‘Is that AA, as in Alcoholics Anonymous?’ I asked Mike in disbelief.
‘That’s right.’
‘And NA?’
‘Narcotics Anonymous?’
‘What the hell’s that?’ I asked.
‘Like AA, but for drugs,’ he explained.
‘Get lost,’ I said, greatly amused. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes.’ He looked at me oddly. Try as I might, I couldn’t decipher the look.
‘And GA?’
‘Gambling Anonymous.’
‘And OA?’ I could hardly keep from laughing. ‘No, let me guess – Olivetti Anonymous – for people who can’t stop using typewriters!’
‘It’s Overeaters Anonymous,’ he said, looking far from amused. His ugly face was like a slab of granite.
‘I see.’ I tried to stop my snorting, embarrassed at having made fun of the AA and NA and GA and all the rest. It might have been funny to me, but it was probably a matter of life and death to these poor bastards.
‘And this is where each activity is held.’ He pointed out another column. I forced myself to look interested. ‘See, today, Friday, two o’clock, Josephine’s group is in the Abbot’s Quarter…’ Everything was held in places with beautiful names like the Conservatory, the Quiet Room and the Reflections Pond.
‘So this is our new lady,’ interrupted a man’s voice.
I turned round. I needn’t have bothered. It was one of the short, tubby, middle-aged men that the place was awash with. Just how many brown acrylic jumpers could one building hold?
‘How are you getting on?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I said politely.
‘My first day was awful too,’ he said kindly. ‘It gets better.’
‘Does it?’ I asked pitifully. His unexpected kindness made me feel like bursting into tears.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Then it gets worse again.’ He said it as though it was the punchline to a joke and threw back his head and laughed uproariously. After a while he calmed down a bit and reached out his hand and shook mine. ‘Peter’s the name.’
‘Rachel.’ I managed to smile back at him. Although I would have preferred to punch him.
‘Don’t mind me,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Sure, I’m stone-mad.’
I soon discovered that Peter had a great sense of humour and laughed at everything, even the terrible things. Especially the terrible things.
I would quickly grow to hate him.
‘Come and have a cup of tea before we start group,’ he invited.
Self-consciously, I poured myself a cup of tea, the first of several thousand (even though I hated tea) and sat at the table. I was instantly surrounded by men, unfortunately none of them either young or good-looking, who wanted to know all about me.
‘You’ve lovely long hair,’ said a man wearing a – no, it couldn’t be! A pyjama top, yes, it was a pyjama top. And a mustard cardigan. His own hair was almost nonexistent, but despite that he had some strands swept over his bald pate from the base of one ear right over to the other. It looked as if it had been superglued to his scalp. He gave me a sickly smile and moved slightly closer.
‘Is it naturally that black?’
‘Er, yes,’ I said, trying to hide my alarm, as he began to stroke it.
‘Hahaha,’ went Peter the comedian from further along the table. ‘I’d say that wasn’t the colour you were born with, all the same. WHA-hahaha!’
I was too busy sitting rigid, waiting for the hairstroker to move away, to be badly offended by Peter. I pressed myself as far back into my chair as I could go but, when he didn’t stop fawning and touching, pressed back even harder. Then Mike, who had been smoking a cigarette and staring moodily into the middle distance, seemed to come to, and shouted ‘Down Clarence, down! Leave the girl alone.’
Clarence reluctantly unhanded me.
‘He means no harm,’ explained Mike as, for about the fifteenth time that day, I fought back the tears. ‘Just tell him to piss off.’
‘Of course I don’t mean any harm,’ exclaimed Clarence, looking hurt and surprised. ‘She has beautiful hair. What’s wrong with that?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he asked again, thrusting his face into mine.
‘No… nothing,’ I managed, horrified.
‘Whose group are you in?’ A man with the reddest face I had ever seen skill-lessly changed the subject.
‘What’s this group thing?’ I asked, breathing freely as Clarence pulled back from me.
