Losing It

by Ross Gilfillan

  ‘What sort of changes?’ This is unsettling, but somehow thrilling, too. My dad has never talked like this before. It’s like talking to a different man. He’s not stuttering, either.

  ‘I can’t tell you yet. We shouldn’t have secrets, but this will be the last one this family has, Brian. And it won’t be long before you understand all. Secrets are terrible things. Secrets have made me what I am, Brian, what I was, perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say.

  He’s looking at me now like he’s just decided that I’ve grown up.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you did understand,’ he says. He frowns, bites his lip. Then he says, ‘What do you know about my childhood, Brian?’

  ‘Your childhood?’ I say, as if I’m surprised he hadn’t gone straight from nappies and romper suits to cardigans and cavalry twill slacks. ‘Well, obviously, you lived with GD and Nana…’

  ‘Brian,’ he interrupts. ‘Do you know what is the first birthday I can remember celebrating at that house?’

  I have no idea. I think I can remember my own third, though. Something about Marmite soldiers and a pink cake.

  ‘The first birthday I can remember is my seventh. I got a little bicycle, with stabiliser wheels.’

  ‘That sounds nice,’ I say.

  ‘What’s not so nice, Brian, is that I can remember nothing of my life before that point. Not a thing. I must have gone to a nursery and started school at four or five, surely? But do I remember anything at all of those years? I have to tell you, Brian, that I do not. And I have no idea why. And because I have no idea why this can possibly be, I’ve entertained the darkest, most horrible thoughts.’

  ‘About this…amnesia?’ I say. I want to tell him what I know, this is the moment. But he’s still talking.

  ‘I’ve tried to imagine what might have happened to me as a child. A shock, surely, some terrible trauma? I still don’t know. I have obsessed about this enormous hole in my life. What exactly caused it? I’ve always needed to know and over the years I’ve considered every possibility. Even the most dreadful.’

  There’s a tone in his voice I don’t like. He’s about to tell me something I don’t want to know.

  ‘Brian, I started to harbour certain feelings, suspicions if you like, about GD and Nana. I had read about such things, adults and children. Did they do something to me?’

  His face is a picture of anguish and I feel for his suffering, I really do. This is a side to my dad I never knew was there. But I’m appalled at what he has been able to think GD and Nana might have been capable of. And so I’m unable to cushion the shock of what I have to tell him with, what’s it called? A preamble. It just comes out.

  ‘GD and Nana are not your parents,’ I tell him. Just like that.

  At first it’s like he’s not heard me, so I have to repeat myself.

  He shakes his head, looks at me like he’s just discovered that I am mad.

  ‘It’s true,’ I tell him. ‘Just listen to what I have to say.’

  Dad folds his arms, but his eyes, which at first are squinty and mistrusting, slowly widen as I give him back, piece by piece, the missing bits of his life. Or as much as GD knew about his life before his parents were killed in the car crash. I tremble as I speak, wondering what kind of a shock my words are giving him. Maybe GD was wrong and this isn’t the right thing to do at all. I’ve never had to break news of this magnitude to anyone before. I don’t know what to expect. Anger? A big scene? What?

  After I have told him everything I know, I can barely look up from where my eyes have been focussed on a housefly, which is rubbing its legs together as it squats on one of Mum’s homemade scones. But when I do, I see that Dad is strangely tranquil. He’s sitting back in his chair and two big and glistening tears are inching down his pale cheeks. He is strangely calm. I am worried that somehow I have done the wrong thing, perhaps an awful thing. I sit where I am and watch him as he gazes up at the ceiling or perhaps somewhere beyond. But then, when eventually he looks at me, I see that he is smiling. Actually smiling. He doesn’t say anything, in fact I think he is unable to say anything. He holds my gaze for what seems like an eternity. And then, at last, he puts a hand on mine and squeezes it, hard. ‘Thank you, Brian,’ he says. ‘Thank you so much.’

  Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t this.

