Mum …
It felt good, like the pain in her was leaking out with the blood, like a terrible pressure was being removed. It was soothing. She slid down the wall.
Mum …
But as she sat there, things quickly changed; there was too much blood. First she was gripped by a creeping nausea, then a desperate fear rose up inside her. Her thoughts faded, and she felt she was going to black out.
Dad Mhairi Calum …
Tearing the towel from the rail, she wrapped it tightly around the wound, applying as much pressure as she could manage. She pushed herself up, staggered into the front room, lurching towards the phone. Her pulse battered in her skull as she dialled 999, and grunted for an ambulance. — I made a mistake, she heard herself gasp over and over again. — Please get here soon.
And that’s putting it mildly …
The towel was already saturated in the blood. Crawling on her knees, she forced herself to the front door and opened it. Sat waiting by the door, feeling her eyes grow heavy.
… mildly …
Emerging into some kind of consciousness in the hospital, she was assailed by a procession of solemn faces who explained that they’d got to her in time, told her how close it had been, and stressed the luck she’d enjoyed on this occasion. — Please don’t tell my dad, she repeatedly begged, when they’d sternly asked about contact details and a next of kin.
— We need to inform somebody, a short, middle-aged nurse explained.
All she could think to do was give them Alexander’s number.
They stitched her up and gave her a pint and a half of blood. Alexander came round later, and took her home to the Pilrig flat the next day. He brought her Chinese food and spent the night on her couch. She was asleep in the morning when he checked on her before he went to work. As he left, he looked at the picture in his wallet of his two children. He and Tanya, they had to be there for them. But he came by to check on Alison that evening, telling her he’d signed her off on two weeks’ leave, informing her with a grim smile that he’d ignored her resignation request. — I didn’t get a formal letter.
They’d sat up, her on the couch, him in the armchair, and started talking about their own bereavement experiences. Alexander was conscious that his had been more limited than hers. — Tanya’s father died three years ago. Massive coronary. She’s been really angry since; principally, it seems, with me. But what can I do? I didn’t kill him. It’s not my fault.
— It’s no hers either.
Alexander thought about this. — No, it isn’t, he conceded, — and neither is it your fault that your mum died. So you shouldn’t be punishing yourself as if it was.
It was then she looked at him, in mounting anxiety, letting him see her cry for the first time ever. It didn’t make him feel the way he’d envisaged it would; big, manly and protective. Her face was horribly distorted, and he shared her wretched pain, and powerlessness at being unable to make it go away. — I never wanted to die, Alison said, looking really scared, then tightly shutting her eyes, as if confronting the possibility. — No for one second … The doctor telt us if the arterial cut had been a millimetre deeper, I’d probably have bled tae death in a few minutes. I just wanted tae take the pressure off …
— You can’t get rid of the pressure. Nobody can. It’s horrible, but all we can do is try and learn to carry its burden.
She glanced miserably at him when he said that. She was thankful he’d been there for her, but was relieved when he was getting ready to go. Hoping he wouldn’t come back. He seemed to understand. — I really wish you well, Alison, he said to her.
When he left, she was content to lie on the couch in the dark, still able to smell his aftershave in the room, to feel the soft burn on the back of her hand where he’d gently touched her. Then Alison fell into a bruising sleep, ignoring the calls racking up on her answer machine. At some point she rose, eventually pulling herself through to the bedroom, and slipping under the duvet. She slumbered in some kind of peace till midday, rising and feeling stronger. Then she heated up a tin of soup, ate, put on a long-sleeved cardigan and headed down Leith Walk to visit her father.
The Rehab Diaries
Day 1
Stoned like a slug after Johnny’s hit. I knew it would be my last for a while and it started to leave my system almost as soon as I’d gained an awareness of how good I was feeling. Within a few hours I was writhing in discomfort. Lay most of the day on the wee bed, trying to catch my breath, sweating like a backshift hooker, as the vigour boiled out of my blood.
The narrow windows, which you can’t open, are surrounded by big, forbidding trees that overhang the walled back garden, shutting out most of the light. The building seems airless; the only sound the disturbing moans of some poor fucker from an adjacent room. I’m evidently not the only cunt in detox.
As the leaden dusk takes hold, bats dance outside in a small illuminated patch the trees can’t get at. I go from bed to window to bed, pacing like a madman but too scared to leave this room.
Day 2
FUCK THEM ALL.
Day 5
They’ve left this big, ring-bound, loose-leaf diary on the desk, but I’ve been too fucked to write anything the last couple of days. There have been times when I’ve really wanted to die, the pain and misery of withdrawal so fucking intense and incessant. They’ve given me some painkillers, which are probably useless placebo shite. You sense they want you to experience the torment of it all.
If I’d had the means and the energy to dispatch myself yesterday, I’d have been seriously tempted. For the last few days I’ve been feeling like I could drown in my own sweat. My fucking bones … it’s as if I’m inside a car that’s being crushed in a breaker’s yard. It’s just so fucking relentless. And I think about Nicksy and Keezbo, and how I’d have jumped in their circumstances if I was feeling like this. Why the fuck put up with it?
I NEED A FUCKING FIX.
I need it bad.
I only leave my room for the toilet, or for breakfast, the one time detoxers are required to join the others. I take my tea with five sugars, and Coco Pops and milk, scranning it back as quick as I can. It’s about all I can eat here; I usually have the same for lunch and dinner, which I always take in my room.
Last night, or the night before, I got up for a piss. There’s a couple of thin-glowing night lights in the corridor, at skirting level, and I very near shat myself as this uplit, sweating beast came lumbering towards me. Some part of my brain told me to just keep walking, and the monster looked briefly at me, mumbling something as we passed each other. I said, ‘Awright?’ and carried on. When I came out of the bogs the thing had thankfully gone. I don’t know if this was a dream or hallucination.
Day 6
Woken from a jaggy, nightmare-stuffed sleep by an aggressive storm of birdsong. I force myself to rise. Can barely look in the mirror. I’ve been way too uncomfortable to try and shave and I’ve grown a thin, scraggy ginger beard which looks redder and thicker than it is, cause of the spots on my face. The yellowheads are repulsive enough, but it’s two big boil-like fuckers on my cheek and forehead that cause the distress. They throb under the surface of my skin like a Peter Hook bassline, hurting my face every time I try to move it. But my eyes provide the real shock; they seem pushed right back into my skull sockets, a deathly, defeated look to them.