Chapter 37 #2
Jean, you’re obsessed. I can hear in her voice that she’s trying to sound all breezy, and like she’s all fucking progressive and interested in the life of a young homosexual these days.
But she wants more. I know that I’m fascinating to her.
That to her I am the truth of all gay men: fucking mental.
She wants me to break. To spill everything all over the floor for her to gobble up and regurgitate to her bored friends over her garden fence.
‘Nah, not at the moment, Jean.’
‘Well – the lads of London should be so lucky.’
I make a big laugh to stop myself sticking my fork right into my scabies hand. ‘Just taking some time for myself, Jean.’
‘What happened to that lad?’
‘What lad?’
‘Sam.’
Oh, fucking hell. I feel my chair tilt. Did it tilt? ‘Sam?’
‘That’s it. He was nice.’
‘We all liked Sam.’ Yes, we all liked Sam, Jean. We all liked Sam until Sam stopped liking me because I cheated on him with seven different men.
‘Ah yeah, I’d forgotten about him.’ I hadn’t.
I fucking loved Sam. I really did. I brought him to my dad’s birthday at the connie club three years ago and everyone thought he was my saviour.
He had a proper job and was a bit older than me and was really fucking handsome and also very fucking kind.
Not nice. Sam didn’t care if people liked him.
He was just a kind person. I hardly drank that night.
Didn’t feel like I needed it. Cos at that time he was my drug of choice.
He filled me up. Got the dopamine hits I needed.
Until I didn’t. Until it wore off. Then I couldn’t help myself. ‘I hope he’s doing well,’ I say.
‘I’m sure he is – he was very together. And you looked happy when you were with him.’ What Jean really means is, You currently look like shit. ‘What else is going on for you, Leo?’
Got gang-raped, Jean.
Here to ask my parents for help.
‘Not much to report.’
She looks disappointed. I suddenly see something on the mantelpiece behind her head. The framed picture of me, Mum and Dad on holiday in Malaga when I was about six. I feel a twist of dread and anxiety in my stomach as I look at it. They both look happy.
And I do too. The kid version of me. Smiling like that.
He has no fucking right to.
I should tell him. Tell him there’s sweet fuck all to smile about.
Then something weird happens. His face moves. Distorts. The devil arrives in his eyes. In my eyes. He’s trying to say something – through the picture.
I can hear him.
He’s speaking. ‘I am your inner child.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘You all right, son?’ It’s Dad.
Dad, please fucking help me. ‘Sorry, yeah. I just need a sec. Need to make a call.’ I stand up, scraping my chair, and go straight past the table, through the hall and into the kitchen, pushing the door shut behind me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m covered in sweat.
Dripping.
I just need to fucking breathe. Well, what I actually need is a lorazepam but I don’t know where Mum keeps it. I need to sit down. No. I need to—
Fuck fuck—
‘I am inside you.’
Oh my God. Oh my God.
I need to—
I see the vomit before I even feel it coming up. Right into the sink. It’s bile with bits of fuck knows what. My soul, I assume. The immediate euphoria is incredible. A moment, a split second of relief, from myself.
Then it comes again.
And again.
Hurts so fucking much.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Get out of me, you fucking cunt.
But nothing more. Dry retching into the basin. I’m making noises like I’m being exorcised. Which is what I want. Which is what I need. But they’re gonna hear.
Get your shit together, Leo.
I open the cupboard beneath me and find the bleach, pour it all over the bile. Find a fork and use the back of it to push the bits down the plug. I run the tap on cold until everything is gone, then stick my head under it for a second.
I look at the fridge. They still have my GCSE results pinned to it with a magnet. From five years ago.
One 9
Four 7s
Two 6s
Two 5s.
I lift it up. Underneath, another piece of paper. A letter, from the head teacher.
Dear Elizabeth and Gary Fuller,
We are pleased to report that your son Leo was amongst the top ten percent in the country for his A-Level English creative writing exam
The edges are all tatty and brown, with finger prints and bits of old food stuck to it. I run my finger up and down it. I can smell the paper. Smell the school. Still lingering. I loved that class.
I feel a jolt. Fucking mental. I see it play out, right in front of me.
The fridge disappears and Chloe Fucking Bridgewater is there, taking my notebook out of my bag and reading it to my Year 9 class.
I tried to grab it back, but missed and grabbed her arm.
And she shouted that I was abusing her, which made everyone laugh, but also look at me funny, like maybe I was.
