by Anthology
“Jess, I’ve nothing to say. What the hell am I supposed to say? He’s dead. I can’t bring him back, I can’t fix it, so what the fucking hell am I supposed to say? He’s dead, Jess. The kid is dead.”
His voice is high pitched and his eyes and mouth are scrunched up, his face twisted in pain.
Despite the copious amount of alcohol that is swishing around my bloodstream, clouding my judgements, and blurring my comprehension, I can see that he has reached a new level of despair. He’s never been one to open up about how he feels, and here I am trying to force him to tell me things that there are no words for. As I watch him standing there, his arms outstretched and palms to the sky, I realise that I’m never going to get him to talk to me about Bobby. He’s locked him away now and I have no idea where to start looking for the key. I continue to stare at him, my eyes blinking heavily, and he reciprocates. We stand there, looking at each other and a quiet understanding passes between us. He sees something in my face I think, because I watch as he physically backs down. His arms flop to the side and he starts walking towards me. I don’t know what will happen when he gets to where I am still struggling to stay awake, but his face says ‘surrender’. Something I’ve said perhaps, seems to have penetrated through the thickness of his grief and he is calling truce, for now at least. My legs involuntarily move towards him too, and as soon as he gets close enough, he grabs me around the shoulders with one arm and pulls me to his chest, kissing the top of my head forcefully. I lift my hands and fist the material of his jacket as I inhale the familiarity of him. This is a start. This is a good start.
His affectionate hug soon turns into a headlock and we wrestle noisily for a minute or two, albeit drunkenly, and when I manage to free myself from his grasp, I clumsily take a run up and jump on his back, wrapping my arms around him and nestling my face into the crook of his neck. “We will get to the other side of this. I promise. Now take me inside so we can watch trash on the telly and fall asleep.”
I WAKE UP, a fuzzy headache niggling at my temples and a mouth like a box of sawdust. The darkness has disappeared, the room now bathed in sunlight, and I lie still for a moment trying to get my bearings. We’d both been really drunk, so staying awake didn’t last long. The TV is still on and I move my squinted eyes to the screen to see what daytime shit has woken me up.
I register that my head is in his lap where I’d obviously laid it after my neck had refused to hold it up any longer. His arm is draped over the top of my head and I carefully extricate myself from underneath it making a concerted effort to not wake him up.
“Ow.” Becoming vertical isn’t fun at all, and the headache that was fuzzing just moments earlier sears across my forehead, which I drop into my hands, and I cover my eyes.
“Hmm.” Dutch stirs, his long lean body uncurling and stretching itself out as he joins me in the land of the almost living. He shakes his own head to clear whatever is in it as he wakes and pushes himself up to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Cwaffee?” I haven’t moved yet, and I really honestly don’t want to, other than to peek from the corner of my finger-covered eyes to try to assess the Dutch situation.
He nods and keeps his eyes trained to the floor. “Please.”
I grab his thigh and give it a reassuring squeeze before forcing myself to my feet. This ‘being a supportive best friend’ thing is hard work when you’re suffering as much as the other person, but I’ve got to keep coaxing him out of himself, and normality seems to be the way forward.
As I slide around the kitchen tiles in my socks preparing hot mugs of coffee, I wrack my brains for something mundane to talk about. Perhaps I can persuade him to do something fun today. If we stay here—which actually would be jolly bloody nice seeing as I feel like death has punched me the face—I know that we would end up wallowing in self pity and he would wind up sinking further. Yes, I was quite adamant yesterday that I didn’t think people should be forced to deal with grief in a way that suits someone else, but I have changed my mind today, because we are talking about Dutch here. And Dutch is my whole world.
I’ve never met my biological parents. I don’t know much about them really, other than that they were young when my mother fell pregnant—too young to have kids apparently—but they were catholic so she went ahead and had me anyway. By all accounts, they didn’t put me up for adoption because my mum said she would want me back when she was old enough to look after me, so I was put into foster care until that day came. Clearly she changed her mind at some point because I am still waiting for her to show herself.
Care was ok sometimes if you got a good family, and I did get a couple when I was really young, I seem to remember, but then getting landed at Grandma Joan’s was just another kettle of fish. She ran a tight ship, and I still do take my hat off to her today for keeping us all in check, but Dutch and I were already damaged by that point. He’d witnessed far too much fucked up shit at home by then—domestic violence, drug induced neglect… of course neither of us understood any of it back then, nor did we realise we were fucked up. It’s only when you get a little older that you are able to start joining the dots together and begin to make sense of your personal existence.
He’s always gotten himself involved in fights, always with black eyes or a bust up nose, and it was always my room he would come to afterwards.
