7,19 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
When AA meetings make her want to drink more, alcoholic murderess Maeve sets up a group for psychopaths … The dark, unpredictable, electrifyingly original new thriller from critically acclaimed cult author Will Carver.'Maeve is a brilliant character … Incredibly dark and very funny' Harriet Tyce, author of It Ends at Midnight'This is an Eleanor Oliphant for crime fans. Carver truly at his best' Sarah Pinborough, author of Insomnia'Another wild ride … a darkly delicious page-turner' S J Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep––––––––Welcome to the Club…Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home, a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She's also an addict: A functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men.When she can't find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve.Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules, and when a reckless member raises suspicions with the police, Maeve's drinking spirals out of control.She needs to stop killing. She needs to close the group.But Maeve can't seem to quit the things that are bad for her, including her new man…A scathing, violent and darkly funny book about love, connection, obsessions and sex – and the aspects of human nature we'd prefer to hide – Psychopaths Anonymous is also an electrifyingly original, unpredictable thriller that challenges virtually everything.––––––––'Carver is a smart, stylish writer who has created a uniquely scary personality ... leaves us entertained and disturbed in equal part' Daily Mail'Wickedly fun' Crime Monthly'Will Carver's most exciting, original, hilarious and freaky outing yet' Helen FitzGerald, author of Worst Case Scenario'A powerful look into the abyss of a psychopathic personality' Publishers Weekly'Vivid and engaging and completely unexpected' Lia Middleton, author of When They Find Her'Dark in the way only Will Carver can be … oozes malevolence from every page' Victoria Selman, author of Truly Darkly Deeply'A wickedly dark and funny novel, with a protagonist you can't help but root for' Lisa Hall, author of The Woman in the Woods'Move the hell over Brett Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk … Will Carver is the new lit prince of 21st-century disenfranchised, pop darkness' Stephen J. GoldsPraise for Will Carver'Cements Carver as one of the most exciting authors in Britain. After this, he'll have his own cult following' Daily Express'One of the most compelling and original voices in crime fiction'Alex North'Weirdly page-turning' Sunday Times'Laying bare our 21st-century weaknesses and dilemmas, Carver has created a highly original state-of-the-nation novel' Literary Review'Arguably the most original crime novel published this year' Independent'At once fantastical and appallingly plausible … this mesmeric novel paints a thought-provoking if depressing picture of modern life' Guardian'This book is most memorable for its unrepentant darkness…' Telegraph'Unlike anything else you'll read this year' HeatFor fans of Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, Donna Tartt and Caroline Kepnes
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 450
Ähnliche
Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home, a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She’s also an addict: a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men.
When she can’t find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve.
Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules, and when a reckless member raises suspicions with the police, Maeve’s drinking spirals out of control. She needs to stop killing. She needs to close the group.
But Maeve can’t seem to quit the things that are bad for her, including her new man…
A scathing, violent and darkly funny book about love, connection, obsessions and sex – and the aspects of human nature we’d prefer to hide – Psychopaths Anonymous is also an electrifyingly original, unpredictable thriller that challenges virtually everything.
PSYCHOPATHS ANONYMOUS
WILL CARVER
‘Send the poison rain down the drain to put bad thoughts in my head.’
Elliot Smith – Miss Misery
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Jill is the fucking worst.
She thinks she’s so open and poetic, and she’s sooooo sixth step, all ready to let God remove these defects from her character.
I mean, there’s obviously no God, and if there was, He’s not sitting around thinking, ‘I need to make Jill quit the booze because the red wine turns her into such a cunt.’ That can’t be right. Even if you are everywhere and see everyone and know everything, you don’t give a fuck about Jill, she’s so annoying.
Next, Jill is telling us how she doesn’t remember her daughter before she was six years old, and we’re supposed to care. How she would drive her to the pub, leave her outside in the car, get pissed and then drive the little fucker home like she was the biggest inconvenience to her life.
And the thing I’m most annoyed about is that I got here while Jill hit step three. I want to see this witch at step one. I want to know what her rock bottom is. I want to know that she’s on her knees in a supermarket car park, taking shots to the back of the throat so that she can afford another spritzer to numb some maternity out of her.
