Page 80 of The First Time I Saw You
Sweat sticks last night’s clothes to my body as the shivers take hold. Michael is lying next to me, his own shame and exhaustion evident as he mirrors my actions and lies motionless and prone. The sharp edges of my bedside cabinet arrive beneath my tapping fingers; the bottle crinkles and cracks as I bring the water to my lips. The house shakes with me as I hear Sarah storm up the stairs and throw open my door.
‘Come in why don’t you?’ My voice is gravelly and whiskey-soured.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’ she shouts. I flinch at her volume and pull myself up. ‘It isnotOK to take my husband to a strip bar!’ she yells.
‘It’s not like we forced him,’ I answer sheepishly, even though I have a vague recollection of him trying to get us to go home.
‘No, Mule, you didn’t force him, but you and Da were so pissed, apparently, that he didn’t think you were in any fit state to get home safely, if at all!’ Sarah is blazing at the end of the tunnel, but I look away from her, preferring to fill the tiny gap of sight with a piece of my navy curtain.
‘It was Da’s idea and can you . . . lower your voice a little?’ I fumble with a packet of paracetamol and pop two in my mouth, chasing them down with the water.
‘Well, Mr and Mrs McLaughlin aren’t speaking to each other this morning, so you can have all the peace and quiet in the world!’
‘Samuel Rupert McLaughlin! Get your backside down these stairs right now!’ Mam shouts.
‘Jesus, she hasn’t used “Rupert” for a long time.’ I can hear the smug smile in Sarah’s voice. ‘You’re properly in the shit.’
‘Feck’s sake.’ I lie back down and cover my eyes with my arm. Images from the day before fill me with a wave of nausea.
I remember opening the whiskey early on and Da telling me I was too young to be drinking the doom away before lunch time.
‘If you want a drink, let’s go and have a pint in the pub.’ He had taken the bottle from me, making me eat a sandwich with bread as thick as bricks.
I’d let him lead me, not caring who he stopped to talk to, not caring if they were looking at me withthat lookthat is supposed to be sympathetic but just feels cruel. I just didn’t care about anything.
Beer kept flowing. Da became louder and more theatrical, getting in drinks for old friends who came to join us. The more drunk I got, the less empty I felt. I liked listening to them talking; it reminded me of the way things used to be around here before the gastropubs took over. Most of the community would meet every Saturday night in the local pub, even if it was to pop in and buy eggs from behind the bar, or to fetch home someone because their tea was ready; every weekend this family of neighbours would stop to speak: everybody knew everybody. As I listened to their stories, their jokes, the images of Sophie and her child began to slip away. Michael led me back and forth to the toilet; even though he was a little unsteady, a little clumsier, he still looked after me.
Duncan joined us later. It had felt late, but I think it would have only been early evening. Connor, my old school friend, had come crashing through the door wearing a veil and heels. He was on his stag night; that’s how we ended up in a strip club.
My memories of the club are hazy. Michael had struggled to negotiate the steep steps that took us down into a room where dark clouds covered the end of the telescope; the only light leaking through was made of purples and blues. Deep bass tones had reverberated through Michael and thudded in my ears as I stumbled towards the bar, edges of tables bumping into my sides as half-filled glasses wobbled and spilled on to the tables.
As another wave of sickness floods through me, more than one image of Duncan’s hands beneath me, helping me stand, fills me with embarrassment. My vomit had landed on tables and shoes because I couldn’t navigate my way to the men’s loos quickly enough. The sound of my retches mixed together with the blues and the purples at the end of the tunnel.
I have memories of sounds after that, Da apologising on my behalf, telling them I was blind drunk and laughing loudly at his joke, a joke that he had told several times throughout the night. There were angry male voices and Duncan’s calm tone, offering to buy them a round of drinks.
‘Do you know what would have happened if that group of men had got hold of you?’ Sarah asks, and I can hear the worry in her voice.
‘Jesus, Sarah, let it go, would you?’ I turn on my side as Mam calls me again and threatens to throw cold water over me if I don’t go downstairs right this instant.
‘Fine. You want to throw away the rest of your life drinking yourself to death, be my guest, but don’t fucking take my husband with you.’ The door slams, her feet pounding against the stairs, as she leaves us and our sickness in peace. Michael and I groan and pull the duvet over us as we slip into fractured dreams about the night before.
The dreams end abruptly as I bolt upright, cold water dripping from my eyelashes and sinking into last night’s clothes.
‘I said downstairs, Samuel, and I meant it.’ I hear Mam slam down the empty cup and charge out of the room, her familiar powdery smell following her like an eager friend.
Da is at the table and by the fractions of his face that I can see, he looks how I feel. Mam is slamming things around the kitchen; cutlery crashes inside drawers, the lid on the teapot shaking with fear as she pounds it into place. The kitchen is rich with the smell of bacon and my stomach turns over in response.
‘Sammy,’ Da greets.
‘Da,’ I reply. Mam pushes a glass of something fizzing into my hand; my nose moves towards it, the familiar smell of Alka-Seltzer turning my stomach. I push it away from me as Mam bangs another glass down on to the table, for Da, I presume.
‘Now, if you two can drink the Swan out of whiskey then you can bloody well drink that. That and a bacon butty will sort you out and then you pair of eejits are going to sit at this table and you’re going to listen to what I have to say.’
Mam, it turns out, has a lot to say.
As I nurse a cup of black coffee, and force a mouthful of bacon down, Mam begins. ‘Right, first things first, Samuel, you’re not dying.’
‘I know—’