Like maybe actually I was that kind of person.
That it might have made sense. Cos I wasn’t weird in a creepy way, but people called me – what the fuck was it?
– Man of Mystery. Yeah, that was it. I liked it cos it was sort of romantic.
A bit edgy and cool and peripheral. But I had no idea what was under it.
The mystery. Just a mess of absolutely no fucking clue.
I knew I was gay and that was fine, but it also wasn’t, not really.
I didn’t know what kind of gay to be, so I just decided to be mysterious.
Inside, though, I was moving at a million miles an hour.
I was on lightning speed, and I really just wanted people to think I was fucking interesting.
So when she read out the poem and said it was lame and gay as fuck and boring, I felt like that inner bit of me was revealed.
And all the mystery disappeared, so actually what was there was just really fucking shit.
I push my fingers into my eye sockets to try and get rid of it, but it won’t go.
It wasn’t even that big a deal. It wasn’t – not really – but it was just this moment that I realised I gotta go harder, do more shit, get more from people.
I always wanted more. More of what they gave me.
It just fucking activated me. My brain. Dopamine.
I got it from funny, rude, charming. And I was.
I was those things. I managed to claw my way back into their eyelines and, a few years later, Chloe Fucking Bridgewater said, You’re sound, you, and I thought, yeah, fucking hell, I’ve made it – I’m sound.
I’m sound. She could have called me a twat and I would have believed her.
I didn’t know how else to be. I had no fucking clue.
So I just believed her words to be true.
I stopped writing poems cos it was lame.
But then when the exam came around, I thought, fuck it, no one is gonna read this except the examiner, and then I did well.
And when I read the letter – this letter – in the school hall on results day, I nearly fucking cried, cos I thought, fucking hell, all that shit in that notebook was me.
And I’d just binned it. Cos of Chloe Fucking Bridgewater.
Who now has four kids and two French bulldogs and lives at her mum’s while she waits for the baby daddy to get out of the clink, but he’s a semi-pro footballer so they’ll be minted soon.
The poem she read to the class was called ‘The Waves’.
I turn away from the fridge. Wanna fucking rip the letter up in some poetic and dramatic way and shove it down the sink with my bile.
But I don’t. I don’t cos no one will see me do it, so what’s the fucking point.
I dunno if I can deal with this. I feel spores of shame and disappointment seep into me like black mould.
Or seeping out of me – dunno which way they are going.
I don’t even have an excuse for this shit.
The way I am. I wasn’t raped or fucking abused.
I just wanted to appear a certain way and then it went too fucking far.
I’ve fucked it all up. I’ve fucked up my entire life, and theirs too.
I know it. They know it. John and Jean fucking know it.
I need to go. Leave. I can’t do this to them anymore. I’m a fucking disease. As I go to the back door, I see something on the countertop, next to the fruit bowl.
A bottle of whiskey. It’s got a little blue sparkly bow pinned to it. A gift.
Ah, fuck.
‘I’m still here, baby boy.’
Fuck off.
Fuck off.
Fuck off.
I need silence. I need it. My instinct moves me, and I pick up the bottle and unscrew the top. I can smell it. Fucking liquid paradise. I put it to my lips, and gulp. I gulp and I gulp and I gulp.
Oh, my God.
I feel the devil retreating. The whiskey burning it away. There’s nothing like it. The power this stuff has, to remove me. To take me away. I love it. You’ve never let me down.
‘What are you doing?’
I turn. No. Shit. ‘Dad.’
He closes the door behind him. ‘Is that the whiskey?’
‘What?’
‘In your hand, Leo.’
No, no, no. ‘No.’
‘No? Leo. It’s in your hand. I can see it.’
‘Dad...’ I put it back on the counter top. ‘Let me explain. I don’t even want it.’ I watch him rub his hand over his face. Shake his head. ‘Dad, I came here to sober up. I came to ask for your help.’
He looks at the tiles. ‘I suspected.’
‘What?’
‘You look awful.’
‘Something bad happened.’
‘It’s always bad, Leo.’
‘I know. I know – but I wanna get clean, Dad. Properly this time. I just need a bit of help.’
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Then, ‘Money?’
‘I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, I suppose. What do you think? We should talk about it properly. That’s why I came here. I wanted to tell you I think I could do rehab properly this time. I really fucking do. I want it, Dad.’
‘How?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How do you think we’re going to get the money for that?’
‘I dunno.’