Keeping Busy

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

Keeping Busy by Matt Gibson [email protected]

I am floating, unmoving, face up. My eyes are open, but all I see is rose-tinged whiteness. I do not breathe. I do not blink. Words, slowed by the water, arrive distant at my ears. A shadow. A shadow, falling over me, and a cry. And I wake, my weight returning to pull me back into the mattress. I jerk up, the damp sheet reluctantly clinging to my torso, and breathe greedily, as if I have just burst through the surface of the dream-water. I fight the panic. That was the worst for several months. I could be because I'm off the pills. It could be because I'm on holiday. I drag the sheets from the bed behind me as I rise, detouring into the kitchen to stuff them into the washer-dryer. If I don't do it now, then I'll be crawling underneath them again tonight, wrapping the nightmare-sweat around myself. I continue to the bathroom. I don't take baths any more. As I shower, I think of my options for escape. There is no way I can stay in the flat all day. I haven't managed that for years. I'd work every day if I could, but the company insists on everyone taking an annual holiday, at least two weeks. They think it's good for you. When I first joined, it sounded like a good idea, but that was before the world changed. I've moved twice, but I bring the emptiness with me. My meagre possessions are all I need, but they define my losses by the spaces they fail to fill. The bathroom is one of the worst places for this negative space. I have taken to buying much more than I need. The cabinet is packed with new cans of shaving foam and deodorant, stacked with soap. I experimented with other things for a while, all the products that filled the gaps before, the bath oils, the conditioners, the pore-cleanser. That seemed too morbid, though, even for me. The box of pills is on the slim glass shelf above the sink. Dr Wikremasingh tells me that they're important, that they'll make me feel better. I always take them when I'm working, because they help me to concentrate. I have to hold down the job: I couldn't cope if my time was not filled up for me. Despite what the good doctor thinks, though, the pills do not help me feel better. The only help me to feel less. And there are times when I need to feel. Otherwise, what's the point? I return to the bedroom and dress. I still don't have a plan. Last year, I went away, up to Scotland, an activity holiday, the days filled with distraction. There were too many couples, though, too much love. A wave of anger rises in me, and I kick my wooden chair clear across the room. It lands on its back with a muted thud, the seat dropping out from the frame.

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1

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

This anger is normal, when coming off the pills, and I've not done any permanent damage. Leaving the chair where it is, I grab my coat and head for the door. I still have no plan, but I know that I need to get out, and quickly. It's been so long. Nearly two years now. One year, eleven months and twenty five days, in fact. I can't help keeping track. Leaving the gate, I turn left. My normal route. I walk straight past the bus stop, though, keep going. I'm afraid that if I lose concentration then I'll end up at work. I can see the faces in my mind. Some puzzled, some understanding, some plainly wondering if I shouldn't have pulled myself together again by now. The understanding faces are the worst, because there is no way, I tell you, no possible way that they could understand. That's why I first learned to put on a brave face, to hide the grief. To seem normal. As I learned, those sickening fucking understanding faces appeared less often. I reach the end of the road, and start up the hill, away from the city centre. Perhaps the extra work will clear my head a little. I head up towards Clifton Village, passing the little graveyard on Hopechapel Hill, recently cleared of a decade's overgrown weeds. I push on to the Downs. It is too early for anywhere to be open yet, even if I did know where to go. I sit on a bench, the June sun already quite high above the horizon behind me. If I try to think at all, then my thoughts scatter, and I spread myself over the future and the past. I seem incapable of any coherence. I concentrate on my breathing for a while, staring into the distance, eyes unfocused. This seems to help. I stay there until I become aware of the first few other people starting their day, until the traffic noise from the surrounding roads changes from the infrequent diesel of delivery vans to the steadier hum of the commuters. I get up, and return to the street, turning at the newsagent which marks the southern outskirts of the shopping area. Looking now for options, for a plan. This may have been the wrong choice. This is a place for socialising. Pubs, cafés and restaurants dominate the road. The shops don't hold out much hope for me, either. A couple of little boutiques, an estate agency, an optician. Still I walk on, straight on, ignoring the side-roads for the moment. A dry cleaner. A delicatessen. The library. As soon as I see it, I know that it is exactly what I need. Despite the earliness of the hour, its doors are open. The building is Victorian, but on stepping inside I am transported back only as far as the nineteen seventies. Cracked linoleum, orange plastic chairs, fading paintwork, all the telltale signs of a public building. The brace of elderly female librarians behind the tall counter pay me no heed as I walk past and into the body of the library. This is it. This is not a place for company, for couples. There is no negative space here. There are no memories. I head instinctively for the fiction section, and look for what I want.

