Читать книгу Disconnected - Sherry Ashworth - Страница 11

The night the drinking started I was getting hassle from my mother. I don’t mean she was shouting her head off or anything – it was worse than that. There was all this tension swimming around in the kitchen. She’d drop in an innocent-sounding question. Did I have a nice day at school? She meant, had anyone been speaking to me about why I was so behind. Did anything happen today at school? In other words, she actually knew Mrs Dawes had spoken to me – she was probably behind it – and she was letting me know that she knew. And then there were these awful silences. I could hear her chewing and swallowing her food. It made me feel sick. I couldn’t eat while she was eating. Have you finished your Economics assignment yet?

I knew what would happen. She’d hold herself in until she couldn’t stand it any more and then she would start. You don’t know how much your father and I are worried about you. You’re throwing opportunity away, Catherine. If you tell us what’s wrong we can help you. And she sounds so reasonable and it makes me feel worse than ever. The only way I could see myself escaping a nightly lecture was if she was called out. I told you my mother’s a GP – that was her night on call. I even found myself wishing someone would have a heart attack or something, then felt guilty, and hoped instead someone was having a baby suddenly. And believe it or not, the telephone rang, and there was some emergency.

Reluctantly Mum got her stuff together and asked me to load the dishwasher. Believe me, that wasn’t a problem. I heard the door bang and her car engine start up. Peace at last.

Except it wasn’t peace. The peace suffocated me like fog. Then I wondered again if I was suffering from depression. I knew about the various sorts because I skim-read newspapers and magazines. Clinical depression – that’s the serious one you have to go to the doctor about. Manic depression – where you have mood swings. Mild depression – how everyone feels most of the time if they’re honest. Chronic depression – but that wasn’t me either. I could feel OK, sometimes. I wasn’t working simply because I couldn’t see the point any more. And also I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t work. Mrs Dawes – my English teacher and form tutor – she said I’d chosen to be a sixth former. Only I was beginning to see that wasn’t true. There’d always been this pressure on me to do what everyone else expected. I reckoned the first real choice I was making was this one. I was choosing not to work.

Then I felt mean. I knew I was freaking everyone out, making them worry about me. That wasn’t part of my plan. That afternoon I’d promised Mrs Dawes I’d try an essay, so I pulled in my school bag from the hall where I’d dumped it and put all my books and notes and files on the breakfast bar. That alone made me feel better. Just creating the appearance of work restored normality.

There was a lot to do before I actually started work. I had to find where I’d written the title of the essay. Then I had to find the place in the play. Then some blank paper. Then a biro or pencil from the bottom of my bag that hadn’t run out of ink or had a broken lead. I felt like a kid again. I used to love sitting at my desk in my bedroom with my anglepoise lamp and my set of fifty Derwent colouring pencils and my Barbie pencil case and furry animals lined up watching me work, being a good girl, knowing Mum and Dad were downstairs, approving of me.

Still the atmosphere wasn’t right. It was too quiet to work. I wondered about putting on the kitchen radio but the DJs annoyed me. I just wanted to listen to pure music. So on the spur of the moment I grabbed my books and pen and went into the lounge, put my things on the coffee table, and put on one of Dad’s CDs of opera arias. Don’t look like that, Dave. Opera isn’t only for snobs and saddos. If you let it, it can really get to you – all that raw emotion. But I only ever listened to opera when I was alone.

So I tried to settle down again and felt OK. I was about to work. I wrote the title of the essay on a sheet of paper in order to concentrate fully.

Taz came into my mind then, a boy I met a couple of weeks previous, at a party. The other day I’d mentioned him to Brad, whose party it had been. He’d said he’d never seen him before in his life. Sometimes when I was on the bus going through town I looked for Taz, but I was out of luck. I knew if I was brave enough I could talk Lucy into going to The Pit with me, but that might be hard now she was unofficially going out with Brad. Unless Brad wanted to come along too. Sorry – I’ve lost the thread. I was explaining about the essay. It was supposed to be on the audience’s response to Iago.

