Wasted (12 page)

Jess gathers the dishes. “Five minutes. If you help with these.” But her mother is back. And she is not looking happy. The words she uses when she comes into the kitchen and starts crashing around while making a cup of very strong coffee are not for repeating here. It would not be fair, for Sylvia is not herself and she has had an unpleasant shock. It is not normal for her ex-husband to phone the house.

“What's he done, Mum?” Jess doesn't need this right now, the inevitable over-reaction from her mum.

“He's only bloody coming, isn't he?”

“When?” Jess does not know what to feel. Mostly, she does not want to see him, not right now. There is enough going on in her life without the arrival of her father. Jess feels a stab of selfishness. Yet… She hasn't seen him for two years, when he'd taken her into London, no expense spared. It isn't that she is mercenary, but she doesn't hate him as her mother does. Just hates the situation and being in the middle of it and feeling obliged to please both of them. Being the glue that fails to hold them together.

And there's another thing. Months ago, when she'd been thinking about music college, her friends had said she should ask her dad about paying for it. So she'd mentioned it in an email. When Sylvia had heard, she'd been so unreasonable that Jess had ended up storming from the house and staying out later than she should have done. And then when she'd planned to talk to her mum again the next day, Sylvia had clearly been in no fit state. Jess had seen Sylvia snatching a quick gin. Was that wrong? She didn't know, just that it had felt kind of secret and dirty. And that was when Sylvia had started to show distinct signs of extra flakiness. And Jess had really started to think there was a problem with the alcohol levels.

Jess had to stop thinking about music college then. She couldn't ask her dad again, not if it was going to upset her mum so much. But she so wanted to. And much as she'd been trying to forget, the forgetting had only been surface level.

But now – what is so different about now? Maybe it's being in the band; maybe the bond with Jack is making it easier for her to stand up for what she wants, or making her more selfish – and why shouldn't she be selfish? Anyway, now she is losing patience with Sylvia and her flakiness.

“Couple of weeks.” Sylvia spills the milk and curses. Jess grabs a cloth and deals with it. Though her lips tighten.

“Look, maybe I should go,” says Jack. “Just come along when you can? Yeah?” Jess looks at him, shaking her head. The band is where she wants to be. Jack is where she wants to be. Her mum must look after herself. And her dad is not her problem.

“Mum, look, I have to go – we have to practise. For the prom?”

Sylvia looks at her, blue eyes childlike. “When's the prom?”

“Mum, you
know
when. Not next Saturday but the one after.”

“But that's when he's coming! That weekend.”

“Well, he can't! Sorry, Mum, but you'll just have to deal with it – that's my weekend and he doesn't get to turn up and spoil it.”

“He's over on business, so I suppose that's the only time he can see you. Business, of course, not that he'd ever…”

“Well, tough. I have to go, Mum. See you later – don't know when.” And Jess moves to leave the kitchen, leaving the rest of the dishes for Sylvia. This is not like her but Sylvia will have to deal with it. This is the least of the things that Sylvia will have to deal with. Surely she can manage some dishes?

“But, Jess,” Sylvia wails. Jess looks at her. Sylvia is so quivery. She looks as though she needs a cigarette. Jess looks from Sylvia to Jack. And back.

Jack speaks. “How about you fix a time on the Friday or the Monday? Like, lunch or something?”

“Yes, Mum, why don't you tell him that? Lunch on Monday. I'll have finished school and I can go into town and meet him. He doesn't even need to come here.”

“Why don't you tell him, Jess? Email him? You know how he makes me feel when I talk to him.” Jess is about to tell her mother not to be so stupid but then she sees her hands shaking and a thought crosses her mind.

Jess turns to Jack. “I'll see you outside – OK?” She pleads with her eyes and he takes the hint.

“Lovely to meet you, Sylvia. See you soon. And thanks for the breakfast.” Not that Sylvia has done anything. But she smiles vaguely and says something more or less appropriate back to him.

