FOUR LEGS GOOD – ONE TIP BAD.

I have now been in Epsom since May. I have learned parts of the area – Those I need to know – With a white cane and from an experience mobility instructor from SAVI (Surrey Association for Visual Impairment for which I now do voluntary work when they want me to). I go out alone now and that’s the point – Alone without the four legs and two eyes I used to have.

I shall never see Esme again now and never a day goes by without I either think of or wish I still had her. I have tried to enjoy the clean flat without Labrador sick; slobber; dog hair and the requirement that I leave it and brave the cold which will come when winter does and for a while I loved it but the truth is I love my cane much less than the cold; dog sick; hair and emptiness in this flat and I love dogs more – Especially the freedom they give one when one is blind. I thought of the reading I have done over the years, including “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. In it the pigs (I think) chanted: “Four legs good, two legs bad”. How I agree with the pigs only instead of legs, I substitute the word “tip” – That which you find on the end of white canes. Now a roller, when it’s a car driven by a guy who is loaded or at least wealthy enough to keep it may be rather nice but I bet I’d even tire of that eventually. What I can’t seem to have enough of is a wagging tail and loopy old Labrador such as Esme – The faithful pair of trusted, borrowed eyes I had for so many years and so I rang up the Surrey Guide Dogs team today and applied for guide dog number four.

I worried myself to death about moving in May: “Who will help in the absence of family”? “How will I find a trustworthy cleaner to take the place of Sue”? “How will I manage to get out of the flat in a strange and unfamiliar area”? I felt the fear and did it anyway. Now what I have found to worry about is: “Who will hoover up the hair when my trustworthy home help is away”? “How will I cope when I will have to manage taking the new dog out when I need to sleep in the afternoon”? The shops are so near I can’t possibly go out just once a day as I did in London. These are real problems especially the very real and significant impact my irregular and disorganised circadian rhythms have on my body when they get out of synch with the rest of the country and my future dog’s routine which can’t be played with and made to fit into my altered rhythms. However, lack of exercise and the strain of using a cane is so significant and my love of dogs so strong and the longing I have for a fresh pair of eyes at the opposite end of a wagging old tail is so persistent that I can no longer ignore it so once more it’s feel the fear and do it anyway.

Who knows? There may even be the reinstatement of “waggy games” and the return of a disgusting old bundle of wool at each end of a slobbered-on length of rope! Ugh! Not just after tea please! Do you know something? I’m even missing that I’m so desperate! Now that filthy old toy which Esme had is still a vivid memory, along with its disgusting smell but even that is not enough to make me say: “Four legs bad, one tip good”. A cane can never match up to the loveliness and loyalty of a dog and maybe I’ll lose some of the weight I have put on since moving to Epsom. One thing’s for sure, I will definitely lose some of the fear I feel when going out with a dead bit of metal and rubber once the new dog (if I qualify and it’s always an if) knows the way so let’s be positive and go for it! Wish me luck folks! I’m going to need it.

MY NAME IS LINDA.

I’ve just come in. All these faces look so ordinary – Are so ordinary. Everyone looks nervous. I see there’s an empty chair over there, by the thin woman with the glasses and the sallow complexion. She looks old but I bet she isn’t. I’ve not dared to look in a mirror recently. Still looks aren’t important really are they? In the grand scheme of things they are like passing trains or buses – Here one minute and gone the next.

I’ve just heard the front door close. I keep telling myself he’ll be back. He loves me. He won’t walk out – Not after twenty years. I can’t believe he won’t miss me and then there’s the kids, Laura and Sam. They’re on the verge of adulthood now. They took their exams only last week. Both of them are so talented and so funny. I look at them and think to myself:

“How did someone like you produce two such wonderful examples of humanity”?

I know Grant will be back. I get out of bed – My head thumping and look at the peeling wall paper. I’ve not noticed it till now. I suppose I ought to see that the bedroom gets decorated soon but there never seems to be enough money. My mouth is dry as usual. I stagger downstairs and see the pile of broken china in the hall and the kitchen and then it begins to come back to me. We had a row. I don’t remember throwing anything at anyone. Sam is preparing breakfast. No he isn’t. He’s cleaning up the kitchen. He never complains – Just gets on with it. He’s a quiet boy. He tells me Laura’s gone to a friend’s again. I expect she went to Trisha’s. They’ve been friends since they were toddlers.

