Who I Am Read online

  What really happened, Andi Chapman? What is it you know, and are not willing to share?

  26

  Edinburgh 2017

  Camilla

  The train glides into Waverley station, it’s late in the evening, the crimson sun, desperately hanging on. I’ve actually done it but now my cortisol levels have returned from a trip to bravado, I’m struggling to believe I’ve really carried this through. I could and perhaps should stop this journey before I travel much further but despite the quivery feeling, I’m not going to. I can’t. It feels right, a little scary but nonetheless right.

  I mean, I’ve been through worse when I first arrived back in Edinburgh in my early twenties, unprepared and petrified. To begin with I lived in a hovel above a greasy café in the back streets of Old Town for more months than I care to remember, with literally nothing. But I could hide away there, keep a low profile. Bit by bit, I managed to build some kind of confused wardrobe together with minimal earnings left over from the waitressing job. After this, I moved to another hole, shared digs with canteen staff beneath a city hotel. It was horrible, damp and crammed but a step up none the less. This wasn’t how it was ever supposed to be, I’d taken an enormous step backwards, with no idea of how to escape the life I’d – chosen? Been forced into? If it hadn’t had been for her…

  I reach for my bag squashed into the luggage rail as we enter the enclosed platform area. At least I met him as planned by me, not him, not her. I met him – the thought leaves me a little light headed. Picturing him loitering in the dimly lit reception area of the college building, dark wooden cladding everywhere, regarding a sheet of paper with the allotted room details for our class. I asked him if by any chance, he was there for the same purpose as me. For one moment, I was genuinely relieved, surprised even, because as it turned out, he was. I jostled myself, well of course, he was the purpose of me being there. The photography course was a gift from his wife he informed me, as we climbed the baroque staircase. I cooed, smiled and nodded but I already knew this. The wife considerately typed a comment stating this beneath the photograph of his birthday celebrations in response to one of their friends.

  We wound our way up the cascading staircase as he divulged that he worked nearby in the city. I knew this too, but I didn’t want to interrupt his flow, it would have been rude and I’m guessing, he may have found me a little creepy if I’d owned up to this. It was harder than I thought to show genuine surprise, not to comment on the other fragments of his life I was also aware of. It’s an odd situation, making conversation with a stranger with a level of knowledge being only one directional.

  He doesn’t know me. Not yet. But he will.

  As an extra bonus, we were both a little late by the time we finally reached our room following several wrong turns along the vast maze of corridors, the only two seats remaining were those together at the very front. For the ensuing time I had to stop myself from jotting down discreet notes with each new glimpse of information he leaked. I think he also appreciated my company, our conversation easily spawned from seemingly nowhere. Almost as if we had something in common, you could say. I’ve no reason to doubt that over the next eight weeks we will become friends. Close friends. Our day couldn’t have run more smoothly if I’d planned it myself.

  I step from the train into the cool, tainted air of Waverly Station, the sizzling heat of London has left me feeling like I’ve been wearing these same clothes for many more days. The old building where our classes are held had little in the way of ventilation, so we were both gasping by the end of the day, which decided our trip to Costa across the road. The plan was to sit in as I’d at least an hour to spare before returning to Kings Cross, he apparently had to be nowhere any time soon. Sadly, my lot of luck faded at this point, Costa was chock full with nearby offices emptying its bodies. So we loitered outside on the pavement, before bidding our farewells until the following week. Edinburgh, he muttered before a swill from the paper cup, I have it on good authority – it’s an attractive city. I know who his good authority is. I replied – well he or she clearly knows it well, it is beautiful, yes, then I added you should visit. I love it, one of my favourite UK cities, my home. But then, is it? Hasn’t it always been somewhere I wait, rather than live? A place where old memories from time to time attempt to override the present?

  Now, turning left onto Market Street, the faint fluttering in my stomach reminds me of who I really am as I step down from the day. Am I ready to do this? Have I fully considered the consequences of all I’m embarking upon? But then, do I have a choice, can I ever be happy if I don’t see this through, ever be capable of being true to myself, who I set out to be? Each foot feeling more and more weighted with trepidation by the time I begin to climb the Scotsman Steps to join the North Bridge Road or Waverly Bridge, as I refer to it. My sureness and swagger of earlier, already scarpered. It was an act, all of it, with hindsight, how much of my life has been nothing more than an act?

