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Extended Work
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| Drifting - chapter ten | |
| By Jamie | ||
| 28 July 2008 | ||
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This is the tenth chapter in a long form story. My plan is publish all the chapters on here as I go along. I will present them as I choose, a few days interspersing the entries. All feedback, negative or positive gratefully received. I am proud of certain aspects, and ruefully aware of other areas of shortcomings and inadequacy. Rather like myself in fact. So constructive criticism or showers of stars - both interestedly received. Blunt, bored, disinterested views will be received likewise. As most of us are, who seemingly ' can't ' write with brevity, I am equally indisposed to attempt a synopsis. But... Girl has self, girl meets boy, girl loses self, girl loses boy, girl tries to find self. Girl finds a different kind of self. This would be fair, but woefully inadequate. More it is an outpouring of thoughts and words, many words along a collection of themes that had been going round and around in my head for a long time. And ultimately a traumatic time in my own life brought these feelings and thoughts rudely, and unbiddenly to the surface. So I wrote them down - a catharsis of sorts, and an interested exploration of the routine, process and 'expected' or 'required' structure of writing in long-form. Thanks for reading and your interest. I repay your time spent with gratitude and humilty.
chapter ten
Through the frosty condensation of the window Lyndsey could see the blue in the sky and she could concentrate on the blue and the brightness - and this for the first time in quite a while. In picking through the messes and fall-out of her last ragged and descending conversation with Tom, she had had much to think about and decide upon. Much had felt clearer in the days afterward as more of what she had refused to see or pick up on around her head became more obvious and apparent. And Tom’s refusal to hold her up after she had desperately cried out for his attentions and affection after the robbery, had made her understand one thing very well: she had only herself now; he had been there before to dust her down, pick her up and carry her - but he wasn’t there now. He wasn't there. Even when she had pathetically cried out for him and showed good reason to receive his help and affection, he had still shunned her. If there was one thing that her assailant on the Broomielaw had given her that afternoon, it was the dawning surety that now she had to move on. Those times weren’t here anymore. Lighter heart, easier thoughts – she was readying her head and getting herself in the frame of mind to be ready to be physically moving on. These were her last few days of Glasgow she was sure, she just needed to wash the city through her system a little more yet. So she was away out of the squat, away from the now familiar, away from the shifty tenements of the London Road and from the seedy and low-life inhabitants of Anderston and the Broomielaw. This was to be an afternoon that she would spend time feeling opportunistically about affairs, a feeling that had been becoming more natural and regular in the last few days. Time spent not thinking about others timetables and their meetings with others, time not deliberating on relationships and events she would like to re-live or re-write, but couldn’t, and time spent not avoiding people and looking over her shoulder for muggers and thieves. This was to be an afternoon of relaxing, of kicking back and sinking down again into her shell. Re-applying the layers and beginning to polish up again the veneer of self-reliance. Damaged soul, but back on her feet again – acquiring the determination to look forward instead of pushing her face backwards. Surfing through the traffic of the pedestrians thronging Argyle Street again. Her jacket tied and hung around her waist and hitting rhythmically against the backs of her legs, her boots dodging through the litter and dense cobbles and paving stones. She was in dreamworld and quite happy, but content to be jolted out of her thoughts as she heard her name called out as she passed the HMV store. "Lyndsey – hey!" She turned to see Helen and Jon smiling and walking towards her over the pedestrianised walkways. "Hi." And she smiled, genuinely and fully. It was good to be with others and to talk with them. "You’re looking okay – are you?" Helen was looking at her shining face, seeing a sparkle in her eyes where recently there had only been a dull light. "Yeah – I'm good. Just having a day out and around, mooching about, shopping for nothing – just a day away from my misery-world,” She laughed self-deprecatingly and they joined her, glad to see her looking and acting much more cheerfully than of late. "Where’ve you been?" "Oh around