
Various thoughts went through my mind as I drove down to the community hall where the group was held. Same time every day, six days a week. I couldn’t help but wonder how effective the group was. More to the point, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people slipped and topped themselves on the seventh day of the week. Sorry, no help today, group is shut.
The condescending pricks at the hospital wouldn’t allow me to leave without agreeing to their terms; I had to go to one of these groups and I had to check in on a weekly basis with my doctor. My first appointment with the GP being tomorrow. No doubt he’ll try and force anti-depressants onto me but I’m not interested. This whole thing was a show. A means to an end. A convincing way into the group. The hospital staff wanted the group runner - a man named Nathan Cole - to report back that I had attended the session. Not quite sure what they were going to do if I didn’t show up but…Not important.
A man walking in with fresh wounds on his wrists doesn’t raise questions or concerns - especially when the group runner is phoned ahead of the session to be warned of the new arrival. Walking in, with no referral… I doubt the man would see the side of Mr. Cole he’s been warned of.
I pulled into the community hall car park. Feels strange. Feels as though I’m back on the Force. Back on a case. It’s a good feeling. I feel as though I’m in charge. Haven’t felt that since Arthur destroyed my life. I parked up and rested back in my seat a moment - a fleeting thought wondering whether the group would actually help me rid myself of my demons. Maybe I could get something from all of this before shutting down the asshole in charge by exposing him for what he truly is; a fucking monster.
“Leave it be,” Lucy’s voice from behind me made me jump.
I looked in the rear-view mirror and there she was; sitting there, behind me. A look of concern on her face.
“Please,” she urged me, “leave this. Get help but not here.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head and looked in the rear-view mirror again. She was gone. Never there. Never was. Just as I was never there for her. Forget about it. Can’t do anything about it now. Put it from my mind along with the throbbing sensation from my new stitches in my wrists. Shouldn’t be driving. Was told not to. A danger of opening the damned wounds back up. Ignore it. Got a job to do. Need to know if Miller’s story was real.
The analogue clock next to my battered car’s speedometer said I had another five minutes before the group session commenced. No need to go in yet. Don’t want to be early. Don’t want to have to communicate with a bunch of depressed assholes. Not in the right frame of mind to play nice. Haven’t been for a while.
What am I even doing here? The thought buzzing around my head like an annoying fly. Try to swat it away but it is always there. What am I doing here? Why do I feel the need to get involved? Something to do? The reprieve I had longed for since things went to shit? That’s stupid - there is no reprieve to be had. There is no forgiveness for those I have failed. Swat the thoughts away. Concentrate on what you’re going to say when you go in there. Concentrate on what I need to say? No need. Can just tell them the truth.
No.
Not the truth.
Can’t have Mr. Cole knowing I am a police officer. Was. Can’t have him knowing I was a police officer. I need him to treat me as he would the rest of the members of his group. I need him to see me as one of them. I need him to offer me exactly the same treatment as they’re offered. Need to know if Miller’s story is true.
“Please leave it,” Lucy’s voice in my damned head again. Don’t even know if she even sounded like this when she was alive. A kind tone, a gentle soul. Can’t be sure what I am hearing is her actual voice. Not sure I remember it.
Arthur. Just want five minutes alone with the son of a bitch. Even then - two and a half minutes of that time would be taken up smoking a ciggy. Shouldn’t have quit. Don’t even know why I did. Not as though the thought of cancer bothers me anymore.
“You quit for me,” Lucy’s voice again. Get out. Get out of there.
Three minutes until the group starts. I best get ready.
I opened the door and kicked it all the way open with my foot as I climbed from the car. Damned thing didn’t quite stay open and hit my leg as it went to swing shut. Did well not to shout out in pain. Fully out, I slammed the door shut and headed towards the community hall. A couple of people were standing outside the front doors. Both had cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Kind of tempted to ask for one.
“Alright?” a half-assed greeting from one of them as I approached. I chose to ignore him and proceed into the building. I was guessing it was a rhetorical question - considering we were all here for the same reason. Hardly okay if - at some point - we’ve all tried to kill ourselves. Unless of course I mis-read them and they just enjoyed hanging out the front of community centres in a shitty area.
