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29
It’s raining. The vestry smells even damper and mustier than
usual. It’s nearly eight o’clock and Helen’s still not here. I should have called on her earlier – I meant to – but what with all the
business with the beach huts, I forgot all about it. And then
Charlie asked me to mind the art shop while he boarded up the
hut. I can’t believe he trusted me, a complete stranger, with all
that valuable stock and a till full of cash.
But what kind of friend have I been to Helen in her hour of
need? What if she woke up again after I left and started drink-
ing again? The image of Simon twitching and jerking next to
me, a drool of saliva oozing from the corner of his mouth,
thrusts its way into my mind. There’s something else this time,
something I’d forgotten till now: his phone, chirping and pul-
sating in his shirt pocket like a trapped bird. Why, after all this
time, has that image popped into my mind?
I force myself back to the present. The atmosphere feels dif-
ferent tonight. Acne Man hasn’t turned up, but several new
people have – new to me, at least. A fat middle- aged man with
pasty white skin wearing a tracksuit and cheap white trainers
cracked with age. He’s three seats away from me, but I can smell
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them from here. Jeremy, who’s sitting right next to him, keeps
pinching his nostrils with his finger and thumb as if he’s got an
itchy nose. Then there’s a black man in his late twenties or early
thirties. A couple of times I’ve sensed him glance over at me.
The rest of the time he hangs over his knees and stares at the
floor.
Rosie is chairing tonight. She’s wearing badly applied pink,
glittery nail polish that looks like something a seven- year- old
would wear for a special party. Her voice drones on and it isn’t
long before my eyelids droop. I haven’t slept properly for the
last two nights and, though my mind’s still spinning with eve-
rything that’s happened, my body craves sleep.
Rosie’s voice washes through me, like the murmurings from
Mum’s radio that come through the wall at night. I’m sinking
into a dream- like state, but every so often a particular phrase
snags at my attention and drags me to the surface.
‘It’s more than just apologizing . . . you have to actually do
something . . .’
My eyes flick open. Why do I always get the feeling that
every thing she says is directed at me and no one else? As if I’m
the only person in the room. I know it’s just a coincidence that
tonight she’s chosen to talk about step nine, about making
amends to people we’ve harmed, but after that horrible mes-
sage I can’t help reading more into it. It’s as if she knows things
about me I’ve never told her. I’m being paranoid, I know I am.
I wish I hadn’t come. I could just stand up and walk out.
Nobody’s going to stop me. I don’t have to justify my decision
to any of them. But something keeps me tethered to the chair.
It’s the same thing that brought me here in the first place, and it’s nothing to do with Mum’s list of dates by the calendar, or that
edginess she gets when she thinks I’ve forgotten a meeting and
can’t quite bring herself to remind me.
*
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Rosie corners me at the end, as I knew she would. She and I are
the only females in the room tonight. Is that why I tolerate
her advances, because my usual ally is missing, presumed
pissed?
‘No Helen tonight?’
‘No.’
She leans towards me and lowers her voice. ‘I don’t like to
gossip, but . . .’ Her eyes dart towards Jeremy, as if she doesn’t
want him to witness her indiscretion. But Jeremy is busy doing
what he always does, overseeing the teas and coffees, as if this
were a business meeting he’s convened and he’s keen to reward
everyone for their contributions.
‘I’ve seen her buying wine,’ she whispers.
I wrinkle my nostrils. Her breath smells like an old ashtray.
‘She was probably buying it for a guest,’ I say. I’m not going
to tell her about last night. It’s none of her business and, besides, it feels disloyal talking about Helen when she isn’t here.
Rosie makes a noise that’s halfway between a sigh and a
laugh. ‘I can see you two get along, and that’s great. But if you’re serious about beating your addiction, Astrid, then you really
need to work with someone who’s been sober for a few years.
Someone who’s got experience of the Twelve Steps and can
guide you through them.’
‘Someone like you, you mean.’
Rosie does her slow blink. What with her crinkled grey skin,
she reminds me of a lizard.
She touches my arm and her voice drops to a whisper.
‘This thing could kill you, Astrid. You know that, don’t you?
Let me help you.’
I shake her off. She’s gone too far. She’s being intrusive. And
anyway, why is she so obsessed with helping me and not any of the others? If she’s so worried that Helen’s still drinking, why
isn’t she trying to help her instead?
