Ah never mind,’ said Don, with awkward kindness. ‘Sure the divil himself couldn’t stop him.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered again. I looked down at Don with tear-filled eyes, batted my eyelashes just once and thus closed the deal.
‘Don’t worry at all,’ he reassured me. ‘He’s done it every morning this week already. Sure, they’re used to not having any toast.’
Then he started to break eggs into a bowl. It was too early to look at thirty-six raw eggs. My stomach heaved.
‘Are you all right?’ Stalin asked anxiously.
‘She’s not well!’ Don declared, all of a dither. ‘You big eejit. The girl’s not well. For God’s sake, let the child sit down!’
Fussing, and sending us on a detour as he skidded on a piece of rasher rind, Don led me to a chair.
‘Will I get the nurse for you? Get the nurse!’ He ordered Stalin and Eamonn. ‘Put your head between your ears!… I mean your knees.’
‘No,’ I said weakly. ‘I’m all right, it was only the eggs and I didn’t get enough sleep…’
‘You’re not up the pole, are you?’ asked Stalin.
‘What a question!’ Don was shocked. ‘Of course the child isn’t up the pole…’
He thrust his plump worried face into mine. ‘You’re not, are you?’
I shook my head.
‘You see,’ he declared triumphantly to Stalin.
I later learnt that Don was forty-seven and lived with his mother and was a ‘confirmed bachelor’. Somehow it came as no surprise.
‘Are you sure you’re not on the bubble?’ Stalin asked again. ‘My Rita couldn’t look at an egg when she was expecting the first four.’
‘I’m not.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do.’
He could get lost for himself if he thought I was going to discuss my menstrual cycle.
So, Don, Eamonn, Stalin and a young boy called Barry that I remembered seeing all those years ago – yesterday – prepared the breakfast. I sat on a chair, sipping water, took deep breaths and tried not to puke. Barry was the one who looked about fourteen and had shouted ‘Yeah, bleedin’ useless,’ at Sadie yesterday.
Just before breakfast I realized that I would shortly see Chris and I wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. Through my exhaustion, nausea and misery, there broke through a faint glimmer of self-preservation. But when I tried to crawl back upstairs to throw on some blusher and mascara, my way was blocked by motherly Monica, the nurse. Breakfast was about to start and I was going nowhere until it was over.
‘But…’ I said weakly.
‘Tell me what you want from your room and I’ll get it,’ she offered with a warm, but very, very firm, smile.
But of course I couldn’t tell her. She’d think I was vain. So I had to slink back into the dining-room with my head lowered in case Chris saw me full-on without my makeup and realized what a dog I was. I managed the entire breakfast without making eye-contact with one other person.
They were all so jovial. Even about the lack of toast.
‘What, no toast? AGAIN!’ Peter laughed. But of course he would have laughed even if he heard that his house had been burnt to the ground and all his family were wiped out in a massacre.
‘No toast, again,’ said someone else.
‘No toast, again.’
‘No toast, again.’ The message passed down the table.
‘That fat fucker, Eamonn,’ mumbled someone bitterly. I was surprised to find it was Chaquie.
Between the stomach-turning eggs and the non-vegetarian sausages and rashers, I ate almost nothing. Which couldn’t be bad, I decided.
But I was so tired and weirded-out by it all that it wasn’t until late that evening that I realized that there hadn’t been one piece of fruit for breakfast. Not even a bruised apple or a black banana, let alone the mile-long buffet of fresh tropical fruits that I’d expected.
18
The day never really got on track for me. I was dizzy and queasy, and I didn’t ever manage to wake up properly.
Thoughts of Luke were with me all the time. I was too tired to have the loss centred clearly in my mind, but the pain constantly buzzed away just under the surface.
Everything was weird and peculiar, as though I’d landed on another planet.
When the revolting breakfast finished, I had to scrub several large, greasy frying-pans. Then I bolted to the room and spent twenty minutes larding on make-up. I had a difficult job on my hands.
Whenever I didn’t get enough sleep I got patches of red, flaky skin on my face. They were hard to cover because, even if I put tons of foundation on them, the flaky bits just flaked off, taking the foundation with them and leaving the red blotches centre stage again. I tried my best but even with make-up on I looked like a corpse.
