Bright Burning Things(27)

‘Nope.’

‘Probably for the best. Early days.’

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, taste the metallic tang.

I feel a wallop of a clap on my shoulder. I wince, turn to see Jimmy beaming at me. ‘Good on you. All this self-congratulatory whingeing. We’re a downright ugly bunch, when it comes to it. Needed that dose of honesty.’

Linda smiles at me. ‘Big J is a fan!’

I smile back. It doesn’t hurt.





15


Another visiting day comes and goes and no news, not even a message. Almost a month now. How have I stuck it? Perhaps a tiny inkling of what it is to be sober, the beginnings of a reckoning, a grappling with honesty, a delicate, burgeoning connecting. And now it’s time for yet another unrequited phone call home.

There is, of course, a long clacking queue in front of me. I plant my feet, root them firmly to the ground and breathe deeply, as Jimmy told me to do when surges of rage pulse through me. Apparently this creates a moment of pause, enough to interrupt the reactivity, which in some people is so turbocharged it can lead to murder. ‘It’s called grounding. Or a sacred pause. Something as simple as that could’ve saved me from prison.’ I doubt that. From the moment he was conceived his life was one big trauma, involving social services and state ‘care’. No one ever hugged him as a child. When I heard him share this in a meeting it had truth all over it. My airways constricted, and I had a job staying upright. Was I overcome with sorrow for him, the little boy he was, or was it for myself? I can’t remember anyone holding me either, which is why I overloaded on the hugs with Tommy. But was it for him – or for me? I wonder what those hugs will come to mean to him in later life. Those suffocating hugs.

At least Tommy was never ignored. It’s the worst kind of punishment, being ignored. Reminds me of fifth class when Dana DC, the new girl with the blondest hair and whitest teeth, decided that I was Queen of the Untouchables, a lonely, strange, story-telling girl without a mother – ugh, what could be sadder than that? Silent protests were organised, military-style, when I’d enter the room and the girls would turn their backs, pretending not to hear anything I said. Since my unpopular speech in the meeting, I feel the same freeze from the guys in here.

I’m at the top of the queue. I dial; unexpectedly, someone answers.

Breathe, control, contain.

‘Dad?’ I sound like I’m eight, my voice caught in the back of my throat from the effort of straining to look up at him.

‘Hello, Sonya?’ Lara’s voice. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Is Dad there? I don’t have much time.’

‘Your father is out.’

‘Right. Is this not his mobile, his private number?’

‘Your father gave me permission to answer. He told me to ask you if you’d like a visit this weekend?’

‘Tommy?’

‘Not Tommy. Your father and I.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘Your father has. He’s doing well. Lovely people, by all accounts.’

‘People – what people? Do you mean Mrs O’Malley?’

‘He’s with people better suited to caring for his needs.’

‘What? Who? Who? Where?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know that, Sonya, but he’s being well looked after.’

‘If you had let Dad take him in in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Your father doesn’t have the energy for a toddler, you know that.’

Rage rises like a burning, beating thing – it might knock me out with the force of it. The wings are fluttering, the creatures frantic. No amount of swallowing can stop their flight.

I hear a sigh, the sigh of the long-suffering martyr.

‘Are you enjoying this?’ Then a white-out. I think I hear words spilling, words like ‘interfering, jealous, possessive cunting cow…’

The phone cuts dead. A hand taps me on the shoulder. I don’t turn, don’t react, just rest my head against the cool metal of the phone box. How can I continue to attend meetings where nothing is relatable, continue to pray to a God I cannot conceive of, continue to inhale my room-mates’ stench, their gossip, their noise, continue to fashion wood into shapes meant only for Tommy, if I cannot see him, talk to him, reassure him?

‘Love? You alright, love?’ The swarm thickens behind my eyes. My knees buckle, my head hits the lino.


When I wake, I’m lying on the ground, Jimmy standing above me.

‘Still detoxing this late into the game? Something not right there, not right.’

Am I? Detoxing from my son? Is this what this is, the roiling seas beneath my feet, Tommy’s voice inside my head, his eyes following me?

‘Have you been taking something?’

I find I can’t speak, or don’t want to.

‘Can you sit up? C’mon, now, you’re scaring me now, acting all cuckoo. I’m going to get help. Don’t move, now.’

Above my head I see a kaleidoscopic display: triangle to oblong to square to itty-bitty bits twirling. Beeootiful, Yaya, flakes of fiery snow.


The doctor questions me: Have you been taking anything you shouldn’t? Could you be pregnant? Last time you ate? Any history of seizures? No, no, can’t remember, and no. He’s an older man, stooped, pot-bellied, brown-blotched skin, hues of yellow. He takes blood samples, rough with the needle, jabbing it in like he wants to hurt me. Or maybe I’m imagining it. He takes my temperature, presses his pudgy fingers into my stomach. ‘Any pain?’ Way off, not even in the right region. How could I say my brain’s just been attacked by a swarm of my own making? I really might end up in the loony bin then.