Cathexis (44 page)

We launched into the obsidian, shattering it with our bodies, pumping through the cold blood, the tough liquid thump of my girl next to me - rash, thrashing high jinx, which we would be laughing about in minutes. The performance enhancer coursing through me, lungs capacious, still no sign of her foot flurry in my face because I was pulling away, me, winning! Eat my bubbles, bitch! My brain brayed in long overdue triumph.

But then a single red flare like a silent shout, arcing in space, a last laugh, a green parasol, a blue plaster horse, a spinning silver star, particles in light, a fight, a flooded engine, a falling tree, wide blue moons amazed, a curly kelp, a star burst petering out and a hand with no intention.

I stopped dead in the water and spun round to witness my empty wake. “Dale?” A coot answered. Peering into the profundity, I neutered my breath and listened hard: the sigh of tyres on the Seven Sisters Road, a squeaky wheel of seagulls, the last post of a moped and my own beating drum.

“Dale!” I bellowed, the tower blocks returning my voice unheard. She wouldn't play a trick that would frighten me, she knew I hated pranks. I scanned the shore, willing my eyes to pick out a pale waving figure who would be laughing, but she wasn't there and I realised I couldn't feel her; she wasn't at home or at the yard or anywhere. “Oh no, not yet, no please Dale, not yet”.

A patter of confusion rained down while I held the implication at bay. My body however, torpedoed me to the place where I thought I'd left her. “Not yet!” I shouted. “No wait, please, I'll find you, hang on baby”. And I dived into the Stygian, batting to the depths, a tiny whale crying in the bridge of my nose, Minky wail. Lacking method, forgetting the need for air, my legs propelled me to the surface. Diving again, winging frantically to the bottom, banging my head, groping in the mud. Battling buoyancy, I exhaled, fighting to find her, but pushing up again, breaching. “Wait!” I sobbed, diving down, emptying my lungs, touching something hard and slippery, hoping for a hand, some hair. Wait, I'm coming. Rising and plunging again and again, twenty times or more.

No, no, help, I need help. “Help!” I shot from the water, deadpan tower blocks mimicking my cry. Somehow in clothes, hurdling the broken fence, barefoot and ballistic, I burst into the ridiculous normalcy of Bethune Road. “Help me, please” to a cluster of Hasids scurrying away. “Help me!” to a young one on his ‘phone. Regarding the muddy feet of the crazy, damp goy, his hand went up in a warding off gesture. “Please, listen to me, I need to use your ‘phone”. He headed off at a pace, but leaping in front I grabbed the hem of his coat and kneeling, raising clasped hands, “Please sir, I'm begging you, someone is in trouble” I choked. “I beg you, let me use your ‘phone”. He eyed me in abject terror and looking to the ground, gingerly edged the phone towards me.

Part Four

Chapter 1

Blue lights, but not yours. These were flashing - there must have been an accident. All those feet, perhaps I've come off my bike again, that must be it. Poking my tongue through this metal hula hoop, the Min ring in my mouth. A bright light in my eyes. 'Björn?'. Sticking something plastic to my forehead, a man, not Björn, but I look at him all the same because I want him to love me.

A room, a lady, puffy bags on my feet; where are my boots? Some men asking me questions
.
'This is important' they say, 'try to focus'. A clear plastic bag, our stuff in it and I divide them neatly into yours and mine. I think that's what they want. Your black jeans, your bra, your hoopy socks, your boots, your emergency bunny pants. The lady yawns and I want to go to sleep, I'm plum-tuckered, so I nod off.

Apparently they found you at first light, lying on the bottom. They showed me your silver star necklace and I put that in my mouth too. They went mental and hooked it out with their fingers; they could have just asked. Your dad's here. He must be talking Swedish because I can't understand what he's saying, I have no idea. But he puts his arm around me and I can smell the sea. He's got hiccups. His eyes like yours, but not. “Do you want to see her, Minky?” he says.

“Durr, always”. A car, then a room with you laying on the table, fast asleep. Wake up now, baby. I touch your hair. You're so beautiful, Dale. “It's not wrong if I look at her is it?” “No” your dad says. So pulling back the green sheet, I look at your body and there's another green cloth over your coco. You're perfect. Your dad is crying, but I can't help him.

Scraping some pebbles, I don't know why until I uncover three keys on your Scooby Doo keyring. On the bed, how weird is this? Your dad undressing me. I like it. He pulls my t-shirt over my head and says “bra”, but I'm not wearing one and then I remember it means good, as in 'skitbra'. At last I can go to proper sleep and I know you're not here so I can't do my ritual, doesn't really matter anyway.

Waking up, there's something I'm not supposed to remember, searching around for it, nope. Everything normal until I turn to you. There's a slim chance you're downstairs making coffee, but I know you're not. You're not here and that's all I'm prepared to say at the moment. Your empty glass, your book, your pyjama bottoms which contain your scent, just like the pillow they're poking out from, but I can't face that now and I wonder where Prudence is.

Fold myself in, tuck myself up, just like I always did. I can't move about anyway - it's as if one leg and one arm has been amputated, I keep falling over.

Groping about in the mud of my mind, just as well I can't think. I dream of it and sometimes I find your hand.

I keep asking myself questions I don't want to answer, but the answer to the hardest one is yes, I probably killed you. The drug, the race, all my idea and if I hadn't been so intent on winning, I would have understood your distress signal. Dale, I don't know if I can live with this; it might be too much. You didn't even make it to your birthday,. You'll always be forty three.

“Minky, you can't sleep forever” your dad says. I know this of course, but I also know myself and in sleep, the grown-up inside me is pre-chewing the indigestible, so I sleep. I want my mum.

