Chapter 37
Leo
‘Could you pass the gravy, Leo?’
I’ll be as clear as I can be right now: I’ve not got a fucking clue what is happening.
It’s like the beginning of a low-budget horror film.
I’m sat on this chair, and we’re all squeezed around my parents’ dining table on a Monday at five p.m. Them on one side, and their weird neighbours – John and Jean – on the other, everyone eating a chicken dinner, while I enter withdrawals.
This was not what I had in mind. Not at all. There was going to be hugs and tears and hourly lorazepam and a warm bed and Thank God you’re home!
Not this. I forgot they all do this on this street. Visit each other and eat chicken.
‘Leo?’
Not to point the finger, but John and Jean have fucked up the plan.
Now I have to act normal and pretend I’m fine, and not like I’m about to throw up on the table.
Not like I’ve just arrived after nine months of ghosting my parents, wearing no socks or underwear, with no moisture in my mouth, sweating like a twat, itching like a bastard, cos I feel like there’s mites under my skin.
But like I was just in the area and wanted to pop in to see how everyone is.
I panicked. Cos of John’s and Jean’s judgemental stares.
‘I’ve just come from work,’ I said, because I’ve been wearing a tie. Thought it made sense.
‘Oh! How lovely!’ they said.
Mum and Dad didn’t say anything.
Now the new plan is to wait till John and Jean leave, and then I can talk to Mum and Dad. Be honest. That’s what they appreciate. Honesty. That’s all they’ve ever asked for. And I’m ready. I am.
I am I am I am.
‘Leo?’
What did he want? Oh, yeah. Fuck. ‘Gravy. Yes, John.’ John looks like he is made out of Play-Doh and has the personality of a straw.
Where the fuck is it? Jesus. Gravy. What a weird word.
Oh. It’s next to me. Right next to me. ‘Here you go, John.’ I pick it up but I’m shaking so bad that the gravy is wobbling.
Sloshing about. Steady. Steady now. Then something mad happens.
A little face appears in the skin that’s formed on the top of it.
A gravy-skin face. Looks like it’s about to sing me a song – its mouth keeps opening.
Like something from a Disney film. That’s nice.
Wait. No. It’s getting strange. Eyebrows are forming.
Angry now. Very angry. Evil. The devil. The devil just arrived in the gravy.
‘Take it.’ Fucking take it, John. Take the devil off me.
‘Cheers, lad.’
It’s hell. I’ve come to my parents’ house for help and the devil’s in the fucking Bisto.
‘Well, this is nice,’ I say, swallowing down some sick. ‘How are you all doing? I didn’t expect to see you all. Nice surprise.’ I can hear myself trying to sound like some kind of very busy and important business man.
In a stolen shirt.
‘It is a nice surprise,’ Mum says, in a way that makes me want to cry.
I can’t tell what she and Dad are thinking.
They won’t let me be here if they think I’m high.
Which I’m not, but the withdrawals might give recent habits away, and then they won’t like that either.
I’ve done this before, many times, but not in front of John and Jean.
‘It’s lovely to see you, Leo,’ Jean says, smiling. ‘Your mum and dad said you’ve been doing well.’
I can’t look at them. Not directly. My eyes are stinging. It’s the comedown. I swear. Making me wobbly as fuck. I can’t cry. Not here. ‘Yeah, I’ve been doing really good, thanks, Jean!’
She nods, then starts pouring herself wine. Fucking torture. ‘Would you like some, Leo?’
Mum and Dad look at each other. ‘No, I’m good, thanks, Jean.’ She nods. She’s fucking testing me. I know she is.
‘Oh, that’s right.’ Pretending she forgot. ‘You don’t do that anymore, do you?’
‘No.’
‘How long’s it been?’ she says, filling her glass to the top.
Fuck’s sake. ‘A while.’
‘That’s good, lad,’ John adds, swigging on his Guinness. ‘Some people just can’t, can they.’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Some people are just better without.’
‘They are.’
‘Everyone has their time to let loose, then it’s head down, isn’t it? Glad you’re there, lad.’
‘Thanks.’ I hate this. But I think I’m steering them off.
I can smell something strange. I dunno if it’s me – sometimes you can smell meth through sweat, I swear you can. Or maybe I’m just pranging out, and it’s the meat. The meat looks like it’s sweating too. ‘Chicken’s great, Mum.’
‘Good.’
She knows.
She knows something’s up.
But she will understand. She always does.
But this time she looks different. There’s something in the way she’s picking up her peas with her fork.
Tired. Like a tired little bird. Broken.
I can speak to her properly after dinner.
Tell her. Tell her everything. Mo. The men.
