The Shock of the Fall (Special edition) (13 page)

We are selfish, my illness and I. We think only of ourselves. We shape the world around us into messages, into secret whispers spoken only for us.

I did one last thing for someone else.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

Jacob couldn’t stay, it wasn’t fair to make him.

‘I’m sorry, Matt.’

I didn’t cry. He’s never seen me cry. But I was close. ‘You should look after your mum,’ I said. ‘She needs you.’

I tied us up neatly for Jacob. I gave him my permission to leave. He said we’d still hang out all the time.

I suppose that makes us friends.

Knock
                

KNOCKKNOCK

THERE IS A DEAD BIRD. It’s on the ground beside the yellow bins, and it’s making me feel a bit messed up.

I didn’t notice it to begin with because I was keeping a lookout in case Denise rounded the corner in her car and I had to run back inside. I’m out of tobacco so I was smoking one of Nanny Noo’s secret menthol cigarettes, and I only noticed the dead bird when I threw the butt onto the ground and went to stamp on it.

It’s a chick. I don’t know what sort, but it’s really small and it doesn’t have any feathers or even eyes. It’s in a patch of melting slush and I know that I should put it in the bin or something. It doesn’t seem right leaving it in the cold. But I can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to do anything today.

AFTER JACOB LEFT I decided that I would go home too.

I made up my mind as he disappeared in Hamed’s van, leaving me standing on the pavement waving like a fucking idiot. As I climbed the stairwell I had no energy; I didn’t want to be here on my own. I thought about phoning Mum first, asking her permission, even though I knew I didn’t need to. I still had my key. I could let myself in the back door and she would come rushing downstairs.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ I’d say. ‘You were right. I’m too young. I should be at home.’

She would smile and roll her eyes, and we would break into teary laughter.

‘Come here, come here.’

She wraps me in her arms. I bury my face in her dressing gown.

‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’

‘Oh my baby. Baby boy.’

‘I tried my best.’

‘What will we do with you?’

‘Is it too late for me to go to college, do you think?’

She kisses me and I smell her breath, a faint smell of decay. I try to move away, but she’s holding too tight.

‘You’re hurting me a bit.’

‘Shhh, shhh.’

‘I mean it. Let go.’

‘What will we do with you?’

‘Stop saying that.’ The smell is more powerful, filling the room. It’s not her breath. There’s something on the kitchen table. I see it over her shoulder. ‘What is that? I don’t like it, Mummy.’

‘Shhh, shut up.’

‘I don’t like it. You’re scaring me.’

‘What will we do with you?’

‘What’s going on?’

The doll is naked, covered in wet mud. Her pale arms stretch across the tabletop, her little face is angled towards us. Button eyes look right through me.

Ha.

It’s make believe, that’s all.

After Jacob left I imagined going home. But I never did that. I was far too busy going mad.

‘You’re an asset to the team,’ the manager said.

He leant back in his chair and stroked his Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer tie, making the LED in Rudolf’s nose flash. I had worked a whole Christmas and was asking for shifts over the New Year too. ‘Keep up the hard work and we’ll get you on the NVQ scheme. You’re allowed to smile, Matt. I’m paying you a compliment.’

‘Can I work the night shift?’

‘I’ve already said you can work the night shift.’

‘And the long day?’

He pulled this constipated face at the Duty Rota. ‘We’ll have to be careful you don’t work too many hours. There’s legislation about—’

‘I need the money.’

He gave me the shifts, he always did. I was working every hour I could to pay my rent, and because I didn’t want to be at home by myself. To be honest, I was feeling pretty lonely at this time. So when I wasn’t at the old people’s home I’d immerse myself in my Special Project.

I never really stopped.

This illness has a work ethic.

Matthew Homes

Flat 607

Terrence House

Kingsdown

Bristol

Wed 10th Feb 2010

Dear Matthew,

Please do get in touch with either myself (07700 900934) or any of the staff at Hope Road (0117 496 0777) as soon as possible. It’s important we arrange for you to have your depot injection, which is now a week overdue.

I hope everything is okay,

Denise Lovell

Care Co-ordinator

Brunel CMHT – Bristol

persisent, isn’t she?
                  

I’m fine I’m fine.
                    

fuck off fuck off fuck off

I’VE GIVEN YOU THE GUIDED TOUR.

You saw it in the corner, and stretching across the far wall. Were you too polite to say anything, to ask any questions? The sprawling tubes and dirt-encrusted jars.

Strange, isn’t it?

I didn’t know what it was at first because it wasn’t me drawing the designs. He was moving my hand, scratching my pen across the sketch pads and the bedroom wall.

His interstellar dust.

His atoms.

I would wake up in my living room, still wearing my work clothes from the night before; a pair of grey trousers and a white nursing tunic, creased and sweaty. My mouth would be dry, my neck and shoulders aching. All around me would be new materials. I couldn’t think where they came from. It was the same every day, more stuff appearing. Reaching into my rucksack once I cut my thumb on a shard of glass. The pain sliced through the fog; I had scavenged from wheelie bins and recycling boxes. For a nucleus, an ice-cream tub. Glass jars and bottles for the orbiting electrons. I had filled carrier bags full of damp earth, spilling onto the carpet. There was more plastic tubing stolen from work. Tubes for sucking air from a tank, tubes for pissing into a bag.