  It took me a while to realise, it’s nothing short of revenge I seek, I can gloss it up, temper it down to the truth, the reasoning, justice even. But in reality isn’t it more a vengeful lust to seek her down? Glancing to my left, Holyrood Palace stands in judgement, the great mound, Arthur’s seat, looming eerily ahead of it, I’m small and insignificant. I turn back just in time to prevent me from stumbling head on into a family of what I suppose to be tourists. There it is again, this pain, an ache I keep feeling because this is what I’ve been denied, a family. People who accept you no matter what, who understand all of your flaws and hidden guises. I pass the University buildings on my right as if to further remind me, goad me, of what could have been. If only. I wish. I should have.

  I quicken my pace across the Meadows park towards the place I call home in Livingstone Place. Marchmont, the estate agent advised me, all those years ago, a much sought after area, I’ve been here ever since. Once I reached anything near the definition of a salary, I came here, following years of merely being able to afford food and basic essentials, unable to face the plans I once sought. My ground floor flat, a chunk of the traditional tenement building, with its high ceilings and period features, originally built to house the workers fleeing the countryside. Maybe, like me, all the other residents, are fleeing something or other too.

  It’s time now surely to stop running, pretending, to face her. As Drew is forever and so aptly pointing out – you’re only provided the grace of one life, Camilla. So, I’ve seriously messed up so far, but it’s never too late, it can’t be, I can’t allow it to be.

  27

  Edinburgh 2017

  Camilla

  I’m skipping down a winding pathway, shingle mingling between exposed toes. A scent of salt and anticipation in the air. My heart bouncing with exhilaration. Muffled happy voices surround me. There’s pressure from my bare knees down to my toes as I descend the golden path, the whiff of seaweed rising in spiciness. I’m carrying bags, laden with delicacies, bottles clinking beside the cans. There’s a tension to my forehead, something tight circling my brow, feels like a graduation mortarboard, tassels swinging in the coastal breeze but it’s not mine to wear.

  Then the wind changes, the skies darken and the spring in my step morphs to heaviness. I’m following someone, anxious and fretful.

  My heart begins to skip away from me, my breathing gaining pace, as I press my palms against my ears to hide from the booming blare. I’m thrown to the floor, thirsty for breath, I swallow, resisting the urge to vomit, the unmistakable taste of salt. My stomach retches. Something submerges me, surrounds me, I’m suffocating. A dense weight against my ribs. A subterraneous crooning plugging my ear lobes. I am frail as I take an involuntary gulp, but there’s no oxygen. A balloon filling up with water floating on the surface, is how I am. A compulsory apnoea trying to override me. Larynx muscles tighten, strangling me. I cannot hold on, death taunts me, holding out its hand for me to take. My chest filling with hot lava. The colour is black, everywhere.

  I try to scr
eam; I have no voice.

  Water trickles across my brow and I breathe.

  I throw off the sheet, tangled between my legs, struggling to switch on my bedside lamp before clambering from the bed. At the window, I push up the heavy sash from the bottom, forcing my head into cold night air. I breathe in, it still hurts to breathe out.

  I am alive. I am not dead. But I am alone. How? Why? How could she?

  28

  Edinburgh 2000

  Camilla

  Finally, he’s off my hands, no longer the burden hanging round my neck. Stinking of unwashed body odour and stale nicotine, a vile inflammatory breath. They’ve taken him into a home. Only yesterday, a full week after my jaunt to Cornwall. I didn’t lie to Andi, about him already being in a home, not really, only a small white lie and for her sake too. She would only have fretted over me leaving him alone, she seems overly concerned about him, he didn’t even realise I’d gone, I’m sure. I didn’t ask him, what was the point? The council wanted me to return to the slum we called home, today, to clear the place of our belongings, before, I’m guessing, they send in the fumigators, if there is such a team.