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I’m aware of her eyes boring into the space between my
shoulder blades as I leave the vestry. I don’t care how many
people she’s sponsored in the past. I’m not going to be another
one of her bloody projects.
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30
The voice on the intercom is wary.
‘Okay. You’d better come up.’
Helen is waiting for me at her front door. Her face is pale and
tired- looking, but at least she seems sober.
‘I was worried about you,’ I say. ‘Especially when you didn’t
show up tonight.’
A puzzled expression distorts her face. She smacks her fore-
head with the palm of her hand. ‘Shit! I forgot all about it.’
‘You didn’t miss much, to be honest. Only Rosie droning on
about making amends.’
I follow her into the living room.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ she says. Her voice sounds hoarser than
usual and she won’t meet my eye.
‘It was just a slip- up, Helen. You can get back on track.’
She says nothing. Then, after what seems like an age, she
starts to speak.
‘I’m so angry with myself. So ashamed. I feel like I’ve let us
both down. I’ll tell you one thing. It’s made me absolutely determined that it won’t happen again. I’ve been reading the Big
Book all day.’
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&nb
sp; ‘If it’s made you stronger, then maybe it was meant to
happen.’
Helen smiles at last. It feels like a cloud has lifted. She goes
into the kitchen and puts the kettle on.
‘Thanks so much for coming round last night,’ she says. ‘But
I really wish you hadn’t seen me like that.’
‘You weren’t so bad. You fell asleep almost as soon as I arrived.’
She hangs her head in shame.
A few minutes later she brings in the tea.
‘How are things with you?’ she says.
‘Oh, Helen, the last thing I want to do is burden you with all
my troubles. You’ve got enough of your own.’
‘If we focus on each other’s problems, maybe our own won’t
seem as bad.’ She gives me a sheepish smile. ‘Maybe Rosie’s
right with all her little sayings. Maybe we just have to accept
that this is the way it works.’
‘Maybe.’
‘So what is it? What’s happened?’
I reach for my mug, then change my mind. I’m feeling sick
all of a sudden.
She leans forward. ‘Not another photo of Simon?’
‘Someone tricked their way into the house when Mum was
on her own. There’s a girl who’s been following me. She left
another envelope. Not a photo this time. It was a page from a
newspaper. A death notice with my name on it.’ Helen covers
her mouth with her hand. ‘And a note. A horrible, horrible
note.’
Helen stares at me, bewildered. ‘Who is this girl?
‘I don’t know, but she’s the one who’s doing all this.’
Helen frowns. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because she took Simon’s juggling ball and left me that
note.’ My breath catches in my throat. ‘There’s something I
didn’t think anyone else except Simon knew about. I’ve never
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talked about it. Not even to the counsellors at rehab. It’s just
too . . . shameful.’
‘Can you tell me?’
‘I want to, but . . . I’m not sure if I can.’
‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Let’s do this properly.’
‘What do you mean?’
She gets up and goes over to the bureau, opens a drawer. ‘It’s
something I’ve been thinking about ever since I woke up.’
She brings over a photocopied sheet of the Twelve Steps and
places it on the table between us.
‘Look, I know we’re supposed to work our way through each
step in chronological order, but the way I see it, if we both have
a problem with the God thing, then maybe we should just con-
centrate on the ones that make the most practical sense.’
Her relapse seems to have galvanized her into full- on recov-
ery mode, but I have to admit she’s looking and sounding a
whole lot better than she did the other night. And if I’m going
to do this step- work with anyone, I’d rather muddle through
with Helen than with Rosie.
She points to the highlighted sections on the photocopy,
which, now I come to look at it more closely, is full of crossings-
out – the God references, mainly – and lots of linking arrows
and scribbled notes.
‘Step 4, for instance. Making a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves. We could do that, couldn’t we? We could combine it with Step 8 and include all the people we’ve harmed
over the years.’
I try to keep my face neutral. I’ve heard it can take months to
complete Step 4 properly, but I don’t want to dampen her
enthusiasm. I’m not sure Rosie and Jeremy would agree with
cherry- picking only those steps we can face. Of mixing them
up in this way and leaving God out of the equation altogether.
Nor would some of the Twelve Step Nazis I met in rehab.
