Nepal is a long way to go to get away from hard liquor, but you are determined to leave it behind and get addicted to Zen. You say it’s less harmful for your liver than vodka. I manage a smile as we agree a figure and say our goodbyes. You don’t ask why I would want to buy the house. You are too busy fighting your own demons to see mine and I can forgive you that. I am not good at sharing the deep things. I guess that’s why I’ve left it all until now.
The sale goes through quickly and I put the money in a building society for you and distribute the rest out to each child-satellite for an early inheritance as you requested. It doesn’t take long for it to be gone and wasted. At least I have the bricks and mortar to show for it.
When you drift – especially like I did – you need an anchor. You need something that you belong with and that belongs to you, and I have nothing else. Everything that was solid is gone. Even you have left me for the goats, mountains, prayers and dysentery of a mystic land.
I don’t know it then – I’m too dark in the drift – but we are all deconstructing. The boys are in London and you think they’re just being young and wild and angry at you for the whole Shetland experience, but they are in fact starting the degeneration that will have fully set in by the time you come back. It won’t be long before their landlady kicks them out, starting a lifetime habit, and as with all the landlords that follow, no one will blame her. Not even Davey and Simon themselves.
Penny is living what I choose to imagine is a fabulous and glamorous existence on some Costa or other. It later turns out that she has her share of problems, but, as I stand in the small room, I can’t see that her life would be anything other than perfect. And Paul? I never really know what’s going on with Paul. As I stand in the back room peering out of the window I don’t even know where he is. He either answers his phone or he doesn’t. And I’m not much in the mood for talking. The words have all dried up at the back of my throat. On a subconscious level I have come home to fade because I can’t see where else this bleakness can lead. And I want to be left alone while I do it. There has been too much talk. Even my own words barely make sense.
I know that I could go to Penny and she would welcome me with open, glowing arms, but I wouldn’t fit there. I don’t think I fit anywhere but here. Here is safe. Here I don’t have to face my broken marriage and my broken heart or what’s left of my broken mind that the pills are fighting so valiantly to repair. Here I can breathe and let the cracks show. And maybe bleed through them a little.
I peer out through the curtain and the sun is shining brightly, glinting on the chains of the swings. I can feel it on my skin through the glass. It feels good because the house has that coldness buildings get when they have been empty for too long. The heating will be on for days before it manages to breathe any life back into the walls. I can hear the boiler raging. I think it will take more energy than it can produce to warm me. I can barely feel my insides most days. I stare out through the glass for a little longer before turning to face the remnants of the room that Penny and I used to share.
It’s the same, but not. I can see that you have been distracted by the changes in your life. Like you, the dimensions of the room have stayed the same, but the contents have changed a little. It’s odd, a bit like adjusting to the new you. You are sober, but still compulsive as you seek answers for the failed marriages and the years lost in an alcoholic haze. Eventually you’ll leave the questions behind, but not yet. I trace my finger on a windowsill that feels almost damp.
Parts of the room are gone. The small beds we occupied have been dismantled long ago and you have replaced them with a desk and a small lamp. The room is obviously intended to be a study of sorts. There are
The sale goes through quickly and I put the money in a building society for you and distribute the rest out to each child-satellite for an early inheritance as you requested. It doesn’t take long for it to be gone and wasted. At least I have the bricks and mortar to show for it.
When you drift – especially like I did – you need an anchor. You need something that you belong with and that belongs to you, and I have nothing else. Everything that was solid is gone. Even you have left me for the goats, mountains, prayers and dysentery of a mystic land.
I don’t know it then – I’m too dark in the drift – but we are all deconstructing. The boys are in London and you think they’re just being young and wild and angry at you for the whole Shetland experience, but they are in fact starting the degeneration that will have fully set in by the time you come back. It won’t be long before their landlady kicks them out, starting a lifetime habit, and as with all the landlords that follow, no one will blame her. Not even Davey and Simon themselves.
Penny is living what I choose to imagine is a fabulous and glamorous existence on some Costa or other. It later turns out that she has her share of problems, but, as I stand in the small room, I can’t see that her life would be anything other than perfect. And Paul? I never really know what’s going on with Paul. As I stand in the back room peering out of the window I don’t even know where he is. He either answers his phone or he doesn’t. And I’m not much in the mood for talking. The words have all dried up at the back of my throat. On a subconscious level I have come home to fade because I can’t see where else this bleakness can lead. And I want to be left alone while I do it. There has been too much talk. Even my own words barely make sense.
I know that I could go to Penny and she would welcome me with open, glowing arms, but I wouldn’t fit there. I don’t think I fit anywhere but here. Here is safe. Here I don’t have to face my broken marriage and my broken heart or what’s left of my broken mind that the pills are fighting so valiantly to repair. Here I can breathe and let the cracks show. And maybe bleed through them a little.
I peer out through the curtain and the sun is shining brightly, glinting on the chains of the swings. I can feel it on my skin through the glass. It feels good because the house has that coldness buildings get when they have been empty for too long. The heating will be on for days before it manages to breathe any life back into the walls. I can hear the boiler raging. I think it will take more energy than it can produce to warm me. I can barely feel my insides most days. I stare out through the glass for a little longer before turning to face the remnants of the room that Penny and I used to share.
It’s the same, but not. I can see that you have been distracted by the changes in your life. Like you, the dimensions of the room have stayed the same, but the contents have changed a little. It’s odd, a bit like adjusting to the new you. You are sober, but still compulsive as you seek answers for the failed marriages and the years lost in an alcoholic haze. Eventually you’ll leave the questions behind, but not yet. I trace my finger on a windowsill that feels almost damp.
Parts of the room are gone. The small beds we occupied have been dismantled long ago and you have replaced them with a desk and a small lamp. The room is obviously intended to be a study of sorts. There are
Similar Books
