Chapter 17
Leo
This hall fucking stinks.
I can hear myself rambling away, and the beer from under the tree is cutting through a bit – I need to be careful. I’m just about making sense. These people don’t know me, but they love to act like they do.
I need to make them think I care. Make them think I want to be here for the right reasons, so I can get what I need.
When the collection bucket goes round, I’ll take what I can from the change.
Swift fingers, that’s what someone called me once.
Sometimes there are rolled up banknotes – especially in these parts – and they’re easier to lift.
I like to throw a stone in, to sound like I’m paying my bit, but I forgot one today.
My leg fucking hurts and the painkillers are wearing off.
I need to get that script to the pharmacy, or it’s gonna be a rough night.
And I need the money to get to a guy.
Fucking fuck fuck money fuck.
Watching this lot makes me feel sick. I have to keep looking down.
Do any of these yummy mummies know what it’s like? In their lives, they think an extra bottle of posh white wine by the back-porch patio heater on a Friday night is the end of the world. Bangles, headscarves, fucking sunglasses inside.
They wake up in their massive houses and shit themselves that they’ve said something stupid to one of their work mates, then come here to feel the guilt.
They love it in these parts, when people talk like this.
I can see them all nodding, tears in their eyes.
Free therapy, I’ve heard them say. Like they fucking need it.
‘Thanks, Leo,’ Janet says. She looks like some kind of sex-starved eagle.
‘I’m aware you’ve been before – but in terms of sobriety, would you consider yourself a newcomer?
’ I nod. Not because I want to, but because that’s what they need from me in order to notice me.
To empathise. ‘Well, we will leave space at the end for newcomers to share, if you should like to.’
‘Thanks,’ I say.
That won’t be happening. I have fifty minutes to endure, and then the bucket will come and I will lift as much as is humanly possible with my dirty fingers then go to Mo’s. Or Paul’s. Or Jamie’s. Whoever’s paying the most. Probably Mo, as I haven’t showered, and he likes that.
‘Right, that’s everyone introduced,’ Janet the eagle says. ‘Please come in and share as you’d like to. You will receive a wave from me when your five minutes are up.’
It’s such bullshit all this. All the Higher Power stuff, like some fucking force exists that will somehow suddenly take the urge away.
People talking about their serenity, their new way of life, their ability to find self-confidence within themselves, no longer needing it from external things. Where do they even find this bullshit?
Some woman called Aphrodite shares about her fantasy addiction.
She says she obsesses about people and is let down because they don’t live up to her expectations – and she does the same to herself.
I hear people mmm-ing deeply – how relatable – but I don’t get up to leave, which every part of me wants to do, to not listen to this self-serving ego-wank. Instead I decide to zone out.
I start thinking about Mo, and pull my phone out of my pocket.
People don’t like texting in these meetings, they get arsy about it.
I’ve been nagged by the prissy little rule-keepers to put my phone away many times before, but I find a way to hide it between my legs and open his messages.
I need money to get to him. Need money for my script.
And he likes gifts. He’s weird like that.
I don’t kink-shame – I’ve seen enough of them – but I do find it a bit fucking weird that he likes me to bring a family-sized bag of Haribo.
He doesn’t even open the packets. Just collects them all up and puts them in a drawer.
Nutter.
And I need some fags, to help me through it.
Hi Mo. Tonight?
I wait, as a man starts talking some crap about the truth setting him free, the ego and the low self-esteem paradox that he says he grapples with every day.
Now he’s just saying fucking words. What’s his problem?
Smashes two bottles of red wine a night in his North London flat?
I feel so fucking sorry for him. Then he comes here and gets what he needs.
The validation. They all love to bang on about how you’ve gotta find that for yourself, but I have never heard people loving the sound of their own voices so much as at these things.
We’re all the same, he keeps saying. Inside, we’re all the very same.
Hey sexy
Yeah. I’m free later
What do you want?
Everything
Fuck’s sake.
But also good. That’ll be two hundred quid. Can get some decent gak with that, and maybe even sleep at a hostel, if beneath the canal bridge is too busy. Mo likes it alone, which suits me. He just sometimes gets all hands on. Brought out a belt last time.
Fuck it. I’m already a state.
Nice
He does scare me, Mo. I dunno why. It’s all so controlled.
It feels like he’s thought it all through beforehand, planned every movement and almost directs the whole thing, while I just do what I’m told.
That’s what he likes. It feels like he could snap at any minute, and I dunno what he’d fucking do.
I do want to stop this.
I do.
We are not all the same. The man was talking shite.
Bring me a present
Course sxy
By present, he means Haribo.
Weirder than the slapping if you ask me.
‘Could I share now?’ I look up to see the woman opposite me – the woman who is wearing her sunglasses inside like an absolute tool – with her hand in the air.
Those sunnies look spenny though. I could do with a pair – I look like a fucking panda.
She probably just hates her crow’s feet caused by too many holidays in Greece or on some nice Spanish island.
Not all-inclusive either.
‘Of course,’ Janet says.
‘Thanks, I feel fortunate to have this space to share. Should I just start?’
God, she’s weird. Like the rest of them.
‘Please,’ Janet says.
Jesus, what bullshit are we in for now.