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‘And then we could do Step 5,’ she says. ‘Our own version of
it, obviously – and read each other our lists. That way, we’ll
have . . .’ She leans forward to check the wording. ‘ Admitted to ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. ’
I swallow hard, because that’s what Simon must have done.
That’s why I’m in this mess in the first place. And yet she does
have a point. It’s got to be better than not doing it at all.
‘Think about it, Astrid. If you can conquer your demons and
face up to your past, what’s left to be scared of?’
‘Well, when you put it like that . . .’
Helen goes over to the bureau again and returns with paper
and pens.
‘No time like the present,’ she says.
For the next fifteen or twenty minutes we sit in silence, each
composing our lists of shame. Is this really the way forward? Is
this what I have to do to get better? Face each and every cold
hard truth about myself? Deal them out like cards on a table,
picture side up? Surely some things are best kept hidden. Then
again, I’ve already told her what happened with Simon, so she
might as well know the rest.
‘Okay,’ I say at last. ‘I think I’ve reached saturation point.’
‘Me too,’ she says, resting her pen on her lap and rubbing her
eyes.
‘You first,’ I say, before she says the same thing to me.
She clears her throat and stares at her notepad. ‘These are in
no particular order.’
I nod encouragingly.
‘So, number one. I let down my colleagues. Embarrassed
them in front of an important client, lost business for the firm.’
it.’ She clears her throat again. ‘Number two. I told my best
friend to fuck off and die when all she was trying to do was
help me. Number three. I threw up in Waterstones. All over
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their buy- one- get- one- half- price display table. I caused a real scene when they confronted me.’
The corner of my mouth twitches. I can’t help it. I look down
at my lap and focus on my own sordid list. This isn’t meant to
be funny.
‘Number four. I told my niece and nephew a secret about
their mother when I was drunk. Something I promised I’d never
tell a living soul. My sister hasn’t spoken to me since.’
Just like Simon promised me, I think, and once more, the
piecemeal memories of that night parade behind my eyes.
Helen looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds before con-
tinuing.
‘Number five,’ she says, and takes a deep breath. She’s saving
the worst for last. It’s what I’ve done in my list too.
‘I destroyed the love of my life. He gave me another chance
but I pushed him away from me.’
Her eyes swim with tears and for a few seconds she hugs her
chest and rocks herself to and fro in her chair. My eyes fill up
too. Nothing about any of this is the least bit amusing.
I don’t suppose it matters ho
w I respond. The important
thing is that she’s said these things out loud, that she’s shared
them with me.
‘So have you thought about how you can made amends?’ I
ask her. I know I’m skipping ahead, but I’m not ready to read
my own list out yet.
Helen consults her notepad. ‘I suppose I could send a letter
of apology to the partners in my old firm. Perhaps I could offer
to do some unpaid work for them. They’ll probably say no, but
at least I’ll have offered.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
For the next ten minutes we come up with one action she
could complete for each item on her list. Some will be trickier
than others, of course. She doesn’t think her husband or her
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best friend or her sister will want anything more to do with
her, but she can at least try.
Now the time has come to read out my own ghastly bullet
points. I can’t help feeling that mine are far worse than hers,
but of course everyone’s journey is different. Everyone has their
own rock bottom.
As I read, I’m reminded of the nightmare I had a while back,
the one where Richard Carter read out this same list in the
Flinstead and Mistden community hall, and I find myself
adopting a vaguely similar tone of voice. So ‘fucking a friend’s
boyfriend in the back seat of his car while she was visiting her
parents’ takes the form of a somewhat unorthodox liturgical
chant. Although by the time I get to ‘asking my dad for help
with a deposit on a new flatshare and then blowing the whole
lot on a three- day bender in Bruges’, my voice has become a lit-
tle more halting and awkward.
‘You know the next one because I’ve already told you. I made
Simon start drinking again.’
Helen gives me a sad little smile.
And now here it is. The last one.
‘Go on,’ Helen says. ‘It won’t seem as bad when you say it out
loud.’
‘Believe me, it will.’
‘Say it anyway.’
So I do. I tell her everything I can remember, try to stitch the
disconnected memories together.
‘I wish I could make sense of it all, but I can’t. The only thing
I know for sure is that something bad happened that night. We
hurt an innocent young mother in front of her child. And for
what? Thirty fucking quid, or whatever it was.’