Painkiller (26 page)

‘I don’t need to do anything, let
go
of me! Get off me!’

There’s a tug of war over the bag, and I’m in no condition to fight with her, not in ideal conditions, but Angelina is wearing a tiny kimono, and one of her hands is clutching the hem, trying to keep herself decent in front of the people peeping out of their front doors.

I give the bag strap a yank. I succeed in making her stagger over the kerb, losing a slipper in the process. I also succeed in pulling the bag free, and it sails over my head, landing untidily in the road and spilling my bits and pieces out of its guts.

I’m almost on my knees now, but I somehow manage to crawl to the bag and pick it up. I grab at it, but my spatial awareness is shot to ribbons, and I’m snatching at empty air. I’m a blind woman, groping forward until my fingers connect with the strap.

The bag is so heavy. So very heavy. My fingers feel like they’re being broken, but
my God oh my God oh my God
I manage to scoop up the bag, but there’s no time to stuff everything back; my car keys are left lying in the gutter.

Cars are coming, transfixing me with their headlights, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that Angelina is recovering her slipper and pulling out her phone.

‘Monica! Mon! Please! You need to understand!’ she is shouting as she dials. Then her words become noises as I put distance between us. I don’t have any time left, no chance to run back for the car, so I’m forced to blunder away, into the night. I just hope there’s enough pills left inside the bag to keep me going.

Where am I going?

I don’t know.

I need to go to my sister’s. I need to go to Surrey. If I tell her what’s happened she can hide me, tell all callers that she’s not seen me. She won’t let me down. I can stay there, and remember. Maybe call the police.

A cab comes right past me. I wave at it, and tell the driver to take me to Waterloo.

‘Are you OK, darlin’?’

The cab has poor suspension, and as it roars into central London I’m tossed around inside.

I manage to brace my left leg against the door, and I have a tight hold on the roof straps, but I can’t help it; a groan escapes my lips every time it discovers another pothole.

‘You all right, gel?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say, and I whimper as the cab lurches again.

‘You’re pissed, aren’t you?’ says the cabbie.

‘I’m not, I’m really not,’ I mumble. ‘I’ve just got a condition.’

‘Bollocks. That’s what they all say. You look like shit, darling. Sorry about this, but I got a rule. No one pukes in my cab.’

The cab thunders to a halt and he leaps out, opening my door.

‘Out you come.’

‘Where am I?’ I groan.

‘Nearly at Waterloo,’ he grunts, not unkindly. ‘Don’t worry about the fare, darling, have this one on me.’

He places my bag at my feet, and before I realise it I’m staring at the taxi’s retreating rear. I can barely focus, everywhere there are lights and noise, a collage of neon, and shouting and car engines. I’m plunging, falling into the darkest of holes. My body a black smear of pain, I look around the streets and I don’t know where I am. Then I realise. I didn’t know
who
I am. Or even why I have come here.

I sink slowly to the ground and throw my arms over my head. The clatter of boots and shoes continues around me. No one stops. I’m just a beggar, or a drunk. I’m not their problem.

Focus. I need to focus
. I think I remember something; a flash of my plimsolls as they pointed at the direction of an old-fashioned television.
When I was little.
When I was little, I think I stayed up late, and I saw a film about a man who just kept getting smaller and smaller. Eventually he got so small that he could barely get across the house without being attacked by spiders the size of elephants, climbing chairs like mountains. I was getting smaller too, the pavements stretching on for miles, the buildings hanging over me like sheer mountains. I glimpse up, and all I can see are the nostrils of people as they pass by over my head.

The lights and noises are searing my senses. There’s too much to cope with here. I cower against the world and stagger into an alleyway, and practically fall down the steps until I hear the sounds of the river.

Amidst the myriad screams of my body, yelling at my brain, demanding my attention, I can hear a tiny voice say:
The river. That’s the Thames. I think he dropped me at the Strand, and now I’m near the Embankment.

If I can just get to Charing Cross station, get across the river, then I’ll be at Waterloo. Then I can get a train to
…
 

Who? Jerry? Jenny? Who do I need to get to?
 

I press myself against a wall and drop my bag by a drain. The whole world is rippling, shimmering like a mirage. The buildings are dancing, and the world is contorting with agony. I need to get somewhere, or I need to die. It doesn’t matter which; whichever comes first.

