short story - david
Here's the promised short story. The earlier The Smell Mirror may be posted later but I'd like to submit it to some magazines first. It looks as though the Tiananmen Square post will have to be done tomorrow. Anyway, enjoy the story.
David
This is the diary of my suicide. Blood won't clot in water. Run a hot bath, drink some wine with painkillers, washed down or crushed into it. Lie in the bath sleepy and spaced, tunes on, and cut my wrists. Down not across. And slowly drift off, arms getting cold and heavy.
Or more painful and more risky. Less certain. Walk out in traffic. There are two ways, the dream and the reality. The dream is aesthetic, being knocked down to look good. Step in front of a car and get thrown forward a ragdoll arc. Blackout when my head smacks the road. Frozen in slo-mo it'd look great. Wake up brain-damaged or paralysed. Better step off a traffic island into a truck. Tons of speed. Broken bones, maybe rolled under wheels.
These would be easy. But I work in a tall building. Much harder to climb out a window and drop seven storeys or more to concrete. And once you've made the choice, once you start to fall, the exhilaration and sense of finality. It's a much more cold-blooded way to die. Takes real commitment.
Never understood why or how you'd cut your throat. Seems perverse and painful and desperate. Showing off.
Suddenly noticed the hierarchy of presentation on Victorian terraces. Where they front the road smooth and finished with moulded brick friezes. The side are mostly plain but the brick just as fine, and the rear finished very roughly. Walk through this every day to work. Don't need to drive, don't like the bus, and it's less frustrating. If the traffic's snarled-up I just walk right through.
I'm only happy in the spaces between. Going somewhere. Falling asleep. Wanking. But there's still too much time I have nothing to do. Too much time to think.
March 3rd 23:12 Susan I'm really scared, I think I might have killed myself. I didn't mean to, I just wanted to get wasted + loosen up. Maybe get used to being alone. I drank a bottle of wine pretty quick and now I'm trashed. I don't want to die. I love you. I'm sorry if I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you. Forgive me. It was an accident. I'm sure you'll have a happy life. Mum + Dad + my family, what can I say. I'm sorry, i didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be oblivious for a little bit - if you're reading this then you have every right to be angry. I'm so ashamed + sorry to put you through this. I don't want to die. Maybe I wanted to hurt myself a little, but not this. Just a bottle of wine and some painkillers (I forgot to mention before, the Ibuprofen, I'm not sure how many), but not to hurt you. I'm sorry. I just want you to know I'm sorry for every time I was insensitive or distant, or said or did something wrong. I love you in a way that surprises me. I miss when we were a single family all in one house. But still the last 3 years have brought me closer to you than since I left for uni. I love you, I hope you don't feel too bad. Mike + Beth + all my other friends, I'm sorry. Don't feel too bad, it was a stupid mistake + I wish I never did it. I hope I wake up, I want to see tomorrrow. I want to be ok, not brain damaged. Why am I this stupid fucking death dreamer? Hey kids do what I did + piss your life away. 23:53 I'm really hot. I'm afraid to sleep.
Another uncertain one. Driving at speed close my eyes, put my foot down, take my hands off the wheel. Again a mainly aesthetic appeal. Worries me I might endanger others and I'd never want to do that.
Drop a plugged-in electric appliance in the bath. Sudden. Bang. Stop my heart.
I've thought of shooting myself. Gun barrel under my chin or pushing in the roof of my mouth. Over in a second. Quite a cool way to die. Don't know where I'd get a gun. And shooting's messy and unpleasant when someone finds the body. Could fly to America, buy a gun, shoot myself in a hired room. Let the professionals clean it up. of course leave a note. Maybe say goodbye by text or email. 'Goodbye. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.' So long as there's a proper note too.
