Read Falling Online

Authors: Suki Fleet

Falling (7 page)

BOOK: Falling
5.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“What now?” he asks in a croaked whisper.

“Eleanor?” I say softly.

She doesn’t respond. She is barely moving. Only the faint but rapid rise and fall of her chest indicates she’s breathing. I’ve seen a few people enter catatonic states in my life, but I can’t bear to see Eleanor like this. She’s been like a mother to me.

“Help me take her to bed,” I say to Angus.

I can’t have this conversation with Eleanor sitting here between us but not taking part in it—it feels wrong somehow.

Between us we carry her to the bedroom and lay her gently on the bed. I leave the door open, so if she calls out, however faintly, we will hear her.

I don’t know if how she feels is in any way similar to how I felt all those years ago. If it is, I wish I’d done something to help her sooner. Being trapped in your own head ruled by anxiety is hell.

“Did your mum ever tell you anything about my past?” I ask once we are back in the kitchen, sitting down at the table.

Angus nods, concentrating on the deep gouges that scar the dark wood of the old dining table, his hair obscuring much of his face. I’m not sure how much she would have told him about my time in hospital, but he doesn’t look as though he wants to talk to me about it anyway. He probably suspects what I’m about to say.

“Did she tell you I was sectioned?”

Again, Angus gives a reluctant nod. It’s hard to talk about this, and even harder when the person you’re talking to doesn’t want to listen. I’m not even sure he fully understands what being sectioned means—what being compulsorily committed to a psychiatric hospital means.

“Those years I spent in and out of hospital were the darkest of my life, but only because I was depressed.” He won’t look at me. “I would have felt like that wherever I was. If I was on a beach in Barbados or on the fucking moon, it would have made no difference. Nothing I could have done on my own would have made any difference. The only thing that helped me was the drugs they gave me, and the ECT. I had a chemical imbalance in my brain. Things like that just don’t go away. Sometimes you have to do something about them, even if it seems hard.”

Angus glances at me sidelong.

“I would never suggest we call someone and get your mum sectioned. I think we should get her assessed, though. I think there are treatments available that can help her. I don’t think we’re doing her any favors by doing nothing, Angus. She’s getting worse. She’s suffered from anxiety for a long time, and this has just tipped the scales. Getting her addicted to temazepam is not going to help her in the long run. Those sorts of drugs don’t deal with her anxiety

they just mask it. It will become just another thing she’s dependent on.”

I hate talking about Eleanor like this, but I’m not sure she’s even aware of anything right now.

“I know. But what if they do section her?” he says in a hoarse whisper, looking up. His eyes are glassy, and I can see he’s biting his cheek in an effort not to cry. “What do I do then? Where do I go?”

“Look, we’ll deal with that if it comes to it. This is your home. You should be able to stay here.”

“How?” He swallows. “I have no money. I don’t want to go back to my dad’s. I can’t do that again.” His voice breaks, and he sags forward, resting his head on the table as though he doesn’t want me to see him crying this time. I reach across the table to stroke his thick, dark hair. “I’ve never been on my own…. I want her to be okay, Josh. I just want her to be okay,” he mumbles into the tabletop.

“I know,” I say gently.

We find a number for an emergency psychiatric team in one of the leaflets the police left behind. Angus takes the phone from me and walks to the far side of the living room to make the call.

I’m surprised. I was prepared to be the one to talk to them. I didn’t expect him to want to deal with this at all.

I boil the kettle to make a cup of tea for us both and start putting away all the food Eleanor took out of the cupboards. I am trying not to listen to Angus’s side of the conversation, but it’s hard—harder because he’s so obviously upset. I concentrate on what I’m doing in an effort to quash the stupid urge to go and sit with him, to be his shoulder to cry on. If I did that, I can’t imagine anything good coming of it, just confused feelings and mixed messages. These urges that make me want to comfort him and be there for him are throwing me off balance. I don’t know what to do for the best anymore.

Instead I try to think about something else. Thinking about Oskar alone in my flat is a good distraction. Perhaps he’s managed to call someone and find somewhere else to stay. I don’t want to chuck him out, but I can’t help selfishly wanting my flat to myself again either.