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2

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

*** All day, I sit at one end of the long table that juts from the far wall. At the other end squat a couple of internet terminals, seemingly the sole concession to modernity. The library seems to have bought more computers than books in the last thirty years, but that is an advantage for me. All the modern works are full of love and sex; a story can no longer be told without a romantic interest. I seek my peace in the older works, in the heroes of Poe, Conan Doyle, Lovecraft. These were singular men, I can tell, men like me. For their heroes the thrill is in the game, the puzzle, the unknown. I join them, pacing myself, reading slowly and steadily, losing myself in the language, their world archaic and familiar at once. The librarians do not disturb me. Occasionally another person joins the table, but never to read. They sit at a terminal checking their e-mail or surfing the web. They ignore me, and I ignore them. At closing time, I go and find a bench on the nearby Downs. By then, the couples have gone, the students have given up on fresh air and headed home or to the pub. Occasional dog-walkers pass me, and there is the distant noise of the roads, but that is all. I clear my mind completely, centre myself. After sitting for an hour or so, I rise, and walk home. I eat a simple meal, and I go to bed. Evenings, I have found, are by far the worst time, so I have learned to skip them completely. In bed by eight, up at six. I still have trouble sleeping, but my rule is never to get up. It only makes things worse. *** By Wednesday I have settled into this routine, and I feel far better. I get up and out early, and sit on my bench on the Downs until the library opens. Then I spend all day there, not even stopping for lunch. Then the Downs again, and home. My day has symmetry. *** Disaster strikes on Thursday afternoon. I'm halfway through The Purloined Letter when I'm disturbed. A woman, about my age, certainly no more than thirty five, is trying to do something outside the normal bounds on one of the computers. She wants to look at pictures on a CD-ROM which she has brought with her. She and one of the white-haired librarians, both out of their depth, are muttering and prodding at the machine. This irritates me not so much because of the noise, but because computers are my speciality. I do not know if what she is attempting is possible, but I do know that it would only take me about five minutes to find out, one way of the other. If I went over to help them, that is. I decide against it, turning my eyes back down to rejoin Dupin's investigations. But then the young lady interrupts me. She asks me for help. Surprised by this transgression, I don't think to refuse, to feign ignorance. Without prompting, that part of my personality which I hide myself behind, the face that I show at work, takes over. I tell myself that the sooner I solve this woman's problem, the sooner I can get back to my book.

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Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

