Authors: Alice Ann Galloway
Losing my mind, my house, my husband, my job – and losing Joel whether he was real or not – was like a series of bereavements.
As each day passed, the pain and humiliation
didn’t lessen but new things happened that helped take my mind of the strange events of the previous year. I still thought about Joel daily, replayed the moment I saw his face – that dead stare – and tried to remember exactly what Marti had said, to work out why he’d said it. Was there a particular inference in his tone? Did he look at me with recognition or with the loathing he had for pretty much everyone he met?
I could have gone mad with the questions if I’d have given them much credibility. As it was, I took my mum’s advice and tried to get on with things, taking one day at a time.
The following August I came off of the anti-depressants and the sleeping pills. I should have done this slowly in a controlled way but I ran out of pills and couldn’t be bothered to get any more. I hadn’t reckoned on the side effects of withdrawal. I was racked with what I discovered from online forums was known as ‘brain freeze’. Every turn of my head or quick eye movement made a kind of ‘Zap’ in my head. It was uncomfortable and frightening, though not painful. I didn’t feel up to driving though. The worst side effect was my uncontrollable anger. My family tried to understand but I think it freaked them out a bit. I flew off the handle and lost my temper countless times, with barely any provocation.
Withdrawal took about three weeks.
Without the drugs in my system I was far less tired. It was easier to get out of bed in the morning and to motivate myself. I started to feel more like the old me. I started to see Elisa again, she was newly single too and we had some really good nights out.
Without the Amitriptyline came the fear of what had happened before. The Amitriptyline was an old type of anti-depressant. It had been prescribed to me in tandem with the more modern SSRI anti-depressant, Citalopram. The Amitriptyline was prescribed in low doses purely as a muscle relaxant; it kept me calm and helped me to sleep at night. In that way, it had much in common – to my mind at least – with a sedative.
You can guess what I was thinking. With a sedative in my system I had not had a re-occurrence of the very clear flashes in which I used to see and hear Joel. It was quite likely that these had been delusions, hallucinations. However, whether they were real or not, without the sedatives in my system there must be a chance that they would return. That was my biggest fear.
I missed the flashes and I missed Joel like a junkie misses a fix. Just one little inconsequential flash and – like after the ill-fated trip to London – I would be thrown back at the mercy of my own powerful and disastrous emotions.
So why did I come off the pills? I just felt like I couldn’t move on until I was myself again; me before Joel. I wanted to get a job. I wanted to date again. To have to explain to someone when I got close to them that I took anti-depressants meant explaining
why
. I didn’t want to look backwards anymore.
It was time for Beth Britten to get back to her old self.
I decided I may as well make the best of what had happened to me, so I dug out the screenplay I’d begun the previous year, the one about me and Joel. I approached it cautiously, as a work of fiction – albeit delusional – that could represent a cathartic re-invention for me as a writer.
After all, they do say you should write about what you know. And it truly had been an amazing experience.
It is almost December. I have been off the pills since August and I am fine.
I am still getting my B12 injections. There have been no flashes, thank God. I have had dreams in which I have heard music but I think they’ve just been dreams.
I have nearly finished the screenplay. I am not sure how to end it though. Should I create a happy ending in place of what I actually have in real life where my own ‘story’ is still very much unresolved? Should I have Joel leave his wife in the screenplay and come back to me? At least there would be a happy ending somewhere I think, wryly.
I toy with a few possibilities until it hits me that I can’t finish the book until I’m honest with myself. What would a happy ending look like to me, for real?
In the story I am writing, the happy ending would be Joel coming back to Beth. In real life, that’s the last thing I should want to happen. He is still married with two kids as far as I know. It was probably all delusion on my part, so why would I wish to be deluded again?
The true happy ending would be a new beginning for Beth. A new love interest. Closure with Joel.
I spend hours attempting to write it, I replace my clunky old laptop with a new Ultrabook, thinking that might inspire me. Still I can’t complete the story to my own satisfaction.
I decide quite deliberately to get hideously drunk while typing, to see if inspiration strikes. I try listening to music whilst obliterating a full bottle of Pinot Grigio. Nothing. The story is as stuck as I am. I raid mum’s drinks cabinet (she and dad are out) and pour myself a Baileys.
Finally, I complete the ending. It won’t win any prizes, I think but it’s done; finished. I go to bed, pleased with the work I’ve achieved.
In the morning, I open what I typed the night before to give it one last read.
Something is wrong! The final five or six hours’ worth of writing I did last night to finish the screenplay – they haven’t saved! I panic. I search the temp files, look online about how to restore previous versions, follow the instructions. All to no avail. In desperation I search every document or file modified yesterday but the ending I wrote is not to be found, anywhere. Despite every save I remember doing between 5pm and 10pm – well – there’s nothing there.
Suddenly, I just want the bloody thing out of my sight.
I hit ‘print’ and go to get dressed and washed. I come back downstairs, to find that the printer paper has filled up the tray and is now flying straight out of the printer and onto the floor. I begin to gather up the gazillion pages, my fury causing my balance to waver as the world swims around me. I hit my head and my elbow on the desk and yell out in anger and pain.
I package it up with a swiftly penned note and some other ideas for the story which I wrote long-hand a few months ago. I want it
all
out of my sight.
