The A to Z of You and Me

B

Back

I’M LYING FACE down, with my head sideways on your pillow. My senses are wide, wide open. I have never, ever experienced anything like this while sober. My hearing is absolutely clear, and the scents I am breathing in are blossoming and blooming in my brain. The clean, fresh smell of your hair from the pillow, the smell of the resin of the wood of your bedstead.

This is the first time I’ve had my shirt off with you, and the feel of the sheets on my skin is just so vital.

And now I am tracking your lips in my mind as they prickle down from the base of my neck, down past my shoulders, down, down my spine. And your fingertips too trace back and forth, outwards and back in, in the line of my ribs, delicate, delicate, your hair now hanging down, brushing softly from side to side on my skin, leaving a tingling trace in its wake.

You find your way down to the lowest of my ribs, and I suddenly flinch and tense, almost fling you from me.

‘No,’ I say. ‘That bit’s too ticklish.’

You lie up against me and murmur in my ear — ‘That’s what I was looking for’ — before heading back down, and kissing there again, right there. And now my whole back is unable to take any more, and I cry out and turn over, and I can see you there, laughing wickedly.

‘I love that bit,’ you say. ‘It’s torture.’

Awake now.

I’m awake.

What?

I can see the grey-green plane of the lawn beyond the magnolia tree through the window. Did that light just come on? Or was it always on, and it was only me who flicked on?

I’m confused.

What woke me then? I’m sure there was–

(((Uuuuuh)))

Oh, oh no.

It’s her next door again. The groaning woman and her groans. It’s at a frequency where I can sort of hear it in the wall. Thin wall, then; hollow partition.

(((Uuuuuh)))

I put my hand on my brow, and for a moment, that’s all there is of me. A hand on a brow, swashing and scrunching and scratching, and knuckling the eyeballs now. Itch, itch, itch to get this sound out of my head.

((Uuuuuh))

But it won’t go, of course. There’s no stopping it. I can’t believe she always starts up right when I’m trying to get to sleep, just — just as I’ve dropped off into peaceful slumber it’s–

(Uuuuuh)

It’s ruined. And it’ll get worse. It always gets worse. If it was the sort of groan that stayed the same volume, I could put it out of my mind, but it changes. It grows louder and louder. Keeps you listening. It’s like Purgatory.

The light outside flicks off again.

(Uuuuuh)

Blood

Think blood. What can I say about blood? A complete history from start to finish.

Uuuuuh

In the beginning, I was a few cells of blood and — whatever it is babies are made of before they’re properly human. The abortable mush. How is it that embryos or foetuses can develop intricate veins and capillaries and auricles and ventricles and all that stuff? Amazing, really.

Uuuuuh

So, birth, lots of blood there, but not mine, so much. The divvying up between me and my mum. Everything that was on the outside of me was hers, everything on the inside mine. And what shall we do with this bit? Cut it off, sling it away, snip snip, medical waste. We’ll not talk of it again.

They fry it and eat it sometimes, don’t they? Cannibals.

Uuuuuh

Uneventful childhood, my blood would see the light of day through kneescrapes and headbangs, testing the coagulation — no haemophilia — then pretty much just ripped cuticles, before the great event of — what, about 1982? — when my sister tied my wrist to the back of her bike with her old skipping rope and towed me off down the street on my trundle truck. I distinctly remember how I imagined the wind would riffle my hair as Laura pedalled and the streets and houses would sail by at sixty miles per hour. This was going to be great. Three thrilling metres in, I was yanked from my plastic seat, and I travelled the following five metres on my face, before Laura stopped and turned to see why pedalling had become so laborious.

Then she dropped her bike and ran away.

That’s probably the earliest drama for my blood, flooding on to my screaming face as I stumbled up the steps to my mum, the wooden handles of the skipping rope jumping and hopping on each step as I climbed. Mum had been sitting on the edge of her bed, putting on her make-up.

She told me I staggered into her room like a murder victim.

I had to have an injection.