  CHAPTER 17

  Love Me To Death

  The repetitive chuga-lug-lug of the train has had a soporific effect upon its passengers. That and the Madeira wine generously provided by the gold-monocled gentleman wearing the frock coat and the top hat, who produced bottle and glasses from a capacious carpet bag. People are dozing fitfully, as the train rattles over the lines and branches of trees brush at the glass. One young lady resisting the general torpor has taken off her bonnet to lean from the window and see if our destination is yet in sight, but steam from the engine and what might be sea mist obscures her view.

  My companions, perhaps sensing proximity to our destination, are rousing themselves. They rub sleep from their eyes and look about them, at women with high buns and dangling curls, at whiskery men and at the gentleman sitting across from our party, the one who was very short with his wife when she was trying to arrange her hooped skirt in such a way that she might be comfortable in her seat. The ladies, it has to be said, have acquitted themselves well for their excursion.

  Aboard this train are acres of crinoline, satins and silks, some ladies with feathers in their bonnets and others wearing gauzy veils and carrying little parasols. Careful thought and hours of labour must have attended the production of such finery and for their part, these ladies have lined the pockets of their dressmakers. And now everyone is awake and there is a bustle of excited chatter as the train rounds a bend and begins to slow up and through the mist, perched high upon the cliff, we can discern the silhouetted ruins of the ancient abbey at Whitby.

  With difficulty, we disembark, struggling with valises and portmanteaus, for there is not a porter to be seen. My party has less to carry than most, but our evening attire has to be carried somehow and there are the other necessities thought to be indispensable for the spending of two days on the Yorkshire coast: warm undershirts and stout boots for walking. I shall, perchance, return to this experimental journal when I am settled in our lodgings, but there again, once I am returned home it can await my leisure. Before I put down my pen and join my companions upon the platform, I must make note of the strangest group of gentlemen I ever did see, who are wearing long coats made of leather and pendant jewellery about their necks, who stand with ladies whose faces are as pastey-white as their painted lips are ruby-red, the whole ensemble making a remarkable sight as they stand awaiting passengers from the train, under a banner whose strange message reads, Welcome to Whitby Goth Weekend.

  The Gardenia Guesthouse, no dogs, no single women, no smoking, no sea view and nowhere near the station, is rumoured to have had a lengthier list of proscriptions before the laws promoting equal opportunities started to bare their teeth. The wheelchair ramp was a begrudged expense, the elderly chambermaid tells us. But, amazingly, The Gardenia Welcomes Goths, as a notice tacked to the hotel’s old signboard proclaims. Why the proprietors of this selective establishment, which only recently turned away a blind man because he had a dog, should welcome the most outlandishly, garishly eccentric subdivision of British youth culture is hard to fathom. Unless it’s for their chalk-white skin. And why the goths should want to stay there is just as puzzling.

  But the more I learn about goths the more I understand that these are people who can never be sure of their reception anywhere and if a place says, unequivocally, we welcome you, then goths will come in cash register-filling numbers. And judging from the number of funereally-attired customers in the bar and passing me on the stairs, I guess the Gardenia does well out of its goths. As a matter of interest, it seems that Whitby was chosen for the once or twice yearly goth weekends because it was already accustomed to receiving Dracula addicts and Christopher Lee lo
okalikes. Hey, the townspeople must have thought, what’s a few more more pale-faced punters?

  Lauren and Diesel have the bigger room, the one which would have a sea view, were it not for the projecting gable of the house next door. Faruk, Clive and I share two beds in a cramped adjoining room with a slice of harbour visible between the walls of two more guesthouses. Clive is getting a bed to himself. We start to unpack, keeping quiet in case we can hear what Lauren is saying to Diesel in the room next to ours. She was unusually quiet on the train, a state which I’ve come to interpret as ominous and has in the past presaged an important announcement, but I could be reading too much into this. All we can hear now is mumbling, Lauren’s low, continuous mumble, then Diesel’s high, short protestations. In our room, there is a dressing table-cum-writing desk where I’m continuing this journal, which I hope will be sufficiently interesting and well enough written, to show to Rowley Dawson next term.

