The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy (14 page)

‘Do you want to give me the flowers?' she persists.

And then it happens. The whole table of empty glasses tips up in front of me and then crashes to the ground. I realize I am standing upright, my hands clutching the air. From somewhere comes my voice, hollering and shouting.

‘To hell with you, you whore. To hell with the lot of you.'

Faces appear. Enraged, spitting. And it is me being pushed to the floor. Kicked and punched. A door is opened; I feel a thud on the back of my neck and the smell of cold concrete in my nose.

There is quiet. Blood is in my mouth and my knee feels as if it has clicked into the wrong place. I hear faint laughter and realize it is coming from my throat. I sit up and the pavement reels around me like a fairground ride. I lie back down to avoid falling off, laughing and hurting and laughing. It is never a complete blackout, more a long, strange lapse of space and time. A familiar place of other consciousness, where everything speeds up and slows down at the same time.

Jo Martin sits in his Mercedes.

‘Mary Foster says blah, blah, blah, blah,' he repeats to himself, looking in the rear-view mirror, adjusting his trilby. He tries it again, reading from the scrap of paper on his lap. Then he puts the paper down, looks in the mirror, adjusts his American vintage tie, which he fancies gives him a New Jersey gangster look, and silently repeats the opening line he has to deliver tonight. Anyone passing by might wonder if he was an actor learning his part, or maybe just another misfit late at night on the Heath, trying to escape his demons.

It all began for Jo last night with the phone ringing, just as he was getting ready to do his cabaret spot.

‘That's all I have to do?' says Jo, after his brother, Terry, has explained the job to him.

‘That's all. I've been tracking this guy for days, but I can't do it tomorrow. So I need you to just follow him for the day. I can take over again tomorrow. Keep me informed. Phone me at home and I'll tell you what to say, if there's anything to say. And when to say it,' says his older brother. ‘I'm passing this job on to you because Rosemary's sick and I can't leave the house. You know what she gets like when she's sick. I'm trusting you big time.'

‘But that's all I have to do?' says Jo again.

‘I told you. That's all you have to do,' says his brother, losing patience. ‘But don't mess up. I'm counting on you. Just keep him in sight all day. See what he does. Watch him come and go. Then call me and I might tell you to say something to him, or I might tell you to say nothing. It depends on what happens, what he does. It's simple.'

‘Three hundred just for that?'

‘That's what I said. But Jo, you know nothing. Tell no one. These are serious people. You understand? I'm not sure they'd take it kindly if they knew I was passing on the job. So keep it to yourself. I'm counting on you.'

‘Of course, Terry,' says Jo. ‘You know me.'

‘Yeah, I know you,' says Terry.

‘No sweat. Send my love to Rosemary. Hope she gets well.'

‘Sure thing,' says Terry. ‘Send mine to Dot and the kids.'

So tonight Jo finds himself in a pub car park on the edge of the Heath, having stalked his prey all over town, in and out of coffee shops, grocery stores, and seedy pubs on Kilburn High Road. He has updated his big brother from the phone box on the corner and Terry reckons there's something to be said, but he wants one more report back before he decides on the final script. So Jo sits tight, readjusts his tie one last time, clears his throat, and then stares at himself in the rear-view mirror.

‘You lookin' at me?' he says, smiling in the knowledge that this evening someone else can compere at the Blue Lantern Club, introduce Petra and her python and tell the jokes about Jews and Indians. Jo has a better line to deliver.

Tonight there is no moon on the Heath, no stars. The only bright lights illuminate the bustle of Jack Straw's Castle. Inside, the drinkers are animated. I can see them through the windows. Couples, groups, laughing and chatting. But the place where tonight's drink is sending me to no one laughs and no one chats. Conversation is taboo. I swig from the bottle of Jameson's whiskey I bought at the all-night grocer in Chalk Farm, and then I cross the car park. I head for the unmarked path leading down to West Heath, smiling to myself, enjoying the pain from my cuts and bruises.

