‘A what?’
I slid a book from the shelf behind me: How to Cope with Suicidal Thoughts. I flicked it open to the appropriate page. I’d read this back to back in the sleepless nights that followed the Simon Conway experience. ‘It’s basically a list of instructions you need to follow if you have a suicidal thought – of which you’ve admitted you’ve had lots. Since you already tried to act on it once, you might want to do it again.’
‘I told you, I will want to do it again if nothing changes.’
‘And until your birthday, you’re mine,’ I said, sternly. ‘We have a deal. For the next twelve days I will do my very best to keep my side of the deal. You will have to keep yours. Stay alive. That is your job. Follow the steps and you will stay alive. You may even start to feel closer to finding yourself again. That’s how I can help you get Maria back.’
‘Fine.’
‘Okay. We’ll get to the plan in a moment, it will take us a while to write up. First I’d like to talk. I need to get a real understanding of where you are in your life, how you’re feeling.’
I left a silence. He looked left, then right, for the hidden camera.
‘I’m feeling … suicidal.’
I knew he was being sarcastic, but I didn’t laugh.
‘Just so you know, suicidal is not a feeling. It’s a state of being. Sadness is a feeling, loneliness is a feeling, anger is a feeling. Frustration is a feeling. Jealousy is a feeling. Suicidal is not a feeling. You can have suicidal thoughts, but a thought is merely that: a thought. Our thoughts are ever-changing, because we put them there. Once you grasp the difference between suicidal thoughts and your feelings, you will start to understand your emotions. You can separate your suicidal thoughts from your feelings. You will not think, Today I want to kill myself. You will think, Today I feel angry that my sister skipped the country and left me to run the business. Then you’ll deal with your anger. Today I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of my job – then you’ll deal with feeling overwhelmed. I can help you learn how to get to the bottom of your suicidal thoughts, how to challenge these thoughts and regain control. So, Adam, how are you feeling?’
He looked uncomfortable. He squirmed in his chair and looked around the room. Finally his gaze came to rest somewhere outside the window and he relaxed a little. After thinking about it for a few minutes he said, ‘I’m feeling … pissed off.’
‘Good. Why?’
‘Because my girlfriend is shagging my best friend.’
Not quite what I was looking for, but I nodded at him to continue.
‘I’m feeling … like an absolute idiot, for not knowing it was going on.’ He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, understanding that he was actually going to do this. He rubbed his face and sat up again. ‘But I feel like I understand why she did it. The stuff you said this morning, about me being detached – she’s right. I took my eye off the ball, I got distracted with all of this other stuff, it took over. I haven’t been in a good place. But I can tell her that I’ve changed, and hopefully she’ll change her mind.’
‘When are you going to tell her that you’ve changed?’
‘I don’t know, today?’
‘So you’ve changed overnight. All the feelings of being overwhelmed by work, of being abandoned by your sister, all that bitterness and anger at having to leave a job and life that you love to fulfil a family duty, all that disappointment with your life, with who you are as a person, all that feeling conflicted about your father being terminally ill, feeling that you no longer want to live … All those feelings have just disappeared?’
He stared at the floor, his jaw tightening as he worked it over in his head. ‘No. But it will change. You’ll help me. You promised.’
‘My help starts here, in this room. Things won’t change unless you change you. So talk to me.’
We talked for two hours. When Adam appeared sufficiently drained, and my head was starting to pound with all the responsibilities he had resting on his shoulders, I decided to take a break. I knew the problems, now it was time to gain some perspective, to show him the joy of life. This was the bit I was nervous about. I wasn’t good at it, I wasn’t sure what to do or where to take him. Especially given that I wasn’t exactly feeling the life and soul of the party myself at that moment.
‘What now?’ he asked. He looked tired.
‘Um, hang on a moment.’ I stepped outside my office; by this time Peter and Paul had arrived but they were still refusing to acknowledge my presence. I didn’t care because I had other things on my mind. I took the new book I’d bought from Amelia, Thirty Simple Ways to Enjoy Life, the book Amelia had thought I was buying for me, and I recalled her remark: At last! Was I really that dull? I had tried to keep my troubles to myself, hadn’t discussed my sadness with anyone. I thought I’d been covering it up so well.