“Is there any tea in the pot, Sam”?

“No Mum. Not yet there isn’t. First I had to clear up this mess. Remember! Last night’s frenzy of violence and mayhem. You really do go in for it in a big way once you get started don’t you”?

“Don’t you get started! I have enough to do now that your dad’s gone”.

“Yeah and that’s another thing. How long do you think he’s going to put up with this”?

“He’ll be back. A spell of time at his mother’s while he cools down and he’ll be back”.

Something in Sam’s eyes tells me that this time that’s not so. Maybe I’m seeing the reflected knowledge in my own eyes rather than in his. I rush out. Good job there’s a downstairs loo. I only just get there in time. Retching on an empty stomach is so horrible but I’ve got that I can’t eat much nowadays.

“Put your case down here, love”,

Maisie urges. Grant sits wearily down on his mother’s old familiar settee. He looks careworn and old – Nearly as old as I do but for different reasons and both of us are only in our early forties. Maisie brings him the cup that cheers. He no longer cries like he used to do when he walks out. Instead he sits quiet and sullen like a sulky child who has been sent to bed before he wants to go. He stares unseeingly at the wall. Maisie’s paper needs replacing too but for different reasons. She is now too old to do her own decorating. He promises to do it for her now he has moved back into her spare room and she once more thankfully whispers her gladness to the god that she believes in that he has come home to that room at last and is glad she never sold her house.

“You must stay this time Grant. You can’t keep going back to her. You do realise that now don’t you”?

He nods. While she makes his tea he sits and wonders how you rid yourself of all the accumulated memories and emotions of twenty years. He knows he must start again and so do I.

The room has filled up now. I look at my watch and see everyone turning off their mobile phones. I sold mine. I needed the money. I spent the money as quickly as I had it in my hand. Money’s like water in a sieve to me. I look at the floor. I can’t focus properly on any of these people or this room. I want to get out. I can’t seem to breathe properly but I’m nowhere near the door. My hands are shaking again and I’m sweating all over. I’m sure I smell. I must do.

Grant lies looking at the moon after his mother’s tea. He thinks how nice it is to go to bed in a peaceful house for a change, knowing that he won’t be woken any moment by screaming and shouting; banging about and smashing crockery; knowing he won’t have his face clawed and his hair pulled out for no reason. Bone tired and free at last, sleep eludes him. He stares and stares blindly at the shining moon through the curtains. Soon it will be morning. He’ll have to stagger off to work having had little sleep. He may as well come home, that’s what he tells himself. If there’s to be no difference ‘twixt his mother’s bedroom and ours, he may as well come home but he doesn’t. He holds out. He fights the urge to come back to the painfully familiar. There’s security in the familiar and change is scary even if it is change for the better.

Laura and Sam come home after a night out. They almost trip over me, lying on the stairs. The hallway smells of urine. I’ve been sick. They step over me and carry on up to bed. Each has obtained a place at university. They’re now adults. Grant sends them money but I don’t get any now they’re grown. I’m not entitled to maintenance. They’ll be off in September. It’s August now. I daresay they’ll be glad to go.

There are five minutes to go till the session begins. I feel my throat close up. I know I won’t get a word out. I want to just sit here, anonymous in my drab clothes, obtained from the charity shop nearby. I could have got better ones but don’t think I’m worth it and anyway what’s the good? Nice clothes are for nice people – People who go out with friends and have dinner parties – People who can afford holidays and decent homes – People who have families and children at home.

Grant is cutting his mother’s lawn. That’s what made me fall in love with him – The way he cares for and about his mother. I’ve always maintained that if a son treats his mother properly he will do likewise with his wife. I can’t complain about the way I was treated. Maybe I had too much. It has never struck me that I had any more than other people. He’s finished her bedroom now.

I spent the money which should have been used for the mortgage. I have to be out tomorrow. I expect Sam and Laura will go to their grandmother’s for their holidays. I know they are in touch with their father. I haven’t seen them for weeks. They did come round only there was no food in the house which hadn’t been cleaned for weeks. They look shocked. There’s a momentary expression of disgust on Laura’s face which she can’t hide. Even when they lived here they stopped bringing their friends home.