The skyline is slate grey above the thick dense bushes. I can barely make out the path beneath my feet, and only the rustle of the undergrowth against my shins keeps me on track. Every few yards I pass a shadowy figure. A cigarette may be lit, a shoe may shift on the ground, but no words are spoken. I keep my eyes down and ahead and do not stop. To my left are the sounds of chains and groans. I take a turning to the right by a broad-branched hawthorn that is my landmark. My eyes are becoming accustomed to the light as the path dips into a hollow opening and then up to a clearing. There, on a small expanse of open land, four or five men encircle a younger man. He has short-cropped blond hair and his bronzed skin glistens in the faint moonlight. He is muscled and firm and naked. He kneels before one of the men, gripping his thighs, his head moving rhythmically. The others look on, waiting their turn. I join the circle, excited, expectant. No one speaks. There is nothing to be said. This is no place for words of love. The silence is the loudest sound on West Heath at night, when the walkers are settled at home, when dark descends and a circle of middle-aged men wait in turn to be sated by a blond youth from Bermondsey.

Back in the car park at Jack Straw's Castle, I sit on a bench and smoke a cigarette. The pub is long closed. Men are still entering the pathway from where I have just emerged. They are furtive, secretive. The occasional taxi pulls up, but mostly it is quiet now. It will get busy again when the gay clubs turn out. There's one car in the far corner of the car park with its lights on. The full beam comes on, the engine fires up and it moves slowly towards where I sit. It pulls up alongside me and the driver's window unwinds with a gentle whirr. Looking directly at me is a man in a trilby, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat and a gaudy American nineteen-fifties tie. He stares at me for a moment.

‘I've just been on the phone to Mary Foster,' says the man, without any introduction. ‘She says she wonders what Lottie might make of her father's nocturnal activities on this part of the Heath? Not to mention afternoons spent with drunken prostitutes. Oh, and she says, make sure you're all packed and ready for next Friday as planned. Just in case you were having any second thoughts, that is.'

The window whirrs up and the man drives away. I watch the car as it turns left towards the Spaniard's Inn. In the silence I can hear my heart beating, my breath shortening, my mind almost shocked into sobering up. What has Caitlin got herself into? What have I got myself into?

A couple stagger across the car park, laughing, kissing. Two young men without a care in the world. My heart drains into the gravel of the car park. I am caught up. I am no longer in control of my life. I am without choice. And I cry out to the night that I am drunk. I need to find a taxi and another bottle of whiskey.

When I come to I am still fully clothed. The room spinning around my head is my bedroom. My face and hair are caked in blood and my left leg aches. In my hand is an empty bottle. Strewn on the bed are dozens of daffodils, fully intact, bulbs with stringy roots, clods of soil all over the sheets. A vague memory emerges of standing in a garden, crying for the tulips I had bought for Lottie and Matilda, and then ripping handfuls of daffodils from a beautifully tended flowerbed. I roll away, hoping there is no more to the memory, and see the answering machine is flashing on the table by the bed. I throw an arm towards it and a smeared mirror and paper wrap fall to the carpet. In my drunken stupor I must have wasted Mary Foster's gift of cocaine.

‘Daddy, where are you? All I get is your answer phone. Are you still coming?' says the first message.

‘Daddy, it's eight-thirty, we're starting dinner without you. See you soon,' says the second message.

‘This is John. Remember me? We met at the Friary and spoke on the phone the other day. I gave you my number. Well, you called last night. From a pub somewhere. Kilburn, I think you said. Anyway, you sounded in a bad way. If you can manage not to drink or drug today, I'll see you outside the one o'clock Meeting in Hande Street. It's just off Charing Cross Road. I will be there from twelve-thirty. Call me if you want. Take it easy. And remember, if you don't drink you can't get drunk. Bye now and God bless.'

‘Anthony, this is Matilda. Damn you to hell. Lottie has gone to bed. She was really looking forward to seeing you. She was hoping things would be different. I can hear her crying in her bedroom. She told me she's crying for her grandparents. Your mother and your father. You heartless bastard. You are truly unbelievable. Anyway, I need to speak to you. I'll meet you at Benito's tomorrow after I get out of work. Be there at four. Don't you dare be late.'

There is a click, followed by a terrible silence. Deep sadness and remorse flood over me. I fumble and set the alarm for eleven-thirty. Then, covered in blood, dirt and uprooted daffodils, I fall back into a state that vaguely resembles sleep.

