Paradise by A. L. Kennedy

Author:A. L. Kennedy [Kennedy, A. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307427212
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Possibly I’m being oversensitive, but that does sound like a threat. “They therefore require treatment.”—There’s a lack of detachment and subtlety in that—it’s interfering. Plus, it appears to be plastered on the back of every door we’ve got here: no bathroom, bedroom, lounge or, very probably, fuse box is free from the Alcohol Subcommittee’s influence. What if I did have a mental disturbance of the noticeable kind? Repeated insinuations about my lack of smooth social functioning could nag me right over my edge.

Not that I’m anything other than mellow at the minute. This is undoubtedly a calming place to stay. Sensible, if overly hearty eating, lots of bland liquids and sleep, few responsibilities beyond making my own bed: the Clear Spring Clinic’s regimen is exhaustingly healthy. The world may be going to Hell beyond us, but we’re fine and know nothing about it—are forbidden to guess.

So my fettle is fine. I didn’t realise it was possible to eat this much fruit—all of that peeling and roughage, it seemed very time-consuming when I had other matters in hand. But here I’m gobbling down enough of the stuff to fuel an orangutan.

This is a sign of my being cooperative, which I am. My compliance is absolute. I came here for treatment freely. I volunteered.

The trouble is, treatment hasn’t been forthcoming.

Take today—because I have to, it’s my only way through to tomorrow. This morning, we’re sitting in a circle again—this means we’re doing something to make us better, the kind of something that we get instead of treatment. Apparently it’s a known fact that no one has ever recuperated from any unfortunate state without being slapped down into a grisly ring of pink Naugahyde armchairs and made to discuss their personal lives with a dozen emotional vampires listening.

There’s a plaintive bastard unburdening himself for us, even now: “What got me . . . the thing with my daughter . . . I knew where she kept her savings and I just took them. For myself.” This is Sam: he is wearing a badge to that effect and has no other distinguishing features beyond his adenoidal whine and his fifth-degree dandruff, filthy clots of it stuck on the inside of his glasses. “My own daughter. I took it all.”

Which seems fair enough to me—where would a daughter get money from in the first place, if not her parents? And what could she possibly need it for that would actually be important?

Sam pushes his hand back through his hair every thirty seconds: regular as the clock over the door, but infinitely less tidy. I must end up inhaling at least an ounce of dead, khaki skin from him each session. I’ve had five days of this already and neither of us seems to be any better—in fact, he seems worse.

He’ll cry soon—a compulsive weeper, Sam—which is great. The circle is delighted when anyone cries and usually we get a break then, possibly with biscuits, because the nurses are also delighted by even a dewy eye, never mind a remorseful tear.

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