‘You might have gathered that we do a lot of group therapy,’ explained Mike. They all laughed at that. I didn’t know why, but I smiled anyway so they wouldn’t think I was a stuck-up cow. ‘And we’re divided into groups of about six or seven. There’s three groups, Josephine’s, The Sour Kraut’s and Barry Grant’s.’
‘The Sour Kraut?’ I asked, bewildered.
‘Her real name is Heidi,’ said Puce Features.
‘Helga,’ interrupted Peter.
‘Helga, Heidi, whatever,’ said Redface. ‘Anyway, we hate her. And she’s German.’
‘Why do you hate her?’ That prompted an outburst of laughter.
‘Because she’s our counsellor,’ someone explained. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll hate your one too.’
Actually, I won’t, I felt like saying, but didn’t.
‘And Barry Grant?’ I enquired.
‘She’s from Liverpool.’
‘I see. Well, I’m in Josephine’s group.’ I was disappointed that I hadn’t got one of the ones with the funny names.
There was an immediate chorus of ‘Not Sister Josephine!’ and ‘Oh Jaysus’ and ‘She’s as tough as nails that one’ and ‘She’d make a grown man cry’ and ‘She did made a grown man cry’
That last remark started a row between – if I had their names right, and I mightn’t have had, because most of the men seemed to blend into one – Vincent and Clarence, the hairstroker.
‘I wasn’t crying,’ protested Clarence. ‘I had a cold.’
‘You were crying,’ insisted Vincent, who seemed to be very argumentative.
You wouldn’t catch me having a row with anyone, I thought. I’d just do my time and leave. In and out. Befriend no one. (Unless they were rich and famous, of course.) Offend no one.
The argument was interrupted by someone saying ‘Here’s Misty.’
All the men shifted uncomfortably. Misty, I presumed, was the beautiful girl, who had strolled languidly across the room, her head held high. Even though she was just wearing jeans and a green jumper, she was stunning. I immediately felt overdressed. She had long red hair, so long that she could sit on it. If she was so inclined, of course. And she was skinny and delicate and appeared to have aloofness down to a fine art.
She sat at the furthest end of the table, as far away as she could get from the rest of us, and ignored everyone. I gazed at her until I was so engulfed by envy that I thought I might puke. I would have loved to be good at being aloof, but I always ruined it. (Asking, ‘How am I doing? Am I being aloof enough?’ is undeniably counterproductive.)
It seemed as if the collection of men around me held their breath. They gazed raptly at Misty, as she took out a newspaper and started to do the crossword.
‘She thinks she’s great,’ scoffed Mike. ‘Just because she wrote a book when she was only seventeen.’
‘Did she?’ I was passionately intrigued, but tried hard not to show it. It really wasn’t cool to be interested and impressed.
‘Surely you’ve heard of Misty?’ asked Mike, with what sounded like irony, but I couldn’t be sure.
‘She used to be a right jarhead?’ he enquired of me.
I shook my head.
‘Then last year she stopped and wrote the book?’
Again I shook my head.
‘And was only seventeen when she did it?’ This was definitely said with irony.
‘No? Well, she did. Then, the next thing you know, she’s there every time you turn on the telly, telling how sh
e knocked the drink on the head and became a writer and was only seventeen.’
Misty’s story was starting to ring bells for me.
‘And before you know it, she’s back on the sauce, and ends up in here to be “recovered” all over again.’ Mike’s sarcasm was, by now, out in the open. ‘By this time, of course, she’s not seventeen anymore.’
Yes, in fact, I had heard of her. Of course I had. The newspaper that I had read out of hysterical boredom on the flight from New York was full of the story of her fall from grace. The implication being that it was nothing but a publicity stunt. Surely it was no coincidence, it suggested, that Misty’s new book and photographs of Misty were plastered all over every shop?
‘Why she expected to get so many claps on the back for just giving up the drink is beyond me,’ continued Mike. ‘It’s a bit like Yasser Marrowfat winning the Nobel prize for Peace. You know, behave like a right bollix, then stop, then expect everyone to tell you you’re great…’
Misty must have known she was being talked about because she suddenly looked up from her newspaper, and stared in disgust, before raising two fingers at us. I was torn between excessive admiration and great jealousy.
