Nightshift, page 15
I don’t know if he says anything. I don’t remember anything else except the smooth late-night radio voices and the old man’s profile in the flickering sulphur of the streetlamps and me trying hard to make up to him. Sorry. Thank you. Don’t worry. Please. Yes, sorry. It’s here. Thank you. I’ll keep schtum.
40
The next morning, I told Earl.
He rang from Calais to remind me to water his orchid. When he asked how the night had been, I heard myself say, ‘Oh, gangbangish . . .’
‘What?’ I told him more; I said too much. And then he said, ‘I’m coming back.’
‘Don’t, Earl. Please.’
‘Where was Sabine?’
I stuck my finger in the orchid’s soil. ‘She left.’
‘But you two look after each other?’
‘We do things alone too.’
‘I’m turning around right now.’
‘Seriously, Earl, please don’t.’
The soil was dry but it hadn’t affected the plant yet. Nine white flowers went up the stem; I counted.
‘Will you go to the police?’ he said.
‘How can I? I asked for it.’
‘You didn’t ask for rape—’
‘It wasn’t, exactly.’
He gave a long sigh.
‘This is between us, Earl.’
He was quiet. Then he said, ‘You need to go to the hospital. Get some antiretrovirals.’
I turned on the kitchen tap, cupping water in my hand.
‘They might ask questions, Meggie. Do you remember the guys?’
‘Only bits and pieces.’
‘Did you hook up with anyone else? Swap numbers?’
I trickled water around the orchid’s stem. ‘I’ll go to the hospital, Earl. I promise.’
After we’d finished speaking, I felt ashamed. Earl had never approved of my gung-ho attitude and now this. I shouldn’t have told him. Everything seemed worse than before; the words made it seem shocking. Had I used the wrong ones? Had I used the right ones?
I fished about in my sunflower rucksack. As usual, there were scraps of paper with phone numbers from new friends, people I’d have chatted to briefly while high. Call me, definitely, we must go out sometime, there’s this other club . . .
To appease Earl’s voice in my head, I began to call around. Every person I spoke to wanted to get off the line as fast as if my words were burning them. I left Katiana until last. Her voice when I got through was disturbingly high-pitched, childish, out of it. ‘I dunno what the fuck you on about. You expect me to know? Dahling, I don’t even know who you are. You the one with the pink hair?’
‘I’m the one fucked by a million guys,’ I said.
‘Ooooo,’ she said. ‘That one.’
‘D’you remember anything about them?’
‘Two were North African.’
‘That’s a start,’ I said.
‘From Cambodia, dahling.’
‘Cambodia’s not—’
She hung up and wouldn’t answer when I called back.
I put my clothes and bedsheets in the wash on a ninety-degree cycle. Then I took a long, scorching-hot shower. Using a worn nailbrush, I scrubbed every part of me.
When I was done, I felt brittle. I needed to be with someone outside the judgement zone. I needed Sabine. Arriving at the Mayfair flat uninvited, I buzzed the intercom. She didn’t respond. I waited. Though she dropped round Earl’s whenever she felt like it, I’d never done the same.
I looked up at where she’d pointed. Second floor, right corner: a light went off, another went on. For a moment I thought I had the wrong window. But then I saw Sabine’s silhouette against a red lampshade. She was in there. I waited longer.
Perhaps the buzzer was broken. I didn’t bother with texting; I called. Her mobile rang and rang. I tried a second time, a third. After that it was engaged. When I finally got through, she didn’t pick up. I buzzed a rat-a-tat-tat on the intercom. Then I pressed my thumb on the button and held.
A concierge in a maroon-and-gold uniform appeared. He asked if he could help. I told him I was trying to get hold of Sabine Dubreil. He buzzed her using his own intercom system with the same result.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘Sorry, you can’t do that,’ he said. ‘You have to leave now. The residents don’t like people hanging around.’
Although he’d spoken apologetically, as I strode from stupid up-its-own-arse Mayfair, tears squished out of my eyes. Brushing them away with my fists, I spelled everything I saw backwards. I walked quickly but aimlessly until I found myself spelling latipsoh. I went in and got a ticket at noitpecer.