Jack disappears and Jess looks hard into her mother's eyes. “Listen, Mum, I need you to get a grip. Dad can come and take me to lunch and it's no big deal – you're just making it a big deal. And yes, I will email him and yes, I will tell him he can't come during the weekend and he can pick another time on Friday or Monday but you have to…” And then her courage fails her. How can she tell her mother to stop drinking? How can she hurt her like that? How can she step so far over the mother–daughter boundary? Besides, something is pulling in another direction – she wants only to be with Jack. She can't think about other stuff. Not now.

And so she simply says, “Don't let it screw you up, Mum. I love you but I have to go. Please just … just look after yourself. I'll be back this evening. I'll phone you to say when. But we can eat together, OK?” What Jess is really saying is,
Don't be drunk when I get back, Mum, because I will notice, you know? And I don't want to.

It is entirely in Sylvia's control whether she does or does not get drunk. After all, can she not control whether her hand reaches for the gin bottle (supposing there is a new one in the cupboard, which there probably is, as alcoholics are good at planning ahead, if nothing else)? If Sylvia is in control of her arm muscles – as, of course, she is – she can do this. It's so simple.

But if it was that simple, life would be easy. Sylvia controls her arm muscles but she is not very good at controlling Sylvia. Maybe events control Sylvia and everyone's arm muscles. Maybe it will depend on who phones or what thoughts enter her head unbidden or any number of good or bad things. Perhaps if the sun shines today then Sylvia will feel happy and go outside and not think about gin. Perhaps she will paint and perhaps her painting will make her feel good. Or perhaps it won't.

All we can say truthfully is that she either will or won't drink today. It should be her choice. And it should be a simple one. So how come it isn't?

Anyway, Jess must go, for Jess has a life to lead and songs to sing and a love to live.

HEADY
days follow. Jack spends sufficient hours revising for his last exam, but otherwise their days are spent singing, learning the words, growing into the new part, new life. Jess doesn't need to go to school at all now – practising for the prom, especially since music is what she wants as her career, is something the teachers are happy to allow her to do for these last two weeks.

For Jess it is easy, most of the time, to block out unwelcome thoughts. Her body and mind are invaded by a pleasure which easily outweighs fragile mothers and uncertain futures. Sometimes, when she is not with Jack, uncertainty forces its way back in and she briefly knows that there will be decisions to make. But she is happy to think of today, this week, next week, the holidays, and to let the far distance approach at its own speed. Her mind is filled with now, and there is enough of that to satisfy her. She will skydive and trust the parachute.

But Jack is dangerously tormented by a thought and a need. He feels too lucky just now: he has met Jess, fallen in love, found his perfect band member, and she doesn't even have a boyfriend. And now this other thing – that she came to no harm when her drink was spiked. He knows how easily it could have been different and how lucky they were.

Wrong. What Jack can't ever know is that, in fact, Jess was not
lucky
but
unlucky
. He doesn't know that she so nearly didn't drink the spiked vodka and that unluckily the doorman decided to let Marianne enter the bar, thereby distracting Chris and Ella, who would otherwise have stopped her.
Lucky
would have been if Marianne had been barred from entering.

Trouble is that Jack now feels a need to make a sacrifice to luck. Just in case. In case something bad is being stored up for him. Because he cannot ignore those stories that plaster his bedroom wall – about people who, if they'd done something slightly different, would have had a better day. Life instead of death.
If only.

Dangerous words.

Which is why Jack is dangerous.

And on Friday night – with his last exam now finished – Jack gives in to his dangerous thought.

He needs to play Jack's Game. He needs to offer himself to whatever it is that decides. You can call it fate or chance or reason or mechanics but Jack must play the game. Because that is what has kept him safe from horror since his second mother died. He knows it works because it does, even though it doesn't make sense. It just makes a hell of a lot more sense than anything else – like why a small innocent boy loses his mother twice – so Jack will play.

He can, like Sylvia, control his arm – he can decide whether to spin a coin as well as Sylvia can decide whether to lift her hand towards her mouth. But, just as Sylvia cannot control Sylvia, so Jack cannot control Jack. Thing is: if we cannot control our own arms, if we don't make such simple decisions, then just who does?