Joan’s house was a massive old Victorian terraced with six bedrooms. Each room had bunk beds and then either a single or a double bed in it. I’d shared a bunk bed with whoever was staying at the time over the nine years we were there, and I took the bottom one because it was easier to hide in. Dutch and I would drape blankets around the outside of it and create our own little den. He’d sneak in in the middle of the night and we would whisper into the early hours, eventually falling asleep with our limbs tangled and our sweaty heads pressed together on the same pillow. We became firm friends very quickly, to the detriment of our relationships with the other kids and indeed the adults in the house. Thick as thieves we were, and never once did we betray one another. The way we saw it was that we didn’t matter to anyone else, so we would ensure that we only ever matter to each other, and that way we’d never be disappointed. There were so many children coming and going all the time, and Dutch and I were pretty much the only two that remained there constantly; another reason why we didn’t make alliances with any of them…
Because they left us too…
And that’s the way it has always been… just Dutch and me, only ever looking out for each other.
That was until he found out his mother had had another kid by some unknown. There was no way on earth we couldn’t have stepped in there. And so for four years, we have had Bobby to matter to us too… but now he is gone.
“Maybe we could go somewhere today, yeah?” I shout through from the kitchen to where I know Dutch will be sitting in the same position but with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. There’s no reply. “I dunno, maybe go see a movie, or go somewhere for some lunch for a change?” Still silence. I stir two sugars in his cup and tap the spoon on the side of it as I always do to indicate that it is ready. Usually, I would hear a scuffle and he would appear at my side and take the mug from me and kiss the top of my head, but today there is nothing. I sigh and place my hands on the counter, pushing my body weight away from it as I come up with a plan. “A walk in the park perhaps?”
“Not in the mood. You go though if you want.” His voice is flat and tired.
My head bows and I purse my lips, exhaling noisily.
Maybe I should just leave him to it.
Maybe if he has some alone time it will be better for him.
I nod to myself and push away from the counter, grabbing the mugs as I head back to the living area. I hand one to him and sit cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
“I’m going to give you three days to do whatever you need to do, and then I’m intervening. Okay?”
His eyes lift and search m
y face. “What do you mean?”
I look down into my mug and bite the inside of my cheek whilst I find the right words. “I need to keep you on the right path, dude. I’m scared for you.” I flick my gaze from one of his eyes to the other and back again. “I’m worried things could go downhill very quickly.”
Dutch frowns at me, and I can see that he’s not really that happy with my diagnosis of his current behaviour. This in turn suggests that I have hit the nail on the head with it as well, though. He is bound to be pent up inside, and I know he is harbouring a whole sack load of unnecessary guilt. He knows as well as I do that the anger that’s bubbling inside of him will, at some point, need to be released, and if he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, that would be bad. Real bad.
“Just… I dunno. Take a few days to chill out. I could go stay with Molly, but after that, I am taking charge of this ok?”
“What are you expecting me to do, J?”
I hold his eyes with mine steadily. “I don’t know, Dutch.”
He shakes his head at me gently. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. You know that right?”
Reaching out, I take his hand in mine and squeeze it gently. “I do. I just…”
“Mate, I am angry and I am fucking really sad, but I’m not going to go out to find someone to punch just to make myself feel better.”
I hold onto his eyes for a few more moments before smiling tightly. “Okay.” I let go of his hand and take a gulp of coffee. “So what shall we do today?”
He flicks his eyes back to mine. “Umm. I thought you just said you were going to Molly’s.”
Those words and the tone they are said in cut at me like a razor blade and I can feel my face contort. “Sorry?”
Dutch pinches the bridge of his nose again, his elbow resting on his thigh.
“You don’t want me to be here?”
“No, I didn’t mean…” He sighs and I take the hint quickly.
“Fine. I’ll go. Give me ten mins to pack some stuff.”
“Jess… I…”
“Save it, Dutch. I get it.”
“Jessica, please.”
As I get to my feet he reaches out and grabs hold of my hand, pulling me back and forcing me to sit next to him on the sofa. “It’s not because I don’t want you here. You’re my best mate; of course I want you here. But my need to be alone is greater right now. I would never have asked you to go, but when you offered, I just…”
I swipe at my eyes before they have a chance to betray me. “It’s fine, Dutch. I get it. I mean, I could probably do with being away from this place for a bit anyway. Like, y’know, get my shit together and stuff. It’s fine. I’ll go till Sunday and then we can talk. Okay?”
He squeezes my hand and looks at the side of my face as I remain staring at the carpet. “Okay. Thanks. Y’know. For understanding.”
I nod and push to my feet. “I’ll go get some stuff packed and ring Mol.” There is no look back, because I will cry, and Jessica Walton doesn’t cry. Jessica Walton is tough and strong and she doesn’t fold.
“Jess.”
I walk on through the door and up the stairs, my back teeth clenched and attitude slapped on my face. I will not let him see me cry.
MOLLY IS ABOUT the only girl I ever made any kind of connection with while living at Joan’s. Two years younger than me, she’s is good in a crisis. We kept in touch by accident really, and whenever I need a cuppa or punch bag, she will always deliver. I don’t mean that I go round and beat her up… but she takes the punches and I always feel lighter when I leave her house. She fell pregnant at seventeen, not long after she left Joan’s, and good on her. She did it. She isn’t with the father anymore, but she has made a life for herself and her daughter and now her new baby, another fatherless child, and it’s done her good I reckon. She’s stronger for it.
Sitting at her table with Tyler on my knee and four year old Olivia attempting to tie elastics in my hair, I watch her as she moves confidently around the kitchen fixing bottles and getting drinks.