And there he is, in front of me.

My Angry Friend.

He has come to face me, at last.

There he is, as I imagined him. Black jeans, black leather jacket. Unshaven.

‘Please,’ I cry. Every word I have to push out of my throat. ‘Help me.’

‘Sorry, love. Busy.’

‘Please. I don’t know who I am.’

He walks up to me, looks long and hard.

‘What’s up with you? Are you pissed?’

‘Help…’

He looks down at my trousers. ‘You’ve wet yourself, you filthy bitch.’

Then he looks around. He pulls a knife and holds it to my face.

‘Scream and you’re dead.’

All I have to do is scream, and he will kill me. It seems like the perfect plan, with no drawbacks. I try to say ‘It’s a deal’, but there’s nothing left inside me, just a moan. He realises I can’t do anything, just press myself against the wall and hope it might devour me.

‘Don’t worry, love, this won’t hurt a bit.’

He starts groping inside my pockets, extracting my wallet. He flips through it with professional aplomb and pulls out my debit cards.

‘There’s a cashpoint up on the Strand. We’re going to go up there, like a nice happy couple, to make a little withdrawal, and then…’ He thinks about it. ‘Then I’ll think of something else.’

The fear and the tension sends the pain spiralling into the stratosphere, and my eyeballs roll upwards in my sockets, looking to heaven, leaving my consciousness behind.

I can’t remember my address, my sister’s name, or why I’m here. I don’t think I can remember my cashpoint number.
He’s going to kill me.

But Monica
, says that tiny voice.
There’s a drawback.

I’m startled. I thought the voice was my Angry Friend, but it’s not. It’s me. Another voice. Another me. The voice knows the man will kill me when he’s finished, because I have seen his face.

(
You can’t die here
). I should not die like a broken doll, not here
on the rain-soaked steps of the Embankment; (
you have things to do
)
you shouldn’t die here, not now.
But what do I have to do? Why can’t I die here?

(
OK
)
says the voice. (
If you insist, I’ll tell you
)

The body is not mine. Endorphins flood my body, and for a brief moment, just a very brief moment, the pain subsides and I can think of something else.

I wish I had that gun. Why did I leave it behind? Stupid. But no good to me anyway. Probably wouldn’t have had the strength to squeeze the trigger. (
But you could have used it to threaten him. Think about that when you’re bleeding to death in the shadows
)

(
Stupid stupid stupid
)

While he frisks me, my arms fall around his waist, like we’re two lovers canoodling in an alleyway…

… and I can feel his knife. It’s in his back pocket. I grab the handle and slide it out; not smoothly enough, because he feels the movement and grabs both my wrists, wrenching them to my chest, crushing them hard.

‘Now that’s mine, love, you can’t have that. Give it back, now, or Daddy will have to take it from you.’

He thinks he’s hurting me. He thinks I’m a helpless, insensible, dead-eyed doll.

The fear. The endorphins. Everything kicks in.

I remember.

I can remember!
 

The memories hit me like punches, one knocking me one way, then the other. Shock after shock. I remember what Dominic did, why there’s a gun in my house, what he said after he got arrested by the police, and I am suddenly consumed with rage at what he did.

(
How dare he
)

(
Damn you, Dominic. Damn you
)

I focus everything I have, all the pain, all the frustration. I focus on the pity from my ex-friends, the misjudged comments from acquaintances, the ignorance of my sister, the disapproving looks from the OAPS, the smiling idiocy from Atos, and most of all, the terrible betrayal from Dominic and Angelina, and this final stupid humiliation from this black-booted scumbag, and my fury becomes white hot.

(
Enough
)

(
No more
)

I lash out with my knee. I catch him neatly in his balls, and he howls, and he falls, dragging me down with him. He smacks his head against the huge dustbins, practically knocking himself cold.

I grind my foot deep into his crotch. His hands flail impotently at me. (
You can’t free yourself, because you can’t think, because you can’t think about anything but the pain. That’s the tiny one per cent of the pain I feel. Now you can have some more
)

I grip his knife firmly, with both hands, and drive it deep into his leg, severing his femoral artery. He is thrashing, jerking, screaming, and I enjoy his pain.

There is a huge dark stain spreading across his crotch as he gushes like an oil well.