Dr Rhys had half-glasses, and was kindly and had lollies in a tin on his desk.

‘You, young man, have a blood type of AB positive, it says here.’

The blood type struck a chord with me, because I was learning my ABCs. And AB seemed good. ABC might have been better, but, well. Maybe I should have that on my gravestone: AB positive. Alongside height and shoe size. For future generations to know, you know?

After I totalled my trundle truck, the story had to be circulated on the family grapevine. Come Sunday, I was around to my grandma and grandad’s to sport my scars. We stopped off there every week after church, even after Dad died. They wanted to see us.

‘Stop picking.’

Mum relished telling the tale of the trundle truck to my grandma, carefully crafting every last detail to make Laura seem much naughtier than she actually was. It made me guilty and embarrassed, so I stopped listening. I looked at the telly. The telly wasn’t on, but I looked at it anyway. Laura sat next to me, quietly fuming.

‘He was bleeding like a stuck pig. He looked like a murder victim. But he only had one or two cuts — I couldn’t believe how much blood … Anyway, Dr Rhys was telling him he was AB positive, wasn’t he, bab? Quite rare, he reckoned.’

Grandad leaned over to me and muttered with a mutinous air, ‘What blood type was Christ?’

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so he lifted his wine bottle and sloshed it at me.

‘Ten per cent by vol?’ He wheezed in lieu of a laugh. ‘A nice bit of Beaujolais?’ Wheeze. ‘That’d get me back to church on a Sunday morning!’ Wheeze.

I was fourteen when I started seasoning my blood. 1989. What, twenty-six years ago. Over a quarter of a century.

That’s probably the next chapter point after Laura ran for the hills and I lost my no-claims bonus on the trundle truck. That’s such a short time, 1982 to 1989. It’s no time at all, is it?

That’s actually shocked me a bit.

Vodka and orange in our school flasks. Me and Kelvin. We raided Kelvin’s dad’s drinks cabinet and filled Kelvin’s Transformers flask with vodka and fresh orange. More by luck than judgement, seeing as vodka doesn’t smell of anything, and we pretty much got away with it. I was cagier about it than Kelvin, but I sat in a haze through geography, and then in maths Kelvin was sent out of the class for being boisterous. I’ve no idea if the teacher realized. Probably. They say they always do.

Anyway, we did get caught out: Kelvin’s mum had a big go at him for taking all that fresh orange juice. It was a luxury purchase in the 1980s.

I mean, it’s amazing, blood. The quality of your blood makes for the quality of your life.

I seasoned my blood with a few choice herbs and spices. Nothing wrong in that. Everyone’s at it, in one way or another. Glug down blessed blood, or sup on fermented liquids, or draw in vapours or smoke — or whatever.

And the blood carries it around your body, flavours your brain.

And your heart.

And your lungs.

And your liver.

And your kidneys.

‘So, you have a blood type of AB positive, it says here.’

I nod. Dr Rhys is still sporting his pretentious half-glasses after all these years, like some Harley Street bigshot. What’s it been, thirteen, fourteen years? Almost fifteen, actually, since the trundle truck. He still has a tin of lollies on his desk. Will I get one today? I still suck them. We take them into clubs, big baby dummy-shaped ones, sucking them like children. Sweets and E, back to innocence, back to childhood. Pure pleasure.

‘I should update our records here. Do you — um, are you a smoker?’

I nod.

‘Roughly how many a day? Ten?’

‘Twen— ahem — twenty.’ It’s hard to talk quietly sometimes. Have to clear my throat.

‘Alcohol?’

I nod.

‘Units a week?’

I’m not sure what units are. I know pints.

‘Pff—’ I look at the ceiling. ‘Maybe about twenty pints?’ Twenty seems fair.

Dr Rhys writes it in, and then scrunches up his nose. ‘Recreational drugs …?’ Slight involuntary shake of his head, before peering back at me for an answer.

Here we are: we’re here; we’ve got to tell the truth. I don’t mind telling him the truth.

