A to Z of You and Me (14 page)

“Well, that's what the morphine would do—give you a bit of space upstairs.”

“Like you say, let it go, get a bit of perspective. I can do this. Mind over matter. Just—are you sure, are you totally sure there'll be no visitors?”

“Everyone's aware; all the checks are in place. I've left strict instructions with Jackie to make sure everyone signs in at reception, all right, lovey?”

“All right. Thank you.”

“Only…do me a favor. If you want the morphine, go ahead and take it. You don't get extra points for style in this game.”

“No, I know.”

“Now, have you got everything? How are you progressing on your alphabet?”

“I'm up to the letter
I
.”

“
I
? Well, it's staring you in the face, isn't it?”

“I've thought about intestines.”

“No—insulin.”

“God. Is that an acceptable part of the body?”

“Yes! It's a hormone, isn't it? The main thing I remember about it is that it's produced in your pancreas by the
islets of Langerhans
.” She draws her arms out wide in a romantic gesture. “It might be my favoritely named part of the body, the
islets of Langerhans
…
And
it comes under
I
. How about that?”

I'm not convinced.

“It's interesting, though, isn't it, all the different hormones and potions your body is able to produce, just like that? Amazing, really. That's what medieval doctors used to think: your whole body was governed by humors. And if they got out of whack, you'd get ill. It's not that far off what actually happens with your insulin.”

“Yeah.”

“And it makes you think, in a thousand years' time, they'll be thinking,
What? They used to inject people? In their veins?
Seems barbaric.”

Insulin

OK then, OK. Insulin. Another
I
. The
I
that defines me. Who would ever think that something as tedious as insulin was ever going to be their biggest enemy? No one. People go through life thinking everything's going to be fine… No one can be on guard against everything. It's a slippery slope. So do what I did and be on guard against nothing. Another slippery slope.

Here we go: life is a snowcapped mountain, and all you've got to do is choose which direction your slippery slope is going to take. I say choose the sunny side.

They always told me there was nothing I'd done wrong to stop my body's natural flow of insulin. Not like some people who could never gain control of their weight in these high-sugar, high-fat days. But thinking about it, I don't think the Mars bar and the pint of Coke I used to have for breakfast every morning in the school holidays will have helped. That must have been a major trauma for the old islets of Langerhans to cope with. Brilliant times, though, at home with Laura while Mum was at work.

I remember saying to her, “Does Coca-Cola really have cocaine in it?”

“Yeah! Yeah, it does. Like a Mars bar has bits of the planet Mars in it.”

Then, at nineteen, the insulin dwindled, and that was more or less that.

My pee started smelling like Candy Hearts.

I couldn't keep the weight on.

So I got my diagnosis, and the doctor gave me my little pouch with everything in it: the blood sugar tester and the injector pen and the insulin and—

Me, my body; my body, me. I'm all the same but
not
. I didn't
want
it to happen like that. I am my
mind
. Not my body. But it was like my body wouldn't let my mind get away with it.

Mum's still in her work coat, sitting next to me on the sofa. I'm trying to watch the TV, but she's flipping noisily through
Diabetes
magazine, which she's insisted on subscribing to. I think she thinks I'm going to have a look at it, but I look at the cover and it leaves me feeling tired. Static smiling people of mixed ethnicity. They're happy because they have diabetes in common. Ha ha ha.

“You've got to stay on top of it though, kiddo,” she's saying. “People go blind,” she says. “They lose feet.”

I look her directly in the eye, and I don't know why, but I start to laugh.

“What?” she says, starting to laugh herself. “It's not funny. This is serious!”

“I don't know. It's…it's funny for some reason,” I say. “Losing feet. Seriously, Mum, don't worry about it. I can look after myself.”

Every night after that, she would say, “Have you got your insulin?”

“Yeah.”

And if not: “What would you do without me, eh?”

• • •

These early evening preloading sessions around Mal's are getting out of hand. I've landed back in the habit with you away on your work placements, because there's nothing else for me to do. But when you're actually in-town-but-impossibly-busy, I sometimes think I'd rather be watching TV in bed while you revise at the desk. But you won't have any of it. I only come over to Mal's out of something like politeness. Politeness to you and to him.

“Now,” says Mal, “what have I got here?” He roots around in his jacket pocket and retrieves a twisted little plastic bag. “Here, man, look.” He jiggles it enticingly and grins.

“Fucking hell, what is that?”

“What do you think it is?”

I look closer, at the powder, and I don't want to say it in case I sound stupid.

“
H
,” he says.

Mal's car.

It's the best option.

I clamber and collapse into the back on the driver's side. Mal swings the front seat down, locks me in. Claustrophobia quickly starts to squeeze my chest. I need to get out; I want to get out. But all exits are blocked. Becca has settled in beside me, and Laura in front of her. Surrounded on all sides with the windows steaming up. No way of opening them. No way out the back.

C'mon, put your seat belt on.

Under way, rubber rumbling on the asphalt through town as Mal manhandles the gears upward, we're all thrust backward and forward as his feet push the pedals, side to side on the say-so of his hands. I'm fumbling for the seat belt, but I can't focus. I can't…get… I don't know what's the lack of insulin and what's the drug, but I'm coming down now; it's all starting to feel more familiar. Worse than familiar. Yank again at the seat belt but the safety lock's locked. It's too awkward, too hard to do. I'm going to leave it off.

Straight orange wash of streetlights replenished on Mal's seat back, wiped out over his headrest, banished by the black, over and over in rapid rhythm.

Are you good to drive?

Yeah, I'm good to drive.

You're sure?

Yeah, I'm sure.