I've written my suicide note many times. Planned it. It should explain and comfort. Be publishable. Frameable. Twice I've written it for real. Once I thought I was dying. Accidental overdose, just meant to hurt myself. Wine and painkillers. The note was repetitive, garbled, disjointed and scruffy. The other time I meant to go through with it. Meant to cut my wrists in the bath with a glass shard. Finished the note. I was pleased with it mainly. But by the time it was done I didn't want to die today. Gave it to a friend, he made it into a song.
I want a friend. Something else of course. A friend first though. Don't like to wake up alone. Don't like to come home to an empty flat. I just want someone to hold me. Simple wants. I like contact. I like my physicality. But it's more than that. Susan was an equal, a challenge. She enabled me. And it's selfish but I cry when I think of the things we're not doing together. Places she goes, people she knows. The distance she's moving away. It's like losing her every day. I'd love to be happy.
Some ways never appealed to me. I couldn't drown myself. Logically going under a train shouldn't be much different from being hit by a truck. It seems like a lot of hassle though. Asphyxiation frightens me too much. That includes hanging unless I could be sure to break my neck. Poisoning or overdose could be too protracted and ugly. Even if i could get the drugs or poisons.
Since I was a child contemplated self-immolation. Must have been news images. Accelerant. Petrol, whatever. Pour it over myself and set light. It would really fucking hurt. Sickening to watch. Wouldn't want to fail.
Been told I'm passive aggressive. In conversation. Apparently obstructive, obtuse, difficult. Ask questions I want to know the answers to but it comes over defensive. And it's another way to self-harm. Go walk somewhere careless of trouble. Get in an argument, get in a fight. No responsibility. Don't fight back. Never done it yet though.
Someone told me I'd make a good junkie. I hate myself. But I don't want to piss off anyone with anger. It stays inside. Makes me ill and I hate myself more. Want to intensify the sickness. Make it worse. Drive myself deeper.
First knew I was going to die when a local boy died in his sleep aged fourteen. I was seven. Fourteen became a milestone. An age I didn't think I'd get past. Fourteen, twenty-one, thirty-six. Seven. No, younger when I first knew. Trying to imagine the end of things. But if they had an end there had to be something beyond that. And that 'something beyond' had to end. And after that end something more. A terrifying intellectual vertigo.
Another way to go. Exposure. Hypothermia. I get cold easily. Even on mild days fingers and toes cut off circulation. Go yellow, even blue, quickly. Blue means no oxygen in the tissue. It means bits of me have died already, many times. Think I'd like the growing irrationality and false warmth. Drift off to sleep when the body's stopped shivering.
Dreamt I was walking to work. Had my iPod on playing an imagined Sonic Youth/Mogwai hybrid. Sometimes music makes me stumble. This had that intoxication, but it was building like pressure. Thought it was the volume so tried to turn it down. The pressure got worse. Opened my mouth to relieve it. One of my teeth exploded. Small fragments and dust. Then another tooth, and more. I woke up.
Just over fifteen months ago. Susan and I were falling apart, though still together and living together. We went out to the cinema. Halfway through I suddenly couldn't concentrate. Afraid that Susan wasn't there. That she'd left with someone else, that she never came and I imagined her, that she'd died in her seat. Radically insecure. We were holding hands. Hope we didn't both feel loss.
Can't put your head in the oven anymore. Can't poison yourself with gas. Have to use up the oxygen first, suffocate in carbon monoxide. I could maybe do that. Poorly ventilated room, gas spill, fall asleep reading.
As a child fascinated by disembowelment. If I could make myself could slit my stomach. Though I wouldn't want to die in pain that long. The problem with most blood loss suicides. And too much time to change my mind. Could always sever my femoral artery. Again in water to help the bleed, but I've been here before.
Basically two ways to go. Stop my breath or stop my heart. Could be blood loss or massive trauma. The same end. One stops and then the other.
Thought in the past of drinking bleach, cutting myself everywhere to bleed out, slashing my wrists with a heavy knife, putting an electric cable in my mouth, stabbing at my neck with a broken bottle, jumping off a bridge into the Thames, garrotting myself with cheesewire, and others I can't remember.
