The House Swap(17)
On this particular morning, I drag myself out from the covers and go to the living room to switch on the computer. I cycle through a few daytime TV programmes, not really caring which I choose. I try to concentrate, because it’s the only way to switch those thoughts off, but it’s incredibly hard. Every line of speech seems to be delivered in some mysterious coded language that takes a conscious effort to interpret and decipher, so that by the time the meaning has filtered through to my brain, I’m already playing catch-up and the action on screen has moved on.
Every now and then, I look at the time in the corner of the screen. 04.46. 04.59. 05.23. 06.32. That last hour went fast. I might have fallen asleep, but it’s difficult to say. The boundaries are blurred, and getting blurrier. When I was a child, I often used to sleep-walk. I remember the surreal, fogged feeling of sensing a room around me as I moved, tracing the outlines of familiar objects without quite seeing them. Before the past few months, I hadn’t thought about that for years, but now it’s on my mind a lot. The memory is chemical. Muscular. I feel it seeping through my bones every day.
My temples feel tight and stretched, and there’s a light film of sweat collecting damply at the base of my neck. When I reach out my hand to wipe it, my fingers are shaking. It would be easy to stop it. But I’ve got a patient today at 11 a.m., so I need to think straight. Just have to ride it out. It’s past seven now and getting light, and through the wall I can hear Eddie making the funny little bursts of wordless song he often does around this time. I think about going in to get him up – get as far as stretching out my hand and pressing the pause button on the computer screen. But then I hear the bedroom door opening and Caroline’s footsteps moving quickly down the hallway. So there’s nothing left to do but sink deeper into my seat and wait. I hear them, the two of them, my wife and my son, getting ready in the rooms around me. They’re only a few feet away but they might as well be on the other side of the world.
Just before she comes in I get up and look in the mirror that hangs over the mantelpiece. I don’t know who I’m expecting to see in it. Not this man with the greying, puffy skin and the grooves of worry sunk deep into the corners of his eyes, his face familiar yet strange, like a surreal caricature of myself. For a brief moment, I imagine tapping on the glass. Reaching in to pull him out and hold him up to the light, work out who he is. I see him the same way others seem to see him. Friends with baffled faces, trying to put their fingers on exactly when I stopped giving a shit. You all right, mate? Seems like it’s been a while … My fellow therapists at the clinic lightly sidestepping into corridors to avoid the kind of idle chit-chat they apparently used to live for. My brother Greg, the last time he visited. Francis, I barely even recognize you. What have you done with my brother? Glancing out of the window every so often at his banker-wanker Porsche gleaming smugly on the pavement, as if he was worried someone was going to key it. Riffling through his overstuffed wallet, fanning out his platinum credit cards like a conjurer. How’s business?
The anger flares and fades, a tired old torch I can barely be bothered with any more. I’m sitting back down, and the door is being flung open. Caroline heads across the room and stands in the spot I have just left, checking her make-up and straightening her tailored dress. Her skirt is tight and comes halfway up her thighs. I watch the fabric move and stretch across her skin, and there’s a brief, pointless stirring of desire.
‘I’m off in a minute,’ she says, her reflection looking at mine in the mirror. It seems that a lot of our conversations are conducted this way, these days. We’re staring at each other, but she isn’t even facing my way. ‘I’m dropping Eddie off. I’ll pick him up and bring him back for dinner, and then I’m going out again, yeah?’
‘Where are you going again?’ I ask, but I don’t really care what the answer is, and five minutes later I can’t remember it.
At twenty past ten I step out of the house into the frost-bitten air and think about going inside to find a warmer jumper or coat, but it feels like too much effort and before I’ve decided either way I find that I’m walking down the street towards the station. Everything is too bright. The sharpness of the trees against the skyline sets my teeth on edge and there’s a sickly clarity to the piled-up buildings around me. I can almost taste it, bitter and metallic. On days like this the die already seems cast. Just have to get through.
The train journey usually only takes ten minutes but there’s some problem on the line and it crawls along, lurching to an abrupt standstill every so often. Opposite me, a young woman wearing furry headphones mouths along to whatever song is blasting into her ears. Her mouth is red and sticky with lip gloss. There’s something disgusting about it. Once or twice, she glances up, appraises me warily through shuttered eyes. I know I’m not smiling. I could diffuse the tension, look away, or at least soften the frown I can feel is creasing my forehead, but I can’t be bothered. No room for social niceties today.
At the stop before mine she collects her bag and sweeps out of the carriage, muttering something under her breath. The old biddy on the next bank of seats gives her a quick look of sympathy, then stares at me pointedly for a few seconds before settling back into her seat. More and more these days I notice that the tide of public opinion is turned against me without me even speaking a word. In a way, it’s funny. It’s certainly not something I’m about to fight. In fact, sometimes I find myself playing up to it.