and about. Through the Gorbals, over the bridge, around the town centre and back onto here…" "Why? Why go walking around all these dusty streets?" Helen was perplexed at someone encircling and exploring the streets and neighbouring districts that she took for granted. "Why not? I might not be here for too long – I'm just looking at what’s around the corner." Lyndsey was a little tongue-tied and embarrassed. How to explain a fascination and interest in something that is someone else’s? An unceasing interest in a place that the someone-else whom she was now speaking to, had lived in all their life and couldn’t see a novelty or captivation in. Glasgow was, and always had been home to Helen; a place where she could enjoy living and could get a lot from, but… well a walk through the Gorbals, through the town centre and back to the Trongate was unlikely to feature in an itinerary of one of her days. But then her make-up was different to Lyndsey’s. "Are you coming for a drink, we’re just ready for one – aye Jon?" Helen turned to the startled smiling face of her friend. He shrugged and looked quietly on; well he was now anyway. The three of them marched back up Argyle Street, past the Trongate and back towards the small pub nearby the squat. Chattering they went, amidst the afternoons lengthening shadows, zipping up jackets as they walked against the colder wind. As smoky and clammy as always. Only five’ o’clock, but almost a full pub. A busy bar, they pushed through the leaning, standing and talking drinkers and on finding a table they pushed away the uncollected empty glasses. They sat around on the small heavy stools and Lyndsey instinctively dove into her pockets to find her cigarettes to add to the stale, polluted air around them. "So where’ve you been lately? Nobody has seen or spoken to you for days, have they Jon?" Helen nudged the thoughtful body of Jon who was staring around the pub. "Err, no… No." He was tongue-tied again, unwilling to speak about or mention his and Lyndsey’s recent meeting and personal conversations. Lyndsey looked on at his shifting, anxious features, again wondering. "Oh, I've just been touching down, coming together and thinking things through – after all the recent shit, y’know?" Helen nodded understandingly. "And so now – are you starting to feel like feeling better?" Lyndsey smiled, eyes down. "Yeah – aye. Better – better-ish." They aimlessly chatted more, mostly Lyndsey and Helen talking while Jon stared into the area round them. There were the perennial inhabitants of this pub and every town centre pub: the afternoon regulars sat slumped around the bar, the shifty young men – eyes watching and observing the incomers and unfamiliar faces in the room, the impatient, silent, unhappy wives, and a few bored, mingling children. There was a pause and a lull in the conversation, and Jon leant over to ask Lyndsey a short, quick question. "What did you say – leaving?" Helen looked up surprised, and glanced at each of them. "Aye well, I think I might be moving on soon." Lyndsey spoke a little cautiously; hearing Jon’s quiet question, she understood more his current silence and wondered at what he was thinking. But she really wasn’t inclined right now to begin explaining and exploring her thoughts and reasons for moving on. Right at the moment she was reasonably happy and light of head and mind; feeling the vodka in her glass run down her throat into her stomach, she felt warmer and more settled. Now was not the time for ruminations and advice again. To Helen though, this was a new subject; she had seen how upset and disturbed Lyndsey had recently been, but she had no idea that she was thinking of leaving because of it. "Surely you aren’t going to let a spot of unhappiness chase you away, dear." Jon looked on, agreeing with Helen’s sentiments, but inwardly shaking his head at her unknowing of the depths of Lyndsey’s angst and obsession. "Well, I don’t know yet, but this place sure feels crowded and awkward with both me and Tom in it." Helen grunted dismissively, "I'll bet he doesn’t feel that – is this his idea?" Lyndsey quietly and inwardly sighed. In spite of everything, and with the best of intentions, she always seemed to be finding herself walking and talking down this road lately. She could feel herself feeling a little lower and not quite as relaxed and light headed already, as she was forced to deliberate again over her recent worries and anxieties. Not one day off. And also she really didn’t want to be discussing Tom with someone like Helen who was also intimate in her knowledge of him. "This isn’t about him – it’s about me, and stopping myself from this spiral of feeling and being miserable." To Helen this was all so over-blown and intense. She had been out with many people and had had many break-ups. Often not very happy afterwards, but there was no soul searching and wilful misery sessions. No