______________________________________________________
One way I try to understand the people I care about is to watch them. See how they act when they don't know I'm watching. David was made to be watched. He holds himself in a way I've never seen in anyone else. It's always conscious, mostly elegant, but often just weird. I used to wonder if he ever relaxed, how he'd move when he wasn't paying attention, but he even slept like he'd been arranged. Then I simply used to enjoy it. Watch him like it was a performance, a piece of art.
When we lived together I had a lot of chances to watch him. Usually he was out of bed well before me, but sometimes I'd get up at the same time. I remember him being in a hurry one day. We had no shower in the flat so we had to use the bath. That day he didn't have enough time. Instead he ran water in the sink and gave himself a standing wash. I made him a coffee. The kitchen was close to the bathroom and since no one else was living with us the bathroom door was open. I watched David. He stood on the mat and washed his upper body, towel round his waist. I could see his ribs, he looked more bony than usual. Then he dried himself and washed his lower body. He lifted each foot into the sink to wash in turn. It was the most awkward looking I'd ever seen him. The concentration was somehow childish, misplaced and utterly charming. He even made sure to wash his cock thoroughly, pulling the foreskin back and pouring water on. Every movement was purposeful.
Apart from the way he held himself and moved I loved his hands. They were large and strong. It was fascinating to watch them being so careful and gentle. I knew them well of course. Their roughness and dryness, their redness. He usually forgot to use handcream though he needed it. I'd felt those hands, held them, been held and touched by them. His hands were cold a lot of the time and he was always anxious about touching me if he hadn't warmed them.
There was no washing machine in the flat and we were short of money so we sometimes did our laundry in the bath. I enjoyed trampling the clothes, and the fun of doing something together. It was less fun wringing out the clothes by hand. A lot of things were easy, others we could hold and twist between us. Other things, especially jeans, were difficult to wring out even then. I left those to David. It was good to watch. His hands twisting them. He'd keep on, his hands red, even when they started blistering. He was very strong.
The strange thing was the hands that looked so awkward had a soft touch. When we were having sex, in foreplay, David could touch so softly he tickled. Not intentionally. He simply didn't want to hurt me, handle me too roughly. I miss more than his hands since we split up, but they're one of the first things I remember. They represent so much of him it makes me sad to see them, or think of them when he's so unhappy.
I liked... I still like to watch David when he's relaxed and talking to other people. It's nice. Rare too, he's very shy. Usually he's nervous and constantly looking over to me or anyone else he knows. Or he withdraws completely. He'd still like to talk, to be included, but doesn't know how. It's easier to retreat. You can tell from his eyes or the way he sits how desperate he is to be loved. Most people only see the shell. A sphinx, secretive and self-contained. I wish there was something I could do.
Months after we'd split up, after I'd left David, I took him out to a couple of my friends to a bar. He was willing when I first mentioned it, then started making excuses, then agreed to come when I pestered him. I was glad I did. He responds well to persistence. Sometimes, often, it's easier to leave him. At other times I've told him I'll call or suggested we meet up and then forgotten.
It could have been awkward, David didn't know either of my friends. Vicky had just broken up with her boyfriend, temporarily as it happened, and Catia was being drunk and annoying. My new boyfriend Duncan had also said he might come along. I felt overwhelmed and worried, and hoped David wouldn't withdraw. He can be destructive then, picking holes in himself. He appeals for help though it's not clear what that help would be. Usually we both end up upset and angry. He behaved brilliantly this time.