I try a little look across the seat to Becca, and she smiles at me, takes up my hand. I want to tell her we have to have a plan, we have to get our story straight, because you're not on placement this time, you're home, studying the night away, and I need to have an explanation. But I can't herd my feline thoughts. Becca has my hand. She's stroking it reassuringly, tenderly. It's nice, it's nice.

Out again on the street, your street, and I'm being walked along the pavement—a long, straight terrace street stretching off into the distance, and I'm measuring out my paces along the pavement, slab by slab. Tiny ups and downs, wobbly wonky. I've Laura and Becca on either side, and they're supporting, and there's no… Where's Mal?

Jangle now as Becca retrieves her keys for the front door. Laura's at my other arm, but I can feel her becoming softer, more uncertain. Less and less support. The front door unjams and judders, rattling the knocker familiarly beneath the mail slot.

“You'll be all right from here, won't you?”

Words from Laura to my right, and now her presence drains away, leaks off back down the street, back off to…to Mal?

And now it's your room, and it's you. Urgent, attentive, professional.

I look up at you as you tend to me, your forehead frowning, your eyes precise.

“I'm so sorry.”

Unscary daylight. The safe, spacey morning-after wooziness. And you're being so gentle and kind.

I don't deserve any of it. Look at you, you're shattered.

“Can you remember what happened?” you say, climbing in at the foot of the bed, giving me a bit of room. “Becca was a bit hazy on details.”

“Just fucking stupid,” I say. “I forgot my insulin, didn't I? I left it there on your desk. And I was in the club and, you know, I felt a bit weird, and I knew I was having this hyper. I thought I could ride it out.”

“So you forgot your insulin…and that's it?”

“So stupid,” I say.

“So why did Becca bring you back? I thought you were out with Mal and Laura?”

There's a significant edge to your tone, and I feel you holding my glance a little too straight. You're scanning, scanning.

“Oh, yeah,” I say with a wash of unfocused guilt. “No, Becca was there too. Mal and Laura and Becca.”

The events of last night are captured only as still images, swelling sounds. It remains aching in my limbs and squealing in my ears and my soul. Tired but alert. Remnants of trippiness in the head.

“Are you all right?” you ask. The fatal question.

“Yep, yeah. I'm fine,” I say.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” I smile. Sort of.

Maybe if I vented everything, maybe it would all work out OK. I can actually feel the tip of my tongue tensing against the top of my mouth to say…to say what?

You've tipped your head to listen, eyebrows expectant.

Launch.

“Listen,” I say, “I wanted to tell you…”

And straightaway your face grows concerned. You look away, fearful.

Bad start, bad start. Start more gently.

“It's OK, it's OK,” I say. “It's nothing major. Don't worry. But it's just…it's something I want to feel that I can talk freely with you about.”

“Drugs?” you say, looking up at me swiftly and directly. “I'm not blind. Your pupils were like dinner plates.”

“I'm sorry.”

You look at me a moment and reflect. “You don't have to apologize to me. I'm not your mum,” you say. “Why didn't you tell me before?”

“Well, I don't know. It's not something you can easily talk about, you know? And then…I don't know. I got scared because…” Again I hesitate.

“Because what?”

“Well, there's your dad and all the stuff you went through with him. And then there's the fact that you're a nurse and everything.” I quickly add this on at the end, because your face falls at the mention of your dad.

“The fact that you can't take your insulin properly,” you say. “That's what the nurse is unhappy about.”

“Yeah, well.”

I'm relieved to see some of the anxiety has passed from your face. I think maybe you thought my big revelation was going to be about Becca after all.

“Listen,” you say, “I'm not a fun killer, and I absolutely refuse to be the one who's telling you what to do. Don't paint me like that, Ivo, because we won't survive that.”

“I know.”

“But you've
got
to look after yourself. You're not like Mal and all the others—you're just not. You're not in your body, and you're not in your mind either.”

As I sit there, the scale of all the lies expands around me. Lies to myself, I suppose. But now that you're here, and you care, they've become lies to you. Missing insulin jabs since I was twenty—maybe one a day, every day. And the drugs too—not just pills. Do I need to declare it all? What can I get away with? I feel like I want to tell you everything but…would that be poisoning it for no reason?

“What's the matter?” you say.

“It wasn't only last night. There's been a few nights. Quite a lot of nights.”

“I don't doubt.” You shrug. “Do I want to know?”

“On and off since…well, before you and I were together. On and off.”

“And while we've been together?”

“The odd weekend…you know, when I was stuck at home and you were off on night shift or on placement.”

“So, what, more pills?”

I breathe out unsteadily.

“Pills. Some acid.” I wince. I hear the clicks of the corners of my mouth. “A little bit of powder.”

“Powder? Well, what, cocaine? Or—”

“Cocaine, yes.”

“Shit, Ivo.
Cocaine?
I never thought it was anything like that.”

I sit meekly, while you frown and drill your eyes into the middle of the bed between us, trying to work it all out.

“So, cocaine then,” you say.

Oh, don't ask. Please don't ask.

“That's it? You've not done…anything else.”

It's not a question. I can't answer. It's not a question.

“
Heroin?
” you say, and your shock tops out. “Jesus, Ivo, I just don't know who you
are
.
Heroin?
”

You fling the covers off and start tearing clothes from your closet, wrenching on your jeans.

“Mia,” I say. “Mia, listen—”

“I don't want to hear it. You
promised
me you'd look after yourself, Ivo. You
promised
.”

“Nothing's changed. Nothing.”

You try to pull on a sock while standing, but stumble and have to sit down. The mattress bounds beneath me as you do.

“I know you don't want to hear me, Mia, but I'm the same man.”

You pull on your shoes, tugging at the tongue and aggressively driving in your heel.

“I just…I get
bored
, all right?” I say. “Bored and
lonely
. You're the one who's working all the hours.”