Love on the NHS (25 page)

Within his own life, this existence of one person among billions, he could not even find answers. He did not know why he had fell in love with the people he had or whether he had made a good friend. Often failure seemed his natural state - but was that mere depression infiltrating his logic or was he absolutely right, and should he have ended his misery sooner? What his purpose was, who knew? If he did not in some way act as a force for good, perhaps that was because such notions were fanciful and pious; but then at least he needed to feel some sense of connection and affection for some of his fellow humans. "Is my life now as good as over," he considered, "before it has even began?"

At last he was freed from his internal ramblings and taken for a recorded interview. Before it began he was permitted to speak with his designated lawyer.

"Ah, so you're the lover, are you?" laughed the greying, six foot gentleman.

"Yeah, that's me."

"You've really had the police and the Ombudsman worried. They thought you might be a terrorist."

"What? You've got to be joking."

"No, no. They were surprised you sent a letter to their office address. When they receive a letter because they're a government organisation they have to have it forwarded to somewhere to be checked it hasn't got anthrax or a bomb in it."

"Ridiculous. I haven't done anything wrong."

"Don't worry. You'll be fine. Just so long as you stop contacting her. Your social worker's Clara isn't she?"

"Yeah."

"You're not going to tell her you're in love with her too, are you?"

"No," managed Luke despondently. He had never felt more insulted. So this was justice.

In the interview the police warned him he could be charged with harassment if he contacted Jolly again and from henceforth he was ordered to never get in touch with her. So long as she informed the police she did not want him to contact her he was prisoner to her whim. He decided to accept her punishment. He recalled something his mother had told him: loving a person was like loving a dove. You had to set them free. If they returned, they loved you. If they did not, they never did.

It was easy for Luke to respect Jolly's wishes but he could not deny his heart. A few days later, he had never felt more like leaving his mortal coil. He had been treated like a vile criminals, spoken down to and assumed the worst of; and he was not like some pimp selling or buying vulnerable women or a physically menacing, abusive husband or ex-boyfriend; nor some common badger-baiter or cock fighting enthusiast. He had not even intended to be mean verbally or in writing. His opinion, however, seemed expendable to everyone else. So he gave up on mother nature and made his way closer to her ancient breast; three evenings later, a Friday, he bought a bottle of Malibu coconut and rum at the local shop and he delved into the forest; among the horses, nightingales and shrubs.; deep into the forest.

But what Luke saw as nightingales were to anyone else blackbirds. He was more rich in emotions than in knowledge. Perhaps it was just as well.  The dreary reality would not have eased his open hearted wound. He drank his bottle with ease and looked about him, listening to the sounds of faraway laughter and birdsong. Then he took his carpet knife he had brought in his pocket and made a movement to cut his neck - but it did not open a cut and so he kept trying. He could feel marks but they did not penetrate.

"Let me go!" he cried.

Then he did something in sobriety he would not have. He phoned various family members and broke the news he was trying to kill himself. An instinct of self-survival had dissipated his beautiful exit like a mirage. An ambulance was sent for him which drove him to the Duldrum accident and emergency ward. There he waited for a long time and was treated with disdain by the doctors and nurses. It so much offended his sensibilities that it was the final straw and he pulled the curtains around his bed, then tried to hang himself. Now death was in reach. It had never felt so close, the very air within him vanishing. But no, there came a  last gasp for life. The people in neighbouring beds were alerted and along with nurses, security guards and doctors rushed to open his curtains and pull him down. The next morning, when all the alcohol had left his system and he said to them he self harmed due to drunkenness, they let him go. For now the darkest hour had passed. He threw his energies back into painting.

XL

Sending letters to art galleries took a long time but Luke was not to be deterred, he really wanted to be exhibited. He believed his art was original, that it had something different about it. His mother had told him so and although he protested to her, "You're biased, you always think I'm great," she had replied, "No, I really do think there's something unique about your paintings. Other painters put in more detail but yours have something most don't have." Luke wanted to believe in himself but he needed success to prove him right. He did not want to be a van Gogh who achieved greatness after dying - it was still fantastic but it would cease his misery while he lived and breathed.