III
The entrance to the community hall stank like the dirty halls of my old school. A stink that never left me and one which will follow me to the grave, along with the rank smell of my rotting wife and child. Can’t have my wife in my head now. Can’t do it. I am sure I am going to have to talk about my life in a while and I don’t want to give real details. I don’t want this asshole knowing the real me. I won’t discuss my wife. I won’t discuss my child. And I certainly won’t discuss him. Arthur. That fucking cunt. He won’t be a part of this. Need to shake all of these poisonous thoughts from my mind. Need to make up a
backstory for a character I’m going to have to play.
I walked through to the main part of the hall. Wooden floors. A large circle of plastic chairs - the ones you’d find in NHS waiting rooms. Cheap. Uncomfortable. A table in the far corner of the room with two large urns. A sign in front of each urn; one stating ‘tea’ and the other ‘coffee’. Polystyrene cups stacked next to the coffee urn and - next to those - a bowl filled with sachets of sugar.
There were about twenty people all in all. The two that had been standing out the front came in. They pushed past me and made their way over to the table of hot beverages. Neither tried speaking to me after I had ignored them on the way in. At least I thought that was the reason but it could be down to the fact they both stank of skunk. Maybe the group isn’t as useful as people first believe? Maybe the lack of suicidal instincts is because people are too high to give a shit anymore?
I made my way over to the hot drinks. A man - tall, dark hair, mid-thirties maybe - spotted me and approached with his hand outstretched, a shit-eating grin on his face that made me want to smack him to the floor.
“Mr. Andrews?” he asked. He had got the hospital’s message about me then. Oh, good.
“Yes.” I didn’t take the hand he offered.
“I’m Nathan. Pleased to meet you. I run this group. How are you feeling?” he asked. The hospital would have told him what I had tried to do. I wonder how much information they gave him. I had to give permission for them to talk about me so I’m guessing - with the consent I gave - they discussed everything. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon,” he said.
“Keen.”
Nathan smiled at me. I saw through it immediately. He was staring directly into my eyes. A hard piercing stare as he tried to judge the kind of person I was. He doesn’t want to look too deep, pretty sure he won’t like what he sees just as I’m sure I won’t much appreciate what I see if I look deeper into his soul.
He addressed the group, “Okay if everyone would like to take their seats.”
I looked around unsure of where I fit in exactly.
“It’s a free for all,” he leaned over and told me. “Here - you can sit next to me.” He showed me to a seat. I sat and he took the one next to me, all the time with his eyes fixed upon me.
Soon everyone in the room had taken their seat and we were all sat in a giant circle looking at each other. I couldn’t help but judge those who made eye-contact. Force of habit from the job that I could not shake no matter how hard I tried. Surprisingly the group was a mixed bag. I thought most of the people would be like me - down and outs - but there are a number of people who look to be high up in various professional capacities. Guess depression and a desire to self-destruct doesn’t care what you do for a living.
“Okay, we have a couple of new faces with us tonight. Won’t you all join me in welcoming…” Nathan turned to a woman who was sitting four places away from him on the opposite side to where I was seated. A look of expectation on his face.
“…Christine…” she said shyly.
“Won’t you all join me in welcoming Christine and,” he turned to me - same look of expectation.
“Bob,” I lied.
His expression turned to one of disappointment. Not sure why I chose Bob. First name that popped into my head. Going from the look he had on his face, I’m guess he wanted me to give my real name. I meant what I was thinking earlier though; these people won’t know the real me. They have no business looking into my life.
Muttered hellos murmured around the room from the other group members. I couldn’t help but wonder how often they had attended these meetings. Not just that - as I turned my attention back to Nathan - I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them had been offered the same deal as Miller.
“Okay - does anyone want to start?” Nathan asked as he cast his eyes around the group. He settled on me. “…Bob?”
I shook my head. Never been to something like this before. I’m not about to start the proceedings. Rather take a back seat and gauge how things work before jumping in. Stay quiet for as long as possible.
“No thanks.”
Christine piped up, “My husband left me,” she blurted out.
She had a husband? Looks like some down and out crack whore. Bags under her eyes, greasy clumps in her long blonde hair, a blemish on her lip, red raw eyes from a week’s worth of tears. Hard to imagine her standing at the end of an aisle with a man who loved her. Easier to picture her in a back alley with a mouthful of cum and a fistful of dollars.
