Page 20 of Conviction
Monday is busy with work, and I take a trip to see my doctor on Tuesday. She arranges for me to have some blood tests and an ultrasound. Once she’s sure that there’s no obvious problem as to my failure to conceive, despite not taking any precautions for the past eight months, we’ll sit down and work out a plan. She doesn’t seem overly concerned and has told me that it takes some couples a month to fall pregnant, some, a couple of years. That’s just the way things went. Marcus has a different doctor to me, but at the same surgery and Trish, my doctor has recommended that he makes an appointment to get himself checked out the same way I have. As I’m leaving her consulting room, I bump into Jay, Marcus’s doctor. I’ve never really spoken to him before, and I’m surprised when he says hello.
“Hey Nina, how’s Marcus feeling now?” he asks with a friendly smile. I look at him with a frown. I don’t remember the last time Marcus was sick, let alone came to see his doctor. I watch a flicker of something cross over his face as he sees my reaction to his question.
“Marcus is fine, I wasn’t aware he’d been sick.” He laughs nervously as I stop walking and look at him.
“Well, you know, not sick exactly…” He opens his mouth a couple of times as if to say more, but nothing comes out.
I’ve worked with the public now for almost half my life. I’m not naturally an outgoing person, which tends to make me a good watcher and listener, which in turn, has meant that I’ve gotten really good at reading people. Hairdressers are almost like therapists for some of our clients. They sit in our chairs, they get served a beverage of their choice, including wine or champagne, and while they sip their drinks and get their scalp massaged, they open up. They vent about the things that have pissed them off and they quite often spill secrets or gossip that they’ve been hanging on to. Some of the gossip is the absolute truth, some complete and utter bullshit. I’ve learnt over the years to spot the bullshit and the bullshitters. I’ve learnt to spot when someone is about to cry, when someone needs your opinion and when someone needs you to just nod, smile and let them spill their guts. What I’m witnessing now from Doctor Jayer Patel, right in front of me, is a man panicking, which in turn is making me panic.Why has Marcus been to see him and why do I not know about it? Is he sick, ill, and not telling me?
“Shit!” he half-huffs, and half says. “Sorry, I was out of line.” I open my mouth to speak, when he continues, “Give him my regards.” He moves off into his consulting room and shuts the door behind him. I stand alone out in the corridor for a few seconds, gathering my thoughts and debating whether or not to knock on his door and demand an explanation, but I never was the type to seek out confrontation. So I leave it and head back to my car, then to the supermarket to grab something for dinner.
Marcus texts, just as I get home.
Sorry babe, I’m in court tomorrow. Need to work late. Don’t wait up. Love you, M x
I feel him slide into bed and open one eye to look at the clock. It’s eighteen minutes past one. I turn and spoon myself into his back and kiss his shoulder.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Sorry, I woke you, babe. I should’ve gone to the spare room.”
“No, that’s fine. You’re very late.”
“Unexpected fraud case was landed on us. We have to be in court at nine tomorrow morning, and I wanted to make sure we were prepared. There was a lot to go over.”
“Did you eat?” I ask as I reach around and run my hands over his belly. I feel his stomach muscles tense as I touch him.
“Yeah, we had takeaway delivered to the office. Go to sleep, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I desperately want him to turn around, to wrap his arms around me and to kiss my neck. To just have one night where I could fall asleep feeling loved, desired and wanted. Instead, I swallow back my tears and go to sleep pressed into his back as tightly as I can, feeling lonelier than ever.
It takes me a fewseconds to work out what’s just happened. I’m wet, someone just threw water over me, and I’m now soaking wet.
Fuckers!
My head aches but not nearly as much as it should, considering the alcohol and drugs I’ve consumed since my feet landed on British soil. I’ve no idea how long it’s been? How long since Jet’s death... since the funeral? I’ve no idea about anything anymore, only that I’m thinking and I hate thinking. Thinking leads to remembering and I hate remembering. Remembering leads to feeling and I don’t want to feel – Ireallydon’twant to feel.
“Time’s up Reed. Get your arse out of bed and into that shower before I drag you out.” I open one eye, and the light shining into the room from the open curtains hits me like a laser beam.
“Fuck!” I complain. “Shut the fucking curtains and get out,” I say loudly. I want to shout, but shouting will require effort, and I simply don’t have the energy for anything that requires effort.
“Move your fucking arse boy. I won’t warn you again.” I don’t need to open my eyes again to know who’s talking to me. It’s my dad, and he sounds thoroughly pissed off.
My dad and I had done a lot of bridge building over the last ten years or so. Once I had the money, I’d gotten him into a rehab program, where it was discovered he was suffering from a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, otherwise known as PTSD.
I’d been a baby when he had gone off to fight in the Falklands war. He was part of the Special Forces that landed at San Carlos, otherwise known as Bomb Ally. His squad had been key in securing the beachhead, allowing the safe landing of further troops to fight in the conflict. His unit had come under fire numerous times, and he’d witnessed things a young man in his twenties should never have to. Added to this were operations in the Gazza Strip and Northern Ireland. The toll of which had been massive on his mental well-being.
He’d come home on leave, to his wife and four little boys and just couldn’t handle the normality of it all. He turned to drink, which led him to become violent toward my mum. She eventually left him and went back to her old life—which my dad knew nothing about—as a junkie. Whoring herself out to pay for her next fix. This ultimately led to her death, something else that severely affected my dad’s already less than healthy mental state. He spent the next fifteen or so years drinking himself into oblivion. As soon as the band signed their first deal, I gave my brothers the money to get him some help. Once he’d dried out and had seen a psychologist for well over a year, he finally started to get his shit together. He asked to see me, and we sat down and had a long overdue heart to heart.
His problem with me as I was growing up, it turned out, was merely that I looked like my mum. My brothers look more like him, brownish hair, blue eyes but my hair was more of a dirty blond, and I had the bluey, green coloured eyes that my mum had. And that trait is what had caused him to take a swing at me every opportunity he got. We sorted out our shit, and now he lives in a bungalow on the grounds of my house, with his new wife, Sandra. Sandra works as my housekeeper and cleaner, my dad as my groundsman and they take care of the place and my dogs while I’m away on tour or doing stuff with the band.
None of the shit my dad went through as a soldier gives him the excuse to behave the way he did, but once he was given the help that he needed, he admitted and accepted that he’d been in the wrong. He’s not had a drink in years and was once again playing a major part in the lives of myself and my brothers and their families. Our relationship would never be perfect but he’s my dad, and I love him. I’d lost too much in my life to hold grudges.
“Dad, draw the curtains and fuck off.”
“He’s going nowhere. We’re going nowhere. You’re going to the shower.”
Who the fuck’s voice was that? I open one eye again and through the bleariness, can see what looks like about a half dozen people standing in my bedroom doorway.