“You sure you don’t want any help, love?”
“No, no. It’s fine. Just entertain the baby for me.”
I look down at the blue-eyed, curly-haired replica of Molly and smile. He’s a real cutie. Molly plonks a couple of mugs of coffee on the table and takes him from me, shoving a bottle in his mouth and stroking his sweaty hair from his face. “So come on then. What’s happened?”
“Oh, Mol. I don’t know really. I’m just scared for him, y’know? I just feel like this could end up being a turning point for the worse and I need to do something about it.”
“He’s not your responsibility, you know.” It falls out of her mouth like a rock: blunt and harsh.
I look up at her sharply, prickling immediately in defence. “Isn’t he?”
She gives me that look that she uses when she is trying to be cross with the kids. “Really, Jess?”
I frown and scratch the side of my cheek. “But if he’s not my responsibility, whose responsibility is he? Cos he sure as hell aint got no fucker else looking out for him.” I’m angry and she knows it.
She turns away from me and walks towards the sink, runs the tap, Tyler in one arm, and fills a glass of water for Olivia. “He’s a grown man, Jess. He should be able to cope with his emotions by now. You don’t have to look after him. He should be taking responsibility for himself.”
I’m a little taken aback at her pitiless outlook and I frown at her back. “I’m not sure you’re understanding very well, Mol. He has no one. Literally no one. How can you say that? His kid brother just fucking died.”
“Because I don’t want to see you waste your life hanging around a deadbeat no-hoper like Dutch, that’s why.”
Heightened irritation bubbles to the surface as I let her words fall to the floor. “Deadbeat no-hoper? Is that what you think he is?”
Molly turns back around and comes to sit at the table with me. “He’s not good enough for you, babe. Where is your life going to go if you stick with him forever? Look at you both. He can’t give you what you need.”
My eyes flick back and forth between hers. I am so confused by her speech. “I don’t really know what you are getting at. He’s my best mate. Why would I not want the best for him? I’m not sure what you mean by he’s not good enough for me… good enough for what?”
Molly rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I fix my gaze on her, unfaltering, and let her know she’s rubbing me up the wrong way.
“Jess. He’s in love with you.”
I have no idea what my face looks like to her now, although I know my eyes are really wide. “Excuse me?”
“And it won’t work. You both need to break the cycle and if you stick to one another like glue you’re just going to get buried deeper and deeper in the shit.”
A deep laugh rumbles from the pit of my stomach and rolls around the kitchen. “In love with me? Are you fucking nuts? Where on earth have you dredged this idea from?”
Molly shrugs. “Deny it if you will, but it’s plain as day. Always has been.”
I angrily move Olivia’s hand from my hair and scrape my chair backwards to stand up. “Molly. I do not need this shit right now. Why are you saying all of this?” I walk to the kitchen counter and lean against it, my arms folded across my chest looking anywhere but at her face.
“Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just want you to make something of your life. Living in that house with him, dead end jobs… I just think you can do better with your life, and if you don’t let him go then you won’t ever see what’s out there for you.”
My mind is whirring with annoyance at the words that Molly keeps spouting. “I think I’m going to go.”
“Jess, don’t be like that. Stay. Give him the space he needs. I’m sorry. Come on. Let’s take the kids to the park.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, pushing myself away from the counter, and walk over to Olivia, kissing the top of her
head. “We going to the park then, doll-face?”
“Yes!” Olivia runs to the hall to find her wellies and her duffle coat and I chase after her, grabbing her and tickling her, trying my best to stop the thoughts that are now tumbling around in my head after Molly’s little revelation. She knows I’m not happy with her because she leaves me to it.
We walk in silence down the street, only ever speaking when Olivia asks us a question, and it’s not until we get to the park gates that she stops me and turns to look at me.
“I’ve upset you. That wasn’t my intention. I’m just saying what I see, and I’ve been seeing it for a long time. I’ve kept it to myself, but it’s pretty fucking obvious that he is crazy head over heels for you. Surely you know this yourself? I just don’t want to see you walking down that path of destruction, ‘cause you have more than that going for you. Dutch is a dick. You know he is. He’ll probably wind up in prison before he is thirty, and I don’t want that for you.”
I grit my teeth before replying. I have no idea how to curb the anger that is forcing its way into my throat, but I try because the kids are with us. What I actually want to do is smack her in the mouth for badmouthing him. He is not a dick. He has issues that mean he can sometimes act like a dick, but don’t we all? Don’t we all have our triggers that make us less than perfect? Everyone walks through life with pockets full of failings, fists full of short-fallings, and, Jesus, it’s not like Dutch was lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s had to drag himself up and then some. Molly should know better—she’s been through similar and I’m really fucking pissed with her right now.
Quite suddenly, I become aware of the fact I have not properly digested the point she is making (focusing instead on her opinions of Dutch) thus making it unbearably prominent and impossible to ignore any longer. Something inside of me shifts, and my emotions switch from anger to a little bit of fear. Before I have chance to release the abuse that I have been saving up for her, it shrivels into nothingness and I swallow it down, my eyes shifting to the floor.