‘Um, grass.’

‘Marijuana?’

I nod.

‘And speed too.’

‘Ecstasy?’

I nod. I’m quite impressed he knows it.

He makes a few notes. His ancient chair creaks as he adjusts his brogued feet between the wooden legs. I’m grateful for his professional silence.

So anyway, I tell him I’m thirsty all the time, going to the toilet all the time, and then there’s the weight loss. I look at him closely. He knows what I’m thinking. He’s got the notes. He’ll be thinking the same. He’ll be thinking about what my dad died of. He’ll be thinking, mmm, family history of early cancer deaths on the male side … what are the odds of … hmm.

‘I’m worried it might be cancer,’ I say. ‘I think that’s why — well, it’s taken me a while to come and see you.’

‘But you don’t think about giving up the ciggies?’ he says, without looking up from his piece of paper.

He must feel the silence beside him, because he looks up at me over the top of his glasses, and pauses significantly.

‘Your symptoms could indicate any number of things,’ he says, looking back down at the papers. ‘Best not to speculate. What I’ll get you to do is take a short stroll down to the blood-test unit, and we’ll take it from there.’

My head’s pounding as the bloods nurse leeches out the liquid. I should tell her. But I need to be strong. I should tell her I’m not feeling so good. The ceiling is bearing down on me, and this place is so hot. It’ll pass, no doubt. I haven’t had any breakfast, and I’m feeling weak and sick, hot hospital, waiting ages for my name to be called.

And those phials, filling the phials full of black. It’s so black. Less red in those little phials, more inky black. And quite smelly. Smells like — like what? It smells like a climbing frame. Unpainted iron climbing frame. Is — is the iron on a climbing frame the same as the iron in your blood? I could ask, but I don’t want— Stupid.

The floor falls away from me.

‘Jean, we’ve got another one.’

‘It’s always the men, isn’t it?’

The results are right there in front of him. Right there, on paper. But all he’s doing is sitting there in his chair, trying to get his mouse pointer to open the right bit on his computer screen. He totally knows my mind is racing away–

Cancer cancer cancer cancer

— and the bottom’s dropping out of my stomach.

He’s punishing me. He’s making me pay for not looking after myself and for taking drugs, and for leeching the NHS of all its resources, because he likes his job to be nice and easy.

Cancer cancer cancer cancer

‘Well,’ he says, exhaling through whistley nostrils, ‘your tests indicate a very high level of blood glucose—’

And you’ve got cancer

‘—which indicates to us that it seems your pancreas, which is a rather important organ situated here—’ and he circles the air around my belly ‘— just, uh, just below your stomach cavity, is not functioning properly—’

And you’ve got cancer

‘Now when your pancreas produces insulin, that insulin gets pumped into your bloodstream to help you absorb the sugars, you see?’

How long have I got? He’s wittering on, and all I want to know is the answer. I should have asked my mum to come with me. I actually want my mum. No joke.

‘Now this is a major change.’

That’s it. He stops and he looks me in the eye, and he says slowly, ‘This is a major change.’

I nod, comprehendingly. What’s a major change?

‘People find it takes a good deal of adjusting to. But it’s largely a matter of self-discipline. Before you know it, it’ll be something you don’t even think about. A little jab — pop — and you carry on just like everyone else.’

‘So I need to inject myself?’

‘Yes, yes, but modern kits make it all very straightforward and easy, and a lot of the time people say they can do it without anyone even noticing. Or if it’s an awkward situation, you know, you can take yourself off to the loos or wherever and sort yourself out there.’

So I’m injecting myself? I have an image of grimacing and straining to pull the tourniquet tight with my teeth and jabbing a hypodermic into my throbbing vein.

‘And then there’s no reason why you can’t live as long and happy and fulfilled a life as anyone else. There are tens of thousands of people living with type one diabetes in the UK, and they all get by just fine. Hundreds of thousands.’

And this is the first time he has said diabetes. I’m completely sure of that.