I crawled back downstairs, forced a smile and bumped into Misty O’Malley. She was slouching around wearing a sour look and no make-up. With my brown sticky grinning face I instantly felt like a toffee apple and a gobshite.
Don scuttled over and grabbed me by the sleeve.
‘Have you your hands washed?’ he anxiously demanded.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the cookery CLASS,’ he shrieked, his eyes apop at my stupidity. ‘It’s Saturday morning, hobbies’ TIME!’
A mirage of me having my pressure points gently massaged wavered and evaporated. I wasn’t at all happy. A cookery class was only one step up from basket-weaving.
‘It’s great fun,’ someone said, eyes ashine, as we were swept along to the kitchen and handed an apron.
‘You’ll love Betty,’ someone else promised me.
Betty was the teacher. She was blonde and fragrant and popular.
Stalin grabbed her and waltzed her around the room. ‘Ah, me darlin’ girl,’ he said.
Clarence elbowed me. ‘Isn’t she lovely?’ he whispered, like the halfwit he was. ‘Hasn’t she lovely hair?’
‘Work stations, everyone.’ Betty clapped her hands.
As we were about to start, Dr Billings came and crooked a finger at Eamonn, who stood gleaming acquisitively at a bag of raisins, and took him away.
‘Where’s he going?’ I asked Mike.
‘Oh, he’s not allowed to bake,’ said Mike, ‘because he went berserk last week and ate a whole bowl of pastry.
‘Before it was cooked,’ he added.
He looked pained at the memory. ‘It would turn your stomach to see it,’ he said, ‘so it would. And he had the tightest hoult a that bowl…’
‘Jayzus, it was desperate,’ said Stalin, with a shudder. ‘Like feeding time at the azoo. It took the night’s sleep offa me.’
‘So where is he now?’ I asked. I didn’t like the peremptory manner in which Eamonn had been led away.
‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Mike. ‘Doing some other hobby.’
‘Maybe he’s learning to make homebrew,’ suggested Barry the child.
That caused uproarious laughter. They slapped their thighs and snorted ‘Making homebrew, that’s a good one.’
‘Or doing… or doing…’ Clarence was laughing so hard he could barely speak. ‘… or doing some wine appreciation,’ he finally managed. The brown jumpers exploded into convulsions. They wheezed with mirth, laughing so hard they had to hold on to each other.
‘I’ll eat a bowl of raw pastry if they’ll let me do wine appreciation,’ Mike guffawed.
More hysterics.
I didn’t laugh. I wanted to lie down and sleep for a very, very long time. The last thing I wanted to do was bake something.
The rest of them bantered happily with each other while I prayed to die. I could hear what they were saying, but their voices sounded a long way off.
‘I’m making this great kind of… like… bread stuff that I had in Islamabad,’ mumbled Fergus the acid casualty.
‘Have you any wacky baccy to put into it?’ Vincent enquired.
‘No,’ Fergus admitted.
‘Then it’s
not like the bread you had in Timbuctoo, is it?’
Fergus turned away, his dead wasteland eyes emptied further.
‘If me wife could see me now, wha’? Harharhar!’ said Stalin, as he weighed out some caster sugar. ‘She’s never even seen me boil a kettle.’
‘No wonder she’s got a barring order out against you,’ said Misty O’Malley.
And everyone tutted and said ‘Oh, Misty,’ but in a good-natured way.
But then aggressive Vincent said ‘It’s not because he can’t cook, it’s because he keeps breaking her ribs.’
There was a roaring in my ears and I thought I was going to faint.
That couldn’t be true, could it? I thought in horror. Stalin was a nice, friendly man, he wouldn’t do that, Vincent must be joking. But nobody laughed. Nobody said anything at all.
A long time passed before people began to speak and joke again. And Stalin didn’t utter another word.
I continued to feel mighty pukey. If I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn I’d been out on the rip the night before.
Luckily Betty was nice. She asked me if there was anything in particular I’d like to make. I mumbled ‘Something easy.’