He didn't exchange too many words with Catia but he certainly wasn't worried by her. In the mood she was in she could have easily made him insecure and anxious. Instead he was able to laugh with her and stay relatively relaxed. He was even better with Vicky, happy to talk through her feelings and listen to her complaints about Alan her boyfriend. And her tearful listing of his many qualities. I think it was David who suggested she could go back and talk with Alan to try and work things through. Normally this might be as much as David could manage. Find a conversation he can cope with and stick to it. Tonight he talked freely about normal things. He didn't come across as distant, antisocial, weird (as he put it), or inadvertently rude. He acted just like anyone else might have. If anyone was odd that evening it was me. I was so worried about mothering David through, about making sure he liked my friends, and about giving them the best impression of him, that I couldn't relax.
I had plenty of time to watch. I watched him loosen up, watched him laugh, watched his physical ease even when he was tense, and watched my friends react to him. I felt proud of him though I hadn't done much. I remembered when I didn't know him, when we first met. He knew a friend of mine, and I'd heard quite a bit about him already.
The first time we were introduced he was a little rude and dismissive. He didn't mean to be, but I had no way to judge. He was certainly attractive and intelligent. I enjoyed hanging on the periphery of the group and trying to follow his thought processes. I'd never met anyone like him. Watching him was a pleasure in itself. Not knowing how unconfident he was I couldn't tell how uncomfortable he felt. He came across as mature and controlled as a centre of the centre. I fell in love with him there I think. Though he didn't notice me for a couple more weeks, and it was more than a month till we got together.
It felt the same watching him that evening with Catia and Vicky. A proprietary pride, admiration, concern and attraction. I think part of me even hoped one of them might get off with David. As much as a surrogate for myself as to make him happy. It didn't happen of course. He was charming and friendly, then we all went home. I didn't even see him for three or four weeks after that.
If I hadn't known I like to watch the people I care for, I wouldn't have known from David. He compels attention. I would have watched him and known I was just doing what everyone else did. He's physically expressive of every mood, comically so at times. So to see him ill and upset for most of the last year has been painful. He's subdued and depressed, hard to reach.
I met him during the day recently in a cafe near the universities. It was lunchtime and he'd just had an interview. We arranged to meet after he called me the night before. He called crying and in a panic. He'd been tidying his flat and found a note I'd written for him in one of his notebooks when we were still together. It reminded him how much he thought he'd lost and it upset him. He tried to ring a couple of people he knew but no one answered. He told me he tried to sleep but his head wouldn't shut up so he called me. It was late and he spent most of the conversation crying. I arranged to meet him the next day.
I don't want to remember what we talked about. We had coffee, the sun came through the window, we both got upset. Neither of us had anything new or comforting to say. We've had a lot of conversations like it and we'll have plenty more. I left sooner than I'd intended because it seemed pointless for us to upset one another for no good reason. But when I was outside I stopped and looked back through the large windows. David sat with his coffee reading a book. He didn't seem relaxed. He looked diffident, like he didn't belong. He almost vanished, diverted attention from himself. He was still noticeable, just not striking unless you looked closely. He carried a sense of sadness, and looked both older and younger, more exhausted and more vulnerable than I remembered. At the same time I could also see him sat in almost the same space eighteen months before.
That was a weekend in the middle of summer. I had been visiting my family. When I got into town I rang David and we arranged to meet in the cafe. He arrived long before me, and I saw him through the window when I got there. In front of the cafe is a wide pavement, some raised beds with trees and bushes, a little more pavement, then the road. I sat on the edge of the beds watching him while he drank coffee and wrote in his notebook. His back was to the window, there was a mirror on the wall to his left and I could see his face. He looked relaxed, he was even smiling, unusual for him but beautiful to see.
I think I sat for five or ten minutes, an extremely long time, watching him through the window. He checked his watch a few times, wrote in his notebook, and even looked out of the window once. I flinched back but he didn't notice me. He leaned back and looked up the road to right and then left. I sat forward again and continued watching. I loved sitting there like that. After a while I rang his mobile and told him where I was. I'll always remember him turning, instantly animated, smiling and waving. It's among my favourite memories of him. But now it's mixed. I see him happy and strong, meeting my eyes. And I see him sad and shrunk after I've walked away again. Sat in the same cafe, each instance overlapping.