He sent letters to fifteen galleries in London giving them a link to his website where his art was displayed. He wrote to the two galleries he knew of in Woecaster as well. Luke received seven replies, of which all but two were rejections. The two that were not stated that selection took between one to three years and that he would be contacted if his quest to be displayed was successful in due course. He felt utterly demoralized. Luke would not be the first nor the last aspiring artist to have their career hopes dashed so completely.

Then a brainwave struck him; he would write to a few companies of lawyers. In his letters he attempted to persuade them that having art by a young artist on their wall would give their company an edge and a contemporary relevance, as well as provide inspiration - but none replied. He had looked through windows from the outside into lawyers' offices and noticed most had modern, conceptual, abstract pictures adorning their walls. Very few had portraits or landscapes, either of the classic or contemporary kind. It reminded Luke of most people's houses he had visited. They would usually have a dreadful three-piece set of paintings in which a curve was in a slightly different arc on each one. The colours would be bland and flowery or gauche: but to what end? Luke could appreciate some abstract art was brilliant but the paintings most people bought were just mass produced tat sold to gullible people who tried to be sophisticated. Nobody seemed interested in any art like his. Luke supposed that an art that required hours of effort in catching the essence of a person had suffered the same decline as artisanal craftsmanship - who bothered to have a gargoyle carved into their home nowadays? Most people were more than content to own a identical home to all the others on the street without an original, well-built feature anywhere present, cheap conservatory and all.

He could picture it. One day he would be dead, and in the news there would be a little column about it. "A Man Who Died Too Young" or something similarly pathetic.  There would be quotes from neighbours and old college peers, "He never seemed to do much. A quiet guy, nice to everyone." No one would mention he had sent art to them, of course not! None of those art galleries would be forthcoming with quotes. There would not be a soul mentioning he had complained against their hospital or that they bullied him in school. It was always the same. Whenever someone died it was, "He was such a nice guy, quiet." That or, "A funny person who lit up a room, a character, never to be forgotten." Luke only wanted recognition so he could impress Jolly. I may as well give up, he thought. He had often talked with other artists who told him to continue, to not care what anyone thought. It never struck him as good advice. An artist producing endless unbought paintings was likened in Luke's mind to a writer publishing a hundred books and yet barely anyone reading a single one; that was not a good use of a person's time.

Luke was twenty years younger than Jolly though was nothing as unusual about this than may first be assumed. Luke's own mother was ten years older than Jolly and his father ten years older again. Luke had an outlook that was in many ways at odds with people of his own generation and had more in common with some older people. He would have liked to have known more about Jolly. Often the desire to ask her had arose but he had always been rebuffed by her shield of professionalism. This did not render getting to know her better completely impossible as - being curious, in the way people are wont to be as human beings - he had an internet search to see if he could find anything about her.

To his shock, he found a website she was master of. It was a site that arranged the rental of paragliders for holidaymakers in Turkey. To know a woman so privileged, so successful, owning an overseas business was unimaginable. How could two such different people's paths have crossed? He did however find something disconcerting and it made him wonder about Jolly. She used a nickname on some websites and had used it to write a false review for her own paragliding business on a comparison website.

He also found a post written under the same pseudonym on a message board. In the post, she wrote about her dissatisfaction towards life with free and uncouth language that was awfully unladylike. Luke did acknowledge however she was only human, just like him. He could not understand though why she had chosen to set up a business in Turkey, being such a kind lady. Turkey had a bad human rights record - its treatment of its ethnic minority of Kurds including mass pre-trial detention, its use of "unmodified" electro-convulsive therapy on patients until a scathing report had been  released by a campaign group and the fact that honour killings were apparently a weekly occurrence there. When he thought of all she must stand for, in wanting to work for an organisation like the Health Service Ombudsman, and to right wrongs, it seemed absurdly contradictory she should have invested in a country plagued with sexism, disablism and racism.

