Chapter Twenty
A few months later I’m on the phone to my mum while I’m wandering around Sainsbury’s with a trolley load of crisps and dips and frozen pizzas for our house-party.
Mum wanted to come to the party and I felt a bit bad putting her off.
But she’s in her forties, so what is she thinking, coming to a university house-party?
Thankfully, she took the hint. I feel like I’ve neglected my mum recently and, because we have the house on a long-term annual let, I haven’t gone back to her flat at some weekends, like I’d usually do; instead I’ve stayed in the house with the gang.
We all come and go for various things – away-days with family or friends – and last weekend Ben booked all four of us on a weekend away at Alton Towers.
It was everything it should have been: fun, silly, a chance to let our hair down before the daily grind of our lives settled back in again.
So because I’ve neglected Mum and because she’s about to turn forty-five, I’m going to take her away to Los Angeles for a fortnight.
She’s always wanted to go, and so have I.
I can afford it now, as more and more jobs come in.
I also have a job over there, so my airline ticket is free, which is a bonus.
I want her to know how appreciative I am of her – of everything she’s done for me.
I’m standing in the spirits aisle and although it’s a house-party, I’m really nervous of reintroducing alcohol into the house.
‘Ben’s doing really well with his drinking,’ I tell her as we land on this subject. ‘What should I do?’
‘What do you normally do when you go out?’
‘I don’t drink,’ I say. ‘I just don’t. I don’t even want Ben to know alcohol’s nearby.
Pubs are a challenge. So this party might be even worse.
He’s really, really tried these past few months.
After the argument at his parents’ house he was apologetic, and he has tried so, so hard to get back in my good books.
I’m not backing down. I love him. I want Ben to work hard at this, so we can have a future together and I don’t have to mother him. He needs to conquer this.’
‘Oh, my little princess,’ Mum says, taking me back in time to when she used to call me that as a child.
‘You know how I feel. He’s not your responsibility.
I love Ben. You know that. But, Aurora, it’s not supposed to be this hard this early.
And something like this … alcoholism – that’s big.
I want to help you and I want to help him, but I’m not an expert. If it’s ingrained in him—’
‘It’s not,’ I cut in. ‘It’s not ingrained. How can it be? He’s only twenty. It just can’t be. There’s so much time and I can’t give up on him. But I am worried about this party.’
‘It doesn’t feel like a good idea.’
‘I know.’ I groan. ‘It was Liv’s idea. We all went along with it, but now I’m really worried.’
‘Please let me know how it goes. Do try to enjoy yourself and try not to watch Ben all the time. My advice is to talk to him today and then see where it gets you. Then enjoy the party and take a hands-off approach, because you’re right. You’re not his mother.’
I can see Ollie and Liv standing at the top of the stairs during the party.
Ostensibly she’s queuing for the bathroom, but people come and go from that room while they’re both still lingering outside, arguing about something.
Ollie looks beaten. Liv looks beaten. I feel beaten.
It’s nearly midnight. It was all going so well.
We were having a good time. Although about an hour ago, when I was talking to one of our old flat-nine frat boys about how long the summer holidays are, Ben scoffed and said, ‘It doesn’t count for you, as you aren’t a student any more.
In fact what are you even doing here?’ He laughed it off as he turned to talk to someone else, but it made things awkward.
Ben’s involving himself in a drinking game now, and I look from Ollie and Liv at the top of the stairs to the kitchen down the hall. I feel Ollie turn to glance in my direction as we all hear, ‘One, two, three: drink!’ in Ben’s distinctive voice.
I look up at Ollie and he peers down at me with a face that spells doom. He comes down the stairs and Liv shouts something after him, but he ignores her.
‘We have a problem again, don’t we?’ Ollie asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply sadly as I see most of our remaining guests, around twenty in total, chug from their disposable plastic cups.
They’re standing around our charity-shop dining table, for once cleared of all useless paperwork and student textbooks.
The detritus of the party food has been shoved towards the centre.
Inside each disposable cup is a large measure of whatever spirits are left over.
It’s the end of the night. The party was flagging and I was ready for bed and – always the last one at the party – Ben has resuscitated it with this game.
He was doing so well too. He’d been on tonic water all night, as far as I was aware, and said happily that he could almost pretend it was gin and tonic. I’m not sure now if I believe him.
‘Get the fuck off the table!’ everyone yells gleefully, and a girl from Ben’s economics lectures – who was the last person to drink and then put her empty cup upside-down on her head – groans in annoyance at losing and moves back towards the kitchen counters.
Ben grabs a bottle of tequila from the centre and pours a large shot into his own cup and the cups of those he can reach, before passing the bottle around and everyone else refills.
‘One, two, three: drink!’ everyone shouts together when the last shot has been poured.
Then as they spy the final person to chug the tequila – one of the computer boys from our old halls – they all turn and yell at him, ‘Get the fuck off the table!’
‘I can’t watch this,’ I say to Ollie. ‘I just can’t. I don’t believe this is happening.’
‘Don’t you?’ he asks softly. ‘I do. I’m sorry, though. What will you do?’
‘I can’t do anything. Can I? Short of locking Ben in his room or following him around for the rest of his days, making sure he doesn’t go anywhere near alcohol. I can’t do anything.’
Ollie looks lost. We’re in the hallway and I cry. I can’t help it, but I don’t know what to do. I feel helpless. I am helpless now. He pulls me towards him.
‘It shouldn’t be like this,’ he says into my hair.
‘I know.’
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You and him.’
‘What do you mean?’ I pull back and look at him.
‘Aury,’ he starts and then thinks better of it as Liv arrives and stares at us.
‘What’s going on?’ she asks, seeing Ollie’s arms around me.
I don’t know how to explain it quick enough, so Ollie does it for us. ‘Ben’s drinking. Hard.’
‘Yeah,’ Liv says. ‘He’s been back on it for a while.’
‘A while?’ I ask. ‘As in tonight for a few hours or … weeks?’
‘A few weeks,’ she says and then looks guilty. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘We were in the bar and I bought a round, and I didn’t think about it until it was too late. Ben said he’d be fine. That it wouldn’t change anything. But he still drank it.’
‘Liv!’ Ollie says, even though it’s not her fault. Not really. It’s Ben’s and he can’t stop.
‘I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking.’
In the kitchen someone else is being shouted at to get the fuck off the table.
‘Oh God. This is pointless, isn’t it?’ I say to no one in particular.
I don’t know what to do now. I just don’t.
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep trying to help Ben or intervene, when he’s not interested in stopping.
‘Will he be like this for ever?’ I ask Ollie. ‘Because if so, I can’t do this.’
Ollie looks forlorn.
But Liv answers, even though I don’t want to hear it. ‘Probably,’ she says gently. ‘He’s got a problem. You can’t fix him. None of us can. Ben needs to fix it himself.’