The woman sitting next to me pats my arm. She gives me a look of reassurance and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. The man on the other side offers me a tissue. It’s a huge one, just right for men but not for the ocean of misery I have inside me which wouldn’t be held in check by one tissue. There’s only two minutes to go now.

It’s cold out here. Winter has come early and with a vengeance. I prefer to walk. I sat in the library this morning but was turned out. I was in a hostel but couldn’t settle there either and besides that I couldn’t quite do as I wanted to there. It was run by the Salvation Army and I’m not religious and they have too many rules. I’ve got this cough. I’ve been counting passing cars instead of imaginary sheep. I wonder where the people are off to and how many are going home to happy marriages and loving children. Probably not as many as I imagine. Lots of our friends used to think we were happy. Grant would explain the scratches on his face by saying he’d cut himself shaving and sometimes, when I was still alert enough, I’d see the knowing looks in the eyes of our dwindling number of guests. I’d almost hear them thinking:

“And the band played ‘believe it if you like’”.

A blind man gave me fifty pence today. I was ashamed. I used to give to Guide Dogs and now, here I am, reduced to begging off the blind. All I’ve had to eat today is a sausage roll and that was out of a litter bin. I thought of Scrap, our Labrador. He used to scavenge in litter bins. He was well fed but then again so was I, once.

Maisie is quiet tonight. She sits thinking of something which she doesn’t discuss with Grant. She’d seen me, you see, when travelling past Park Road. She stared and stared as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. I was transformed from the person she knew, you see. I’ve lost all the weight my doctor once told me to shed. Well you do when you don’t eat. Eating is no longer an activity indulged in at will or when the brain tells the body it needs to. I’m not hungry nowadays but even when I am I can’t stomach much. I’ve just smashed a shop window with a hammer which I found in someone’s garden shed. Not noticing the cuts because of the jagged glass, I push my arm through, grasp the object of my desire and withdraw my hand. The alarm goes off but I’m not bothered – Not now I have what I need.

I’m lying in hospital. They’ve just done my obs again. They offer me tea but I don’t want it. There are visitors for everyone else but not for me even though I’ve been deloused and have had a bath. I’m cleaner than I’ve been for years. The doctor’s just been and given me the once-over. He read me the riot act but didn’t tell me anything I don’t know already.

The letter has just fallen out of my hand for the third time. It’s the shakes. I slopped soup all over the place – Half of it ending up on my table or down my front. It’s unopened as yet but the handwriting looks familiar.

“Dear Linda, Mum saw you the other day and was shocked. I have never stopped loving you – Never will – But I don’t think you love yourself very much. Either that’s because of what you have become or you’ve become what you are because you don’t love yourself. Either way the result is the same. I want us to keep in touch – No promises mind – I’m not saying I’ll come back to you – Nothing like that and if I do it is conditional. You really have got to try this time. This time! There’s never been a previous time has there? All you’ve done is given your word which you have broken. Mother says you can come to us to convalesce when you get out of hospital but any repeat behaviour will mean you will be back where you started. It’s tough love. We want evidence that you really will try this time as I say”.

So the letter went on and I am now staying at Grant’s mother’s. She’s a good woman – Better than I thought actually. Although his letter sounded pompous; priggish and sanctimonious; it wasn’t meant to. He didn’t mean it that way. I don’t know what the future holds but neither do you – Neither does anyone. There are always sharks, swimming near the water’s edge, hoping for suckers to fall in so they can grab their ankles and pull them under so they will drown in the ocean of addiction. I know that now. The funny thing is though, I don’t need Grant’s support – Well of course I do – But not half as much as I need that of those like me – Fellow addicts who have fallen prey to their demons. Grant is out tonight, too. So is Maisie. Like an odd couple they have gone out together but not to a film or for a meal. Oh I see the man who is going to chair the meeting is now on his feet. He is welcoming everyone and telling them that there’s a new person here tonight. Oh god! I feel like a very old person but I’m new to this of course. This is my cue to go on. Here I go, then. Wish me luck.

“My name is Linda. I am an alcoholic”.

(The end).