Luke wondered, then, if she was not such a nice person deep down. It occurred to him she may have invested in Turkey only for the sunshine and one of the lowest tax rates in Europe. Surely not, she was too pure to have such greed in her soul! He did not want to be disaffected of the image of perfection which had come to him like a vision. Why had she got him arrested for simply falling in love? For being a little too forward about it? He could not get his head around it. She knew he had Asperger's syndrome too but showed no mercy. The discovery of a fraudulent review, foul language, bitterness. Was a picture adding up of a wretched, selfish witch? Maybe - but he could not decide that to be so. No matter what, he would probably forgive her. Like any dedicated lover, he would let it all slide. His place was to understand, not judge. Her heart, to be sure, was in the right place. That was it, he decided: she had invested in Turkey in an aspiration to change the country. Jolly was a fixer, not an opportunist.

He could not contact Jolly so he appealed for assistance to the gods. Reading of Greek myths written in the dawn of man's time, he learned of how people had seduced those who would not hear them speak with music. He saved his money for many austere months bought a digital piano. Maybe that would resonate with Cupid and the stars. Week after week he slaved himself over the keys until eventually he could play. He uploaded some performances onto YouTube and hoped through some twist of fate Jolly might be moved by them. Or if not her perhaps an echo would reach him or her ... a shadow or a whisper from a ghost of another time, because it felt to him in his superstition he had known Jolly in another life.

Besides looking to the heavens for manna, Luke continued to wander around Woecaster in his days. It beat sticking around Furchurch listening to Pete's tuneless metal music and the speeding motor vehicles passing his apartment. Jolly had upset him so much he felt a need to talk about it and so he made regular walks to the Samaritans. They would often say when he told them about his Asperger's syndrome, or how he could not make friends with anyone, "But you're talking so well to me!" It was that old chestnut people always trotted out. A simple, organised social transaction being taken for granted as proof someone was socially competent.

 Since he liked to read, he pop in to the Waterstone's bookshop on Dianna's Gate most days too.        On One Saturday, when he entered, there was a pile of clinical looking books which on closer inspection turned out to be copies of the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition). Luke had heard a lot about it. There was an uproar about how this doctor's bible was medicalising ordinary human emotions. Even grieving after the loss of a loved one was now something that could be diagnosed as a mental illness. It made Luke shiver - but then it was not the only book in the shop that made a person despondent. Next to it Luke saw a journalist's book about his investigation into people trafficking.

As Luke read the blurb on the back, it dawned on him he had never grasped the scale of the problem. According to the journalist's findings, trafficking was commonplace. The journalist reported many men in the first world slept with trafficked women working as prostitutes. These women were beaten and robbed of their earnings by their pimps who had brought them over or bought them. It made Luke angry. And to think that people were charged by the police for urinating on a street or injecting themselves with heroin when sheer evil like that was ongoing. Officers of law should have been focusing their efforts on helpless people like those women. Perhaps they would as the amount of female officers increased. Rays of sunlight are most longed for just before they rise. Luke tried not to feel too hopeless - the publication of this miniature tome and its prime position in bookstores could be an indication the problem was at last being tackled.

Assaulted by the violence of the world, Luke began to pay closer attention to domestic chores. Jolly might have rejected him because he was not a fine enough man for her. Then he must improve. He did not trust the police but even they had played their part in making him pause to reflect on whether needed to reform himself. Where previously he had let stains in the toilet sit for a few days, he began to clean immediately after its use by scrubbing thoroughly. Mopping of the bathroom floor became more frequent and he tried to never go to bed without having washed all the pots, even if they were piled high. Such tedious tasks left to linger had exacerbated his depression in the past. He had been told that women did not like men who were unhappy - and so he must try harder to be content.