5 June 2004
The detox was the easy bit.
Now we’ve got to give him a reason to stay clean, and alive, or it was a total waste of time.
‘He needs something to keep him distracted. How about ballroom dancing?’ Ant says, keeping his voice down. We’ve sneaked downstairs after Joel has finally fallen asleep.
Weirdly, Joel has been glued to a new Bruce Forsyth show where celebrities try ballroom dancing. ‘I doubt learning the foxtrot would be enough to keep him off the hard stuff.’
‘Some day trips, then?’
‘Would riding the rollercoasters at Thorpe Park give him a greater sense of purpose?’
We’re eight days past the intervention and beginning to make tentative plans for the rest of Joel’s life.
Ant laughs. ‘I was thinking about something a bit more meaningful. A cemetery tour?’
‘That would only work if he was afraid of dying.’
Ant gets up, opens a couple of beers and hands one to me. ‘You know, he went through a bad patch once before, last summer. Stopped turning up for his shifts, hung out with the wrong people.’
‘You’ve no idea why?’
Ant shakes his head. ‘It was like being on the shore and watching a boat get further and further away. I tried, but it happened after Dad had another stroke, and I only had so much to give.’
‘I’m sorry about your father.’
‘Yeah. He’s more stable now but not the man he was. Old age sucks. But losing Joel would have been so much worse. He’s been my best mate my whole life.’
‘I hope he’s out of the woods.’
‘Thanks to you. I still don’t get why you’ve done so much for him, Kerry. Unless you are an actual saint.’
I take a swig of the beer. It’s a question I keep asking myself. Why didn’t I turn around and leave him in that squat? I’d gone there to shout at him, not rescue him.
The stink of the place comes back to me, so strong it turned even my stomach. And the moment the rags in the corner rearranged themselves into the shape of the first man I loved is one I will never forget.
‘You saw that place, Ant. I don’t think I’d have been able to live with myself if I’d left him there and he’d died. Even if he’s no longer the Joel I knew.’
Ant nods. ‘You two were close, once. I even thought you might end up . . . well, together.’
I laugh a little too loudly. ‘I’ve never been his type.’
‘No. Sure.’
‘I ought to get back home, I’m behind on revision.’ I give Ant a quick hug. ‘But we’ve crossed one bridge, right? He’s clean.’
It’s hot and busy as I walk along the seafront, still holding my beer bottle. I don’t feel like rushing back to the bungalow. The atmosphere there is as oppressive as the weather: Elaine has no idea Tim has failed, but she’s sensitive to the tension and keeps asking pointedly if anything’s wrong.
Everything is wrong. Before, I always thought that whatever our ups and downs, at least I could trust Tim. Now I don’t believe a word he says.
I should walk away from Tim and Joel. Marilyn would have told them both to piss off. So would my mother. But I don’t have their confidence, never have done. While they loved the limelight, I stayed hidden – until that moment on the Lawns when Joel needed me, when I suddenly felt I existed. No, more than that: I felt I was worth something.
Is that what I’m trying to get back, by being needed? The thought makes me want to escape, from them and myself.
The sun on my back reminds me of India. Could I run away right now? Sneak back into the bungalow for my passport and driving licence, then get on the train to Gatwick and board the first plane south? I could be seeing the sunrise on a beach tomorrow morning. Alone.
But I won’t do it. I have exams to take, my own future to plan. Also: I’m not a quitter. However mad it seems to everyone else, I have to see this through.
I have an abseil booked for the day after my last exam and, on instinct, I decide to drag Joel along with me. He puts up a token fight, but I think he’s relieved to get out of the cafe.
On the drive to Arundel Castle, he keeps checking his reflection in the wing mirror. ‘Shit, I look rough. Older than my dad.’
He is pale, but since withdrawal, he’s had a fortnight of wholesome food and his body has lost the bloated look, while his face is a lot less gaunt.
‘You looked way worse in the squat. Didn’t you have mirrors?’
‘A couple, but they were for snorting meth and coke off.’ He gives me a sideways glance, as though he’s still half expecting to shock me.
‘Amazed you could afford coke. Unless it was paid for from all the money you made selling drugs to Tim?’
He shakes his head. ‘Coke’s cheaper than you think. And I only ever charged Tim what I paid. It was him started me off selling stuff, did he tell you that?’
Tim has no idea I’m in touch with Joel. I don’t bother to explain my long absences from home, though we’ve both told Elaine I’m doing a lot of overtime to pay for the wedding. The wedding I postponed last week.
I told Tim I couldn’t go through with it, that I had some serious thinking to do about our future. He didn’t try to change my mind, though he begged me not to tell Elaine until I’ve decided what I want.
Why didn’t he try to persuade me I was wrong? He’s ashamed of letting me down with the exams and the drugs, but it’s less than a year since he told me he couldn’t be the person he is without me.
Have we both given up too soon?
‘So this thing today. Why the hell are you doing it again?’
‘To raise money for a local hospice.’
‘What does shimmying down the side of a castle have to do with a hospice?’
‘Nothing specifically. It’s one of the things people sponsor me to do, for lots of different charities. I started doing this kind of stuff a couple of years ago, for fun. I’ve done a sky dive, a bungee jump, a midwinter sea swim.’