‘She does The Irish Times crossword every day,’ whispered Clarence. ‘The cryptic one.’
‘And she never eats a thing,’ said Eamonn of the moon face, and matching arse.
‘Is her name Misty O’Malley?’ I asked in an undertone.
‘Have you heard of her?’ Mike asked. He sounded almost afraid.
I nodded.
Mike looked as if he might cry. But he cheered himself up by saying, ‘I believe no one could make head nor tale of that book she wrote.’
‘It won an award, didn’t it?’ I asked.
‘My point exactly,’ said Mike.
‘Givvus a clue, Misty,’ shouted Clarence.
‘Fuck off, Clarence, you fat old culchie,’ she said malevolently, without looking up.
Clarence sighed, a look of naked, hungry, devotion on his face.
‘I would have thought a writer would have been able to come up with a better insult than “Fat old culchie”,’ Mike called scornfully.
She looked up and smiled sweetly. ‘Oh Mike,’ she breathed and shook her head. Her red hair caught the light and became spun gold. She looked beautiful, vulnerable and appealing. I’d misjudged her. Mike obviously thought so too. He was so still that I was afraid to move while a long taut look stretched between the two of them.
But wait! She was going to speak again! ‘When are you going to ask them to put bromide in your tea, Mike? You just can’t leave me alone, can you?’ She gave a savage little smile and Mike went grey. Smirking, she picked up her newspaper and slowly wiggled out of the room. All eyes were on her as she jutted one skinny little hip, then the other. None of the men spoke until she had disappeared. Then, looking slightly dazed, they reluctantly turned their attention back to me.
‘She has our hearts scalded,’ said Clarence, in what sounded annoyingly like admiration. ‘Thank God you’re here now. We can fancy you and you won’t be mean to us, will you?’
Bigheaded, unpleasant, little bitch, I thought. You wouldn’t catch me behaving like her, not in a million years. I’d be so nice, everyone would love me. Even though, of course, I had no intention of getting involved with any of the people here. Despite myself, I was uncomfortably aware that I felt very much in awe of her…
Then someone exclaimed ‘It’s five to two.’ And they all said ‘Jesus!’ and, as they stubbed out their cigarettes and slugged back their tea, jumped to their feet. Good-naturedly they said things like ‘Off to be humbled’ and ‘My turn to be hauled over red-hot coals this afternoon’ and ‘I’d rather be taken out into the yard and flayed alive with a cat o’nine tails.’
‘Come on,’ said Mike to me.
10
Mike grabbed me by the wrist and rushed me down a corridor and into a room.
‘This is the Abbot’s Quarter?’ I asked doubtfully, looking round the draughty room that had nothing in it but a circle of threadbare chairs.
‘Yes.’ Mike sounded in a panic. ‘You sit there. Quick, Rachel, quick!’
I sat down and so did Mike.
‘Listen to me,’ he said in an urgent tone. ‘I’m going to give you some advice. The most important thing you’ll probably learn in your whole time here.’
I drew nearer, nervous and excited.
‘Never!’ he declared, then took a deep breath. ‘Never!’
Another deep breath. I drew even nearer to him.
‘Never,’ he pointed, ‘sit in that chair, that chair, that chair or that chair. Group lasts for at least two hours at a time and your arse will be in rag order if you have the misfortune to be sitting on any of them. Now look and I’ll point them out to you again…’
As he was doing so, the door burst open and a handful of the other inmates ran in and loudly set up a clamour of complaint that all the good seats were gone. I instantly felt guilty because they all had terrible things wrong with them and should at least have been afforded comfortable seats while they were being fixed.
There were six inmates, most of whom I recognized from the dining-room. Unfortunately the young good-looking man who was in for drugs wasn’t among their number. There was Mike, Misty the writer, Clarence, Chaquie, my room-mate, and Vincent, Mr Angry. My stomach went into a little knot when I saw Vincent because he positively bristled with aggression. I was afraid he might pick on me, not realizing I wasn’t one of them. The sixth person was an old man whom I didn’t remember seeing in the dining-room, but, at the same time, I was certain he wasn’t from the pop-star wing. Either the pop stars had their own group, which seemed most likely, or they were in with Barry Grant or the Sour Kraut.
