Born Different (22 page)

Gina was an
anomaly; she went against the grain of almost every other person
too and it made her ill; being different in this society with all
its judgements and stresses. The Middles wanting you to be like
them. And needing to be accepted, but not finding an acceptable
place for you to be accepted into. Gina couldn’t conform like most
people did. She had no desire for material possessions. She
couldn’t keep up the pretence; she was too honest in a world built
on lies.

Though, at the
same time Gina thought that her whole life was a lie. In truth Gina
had hated the city from day one and pined for the day when she
could sell up and move to the countryside again. She could have
perhaps made her dream come true quicker if she had been more
business minded, more callous. She would have done the same job for
free if there were not bills to be paid but it still didn’t ever
feel right or sit comfortably with her own innate ideals to charge
to help people.

By rights, Gina
should have been more popular but everyone ignored her mostly out
in the street and she, due to patient confidentiality, never
connected with a client in the ‘real world’ unless they connected
first, which never happened. If anything, Gina’s job led her to be
shunned and sometimes Gina wondered if she wasn’t much different to
a prostitute. Providing the love and service in a private place,
denied knowledge of in the outside world, like a dirty little
secret. When Gina thought like this, she knew it was time to take
up another course or pop another pill.

Gabe often
thought that perhaps he should take up his mum’s offer on some of
her therapies, open up his mind a bit more, as really half the time
he did his own head in and wondered sometimes if he were not on the
edge of his own depressive illness. When Gabe did rest his mind and
stop the internal chatter, he invariably was simply given the
answer of what he was looking for without even having to try. It
was like it was all already there, waiting for him to just shut
up.

And who was to
say who was right or wrong? ‘The cure’ for human nature was a
multi-billion dollar industry. There was no shortage of people
trying to feel better about themselves, wanting to figure it all
out, to fix it, to find some sort of meaning. Wanting to know the
future, the choices, the paths available. How to suffer less than
they were. There was no shortage of hearts and minds with wallets,
wanting all of the answers, and there was no shortage of answers;
theories, pretty patterns, experiments, cases, diets, therapies and
experts in this, that or the other field. It is just that none of
them were right, or were they all right? Gabe hadn’t yet
decided.

Was life just
life? Was it all really just chaos, all of it? And you could fear
it or be fascinated by it. But the truth was, that fear dominated
Gabe. Fear. Gabe knew all about fear, it was a constant companion
of late. FEAR. What drove everyone to keep their heads down and do
as they were told. If people weren’t already born with fear,
society, governments, religion and the media soon bombarded them
with it, till it is seeped deep into their every conscious and
subconscious action and thought. This was the struggle; the secret
silent battle of the internal war with phantom fears.

Gabe left his
mum sleeping on the sofa and went to his studio to finally immerse
himself in solitude.

The sculpture
was life size, it was three dimensional, it was growing and coming
together. Gabe just had to do a few last finishing touches. The
studio was the tidiest he had ever seen it as everything had made
its way from the discarded to the useful in the sculpture. There
were still a few recent items he was thinking of adding to it. The
vodka bottle label from the night out with Grace. Ideally he would
like to add an item of Grace’s, something that had her scent; if
she gave him something or even if he had to resort to stealing
something off her.

Gabe had a lot
on his mind and was making a mental list of all the things he had
to get done when he felt someone touch his waist from behind.

It was
Grace.

Gabe couldn’t
help but smile when he saw her. He had left the door open, thank
God he hadn’t undressed. A sweeter relief washed over him at the
sight of her and for so many reasons.

“You ok Gabe?”
she asked.

“Yeah, I’m ok
Grace. I’m fine, you?”

“Do you know
that is supposed to be the world biggest lie, telling someone that
you are fine. What is it? F…I…N…E.
Freaked-out,
Insecure, Neurotic, Every day.
WOW, so this is the
mysterious sculpture?”

Gabe quickly
threw a blanket over it as he didn’t want anyone to see it yet, not
even Grace. Especially not Grace.