I know now, no matter how much something is essential to you, no matter how much you want it, need it, crave it, no matter how many games you play, how many things you count, how ever long you hold your breath or how many times and how many ways in which you hurt yourself, however you beat the clock, however much you analyse, weigh up, incant, repeat, invest, quantify, calculate, punish yourself – it will never make it so. It will make no difference, none whatsoever.

I've known this all along, cognitive dissonance, but now it is proven. I'm free because I have lost the game once and for all. No need ever again to rein in chaos with constructs. There is no pattern, no riddle to solve, no strategy, no trick - trivial triumphs solve nothing. There is no epiphany – other than this.

Where is that cat? Should I be at work? I go downstairs and your dad is at the kitchen table.

“Have you seen Prudence?” But he just looks at me. “The cat” I say.

“Oh” he says, “no”. So I shake some crunchies into her bowl. Where is she? Looking out the window that the wisteria has almost obscured.

“Minette” he says, “please sit down”. So I do and there on the table is the picture of us in the snow. The
forest of you inside me, charred stumps. Poor Nils, your ghost in his eyes, swollen and edged red. He's asking me what happened, so I tell him about the swimming and how I tried to find you. I recalled white stars and my hand goes to the plastic oblong glueing my frown. All this after I'd promised to look after you. I can't look at his eyes any more because both he and I have no-one now. So I go back to bed, where my grown-up will drip feed me bad wisdom, before I get washed away.

I wake up, hogtied, and I can't, I just can't.

I wake up and M8 is here. “Hello Motherfucker” I say.

“Hello, M8” she says, not playing the game. “I'm so sorry M8” she says.

I close my eyes and go to sleep. I dream you are trying to get my attention, but it's just a car alarm outside. Thirsty, I go to the bathroom and drink from the tap, having the notion that I'll climb into the bath and sleep. The razor which shaves your legs, the horrid scrunchie which ties back your hair when you don't want to get it wet. When I wake up, there's a blanket on me, but it's dark now, so I go back to bed, me and the street lamp.

“Minette, Minette” your dad is touching my shoulder. “Wake up”. I don't want to but he keeps on. “Wake up, Minky”. Isn't it funny he calls me Minky? I crinkle my eyes and look at him with my mouth open, he's grown a beard. “She's gone” he says and I remember that Hall and Oates song, the ferocious empathy I had with it as a child. I'd listen to it over and over again on a tape I recorded from the radio, spurting out tragic, barbed tears and I cry for the first time over you. Your dad cries too and gives me his handkerchief.

He says I need to eat something because I've been asleep for six days. But I can't eat, I'm full of stone. He's brought me tea in your Moomintroll cup, he's not to know. Not wanting to be a problem, I drink the tea and when he tells me to get dressed and come downstairs, I do as he says.

“Where have you been?” Scooping up Prudence, I bury my face in her fur and pressing my ear to her kindly snicker, she kisses my lips. He's made me scrambled eggs on toast. He tells me you died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, sudden cardiac death, like your mum (I already know this), and how until well into your twenties they'd subjected you to tests, electrocardiograms, echo something and exercises, but they concluded you were fine. I could have told him about the lethal birthday present, but I didn't think I could bear what I'd see in his eyes. I expect all would be revealed; instead of testing to see why you were alive, they must have tested to see why you were not.

He says he has to go back to Sweden and shows me a sort of canister, which you are in. He will row out and sprinkle you in the sound. He asks if I want to go with him and I say no thank you. He gives me your star necklace, which I put on. He says Björn will be in touch; he is your executor and I have to sign stuff. I don't have to worry about money he says, because you've left me everything apart from your Trust Fund which goes to Björn's kids. You have given me your houses, your car and everything else ...everything but the girl.

He asks me if I want to go to stay with him in Sweden. What's the point? I eat the egg off the toast for his benefit.

Chapter 2

Two minutes or so had passed since the end of the bed dipped, responding to a weight more significant than the cat's. Besides, Prudence was on Dale's pillow, curled up like schtreimal. It was her, but I kept my eyes shut because implications for my sanity lay in that soft depression.

Motionless, patiently awaiting my decision. Her presence in passive persuasion convinced  my left brain what my right had accepted from the start. I opened my eyes.

“Hi Minky”. She was wearing her skirt and white vest.

“Hi baby”. Wanting to hug her, but paralysed. “Where have you been?” I said. She continued to smile and three blue orbs, like bubbles, danced around her head, silvering her corkscrews. Teeth and snow-blind eyes ultra
violet. Her face gathered gravitas and I knew I was in for a telling off.

“Minky, listen to me”. Her silky voice crackled static. “I want you to do something for me”.

“Anything” I said.

“I don't like it when you're all skinny like this, I want you to eat properly and take care of yourself”.

I managed a nod. “Promise me”.

“I promise” I said and she glowed a satisfied rose colour.

“Dale?”

“Yes, Mink”.

“Did I kill you?”

“No, silly”, she smiled and another Dale within her, for there were several it seemed, began to push out that deep stone against stone laugh, which rose into bells, while she carried on talking.

“It was an unfortunate combination of me being jävla dum and a dodgy gene on chromosome 14. It wasn't your fault Minky”.

“Dale?”

“Yes, Mink”.

“I don't know where to put myself, how can I get through this?”

.

Her dear hands, which lay on her lap drew back across the duvet and moved into the air as if throwing a snowball. “Swim” she said, “swim”, her arms describing crawl, head tilting towards me, puffing out her cheeks, googling her eyes in comedy effort. I laughed like a child; trust her to be a funny ghost.