‘It’s nice to have another woman,’ Chaquie said. ‘It evens things up.’
I realized she was talking about me. Yes, it did even things up, in theory but, as I wouldn’t be participating, it didn’t really even things up at all.
Josephine arrived. I checked her out with great interest. But I couldn’t see what they were so scared of, she was harmless. She was a nun, but a modern hip one, or so she liked to think. I see nothing hip whatsoever in wearing a grey flannel skirt which ends below the knees and having short, unstyled, grey hair with a brown clip stuck in the side. But she looked nice; sweet, actually. With her round, bright blue eyes she was just like Mickey Rooney.
As soon as she sat down, everyone stared at their feet in silence. All traces of the laughter and the conversation of lunch had disappeared. The silence stretched on and on and on. I looked from one face to another in amusement. Why so anxious, everyone?
Eventually she said ‘Gosh, you’re all very uncomfortable with silence. OK, John Joe, maybe you’d like to read your life story’ There was a collective sigh of relief.
John Joe was the old man. In fact, he was ancient, with huge eyebrows and a black suit that was shiny with age. I later discovered that this was the suit he wore on special occasions. Weddings, funerals, unusually profitable bullock sales or being incarcerated by his niece in rehabilitation centres.
‘Er, right, I will,’ said John Joe.
When would the shouting and recriminations start? I wondered. I had thought that group therapy would be a lot more dynamic and nasty than this.
John Joe’s life story lasted about five seconds. He was brought up on a farm, had never married and now lived on the same farm with his brother. He had it written on what seemed to be a torn page of a child’s copy book. He read slowly and quietly. It wasn’t very interesting.
Then he said ‘That’s it,’ gave a shy smile and went back to looking at his big black boots.
Another silence followed.
Eventually Mike said ‘Er, you didn’t go into much detail.’
John Joe peeped out from under his eyebrows, kind of shrugged and gave a gentle smile.
‘Yes,’ said Chaquie. ‘You didn’t even mention your drinking.’
&n
bsp; John Joe shrugged and smiled again. More peeping. He was the kind of man who might hide in a bush when a car passed him on the road. A mountainy man. A man of the land. A bog maggot.
‘Er, maybe you’d like to elaborate a bit,’ Clarence nervously suggested.
Eventually, Josephine spoke. She sounded a lot more scary than her harmless exterior would lead you to expect.
‘So that’s your life story, is it, John Joe?’
A little nod from Himself.
‘And no mention of the two bottles of brandy that you’ve drunk every day for the past ten years? No mention of the cattle you sold without telling your brother? No mention of the second mortgage you took out on the land?’
Did he really? I wondered in excitement. Who would have thought it? A harmless old lad like him?
John Joe didn’t react. He sat as still as a statue, so I gathered it must be true. Surely, if it wasn’t, he’d have been on his feet, passionately defending himself?
‘And what about the lot of you?’ She swept her glance around the room. ‘Didn’t any of you have anything to say except’ – at this juncture she affected a singsongy, childish voice – “ ‘It’s a bit short, John Joe”?’
Everyone cringed under her glare. Even me for a moment.
‘Right, John Joe, we’ll try again. Tell the group about your drinking. We’ll start with why you wanted to drink.’
John Joe was unfazed. I would have been raging. In fact I was raging. After all, the poor man had done his best. I considered telling Josephine to lay off him, but I thought I’d better wait until I’d been there a couple of days before showing them how things should be done.
‘Well,’ John Joe shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Actually, no, John Joe, I don’t,’ said Josephine, coolly. ‘I’m not the one in a treatment centre for chronic alcoholism, don’t forget.’
God, she was vicious!
‘Er, well, you know,’ attempted John Joe gamely. ‘Of an evening, you’d be lonesome and you’d have a drink…’
‘Who?’ snapped Josephine.
John Joe just smiled that benign smile again.
‘Who would have a drink?’ Josephine pushed.