The State of Me Read online

  Sean always listened to The Smiths in the mornings. When I asked him to turn it down Rita said I had to cut him some slack.

  In the evenings if I felt well enough, I’d go downstairs. I liked the social aspect of being in the living room. On Thursdays, I watched Top of the Pops and wondered where they got the energy to sing and dance.

  I started watching wildlife programmes. I could enjoy the images without having to follow the plot (like an old woman in a nursing home, without the pink circles of fur).

  stranger What did you do today?

  me I watched a documentary about sea horses.

  stranger What did you learn?

  me I learned that male sea horses give birth by spurting out hundreds of bright red eggs, and that they are antisocial and don’t like their neighbours.

  At the weekends, I would sit clamped against the radiator or lie on the couch while Sean and his friends watched videos. Sometimes Ivan was there. The highlight of Saturday was watching Blind Date. I would fantasise about being chosen and worried sick about being sent on a date where you had to walk a lot.

  Sean said I should write to Jimmy Saville: Dear Jim, Please can you fix it for me to be healthy? I’m twenty-one and live in Scotland.

  I could see myself sitting in the television studio, with the medal round my neck, grinning idiotically at the audience. Rita and Nab would run on with tears in their eyes, thanking Jim for the miracle.

  Sometimes, after school, Sean brings through the magnetic chess set. He sits on the bed and lays out the pieces. Pawns are always getting lost in the blankets. Helen’s never really liked chess apart from moving the horses in L-shapes. She doesn’t try and Sean wins every game, but it passes the time.

  Back to see Bob.

  He looked more plastic than ever. I told him how I was feeling.

  Chin up, he said. We’re doing another trial in a few months with evening primrose oil.

  Goody, goody gumdrops, I said. I can’t wait. (Into myself.)

  Afterwards, we went to the hospital canteen. Rita was dying for a cigarette. She’d started smoking again. While she queued for tea, I asked the old man at the next table if he needed help opening his sandwiches. One of his eyes was sewn shut and he had golliwog badges on his lapels.

  That’s very good of you, hen, he said.

  I opened the cheese and pickled onion sandwich by stabbing the cellophane with the end of a spoon. Thank you very much, hen. You’re very kind, he said.

  I liked feeling useful.

  Rita came back with tea that was far too strong, and synthetic cream doughnuts. She asked me if I still felt like going to Next.

  If you think we can park really near and if I can sit down in the shop, I replied.

  I loved shopping with Rita. She was like a dragon slaying away all the junk to get to the bargains. I wanted to buy a dress for Ivan’s graduation. I’d seen a sleeveless polkadot dress in their catalogue.

  On the way to Next I kept thinking about the wee man and his golliwog badges.

  Imagine him saving up his marmalade labels and sending away for the badges, I said to Rita. He must have had the whole collection on his lapels.

  Poor old soul, she replied. He probably lives on his own if he had no one at the hospital with him. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

  No, it doesn’t, I said.

  Square window. June 1985. Helen’s in the dining room, looking at the birds in the garden.

  stranger What are you doing?

  helen I’m watching the birds. The bastards wake me up all the time and I can’t get back to sleep.

  stranger You look very sad.

  helen I am sad. It’s Ivan’s graduation today and I felt too ill to go. And it’s raining.

  stranger It’s a shame you can’t be there.

  helen He’ll be so handsome in his graduation robe and I should be with him, wearing my polkadot dress – afterwards, they’re going to the Ubiquitous Chip for dinner and I’ll be stuck here counting rooks and crows.

  stranger What’s the difference between a rook and a crow?

  helen A rook’s a kind of crow – a gregarious Eurasian crow to be precise. They nest up high and are very noisy.

  stranger How do you know?

  helen I saw it in a documentary.

  stranger So what’s a raven then?

  helen It’s a large carrion-eating crow.

  stranger I see…so when will you see Ivan again?