So it’s not cancer.

I have not-cancer.

‘I was totally shitting it!’ I say, the relief flushing through me at the Queen’s Head as I reveal the verdict to Mal and Kelvin. ‘All I could think was cancer, you know? Cancer or AIDS. I’m telling you, though, if they’d told me it was cancer, I’d be straight up to Hephzibah’s Rock, and I’d take a running jump, straight into the river. I’m not going through all that pain and agony. I would wait for a perfect sunny day. I would leap into the blue, slow motion at the top of the arc of my leap, my face warmed by the summer sun, drop into the Severn and get washed out to sea. I wouldn’t be scared. It’d be hep-hep-hoorayyyyy — splash.’

‘No, don’t say that,’ says Kelvin. ‘Don’t joke about stuff like that.’

‘You’d be shitting it too much to do that,’ says Mal. ‘Unless you were completely caning it on E or something.’

Something about me doesn’t quite like this idea. Knowing that Mal most likely has a pocketful of Es makes it all a bit real. A bit seedy. A bit possible.

‘No,’ he says, ‘you want to slash your wrists, don’t you?’ He draws back his sleeve to bear his wrist and draws along it with the nail of his little finger. ‘What you want to do is cut a line, from here, down to here. Along the arm, see? Most people try and go across, but it just closes back up. Don’t cross the path, go down the highway. Job done.’

‘Ah, Mal,’ says Kelvin, squirming. ‘That’s sick.’

‘What?’ Mal shrugs. ‘Better that than being hooked up to a big bank of machines.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘If I’m hooked up to a big bank of machines, just switch me off. I don’t want to know.’

‘Hey, man, I’d switch you off,’ Mal says with comedy earnestness. ‘I’ll make sure you get a decent send-off.’

‘But would you then fling me off the top of Hephzibah’s Rock?’

‘For you, anything.’

‘Hep-hep-hoorayyyy ….’

‘Splash.’

Electric click from outside as the security light switches my window out of darkness. Stark electric shadows branch from the tree, flee across my sheets frozen now mid-flight. Shift minimally in the wind.

Uuuuuh

The groans of the woman next door start up again, sparked by the light, no doubt. This is the world I live in now.

It almost doesn’t matter to me.

That’s how it is.

Out in the corridor the fire doors unstick and thud, and footsteps quietly approach.

Sheila appears at my doorway and peers in to see if I’m awake.

I’m awake.

‘Are you comfortable?’ she murmurs in her twilight voice. ‘Do you need anything?’

‘I’m awake,’ I say. ‘I’d rather be asleep.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sure I could get you something — I’ll just have to take a quick squint at your notes.’

‘No, no, it’s all right,’ I say with a sigh. ‘You can probably ignore me. I’m being grumpy.’

‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ she says, charitably. ‘It’s enough to make anyone grumpy, having that light come on all the time.’

‘I thought they’d fixed it.’

Uuuuuh

‘Useless, aren’t they?’ She pads over to the window and looks outside.

‘Unless it’s someone setting them off for a laugh. Kids, like.’

‘That’s what worries me a bit,’ she says. ‘There’s rich pickings in the store cupboards. Medication, needles. Some people will do anything to get their hands on that stuff.’

Uuuuuh

‘Oh, hark at her, eh? You could set your watch by her, couldn’t you?’

‘It’s the same every night. She doesn’t know she’s doing it, does she?’

‘Oh, no. It’s only snoring really.’

‘She’s not in any pain?’

‘No, no. But it’s the medication too, you see. That has an effect. Sometimes we can change it, which might ease things.’

Uuuuuh

‘Every time she starts up, it snaps me awake again.’

‘I always think she’s like Old Faithful, you know, comes out with a big burst of noise every hour on the hour.’

‘Is she all right?’

Uuuuuh

‘She’s a very poorly lady, I’m afraid. Very poorly. But she’s a fighter, definitely, bless her. She’s fought every step of the way.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘There are some people you meet who totally restore your faith in the job, you know? She’s one of them. A genuinely lovely lady. Gentle, uncomplaining.’