plumbing the throes of despair and misery, no examining the wrongs that had been done to her and unravelling the un-doings of the relationship. It had worked, it didn’t now – so it ended. She had learned and moved on, it was all more history and experience, and soon there would be someone new. She had seen a little of Lyndsey’s torment and self-questioning, and although she had a lot of sympathy for this poor lost girl, she also wanted to grab her and shake her too. The circumstances in which Helen and Tom had met had not been dissimilar to Lyndsey’s. She had been introduced to the squat by Jill several years previously, and had been captivated by this old school friend who was also living there. The immature and irrelevant Tom at school had grown into this handsome, charming guy, and a brief, loud and mostly physical relationship had ensued. But, mostly by her wishes, and with few conversations and little awkwardness, they had ceased to be lovers and had become merely friends. She had moved down the corridor a few doors; she re-structured her days, and simply got on with her life and met new people while he carried on with his. No problems, no endless ruminations and no disparate thoughts of moving on. But then she had friends here, she had roots and more stability, she was older and more experienced. Underneath she had a few scars and a few bad memories of personal trauma, but then Helen was a different person to Lyndsey and she saw life and its challenges and deceptions differently. "You choose misery Lyndsey…" Helen looked toward the suddenly doleful face of the again contemplative Lyndsey. "No, sometimes it chooses us, and it cannot be shaken off." Lyndsey looked blankly back at Helen’s open face. "But lately I've had my fill of it, I'm not gonna cry anymore." Helen laughed pleasantly. "Good! If you don’t want to, you won’t…" Jon sat by looking on, listening to the platitudes of the two girls and thought quietly and a little grimly to himself: It would be nice if Helen was always as right as she thought she was. It was all just a bad dream… Well it would have been a relief all round if that was all it had been. But the next few moments in retrospect, had almost a fatal inevitability about them, and the draining away again of her self-control hit Lyndsey time and time again afterwards. Surely the most honest account of the make-up of our characters is displayed in the thick of the emotional and hysterical dramas we sometimes find either ourselves in the midst of, or we run ourselves through. As the three of them got up to leave, their actions were still the same – Jon, silent, thoughtful and brooding, Helen and Lyndsey were still talking to each other, but more trivially now. So engrossed were they that Helen walked away leaving behind her bag under the table. Not more than a few steps away however before she felt its absence on her arm; so Lyndsey walked on trying to speak to Jon to bring him back into the conversation as they walked towards the exit of the pub. "Oh hi…err hi." Helen’s voice spoken with mixed tones came to their ears from behind Lyndsey and Jon. They both turned with only cursory interest, to see to whom she was speaking. To see Helen paused and looking over to a corner table. Helen sensed their eyes on her and quickly turned back to face Lyndsey with a darting look. But Lyndsey had followed her previous look over to the table, to see Tom sat smiling with a drink and a cigarette on the go. And of course he was not alone - a girl of probably his age or a little younger was seated next to him reflecting back the looks she and he were receiving from Helen and Lyndsey. How does one immediately ascertain the closeness and relationship of two people sat around a table in a pub? Well truly, you can’t reliably; you can only guess or assume. But Lyndsey, in spite of her assertions and her present wished state of well being, was still easily capable of making two and two equal five or even six. Away from any tests she seemed quite happy and confident – at least to herself, but put through it to just the smallest degree, she almost instantly crumbled and her small reserves of self dignity and respect melted away rapidly. Black, dark eyes she turned onto them, the half-smile and relaxed expression from her conversations with Helen and Jon had vanished to be replaced by her stony face and pursed-up lips. Tom however was light of face and head, and the leaning form of the girl near his arm was laughing at some remark he had made before their companionship was disturbed. Both their faces became a little more serious as they looked up at the dour face of the rapidly advancing girl. "Hello Lyndsey, how are you?" Tom continued smiling as he faced her, but he was feeling a little more anxious now as he could see the emotions swimming vividly in her eyes. He still had clear memories of the scenes she had recently caused, there