“They’ll be here before ten,” Angus says, putting the phone down on the table.

He runs his hands through his hair, looking completely washed-out. His complexion is drawn and pale.

“Tonight?”

Angus nods.

They must think it’s serious.

“Will you be here when they come?” He flicks his gaze up at me hopefully and chews his lower lip.

“I should go check on Oskar and sort out some food, but… yeah, of course I’ll come back down.”

I reach out and squeeze his shoulder reassuringly before I can stop myself. Holding my gaze, he gives me a grateful smile. Only it’s not just grateful. Angus doesn’t hide anything. He’s so straightforward. My heart is beating like a broken drum. It suddenly hits me how easy it would be for someone to fall for him. How unfair on him it would be if that someone was broken and not good enough—and this time I’m not thinking about Oskar.

I hand him his tea and quickly turn around and walk away.

 

 

“W
HAT

S
GOING
on?” Oskar asks as I slump down in the green velvet armchair opposite him.

Sighing, I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about it.

My phone is on the coffee table. Oskar has obviously finished making his phone calls. Leaning forward, I pick it up and put it back in my pocket.

“I’ve got somewhere to stay from tomorrow,” he tells me with a kind of forced brightness to his tone. He won’t look at me.

In the warm glow of the lamp, I notice he has a not unattractive band of freckles across his nose.

I sigh.

Between running over Oskar’s foot and what I’ve just suggested Angus do downstairs, I’m feeling pretty much like the wielder of doom. It’s a pretty crap feeling too.

“A friend?”

“Sort of,” he mumbles, his brown eyes flicking up to look at the ceiling, his good leg jogging up and down, making the floorboard beneath his foot creak.

Although I think he’s older than Angus and far more worldly, there is still something innocent about him. Some denial of the adult world in his actions.

“You don’t have to stay anywhere else. Look, I ran over and broke your foot. The least I can do is offer you a place to stay until you are okay again,” I reply wearily.

It might be the last thing I think I
want
to do, but I force myself to at least offer him this. I want to be a good person. I just don’t suspect I am.

“Josh, I know you hate me being here. And you haven’t even got a TV.” He tries to give me a smile, but it fades too fast. He’s just a kid like Angus. A kid who accepts bad things happen to him and thinks that’s how his life has to be. I don’t know what to say.

I change the subject. “Are you hungry?”

Before I left this morning, I made Oskar a sandwich and put it on the bedside cabinet so he would see it when he woke up. From the empty plate next to him, it looks as though he’s eaten it, but he must be starving by now. He’s thin enough as it is.

I hardly wait for his reply before I’m in the kitchen, seeing what I can rustle up with what I have in my fridge—a little fresh pasta, some bacon, cream, and frozen peas. I decide to make enough for Angus too.

Cooking is not something I ever imagined I would enjoy, but strangely, I do enjoy it. Even stranger, given my solitary tendencies, is the fact that I seem to enjoy cooking for other people.

The cooker has a built-in radio. I bought it off eBay, and I’ve never seen another one like it. The instructions are all in Swedish. I turn the radio on in between frying the bacon and putting a pan of water on to boil. I don’t listen to music. Only stories, plays, poetry slams, anything where words are spoken passionately, incessantly. It brings me great comfort, release almost—catharsis for all the feelings I don’t let myself feel too deeply. All the words I don’t say. The channels are all bookmarked and I flick through them until something catches my interest.

 

 

“T
HANK
YOU
,”
Oskar says, his eyes lighting up as I hand him a dish piled high with pasta. His reaction is too genuinely enthusiastic to be fake. It makes me think he’s not had much kindness in his life, and I feel all the worse about the past two days.

He deserves a better nurse than me.

I retreat back into the kitchen where I left my and Angus’s portions warm in the pan. I pile up another plate for Angus and take it downstairs to him.

“This is amazing,” Oskar calls as I pass the living room.

I give him a small smile. I think he’s trying to make friends, but I don’t think I can bridge the gap between us—my guilt is too great.

 

 

“F
OR
ME
?”
Angus asks, standing in his doorway and looking surprised as I hold out the plate of food.