(
You’ve wet yourself, you filthy bitch
)

He rolls me off him and staggers away to the river, flailing, looking for help, screaming for assistance.

(
I should leave
)

And as I stand there, clutching his knife to my chest like a baby, I realise the terrible truth. Everything makes sense.

The suicide letter. The gun.

All of it.

I struggle, and I slide, like a fawn learning to walk, trying to stand up for the first time, but I manage it, and then I am picking up my bag, feeling the weight of it, and I am looking at the river, the direction where my Angry Friend ran away to lick his wounds.

(
Thank you
) I say. (
I’ve been waiting to do that to you for so long.
)

I wake up…

This is the first day of the rest of my life, and I’m leaning on a squishy chair in the corner of Angelina’s gallery.

The door of Art of Darkness bleeped when I came in, so it’s only a matter of time before Angelina comes out to see who’s here.

I ease myself into the chair, slowly, slowly. Morphine is coursing through my veins. The pain is still very very present (
God it’s present
) but I’m rationing myself to the absolute minimum. Just enough to stay conscious and move about. Nothing more. It’s difficult.

Angelina comes out of the back room, sees me, and staggers backwards, like I’ve just lunged out and slapped her. I can tell she’s looking into my eyes, and she recognises who I am. Monica. The old Monica. Before the pain came.

She falls to her knees; not easy in the pencil skirt that hugs her legs.

‘Mon?’

I speak. My voice isn’t different, but there’s a different emphasis, a different colour to the words. It feels strange in my throat. ‘Hello, Angelina.’

‘Mon… I…’

Angelina also sounds strange. I have heard her drunk, angry, stupid, disparaging…

But never afraid.

‘I’ve had a bit of a journey since I last saw you. I know, Angelina. I know everything. I can
remember
everything…’

A tear trickles down her face. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘You wrote my note. My suicide note.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ I say with some relief. ‘That’s what I remember. I’m glad that’s true. I was worried my brain was telling me a load of nonsense. It does that a lot. So, still cosy with my husband?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘I thought you were my friend. You let me down.’

‘Please…’

‘Didn’t you? You let me down, and stabbed me in the back.’

‘Mon…’ A tear rolls down her cheek. ‘I don’t want to go to prison.’

‘You won’t go to prison.’

‘Mon…’

‘I promise.’

‘Mon…’

‘I promise you’re not going to go to prison. Do you believe me?’

She wipes her noise with the back of her hand. She looks about twelve years old. ‘Yes.’

‘Then do as I say. Stay out of my way. Don’t talk to Dominic. I’m going away. There’s a man I met.’

‘A man? Who?’

‘I’m too tired and in pain to go into detail. This will explain everything.’

There is a note tucked into my sleeve. It’s a scrawled mess, but it’s legible. It’s all I could manage. I pull it out and hand it to her. Angelina reads it, and horror bleeds into her face.

‘You can’t leave us.’

‘I can.’

‘Give me one good reason why I should help you.’

‘Because you’re my friend.’

‘That’s fighting dirty.’ She is crying very hard now. ‘What about Dominic?’

‘He will understand. You will make him understand, do you hear me? Because I want you to write me another letter. For him. The instructions are all in there. Did you pick up my car keys? I notice my car’s not outside.’

She is thrown by my change of subject. ‘Your car? It… It’s round the corner. I put it in a disabled bay, and put your blue badge up, so it wouldn’t get towed. Um… I put the keys here… Somewhere…’

She struggles to her feet. I struggle up too, out of the chair. She scrabbles in a drawer, hands me my keys. Then I hug her tight. She is still crying.

But I do not cry.

Now I’m sitting in a café with my phone in front of me. I am supposed to be making a call, but the morphine makes everything hard to do. It’s a completely different type of ‘hard’ to do; not like with my normal painkillers.

The mind is fuzzy, distracted, unable to think about one thing at a time. My head feels like a balloon on a string, hovering above my shoulders.

I have to focus.

This is the second thing I have to do. I make a call. DI Geoff Marks is delighted to hear from me.

‘You sound different,’ he says.

‘Yes, I do,’ I say. I don’t add anything.

Silence.

‘I just called to tell you that you were right,’ I say. ‘Dominic has been trying to kill me for years.’

‘Right.’ He exhales. ‘Thank God you came to your senses. What made you realise?’