If I can hear how low Jill was, and what made her want to take that first step, then maybe I can find some sympathy. Because, right now, I want to drink.
I want to drink.
And I kind of want to kill Jill.
But then she’s holding up some chip that says she’s been sober for one hundred days, and everyone claps her strength and determination.
Everyone but me.
I want to take Jill out and get her wasted. I want to drop her back five steps. I want to hear her curse about the child she never wanted and let her tell me that the only thing she’s ever really loved is the house red.
Hell, I’ll knock back a bottle or two of Chardonnay with her and spill my guts about things that she’ll never remember.
All this talk of drinking and not drinking really builds a thirst.
But I can’t today.
It’s Tuesday and it’s only 16:30 and this is just the Kilburn meeting. I only come here for Jill, now. There are better venues within the London North West Intergroup. I’m a big fan of Women’s Reflections over in Maida Vale at 19:00; some real train wrecks there. Any time there’s a New Beginnings, I’m first through the door. That’s when it’s most interesting, most raw. And you have to remember that people are at their most fragile when they take the leap – that’s where I go when I need to get laid.
I’ll avoid anything too churchy. Big Book Wednesday is not for me. And I can’t stand those ones with the cutesy names either, like You’ll Never Walk Aloneor Sober in the Suburbs. Who comes up with this shit?
No, I can’t get pissed with Jill before dinner and turn up to Camden Newcomers two hours later. It’ll send out the wrong message. That I’m not really serious about this.
And I am extremely serious about drinking. I love it.
And the misery. I can’t get enough of that. It’s the reason I’m booked in to Simply AA Sunday and Emotional Sobriety on Monday and Midday Reflections and Hampstead Women and anything else where I can see some truth, no matter how ugly.
The only other time you see that kind of honesty is when you look into the eyes of someone who is about to die.
I walk into another cold hall where the natural light is the bluest shade of depression. This isn’t one of those meetings where you sit around in a circle, you have to go up to the front and tell them how you got to this point. I have a few stories that I use. I can’t even remember which ones are true any more. Tonight I’m thinking of doing the my-husband-shot-himself-in-the-face bit.
When they ask if anybody would like to speak, I raise my hand and move myself to the front.
‘Hi. My name is Maeve and I’m an addict.’
PART ONE
STEP ONE
‘Admit that you are powerless over your addiction, that your life has become unmanageable…’
You can’t drink away alcoholism. And that’s one of life’s great shames.
You come home from work early one day to find your girlfriend is banging her personal trainer: a twenty-four pack of beer can sort that right out. Sorrow can be drowned.
The sad, the tired, the lonely can pick up a bottle of gin and something to mix it with, and get some temporary happiness or drink themselves to sleep or feel like they have a friend. The feelings they don’t want to feel can be alleviated for just a moment.
Even the poor and the homeless can give it a go. Sure, Johnnie Walker Red isn’t as smooth as the Blue, but you can afford a bottle even if you can’t afford your rent or a place to live. And who needs that much food, anyway?
I’m one of those I-can-stop-anytime-I-want-to (I-just-don’t-want-to) drinkers. I’m fucked if I know when or where or why it started. There was no seismic event. Uncle Lenny didn’t like to bounce me on his knee until I turned sixteen, and mum and dad hardly drank at all, so it’s not some genetic thing. They didn’t really talk at all, either, but that’s no excuse.
I think that drinking on a Saturday night out turned into Friday and Saturday, which morphed into Friday and Saturday out, then Sunday night in with a bottle of wine. That evolves into a Wednesday night tipple, to get you over that midweek hump. Eventually, you’re filling in the gaps.
And you tell yourself that you’re not drinking too much, because it’s only a couple of glasses and you’re not actually getting drunk per se. But it is every day, and it’s the first thing you think of when you clock off from work or walk back into the house after a long day in the office.
It’s not an addiction, right? You’re just taking the edge off. You don’t wake up in the morning and crave vodka. No. That’s what alcoholics do. They need it all the time. You’re not an alcoholic, you don’t even really like the taste. But it relaxes you.