I flicked through the first few pages.
1. Enjoy your meal, don’t just eat. Taste it and appreciate its richness.
Food – seriously? But what else was I going to do with him? I stuffed the book back into my bag. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To eat,’ I said perkily.
I wasn’t sure if Gemma would be back, but on the off chance, by way of explanation I placed a copy of How to Share Your Financial Problems With People Who Depend on You on her desk and hoped that she would understand.
The venue for item 1 on our list was Bay restaurant in Clontarf with views over Dublin Bay.
‘So eating is fun?’ Adam asked, his chin resting on his hand as if his head was too heavy for his neck. ‘I thought it was something that was necessary for life.’
While he scanned listlessly through the menu, I took in the packed café. The place was brimming with people, the chat was loud, plates were piled high with colourful vibrant food, and the aromas wafting around the room probably had everyone’s mouths watering, though they were making my stomach churn.
‘Yes of course,’ I lied. All I really wanted was to eat a green salad and have it over with, but I needed to set a good example for Adam. ‘I’ll have the braised lamb shank, with root vegetables, harissa hummus and herb quinoa, please.’ I forced a smile for the waitress while inwardly dreading the task of eating all that food.
‘I’ll just have a black coffee, thanks,’ Adam said, shutting the menu.
‘No, no!’ I wagged a finger at him. I opened the menu and handed it back to him. ‘Food. Fun. Eat.’
Adam looked lost as his tired eyes flicked across the menu.
‘What do you suggest?’ I asked the waitress.
‘I really like the baked marinated salmon fillet on a bed of Mediterranean vegetable ratatouille and creamy mash.’
Adam looked as if he was going to vomit in his mouth.
‘He’d love that, thank you.’
‘No starters?’ she asked.
‘No,’ we said in unison.
‘So when did you lose your appetite?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, a couple of months ago. When did you lose yours?’
‘I haven’t.’
He raised his eyebrow.
‘Alcohol and caffeine are not a good idea for someone who’s depressed,’ I said, trying to regain the upper hand and keep him in the spotlight.
‘And what did you have for breakfast this morning?’
I thought about my black coffee at the hotel. ‘Yes, but I’m not depressed.’
He snorted.
‘You’re depressed. You tried to kill yourself. I’m just … a bit down.’
‘A bit down.’ He studied me. ‘That’s an understatement. Eeyore has nothing on you.’
I laughed despite myself. ‘All I meant was, we should look at your diet, it will help you. That has a large part to do with depression. Clearly you’re fit, I mean, you must work out a lot.’ I felt my face get hot. ‘I never see you eat, I don’t know where you get the energy.’
‘Would you like me to tell you in five ways or ten ways?’
br />
‘Just one please.’
‘It’s from when I’m stripping, you know? When I’m on stage, dancing with the boys.’
I laughed. ‘I think you’ve got stripping and modelling completely mixed up.’
‘Well, I don’t know what goes on in your head,’ he said with a smile.
The waitress placed two enormous plates of food in front of us. We both looked at it with dread.
‘Is everything okay?’ the waitress asked, noticing the reaction. ‘Did I get the order right?’
‘Yes, of course, this looks … delicious. Thank you.’ I picked up my knife and fork, unsure where to begin.
‘So when’s the last time you went out to eat, Christine, since you think this is so much fun?’ he asked, studying his plate and, like me, not knowing where to start.
‘It’s been a long time, but only because we were saving up for the wedding. Mmm, this is good. Is yours good?’ Don’t just eat your food, taste it. ‘I don’t know what this is – is it ginger? It’s really good, and I think I can taste lemon. Anyway, after the wedding we went away on honeymoon and then we had no money so we stayed in for most of the year or got the occasional take-away, which was fine because all our friends were in the same boat.’
‘Fun,’ he said sarcastically. ‘How long were you married?’