  Faruk and Clive have begun to get into their hired costumes: this evening, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be weekend goths. The cost of our travel and some of the expen-sively-hired gear is the generous gift of one Roger Dyson, who has done this because I have assured him that the Whitby Weekend will be a great place to get Clive off with someone and also because it’s his way of thanking my dad and Faruk for their parts in the Battle of Laurel Gardens and, above all else, because he is stupendously elated about the imminent arrival of his Poon-Tang, at London Heathrow, next week.

  But, I hear you ask, why are we here? Why is Clive helping to fix Faruk’s cravat? Why is Clive himself dressed up as a Victorian dandy, in his black velvet jacket and matching waistcoat? Why will I shortly be transforming my own appearance, until I look like an extra in a cheap horror flick?

  You should be asking Teresa Davenport. Whitby’s Goth Weekend is her ‘cunning plan’ for finding out just what Ros’s feelings for me are. Not that I’ve told the Horsemen that. Maybe she’s thinking that if I actually get off with Ros and prove to be someone who can help and support Ros (as well as fuck her brains out, I’m thinking) then it’ll be a huge weight of responsibility off her shoulders. I don’t know. I just know that Teresa’s dad has given them a lift all the way to Whitby and that we’re to meet them in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, at 8pm this evening.

  We walk down towards the harbour, where there’s a spot of unexpected bother with the local plod who are bored enough to give me a body search. I’m not worried, though, and I’m in too much of a holiday mood to be angry. All I’m thinking, as they start to pat me down, is that even the policemen look old-fashioned, somehow, here in Whitby. It all gets a bit more personal after that and I don’t think I’ll bother you with the details. However, I’m certainly not going to let it ruin my holiday.

  As we cross the swing bridge, I can understand why Ros has come here every year since she was fourteen. I can see why Teresa says it’s the one place where Ros feels at home and at ease with herself. Because all along these ancient narrow streets, with their little fudge shops and windows displaying items crafted from Whitby jet, are hundreds of people just like Rosalind Chandler and already I’ve mistaken three young women for Ros herself.

  Middle-aged tourists make way for wild-haired men in scarlet-lined cloaks or take photographs of pretty girls in lace sleeves, leather bodices and Victorian hook and eye boots, just like Ros’s; it’s all very strange. You might imagine that the whole town has been visited by a vast intergalactic space ship, whose advanced stealth technology has let it pass undetected by the early warning golf balls at nearby Fylingdales and release its cargo of infiltrators in a secluded place outside the town.

  Five hundred million light years is a fair old distance and when you’re planning an expedition on this scale, you can come a cropper on the details. It’s easy to cock up your calculations for the Estimated Year of Arrival when the I.T. bots haven’t bothered upgrading your operating system and your Starcruiser is still using the Klargian equivalent of Windows Vista. And because of this, the hundreds of aliens making their way into the town from every direction are attracting more attention than they might have liked, being dressed entirely in the fashions of another age.

  But the numbers of Victorian goths are balanced by late-twentieth century ones. As well as common-or-garden goths with jet-black hair, black clothes and white faces, there are vamps in sex-shop chic and men dressed even more outlandishly, as alien freaks, plague-ridden monks and assorted other monsters. One who’s covered his face and head with pins looks like the victim of an over-enthusiastic acupuncturist. We all think it’s bonkers, but in the best of all possible ways and are finding everything quite wonderful as Faruk points out the silver streaks in so many hairdos, the girls aiming at the Morticia Addams effect, the guys a Count Dracula, Prince of Darkness look or, in the case of one or two older and dumpier goths, Grandpa Munster.

  I’m amazed at how many older goths are there, some of the rake-thin ones with droopy grey moustaches looking like undertakers out on the razzle. Everyone else is startling, sexy, frightening or funny. Not that we must appear any less bizarre ourselves. Clive looks like an older Mark Lester as Oliver Twist, the professional mourner at children’s funerals, Faruk could be Mr Darcy’s kid brother in the next remake of Pride and Prejudice, while I’m here as just one more bog-standard vampire: old-time dinner suit (Dad’s), floor-length curtain (Mum made my cloak) and artificially-ashen countenance. Mind you, Clive’s done a lovely job with my mascara. Also looking like characters from Oliver are Diesel and Lauren, bringing up the rear as we start to climb the two hundred steps up to the church. An American tourist has already excitedly identified them as the fat Beadle and his wife.