I went into HMV to look for some stuff by Transponder – the group Taz liked – but there was nothing. I was too shy to ask, just in case I’d heard him wrong. Maybe they were just a small band starting out. Hip-hop, probably. You can tell a lot about a person from the kind of music they like. I bet you like Oasis and Robbie Williams. So do I sometimes, but that night, like I said, I was listening to opera. Tosca, actually. Dead sophisticated, me. And so that was when the thought came into my mind, though it was more of a joke. What I need to complete the picture is a G & T. Yes – opera, Shakespeare and a G & T.

The essay was easy, really. Iago is the villain, sure, but the way he lets us in on his plans makes us part of them, and we admire his cleverness. And his language. Mrs Dawes always likes us to go on about language. It’s how it’s said as much as what is said. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There seemed to be little point in writing the essay seeing as though I could answer the question.

I thought I would try a gin and tonic after all.

I knew this wasn’t like me. Up until that evening I thought people who drank regularly were rather sad. It seemed like a weakness – it was one of the things I despised my parents for. I’d noticed the way they both came back from work all tense and snappy, then as they worked their way through a bottle of wine they’d unwind, chat a while, crack some jokes and then act stupid and not realise it. So I decided never to drink.

But that night I thought, what the hell? I deserve a drink, all the hassle I’ve been getting.

Took a tumbler from the kitchen, opened the bottle of Gordon’s, glugged it out and retched at the oily smell. Filled it to the brim with Slimline tonic, wrinkled my nose in disgust and knocked it back. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, why people made such a big deal about drink. I took the tumbler back to the coffee table where my books were and tried to start the essay with my pad of A4 paper on my lap.

We first see Iago in Act One, scene one, on the stage with Roderigo, in the middle of a conversation which establishes the main action in the play so far – no, not so far, as it hadn’t begun yet – … the main action in the play, which is that Roderigo has given him – Iago – money and promises … I knocked back some more gin. I could feel it now making my legs go heavy but at the same time my head felt light, as if something had lifted, as if I’d woken up. I wrote on furiously. And he’s worried that he’s been double-crossing him so Iago expounds (good word, that! Mrs D will love it!) his feelings for Othello. The audience can see right from the start of the play that Iago is jealous of Othello and also of Cassio, who has just been appointed … More gin. It made my pen flow. I realised that all that had been wrong with me was that I had been worrying too much. Taking it all too seriously. Writing English essays was as easy as falling off a log backwards. Backwards? Was it backwards? It amazed me how well I knew the play. Even if I was telling the story and not answering the question it should be obvious that I was answering the question in a way. As long as I wrote something, it was better than nothing.

Jealousy is an interesting emotion. Was I jealous of Lucy? I don’t mean because I fancied Brad – give me a break! – but because she had someone. Or was I jealous of Melissa? A harder question to answer. I thought I simply couldn’t stand her, but the truth might be that I was jealous. I didn’t like her but I wanted to be like her. Or maybe I was jealous that she didn’t choose to hang around with me. So I resented her. I decided I was pretty mean, deep down. But then, so were most people. I thought I didn’t know one truly decent person. Everyone has an agenda. No one does anything unless it benefits them.

That struck me as being very wise and very true. I looked down at the paper and saw I’d written three quarters of a side. A bit messy, but I did have the pad perched on my knee. My gin was finished now so I thought I’d have some more. The novelty of what I was doing was cheering me up.

How much to pour in the glass? Might as well be generous. Emptied the tonic into it. Took a gulp right there by the drinks table. I really didn’t know what I had been worrying about. Anything was possible. My whole life was ahead of me. I waltzed over to the CD player in time to the music, and turned up the volume. This was cool. I went back to the essay, only I didn’t feel like getting on with it at that moment. I knew I could finish it now. Tomorrow. I would finish it tomorrow. I would wake up early in the morning and write and write.

The only thing that was wrong now was that I was on my own. I felt good, better than I had for ages. I wanted to be somewhere, at a party, in a club, messing with my mates. This was a waste of good feelings, sitting here alone. I wondered about ringing Lucy, but the thought of her wittering on about Brad didn’t turn me on. Then all of a sudden the opera struck me as being stupid, so I ran upstairs and got Green Day and put that on instead. You can’t stand still to Green Day. So I started to dance – it made me thirsty – I drank some more. Out of my head, I thought, I’m out of my head. That was exactly where I wanted to be. Instead I was the music, at last I was connecting.