Matt Dalby
March 06
3445 words
David
This is the diary of my suicide. Blood won't clot in water. Run a hot bath, drink some wine with painkillers, washed down or crushed into it. Lie in the bath sleepy and spaced, tunes on, and cut my wrists. Down not across. And slowly drift off, arms getting cold and heavy.
Or more painful and more risky. Less certain. Walk out in traffic. There are two ways, the dream and the reality. The dream is aesthetic, being knocked down to look good. Step in front of a car and get thrown forward a ragdoll arc. Blackout when my head smacks the road. Frozen in slo-mo it'd look great. Wake up brain-damaged or paralysed. Better step off a traffic island into a truck. Tons of speed. Broken bones, maybe rolled under wheels.
These would be easy. But I work in a tall building. Much harder to climb out a window and drop seven storeys or more to concrete. And once you've made the choice, once you start to fall, the exhilaration and sense of finality. It's a much more cold-blooded way to die. Takes real commitment.
Never understood why or how you'd cut your throat. Seems perverse and painful and desperate. Showing off.
Suddenly noticed the hierarchy of presentation on Victorian terraces. Where they front the road smooth and finished with moulded brick friezes. The side are mostly plain but the brick just as fine, and the rear finished very roughly. Walk through this every day to work. Don't need to drive, don't like the bus, and it's less frustrating. If the traffic's snarled-up I just walk right through.
I'm only happy in the spaces between. Going somewhere. Falling asleep. Wanking. But there's still too much time I have nothing to do. Too much time to think.
March 3rd 23:12 Susan I'm really scared, I think I might have killed myself. I didn't mean to, I just wanted to get wasted + loosen up. Maybe get used to being alone. I drank a bottle of wine pretty quick and now I'm trashed. I don't want to die. I love you. I'm sorry if I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you. Forgive me. It was an accident. I'm sure you'll have a happy life. Mum + Dad + my family, what can I say. I'm sorry, i didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be oblivious for a little bit - if you're reading this then you have every right to be angry. I'm so ashamed + sorry to put you through this. I don't want to die. Maybe I wanted to hurt myself a little, but not this. Just a bottle of wine and some painkillers (I forgot to mention before, the Ibuprofen, I'm not sure how many), but not to hurt you. I'm sorry. I just want you to know I'm sorry for every time I was insensitive or distant, or said or did something wrong. I love you in a way that surprises me. I miss when we were a single family all in one house. But still the last 3 years have brought me closer to you than since I left for uni. I love you, I hope you don't feel too bad. Mike + Beth + all my other friends, I'm sorry. Don't feel too bad, it was a stupid mistake + I wish I never did it. I hope I wake up, I want to see tomorrrow. I want to be ok, not brain damaged. Why am I this stupid fucking death dreamer? Hey kids do what I did + piss your life away. 23:53 I'm really hot. I'm afraid to sleep.
Another uncertain one. Driving at speed close my eyes, put my foot down, take my hands off the wheel. Again a mainly aesthetic appeal. Worries me I might endanger others and I'd never want to do that.
Drop a plugged-in electric appliance in the bath. Sudden. Bang. Stop my heart.
I've thought of shooting myself. Gun barrel under my chin or pushing in the roof of my mouth. Over in a second. Quite a cool way to die. Don't know where I'd get a gun. And shooting's messy and unpleasant when someone finds the body. Could fly to America, buy a gun, shoot myself in a hired room. Let the professionals clean it up. of course leave a note. Maybe say goodbye by text or email. 'Goodbye. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you.' So long as there's a proper note too.
I've written my suicide note many times. Planned it. It should explain and comfort. Be publishable. Frameable. Twice I've written it for real. Once I thought I was dying. Accidental overdose, just meant to hurt myself. Wine and painkillers. The note was repetitive, garbled, disjointed and scruffy. The other time I meant to go through with it. Meant to cut my wrists in the bath with a glass shard. Finished the note. I was pleased with it mainly. But by the time it was done I didn't want to die today. Gave it to a friend, he made it into a song.