“Eat it quick. It’s not so nice cold. How is Eleanor?”

“Sleeping,” Angus says, taking a deep breath, which he then exhales shakily.

“I’ll come back down in a bit.”

I touch his arm, no longer sure if the reassurance is for him or for me.

I know he’s staring after me as I make my way back upstairs.

I wish I didn’t like it.

 

 

O
SKAR
HAS
almost ploughed his way through the whole plateful by the time I sit down in the living room with him to eat mine. I hand him a cold beer and take a deep draught of my own. Today has been a long day and it’s not over yet.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, putting his empty plate down and then cradling his beer.

I look up, thinking,
That depends on whether you expect an answer or not
.

“I just want to ask you….” He winces, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “It’s never easy to ask someone… and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea… I mean, you’re probably not. It’s just… and I know I’ve only spoken to him for an afternoon….” I wait for him to spit it out. “I like Angus,” he says eventually. “A lot.”

“That’s not a question,” I reply between mouthfuls of pasta. Even though I’m well aware of what the question might be now he’s said that. It seems to be the day for them. No one has cared that I might be gay for the past five years, and now two people ask me in one day.

Even so, without having heard Angus and Oskar’s conversation earlier, I would probably be thrown by Oskar’s admission and not know what to say. Now I get to play it cool and pretend I have a heart of stone.

Oskar’s gaze flicks down to his hands. With his thin, sharp features and large brown eyes, he’s not unattractive, and everything he’s said and done so far indicates that, despite his air of distrust, he has a good heart underneath it all. But like he says, only a fool trusts anyone, and Oskar remains a mostly unknown quantity.

“Is there anything going on between you? Because I wouldn’t… if there was,” he sort of whispers.

“No, there is nothing going on,” I say. Though the words come out sounding much more abrupt than I mean them to, and I get the distinct feeling that that wasn’t what I wanted to say at all.

We finish our meal in awkward silence.

 

 

A
T
NINE
forty-five I go downstairs. I knock lightly, and Angus lets me in, looking more than a little stressed. I sit down in one of the dining chairs while he paces anxiously.

“Come and sit down,” I say gently. And surprisingly he does.

The plate I brought his food down on is empty on the work surface. I’m pleased. I wasn’t sure he’d eat anything.

“We need to be prepared for what they might say,” I tell him.

Angus nods stiffly as though he is preparing himself for the absolute worst. He glances at the kitchen clock.

“It’s going to be okay.” I grip his hand even as I berate myself for telling stupid lies. Even though I wish I
could
make everything okay. “Just be honest with them.”

We are expecting the psychiatric team at any moment, yet we both nearly jump to the ceiling when the doorbell rings.

Angus gets up to answer it. Two women are with him when he returns. They are psychiatric nurses. They introduce themselves as Amy Flowers and Ella King, and explain they are qualified to assess patients, and if a doctor is needed for any decision then they just have to make a call. I know they mean if Eleanor needs to be sectioned.

I glance at Angus, expecting him to be overwhelmed and wishing this wasn’t happening, but mostly he looks… relieved.

“So, tell me about your mum’s behavior,” Amy says to Angus once we’re sitting back down at the table.

Angus swallows and then tells them about last week’s burglary and how anxious it has left Eleanor.

The burglary has left them both anxious—only Angus’s anxiety is entirely proportional.

Under the table, I rub his leg reassuringly. If he notices, I can’t tell.

“Eleanor has suffered from some level of anxiety ever since I’ve known her, and she’s been agoraphobic for a number of years now,” I add when he’s finished speaking.

Angus widens his eyes at me as if to say
Why on earth would you tell them that
? But I want Eleanor to get the help she deserves. Now we’ve finally made the call, it’s as though I can at last admit how bad things have become, and this week has been… heartbreaking. Eleanor’s confidence in everything—shattered.

BOOK: Falling
5.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Jingo Django by Sid Fleischman
Second Opinion by Suzanne, Lisa
A Steal of a Deal by Ginny Aiken
Wesley and the Sex Zombies by Portia Da Costa
Heartland Wedding by Renee Ryan
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
Out Of Her League by Kaylea Cross