You’re not smashing your fist against the glass door of your local pub at 9:01 because they’re opening up slightly late and you should already be at your favourite table with a pint of the cheapest bitter in the land. You’re not burying four empty rosé bottles in the garden to hide the evidence of your pre-lunchtime guzzling.
You still talk in sips and swigs. There are no glugs or quaffs. You’re not even a gulper. So you can’t be an alcoholic.
But it’s every night now. And what was once two small glasses is now half a bottle. Sometimes more.
You don’t call yourself an alcoholic but you are a fucking drunk. Not a mean one, sure. Not overly promiscuous. There’s no gateway to other substances. But you are a drunk.
You’re a drunk.
And the only difference between a drunk and an alcoholic is that alcoholics go to meetings.
This is what I was planning to say when I walked through the door of Simply AA for the very first time. I’d looked online and found that there were two types of meetings: open and closed. Closed meetings are for your hardcore members, which I’d hoped to be one day. Those who were both committed to getting their lives back on track but were also the most committed to the booze.
The open meetings felt a bit like a gym trial, where you get free sessions for a week to work out whether you like it or not, whether you are one of those people who goes to a gym. You don’t even really have to be an alcoholic. Maybe you’re questioning whether you have started to drink too much or your partner has brought it up with you. Maybe you don’t think you drink a lot at all and coming to a meeting will prove that. Perhaps it will give you something to aim for. A target.
That Simply AA meeting took place on a Monday afternoon at 15:00 in Edgeware. It was mostly men, because the drunken housewives were heading out for the school pick-up. I thought I’d get up and give my long speech about being a drunk, not an alcoholic, but none of it went to plan.
Because I shouldn’t be here.
At best, I’m trespassing.
It was one of the circle ones. The chairs looked like they were used for school PTA meetings or church prayer groups. I arrived a little after the start time because I didn’t want to be the first person there, the only person there, or get caught in some conversation with the only other person there.
Eighteen seats and twelve of them were filled. I managed to bag one so that I had at least one side that was not occupied by another person. The man to my right was probably the same age as me. He looked ruffled but deliberately so. He hadn’t just rolled in off the street for the free coffee. He tilted his head up to me as I sat down as if saying, ‘Hi. This is a bit awkward, right?’ And I appreciated that.
The first guy to tell his story was in the wrong place. Some ex-military type, said his name was Castle. He looked like shit and he smelled like Christmas pudding. But not in the festive, brings-a-smile-to-your-face way. Without a doubt, he had been drinking all day.
He couldn’t look up from the floor. The entire time he spoke, his eyes were down and his head was shaking a little. It made him no less captivating, though. I searched around that circle for another person who, like me, might’ve been thinking, ‘Now THAT’S an alcoholic, pass me a shot of sambuca.’
He’d got drunk and hit his wife. They’d been together for ten years and he’d never laid a hand on her. That’s what he said. Then one night, he had come home late – they’d been out together – and she’d said something that was slightly provocative and he pushed her on the bed. Jokingly. ‘Like a “don’t-be-silly” or “get-the-hell-out-of-here” way.’ He re-enacted the push as he said it.
His wife didn’t like it. She didn’t see it as a joke. So she got straight back up and started slapping him, telling him that he does not lay a finger on her. Ever. She was attacking him. So he punched her in the face.
He lost the room at that point.
He remembers the noise it made and the way her nose felt under his knuckles as he made contact. She kicked him out right then. And he left straight away. He knew he’d done wrong. He hardly ever sees his daughter now and boo fucking hoo.
Turned to the drink. Yada yada yada.
No amount of liquor can make him forget the sound of her delicate nose breaking or the feeling of it crushing beneath the weight of a strong right hook.
I glance at the man next to me, who grits his teeth to demonstrate the awkwardness in the room. I roll my eyes.
This fucking lowlife beat up a woman and became a raging dipso, and has the cheek to gatecrash an open AA meeting and bring the mood down like this.
A man on the other side, closely cropped hair and highly groomed beard, gets up and walks out. I look at his face, trying to drink in his problem with the situation. He doesn’t seem disgusted or offended, or angry, even, that this gin-drenched mince pie of a man is ruining everyone’s Monday with his tale of woe.