Being in a place where out-of-the-norm was the norm grounded me. The plastic chairs, the silent subtitled TV, the crisp and soda can machine. When my turn came to see the nurse, I explained the situation. I kept to the facts, then got to the point. ‘I’d like some antiretrovirals.’
‘Did they ejaculate inside you?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Have you showered or washed since?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your clothes?’
‘In the machine. Ninety degrees.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You should have gone straight to the police. We can’t do anything until you’ve reported it.’
As I stood, my chair fell over.
‘You can do it from here,’ she said.
Pretending I hadn’t heard, I strode off along the corridor, then exited through the wrong door. I found myself in a yard filled with hospital bins. The nearest had a label that said For Incineration. From my rucksack, I took the phone-numbered slips of paper and disposed of them. I looked at what else was in the bag. Keys, purse and phone fitted in my coat pockets; the Jean Rhys novel too.
‘Yo, what’re you doing?’ a porter hollered.
I dumped the rucksack with the rest of its contents into the bin. I pictured the Marilyn lipstick, the compact mirror and the cheap skull lighter that I’d bought in imitation of Sabine’s, all melting.
The porter started across the yard but I slammed the lid down – and ran.
Parking lot, street, pavement, tar. Fleeing through the city, I dodged people and vehicles as if I were in a computer game. By a designer boutique, I almost collided with a stiletto-heeled woman laden with packages.
‘Watch your step,’ she rasped.
To prevent the leakage of any more tears, I pushed myself to run faster, to go as fast as I could.
I was sprinting, I was numb.
41
When Sabine rang that evening, I let it go to voicemail. She left a message which, admittedly, was more than I’d done. Sorry to miss your calls. I’m in Belgium. My mother needed me to go home. Speak soon.
She’d never spoken of Belgium as home or of her mother other than disparagingly. If Sabine was away now, she hadn’t been earlier. But I suspected the reason behind her excuse, and the cause of her anxious tone, was my pursuit of her.
It was understandable that she’d been alarmed by my behaviour at the Mayfair flat. How could she guess at what had happened in the club? I’d never gone to her place uninvited before; I didn’t phone her, didn’t even initiate conversations by text. Had I left a message explaining, we’d have drunk horrible French tea together and she’d have been kind.
But what sort of message should I have left? I replayed hers. Speak soon meant, I don’t give a fuck why you rang. It meant, I’m not going to risk a conversation with you by asking. It meant back off.
I was upset. Why did I always have to see things from her side? This was the only time I’d ever needed her. Why didn’t she trust me enough to know that?
After Studio X, I shut the door to all thoughts of Sabine, self-pity and dwelling on the past. Though Earl knew what had happened, I didn’t tell anyone else. Yet while shame strengthened my inner resolve, my body began its own quiet rebellion. At first it wasn’t with any serious illness but a chain of minor physical failures: a couple of colds, then infections that wouldn’t heal. Whatever went wrong, I never missed work. When my GP said, Rest up, slow down, take it easy, I laughed. What could happen to a twenty-four-year-old with an infection in London? A day later I was hospitalized with cellulitis. It knocked the laughter right out of me.
At the time, I’d just finished three weeks of nights, the extra one Sabine’s idea. After my display of neediness, we were continually on different shifts. Then one night she sent a text: lets work 3 weeks in a row lets go to brazil. I replied: yes lets. Despite knowing what she was like I persisted in building castelos in the air. But halfway through the gruelling stint, she jetted off to Guadeloupe.
When I got ill, I didn’t even consider telling Sabine. Earl made a deal with his opposite to extend his time in Spain by two months, so I didn’t tell him. Given that calls to my mother were minimal, I hardly needed to reintroduce drama there. Because I wasn’t in touch with the rest of the crew except through Earl, I didn’t tell them. Since it was ages to go before my next shift, I didn’t need to tell anyone. And I didn’t.