And she said, ‘What about coconut buns? You could make them in your sleep.’ Feeling like that was exactly what I was doing, I did.
‘I’ve been planning this all week,’ Mike announced with glee, as he pointed at a picture in a book. ‘It’s a tart tatin.’
‘What’s that?’ demanded Peter.
Some class of a French upsidedown apple ‘tart.’
‘And what’s wrong with having it the right way up?’ Peter wanted to know. ‘’ Twas far from French upside-down yokes you were reared. AHAHAHAHAHAH AHAAAAAARGHg!’
Betty moved around the room, helping here, making suggestions there. (‘That’s enough butter, Mike, you don’t want to give yourself a heart attack.’ ‘No, Fergus, I’m sorry. You’ll have to use a normal oven, fire regulations don’t cover us for two bricks on a hillside. I’m sorry if it won’t be authentic.’ ‘No, Fergus, I am sorry.’ ‘No, Fergus, I’m not patronizing you.’ ‘No, Fergus, I have nothing against drugs.’ ‘I’ll have you know, Fergus, that I smoked pot once.’ ‘Do you mind? I did inhale.’) Awful as I felt, there was something comforting about measuring and sieving the flour and sugar and desecrated coconut (as Mum called it), breaking in the eggs (pausing momentarily for a brief gag), stirring it all around in a bowl and putting the sticky mixture into little paper cases that had sprigs of holly on them. It make me think of when I was a little girl and I used to help my mother, in the days before she gave up baking for ever.
I stayed away from Chris because I knew he’d go right off me if he got too close a look at my cadaver’s face and red blotches. But it was hard because the attention he’d paid to me the evening before had made me feel infini-tesimally better about Luke. If another man wanted to talk to me, surely I wasn’t as worthless as Luke made out I was? Surreptitiously, I watched Chris as he kneaded brown bread. I sighed, wishing it was my nipples he had on the floured board.
At one stage I saw him talking to Misty O’Malley and she must have said something funny, because he laughed. The sound of his laughter and the flash of blue of his eyes cut me to the quick. I wanted to be the one to make him laugh.
As soon as I felt jealous and excluded by Chris, it was only a moment before I remembered how excluded I felt by Luke. Then depression dragged me down.
After the cookery class, there was lunch, a film about drunk people, followed by more tea-drinking. I moved through it all as though in a bad dream.
What am I doing here ? flashed through my brain regularly. And then I’d take my brain aside and give it a good talking to, reminding it about pop stars and detoxifying and the general wonderfulness of the Cloisters. Deeply relieved, it would all come back to me and I’d realize how lucky I was. But a short time later I’d find myself staring in astonishment at the middle-aged men, the yellow walls, the thick fog of cigarette smoke, the terrible dinginess of it all, and again I’d wonder What am I doing here ?
It was like wearing shoes with slippery soles. I kept thinking that as soon as I finished whatever I was doing, I’d get a grip on the day and do something nice. But I didn’t. The minute one thing ended, the next thing started. And I hadn’t the energy to fight it, it was easier to just follow the herd.
Something was worrying me. There was a thought in my head that I couldn’t quite get a hold on, it kept slithering away.
19
In the afternoon a nice man I hadn’t seen before came and spoke to me.
‘Howya,’ he said. ‘Neil’s the name and I’m in Josephine’s group too. I didn’t meet you yesterday because I was at the dentist.’
Normally I wouldn’t give the time of day to anyone who introduced themselves by saying ‘Neil’s the name,’ but there was something about him I liked.
He was twinkly, smiley and quite young. I found myself sitting up straight and making a bit of an effort for him. Although, even before I saw the wedding ring on his finger, I knew he was married. It was something to do with the smoothness of his jumper and the uncreasedness of his trousers. I had a strange pang of disappointment.
‘How are you getting on with this crowd of headcases?’ He jerked his head round the room at the brown jumpers.
A warmth filled me. A normal person!
‘They’re OK,’ I giggled. ‘For a crowd of headcases.’
‘And what did you make of Josephine?’
‘She’s a bit scary,’ I admitted.