was going to be no repetition of those if he could help it, and certainly not in here. As she rapidly passed her, Helen made to grab Lyndsey’s arm, but she had already got by. She reached the table and sat down uninvited. Tom managed to get in first, "Lyndsey, this is Petra. This is Lyndsey who lives back at the squat with us." Tom’s attempts at jocular normality and pleasantries were rather comically thin and this was not lost on Petra who could clearly see the anguish in the face of the hastily seated Lyndsey, but she politely hello-ed in the girls direction. "I'm fine, but not as good as you obviously." Petra’s greeting was as nothing to Lyndsey who kept her eyes fiercely fixed on Tom’s face, watching him floundering and wondering what to say. "What’s up Lyndsey?" Lamely and fatally he spoke the first words that came into his head. "What’s up…?" She was incredulous and reeling. "You finish with me and just a few days later you’re down the pub with your next and your newest squeeze…" Her voice was rising as her eyes got angrier and she began to lose all reason and the small amount of control she had still had. "Hey, don’t be so rude." The offended Petra also spoke impulsively, not impressed at the interruption and at the tag that Lyndsey had assumptively attached to her. "Fuck you!" For the first time Lyndsey looked Petra in the face, and she poured pure venom out of her eyes. "Hey Lyndsey, stop it now. This is not any time or place, and you’ve no right to speak to anyone like that." Tom’s voice was also rising as he began to get annoyed at having to confront yet another emotional and hysterical scene with Lyndsey. "How could you…? How can you get over and move on so fast and so quickly?" Lost, lost. She was lost again and the tears were back and starting to roll. Pulling her arm and coaxing her, Helen tried to persuade and to get her away, but Lyndsey ignored and resisted her hands. "I've been through hell in the last week or so, I've been unable to sleep, eat or function properly, while you…" She sobbed and then cried out her last words, "But you’ve just been getting yourself your next dumb fuck lined up haven’t you?" That was it. Tom jerked to his feet spilling his drink and having to hush a now furious Petra. "Right, enough. That’s the end… I don’t owe you anything Lyndsey. I don’t want to hurt you or see you hurt, but this misery is all your own doing." "But how can you… how can you…" She was spluttering to find the right words to articulate the explosions of emotions in her head, but Tom again cut her off. "No, shut up Lyndsey. Just shut the fuck up! I've had it, I'm sorry for you but I'm not going to listen to you anymore. Go away and cry it out somewhere, but just get out of my life and leave me alone." "What?" Lyndsey was livid, hysterical and screaming now, but both Jon and Helen had grabbed her this time. Most of the inhabitants of the pub were now watching with amusement the tragic-comedy scene unfolding before them. "Leave me alone…" She struggled pathetically with her friends and aides as they walked and dragged her away from the table and the scene she was making. Looking back towards Tom and Petra, she could feel the gaze of most of the pub on her, but still she cried out, winsomely and distraughtly to the angry faces of the corner table. "How can you…How can you treat me like this?" Lyndsey stared back through red, streaming eyes at the incensed and provoked face of Tom. He was still half-standing, his hair falling forward, his brown eyes unblinking and staring her out. She held his gaze as she was hauled out through the door. Out into the dark, onto and into the pavement. She fell forwards and off balance, down she went losing her footing on the step. And so she received a ripped trouser leg and a bloody knee too; now the tears just poured out. Jon and Helen managed to get her wailing and flailing body back to the squat, but it was a battle. Several times she tried to get free to go back into the pub – to try to make amends to the ridiculous situation she had caused. To make apologies and try to gain back the ground she had shouted and tossed away in her rage. The appalling total fuck-up of the situation hit her like a hard slap over the cheeks. To be able to run back, erase or re-arrange the events and exchanges of the last few moments was a wish and desire for which she would trade an awful lot. But it was gone now, lost, done and buried. And now she had nothing left to lean back on, no feelings, interest, affection or sympathy at all from him whom she still felt so, so much for. In spite of everything before that had happened, in spite of everything that she had said and thought she meant about getting better again and moving on, Lyndsey had still harboured a small sad, desperate hope that there was still a lead left – a final chance of some kind of reconciliation. But now that was gone, not