I want a friend. Something else of course. A friend first though. Don't like to wake up alone. Don't like to come home to an empty flat. I just want someone to hold me. Simple wants. I like contact. I like my physicality. But it's more than that. Susan was an equal, a challenge. She enabled me. And it's selfish but I cry when I think of the things we're not doing together. Places she goes, people she knows. The distance she's moving away. It's like losing her every day. I'd love to be happy.
Some ways never appealed to me. I couldn't drown myself. Logically going under a train shouldn't be much different from being hit by a truck. It seems like a lot of hassle though. Asphyxiation frightens me too much. That includes hanging unless I could be sure to break my neck. Poisoning or overdose could be too protracted and ugly. Even if i could get the drugs or poisons.
Since I was a child contemplated self-immolation. Must have been news images. Accelerant. Petrol, whatever. Pour it over myself and set light. It would really fucking hurt. Sickening to watch. Wouldn't want to fail.
Been told I'm passive aggressive. In conversation. Apparently obstructive, obtuse, difficult. Ask questions I want to know the answers to but it comes over defensive. And it's another way to self-harm. Go walk somewhere careless of trouble. Get in an argument, get in a fight. No responsibility. Don't fight back. Never done it yet though.
Someone told me I'd make a good junkie. I hate myself. But I don't want to piss off anyone with anger. It stays inside. Makes me ill and I hate myself more. Want to intensify the sickness. Make it worse. Drive myself deeper.
First knew I was going to die when a local boy died in his sleep aged fourteen. I was seven. Fourteen became a milestone. An age I didn't think I'd get past. Fourteen, twenty-one, thirty-six. Seven. No, younger when I first knew. Trying to imagine the end of things. But if they had an end there had to be something beyond that. And that 'something beyond' had to end. And after that end something more. A terrifying intellectual vertigo.
Another way to go. Exposure. Hypothermia. I get cold easily. Even on mild days fingers and toes cut off circulation. Go yellow, even blue, quickly. Blue means no oxygen in the tissue. It means bits of me have died already, many times. Think I'd like the growing irrationality and false warmth. Drift off to sleep when the body's stopped shivering.
Dreamt I was walking to work. Had my iPod on playing an imagined Sonic Youth/Mogwai hybrid. Sometimes music makes me stumble. This had that intoxication, but it was building like pressure. Thought it was the volume so tried to turn it down. The pressure got worse. Opened my mouth to relieve it. One of my teeth exploded. Small fragments and dust. Then another tooth, and more. I woke up.
Just over fifteen months ago. Susan and I were falling apart, though still together and living together. We went out to the cinema. Halfway through I suddenly couldn't concentrate. Afraid that Susan wasn't there. That she'd left with someone else, that she never came and I imagined her, that she'd died in her seat. Radically insecure. We were holding hands. Hope we didn't both feel loss.
Can't put your head in the oven anymore. Can't poison yourself with gas. Have to use up the oxygen first, suffocate in carbon monoxide. I could maybe do that. Poorly ventilated room, gas spill, fall asleep reading.
As a child fascinated by disembowelment. If I could make myself could slit my stomach. Though I wouldn't want to die in pain that long. The problem with most blood loss suicides. And too much time to change my mind. Could always sever my femoral artery. Again in water to help the bleed, but I've been here before.
Basically two ways to go. Stop my breath or stop my heart. Could be blood loss or massive trauma. The same end. One stops and then the other.
Thought in the past of drinking bleach, cutting myself everywhere to bleed out, slashing my wrists with a heavy knife, putting an electric cable in my mouth, stabbing at my neck with a broken bottle, jumping off a bridge into the Thames, garrotting myself with cheesewire, and others I can't remember.