And Sellotape. And Blu-tack.

It might even be fun.

As the sharp pain gave way to a dull throbbing, I felt my hands start to move. I could work for hours on end without eating or drinking. Six, seven, eight hours, carefully puncturing holes in jam-smeared lids with the screwdriver from my Swiss Army Knife, feeding in the tubes, and sealing up any gaps.

‘Are you home darling?’

I didn’t hear her knock. It was only her voice that broke through. The letter box dropped shut.

Nanny Noo was standing in the blue light of the corridor with a Tesco bag in each hand. She smiled, ‘I thought I could hear you. I’m not interrupting am I? I was just passing and—’

‘You can’t come in.’

‘I’ve brought a few groceries, I thought we could—’

‘You can’t come in, Nanny.’

‘But—’

‘I’m late for work.’

‘It’s late, it’s dinner time.’

‘I’m working the night shift.’

‘Then let me drive you. We can quickly put this lot in the kitchen, it’ll only take a minute.’ She started to push the door to let herself inside. I stayed standing in the way. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Matthew, sweetheart. You’ve mud all over your trousers.’

‘Do I?’

‘Is that blood?’

‘What?’

‘On your top, there.’

‘I cut my thumb.’

‘Let me see.’

‘I’ve got to go Nanny, I’m late.’

‘You haven’t even put a plaster on.’ She put down the carrier bags and started to rummage in her handbag. ‘I know I’ve got some somewhere. You never know when—’

‘Please don’t make a fuss.’

‘It’s not a fuss. Here we are. Now give me your—’

She reached to take my hand. I pulled away. ‘I mean it. I have things to do. You can’t just turn up and expect to be let in. I’m busy, I have things to do.’

‘Yes. Of course. Of course, sweetheart. I’m sorry.’

I guess she looked a bit hurt. She dropped the plaster back into her handbag, and fastened the clip. She started to say something else, but I shut the door.

I watched her through the peephole.

She looked worried, but she didn’t knock again. She lifted her hand to the door and held it there a while, but she didn’t knock. That’s the thing with Nanny, she would never force her company on someone, no matter how much she might want to.

Ha.

She’s like a vampire. She has to be invited in.

I’ll tell her that when I next see her. She’ll like that a lot. She visits every other Thursday, but it’s not my turn today. I’ll have to remember the vampire joke for next week. You’ve got your granddad in you, she’ll laugh. The same wicked sense of humour. She says she doesn’t know what to do with us, but you can tell she likes it really. What she will NOT like is what I’m up to now; all this skiving from the Day Centre to write my story and ignoring the letters from Denise Lovell and not having my medicine.

She won’t like that one bit.

If it wasn’t for Nanny Noo I wouldn’t give a shit, but when somebody cares for you as much as she does, I know it’s not nice to make them worry. She’ll be worried this time, and she was worried back then too. I watched her through the peephole, waiting, hoping. She left the bags of groceries outside my door, and disappeared.

This is called a genogram.

It’s a family tree that doctors draw. It’s to help them see which branches bear the rotten fruit.

That’s me at the bottom, waving at you. I’m a male, which means I go in a square. And because this is my genogram, I get to go in an extra thick square. Simon is beside me, and he goes in a square too, but with an X through it, which means he’s dead.

Up a branch and to the left is my dad.

Hello Dad.

Beside Dad is Uncle Stew, he died of pancreatic cancer when he was thirty-eight years old. So sad, people said. So young, people said. Just goes to show, people said. Climbing up again we have Dad’s parents; XX. Dad comes from a long line of dead people.

Mum is a circle, and her side of the tree has a bit more life to it. That’s Aunt Jacqueline beside her, and then Aunty Mel, who is married – with a horizontal line – to Uncle Brian. They have three boys; my cousins Sam, Peter, and Aaron. Keep climbing. Careful now. Peter fell from a tree once. He hurt himself so badly that he was in Intensive Care for nearly a week, and everyone was worried he might die. He didn’t though.

No X, see.

Nanny Noo and Granddad are high up. And at the very top are my Great Granny and Great Grampa, who passed away within a month of each other when I was still a baby. Somewhere is a photograph of them holding me, and Great Grampa is making a funny stinky face because I have filled my nappy.

If you’re getting the hang of climbing then you can look around and take in the view. There are millions of trees like this one, but we haven’t found the rotten fruit yet, so don’t climb down.

‘Is that fizzy pop?’

I reached into one of the carrier bags that Nanny Noo had left for me. She had reached the end of the corridor, about to go down the stairwell. She stopped and turned around.

‘There are a few bits and bobs,’ she said. ‘Make sure you eat the vegetables.’

I swigged at the bottle of Coke. I hadn’t drunk anything all day.

‘I won’t interrupt you, sweetheart.’

‘Remember when I stayed with you and Granddad? You know, when I was little. When I came to stay for a bit, after, after Simon—’

‘Of course I remember. Is something the matter?’

‘Granddad took me to his allotment, to get me out from under your feet. Do you remember that?’

Nanny was back at my door, but I still didn’t invite her in. ‘Matthew, you’re all eyes. You look so tired.’