“We had a child. Aimee. She was ten years old when she died. My husband blamed me. He said I should have been keeping a closer eye on her. I thought she was in the garden. Didn’t see that she had gone over the wall to collect her ball from the road. I was in the kitchen making a snack for us. Didn’t see where she was.” She started to cry. “I just remember the noise. The loud bang. The car horn.” She broke down too much to be able to form a sentence. A man next to her put his arm around her shoulders as though it were the cure for cancer. I was waiting for Nathan to say something - to make her feel better - but he said nothing. He just looked at her. There was as much sorrow on his face as there was on hers as though he carried her pain with her.
Say something, you prick.
Christine carried on, “I tried so hard to move on. My marriage broke down though. Whatever I said was wrong. We were arguing all of the time. I came home, months later, and found him in bed with my best friend,” she was sobbing her damned heart out and yet Nathan still didn’t say anything. “He left me. I just remember thinking how badly I wanted to die.”
I looked around the rest of the group. Most seemingly felt her pain. Some were crying themselves.
“I ended up overdosing on various tablets. Whatever I could get my hands on, I took. I stole them from friends and family, kept going to the doctors with various illnesses I made up. Just did whatever I had to to get the pills… I remember lying in my daughter’s bedroom surrounded by the bottled medicines, forcing them into my mouth by the handful…” She broke down again to the point of not being able to speak.
“But something stopped you though,” Nathan finally said, “something in your heart telling you not to do it. Tell the group what happened,” he urged her.
“I phoned the emergency services and told them what I had done, they sent someone to me and told me what to do whilst I waited - told me to make myself sick…”
“That’s right - you phoned the emergency services because you knew - deep down - you weren’t ready to die. And no matter how we are all feeling, when we’re at our lowest point…It is important to remember - it is only a blip. With help and support - we will get ourselves back up. We will go on living. Deep down - and it may be buried so deeply you need strong support around you which we are here to provide - no one really wants to die. Everyone has something to live for. It’s just we may sometimes need a little help in finding out what that something is.”
He turned back to Christine, “What was it that kept you from seeing it through, do you think?”
“My daughter wouldn’t have wanted me to go through with it,” she said. “She would have wanted me to live my life.”
“That’s right. She would have - and that’s why you’re here. To seek help so you can move on and live your life. You never need forget what happened but you can learn to forgive yourself…”
Miller’s story was bugging me. The picture he painted of Nathan was not the picture being painted before my eyes. Years on the job taught me that psychopaths are capable of putting on a show but why would this guy want to help people like this when he’s secretly a murderer? My old detective brain is out of practice and the answer is probably obvious. Will just take a bit to dust it off. Get the clogs clanking round again. Obviously been warped by my run in with Arthur.
Nathan pulled a small, sealed pack of tissues from the top pocket of his shirt and handed them over to Christine. She took them, opened them up, took a few and handed them back.
“We’ve all walked a bad path to get to this point in our lives,” Nathan said, “but together we can find our way back. I won’t pretend the journey is easy. I won’t even lie that it is quick and painless but I promise it is possible. The first step is key. The first step is admitting you need help. We’re all here because we have acknowledged that step. We have all taken it…And some say the first step is always the hardest.”
The group started to applaud. I didn’t. I just sat there wondering why I was even here. Why had Tim Miller put me on this man’s case. Can’t just sit here anymore. Need to say something. Need to test the water.
“Hi, my name is Bob and Tim Miller suggested I came here…” I stared at Nathan’s face when I mentioned Tim’s name. There was something there. A look I couldn’t quite recognise. Was it alarm at the sound of the man’s name? Definitely some recognition there. I realised the rest of the group were looking at me. They were waiting for me to say something else. Fuck. Need to continue the charade. Need to give them something.
Nathan cleared his throat, “And why would Tim suggest that?” he asked.
I knew he wanted the truth - the real reason Miller had suggested that I came here - but I also knew he didn’t want it spoken out in front of the rest of the group. I had lied about my name. I’ll give the group another lie. Make it juicy for them. And then - later - I’m guessing Nathan will want to know exactly what Tim told me. The look on his face, at the mention of the name, suggested there could well have been some truth to what I was told. Question is: How much will Nathan freely admit to?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nathan Cole
The Bell
I
