The Only Story(43)

But that half-formed sentence of hers, written by a wonky hand with an unfamiliar pen, remained with me, and always has. Not least because of its ambiguity. Did she mean, ‘You use your inky pen to write down things which will then make you hate me’? Or did she mean, ‘I have left my mark with your inky pen because I want to make you hate me’? Critical and aggressive, or masochistic and self-pitying? Maybe she knew what she meant when she wrote the words, but there was no subsequent clarity to be found. You may judge the second interpretation over-subtle, and designed to let me off the hook. But – and this formed the basis of another of my long-lost notes – the alcoholic, in my experience, wants to provoke, to push away help, to justify her own isolation. So if she managed to convince herself that I hated her, all the more reason to turn for comfort to the bottle.

You are taking her somewhere in the car. There is no need for her to fear the journey, and you will pick her up later and drive her home. But there are the usual delays before you can get her into the car. And as you are about to release the handbrake, she rushes back into the house and returns with a large, bright yellow plastic laundry bag, which she puts between her feet. She does not explain. You do not ask. This is where things have got to.

And then you think, Oh Fuckit.

‘What’s that for?’ you ask.

‘The thing is,’ she replies, ‘I’m not feeling entirely well, and it’s just possible I might be sick. What with the car and all that.’

No, you think, what with being drunk and all that. A doctor friend has told you that alcoholics sometimes throw up so violently that they can perforate their own oesophagus. As it happens, she doesn’t need to vomit, but she might as well have done. Because she has already filled your head with an image of her throwing up into this yellow bag, and you cannot stop seeing it. You might as well have listened to her dry-retching and then wet-retching, and can hear the vomit trickling into the bright yellow plastic. The smell, too, of course, in your small car. The excuses, the lies. Her lies, your lies.

Because it is no longer just a question of her lying to you. When she does so, you have two choices: call her out on it, or accept what she says. Usually, out of weariness and a desire for peace – and yes, out of love – you accept what she says. You condone the lie. And so become a liar by proxy. And it is a very short step from accepting her lies to lying yourself – out of weariness, and a desire for peace, and also out of love – yes, that too.

What a long way you have come. Years ago, when you started off lying to your parents, you did so with a kind of relish, reckless of consequence; it almost felt character-building. Later, you began to tell lies in all directions: to protect her, and to protect your love. Later still, she starts lying to you, to keep you from knowing her secret; and now she lies with a kind of relish, reckless of consequence. Then, finally, you begin lying to her. Why? Something to do with the need to create some internal space which you could keep intact – and where you could yourself remain intact. And this is how it is for you now. Love and truth – where have they gone?

You ask yourself: is staying with her an act of courage on your part, or an act of cowardice? Perhaps both? Or is it just an inevitability?

She has taken to going to the Village by train. You approve: you think this comes from a recognition of her unfitness to drive. You take her to the station, she tells you the time of her return train, though, as often as not, she doesn’t turn up until the next one, or the one after. And when she says, ‘Don’t bother meeting me,’ she is protecting her inner world. And when you reply, ‘Fine – sure you’ll be all right?’ you are protecting yours.

The phone goes one evening.

‘Is that Henry?’

‘No, sorry, wrong number.’

You are about to put the phone down when the man reads your number to you.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well, good evening, sir. This is the transport police at Waterloo Station. We have a lady here in a … slightly distressed condition. We found her asleep in the train and, well, her handbag was open and there was a sum of money in it, so you see …’

‘Yes I see.’

‘She showed us this number and asked us to call Henry.’

In the background you hear her voice. ‘Call Henry, call Henry.’

Ah, her shorthand for Henry Road.

So you drive to Waterloo, find the office of the railway police and there she is, sitting up, bright-eyed, waiting to be collected, knowing that it would happen. The two policemen are courteous and concerned. They are doubtless used to helping drunk old ladies found snoring in empty carriages. Not that she is old, just that when she is drunk, you think of her, suddenly, as a drunk old lady.

‘Well, thank you very much for looking after her.’

‘Oh, she was no trouble at all, sir. Quiet as a mouse. Look after yourself, Madam.’

She gives a rather stately acknowledging nod. You take the arm of this piece of left luggage, and off you go. Your annoyance and despair, however, are cut by a certain pride in her having been ‘no trouble’. Though what if she had been?

Eventually, more out of despair than hope, you try tough love, or at least what your understanding of that concept is. You don’t let her get away with anything. You call her out on her lies. You pour away whatever bottles you find, some in obvious places, some in such strange locations that she must have hidden them there while drunk, and then forgotten where she had put them. You get her banned from the three local shops which sell alcohol. You give them each a photo to keep behind the till. You do not tell her this; you think the humiliation of being refused service will jolt her. You never find out, and she merely gets round the obstruction by travelling further afield.