He exhales. ‘Woah. You jumped out of a plane?’
For a fraction of a second, I’m back there: the noise vibrating through me, my heart rate soaring, as the flimsy plane took off. Within seconds, we left the runway behind and the green fields became patchwork squares, the rivers the silver threads that stitched them together. ‘The freefall was good. But the flight itself was the best part. From up there, everything is beautiful. Even the poor old pier. I mean, it looked like matchsticks, all stacked up in the turquoise sea.’
‘Was it hard to jump?’
‘It was a tandem thing so I didn’t have much choice. Though I’d do it again like a shot.’
I remember clouds and cold brilliant air and my body at the mercy of gravity as we plummeted towards the beautiful curve of the earth . . . then the sudden kick as my buddy activated the parachute, and the feeling I had of wanting to be there forever.
Joel is shaking his head. ‘When did you turn into a full-on adrenaline junkie?’
‘You’re not the only one who’s changed, Joel. I’m not the same nerdy girl I was at school.’
Arundel Castle is ahead of us, on its own little hill, and the first butterflies flutter in my tummy. We park up and join the other abseilers in their purple tabards. As they chat nervously, I realize everyone but me has a personal connection to the hospice.
I am a fraud. Hospices do a brilliant job, but I’m here for the thrill, not the cause. It’s become a standing joke at work. Hardly anyone sponsors me anymore because they’ve got so bored of ‘Krazy Kerry’ and her latest stunt.
‘How high is that?’ Joel points upwards.
‘Just under two hundred feet. It doesn’t compare to jumping out of a plane.’
I volunteer to go up with the first group of fundraisers. We’re fitted with harnesses and told what to do, though it’s hard to concentrate, knowing Joel is watching. Tim never comes and I’ve never minded, because this is my secret vice.
With the others, I climb the stone steps up to the keep, where they’ve erected a scaffold structure to attach the harnesses to. I drink in the panoramic view – bright green fields, darker clusters of trees, red-brick houses grouped together to form communities, and, furthest away, the glistening blue band of the sea.
A middle-aged superhero couple push to the front – the wife is dressed as Wonder Woman, her husband as Superman. They’re bickering till the moment the woman steps off. Her face is set in a grimace as she disappears over the edge.
‘She had to go first to make sure I would go through with it,’ Superman says to me. ‘I’m bloody terrified of heights.’
‘Why are you doing it then?’
‘Our daughter,’ he says, and I immediately regret asking because his eyes blur behind his tears. ‘Would have been unbearable if it hadn’t been for the hospice.’
‘Come on, you big fat coward,’ Wonder Woman calls from below. ‘Get it over with so we can start on the brandy!’
Superman squeals in delighted panic all the way down.
My turn. I climb onto the scaffold plank, my harness connected to the rope. I hear the wind in my ears and I tune into the thump of my heart in my chest. I love this sensation, it’s the most alive I ever feel.
‘Ready, sweetheart? Turn round, lean back . . . and off you go.’
It lasts only seconds but oh, what seconds! Adrenaline and gravity and the whooshing view of Sussex over my shoulder as I accelerate, unable to take it steady.
‘Kerry! Come on, Kerry!’
It’s Joel: the only person who knows my name. As my feet hit solid ground, I want to run back up the stone steps and do it again. Joel appears from nowhere and he’s grinning. ‘That took guts, mate, I’ll give you that.’
I blush. This feels embarrassing, him witnessing my excitement. ‘You should try it.’
‘No one is ever going to let me do that with an ICD, are they?’
‘They might.’ But I remember the forms I had to fill in, and the disclaimer I signed. They definitely wouldn’t.
‘Ah, fuck it, I never liked heights much anyway. But you do. You’ve got this wild look. Happy, though. No offence but these last few weeks, I haven’t seen you smile once. And now you can’t stop. You look like the old Kerry again.’
‘You make me sound like a right miserable bitch.’
‘Detox isn’t a laugh a minute for anyone, is it?’
We’re back to how we were back then, for a moment. All the justified anger on my part, all the self-loathing on his, forgotten. It’s not embarrassing for him to see how much I love this.
It’s intimate.
The gap between us narrows – I can’t tell if he’s moving towards me or me him or both – and I look at his lips and remember how it felt to kiss them, and oh, how much do I want to feel that way again . . .
The cheers behind us as the last abseiler lands on the ground snap me back to reality.
‘Right, back to Brighton before rush hour,’ I say, backing off and trying to remember where I parked the car. What the hell was that about? Joel broke my heart. And he’s a junkie. I’d have to be a masochist to get involved again.
As I drive us home, he bombards me with questions about my other challenges, as though he’s scared I might say something about what almost happened.
When I pull up outside Girasol, he is still talking, fast, and it takes me a moment to tune into what he’s saying.
‘. . . and I could do it too.’
‘Do what?’
‘One of your mad sponsored things. I want to get fit again. I could raise something for your favourite charity.’
‘You really don’t have to, Joel . . .’
‘I’d like to. If you and Ant aren’t going to let me die, I’d better find something to keep me occupied.’