  We reach the top of the steep steps. Behind us, the red tiled roofs of Whitby cascade towards the harbour, while before us is St Mary’s Church and the most evocative graveyard I have ever seen. Perhaps it’s not the graveyard itself, but the people who are in it. Not those in the graves themselves, but the ones standing or sitting five and six feet above them. Period-dressed youngish people pose by stones, taking each other’s pictures or eat picnics off tabletop tombs with lighted candelabra and cans of Stella or, more authentically, bottles of port and Curacao. Some of these stare out to sea, presumably watching for the ship that must eventually blow ashore, with the earth-filled coffin of Dracula aboard.

  The candles aren’t necessary, as it’ll be light for ages yet. The view is spectacular. I fill my lungs with sea air and look about for Ros and Teresa, who should be here somewhere but if Teresa has got herself done up anything like Ros, then it might take a while to find them among all the undead gathered here this evening. But as Diesel and Lauren struggle up the last few steps, I see someone running through the crowd and looking very familiar, despite an unfamiliar black knee-length skirt with fishnet stockings, a clinging black satin top and a black beret. What Teresa’s come as I can’t decide but I have to say, she’s looking decidedly horny. But then I realise that she’s not running in our direction because she’s pleased to see us – she’s upset, panicking.

  ‘It’s Ros,’ she says, breathlessly. She’s run up all two hundred steps, from the look of her cheeks. She supports herself on my shoulder as she says, ‘She’s gone!’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ I say.

  ‘She walked out of the hotel on her own.’

  ‘That’s nothing to worry about,’ Lauren says. ‘Is it?’

  ‘She’ll be down the Pavilion watching Desolate Dogs tuning up.’ Diesel suggests. ‘Best bit of their act.’

  Teresa ignores everyone else and turns to me. ‘She’s not herself, Brian. I know the signs. She’d never have gone out without me. Her moods can be dangerous. We have to find her, quickly.’ And now I’m as anxious as Teresa. As for the others, Ros mightn’t be a mate but she’s from our school. We all have to find her. Teresa tells me that as they approached Whitby, Ros’s mood, instead of becoming lighter and easier, had darkened. When she talked at all, it was about ‘the big change that was
coming’ and she was saying all kinds of weird stuff, like she was ‘through with it all’ and was ‘going to move on’. As they walked up the steps to the hotel entrance, where a couple of goths were helping another to free his long coat tails from the revolving door, Teresa thought she heard Ros actually say that it was time to end it all.

  She was going to ask her exactly what she meant just as soon as her mood had lifted. After they had registered, Ros was supposed to join Teresa on the terrace for tea and something to eat, but had stayed in her room. Teresa had last seen her examining the clothes she was to wear, with the strangest look in her eyes. The others have grasped the idea that Ros is in trouble, that she’s vulnerable and may somehow be putting herself in danger. We hit the streets of Whitby and split up, promising to call or text as soon as she’s found. Teresa and I start asking anyone who looks sufficiently alert to have noticed a lone girl in distress. But asking if anyone has seen a person in a dark cloak with jet-black hair and a pale face results in a lot of confusion.

  We try all the well-known goth hangouts, the pubs and hotels and places where people can take in the view and meditate upon soulful things, or just think about suicide. At one such place we find a girl who sits alone on a bench, engrossed in The Works of Emily Dickinson and I try her, because she looks like a kindred spirit. ‘Waste not a look upon my head,’ the girl replies, which isn’t strictly helpful. ‘For I am not sleeping, I am dead.’

  ‘Fuckwit,’ Teresa says as we run down into town, through pockets of ambling goths and evening walkers, re-cross the bridge and try likely places on the West Cliff. Clive is sent to look in The Dracula Experience, a favourite haunt of Ros’s, but it’s hard for him to distinguish between what is a ghoulish exhibit and what’s only a goth standing very still.