  helen He’s coming here at the weekend to watch Live Aid.

  stranger At least that’s something for you to look forward to.

  me Rez and him are going to Greece for two weeks in September. Then he’s going to Dundee for a post-graduate course. I’ll never see him again.

  stranger I’m sure that’s not true. By the way, how’s the blanket? I see you’ve been crocheting.

  me It’s only half finished and the baby’s due next month, but it’s boring as well as tiring. I was going to knit something, but I couldn’t be bothered with all the ‘knitting two backwards’ stuff. Crocheting needs less concentration.

  stranger It’s good to have a project, it gives you a goal.

  me I suppose so, but white gets grubby so easily. It’ll look second-hand.

  stranger Well, it’s the thought that counts, and you could always wash it. Oh, and before you go, I was just wondering, what’s a jackdaw?

  me A jackdaw’s a small grey-headed crow, noted for its inquisitiveness.

  I wish a plane would crash into the house when everyone’s out. Rita and Nab have got insurance. They’d be okay. I heard Rita crying in the toilet last night.

  I love the sun. It burns up the pain in my muscles. I’ve been lying in the garden all week. Brian can’t stand the heat. My God, he says, it’s like Alicante here today. I’ve painted my toenails red.

  Back to see Bob.

  He wanted me in his evening primrose trial. I should have been honoured – evening primrose oil costs a fortune. Bob explained that it contains an essential fatty acid called GLA that can inhibit inflammation, boost the immune system and improve circulation. Essential fatty acids have to be taken through diet as they are not manufactured in the body. He told me cheerfully that evening primrose oil had helped people with multiple sclerosis and eczema, and gave me a note for the hospital pharmacy. He also gave me a diary to record how I was feeling. I was to go back in a few months.

  The pharmacist gave me two huge grey canisters. I opened them in the Red Cross port-a-cabin cafe. They were packed with translucent yellow capsules with a hospital smell. I had to take six a day. I hoped it was the real thing and not the placebo.

  When I got home there were postcards came from Jana and Ivan. Jana was in the States, travelling round with an old friend. Ivan was in Greece but wished I was there. I pinned them up beside Sean’s card. He was in Boston for two weeks with Peter.

  Rita and Nab had a September weekend dinner party for people Nab worked with. I didn’t feel up to joining them. I came downstairs when they were having coffee and felt like a child, allowed to join the adults as a treat. Heather had brought four-week-old Zoe over. She was scrawny with a rash. I lied and said she was lovely. She squirmed in my arms like a ginger kitten. I was scared I’d drop her. I joked she’d probably be five by the time I’d finished crocheting the blanket. Heather asked how I was and I told her about the yellow capsules.

  Can’t get back to sleep for the whistling and warbling and screeching. In a few hours there will be high heels on the pavement going past the house to the train station.

  My family will be getting up.

  Car doors will be slamming.

  People with real lives will be doing real things.

  10

  Halloween

  WE’RE LOOKING THROUGH the round window. Helen’s been ill for two years now, can you believe it?! How time flies!

  Rita and Nab have ordered her a double bed. They think she should have a bigger bed since she spends so much time in it.

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nbsp; Sean’s started Glasgow Uni. He’s studying psychology and politics. He’s staying at home his first year. Helen would miss him so much if he left.

  Ivan’s gone back to Dundee to start his MSc.

  At Halloween, I dressed up as an invalid and lay on the couch to welcome the other guisers.

  Mrs Bhatti’s grandson came round, chaperoned by his mother who had a long Rapunzel plait and too much mascara. She was separated from her husband. The story was he’d stabbed her because she wouldn’t move to Karachi.

  The wee boy was wearing a bin bag over his school uniform. He started to recite To A Mouse the minute he was in the door. His voice was shaking and he got quieter and quieter with every word. By the third verse you could barely hear him. Rita told him he’d done enough, he could stop. He looked like he was going to cry.

