Sticks and Stones 26

I decided to get drunk again, a ball of confused negativity shaking with guilt, and nearly landed myself a huge beating from someone in Les Americains who hated the English and was even more pissed than me. I only got out of it by knowing a gitane (gipsy) there, who stuck up for me and told the guy to lay off and bought him a drink. Later, a guy heard me say ‘Fuckin’ and asked me if I’d directed it at him. He too was looking for a fight with me. Another unseemly character in the bar told me he knew my family and when I asked him how he knew them, he pursed his lips and stared at me, waiting for me to lunge at him.
I didn’t, naturally, but we remained in the same bar for a further hour without speaking and his behaviour became worse. Utterly drunk, I couldn’t have cared less.
I burnt my four-day beard on my chin by stubbing my roll-up out on it in front of the people I was with. I don’t know why I did that.
The day after, Friday, I woke up badly and felt the terrible imminence of my own end. Little strands of memory from the night before, and how close I was to waking up in hospital, had me in a confused, powerless and paranoid whirl of which Kafka would have been proud to have witnessed.
I called Suzie and cried over the phone to her, but she cried too, so I stopped quickly.
I had no idea where my life was going, if anywhere.
What would become of me if I was to leave the family?
How would Clara view me in the future? Did I have a future?
The cycle of my own alcoholism and drug addiction was again at an end and my life needed renewing through abstinence. My own demise was apparent and, that Friday, I remember trying to conjure up how I would die and under which circumstances.
How many other people had I blurbed my rubbish at, only to be blanked or eyed with suspicion? And how much longer could I keep up this shambolic lifestyle, spraying money around the wrong places as if it meant nothing, risking life and limb, and for what?
It occurred to me that my loose words in bars had also begun to make me paranoid for the entire family, especially since meeting the weirdo at the bar.
I couldn’t tell Suzie because that would have made her paranoid as well, and that would then rub off on the kids because she couldn’t respect their boundaries, so I’ve kept it to myself.
I was in a state of speechless paranoia, unravelling the worst possible scenario every hour or so. Maybe he’d come and kill us all in the night. Maybe it would be someone else.
By night-time, I felt better. The effects of my hangover had subsided and the awful scenarios imagined were gone. There was order to my thoughts again.
I got back into the rhythm of being back at the house and silently elected (as usual) not to go back to the bar ever again.
At about midnight, with everyone asleep, I was watching Soccer am on Sky when I saw that Real Madrid had won 1-0 fair and square without extra-time. My mouth dropped. I went downstairs to check again on their website and there it was; 1-0, Beckham (70 mins).
So I had won the bet! I tried to remember where I’d left the betting slip and realised it was safe in the bin at the flat.
But why and how had the English version of Real’s website been so wrong? I was sure I’d read a web page describing a nil-nil draw with Real winning on penalties, but there’s no sign of that page any more. Had I imagined it? Who knows?
I put it down to a sinister and elite group that I imagined were in the business of falsifying web-pages in the hope of deceiving people like me, having placed money on Real. I could easily have hand-shredded or better still burnt the betting slip that held the winnings, leaving my money to remain in the hands of the sinister group.
Next day, I rushed off to get it cashed, but to no avail.
As it was for more than 500 euros, I had to wait to meet the rep on Monday. More paperwork. Alternatively, I could go to Albi, which is two hours, there and back, plus the obligatory red-tape of justifying my identity.
I muttered ‘Fuckin’ French’ and left. ‘They can’t even pay out on a bet without taking you round the houses.’
Weirdly enough, Suzie put 100 euros into Betfair for me and I’ve been winning since, up till tonight anyway. I’m still 500 euros up, though.
Suzie and I are finished.
I walked out earlier after she took the duvet away from me and told me to leave.
I’d had the audacity to watch Wigan v Arsenal in the League Cup, which we lost 1-0, while she and the children played for the entire match in Clara’s room, laughing and chatting together.
I felt very lost and alone during that match.
With every whoop of natural laughter that generally came from Clara being brilliantly entertained, my loneliness accelerated and hope diminished. I so wanted to join in with them but I was too proud to do so.
I wondered why I couldn’t make Clara laugh like that, and why Maddy and Griff had started walking out of rooms that Clara and I entered, together or alone, almost as a matter of course. I dreaded it when Clara went to search upstairs for her elusive brother and sister, praying that they would at least acknowledge her and ask her to sit with them while they stared at a monitor playing with a joystick.
‘I’ll be right back,’ is one of the handful of sayings that Clara has learnt to a tee. It comes from being told all too often, and it’s Maddy who says it most, because, admittedly, not being at school, she’s always with her.