‘Eat. Is that nice? Is the mash creamy?’
‘Yes, the mash is creamy,’ he played along. ‘And the carrots are carroty.’
‘Nine months,’ I ignored him.
‘You left him after nine months? I’ve been with girlfriends I hated longer than that. You can’t have tried very hard.’
‘I tried very hard.’ I looked down and played with my food.
‘Eat. Is your lamb lamby?’ he asked. ‘So when did you know it wasn’t right?’ He took a forkful of salmon, chewed slowly and swallowed as if it was a giant pill.
I thought about it. Give the truth, or the answer I had given everyone else?
‘No secrets,’ he added.
‘I had twinges of doubt for a while, but I knew it wasn’t right, for sure, when I was walking down the aisle on my wedding day.’ That was the truth.
He stopped eating, looked at me in surprise.
‘Keep eating,’ I said. ‘I was crying my eyes out, walking towards him. Everybody still talks about it, they thought it was such a sweet moment. But my sisters knew. They weren’t tears of joy.’
‘Then why did you get married?’
‘I panicked. I wanted to stop it but didn’t have the courage. And I didn’t want to hurt him. I couldn’t see a way out; I was trapped, but it was a trap I’d got myself into. So I made myself go ahead with it.’
‘You got married because you didn’t want to hurt his feelings?’
‘Which is why I couldn’t stay married to him just because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.’
He pondered that, then nodded. ‘That’s a fair point.’
‘If I’d stopped and thought about it at the time, really thought about it, then I would have seen another way out. A better way.’
‘Like being on a bridge.’
‘Exactly like that.’ I pushed the food around on my plate. ‘I loved him, you know, but I have a theory about love. I think that, however good it is, some love isn’t meant to be for ever.’
He was quiet. We both took a few forkfuls of food. Eventually he dropped his cutlery on the plate.
‘I surrender,’ he said, hands in the air. ‘I can’t eat any more. Can I please stop now?’
‘Sure,’ I put my knife and fork down too, relieved. ‘Jesus, I’m full,’ I groaned, hands on my bloated belly, accidentally dropping my act. ‘Imagine, people do this three times a day.’
We looked at each other and laughed.
‘What’s next?’ he leaned forward, eyes shining.
‘Er …’ I looked in my bag and pretended to root for a tissue. Surreptitiously I opened the book.
2. Go for a walk in the park. Don’t just walk, take in your surroundings, remark on the beauty of the life around you.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said as if I’d that moment thought of it.
We were both ready to walk off the food we had forced ourselves to eat, so despite the extreme cold we made our way to St Anne’s Park, the second largest municipal park in Dublin. Bundled up against the chill, we wandered around the walled garden, the red stables that held food markets during the weekends, the Herculanean temple by the duck pond – which I pulled him past quickly in case he felt compelled to jump in. The rose garden at this time of year was a disappointment and the wrong place to choose to sit on a bench and take a break. We looked out at the bleak cut-back branches with no colour whatsoever while the icy wind whipped our faces, and the cold bench permeated our coats and trousers straight to our bottoms. I used every opportunity and excuse I could to investigate his mind.
‘Did you buy Maria flowers often?’
‘Yeah, but not on Valentine’s Day. I am absolutely not allowed to buy them on Valentine’s Day. Too clichéd.’
‘So what does she get?’
‘Last year it was a grapefruit. The year before that a frog.’
‘Hold on, we’ll get back to the grapefruit. A frog?!’
‘You know, so she could kiss it and get her Prince Charming.’
‘Uck. That’s pathetic.’
‘Are you trying to build my confidence up or destroy me?’
‘Sorry. I’m sure she loved the frog.’
‘She did. We both loved Hulk. Until he escaped out the balcony window.’ Then he smiled as if he’d thought of something funny.
‘What is it?’
‘Nah it’s stupid … personal.’
The secret smile intrigued me; it was a look that revealed a side of him I hadn’t seen before; a softer side, the romantic Adam.
