Watching the pantomime go on, something hit Jessie. One day, she might go through all that again, the dating thing. Years from now, she might feel drenched in loneliness and the need for human contact. She might think that it would be a good idea to try and meet someone. And it would look like that. Desperation, embarrassment, disappointment.

  ‘Hey, Terry’ she called down the table. He turned. ‘Ya wanna do a shot?’

  Terry’s mouth was a half-moon of joy.

  ***

  The world was tilted on its axis, the sharp edges of existence smoothed out. Jessie was smashed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this drunk. Maybe her early twenties?

  ‘Go on, let’s do another’ Terry was saying. She didn’t know if she answered him but there was a shot glass in her hand a moment later. She necked it.

  Something caught her ear, an angry noise. It took her some seconds to sort through it, to understand that it was an argument. She turned her whole body around to face it and she blurrily understood that it was Holly and her date. They were having a row about… What was it? Jessie couldn’t make it out. But then she saw the date jabbing a finger in Holly’s direction. Holly stepped back. Fury sprung up in Jessie. This fucking jerk was having a go at her friend!

  ‘Oi’ she said, and no one noticed. She realised she’d only said it to herself. She tried again and overcorrected, bellowing the word at Holly’s date. ‘OI!’ This time, he turned. Along with the rest of the bar.

  Jessie took a confident step forward, feeling strong. She wasn’t having this. Whatever ‘this’ was. ‘What the fuck is your problem?’

  The guy said something Jessie couldn’t make out, but it didn’t really matter. ‘You’re a scraping at the bottom of Tinder’s barrel and I’m not having you abuse my friend, err…’ she stopped there, trying to find the right name. Which friend was she defending again?

  The guy stepped forward and got close enough for Jessie to see he was pissed off at that Tinder crack. ‘Look, this is nothing to do with you’ he said angrily.

  Jessie looked at Tinder boy’s face and she suddenly thought it would be rather good to punch him directly in it. In fact, it felt like the answer to everything. She pulled her arm back and swung it, surprised to connect. But it wasn’t with Tinder boy. It was a glass collector, a young guy, and he took it in the temple. By anyone’s definition it was a sucker punch and the guy, while not that hurt, lost his balance and stumbled. He went into a table that was covered in glasses and the whole lot went over. The noise was ferocious, and it pulled Jessie from her intoxication to witness the consequences of her action in shocking HD.

  The guy sat in the middle of the broken table, smashed glass everywhere, his arm bleeding. Jessie clapped her hand to her mouth, shocked. Had she done this? She wasn’t sure.

  Rough hands suddenly grabbed her. ‘Right, you!’ the owner of the hands said as she was dragged bodily through the bar. Not that she fought it. She was being tossed out like garbage. It was exactly what she wanted.

  But that wasn’t exactly what was happening. Instead of going through the front door she was dragged up a set of stairs and plonked down roughly on a stool in what looked like an empty function room. Jessie allowed it, confused. The guy left, shutting the door behind him and she got up and went to the door to find it locked. ‘Hello?’ No one answered.

  Time passed as she alternated between rattling the door and sitting slumped on the floor. She felt like she was stuck in the room for hours (although later, she was told it was about seven minutes). When the door finally opened, two police officers walked in and said, ‘Are you responsible for the damage downstairs?’

  Jessie shrugged and said, with teenage insolence, ‘What if I am?’ She was shocked at herself. But there was something about being like this that felt good.

  ‘You’re under arrest, that’s what’ one of the officers replied snippily.

  Jessie laughed in his face and held out her wrists in the cuff position she’d seen on TV. ‘Take me away, officer! I’m a menace to society!’

  So they did.

  Three

  Jessie, sat in a little concrete room the following morning, was told by the duty solicitor that the glass collector was ok, but that he’d had to have five stitches in his arm. And that was the good news. The bad news was that they wanted to charge her with assault.

  In the sober light of day, Jessie was horrified. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. That poor guy, minding his own business. And now he likely had a scar for life. And she was going to have a criminal record, its own kind of scar on her. ‘Will I go to prison?’

  ‘Look, you’re clean and this is a first offense, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Long as you plead guilty and show true remorse, you’ll probably get probation?’ her solicitor Krish Gupta told her, a guy in a cheap suit with bed head. Jessie didn’t like the question mark at the end of his sentence. He had the air of someone on an ill thought out work experience placement. She needed assurance right now. Krish was not delivering.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ she asked.

  ‘Ninety-five percent sure’ Krish told her, sounding a bit more confident.

  ‘Alright’ Jessie breathed, somewhat less worried. It didn’t have to be the end of the world. Except… ‘Woah, wait. Will I get sacked from my current job?’

  ‘Depends on your contract.’

  ‘I don’t remember what my contract said.’

  ‘Did you get CRB checked when you started?’

  Jessie had to think. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you might lose your job. If they get wind of it. What do you do?’

  ‘I work for The Tribune’ Jessie told him, answering her own question. They knew about every court case, every outcome. They had someone sat out in the gallery every day, looking for juicy cases. Sometimes it was her job to sit there. And now she would have to walk across the room and sit in the dock, while one of her colleagues watched. It was mortifying.

