Chapter Seven Carys
I’ve had some lovely dates the last two days, yes.
I do have a top three, yes. Sorry, it’s really hard to answer a question without sounding like I’m answering a question.
I’m a vet! All I do is answer questions.
What was the last question? Who am I most excited to see again?
Sorry, yes, I know I’m not supposed to repeat the questions either.
The answer is Carys, she… Wow, she was really wonderful.
It’s strange. I only heard her voice but…
Yes, Carys. I’d like to see Carys again.
Do we need to take that from the top?
I’m so relieved when my tenth date, and second full day on camera, is finished that I almost keel over right there. Cobey is nice, but I took in barely anything because halfway through us talking about his surfing school, the room started to spin.
The light is off, and I know that if I don’t take a minute to breathe, I’ll throw up all over the date room.
The exhaustion of masking from talking to people and being so very conscious about every little movement I make is so heavy that I feel drunk.
The room is soft focus, and I’m not entirely sure if that’s the ambient lighting or my nervous system crumbling.
I breathe slowly, as the quiet seeps into my bones.
There’s not been a second of silence all day until now; five dates with five men over God knows how many hours.
And over lunch, Bridget really wanted to discuss her current ranking, which is absolutely fine, but I had to grind my teeth to stop the floating feeling that comes with my brain processing too slowly.
I knew this was going to be tough for me, but I didn’t think I’d be so close to a shutdown on day fucking two.
I try to store up the quiet. The fizzing in my body starts to let out, like when you very slowly open a bottle of Coke.
I know there’s the expectation that we’ll talk about our dates in the living room. I want to be a part of that, but I also could do with a monk-like existence of no speaking or talking for a few hours first.
There’s a knock, and for a moment I think it’s on the mirror partition, but then I hear Reb’s voice behind me. ‘Carys, babe, you alright?’ Her head appears around the door.
‘Yes, sorry,’ I say, forcing another smile onto my face. My cheeks hurt with all the smiling I’ve been doing today. ‘I just needed a moment to gather myself.’
The rest of Reb slides into the room, and I try to feel the jolt of despair at losing my silence.
‘Me too,’ she whispers, and then slips her phone out of her back pocket.
‘I’ll tell them we’re having a heart to heart, so we can have five mins’ silence.
’ She slides down the door to the floor, shuts her eyes, and signs a lazy thumbs up in my general direction. Poor Reb, has she had a break?
I vaguely remember that all chats with our chaperones would be off camera, so I chance that we’re truly alone.
I drop the still-plastered smile, kick off my uncomfortable but pretty shoes, flop back onto the couch, and zone out. I’ve never been more thankful to share a space with someone when I’m so overstimulated that I’m angry at inanimate objects. Was this couch always so pointy?
The buzzing in my body turns to a background hum by the time Reb’s phone vibrates, and I pick up my fuzzy notebook and discarded heels, walking barefoot down the corridor with Reb.
‘Pretty sure bare feet in here violates some kind of health and safety,’ Reb says, in between yawns she stifles with her phone screen. ‘Can we pretend I didn’t see it?’
I nod. ‘Pretending mode, activated.’
The irony isn’t lost on me.
‘You and the girls have dinner and drinks coming any moment, so we’ll be filming in the hope you’ll talk about your dates.’
I suppress a groan. ‘I was hoping you were going to take my mic pack.’
‘Look, between us, the sooner you say your piece, the sooner you can go to bed,’ she says in a lowered voice. ‘They just need the shot.’
‘Okay,’ I say, steeling myself. ‘I do need to eat anyway.’
‘Precisely. Right, got to dash.’ Reb squeezes my shoulder, then disappears down the corridor of doors to backstage.
As I slowly walk back to the dormitory, I can’t help but think about the network of glass and wires and cameras that must be in the walls around me. It’s all very Truman Show, or probably five different episodes of Black Mirror.
It’s a very peculiar thing to know, for certain, that you are being observed. Not that that’s particularly different from how I feel just existing as an autistic person; it feels like someone’s always waiting to catch you out.
Is this how the farm animals feel when we have school visits? God, I hope not. I don’t really have time to spiral about the emotional wellbeing of the animals in my care right now.
When I walk in, my eyes find Dolly immediately, in the middle of the group of women. She’s radiant as ever, curled into the corner of the couch with her arm slung over the back. She and Whit whisper together.
As the door closes, all eyes turn to me. Her smile is the one I return.
She drags over a footstool and pats it. Dolly wants me to sit with her? Oh, it’s so nice to have a friend. I’m pretty sure we’re friends.
I take the seat, and Bridget plonks a bronze cup of mysterious fizzing alcohol in front of me with a ‘hiya, butt’.