It’s relief. And focus. He’s experienced some kind of epiphany. Nothing puts you off dinner like somebody throwing up in front of you, maybe this guy realised that he wasn’t going to end up that way; it wasn’t worth it. Losing your home and your family. Not for a drink. Maybe the utter misery of this drunken bore has helped some other idiot pull their life together.
Skip straight to step twelve.
Or maybe, like me, he can’t quite bring himself to care about the wretched dope, who is still whinnying about his self-inflicted mental torment. Maybe he’s just escaping. Maybe this is not the club membership he was after. Maybe he knows of a decent bar nearby, or better, an awful bar nearby. I’m tempted to follow him.
But I want my turn.
Because I’ve got this whole witty speech planned. I know what I have to do. I know the answers. I’m woke, as they say.
That stinking yawn is still droning on, looking at the floor, he hasn’t even noticed that one member of the audience has already asked for a refund. I’m hoping that the steady shaking of his body is Parkinson’s Disease, that way it might rock him to sleep, but it’ll be just my luck that it’s withdrawal from the booze. He clearly hasn’t had a drink for the three hours it seems his sad story has lasted.
It must be killing him.
He’s probably better off dead, I think.
What kind of a life is this?
Then he cries. And the guy at the front who seems to be moderating proceedings utters some platitude about bravery.
‘It is so difficult to admit defeat, to say out loud that alcohol has become a destructive obsession.’ When he speaks, I sense a genuine compassion within him, though he must have heard every kind of story a hundred times before. This is the first time I’ve been to one of these and I can’t force myself to feel anything but annoyance and frustration.
Then he turns a little more evangelical.
‘There is no bankruptcy as potent as addiction. It is an allergy. An allergy to your body that manifests in self-destruction. You must accept it.’
As if that wife-beating pickled onion had not been humiliated enough, the sponsor was making it absolute. Though I’m not entirely sure what the whole ‘allergy’ thing really meant. Sounded like he’d delivered that line a thousand times before. Straight from AA scripture.
‘Your admittance of defeat is a requirement for you to make that all-important first step. Your powerlessness will become the foundation for your success and eventual happiness.’
It’s too preachy. I’m not here for that. I can understand why people can be put off when the guy running things is trying to proselytise the virtues of a twelve-step plan before you’ve even had the opportunity to express how your own mind has apparently been warped by drink or drugs or sex.
I guess he’s playing the percentages. The guy in the middle, the woman-puncher who smells like ash and cloves and burnt cinnamon, looks utterly beaten down; worse than when he got here. There is nothing else that can be done but build the idiot back up again. He is at the bottom and wants to be saved. He’s buying into this. That’s how easy it is to recruit.
I raise my hand.
Fucking the guy next to me was inevitable. I didn’t want to leave that place empty-handed.
‘Yes. This is excellent. Very courageous. You cannot recover alone. We are a community. Thank you for offering to talk to us, too.’
Everyone starts clapping and I finally lower my hand, not realising that I’ve had it up in the air like an eager school kid the entire time the group leader has been pontificating.
‘Thanks. I’m … er … I’m … Wait, I don’t have to say my name, right? That’s what the second A is all about.’
He shakes his head.
I take a breath and run through a few things in my mind. All that business about weekend drinking bleeding into the week, and being woke or awakened or whatever the right word is. I’m going to keep it rational and deliberate, and hopefully as captivating as the mouldy clementine who opened up before me.
But instead: ‘My husband died. He was shot. Or he shot himself. The police are fucking useless and won’t give me a straight answer. You think they can tell those things from angles and tiny molecules of powder. But they won’t say for sure.’
I can see that I have them. Even the port and stilton who spoke before me has stopped crying.
‘We used to drink together, you know? It was our thing. It was just fun and silly and a release,’ I give the guy to my right a subtle glance, ‘and sexy.’
A pause for it to register.
‘But then he’s gone and I still have all that wine in the house and the drinking isn’t fun or silly any more because life is neither of those things. It’s an anaesthetic, I know that. I’m not stupid and I’m not drunk now. I’m alone, I guess. I have nobody to say these things out loud to. And that’s what I’m supposed to do, right? That’s what you want me to do.’