‘A lot of things. Have you talked to my husband?’

‘Not yet. As far as we can ascertain, he got back from Rome but never returned home. We’re looking for him.’

‘I’m going to solve this my way.’

He’s confused. ‘I’m not following you, Monica.’

‘Then don’t. Follow me, I mean. I’m going.’

‘Where?’

‘Don’t try and find me. I’ve got a friend who can help me. I don’t know him that well, but I trust him. He’s going to help me get away.’

‘Monica, this is stupid. You have to make a statement.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’

‘Listen to me.’

‘No. YOU listen to ME, Geoff. My husband might try to stop me leaving…’

‘He’ll probably do more than that. It would be far simpler if you just make a statement.’

‘That’s not my way, OK? Just forget about bloody statements. I’m not making one.’

Pain. Breathe. Control.
I continue. ‘You must stop my husband coming after me. Put him in a cell.’

‘That’s what I’m planning to do.’

‘Good. Thank you, Geoff. Thank you for everything.’

I ring off before he can say anything else.

I’m walking up the path of a small flat, tucked on the ground floor of a semi-detached house.

The morphine is making my mind dance. When I look up at the darkening sky, I see limitless possibilities in the shapes of clouds, when I look down I see death. Cracked leaves from a dead bamboo plant are scattered underfoot. There is a carpet of corpses for me to tread on. I feel certain the old me would be weeping, by now.

I have to focus.

I try not to think about the old me, who was quite weak and rather self-pitying. Who took my condition as permission for inaction.

This is the new Monica who is also the old Monica, the one who, to coin Angelina’s cliché, doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

I have to focus now.

I negotiate my way over the mountains of tiny brown corpses, ring the bell, and watch through the opaque window. Soon I can see a shape, which gets large and darker as it moves towards me. I’m reminded of the black cloud of (
something
) in my dream, surging towards me, thrusting me over the edge of the car park to let me float into oblivion.

A lock rattles, the door opens.

‘Monica?’

Niall is in his dressing gown. He looks a little more frayed at the edges since the last time I saw him. His tidy beard has crept up his cheeks. From his tousled damp hair I’m guessing it’s not long since he’s been in the shower.

‘Hello, Niall.’

He allows his door, his mouth and his dressing gown to gape open. My presence on his doorstep does not quite compute. His eyes start to glisten. ‘Oh my God! I’m so glad to see you… I hadn’t heard anything from you for ages! You got my texts?’

I sigh. ‘Yes, Niall, I got your texts.’

‘I was so worried something had happened to you.’

‘Nothing happened to me. I just didn’t reply to them.’

‘Yes. Sorry. Yes, we did talk about that. I remember. Sorry. Sorry. Of course. You did say —’

I get a feeling if I don’t take the initiative, I’ll be standing in the doorway until the morning. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Well, yes, sure, certainly.’

He opens the door wider. I can see wellingtons and shiny dumb-bells in the hall.

‘Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting… well, come in. Do you want a coffee?’

‘Decaff if you have it.’

‘I have it. I actually have that special blend you like. The French roast. I got it in case you…’

He leaves the sentence hanging, shakes his head, smiles, and hefts piles of papers off the high-backed chair. He gestures me to sit down.

‘Thanks.’

As I sit, he bends down and tries to ignite the gas fire, pressing the big button with a repetitive clunk. The gas fire ignites, spouting blue flames up into the alcove.

‘That OK? Warm enough for you?’

‘That’s fine.’

He is naked under his dressing gown, as he flaps away to make the coffee I can see his thick brown thighs. I listen to the sound, the blub-blubblub of the kettle, the clatter of mugs and spoons. A few minutes later he emerges with a tray.

‘So what’s going on? Why are you here?’

‘I need your help.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to see me again.’

‘That was just a silly disagreement. Things have moved on.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m a different person now.’

‘Different? How?’ Then he remembers. ‘The capsaicin patch? The… treatment? How did it go? What happened? Did it work?’

‘It worked better than anyone imagined. I felt much better.’

‘Fantas—’

‘I’m
completely
without pain.’

‘What?’

‘I am without pain. The capsaicin worked better than anyone imagined.’

‘But… Wasn’t it supposed to just be temporary?’

‘That’s what they all said. Apparently I’m a walking miracle.’