Lying in the hospital bed, I couldn’t be bothered to read or listen to music or watch TV. Mostly, I stared out of the window at a yellow brick wall. If I died, nobody would notice until January when I was due back at work. Even then, they’d probably assume that I’d found another job. I wouldn’t be the first nightshifter to disappear without warning. The shift leader might make a screwed-up newspaper voodoo doll and stick pins in it.
Discharged on the day of the winter solstice, I went home alone. I got in touch with nobody, and nobody got in touch with me. The blackout cloth still covered my bedroom window and I left the curtains in the other rooms drawn. Half the light bulbs in Earl’s flat blew but I hadn’t the energy or inclination to replace them. I lit candles until my lighter fluid ran out.
Although there was no fresh food, going to the corner shop seemed too much effort. Christmas passed while I huddled under a red blanket on the fake zebra-skin rug in the front room. I boiled rice and ate it with UHT boxed milk. My days went by watching shadows edging each other across the walls.
At midnight on the eve of the New Millennium, my phone beeped with texts. Everybody was out having a good time with someone else. Sherry was in Grimsby clubbing with her nieces. Lizard and the shift leader were watching fireworks on Arthur’s Seat. Earl and Coño were somewhere on the Costa Brava. Prawn sent a text too incoherent to begin to decipher where he was. And Sabine, typically, sent a text that was blank. I imagined her under a palm tree in Guadeloupe. Or who knows, maybe she was with Lucian at the Ritz.
I ignored all the messages.
Curled up on the rug, I tried to ignore the voices in my head too. I needed to drown them out, to replace them with new ones. Since we didn’t have a radio or TV, I fetched my computer to get on the internet. The dial tone sounded and the modem screeched but the server wouldn’t connect. Switching it off and on, I unplugged, re-plugged and tried again. Rumours were rife about a computer virus triggered by the numerical shift to 2000. But in the early hours of the morning my internet connection came through.
The first radio station I found was in Canada. Listeners were calling in with resolutions for the new year, the new century. I turned the sound down low and opened another tab. Searching for cheap holiday deals, I looked at photos of crowded beaches, built-up resorts and waterslides. A caller from Winnipeg said she wanted to learn Cantonese. I switched from the Canadian radio station to a Cantonese one. What was the cost of a flight to Hong Kong? Expensive. I looked up learning Cantonese, and browsed other adult education courses. The idea of returning to English literature seemed like a backwards step. Then I came across an introductory writing workshop. But it ran on Thursday afternoons; I couldn’t attend day classes while doing nights. Closing all the tabs, I quit the browser.
In my bedroom, I pulled down my blackout curtain. Dawn hadn’t yet come but a faint blue light was pressing at the horizon. After putting paper in my printer, I opened a blank document in Word. It seemed like a long time since I’d sat before an empty white screen. I typed my address at the top of the page. Then the press agency’s address beneath it.
Then: Letter of Resignation for Megan Groenewald
42
I scarcely saw Sabine at work in January. By the start of February, I had a new job in a second-hand bookshop. Since it was in north London, I got lodgings in a retired artist’s house nearby. The creative writing workshop I’d found online was full but I joined the local gym. I lifted heavy weights in a series of slow, controlled repetitions. My body didn’t change but the workouts helped me feel like I was developing stability and strength.
I didn’t hear from Sabine for the whole of February. By the time March slid into April, I assumed the friendship had fallen apart of its own accord. After I left a few texts unanswered, I lost contact with the rest of the crew too. Sometimes I felt a well of sadness that I hid shelving books in the stockroom. More often, I was overcome by a sort of mental exhaustion; Studio X and Sabine and nightshifts were all linked together in my mind.
That spring, I gave my Sabine-style clothes away to charity. I took to wearing cheap combat trousers and tank tops. My sole accessory was the sard ring that I’d bought on Portobello Road. Apparently sard came from volcanic rock and was used to deflect bad spells. As for my more abstract amulets against Sabine, I was almost disconcerted at how little I needed them.