  I did it this morning, before making my way to his new home. The street seeming even more repulsive than before in contrast to my suburbia of Morningside. I stood on the doorstep, with the net twitchers looking on, reminding myself to ensure I wiped my feet on the overgrown grass on leaving the hovel of a property. If anywhere could induce an OCD for cleanliness, this was it, good job I didn’t take up Jo’s offer to help me. The stench, I can still smell it lingering beneath my nostrils. As I shoved open the battered front door, I could have retched for England. Wishing I’d worn my silk scarf to tie as a mask around my face. Panicking the rancid stink would seep into the natural fibres I’m now dressed in. At least polyester repelled it better. I needed one of those all-in-one suits I’ve seen the house clearers wear before on the street.

  I clambered upstairs, as if against a ticking bomb timer. Counting down. I needed to run from the house before it folded in and consumed me. I’ve already moved so far on from all that house symbolised in every conceivable way. I’m able to give myself a whopping pat on the back, I’ve worked so painfully hard, studied and absorbed like a hungry sponge every nook and cranny of my new environment. Not only have I learned new words, changed the way I pronounce old words, cleaned up my language, got rid of old adages, I’ve pacified my accent to the gentlest purr of tones. Soon it will all be gone. On occasion, I let slip the voice of my past but in general it’s locked away out of harm’s reach. My posture, my eating habits, my knowledge of etiquette, another new word. The Camilla of old does not exist. Only my father now stands in my way, and given his ever relapsing condition, his stand is pathetically weak.

  I moved around his bedroom as nippily as I could, stuffing anything potentially essential into a black bin liner. Then, I placed the bin liner in a chestnut brown leather carrier. I borrowed this, without asking. It was sitting unused under the bed, in the room I now share with Andi. I couldn’t risk being seen with a bin bag, not now, and Andi wouldn’t mind, she’s nice. Nice or naïve? A bit of both. It was surprisingly easy to gather his belongings, given he’d worn the same outfit for most of the time. I was relieved at the very least to not need to handle dirty second hand clothing. He didn’t really have an awful lot else. None of us did. I continued at speed through the wardrobe, then onto the heavily dusted 1930s chest of drawers, jolting out the top drawers, conscious of the timer ticking.

  One by one, I trudged through, checking and eliminating, the same old tat. Until I reached the bottom drawer, this drawer belonged to Mam. One measly drawer. I pushed away a moment of something feeling close to sadness. It jarred, so I yanked at it and the entire drawer collapsed on the floor. Towards the back of it, against the wooden side, something caught my eye. A small, once shiny, now dull dark cherry coloured box with an arched lid. My mind drifted back, taking me by surprise – I was sitting, my knees curled under me, with Mam, as she brushed my hair, I remember it well because she never brushed my hair. Yet, that day she did, something different, something almost tender about her. I was almost scared to breathe in fear of her stopping. The reminiscence brought a warm feeling to me, so I pushed at it, it could weaken me. But Mam was talking to me softly, I couldn’t remember the point, why? She carefully pushed my head forward to untangle the knot resisting the brush. On the floor in front of me, was this very box. I opened it tentatively, not wishing to do anything to stop her brushing my hair. Completely fascinated by its smoothness, inside, my slender fingers found a shiny silver pendant with the crescent of a moon dangling. I lifted it out, then she stopped brushing my hair. I held my breath. It was my mam’s, she whispered. It’s so pretty, I told her. One day, when you’re grown up, she said, you can have it. I smiled, then closed the box in hope. Something to hold on to, I thought.

  What happened? Did she forget? How could she? Did she really hate me as much I once feared? The drink, the drugs, she chose them all over me, she didn’t love me sufficiently, so she pushed me aside as an inconvenient irritation. I would say, I was something she was forced to take care of but she showed no shame in not caring. Why was I even born? When I opened the box again this morning. Embarrassingly aware of the blurriness of my sight as I fought back tears. There it still was, sitting lonely in the box. Something to hold on to, I thought. So I took it.