‘So you feel…’

‘I feel nothing,’ I reply. And on this point I’m telling the truth.

‘Nothing? Really?’

‘Yes. Really.’

‘I can barely believe it. This is amazing.’

‘A miracle.’

‘Exactly. That’s what it is. A miracle.’ He shakes his head. ‘Please… Walk across the room for me.’

‘What?’

‘Like when we first met.’

‘I remember.’

‘Show me you’re better.’

I’m ready for this. I’ve had a week of long, deep-tissue massages, in a spa in the hotel I’ve been staying at. The last one was yesterday. So I stand up. And I walk.

I’m Superman. I’m Wonder Woman. I’m Batgirl. I’m all of them, and more besides.
 

The main problem, as I move, is I’m being distracted by the cobwebs behind the light fitting and the dust on the bookcase. I wonder fleetingly if the spiders come out at night and write their names in the dust. I walk there, to the bookcase, and back to Niall.

‘There you go.’

‘Well,’ he says, eyes wide. ‘That’s amazing. You look a little stiff, but you’re walking much better now.’

(
He sees what he wants to see
)

I have anticipated his next question too.

‘Have you told Dominic?’ he asks.

‘No. I was going to tell him, but I decided I couldn’t trust him.’

‘What? You couldn’t trust him?’

I reach out and hold the plunger of the cafetière. I push it down, hard and strong, like I’m detonating a mountain of dynamite.

‘I discovered that my husband and my best friend were having an affair.’

Niall shakes his head. ‘What?’ he says again, unnecessarily. ‘Your best friend?’

‘The details don’t matter.’

‘That one you told me runs an art gallery? Was she and him…? All the time?’

‘Niall… What did I just say?’

‘You just said your husband and your best friend were having —’

‘No, I just said, and you can watch my lips this time, if you like. The – details – don’t – matter. I’m not here to tell you my life story. I’m just here to tell you that I’m leaving Dominic and I’m planning my future. A future without pain.’

I can see he is finally waking up. I can almost see the fantasy flickering inside his skull, like an old movie shining from a projector.
She’s come here to me. We’re going to be together, and live in my little flat and I will protect her
…

‘I think I’d better get some clothes on,’ he says at last.

‘I think you’d better.’

He rushes to change, and this allows me to lie on the sofa for a few precious minutes. I’m thinking about all manner of crazy things, and I need to herd my thoughts together for the journey ahead.

I hear the
thud thud thud
of his feet as he returns, peel my head off the cushion and regain my position on the high-backed chair. Niall has thrown on some sweatpants and a T-shirt. He curls back on the sofa, opposite me, hugging his ankles and putting his chin on his knees. It’s like we’re having a sleepover.

‘But the way you talk – you talked – about your husband… He loves you…’

(
The wolf wants to make sure
)

‘That’s not the person you described… He sounded devoted to you.’

(
He’s testing the story
)

‘He’s a very good liar. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s focus on the future. Can you turn the fire down a little? It’s a bit too much for me.’

‘Of course.’

Niall gets up, his slippers flapping on the parquet flooring, and twists the knob. ‘So what’s the future?’

‘I can’t go home, can I?’

‘No.’

‘I’m leaving the country. Perhaps for ever.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I can’t be more serious. My head is clearer than it’s been for years.’

‘It just seems a bit… extreme. Look, you can stay here for a while, there’s plenty of room. I could sleep on the sofa…’

He throws his arm up to indicate the grubby flat. I shake my head.

‘Sorry, Niall, this is not for me.’ I lean over and touch his knee. ‘You’re right about what you said. What you said when you took me home. I didn’t want to believe you, for Dominic’s sake, but you were right. I remember now. I used to have a real fire in me. I didn’t suffer fools gladly, I don’t settle for second best, and… I don’t hide in damp corners like this.’

Niall looks quite crestfallen.

‘I need you to drive me to Dover, so I can get a ferry to France.’

‘France? Why France?’

‘I have friends out there. A client of mine retired and went to live in the south of France. She owes me a lot, and I’m sure she’ll put me up for… however long it takes.’

‘Until when?’

‘Until I build my new life. I’m still pretty weak. There’s been years of dealing with pain and that’s had long-term effects on me. I still don’t know the limits of my body. I need someone to drive my car. Are you going to help me or not?’