Page 4 of The Truth About You and Me
JACK
Ever since I was a young boy, I used to find comfort in the order of letters and words; in the alphabet; in the breaths between commas and semicolons; between paragraphs and chapters. My father is a writer, my mother is the chief editor at a publishing house, so words have always been part of the tapestry of my life. There was always comfort to be found in the middle, beginning and endings of books. At least, that’s what I thought a year ago, before everything I loved was ripped away, gouged out from deep in the cortex of my brain.
I’m an imposter now, an outsider forced beneath the skin of my own body. I’m a walking contradiction: a reader who can’t read, a bookshop owner who no longer loves books.
I reach for the bathroom cupboard and pop a diazepam into my palm. I know it’s diazepam because I’ve coloured the label yellow. I squint at the symbols:
I throw the pill to the back of my tongue, lean down, drink directly from the tap then splash my face with water. My hands grip the edge of the sink as I close my eyes, waiting to feel the effects of the diazepam ease their way into my nervous system, waiting for magic fingers to untangle the knots of fear that have me hiding in my own bathroom wearing an expensive suit that I bought a year ago, which I never made it down the aisle in.
Even after so much time has passed, I can’t grasp my new normality; it’s intangible: a wisp of reality that is too faint to hold. I still hear the same phrases that screeched inside my head when I was told I have alexia.The stroke damaged your left visual cortex;the words sounded like they were being shot at me, bullets of information:your right visual cortex can process visual information, but it can’t send the information you need to decipher the words. Each pitying explanation delivered in a pitch that set my teeth on edge.
I had hope back then; they were wrong.They. The neurologists, the doctors, the therapists, my family, my colleagues. Hope still sometimes lingers when I occasionally see the consultants, when they tell me the ways I can flex the muscles of my brain to help me read again.
The irony of it all is that I can still write, but can’t read a damn thing I’ve written; it feels like I’m on an acid trip every time I try. I had no idea that my life as I knew it was about to end on a Friday night.
I loved my life back then. I loved waking up in the morning and only having to commute down the stairs into my bookshop. I loved the weight of a box of deliveries, fresh covers and new voices ready to be slotted into their rightful place: thrillers in one section, romance in another, children’s books at the back, cookery books behind the counter holding glass domes of freshly baked muffins. I loved the huff and puff of the coffee machine, the peel of the bell above the door, the smile when a regular customer came to pick up the new release of their favourite author. I loved my fiancée. I loved my job.
But that was then. Before I had a stroke two days before my thirty-second birthday.
A Friday was the last day I found comfort in the order of words.
All I remember is leaving the pub, a blurred image of a man, then a crack at the back of my head. The same kind of crack and physical pain that pulses every time I try to read.
The doctors have said this isnormal, that the trauma has caused my memories to become impenetrable, but notknowingwhat happened that night, not understandingwhythis happened to me, makes me feel like even more of a failure. Deep inside my gut, I know that if I could rememberwhathappened, it could help me read again. Or maybe I’m clutching at straws.
The fact that I was steaming drunk didn’t make a solid case for the police that anyone else had caused my accident. There was nothing to say that I hadn’t just fallen over.
The bell above the shop door downstairs compacts the air in my chest. It’s book club time. Downstairs there will be fifteen to twenty eager readersexplodingwith thoughts about their pick of the month. Paperbacks will be excavated from bags, notebooks will be smoothed down; Nell will be hurrying around taking drink orders in her usual Wednesday Addams’ style of dress, while the volume of conversation rises tocataclysmicheights.
I used to love Friday nights. Before, they meant books and the comfort of being around people who were like me. Now they confirm that I don’t belong in that world any more. IdreadFriday nights.
I take a few deep breaths, unlock my fingers from the edges of the sink, and head back into the lounge, sinking into the edge of the sofa. A bubble of laughter climbs the stairs and leaks into the room. I try to swallow the block of air in my chest. The life I wanted, and my ambitions, all compacted behind it.
Nell raps on the door. ‘Jack? Taxi’s almost here!’
I pull myself up, smooth my hair down, and open the door. ‘Wow,’ she says, smiling. ‘Just look at what something other than joggers and workout gear can do for a man.’
‘Very funny.’ I run my finger around my collar; it feels like it’s shrinking with each passing second. ‘I feel like a priest.’
‘No priest I’ve ever met looks like they’re about to walk the red carpet at the BAFTAs.’
‘Not true – Andrew Scott.’
‘Andrew Scott isn’t a real priest.’
‘Remind me again why I’m going to the awards when you’re the one who has run the shop all year?’
‘Because, it’syourshop, withyourname above it.’
Nell stands on tiptoes and adjusts my bow tie. ‘You know, if I were into the wholemanthing, I reckon I’d be climbing you like a tree dressed like that.’ Nell has absolutely zero filter but has worked here since she left school, came at a moment’s notice after I was hospitalised, worked long hours without asking, and has held my business together for the last year. ‘Keep still,’ she instructs, blowing her razor-sharp black fringe out of her eyes while her fingers continue fluttering beneath my chin.
She drops back onto the flats of her Doc Martens, strokes down my arms and gives a little nod. ‘You’ll do. Time to go.’
The diazepam hasn’t kicked in yet, and fear slams through my back into my chest like I’ve been bucked from a horse. I take a step back.
‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
Nell lifts her chin. ‘Yes, you can. You smilethatsmile and you talkthetalk and you keep your head held high when you win the best indie bookshop of the year.’