even the most earnest optimist would be able to see a way back for her now. Tom wouldn’t speak to her again, he wouldn’t want to see her – he would most likely avoid her or ignore her again if they met. And this was her fault too – all of it. She couldn’t blame him at all for any bad feeling he probably now felt toward her. It took quite a time for Helen and Jon to calm her down back at the squat. The anger she had felt at seeing Tom with someone else quickly dissipated, it was mainly just the tears, histrionics and self-recriminations. Jon soon left Helen alone to deal with her; he was embarrassed and tongue-tied, but also it was hurting him too to see the dreadful state she was in. He was also quite angry at Tom and at his harsh words and his way of seeing Lyndsey off. It was clear that Lyndsey had been well out of order, but… He had left, not wanting to walk down a road that would plainly show the immensity of his affections for the poor wreckage, now sat sobbing her heart out in Helen’s arms. So… back here again. Back down here again. Sobbing her heart out, rocking backwards and forwards, head down in the chest of another listener. Helen didn’t begrudge her her hysteria and loss of control; she could plainly see how hurt and wounded she was, and how damaged she was, probably from more than just her recent encounters with Tom. She let her cry it out and didn’t argue or baulk at her self-pity and her endless, plaintive cries out over her lost love for her devoted one. After the tears were over and through, Lyndsey sat alone and tired – so tired. Drawn out and down – way, way down. She began to pull herself back together again slowly, but this had to be it – there couldn’t be anymore of this. Every time she thought she had touched down, she found herself finding a newer, lower level. She would speak of how much better she was thinking and feeling – then she would ably and plainly demonstrate the nonsense of her own self-assessment. But she could easily see the sense behind what she knew she should be doing, and she could see the clumsiness, disinclination and inarticulacy in her present stumbling actions. Eventually, alone and quiet in Helen’s room, she managed to stop shaking long enough to be able to light and hold a cigarette, and in the blue sitting clouds of exhaled tobacco smoke she began to see her next difficult, but necessary steps. It was time. Time to get up, move out and move on. She should be coping, but she wasn’t. She’d like to say that she was and she could, but it wasn’t true – and everyone could see this, including at last, herself. It was time to start looking after, and watching out for herself. She needed to place herself somewhere where she could begin to recuperate and regain or make up some self-respect, dignity, confidence and self-love. How could she blame Tom at all, when even she didn’t love or even like herself? Now before something even worse was to happen, things had to change. This was a low from which she had to begin to rise from and get better. Lyndsey put out her used cigarette and stubbed it out onto the saucer next to her foot, on the floor. She was about to rise, but then the last of the candles burned out beside her. She sank back onto her knees and lay there brooding in the pitch-darkness of the empty room. How cold? Oh very cold, far too cold. The low, creping deep frost of the early morning had penetrated the damp squat’s meagre defences, and Lyndsey lying swaddled in just a thin sleeping bag and a few blankets, was woken, shaking from her restless nights’ sleep. Frozen and numb to the bone and soul she felt, and it was still early with only half-light illuminating the bare room around her. Still it was easier to motivate herself to rise, dress and get on with the business she knew she had to do; it is not easy to lie and ponder and prevaricate when the coldness makes lying comfortably impossible. So… few regrets now. the last couple of months here – so much activity, head and mouth work, so much laughter and so, so many tears. But these had been her first true experiences of living and of real life. As she hurriedly dressed and threw her few possessions into her pack, she looked up and gazed at the bare plaster-less walls. Looking through it she could see a dark haired, eager-eyed, nervous, running girl. Stood on the threshold, apprehensively following her mistrusted guide into a new, unknown and coveted world. Loftily Lyndsey looked back and through to see a girl many ways different to herself now; an innocent girl smiling shyly, lighter of heart, mind and ways. She sighed and finished her packing, the last few articles she pushed down into the top of her pack. The window was frosty but she could see vaguely through the centre of the pane and away up the dirty and shabby side street to see the street lights out and the tenements close around and bathed in the cold blue light of