I stick it all in an envelope and do a hurried internet search for the address of Rosa Publishing, the company Elisa works at. I don’t want to dump this mess of a story on
her
particularly but it’s the only place I can think of. There are two addresses listed, so I pick one which sounds less corporate, thinking it could even be Anne Rosa’s home address. Then I grab a pack of first class stamps. Not knowing how many it will require and having no desire to go to the Post Office to find out, I stick the whole lot of them onto the envelope, here, there and everywhere.
“That should be enough!” I mumble. Then I pick up the package and walk to the post box, which is just on the corner.
After the manuscript has gone, I feel relieved.
What will be, will be.
I
never
intended to go to a Town Full of Heroes concert. Not since what happened, happened – (
or should that be what didn’t happen, didn’t happen?)
I have been dating Tim for about six weeks. We were in a café when he asked me to go with him to a gig the following weekend. I nodded, having a mouthful of Panini at the time I couldn’t speak. As I was still nodding, he mentioned it was Town Full of Heroes. Oh. What could I say? OK, I could have said No. But I didn’t want to have my past define me. It was time to prove to myself that I really was over all that craziness.
We had standing tickets. It was an arena gig, so pretty hard to pick any one person out in the crowd. I felt pretty anonymous. Through some queuing and a bit of luck we managed to be just four rows from the front. I had a pretty clear view of the band. I tried not to let it unnerve me.
As the band came onto the stage the crowd went crazy, the lights dimmed and the music began. I must say I was pleased that I felt nothing out of the ordinary; just the usual feeling of being at a gig and seeing a really great band. Whatever had once been was now gone. I threw myself into the music and Tim and I danced and sang and cheered until we were hoarse. It was fantastic.
I’d seen the set list online from a gig they did at the same venue the night before, so I wasn’t expecting them to slip in another song. It was quite strange how it happened. You can see it on You Tube, if you search for it.
If you hit ‘Play’, there’s Deff, seen on a quivering camera-phone screen and heard starting to play the chords that mark out one of their biggest hits. There’s Joel over by Stevo, yelling something off microphone into his ear. Stevo nods and goes to tell the drummer. The crowd is clapping to the rhythm of the drummer’s simple beat. Joel strides over to Deff and yells again. Deff nods. Joel turns and smiles as Deff’s chords begin to change to a different tune.
Joel steps forwards, right to the front of the stage where Tim and I are standing, no more than fifteen feet from me. He starts to sing a song that I haven’t heard for years. I think it’s called ‘Someday’. It’s not something they would usually play. He is looking all around during the verse, making eye contact with as many people as he can.
Or is he looking for someone in particular?
When he reaches the chorus his eyes lock on mine. It’s like he is singing just to me. And it can’t be my imagination, because the intensity of his gaze makes the crowd part as the people in front of me turn to see who Joel is singing to.
The words are what matters to me. The words he is singing and his smile, such a beautiful smile. He is telling me it is going to be OK. That he and I will always have what we had but that it’s good we moved on and he is glad I am happy. And that we will be together, some day. The smile on his face is absolutely infectious, I realise I have a massive grin on my face too.
We’re OK, Joel and I.
He stops after that first chorus, the words having been said and the message received. He steps back into his role of front-man effortlessly; ever the professional.
Time leans across to me,” Wow! It’s like he was singing that right to you!” He says, incredulous. I am getting some curious looks from the people around me and in front, who you can tell really want to know what that was all about.
As the famous beat begins of one of their worldwide hits, the odd and unexpected interlude is forgotten. The crowd rises and falls together, fists punching in the air and bodies throwing themselves up towards the gaze of their heroes.
At the end of the gig, another surprise; Joel steps down off of the stage and into the camera run.
Suddenly he is leaning into the crowd in front of me, hand outstretched to the fans, high fiving and shaking hands with them. He leans in, towards where I am. My hesitation in moving towards him is overruled by a sudden surge of the crowd behind me, which throws me forwards to meet him. Instinctively and without conscious thought I stretch out my hand, as if the decision to do so was made for me rather than by me, like a magnet pulling me forwards. Mine is one in a sea of hands grasping for his.
All of a sudden our fingers intertwine and our eyes meet. I feel the energy passing from him to me. It courses through my bones, infusing me with strength and an overwhelming happiness. When I remember that moment, I’ll remember time slowing, the feel of his fingers, the pulse in my wrist and how muscle memory evoked such strength of feeling. In that instant I knew I had held his hand before. I knew these long-forgotten desires were created by the most amazing experiences and not just by my imagination.
You can see on the video clip. He squeezes my hand, smiles at me and then he lets go and a moment later he moves on to greet the rest of the front few rows of fans.
I try to turn to get back to Tim. I’m pushing against the weight of the crowd, which is now surging to my right. Determinedly I push on through, back to where Tim waits. He looks really excited. “Wow! Are you alright?” He asks.
I nod.
“Did you touch him?” He asks.
“I think so!” I answer, “It was mad down there, so many hands… it could have been anyone’s!” I laugh and Tim laughs. He has a great smile, open and warm and I really do like him.
There is a flourish of drums behind me and the lights flash twice more and they the lights go out and the band leave to a tremendous cheer. I don’t watch them go. I’m watching Tim. We kiss and I hope it’s the first of many kisses.
Twenty thousand fans being to exit the arena and I am just one of them, which is as it should be.
Tonight was not
proof
of anything. But it certainly felt like closure and, with such a handsome man’s arms around me, that’s good enough for now.
THE END
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