  Now, I sit at my dad’s bedside, he’s clean once again at least. Though, the home is no less depressing than the one before. The staff, or so called carers, make miserable appear exultant, but then, who can blame them, I’d be miserable too, if I worked here. The colours, what possessed them? Beige, brown, cream and faded orange, why? The smell, a combination of cheap cleaning products, musty something or other and bodily waste. I’d rather be dead. My dad is asleep one moment, vaguely awake the next, nothing changed here. He’s on strong medication now he’s forbidden his medicinal liquor. I’m guessing he’s wishing he was dead too. Living a slow torture, what with his mental state courtesy of Korsakoff’s or whatever it is, and not being able to anaesthetise himself into a state of oblivion. From his bedside, I pick up the prescriptive vitamins the doctor left, Vitamin B1, I’ve heard they’re good for the brain. I glance at Dad; his mouth has fallen open as he sleeps. ‘Too little, too late, eh, Dad?’ I say.

  They informed me, the carer people, that the doctor’s been again this morning, he doesn’t think Dad has long left to suffer. He’s upped his medication, in place of the booze, but it still has the same effect, knocks him clean out. He has massive gaping holes in his memory when he’s conscious, something to be said for this. He can still work out how to use the TV control, but ask him what he’s watched, and forget it, he’s clueless. I think about holding his hand for one moment, isn’t this what I should do, what I should want to do. But I can’t bring myself to. It would be dishonest. Have I ever held his hand? I think back to my time in Cornwall with Andi, of all the tactile contact she shared with her family. How must it feel? I honestly can’t remember moments of closeness, other than the hair brushing incident. The prickly, highly charged energy that ran through our house whatever the time or occasion, I couldn’t feel it at Andi’s. I told her I was coming today, she offered to come with me too, why would she want to? Give up her time to visit somewhere as gross as this? I didn’t want her here, with her genuine thoughtfulness, sometimes, it almost angers me. Anyway, as far as Andi’s concerned, Dad’s been in here for months, I couldn’t risk the carer people telling her any different.

  I regard the lop-sided clock on the wall, ticking away at life. It must nearly be time to leave. How soon can I leave without seeming cold hearted and thoughtless? Although they would be wrong, because if I was, I wouldn’t be thinking this way, I’d simply leave. No, I’m not cold hearted, just had enough of being abused by life, living in hope, waiting for change. I’ve realised, we make and take our own chances in life, I intend to take mine, whatever it requires. I slip my hand into my po
cket of my long tan mac, slowly pulling out the silver chain, the dangling crescent moon, watching it swing in trivial hypnotic circles.

  ‘Something to hold on to, Dad, nothing personal. I’ve got to have something to hold on to.’

  I slowly stand, loitering at his bedside thinking this is the moment I’m supposed to kiss his warm head and whisper, I’ll be back soon. I love you.

  I take a deep breath, walking towards the door, before opening it on to the beige corridor and leave. I don’t look back.

  29

  Something else I hate, when people pretend to like people they really don’t care for, sometimes people they even despise. Two-faced, disgusting pigs. Why do they have to be so dishonest? Are they so blinking insecure they can’t even speak, show the truth? In fear of what exactly? Judgement? Exclusion from some pathetic club of life? Isn’t this so true. I see it all the time, people sucking up to people they secretly hate all because they are afraid.

  Afraid of who they really are, how they really feel and what maybe, they may reveal.

  Afraid of the truth. A benefit of being all alone in the world. And I mean, all alone, as in no-one left who knows me is I don’t need to pretend to anyone, I don’t need to like anyone. I can be brutally honest.

  30

  Cornwall 2017

  Andi

  I feel on edge, fidgety, after today’s shenanigans. How could it have been some kind of mistake, as Kyle tried to fob me off with? It doesn’t add up at all, someone not only set up the appointment as if they were me, they also provided the agents with my mobile number. How then, can anyone with half a brain suggest it was some random mistake? I unfasten my cotton shirt, cursing as I pull off one of the paper thin buttons in haste, tossing it on to the unmade bed sheets. Why haven’t I made the bed yet? This used to feel important but I can’t for the life of me remember why? I slip my shorts down without needing to undo them, allowing them to fall to the floor, and step out of them. Then the issue with the ladder… the noises I keep hearing in the night. Dear God, has someone been watching me in my bed? As I sleep? Did I disturb them attempting to climb up onto my balcony when I woke? My open window… I inhale sharply, my window was open. I’m sure I wouldn’t have taken it upon myself to pick the figs myself. I think back, trying to clear the fog in my mind, drunken thoughts blurring with reality, I can’t pull the two apart.