______________________________________________________
One way I try to understand the people I care about is to watch them. See how they act when they don't know I'm watching. David was made to be watched. He holds himself in a way I've never seen in anyone else. It's always conscious, mostly elegant, but often just weird. I used to wonder if he ever relaxed, how he'd move when he wasn't paying attention, but he even slept like he'd been arranged. Then I simply used to enjoy it. Watch him like it was a performance, a piece of art.
When we lived together I had a lot of chances to watch him. Usually he was out of bed well before me, but sometimes I'd get up at the same time. I remember him being in a hurry one day. We had no shower in the flat so we had to use the bath. That day he didn't have enough time. Instead he ran water in the sink and gave himself a standing wash. I made him a coffee. The kitchen was close to the bathroom and since no one else was living with us the bathroom door was open. I watched David. He stood on the mat and washed his upper body, towel round his waist. I could see his ribs, he looked more bony than usual. Then he dried himself and washed his lower body. He lifted each foot into the sink to wash in turn. It was the most awkward looking I'd ever seen him. The concentration was somehow childish, misplaced and utterly charming. He even made sure to wash his cock thoroughly, pulling the foreskin back and pouring water on. Every movement was purposeful.
Apart from the way he held himself and moved I loved his hands. They were large and strong. It was fascinating to watch them being so careful and gentle. I knew them well of course. Their roughness and dryness, their redness. He usually forgot to use handcream though he needed it. I'd felt those hands, held them, been held and touched by them. His hands were cold a lot of the time and he was always anxious about touching me if he hadn't warmed them.
There was no washing machine in the flat and we were short of money so we sometimes did our laundry in the bath. I enjoyed trampling the clothes, and the fun of doing something together. It was less fun wringing out the clothes by hand. A lot of things were easy, others we could hold and twist between us. Other things, especially jeans, were difficult to wring out even then. I left those to David. It was good to watch. His hands twisting them. He'd keep on, his hands red, even when they started blistering. He was very strong.
The strange thing was the hands that looked so awkward had a soft touch. When we were having sex, in foreplay, David could touch so softly he tickled. Not intentionally. He simply didn't want to hurt me, handle me too roughly. I miss more than his hands since we split up, but they're one of the first things I remember. They represent so much of him it makes me sad to see them, or think of them when he's so unhappy.
I liked... I still like to watch David when he's relaxed and talking to other people. It's nice. Rare too, he's very shy. Usually he's nervous and constantly looking over to me or anyone else he knows. Or he withdraws completely. He'd still like to talk, to be included, but doesn't know how. It's easier to retreat. You can tell from his eyes or the way he sits how desperate he is to be loved. Most people only see the shell. A sphinx, secretive and self-contained. I wish there was something I could do.
Months after we'd split up, after I'd left David, I took him out to a couple of my friends to a bar. He was willing when I first mentioned it, then started making excuses, then agreed to come when I pestered him. I was glad I did. He responds well to persistence. Sometimes, often, it's easier to leave him. At other times I've told him I'll call or suggested we meet up and then forgotten.
It could have been awkward, David didn't know either of my friends. Vicky had just broken up with her boyfriend, temporarily as it happened, and Catia was being drunk and annoying. My new boyfriend Duncan had also said he might come along. I felt overwhelmed and worried, and hoped David wouldn't withdraw. He can be destructive then, picking holes in himself. He appeals for help though it's not clear what that help would be. Usually we both end up upset and angry. He behaved brilliantly this time.
He didn't exchange too many words with Catia but he certainly wasn't worried by her. In the mood she was in she could have easily made him insecure and anxious. Instead he was able to laugh with her and stay relatively relaxed. He was even better with Vicky, happy to talk through her feelings and listen to her complaints about Alan her boyfriend. And her tearful listing of his many qualities. I think it was David who suggested she could go back and talk with Alan to try and work things through. Normally this might be as much as David could manage. Find a conversation he can cope with and stick to it. Tonight he talked freely about normal things. He didn't come across as distant, antisocial, weird (as he put it), or inadvertently rude. He acted just like anyone else might have. If anyone was odd that evening it was me. I was so worried about mothering David through, about making sure he liked my friends, and about giving them the best impression of him, that I couldn't relax.