  Brian was in charge of handing out the apples and oranges. When we’d finished clapping, he solemnly gave the wee boy a handful of monkey nuts and said, That was lovely. Would you like an apple too? The wee boy nodded and Brian handed him an apple like it was an Olympic medal. Then he said, Would you like some chocolate? The wee boy nodded and Brian put a handful of mini Mars bars into his plastic bag. He turned to me and said, Have I given him enough?

  We’d fallen out earlier because I was leaving the broken shells in the bowl with the rest of the nuts. Don’t do that Helen! he’d said, painstakingly picking out the old shells. You can’t get the good ones if you do that! But I’d kept doing it and he’d told me to fuck off before locking himself in the bathroom and giving himself a row. When he came out he said he was sorry for ‘squaring’ and he wouldn’t do it again. Where did you hear that word? Rita’d asked him. At my centre, he said. Martin stole Donny’s girlfriend and Donny told him to fuck off. Well, said Rita, Donny’s very rude to use that language and I don’t want to hear it in this house again.

  For the rest of the evening his presentation of apples and oranges and mini Mars bars was flawless. Before Rita took him home, he hugged us all and said again he was sorry for squaring.

  Ivan was supposed to phone at nine. The last of the guisers had gone and the minutes peeled away, but the phone didn’t ring. By quarter to ten I couldn’t stand it anymore and rang his flat but the phone rang back with the bleak, distant tones you get when you know no one’s going to answer. He was going to a fancy dress party at the Art School. He was dressing up as a wolf. I imagined some art student tart unzipping his costume, My, what a big cock you’ve got…

  He was coming at the weekend. I couldn’t wait. I hadn’t seen him for a whole month. The last time he’d visited he’d taken me for a drive up the loch. When we were feeding the swans he’d said, You’re too pretty to be ill.

  So if I was ugly, being ill wouldn’t matter?

  That’s not what I meant, he said.

  A hundred years ago it would have been romantic to be ill, I said – I’d be in a sanatorium in the Alps and I’d sit in a wicker chair and write you heartbreaking letters.

  And you’d be spitting up blood in a clean white hanky, and the day you died I wouldn’t get to you in time, and a rosy-cheeked nurse would run across the lawn with tears in her eyes.

  And you’d fall in love with the rosy-cheeked nurse whose huge breasts would be bursting out of her crisp uniform.

  He’d laughed.

  On the way home, we’d gone to the Swan Hotel for tea and biscuits. They’d changed the decor and had new swan-shaped salt and peppers with intertwining necks. I’d looked out leadenly at Ben Lomond, wondering how I’d ever managed to carry such heavy trays back and forward – three summers in a row.

  I’d watched Ivan come back from the toilet, weaving between the tables, so lovely and healthy and sure of himself. I could make jokes about Alpine nurses but I could never bring myself to ask him about the other women, the women I was sure he had one night stands with. He didn’t even bother bringing condoms anymore.

  I was hardly in a position to object.

  When she hears Ivan’s car crunch into the drive she gets up. She doesn’t want to be in bed when he arrives. She’s wearing lipgloss and new leggings. When he comes upstairs she’s sitting on the side of the bed. He opens the door. She gets up and falls into him, leaning on him ‘til her legs tire. She takes his hand and sits down again.

  I like you with your glasses, she says. You haven’t worn them for ages. They’re sexy in a geeky way.

  I was too knackered to put my lenses in, he says.

  D’you like my new bed? she asks. Maybe you can sleep beside me tonight instead of in the spare room.

  Maybe, he says.

  He looks exhausted.

  He’d slept beside me in the new bed and it had been delicious just pressing next to him in the dark. I’d told him how much I’d missed him and asked if he’d missed me.

  Yes, but things have been hectic.

  I would love things to be hectic, I said. I can’t remember what it feels like.

  I know, he said, stroking my hair.

  How was the Halloween party?

  All right.

  Just all right?