‘Ah, she’s another headcase,’ he said. ‘She puts thoughts in people’s minds, makes them admit to things that aren’t true.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘You know, I thought she was a bit odd.’
‘Yeah, you’ll see for yourself,’ he said intriguingly. ‘Anyway, what are you in for?’
‘Drugs.’ I made a rueful face to let him know that there wasn’t really anything wrong with me.
He laughed understandingly. ‘I know what you mean, I’m in for alcohol myself. My poor deluded wife doesn’t drink and she thinks that because I have four pints on a Saturday night it makes me an alcoholic. I came in here to get her off my back. At least now it’ll prove to her there’s nothing wrong with me.’
And we laughed together conspiratorially at other people’s foolishness.
A couple of times during the day, I noticed the Sour Kraut and Celine the day nurse talking about me. At tea-time, just before the chips-fest, Celine appeared and said ‘Can I have a word, Rachel?’
Impending doom descended. While the inmates shouted ‘Oooh, Rachel, you’ve done it now’ and ‘Can I have your chips?’ Celine took me, head lowered, to the nurses’ room.
It was like being taken to the Principal’s office at school. But, to my surprise, Celine didn’t seem to be annoyed with me.
‘You don’t look well,’ she said. ‘You haven’t looked well all day.’
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night,’ I exhaled, euphoric with relief. ‘And I think I might still be jet-lagged.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I don’t know,’ I grinned. ‘I’m used to feeling terrible, I suppose. Most days in work I feel like hell on wheels…’ I stopped abruptly when I saw the expression on her face. This was not the right woman to discuss wild nights out on the town with.
‘Why do you feel bad in work?’ she asked, and for a moment her easy-going voice nearly had me fooled. But not quite.
‘I’m not a morning person,’ I said briefly.
She smiled. She passed judgement on me with that one look. My euphoria dissipated. She knows, I thought uncomfortably. She knows everything about me.
‘I think you should go to bed after tea,’ she said. ‘The counsellor on duty and I have discussed it and we think it’s OK if you miss the games this evening.’
‘What games?’
‘Every Saturday night there are games. Musical Chairs, Twister, Red
Rover, that kind of thing.’
She can’t be serious, I thought. It was the most squirmy thing I’d ever heard.
‘It’s marvellous fun.’ She smiled.
You poor, sad woman, I thought, if that’s your idea of fun.
‘Everyone lets off a bit of steam,’ she went on. ‘And it’s the one time in the week when there are no nurses or counsellors present, so you can do impersonations of us…’
When she said that, I realized one of the things that had niggled me all day. The inmates were rarely alone. Even at mealtimes, one of the staff sat quietly in their midst.
‘So after tea, go straight to bed,’ she ordered.
Maybe I could have a sunbed or a massage first, I thought hopefully.
‘First, could I…?’ I asked.
‘Bed,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘Tea, then bed. You’re tired and we don’t want you getting sick.’
It felt all wrong to find myself in bed on a Saturday night at seven o’clock. You’d usually only find me in the scratcher at that hour when I still hadn’t got up from the night before. (Not that rare an event, actually. Especially if it had been a late one and strong cocaine had been taken.)
The sensations of isolation and alienation that I’d had all day intensified as I sat in bed, listlessly leafing through Chaquie’s magazines, the rain cracking against the rattly, draughty window. I was lonely and afraid. And a failure. It was Saturday night and I should’ve been dressing up and going out and enjoying myself. Instead I was in bed.
My big worry was Luke. I had never felt so powerless in my life. I knew he’d be going out tonight and having a good time without me. He might even – my insides shrank with fear – he might even meet another girl. And take her back to his apartment. And shag her…
At this thought, an almost uncontrollable urge seized me, to jump out of bed, pull on some clothes and somehow get to New York to stop him. Frantically I grabbed a handful of Pringles and stuffed them into my mouth and the panic abated slightly. The Pringles were a great comfort. Neil had donated them when he heard I was being sent to bed early. I had only meant to eat a couple but I ended up ploughing my way through the lot. I can’t sleep easy if there’s an open container of savoury snacks in the house.