On The Up by Alice O’Keeffe

Author:Alice O’Keeffe [O’Keeffe, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2019-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

9.

All aboard the party bus

Incident No. 261. 9th March, 8 p.m. All I can see is a blur. I don’t know if we are moving or staying; if I’m ill or well, awake or asleep. I don’t know whether to work or rest or try or just give up. I don’t know whether to keep fighting, or just … let go.

But I know that this book, like Bill, like my job and this flat, has become something other than it was meant to be. So I’m going to send it off into the world now. Who knows, perhaps the world will send something back.

Hours’ sleep: I’m just about to go to bed. Wish me luck. Over and out.

I SHUT the logbook, and slid it into a big brown envelope I had bought specifically for this purpose. Over the last week, I’d been sitting down to meditate every day. I did it at odd times, sometimes when That Baby was napping, and The Toddler was engrossed in Bob the Builder. Sometimes sitting up in bed, while Obe was in the other room. Sometimes I’d shut myself in the toilet for two minutes, forget about the chaos on the other side of the door, and just close my eyes.

Usually two minutes was all it was, but a couple of times I managed half an hour. Every time, even if only for a matter of seconds, the view opened up in my mind. Now I had seen it, now I knew it was there, I could visit it any time. I had discovered a place in my head that felt warm and safe. Sometimes there were flashes of another feeling, too, a stronger one – love, perhaps.

When I was in that place, ideas would bubble up, from somewhere in the depths of my brain. Yesterday, I realised that I had finished with the logbook. Enough was enough. I went out that afternoon and bought the envelope.

Bill Baker, I wrote on the back. Anti-Social Behaviour Unit, Hackney Town Hall. I slipped a note in, too. Dear Bill, thank you so much for all your help and advice over the years. Here it is, all the evidence. Do what you will with it. Love, Sylvia. I added one kiss, and then another. I put the package in the hall, to post the next day. Then I ran myself a bath, and stayed in it until it was almost cold.

The phone rang as I was drying myself and wondering whether eight thirty was too early to get into my pyjamas. I usually made myself wait until nine.

‘Hey, sis.’ Lou’s voice was hard to make out; in the background people were talking, laughing, and there was a tinny csk-csk of music. ‘What you up to?’

‘Funny you should ask,’ I said. ‘I’m actually at an amazing party on a beach in Ibiza. I’ve been up for three days taking a cocktail of drugs and having a sex marathon with a bartender called Juan.’

‘I thought as much,’ said Lou. ‘Just a standard Friday night in Priory Court, then.

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