  Yeah. There was one guy there who was a pain in the arse. He kept saying that his favourite toy when he was wee was a sheep’s neck bone painted green and black. He wouldn’t shut up about it. Typical art student. He wasn’t even dressed up.

  What about you, did you enjoy being a wolf? I said.

  It was too hot and itchy.

  Did you huff and puff and blow any houses down?

  No, but I gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood.

  Is that why you didn’t phone me?

  Don’t be silly! I already told you, I didn’t get away from the lab ‘til after nine. It was hectic.

  He kissed my ear.

  Don’t be sad, Looby. I missed you, I wished you were there. Honest I did.

  I hope so, I said.

  It’d taken me ages to fall asleep and he’d woken me up in the middle of the night, sleep-talking. (The plants are coming to get us!) I’d teased him in the morning and told him he’d been moaning about a girl with a red hood.

  At Guy Fawkes, Richard’s parents had a firework display for the kids in the back garden. (His wee sister was only nine. His parents’d had a late baby to save their marriage.) I sat on the kitchen step, blanketed in Nab’s sheepskin. The children were writing their names with sparklers. I wrote Ivan’s name and it melted into the air before it was formed. I’d wanted him to come back this weekend, but he was writing an essay on leprosy and armadillos. You shouldn’t have left it ‘til the last minute, I’d said, and then you could’ve come, couldn’t you?

  We’re not all like you, you wee swot.

  I’m not a wee swot, I said, I just don’t leave things ‘til the last minute. (I knew I was using the present tense. I should’ve been using the past.)

  He’d told me to dry my eyes.

  From nowhere, I suddenly missed my father: he was holding my arm as I held a sparkler, guiding me to make shimmery zigzags.

  When I went home I could see funny outlines on the ceiling for hours afterwards. My eyes always did this now after bright lights – like your retinas were hanging onto an image for too long.

  Back to bed after lunch, I was thinking about a horse I might have killed when I was twelve: the riding school teachers were scary twin brothers with black fringes, who shouted at you when you couldn’t do a rising trot. I stopped going after I accidentally fed Basil (a handsome chestnut) a plastic bag. I’d been feeding him sugar from a sandwich bag and he’d eaten the bag too. At the time he’d seemed unscathed, but I’d been too scared to go back the next week in case he was dead.

  About four o’clock, Rita brought me up a cup of tea and a mini Swiss roll covered in chocolate.

  Thanks, I said. I love these mini rolls. I could eat a whole packet.

  So could I, she said, but they’re so fattening. It’ll take more than yoga to shift the calories.

  I was thinking about trying some yoga, I said. I found your old book wi
th the guy in the purple leotard who looks constipated.

  I’d forgotten I had that. It must be falling to bits.

  I sellotaped up the spine, I said.

  Well, make sure you’re careful and don’t overdo it.

  I thought the stretching positions might be good.

  You need to learn to breathe properly before you can benefit from yoga. You should really try to meditate first.

  I can’t meditate, I said, it’s impossible. I can’t empty my head. There’s always something cluttering it up. Today I was thinking about that time I fed a horse a plastic bag. D’you remember?

  It wouldn’t have done it any harm, said Rita. They’ve got stomachs like iron.

  How d’you know that they’ve got stomachs like iron?

  I just assume they do.

  I laughed. That’s the kind of thing that Granny would say.

  Well, they say we all turn into our mothers, don’t they?

  I don’t mind turning into you but I wouldn’t want to turn into Granny.

  Right, I’m going into the garden for a bit if you want me. I’m going to rake up the leaves.

  It’s a shame about Ivan’s granny, isn’t it?

  Yes, he was saying she might have Alzheimer’s.

  She keeps over-watering the plants and she tried to boil potatoes in the kettle.

  He’s quite close to her, isn’t he? said Rita.

  He is, and I can’t help feeling jealous that she’ll take him away from me. I hardly see him as it is.