The House Swap(60)

The door slams and they’re gone. I prod my feelings, a sharp stick digging into the mud of the riverbank. Loneliness. Relief. Two sides of the same coin. I hate to be alone and yet it feels natural, inevitable. Two days. I check the pill packets stuffed down the side of the sofa and take a few. I start to count what’s left, but I can’t keep the numbers in my head. Better be on the safe side. It’s not like they do anything any more – I remember the hit they used to give, the swooping high that has eluded me for months, like the sweet memory of an old lover – but all the same, they’re necessary. They punctuate my breathing. Make it possible.

I send a text to one of my sources and ask him to set something aside. Can’t afford it, but it makes little difference now. Something tells me I won’t be around to sort this mess out. The last time I checked my bank balance it seemed crazily high, until I saw the little minus sign. When I’m lying here, sometimes I see the figures rising in negative, cycling and whirring like silent-spun wheels. A whole parallel world, growing while reality recedes.

I get up and go to the window, breathe in sweet, warm air. I have a session today. Young teenage girl who’s been coming for months. I was helping her, at first. Could cancel. I mostly do, these days. But all of a sudden there’s a strange little burst of energy and the thought of getting on the train and going to the clinic feels doable. Kind of fun. Maybe I was lying when I said there was no hit. There’s still something, even if it’s hard to predict or define. Might as well ride the wave.

By the time I’m at the clinic, the window that opened up inside my head for a few minutes has closed again and the shutters are dark. Cold in here; yellowing carpets and musty walls, faded lampshades. I shouldn’t be here. The walls are rearing up at me like sentinels, slanting grimly inwards and blocking out the light and space in my head. This place doesn’t want me in it.

But it’s too late now, and I’m walking into the counselling room and seeing everything laid out neatly, just the way it should be. Box of tissues on the little low table. Jug of water with two small glasses. Lamp glowing in the corner. And she’s pattering in after me, the girl. Can’t remember her name. I glance at the pink crib sheet poking out of the top of my folder. Melody. Not really a name. Means something else, though right now I can’t quite think what. Doesn’t matter.

‘So,’ I’m saying, ‘how are you?’ My voice sounds different and strange in my own head. Kind of muffled, filtered through several layers of sound. The girl cocks her head and I have to repeat it.

‘Oh,’ she says blankly, like she thought I’d said something else, something better. ‘I’m OK, I guess. Not so great this week overall, though. Some stuff happened with my mum again.’ She’s off, drawing me through the marshlands of her memory, raking up the mud. I try to listen. Something about a fight, some raised and unkind words. Digging up old wounds, making her wonder if the relationship can be saved. The words are going in, but my mind is throwing them out again, because my heart is thudding fast and my palms are wet with sweat and I know that this stuff used to matter but it doesn’t now because no one matters but me.

She’s still talking, but her eyes tell another story. They’re raking over me, as if she’s wondering who the hell this man is that she’s trusting with her secrets. I haven’t shaved in weeks and I can’t remember the last time I had a shower, and there’s a stain the size of a handprint halfway down my shirt.

My fingers are rattling against the edge of the tabletop. Stop. Looks like I’m impatient, like she’s boring me. ‘Say that again,’ I say, because she’s paused and it seems like I should be giving her something in return, but I have no idea what she’s just said.

‘I said,’ she repeats, and just as Caroline did, she slows her words down and leaves a lot of space around them. ‘I said, it feels like I’ve been born into the wrong family.’

‘Interesting,’ I say, and actually this is interesting, and my mind is suddenly speeding up and thoughts are rushing around it at a hundred miles an hour, brightly coloured lottery balls falling into the slot at random, without thought or design. ‘Because, you know,’ I say, ‘your mother might well be thinking the same thing. That you’ve been born into the wrong family. That she’s given birth to alien spawn. Some kind of incubus.’ I’m warming to my theme, but the girl draws back as if I’ve hit her and her eyes fill with tears, and before I know it she’s leapt up from her seat and flounced out.

I stay sitting in my chair. That’s never happened before. A lot of firsts, today. Outside in the corridor, I can hear the distant echo of her voice, raised and tearful, and a soothing murmur coming back. It carries on for a few minutes. Then the girl sweeps back past my door again, not bothering to look in, and bangs her way down the stairs and out on to the street.

‘Francis.’ It’s Sara, with her hooked, horn-rimmed glasses and her wispy hair, her floaty dresses. She’s like a hippie without any of the free love or the fun. The thought amuses me and I wonder if I should share it. But before I get the chance she’s talking again, her voice relentless and smooth, arms folded across her chest. ‘I can’t quite get to the heart of what you just said to Melody, but she’s very upset.’

‘Upset?’ I think back, struggle to understand. What I said was interesting, thought-provoking. Nothing personal. I’m an incubus myself. I don’t belong anywhere. Not in the smug, gentrified space my family inhabits, not in the would-be-perfect nuclear little bubble with my wife and child. Maybe I should have said that.