  Krish bit the inside of his lip. ‘Right. We might have a problem then.’

  ‘I’m fucked, aren’t I?’ Jessie declared, unsurprised. She was losing everything she had. First Lily, now her career. Of course.

  But Krish Gupta, who’d stank up the place with his inexperience, apparently had a trick or two up his sleeve. ‘Look, if there’s extenuating circumstances to the incident, I could try to argue this away. Have you had any problems lately? Maybe you’ve been under some sort of undue stress?’

  Yes. ‘No.’

  Krish narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re sure? Nothing that might have happened in the past year that we could attribute this ‘Aberration’ to?’

  Yes. ‘No’ Jessie shrugged.

  Krish looked at his watch. ‘Look, it’s the difference of your job. So if you won’t help...’

  Jessie had a quick argument with herself. Yes, something had happened that might have caused her to act out of character. Because ordinarily, she didn’t drink like a fish and lash out at random people. But the thought of trying to use what had happened to Lily to wriggle off the hook, it made her want to vomit. And she’d already done that once this morning. So she wanted to vomit something else up. The dregs of her pride perhaps.

  But if she didn’t say anything, she’d lose her job. And it was all she had left in her life. While part of her wanted to do a hundred-yard dash toward oblivion, to the somewhat appealing idea of losing everything she had and crawling into a hole to wait until this shitty life was over, there was a thought running around her head that made it difficult. What would Lily think if you gave in without a fight?

  ‘Fine’ Jessie said, struggling to say the words. ‘My wife died six months ago.’

  Krish smiled. It was distasteful. ‘Dead wife? I can work with that.’

  Jessie had read Krish Gupta wrong. He was a Columbo, a Miss Marple. Pretending sheep status, but now she could see, he was pure wolf. It revolted her, and she was grateful for it.

  Four

  Annie Perkins backed her slight body into room six at the Goldcliffe Civic Centre, her arms full of bags, her bright yellow cardigan snagging on the door. She yanked and heard a rip. Her big eyes darted around, giving her the air of a frightened deer, her usual look. But Annie was alone, her clumsiness unseen. She was the first, of course. She was always first.

  She took off her cardigan, threw it in the bin and straightened her white blouse. She headed for the shabby table at the edge of the room that needed a coat of paint and began to put out her wares. Cupcakes and biscuits. A lot of them. In fact, Annie had bought twenty separate brands of snack, covering every iteration of allergy and preference she could possibly imagine and some she couldn’t. She’d even bought grapes, though no one ever touched them. But Annie wanted people to have the option. What if some diabetic widow wandered in and went to the snack table and finding nothing sugar free, made the split-second destructive choice to stuff a cookie into their mouths, causing themselves to go into shock and die right in front of the Goldcliffe Grief Group? It was a rather ludicrous ‘What if?’ but Annie was full of such mad risk assessments.

  So why had she done this, bought all the cookies Tesco sold for just a handful of people? Because when Annie had stood in front of the aisles, racked with indecision, pondering the consequences of the wrong biscuit, this had been the simplest solution. Not to choose at all. This was the problem that had bought her through the doors some time ago. She suffered with aboulomania, pathological indecisiveness bought about by the shock of losing both her parents in a very brief span of time.

  ‘Oh, Annie’ cried a disappointed voice and Annie turned to see Freddie Reeves, shaking his big-bearded head.

  Annie brushed her blonde bobbed hair from her eyes nervously. ‘I know, I know’ she said, trying to head off the criticism.

  ‘If you weren’t ready, you only had to…’

  ‘Freddie, no. I was. I am.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not ready to pick up the snacks, Annie?’ Freddie said sadly. ‘Maybe I’ll take your turn next time.’

  ‘No’ Annie wailed. ‘I can’t just stick my responsibilities on someone else.’

  ‘You know that I believe in you’ Freddie said, slipping out of his decades old parka and hanging it on a hook. ‘I think you can overcome this. But maybe it’s not a good idea to rush into it…’

  ‘I’ve been coming for a year’ Annie said.

  ‘Yes, I know. But this is the fifth time you’ve… Overbought.’

  ‘I’m getting better Freddie, I swear. I bought a pair of shoes online yesterday and it only took eight hours! That used to take weeks. I’d call that a win.’

  Freddie smiled and walked over to Annie. He put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. ‘Then I’ll call it a win too.’ He picked up a biscuit and popped it into his mouth whole, crunching as he unstacked the chairs. He had the circle ready as people began to trundle in.

  Joel came in first, (brother, ten months ago, went off his motorcycle) head dipped low as usual, his lanky nineteen-year-old body sloping through the room at a snail’s pace. He slipped his headphones off and a blast of angry rap fell out before he shut the music off. He glanced at the biscuits and said, ‘Annie, this you?’

  ‘Will you take some home?’ she asked, distracted. She was looking at the chairs. The one near the window? Or the one nearest the door?