“Do you want to
come round to my house for a bit?”

All the
thoughts came flashing back of Grace’s brother Nathaniel and the
warning he gave earlier. Gabe remembered his mum, now asleep on the
sofa and the doctors’ appointment, great reason why not to and
great excuse to get out of it.

“I don’t know
Grace, I’ve got so much to do.”

“Please Gabe,
don’t make me beg.” Grace said but her eyes were already begging,
like a puppy dog.

“Erm, where is
your brother?”

“My brother?
What, you mean Nathaniel?”

“Yeah,
Nathaniel!”

“Did he say
something to you Gabe?”

“Er…yeah…sort
of…”

“Bloody hell,
he’s an idiot. Don’t listen to a word he says Gabe, he’s a drug
addict, needs to mind his own business and sort himself out. It’s
his way of trying to be responsible, be the big older brother. Make
up for failing in other areas…”

“A drug addict?
Great!
I think he wants to kill me.”

“Ha ha Gabe,
you have seen him? He couldn’t kill a lady bird, he’d sell his soul
for twenty quid!”

“Oh well I’d
better keep a spare note in my pocket in case he comes looking for
me again then. Thanks for the heads up on that one Grace!”

“Please come
over Gabe, just for a bit? Nathaniel is out with the crowd he’s
always with as usual. He only ever comes home to sleep when he’s
run out of friend’s sofas to crash on.” And she held on to his
hand, tight.

Gabe wanted to
ask her why she wanted to see him and spend time with him but he
was torn again because he was really so over the moon that she even
noticed him, let alone wanted him to go around to her house. He
could make the doctor’s appointment on the way over there and he
could bring in some food for them later. Gabe couldn’t resist the
temptation of Grace.

Gabe knew
Grace’s house well from the outside. As soon as he was allowed to
ride his bike out on his own, he had cycled up here, to where all
the nice houses were on the hill. From the river, the houses got
bigger and bigger as you went up the incline. Big, fancy security
gates, that got more ornate with each increasing house number, till
the houses no longer had numbers but graduated, due to their
splendour, to have proper names instead. Some properties had guard
dogs that barked and went crazy the whole time. Others had security
cameras that moved in the direction of anything out of the
ordinary.

The cars parked
outside were all pristine and top end models. Gabe thought it
looked like a paradise up here, a heaven that he would never
enter.

This was not
his world. He sometimes dreamed that one day it would be but Gabe
didn’t say anything of this to Grace. He didn’t want Grace to think
that he liked her because of all this. He liked her for everything
else and he knew they would all think it was for the money, but it
wasn’t.

Gabe told
himself to be cool, calm and confident as the big black wrought
iron gates swung open silently. They walked up the driveway that
was sandwich by manicured lawns and flowers of all colours in full
bloom, it was like a show garden. It could have almost been
plastic, with a huge rockery and a water feature. Gabe wanted to
say it was beautiful but he knew it would sound wrong somehow.

He stopped at
the huge polished wood, double front doors and Grace let herself in
and stood in the big porch that lead, past the huge glass interior
doors, through to a grand hall and she beckoned him in.

“Are you
sure?”

“Yes of course
Gabe! Just come in would you?” Gabe was dazzled by the huge brass
multi-tiered, light fitting on the ceiling and the antique looking
furniture standing proud everywhere he looked.

It was like the
inside of one of the stately homes or manor houses he had seen on
school trips or with his mum on days out when they still did that
sort of thing. It was like stepping out into of one of those posh
glossy magazines for homes and gardens. Everything looked clean,
lush, soft, and shiny. Expensive. Everything was the complete
opposite to the way Gabe looked and felt.

Gabe caught
himself and wondered if his eyes had gone like saucers so he tried
to rein himself in a bit and be a little bit more ‘cool’ about the
whole situation, after all, they were friends, right? Also, her
brother hated him and no doubt her parents did too, so at any
minute he might have to make a run for it. They might even think
that it was him that beat her up that time!