All of it. Not yet though. Clearly. When these two have gone back home.
Because if I let on, they will talk. Everyone on this cul-de-sac loves to talk.
No one ever ventures further than the petrol station, so they need some fucking drama – they wanna know the dirt on each other so they can tell everyone else, but say it wasn’t them that said it.
You didn’t hear this from me but... It’s that, up and down this fucking street like a disease behind the net curtains.
And I have definitely provided some valuable cul-de-sac gossip in my time, for people like John and fucking Jean.
Which is probably why Mum had her breakdown last year, but I cannot think about that right now. Just gotta look like it’s all fine.
‘It’s really nice, Mum. Is the stuffing M&S?’
‘Aldi.’
‘Oh, you’d never know that, Liz,’ Jean chips in. ‘You’d never know at all. They do such good-quality stuffing these days.’
I don’t like Jean, but I actually agree with her on that.
‘Wish I knew you were coming, Leo,’ Mum says, all quiet. ‘I’d have made more.’ She sounds so sad.
‘Thought you liked surprises,’ I reply. But we all know she hates them. Her nerves can’t take it anymore, not after everything.
‘It’s good you came,’ Dad says.
He looks different, too. Dunno how. Thinner. More strained. Grey, but also see-through. Like water in a pan after the cabbage has been on the boil.
‘The potatoes are well nice,’ I say, but I haven’t had one. I’ve not eaten in three days cos I can’t fucking stomach it. But she will clock me if I don’t, so I pick one up with my fork, trying to hide the shakes, shove it my mouth and chew. Turns to a paste. I can’t swallow.
Think I’m gonna vom.
‘Very good meat, this, Liz.’ John again. Small talk about what is directly in front of them is all he and Jean are capable of. ‘Is the meat M&S, Liz?’
‘No – it’s all Aldi, John.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t know at all.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’ Jean again. These two are absolutely fucking fascinating – can make a whole conversation out of absolutely nothing. But I do not have head space to think about that right now. Just gotta get through this fucking dinner.
Silence.
Why is there silence?
Can’t stand it.
It might make the devil come back.
Someone say something.
‘So, what’s work at the moment, Leo?’ Not that though, Jean.
Don’t say something to me – talk about fucking stuffing again.
Jesus. But there’s something probing in her tone, and she keeps glancing at me, little flashes of her eyes.
She’s got a good bullshit antenna, has Jean.
I can almost see it coming right out the top of her blow-dried head, furiously blinking every time I speak.
Cos what she really means is, Do you actually have a job?
‘You look nice in a tie, Leo.’ And what she really means is, What are you hiding?
It’s an art, being shady. She’s very good at it.
‘Oh, thanks, Jean!’ I say, as bubbly as I fucking can. Gotta throw her off. I think she’s about sixty, although you can’t really know what age she is. She’s still blonde. She’s had Botox – her forehead doesn’t move – but she would never admit it. ‘Yeah, I’ve come straight from work, Jean, yeah.’
‘So, you got given the afternoon off?’ She’s a fucking sleuth.
‘Yeah, I did, yeah.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Yeah, they’re nice like that.’
‘What is it you’re doing?’
‘I work in a marketing agency.’ That’ll do. No one knows what happens in one of those.
‘Oh – very swish. Which part?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Which part of the agency?’
My brain can’t keep up. ‘Just on reception for now.’
There’s a pause. A horrible pause. Her antenna is gonna explode. Then she says, ‘Well, it’s lovely to see you using that degree of yours.’ The room is spinning. Every fucking person sat around this table knows I didn’t finish that degree. ‘You’ll be running the place before long.’
‘Ah, I dunno about that.’ I need to deflect away from me, because I think I can see shadows moving around the walls and I am scared I will say something stupid, like I think the devil is here. ‘How’s work for you, John? Still roofing?’
‘Yeah – still going.’
‘Sure you’re not too old yet?’ Everyone laughs, cos it’s what we do. We laugh when it’s fucking unbearable.
‘He’ll keep going till he breaks his back, this one,’ says Jean, lovingly, which is weird.
‘Good for you, John.’
‘Hard work is important,’ John says, which sounds fucking pointed if you ask me.
I hold onto the table edge. It feels like the room’s gonna collapse.
‘Well, it’s good to see you looking after yourself. Not giving your mum and dad grief anymore.’ Fuck off, Jean. Fuck off fuck off—
‘Ha! Yeah.’
I still don’t dare look at Mum and Dad, so I stare down at my hands on the table cloth. My knuckles are all red and scabby. Could be scabies. Wouldn’t put it past myself. God, the silence is awful.
‘Any nice boyfriends on the go, Leo?’