7

Experience, strength and hope

I get to Hande Street by twelve-fifteen and stand on the opposite side of the road from the Meeting venue. I can see some likely candidates gathering on the steps of the church hall. They are chatting and smoking and looking generally happy and at ease. I am thinking how much I envy them when John suddenly appears at my side.

‘So, hi, Tony, how are you?'

‘Not so good.'

He gives me a big smile. ‘Don't worry, if drinking is your problem then you're in the right place.'

‘I've been drinking and I took some cocaine, though I don't even remember the cocaine part,' I say, looking away from him, down at the ground. ‘Just yesterday.'

‘What happened?' he asks. His eyes are sparkling, his skin sickeningly fresh.

‘I don't quite know. I was out shopping and I stopped at a pub. I looked inside. There was a woman standing by the juke box. It seemed so inviting. Next thing I know, I'm drinking a pint of Guinness and the world looks great.'

‘And then?'

‘Then things got bad and I don't remember too much.' An overturned table, a walk on the Heath, and the daffodils all flash through my mind. ‘It's all a horrible blur.'

‘It's okay,' John smiles. ‘You're here now and you can start all over again. You need never drink again. That's what I've found. I don't have to do any more research. Alcohol is poison to me and I haven't had a drink since my first Meeting. One day at a time.'

He puts his arm around me. I flinch, as much at his jolly enthusiasm as at the intimacy.

‘Everything will be alright,' says John reassuringly. ‘It's not the elephants that get us, but the mice.'

Inside the Meeting hall there are slogans and banners on the wall. I read them to avoid eye contact with anyone around me. A shudder goes down my spine as I recall my meeting with Mary in Brighton and the Latter-Day Saint clones I had felt so superior to. How far we fall.

‘Can we have a moment's silence to remember why we are here,' says a voice from the front.

A lot of what follows goes over my head. Passages are read from pamphlets and books. I am told that if I am new I should relax and listen out for the similarities in the story each speaker has to tell rather than the differences. I start to feel more at ease. This is a format I feel comfortable with: the speaker at the front and no likelihood of surprise audience participation. And the monologue is bewitching.

The man who speaks does not wear a dirty raincoat. He doesn't look like my image of an alcoholic. In fact, when I look around I notice most people are well dressed and clean. The speaker is about my age and tells a story that could be my own. A childhood home of empty promises. A father who taught him to drink; and then an adulthood of drinking and blackouts, police cells and therapy. He tells how his father was always threatening suicide, even attempting it, but never succeeding. The audience laughs when he says he once offered to help by taking him to the top of a tall building. I look around at all the chuckling faces and wonder if this is a home for the mentally ill. As if reading my mind, the speaker goes on to say the Meeting is a place where we laugh ourselves better. It strikes a chord with me. I've not been laughing much recently. Towards the end of his monologue he relates how the Meetings saved his life. How he had ‘hit rock bottom' and the last two years of sobriety had been the best of his life. I think of diving into a deep, deep ocean, swimming down, losing my breath and then crashing into the hard smooth rock of the sea floor.

For the rest of the Meeting members of the audience respond by telling how the speaker's experiences hold a mirror to their own. John, who is sitting next to me, is the last to share his story.

‘Jim, thanks for what you said,' he says. ‘I always thought I never wet the bed. Well, I didn't. I pissed in the wardrobe instead.'

There is a titter of laughter and identification. Then John tells some battle stories from his drinking days. He was something big in the city, and things finally came to a head one Christmas dinner when he got horribly drunk and told the CEO's wife exactly what he thought of her husband before trying to kiss her. As he recalls a catalogue of appalling behaviour, of self-destructiveness, a trigger is flicked and a tape rewinds in my own memory: similar stories, different characters and settings, same outcomes.

An hour later, in the cafe across the road from the church, I recognize some of the faces from the Meeting. John and I are sitting at a table by the window. I'm glad he suggested we sit alone and not with the others. I'm not quite ready to join in the jolly banter around me. I've taken to adding sugar to my coffee. I stare into the cup, watching the sugar as it dissolves into the froth of my cappuccino.