I had plenty of time to watch. I watched him loosen up, watched him laugh, watched his physical ease even when he was tense, and watched my friends react to him. I felt proud of him though I hadn't done much. I remembered when I didn't know him, when we first met. He knew a friend of mine, and I'd heard quite a bit about him already.
The first time we were introduced he was a little rude and dismissive. He didn't mean to be, but I had no way to judge. He was certainly attractive and intelligent. I enjoyed hanging on the periphery of the group and trying to follow his thought processes. I'd never met anyone like him. Watching him was a pleasure in itself. Not knowing how unconfident he was I couldn't tell how uncomfortable he felt. He came across as mature and controlled as a centre of the centre. I fell in love with him there I think. Though he didn't notice me for a couple more weeks, and it was more than a month till we got together.
It felt the same watching him that evening with Catia and Vicky. A proprietary pride, admiration, concern and attraction. I think part of me even hoped one of them might get off with David. As much as a surrogate for myself as to make him happy. It didn't happen of course. He was charming and friendly, then we all went home. I didn't even see him for three or four weeks after that.
If I hadn't known I like to watch the people I care for, I wouldn't have known from David. He compels attention. I would have watched him and known I was just doing what everyone else did. He's physically expressive of every mood, comically so at times. So to see him ill and upset for most of the last year has been painful. He's subdued and depressed, hard to reach.
I met him during the day recently in a cafe near the universities. It was lunchtime and he'd just had an interview. We arranged to meet after he called me the night before. He called crying and in a panic. He'd been tidying his flat and found a note I'd written for him in one of his notebooks when we were still together. It reminded him how much he thought he'd lost and it upset him. He tried to ring a couple of people he knew but no one answered. He told me he tried to sleep but his head wouldn't shut up so he called me. It was late and he spent most of the conversation crying. I arranged to meet him the next day.
I don't want to remember what we talked about. We had coffee, the sun came through the window, we both got upset. Neither of us had anything new or comforting to say. We've had a lot of conversations like it and we'll have plenty more. I left sooner than I'd intended because it seemed pointless for us to upset one another for no good reason. But when I was outside I stopped and looked back through the large windows. David sat with his coffee reading a book. He didn't seem relaxed. He looked diffident, like he didn't belong. He almost vanished, diverted attention from himself. He was still noticeable, just not striking unless you looked closely. He carried a sense of sadness, and looked both older and younger, more exhausted and more vulnerable than I remembered. At the same time I could also see him sat in almost the same space eighteen months before.
That was a weekend in the middle of summer. I had been visiting my family. When I got into town I rang David and we arranged to meet in the cafe. He arrived long before me, and I saw him through the window when I got there. In front of the cafe is a wide pavement, some raised beds with trees and bushes, a little more pavement, then the road. I sat on the edge of the beds watching him while he drank coffee and wrote in his notebook. His back was to the window, there was a mirror on the wall to his left and I could see his face. He looked relaxed, he was even smiling, unusual for him but beautiful to see.
I think I sat for five or ten minutes, an extremely long time, watching him through the window. He checked his watch a few times, wrote in his notebook, and even looked out of the window once. I flinched back but he didn't notice me. He leaned back and looked up the road to right and then left. I sat forward again and continued watching. I loved sitting there like that. After a while I rang his mobile and told him where I was. I'll always remember him turning, instantly animated, smiling and waving. It's among my favourite memories of him. But now it's mixed. I see him happy and strong, meeting my eyes. And I see him sad and shrunk after I've walked away again. Sat in the same cafe, each instance overlapping.
Matt Dalby
March 06
3445 words
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