So, at night, in the dark, after Jack's dad has gone to sleep and Jess is safely back in her own house having whatever conversation with her mother (sober or drunk, we don't know), Jack is going to play the game. He doesn't yet know what it will involve but whatever it is he will let it happen. However bad or uncomfortable or dangerous. He will give himself up to it. The only decision he has to make is to play – after that, nothing is his fault.

He has been lying awake in his bed, shadows around him, watching him. And now he gets up. The moon should be allowed to see what he is about to do, so he opens the curtains. Surely, if a moon can affect tides, then it can affect the minuscule currents and mechanics that make a coin fall one way or the other?

He takes his coin from the special section in his wallet where he keeps it safe, breathes on it and holds it to the moonlight, offering it. Closes his eyes and thinks for a moment and then says out loud, “Heads is left and tails is right.” He looks at his watch. Half past midnight. He will allow one hour. Anything could happen in one hour and there is enough risk in that to satisfy any god or spirit or whatever he is sacrificing himself to.

He puts on dark clothes, takes a torch from a drawer and checks the battery. His face looks hollow in the mirror. His breathing is shallow and he feels a little light-headed. There on the bed is the T-shirt he borrowed from Jess. He looks away from it. As though he doesn't want to feel watched by her now.

Quietly, Jack leaves the house, stepping carefully along the grass edges of the path so as not to scrunch the gravel. He slips out of the drive and goes to the corner of the main road.

The moon is not full but it is bright. Streetlights bathe the road, and recent rain shines in puddles. The sea smell is salty strong tonight. There is not enough darkness to be afraid and Jack is not. Though perhaps his heart beats a little fast. But he is smiling too, his body lithe and strong and ready. If he does not do this, then the next few days may turn out differently. Or what happens tonight may have no effect – he may go on his journey and return an hour later without anything happening that would seem to affect tomorrow. Jack will not even know one way or the other. For even if nothing dramatic happens tonight, he may wake later or earlier or in a different mood and therefore what happens tomorrow may be different from what would have happened. He may make different decisions without even knowing it. This he understands and trusts. He does not want any choice or responsibility, other than choosing to spin the coin.

At the corner, Jack stops. Left or right? The coin will tell him. He takes it from his pocket and breathes on it. (Even this could change its spin.) Strokes it, whispers inside his head,
I will do all you say.

Balances it on his thumb, positions the tip of the thumb beneath his forefinger, readies his muscles to provide a certain amount of spin, not too much and not too little. Spins, loves watching it spiral, senses it seem to hang in the air before twisting down. He catches it, closes his fist around it and slaps it down on the back of his hand.

Heads. He walks to the left, striding out, breathing in the smoky night air, smelling cats' piss and rain. Spins the coin at the next corner, and the next, not even looking where he's going, just doing it. It's like playing music: you can think about the notes, plan your route through the tune, or you can lose yourself. Jack is losing himself. And how good it feels, letting go.

Jack moves from street to street. Most windows are dark and the curtains closed. Hardly anyone is about. On one corner, he passes a man and woman but they barely notice him. He looks purposeful, and if they saw him stop to spin the coin, they did not seem to think this strange. Or perhaps they think it is so strange that they wish to avoid him. At the back of his mind, he knows where he is, but he is not letting himself think about it too much. He is heading towards what his dad calls a “difficult” area. Some houses are boarded up. The patches of grass are scraggy and woven with shredded crisp packets, cigarette butts, cans, dog shit.

This street is entirely empty, silent, with only grey shapes of walls and bins and ripped posters and metal grilles on scruffy shops. A fox slinks across the road and he stops to watch it. Its eyes turn to him, yellow green in the streetlight. Why are foxes always smaller than you think they should be? More like cats than dogs.

It disappears behind a low wall and there is the clatter of something metal, like a bin lid tumbling. When Jack looks back to the street again, two men are walking towards him, on the same side of the road. They take up the whole width of the pavement. He will have to walk around them. Their hands are loose by their sides. One puts his hand in a pocket. Jack tenses, his heart thumping, blood rushing in his head. He veers very slightly towards the road so that they can see which way he is going. Part of him takes in the fact that he can see no one else. Another part wonders who would come if he screamed. Another stupid part wonders at exactly which point he should scream. It would be embarrassing to scream before anything has happened, but what if he leaves it too late?