Sweet Sorrow(102)

‘It’s a green ticket, 225. Green, 225.’

Fran raised her hips, squeezed her fingertips into the pocket of her jeans and unfolded the green strip. ‘I’m a winner.’

‘You’d better go and get it.’

‘I’ll pick it up later,’ she said, looking over her shoulder.

‘Green 225, for this portable CD player,’ said the voice.

‘I won’t mind,’ I said.

‘I’ve already got one.’

‘Last call, green 225.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Stay here,’ she said, stood and slipped through a gap in the canvas as if stepping onto a stage. I heard her shout ‘Here!’ and there was applause and laughter and recognition at the arrival of the nice local girl. I stood and walked away.

She caught up with me by the cake stall, the prize tucked beneath her arm. ‘Don’t slip away like that. Don’t be all dramatic.’

‘I’ve got to.’

‘You can come back if you want. To the house. Meet Mum and Dad.’

‘Not now. Another time.’

‘Okay. So how will you get—’

‘I’ll walk.’

‘I can ask them to give you a lift?’

‘No, it’s fine. I’ve got time.’

She glanced behind her, back to the stall. ‘I said I’d cover for my friend.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Yes,’ I said, though I already knew I’d not be going back.

Again, she glanced behind her, then walked up quickly and kissed me. ‘Love you?’ she mumbled.

‘You too.’

Then she held out the box, the portable CD player. ‘Don’t suppose you want this?’

‘No, I’m okay. But can I borrow a quid? I need to pay the entrance fee on the way out.’

‘’Course.’ She handed me the money. ‘Very thoughtful of you.’

‘Well, it’s for charity, so …’

I passed the cake stall and spent fifty pence on two chocolate cornflake cakes. With my back turned, I crammed them into my mouth, then gave my last fifty pence to the lady.





Home


I walked all the way back, just as I had on the morning after the party, that jubilant morning on which I’d made all those resolutions. But change, it seemed, was a myth. There were no new voices and no ways to move through the world except this one, defeated and heading home. Where else would I go?

I dreaded getting back, today more than ever, not because of what Dad and I had said but because of how it would be ignored as we slipped back into our old ways, the monosyllabic chat, the bickering and temporary truces, the air static with tension. And so I dawdled, and even paused to sleep at the edge of a field, the kind of sleep that serves no purpose except to pass time, like winding forward the hands of a watch.

It was early evening when I entered Thackeray Crescent and noted that all the curtains were still drawn despite the daylight. Even on his lowest days, this was not something I’d seen before and I felt a sharp twist of panic so strong that I broke into a run, dropped my keys, retrieved them and crammed them into the lock, shouting all the time, ‘Dad! Dad!’, tumbling into the house, taking in the mess downstairs, the ashtray, the TV on too loud, pounding up the stairs and into Dad’s room, my father face down and half naked on the bed, the whisky bottle on the floor. ‘Oh, Christ,’ I said out loud, threw myself at the bed, put my hand on his shoulder – warm, thank God, but feverish and clammy – and turned him over. The air from his lungs was hot and foul with alcohol but he was breathing and I scrambled through the bedside mess, the bottles and glasses and foil packs, looking for clues. Should I call an ambulance? ‘Dad? Dad, wake up!’ I brushed the hair back from his ear, as if this was the reason he wasn’t responding. ‘Dad? Dad, please talk to me. Can you hear me, Dad?’ but there was nothing, just the rattle of his breath catching the phlegm in his throat and for a moment, I recoiled, sat with my back to the wall, hot tears in my eyes. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair to have to deal with these things.

From films, I knew that sleep was the enemy, and so I scrambled back to the bedside and found the tumbler of water he used to wash down pills. I made a deal: if he didn’t stir I’d call an ambulance. I trickled a little on his cheek and into his ear, then more, then emptied the whole glass. He groaned and I saw the bulge of the cornea move beneath the eyelid as if sealed inside. Heartened, I braced myself, slid my arm beneath his damp armpit and tried to hoist him upright, succeeding only in dragging him down onto the floor with a thump. Downstairs the TV played, Songs of Praise, ‘Lord of the Dance’. Panic rose inside me once again, but what use would panic be? Water was the key. I stepped over his body and into the bathroom, and set both taps running in the bath, tossed the toothbrushes into the sink, filled the beaker with more cold water, returned to the room and once again trickled it onto his head, his cheek, a little into his mouth, which made him splutter and, with a lurch, shift his weight so that he was now half sitting against the bed’s divan base, causing the whole thing to rumble across the room on its castors.

Now was the time. As he fell backwards, I slipped my arm around his back and into his armpit, pulled up through my knees with all my strength, and now we were both seated on the mattress, with me doing my best to prop him up, a ventriloquist crushed by his own dummy. I felt gravity pull him back and once again thought I might cry with frustration, but instead rolled him forward, rocking him onto his feet then carrying him, throwing him really, towards the bathroom, where he fell forward once again and came to a halt with his head against the toilet cistern and here, thank God, he vomited, violently and wretchedly, for some time, watery stuff, peaty from the whisky. With one hand I rubbed his back, with the other reached into the bath and tested the water and turned off the taps, the water cool and uncomfortable enough to revive him without inducing a heart attack. Five, ten minutes passed while he spewed and spat and mumbled – ‘Oh no, oh, no no no’ – and I helped him stand then, still in his underwear, sit on the edge of the bath and roll into the water like a scuba-diver off a boat.