Bright Burning Things(22)

‘How are you now, Sonya?’

The rosy-cheeked nun sits at the edge of my bed. She’s not wearing a habit. I don’t know how to answer that.

‘I’d like to talk to my son.’

‘Your first phone call home is in ten days. First visiting day is the following week. Let’s concentrate on getting you in good shape before then.’

At this precise moment I’d do anything this woman says. I am cracked wide open, teary and soft.

‘Right, time for a shower.’

I must really stink.

‘We’ll be moving you out of detox today and starting you on your road to recovery.’

‘Can’t I go back to Tommy, attend AA from home?’ My voice sounds a little pathetic as I say, ‘I feel fine now.’

‘Sonya, this is a particularly vulnerable time for you. Don’t believe anything your mind tells you, especially when it tells you you’re “fine”.’

How is that supposed to be helpful? As if reading my thoughts, she tells me there is a reason for a twelve-week period of supervised recovery in a controlled environment. Addiction is not just physical. New grooves need to be established, new patterns of thinking and behaving. There are many, many triggers in the outside world and the job in here is to strengthen not only resolve, but a sense of self that operates without substances. Blah blah. I tell her that my drinking is quite recent, that I used to be a successful actress, that I had a life in London that did not revolve around booze.

‘Is your alcohol abuse linked to becoming a mother, Sonya?’

That feels terrible, a terribly cruel accusation.

‘I really don’t think I abused alcohol.’

‘Do you think it abused you?’

I feel bamboozled, winded. I want that shower. The nun, who tells me her name is Sister Anne, explains that from tomorrow my days will start at 7 a.m. and that my routine will consist of work duty, prayer, meditation, group therapy, AA meetings and, if a need is ascertained, individual therapy, at a later stage.

‘The devil makes work for idle hands, eh, Sister?’ I try and fail to crack a joke.





10


The smell of cooking meat, possibly beef, though it’s been such a long time since I’ve had such a thing, wafts – no, attacks, yes, attacks my senses, cutting through the haze. What else, besides animal flesh, are they going to make me swallow in here?

‘You new here?’ A skinny girl with a booming voice, leaking energy, enters the room that is to be my bedroom for the next eleven weeks and two days (IF I complete the stint, although I’m sure I won’t need to). Apparently I spent five days in the drying-off ward, which doesn’t seem possible. This room is a replica of the one I just came from: four beds, too-bright lights, too much brown, this one with a smattering of beige, though no plastic undersheets, thank fuck.

‘You’d wanna get yer skates on. There’ll be no food left.’

‘I’m not hungry. Thanks, though.’

‘You’ve a long night ahead. Need some sustenance. The rosary, followed by a meeting, followed by meditation. All before lights out at ten.’

‘I’m not a practising Catholic, so I’ll give the rosary a miss.’

She laughs through her nose. ‘None of us are, but it’s part of the programme. Something about finding a “channel” to the Holy Spirit that’s meant to be a substitute for the real thing.’ Her voice is dry, cracked and brittle, like the rest of her.

I initially thought she looked about nineteen, but on closer inspection her face is wizened, skin stretched taut, hollows under her eyes and cheekbones. ‘I’m Linda.’ She extends a bony, veiny hand. ‘Sonya,’ I say, though I really want to lie. I’m not sure I’m up to this – commingling, bonding. Is that what the Malory Towers lot were at? Tina is the only friend I ever really had – and Tina, always off her face, was never really there anyway.


The noise in the dining hall is raucous, not what I expected from a place like this. There are a lot more men than women. I try to count: possibly sixtyish in total, three quarters male. Clamp one hand over the other to stop the tremors, which may just be nerves. A twitch above my right eyebrow. I’m being watched, my legs almost buckling under me with the weight of the surveillance. Only playing a part, this isn’t real. I inspect the congealed food sitting behind a glass casing. ‘Bit late, love,’ says a tiny woman with a hairnet placed precariously over the top of her ponytail. ‘I can get you some pudding ahead of the others, if you like?’ I push out a thank you past my thirsty tongue. My eyes wander, taking in the yellow-stained, pockmarked walls, the linoleum floor, synthetic and shiny, seemingly moving beneath my feet. I pull my gaze towards the one small window, high above my eyeline, which allows no sense of the outdoors in.

‘There you go, love,’ the remarkably small, blanked-out face, says. ‘Rice pudding.’

I turn back towards the room – which I try to imagine is full of an appreciative audience, instead of nosy, sly glances – and see my new room-mate waving at me. Lisa or Linda or something. Her mouth’s wide open and her teeth are crooked and small, and yellow, which may or may not be the light.

‘How’ya?’ One of the older women greets me as I approach the table, not looking for a response as she attacks the last of the gristle on her plate. I swallow down bile.