‘Come on, you have to tell me. No secrets, remember?’
‘It’s nothing. No big deal. We had a joke about me getting her a type of flower, that’s all.’
‘What kind of flower?’
‘A water lily. She liked the painting, the Monet one?’ He left it at that.
‘There has to be more to the story than that.’
‘Well, I decided to get her one. I wasn’t allowed to get her flowers for Valentine’s Day, but I thought this one would be an exception. I was in the park, saw them and thought of her. And so I went into the lake to get one.’
‘In your clothes?’
‘Yeah,’ he laughed. ‘It was deeper than I thought. It went up to my waist, but I had to keep going. The park officials practically chased me out.’
‘I don’t think you’re supposed to steal water lilies.’
‘Well, that’s the thing – I didn’t. I made a mistake. I got her the lily pad.’ He started laughing. ‘I was wondering why she thought they were so special.’
I started laughing. ‘You eejit. What kind of person thinks a water lily is a lily pad?’
‘Easy mistake to make, if you ask me. She liked it though. She used it in the apartment. She put a photo of us on it, with candles.’
‘That was sweet.’ I smiled. ‘So you two are romantic then?’
‘If you call it romantic.’ He shrugged it off. ‘We had fun. Have fun,’ he corrected himself.
Oddly, I felt sad. Barry and I had no stories like that. I tried hard to think of one; not that I’d share it, but I wanted it for me, to remind myself of the fun. I couldn’t think of anything. That kind of gesture never occurred to Barry nor had it to me, but I was getting a sense of Adam and Maria’s relationship. It was spontaneous, fun, unique, them.
We got lost along the walkways, me doing my best to point things out, to make Adam feel and see all the life around us. I didn’t know the names of anything and so I’d stop and read the signs, asking Adam to read the Latin names, which made us laugh when he got them horribly wrong.
‘They sound like dinosaurs,’ I said.
‘They sound like diseases,’ he said,
shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘Excuse me, Doctor, I have a touch of the prunus avium.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
He checked the sign. ‘The cherry tree, apparently. Imagine having a name like that.’
‘Actually, what is your family name?’
His eyes lost a bit of the new regained light and I knew I’d touched a nerve. ‘Basil,’ he said.
‘Ah. Like the chocolate.’ I tried to keep his mood up.
‘And the herb.’
‘Yes, but the chocolate: “With Basil, You Dazzle”,’ I said cheesily, quoting the company motto, which never quite worked if you pronounced it as the Americans did. So the joke motto was With Bayzil, You Dayz-zle. It was a much-loved Irish confectionery brand that had been around almost two hundred years, the very mention of Basil’s instantly bringing smiles to every child and adult in the country. But not to Adam. Seeing the expression on his face, I added, ‘Sorry, you’ve probably been hearing that all of your life.’
‘I have. Which is the way out of here?’ he asked, suddenly fed up with my company.
My phone rang.
‘Amelia,’ I read.
‘Ah yes, the proposal that never happened,’ he said, voice flat. He wandered off to give me privacy.
‘Amelia,’ I responded, my voice full of anticipation. I heard a sob down the phone. ‘Amelia what’s wrong?’
‘You were right,’ she cried.
‘What?! How was I right?’ My voice rang out.
Adam stopped searching for the way out and stared at me. He knew from my face what had happened and I knew exactly what was going through his mind: so much for positive thinking.
I ran all the way down Clontarf’s promenade with the wind slapping my cheeks. I had to concentrate on my footing, darting and leaping and dodging patches of ice as if I were running an obstacle course all the way back to the bookshop. Somewhere behind me, Adam was slowly making his way back with my apartment key in his hand. I tried not to worry about him being by the sea by himself; I had given him strict instructions, rapidly run through the crisis plan one more time, and then started running. I needed to get to my friend.
Amelia was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the bookshop, her eyes red raw. On the other side of the shop a woman dressed in a Dracula outfit with a white face and blood dripping from her mouth was sitting in the story-hour chair and reading to a group of terrified three- to five-year-olds.