the fine and clear early morning. The frost was glistening, hard and sparkling white on the road and pavements; away up on the busy London Road, she could vaguely hear the cars speeding by to their destinations. Their occupants busy and beset by their plans and objectives for the day, but here in the same room that she had first slept in on leaving behind the world she had previously known, she sat leaning over her full pack, exhaling smoke into the empty air while she pondered her destination today. Ruminating on where she was headed, she thought about those whom she would leave behind her today, some maybe forever. Some of her recent acquaintances she discarded with the same disdain and disinterest that she was aware they probably felt for her. Others she was sorry to leave behind just as she was beginning to get to know them and they to understand her a little better. But this may all have been very different if she had had more time for them and more of a sense and a rein on her own feelings, but of course she had allowed - no, she had deeply wanted herself to be distracted both from the others around her and from herself. And so this left the one person whom she knew in spite of herself she would very much miss, and from whom she was practically fleeing for her own peace of mind, quality of life and relative sanity. A few months in a new place, many weeks in a new head, an unfocused mind and mouth expressing new, unexplored and previously suppressed ideas and thought. This had been Lyndsey living a new life. And a few months… well, barely enough time to catch breath, but on the ground, here living it from day to day, hour to hour, it felt… oh so long. As she finished her cigarette, Lyndsey could see the new stumbling entrant again, and she recognised herself now so much on that girl of then. The few intervening months had wreaked many tears and much happiness, so much – too much strife and drama, an explosion of new experiences for her head to deal with, but really she could see that she had not progressed too far. Today the girl struggling with her pack to the station was very recognisably the girl who had made the opposite journey that short time ago. But she was different certainly in some respects. She believed herself to be looking for something else now; Lyndsey couldn’t yet see what it was she believed should be motivating and driving her, but she was adamant that it was different to that she had fallen before and worshipped in front of previously. How quickly she had lost her head and heart, how eager she had been to discard her self-control and reason. She shivered through, feeling both the coldness of the room and the chill and stifling sensation of the feelings of utter dependency that she had suffered from and had exhibited recently. But even though her recent activities and poise embarrassed and almost repulsed her, she was calm and canny enough to recognise how little distance she had actually moved on, of how long our feelings and passions stay with us and of how much time it takes to erode away their ache and pull, because why, if he – he was to walk into the room right now… Well he won’t… and he’s probably still sleeping – and there’s good reason to think he’s probably not alone. But Lyndsey had too many recent traumatic experiences in her head, so many dramas and scenarios which she had no desire at all to re-enact and repeat. And the crux of course, had been the scene and screamings of yesterday, another total loss of self-control and respect, another rejection – and more bluntly and violently this time. The view from her eyes of other people’s happiness, un-preoccupation, of their easy progression. And of her own shattered nerves, her nearness and fondness for that black wall of misery, self-pity and desired depression. Time to stop it now – time to quit thinking about what he and others are thinking... You are the most important person Lyndsey. You. With her pack hitched up high, and money and cigarettes close by zipped into a pocket, with a heavy heart and an anxious head, and with a quiet stumbling step she made her way out of the squat, and while doing so bade silent thoughtful farewell. To some people whom she would probably never see again, others she might but it was within her control – her decision would matter. She could write to or meet any of quite a few faces she may want to, but it would take approval, input and indeed desire from her to do so. Control was everything here now, she had mostly lost it over her current situation and so she was moving on to regain and to find it again. She knew she was doing the right thing – this was the right decision. So why so nervous as she tip-toed down the hallway, quietly slipping two notes under two doors? Why was she so unwilling and sad as she pulled close the door behind her and she moved on?
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