Oh my God, Gabe
hadn’t thought of that, of course. Not only was he poor and had a
hippie for a mum and the hump, they might have thought or presumed
that it was him that did that to her! That beat her black and blue
and split her lip!

Gabe was just
about to bring this up with Grace when he saw something that got
all the words stuck in his throat. It was not because the kitchen
was huge, the size of his whole house, both top and bottom put
together, or that the vast kitchen led through to a games room,
mini-gym (but still with half a dozen or so machines) and a huge
indoor heated swimming pool. It was because there was a middle-aged
woman, lying on her front in the middle of the tiled floor of the
kitchen. And not just lying, she seemed to be out cold. Dead
even!

“What the
hell!” Gabe managed to utter.

“What?” Grace
saw that Gabe was pointing at her mother. “Oh mum, don’t worry
about that.”

“What do you
mean
don’t worry?”

“Just step over
her or go around.”

“Is she
alright?”

“Yes she is
fine Gabe, except she’s left the bloody oven on jeez!” Grace opened
the oven door and smoke came billowing out, filling the room with
the scent of burnt pizza and setting off the fire alarm.

It was just
about the loudest fire alarm, or any alarm, that Gabe had ever
heard. It was like a scream in the highest pitch possible before
your ear drums burst and the windows shattered. It was deafening.
Grace grabbed a broom and frantically tried knocking the alarm off
the ceiling. Gabe went and opened the back door and then came back
and reached up to the alarm ‘off’ button for Grace, immediately
stopping the piercing shrill white noise and leaving an echoing
deafness and an unnerving silence in its place.

Grace’s mum
didn’t budge. Didn’t so much as twitch. Gabe noticed then that
Grace’s mum was holding a cigarette between her fingers and it had
burnt down, past her fingers to the stub, leaving an almost whole
cigarette of ash. She must of hit the deck not long after she had
lit it and then slept right through as it had burnt and blistered
the skin on her fingers.

Gabe bent down
to feel the pulse on Grace’s mum’s neck and as he did so, the woman
let out a deep, loud snore and frightened Gabe half to death. He
also realised now that the woman stank. She reeked of booze and,
what Gabe would not mention as he felt so bad about it for all
involved, was that the mother also smelt of piss. She had wet
herself in her sleep, or what Gabe was coming to realise, her
drunken stupor! The booze smelt strong, aniseed booze and then
Gabe’s gaze landed on the pint glass and the Sambuca bottle on the
kitchen counter.

Grace was
getting two tumblers out of the pristine cupboards that house every
sort and size of glass, cut with the same diamond patterns and she
filled them one each from the offending bottle.

“You want a
drink?”

Gabe knew he
should say ‘no’ for all sorts of reasons but his nerves were shot
to bits now and he reckoned he needed it.

“How long has
your mum been like this Grace?”

“Like what?”
Gabe got confused, which must have shown in his face because Grace
extended her question. “Do you mean today or in years wise?”

“Erm, both I
guess.”

“Well she’s
hitting it bad at the moment. Obviously! She thinks my dad is
having an affair, which he strenuously denies. He says she’s just
mad but really she’s been like this for as long as I can remember.
Not always this bad but always pretty bad. When I think back to the
first time she got like this, I remember a time when I was like
nine, carrying her home from the pub and then I remember something
else and I am younger and as I get older and think about it, I
realise what I didn’t know then, that she wasn’t perhaps sleeping
or having a funny reaction to medication or ‘ill’ as such. What was
normal then, was it actually normal? I don’t know.” Grace smiled a
sad smile. Her face was looking better, the bruises had gone down
and were yellowing, no lasting damage.

“And don’t
think that I don’t care Gabe but it is every day. This is our
normal. If I wake her up she will only want a fight or start crying
and wailing. She’s best off passed out. I can’t get her upstairs
anyway. She’ll wake up soon enough, go on a hunt for booze and make
her way to the sofa or her bed and then start drinking all over
again. If I hide the drink, she’ll only take the car out or call a
cab and get herself into trouble outside the house. At least if she
is here, I know where she is.”