A major contributing factor was the retired artist. She was nonconformist, empathetic and politicized. I wasn’t sexually attracted to her, but I respected her. I didn’t want to be her; I wanted to learn from her. Observing how she lived in the day-to-day, I saw, close up, the workings of an intellectual life. In our conversations, I hung on to what she said. I wanted to be someone she’d respect too.
The only regression of those first months was a dream I had in which Sabine was drowning. We were out on open water. I was on a raft but a powerful current was separating us. Though I had an oar, I wasn’t using it; I was watching her but somehow not moving. When I awoke, I was overcome by cold waves of sorrow and guilt. But as consciousness returned, I became angry with myself. Why was I feeling bad? In life, I’d been the one drowning.
When the artist noticed my blues the next day, I gave her an account of Sabine so reduced as to be barely true – though her response was profoundly useful. She described an experiment where rats were given a pedal to press for a reward. Half were rewarded logically, the other half randomly. Over time, the logical group continued to be logical whereas the random group lost all control; crazed, they pressed the pedal increasingly feverishly in hope of reward.
While the rat aspect was only one part of my relationship with Sabine, it helped with my resolve. I needed a clean break; any leniency would suck me back into our game. Over Christmas I’d sunk as low as I could go. For survival’s sake, I couldn’t afford to be drawn into Sabine’s orbit again.
In mid-April, the magnolia tree outside the second-hand bookshop was coming into bloom. The leaves were light green furls, the yellow flowers startling against the charcoal branches. One afternoon as I arranged a couple of cuttings in a flame-red vase, my phone buzzed with a text. It was written in Sabine’s usual style, as if nothing had changed: want to meet at the pig and hen tomorrow at six. Compulsively, my fingers itched to type yes – but I resisted.
Getting more messages from Sabine over the next few days, I felt bad, as if I’d turned into one of the rat controllers. Then I thought of what Cal Janssen had said about replying when there was no future in it: what’s the point? Sabine had so much pride; she was bound to give up sooner or later. But when, instead, she rang and left a voicemail in an urgent tone, I couldn’t ignore her any more. I returned the call. She said she needed to speak to me. She asked if we could meet. I agreed.
Sabine had suggested a loud pub at King’s Cross station. My plan was to drink sparkling water, but when I arrived she was in front of two large white wines. Earl’s dog, Coño, was at her feet, but that wasn’t what caught me off-guard. It was her appearance.
She’d never had an ounce of fat to spare but now she was skeletal. Her collarbones protruded from the top of her black shoestring dress. Her chest seemed to cave inwards, her lips were tinged blue and her skin was chalky. Despite it being late spring, she hugged a thick duffel coat around her.
‘Sabine, what’s wrong?’ I said.
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re too thin.’
‘I lose my appetite,’ she said irritably. ‘It happens. Then it comes right again.’
‘A few months ago, you were fine—’
‘That’s what you think.’
I considered my time in the hospital, then in the flat. ‘Are you ill?’
She pushed one of the glasses over to me; her nails were bitten to bleeding.
Coño barked.
‘Are you looking after her for Earl?’ I asked.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘He said, Why not take Coño for a bit, now that Meggie’s never around?’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘No?’ She took out her phone, glancing at the screen. ‘Can you walk with me to St Pancras? I need to get the 19.39 to Paris.’
‘Sure,’ I said.
She downed her wine, then said, ‘Drink.’
I shook my head.
‘C’mon, Meggie . . .’ She smiled.
After downing my wine too, I followed her across the concourse to a back exit. Behind the building, I felt disoriented. The streets between King’s Cross and St Pancras were deserted. The Channel Tunnel was being extended, both stations refurbished and connected. The blocks around us had become demolition or construction sites. Cranes, gaping holes, rows of metal rods and scaffolding.
Sabine stopped under the sulphurous light of a streetlamp.
I gave Coño a scratch between the ears and she growled at me. Yeah, I deserve it, I thought. I hadn’t been in touch with Earl for months either.
When I looked back at Sabine, her eyes were wet. She’d never cried in front of me before. Reaching out, I touched her sleeve. I felt the coarse material of her coat, her arm buried like a twig inside.