‘Not like me,’ I say. Half joke.

‘Oh, you’re all right, aren’t you? Keep yourself to yourself.’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’

She sits now uninvited in my visitors’ seat. Do I mind? No, I don’t mind. I quite like the presumptuousness. It’s nice when nice people presume I’m nice. It makes me nice.

‘Listen, I’m sorry if I upset you yesterday — that business with the blanket and all.’

I look down at the blanket, which is now installed permanently around my shoulders.

‘No, don’t be,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. It was a bit unexpected, is all.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Mia,’ I say without thinking — and the shape of the word in my mouth, the sound of it in my ears feels — it feels strange. A sound I used to make every day, many times a day, but which I haven’t for — for years now.

‘Special one, was she?’

‘Yeah. Another person who’d restore your faith. She was a nurse too, actually.’

‘Oh, right? Whereabouts?’

‘All over. She only just got past the training, she worked a short while.’

‘Yeah, so many of them drop out in the early days.’

‘Mm.’

‘What did she want to do in nursing?’

‘She was into getting to the root of things. Alternatives, you know?’

‘Yeah, like um — holistic medicine? Reiki, hypnotherapy, stuff like that.’

‘Yeah. She wanted to work with patients individually, depending on what they needed.’

‘Oo, she’d have her work cut out there. They’re under so much pressure, those departments.’

‘Yeah. Bum-wiping and processing them on, isn’t it?’

‘Bum-wiping if you’re lucky. That’s what I love about working here at the hospice: you get to spend time with people. They come in here and they’re scared, because they don’t know what to expect, and you can really turn them round. You can make a difference when they’d maybe spent their whole lives dreading the name: St Leonard’s.’

‘“Come out feet-first in a box”,’ I say.

‘You see, it’s so bad people say that,’ she says a little agitatedly. ‘It makes me so cross, because it’s not true. We do so many positive things here.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘Oh, don’t be daft, I’m not having a go at you. So — what happened then, with … Mia, was it?’

‘Oh — didn’t work out.’

‘Tell me she didn’t end up with some consultant.’

‘No, no.’

‘Because they’re real Flash Harries, that lot. They all need bringing down a peg or two.’

‘No, no. It was all my fault. I messed it up.’

She winces, sympathetically. ‘That doesn’t seem like you.’

‘I made a few bad choices. Just — I tried to live up to— I really, badly wanted it to work, but I could just never seem to make it happen. I couldn’t get my act together, and I don’t know why.’

‘Oh, Ivo.’

I smile, ruefully. ‘I’m just an idiot, I think.’

‘Well, my darling, you won’t find anyone judging you here, all right? You know and I know there’s plenty of people between these walls who’ve paid a very heavy price for doing nothing wrong at all. And you can bet there are thousands of people out there on the streets who’ll never pay any price for being total — yeah, Flash Harries. It’s not fair, but there it is. It’s for no one to judge.’

She stands herself up from my chair.

‘Listen, I say this to everyone, but I mean it with you, because you’re one of my specials: if you want to talk about anything, then I’m here for you. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Thanks, Sheila.’

‘And if you don’t want to talk about anything, then at least do yourself a favour and keep your thoughts in order. There’s your A to Z game. Or think happy things. Maybe about this ex; if you had happy times together, no one’s stopping you from going away back to them in your mind. It might be helpful, is all I’m saying.’

I draw the sheets up around my middle.

‘I don’t mean to say anything untoward,’ she says.

‘No, no. Not at all.’

‘It might help is all.’ She sighs and scratches her arm a moment. ‘Anyway, sounds like Old Faithful’s gone off the boil again. So give me a buzz if you want anything.’

‘Will do. Thanks.’

She pads away down the corridor, and as I hear the double doors slip shut behind her the security light flicks off once more.

It’s been lovely to talk about you with someone who understands.

It’s been lovely to feel strong enough to think about you at all.