It does, indeed, take about five minutes, and I am successful. I sense that the young woman has further questions, but I do not give her time to ask them, returning curtly to my book. For the rest of the afternoon, I find it more difficult to concentrate on my reading. She stays at the computer, no more than ten feet away, and sometimes I find my attention returning unbidden to the modern world, to look at her. I am aware that there is something about her that reminds me of Claire. I wonder if I should leave. Where else would I go, though? At last, the shuffling and tidying of the librarians announces that the library is about to close. That is when she asks me if I would like to go for a coffee. This time, I do refuse. She startles me by persisting. I never could turn Claire down. That may have been part of the problem, part of my downfall. This girl, though her hair is blonde, not red, and she stands a good three inches taller, does share with Claire that combination of stubbornness and enthusiasm which I could never resist. I have helped her, she points out, and she wants to thank me. I am completely unprepared for this. I had started to feel safe here, and now my thoughts are scattering again, running scared. From the back of my mind, I hear myself accept. A rejection would have to come from me, from the real me, behind the façade. Part of me knows that the forcefulness of that rejection would surprise us both, would lead to trouble, an eruption of violence in this quiet, dusty space. She takes me to a café, just a few doors down from the library. I've had plenty of practice at appearing normal. I do a reasonable job here, too. It helps that she likes to talk, and I like to listen. It's like the reading, a one-way street, taking things in, to stop anything coming out. I learn that she too likes country walks, and reads as avidly as I, although her tastes are vastly different. I sit back, feeling my face make appropriate expressions, hearing my voice interject and question and agree, marvelling that there seems to be a whole person inside my head, apart from myself, who can happily carry on a conversation without me. Her name is Rachel. She is a mature student. Drama. This is probably the main reason she reminds me of Claire. Claire was always on the stage. It is the place to go if your personality is too big to flourish in the real world. We talk for perhaps half an hour, just superficially. Reading between the lines, I see that she is lonely, despite her apparent sociability. When I gather enough sense to excuse myself, she asks if I have a girlfriend waiting. I say no, that there is no one else. Not a lie, not the truth. *** There is no dream that night. ***

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4

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

On Friday morning, there is clear bright sunshine. Walking past the small graveyard, the colours astonish me. It is as though flower-shaped holes have been punched in the fabric of the world, letting through vivid alien hues. My senses are waking. I have stopped taking the pills before, but this is not an effect I remember from the other times. Is this what life is really like? A part of me almost rebels on entering the gloomy library, but I am nothing if not a creature of habit, these days. At about two o'clock, she appears again. She is immediately friendly today. I am grateful for the subdued atmosphere of the library; she cannot be as vivacious as she wants to be. Still, I find myself meeting her halfway, lifting from my solitude. It is Lovecraft today, an old favourite, but I find it surprisingly easy to put down. We chat for perhaps half an hour before she decides that she must get on with her work. Later, I find myself going for a meal with her. I cannot explain how it happens, I do not even know which part of me is in charge when I say yes. I think she has already found my weakness, that Achilles' heel which Claire used to exploit without mercy, and which I never truly understood. Neither of us drinks, she because she has an audition in the morning, I out of simple habit: the pills don't mix well with alcohol. I haven’t been in a restaurant for a long time, but I find I can face it, with company. When I tried it before, it just felt so empty. The waiter can take away the spare chair, the other place-setting, but he can't take away the fact of the space itself. With Rachel filling that space, I can stand it, as long as I concentrate on her, and don't look at the real couples there are around us. She wears the same jeans as yesterday, but today's top is a low-cut affair. I prevail over that temptation, and look at her eyes instead. A mistake. They are blue, clear, intelligent, with the curiosity of one who has yet to see life's crushing horror. They are, in a word, beautiful. I tell her so, and thus make another mistake. I can't help it, sitting there in the back of my own mind, lurking, scared, peeping out, watching myself say these things, feeling so helpless. When her mobile rings it is a salvation and a disappointment. A chore she has forgotten, some preparation for an inspection of her rented house tomorrow. One of the other students she shares with has called to remind her. She's sorry, but she can't get out of it. *** I float, face up. The surface of the water seems far away. Farther than it should be. Though my limbs are unmoving, I feel myself rising, rising up. Flowers start to appear around me, roses, suspended in the water. I rise past them, faster now, heading for the surface. I realise that I want to breathe, that it has been so long, so long without a breath. And I wake. A simple, gentle opening of my eyes. Saturday, and although my dream leaves me feeling strangely contented, it is, after all, only a dream. And it is not just Saturday. It is the eleventh of June. Even so, I decide to keep to my