Priya seems to be leading the main conversation. ‘So if we all had ten dates, that means we’ve all dated all the same men, correct?’
Everyone nods, some less enthusiastically than others.
‘So are we going to talk about who our top threes are?’ Niamh asks, sounding casual, but her eyes flash like she’s ready for a fight to break out.
‘No way,’ says Whit, crossing her arms at the wrists in an X. ‘That’s a recipe for disaster.’
‘Or good television,’ murmurs Dolly, which earns an eye roll from Whit.
Dolly’s glance meets mine, and we giggle.
Her eyes drop to my lap. ‘Darling, unless you are trying to start a WikiFeet, I would put your shoes on while they’re filming.’
That’s when I realise the heels are still clutched in one hand, the notebook in the other. I have no idea what WikiFeet is, but it doesn’t sound good, so I stuff my hot feet into my nasty little shoes and grit my teeth.
Dolly pats my knee, her touch soft and warm, and I feel slightly less irate about my shoes.
‘Look, guys, maybe we should be compassionate about this,’ says Lina, once again the voice of reason in our group. ‘All of us will have connections with more than one man, and there will be overlap, so I think it would be really mindful if we didn’t have this kind of conversation right now.’
‘Bores. You’re all bores,’ grumbles Niamh. ‘In that case, did anyone else get the guy who was obsessed with teeth?’
Priya rolls her eyes. ‘We talked to everyone, Niamh. That’s what we just established.’
‘Right, and did he talk to you about teeth?’
‘Sorry, did you say teeth?’ asks Dolly.
Whit leans forward excitedly. ‘Oh yeah, he wouldn’t shut up about his—’
‘TURKEY TEETH,’ chorus the Hannahs with Whit, though they have more enthusiasm and volume than I’d expect for the topic of teeth.
I resist covering my ears with my hands and instead plunge my nails into my palms to quieten the fizzing.
Dolly flips through her notebook. ‘I can’t believe I missed out on hearing some genuine banality. Who was that?’
‘Billy,’ sighs Hannah C. with a swoon.
‘Sorry,’ I begin, my voice louder than I expected. ‘What are turkey teeth? I work on a farm and—’
‘No, not from a turkey. From Turkey,’ insists Hannah C.
Hannah S. looks over to me. ‘I thought he meant the bird too.’
‘Well, turkeys just swallow their food whole, along with rocks, which help grind the food up in their stomach,’ I say, and realise with horror I’ve gone into fact-dumping mode. ‘Haha, or something like that!’
It’s too late. Everyone is confused.
Except Whit. ‘That’s incredible. You know, I haven’t taken stones out of anyone’s stomach yet. There was a big one in someone’s—’
‘I really do not think we need to know the end of that sentence!’ cries Priya.
‘Booooo,’ calls Niamh, who I realise now is actually quite merry.
‘Thing is,’ continues Hannah S., ‘they never come with heads at Christmas, so how would you know?’
‘Could we move on from turkeys and whatever horrors Whit was about to unleash on us?’ Lina asks.
Priya sighs. ‘Well, Billy never mentioned teeth to me, so perhaps I have that to look forward to.’
‘It’s a bizarre thing to be obsessed with. He even asked what my favourite floss brand was,’ Hannah S. says.
‘Maybe he’s an orthodontist?’ offers Lina, who seems to have reluctantly accepted we are not moving on from teeth.
Bridget shakes her head. ‘No, that’s Whit.’
‘I’m training to be an orthopaedic surgeon,’ Whit sighs. ‘Bones, not teeth.’
‘Aren’t teeth bones?’ Hannah S whispers, and Lina shakes her head. ‘That’s not right, is it.’
‘No, that’s Malachi,’ says Bridget, who spots it when Whit bursts into a huge smile. ‘Oh hiii, we’ve got lovestruck here.’
Whit dips her head to hide her smile. ‘It was just a good first date.’
‘I thought he was nice too,’ says Priya, sipping her drink, and I feel weirdly annoyed that she’s ignoring our agreement not to talk about the good dates. ‘And Patrick.’
My stomach drops. Priya is a knockout. If the walls come down on date three and there’s a choice between Priya, a legitimate grown-up with thick flowing hair, or me… I’m not sure anyone would think twice.
There’s a hand on my wrist, and I glance up to meet Dolly’s eyes.
Her gaze is electric, intense. I find eye contact uncomfortable at the best of times but, somehow, I feel safe looking at her.
I give her a small smile, answering the question I think she is asking me, and she pats my wrist as she sits back.
‘Patrick’s a bit too nice for me but wouldn’t it be lush being a doctor’s wifey?’ giggles Bridget. She looks over at me. ‘You’d suit, I think, Carys.’
It feels a bit pointed, but I’m still glad for it.
‘Technically he’s a vet,’ I say.