  ‘If you need me to eat a shit load of biscuits, then I’ll do what I can’ he said and sat down in a slouch.

  ‘Thank you’ Annie replied, her attention still on the chairs. She couldn’t decide where to sit. What if there was a fire? It would most likely start outside the door and that meant the window was the best exit. But what if someone threw something in threw the window? She’d cop the brunt.

  Then came Marion, (mother, old age, five years ago) looking cheerful as ever. People said that Marion was not really in need of the group and just liked the social element, but Annie tried not to think that way. People’s grief was complex, and it didn’t always sit right on the surface, easy to see and understand.

  Marion sat, squarely between the door and the window and patted the chair next to her, looking at Annie. ‘Come on, love.’ Annie gave her a grateful look and sat down.

  In came the rest of the group, prim and proper Jenny (adult daughter, three years ago, kidney failure), hangdog Toby (wife, a year ago, pancreatic cancer), rough and ready Callum, (father, two years ago, stroke) and finally brassy Debbie (husband, three years ago, heart attack). The usual suspects, here to share their grief in the hopes of lessening it. Just a little.

  And then an unfamiliar face popped through the door, a woman, about Annie’s age. She was tall, she had at least six inches on little Annie, wearing a sharp leather jacket, with long dark hair that hung around high cheekbones and blue eyes with large shadows underneath them. Pretty in a sad way. She looked furtive, anxious. Classic newcomer face. ‘Am I in the right place?’ she asked in a sultry, deep voice. She looked like she was hoping for a no, but Freddie said, ‘Grief group?’ and she sighed said ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on in’ Freddie said effusively, grabbing a label that said, ‘Hi, my name is’ and a blank space to be filled in. He gave one to the woman, along with a marker pen. Everyone else had theirs, though they hadn’t had a newbie in some time and they didn’t really need the labels. Still, it was the ritual.

  The woman pulled the rest of her body into the room to join her head and scuttled to the circle of chairs, sitting as far as she could from anyone else. She cleared her throat a few times and said nothing more. The label sat in her hand, still blank.

  ‘Good morning, everyone’ Freddie said. ‘I’d like to start by thanking you all for coming. And to ask our newcomer if she’d like to tell us her name?’

  ‘Why do you need it?’ the woman asked. That surprised Annie. They weren’t in alcoholics anonymous. They were in a group for sad people who were very much on a first name basis.

  ‘I suppose I don’t need it…’ Freddie said, unaffected by the odd answer. But that was no shock. Freddie had been doing this a long time, Annie knew. He’d probably seen it all.

  ‘Fine’ the woman eventually replied, scribbling on the label and slapping it on her chest. Everyone leaned in to read her name. Jessie.

  ‘Thank you’ Freddie said as though her attitude were nothing out of the ordinary. But Annie had never seen anyone come in here with the level of reluctance that this Jessie person had. Even Joel, shoved here by his worried mother, couldn’t top Jessie’s attitude.

  And since Jessie was clearly not going to say more anytime soon, Freddie asked if anyone wanted to kick it off today? Marion picked up the gauntlet. She regaled everyone with a tale of how her tomatoes were having a disappointing season. Annie wished she wouldn’t waste group time this way, but it wasn’t for her to say. Fortunately, Freddie had his ways. ‘And how are things at home?’ he asked. What he meant was, ‘How is it without your mother?’ who’d shared a home with Marion for the last few years of her spinster life. ‘Oh, fine’ Marion said cheerily. ‘Though I do wish the window washers would come more regularly’ she added, completely missing the point. ‘And the bin collections are all over the place. In fact, on Friday it was recyclables and…’

  But Annie barely listened. Her attention was on the newbie. She tried not to be too obvious about it, glancing from her peripherals. But she wanted this woman’s story. Everyone here had one.

  ***

  It was minute forty-five of a sixty-minute hell ride. Jessie wanted to block it out, but the onslaught kept coming. Sadness, bitterness, grief, despair, it was spilling out all over the place. She almost wished that Marion woman would talk about her tomatoes again. It was dreary but at least it wasn’t depressing. Not in the traditional sense.

  She listened to that kid Joel talk about how he hated the sound of traffic now; that he kept thinking he was going to be hit by a car and he jumped whenever anyone honked their horn. And then he let out a little tear and the big guy, Callum, put an arm around him and Joel said, ‘I’m alright’ and pushed Callum off.

  Then came Toby, talking about how one of his kids had a birthday and how he’d blown out the candle and asked for his mum to come home, which of course, she never would. Toby gave a little sob at the end and then sucked his emotions quickly back up.

  Then Debbie had talked about sorting her husband’s clothes for the charity shop and how she’d found an old letter in amongst them, one she’d sent to him years ago, packed into a shoebox, kept and cared for. The story was accompanied by buckets of tears.

  It was all so awful. Jessie felt like she was drowning in other people’s sadness. How anyone thought this would help, pooling their grief this way, stunned Jessie. How could it do anything but compound it? She was barely keeping her head above water as it was, without carrying everything she’d heard in here today on top.

 

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