Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
M y grandfather drank whisky, my father drank it too, but I never liked it. It sat at the back of my throat like I’d swallowed fire. The taste lingered too long and no matter how much I diluted it, it still saturated me.
I had never turned to drink when things got difficult. I had never drowned my sorrows or hidden behind them. Una had. She drank for weeks when she found out Shaun did everything but with Carmel. Una didn’t drink whisky either. She drank vodka-lime-and-sodas. She drank them by the doubles and there was many a night when I held her hair back from her face while she was sick in the hedge after a night in The Tally.
I’d strip her down when she got home (wearing my surgical gloves that I made Una keep in her utility room), lift her into her bed, then I’d take a quick shower and borrow some of Una’s fresh clothes, and sleep on her futon (that I’d covered with a clean sheet from her airing cupboard) just to make sure she didn’t choke on her sick in her sleep. There was no way I could have left her alone with that in my head. She never did choke on her sick, of course. Just on her tears. I had never seen someone cry so much as Una did when Shaun did everything but with Carmel.
I’d shown Jack around the house, left out the part about my grandmother being born in the front room and told him where he could find the spare towels, should he need more than one. I casually explained (there was nothing casual about it) that I locked the porch door at night and kept the outside light on, but I left out the part about the woodlice, the door and window checks, the counting, and the intrusive thoughts. He didn’t need to know the finer details.
He’d not said much, in fact I don’t think he had really taken it in at all, and when we’d got back into the kitchen he’d pulled out a bottle of Irish whisky from his rucksack and offered me a glass.
‘I was saving it for Dublin, but why not start the adventure here.’ He winked and at the same time he unscrewed the lid and poured me more than a measure.
‘I have some orange juice,’ I said as I turned to the fridge.
‘Orange juice?’
‘For the whisky.’
‘Nah, you drink it straight. You should know that!’
‘You don’t dilute it?’
‘Why would I ruin a perfectly good whisky?’
He chinked my glass and downed his in one and with one eyebrow raised waited for me to drink mine. I held my breath – Una had taught me that, she said it stopped the taste. It was what she used to do with Shaun did everything but when she swallowed, except it didn’t work when I did it (with the whisky, not Jack’s cum).
I could barely see the clock by the time we’d finished the bottle but I knew it was late because the birds had started to sing and the sky had turned from black to dusky blue. Jack had gone to bed, and I was stood in my kitchen trying to work out the best way to get everything done in the quickest way possible.
I started with the windows. I pushed the handles with my index finger (three times) then stood back and did my best to line them up with my eyes so that I could be sure they were clicked shut. Then I did it all again.
I moved the mat at the bottom of my stairs so that it was centre to the bottom step. It wasn’t there for decoration; it was there to make sure I didn’t hit my head on the tiled floor if I were to ever fall down them while sleepwalking. I scanned the oven knobs. I hadn’t used it all day and the switch was off at the wall but that didn’t stop me.
‘Off, off, off, off,’ I whispered as I pointed to each one. I had to say it out loud; it helped connect my eyes and my brain.
Jack and I had stayed in the kitchen. I’d found out all the things I should have known before I’d offered him a room in my house. The basic stuff like how old he was (twenty-nine), where he was from (a town in the North Island called Te Puke – pronounced teh-pook-eh, not puke, as in sick), he had a sister, Emily, who was three years younger than him, and his parents were divorced. He didn’t speak to his dad anymore for various reasons and his mum was his best friend. I liked the sound of that – that his mum was his best friend – it somehow made him feel safer, like he couldn’t be a murderer because he loved his mum. Oh, and he didn’t smoke, thank Jesus for that because I don’t think I could have coped with the butt ends and where I might have found them.
I didn’t bother going outside to check the gate – Mairéad would have been pleased – because what was the point when she’d already probably squashed them all? I checked the latch on the porch, bolted it from the top and bottom and yanked the handle of the front door five times, which had made my hand ache.
When everything was done and I was as satisfied as I could be in the state that I was in, I stood at the bottom of the stairs with my eyes fixed on the top. All I had to do was get up them as fast as I could, without thinking about anything that would stop me.
Five seconds, that’s all it should have taken, five seconds to get to where I needed to be. My bedroom. My bed. Five seconds of my life that I wouldn’t have given much thought to had I been a normal person with a normal fucking mind.
The only problem was I wasn’t and 3,600 seconds later (one hour), I was still stood at the bottom of them.