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5

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

new routine. I have no idea what else to do. On the way out, my answerphone takes a message from Dr Wikremasingh, a missed appointment. Rather callous of him, I think, to call today, but I have come to understand that therapists are among the most callous people in the world. Door. Sunlight. Hill. Graveyard. Downs. Library. Morning turns to afternoon, and no sign of Rachel. With the distance of time giving me perspective, I realise that this is good, very good. Rachel is exactly what I don't need. And I am exactly what she doesn't need. Part of me relaxes a little, even though I am unaware of the tension until it eases. I start to lose myself again, ploughing through the stories. *** She arrives at 4.00pm. I am reading The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and because of that alone, her interruption is a blessing. It's probably my least favourite, and I only ever read it to try to fathom what everyone else sees in it. I confess this, and she insists that I re-shelve the battered hardback. She's just learned that her audition was a success. Effusive, vibrant, she drags me out to celebrate. The me at the front, the mask I wear, puts up only a token protest, while at the back I am paralysed, numb. My routine is being broken, I am out of control, spinning out of the self-dug rut of my habits, pulled after Rachel as if sucked into the airstream of a juggernaut. The feeling reminds me of my time with Claire, and that scares me even more. *** A bar this time, dark, wood-panelled, with a few old-fashioned booths. We are early enough to monopolise one. Today, we both decide to drink. I ask her about the part. She fills me in. She fills me in. My facade cracks just once, when she suddenly realises that she knows almost nothing about my past. I am lost for words on one of the few occasions when it would be noticed. For a few seconds, the real me comes forward, and a pall passes over the table as I tell her that I really don't want to talk about it. I can hear that my voice is different when I say this, harsher, but I don't know whether it is noticeable to her. She recovers quickly, light-heartedly, and dubs me her International Man of Mystery. A weight is gradually lifting from me, helped by the alcohol, and I start to feel less guarded. We eat in the bar, sharing a platter, as Rachel asks about my job, where I work, what I do. I try not to bore her, moving the topic easily back to her, going through her past roles, the accidents and mishaps, the catalogue of anecdote that every thespian seems to be issued along with their Equity card. The brightness of her eyes lures me, and the smile of her red lips is infectious. *** Without quite knowing how, I end up walking with her back to my flat. It is ten o'clock.

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6

Keeping Busy

Matt Gibson

She finds it charming, if obsessively tidy. She is amazed by the lack of a television, but browses the bookshelves while I sort out some coffee. In the kitchen, while I am waiting for the kettle, the weight of the situation hits me. I cling to the worktop, suddenly struggling to keep upright. This is not the alcohol. It's the danger, the apprehension. Can I do this? I've done it before, of course. Perhaps even in this, habit can by my ally. *** One thing doesn't always lead to another. We lie side by side, under the sheets. I am on my back, close to tears but showing nothing. The façade is stretched close to breaking point, though; I can feel it, I have been feeling it all week, getting thinner, tautening, weak points threatening to become tears in the fabric. She is on her side, propped up on an arm. She tells me not to worry about it. We can try again. I sense her disappointment, though. And then she says it. And then she says it. "I understand." The hate, the fear, it erupts inside me, rips through the false wall I have so carefully built around myself. There is screaming, shouting, and I can't tell whether it's hers or mine and the room is spinning and a crash and a cry suddenly subdued and the flash of a hand near my face and then we are rolling, turning, and Stillness. *** Later, she is in the bath. I am dying her hair. I stroke the fluid through her hair, coating the blonde with the thickening, sticky red. It does not soak in, but it covers well. The transformation is gradual, but eventually she is my Claire again, and we are both complete, and in that moment I am happy again, truly contented, for the first time in two years. Two years to the day. Tomorrow, being Sunday, the library will be closed. And now, instead of an empty, terrifying day, I will have a job to do. I will take her to her favourite spot, up in the woods, and there I will lay her to rest. That will take up most of the day, I think, which is good. Dr Wikremasingh is always telling me that I should keep myself busy.

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