More platitudes fly my way from our inspirational mentor. He’s handling me with kid gloves. Maybe because I’m a woman. Maybe because I’m not as flammable as the guy who spoke before me.
‘I’m drinking for two, I guess. Trying to keep him alive or something.’ Now would be a great place to cry. I’m sure I could do it but I don’t want to. I don’t want to be told that I’m weak, because I’m not. I don’t want some guy who has known me for ten minutes to tell me that I’m not ready for the road ahead, the one that will help me lift this unrelenting obsession, because I have to admit what I am.
I don’t want that.
I want to screw the other guy I’ve known for ten minutes, the designer stubble to my right, after sharing too many bottles of something that burns our throats, mangles our brains and loosens our underwear.
Another wino talks after me about how the men in his family all drink too much. His story is not interesting but I can’t pull myself away from his melancholy. It’s intoxicating to witness such vulnerability. That’s more of an addiction than the Sauvignon Blanc, for me.
Show me your misery.
Afterwards, it remains relaxed and we can all wander freely around the room and grab ourselves a tea or coffee and talk to one another. I avoid eye contact with everyone but my target.
‘Didn’t want to speak tonight?’ I ask him. It’s obviously playful.
‘I prefer the anonymity part over the alcohol part.’ He smiles and drinks some tea. He’s a swigger, I can tell. A beer guy. His elbow stays at his side. Whisky drinkers lift their elbow. Spirits drinkers hold the hand higher against their bodies.
I sidle in closer to him.
‘Well, we don’t have to talk about the alcohol if you don’t want to but we can certainly drink it if you know somewhere nearby.’
Last week was so amazing that I almost didn’t come to the meeting tonight.
Lisa and Kim went at it. Gloves off. Nails sharpened.
It was some swanky restaurant in Amsterdam and Kim was giving a heart-wrenching account of how she lost her sister to an overdose when she, herself, was still a kid. The other ladies around the table are empathetic and nodding their heads in solidarity. I can’t help but smile because I can see that Lisa is seething about something and she is waiting for her moment to blow.
This is a normal night for me. I had a bottle of wine to myself and a comfortable sofa. I was still in my work outfit but I‘d loosened some buttons and kicked off my shoes and taken off my tights. Those Real Housewives of Beverley Hills were enjoying their fine dining while I had heated up a chicken supreme meal in the microwave. It was disgusting.
Lisa couldn’t let it lie. She’d been sober for three years and felt aggrieved that Kim had got on her back about drinking. Sure, she’s got some issues when it comes to drugs and alcohol because of her sister’s overdose but what right does that give her to lecture somebody else?
‘Shut your fucking mouth, I’ve had enough of you, you beast.’
I had to live pause because I was laughing so hard when Lisa said that to another ‘friend’ at the table.
Then she called out her sister for not being supportive.
Then she attacked Kim, saying she knew a truth about her husband and Kim didn’t want her to say what it was.
I did.
Then Kim threw a wine glass at Lisa.
It was gold. Televisual perfection.
Lisa behaved horrifically in the eyes of everyone but I could understand where she was coming from. My issue was that she let it fester for too long. She should have had it out with them individually long before that meal, got rid of a few of them.
And tonight is the follow-up from that carnage. I have wine in the fridge and three meals to choose from, though I was thinking of heating up the prawn linguine, which will now leave me at a calorie deficit.
I need my shows, my doses of reality that are anything but real. And I know I need my wine or gin or whisky. There’s more to me than that, though. My father always used to say, ‘It’s important to have a hobby’. So I’ve recorded the show and I opted to attend the meeting. The one where I know I can usually pick somebody up.
I have other needs.
And it’s important to make time for all of them because if that balance is thrown off, if I don’t get a little of all the things I need, if I don’t make time for the hobby, things go wrong.
He still doesn’t tell me his name. Even after pulling out and hosing me down. You’d think the guy would tell me his name. Or a name. Any name. It was fun and flirty in the beginning and I like that he was riffing on the whole AA thing, but enough is enough.
I reach across to the bedside table and pick up the bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. He has his own on his cheap pine bedstand. I take it straight from the bottle. He’s doing his best to keep up. He has been all night.
There’s no way this nameless guy should have been at Alcoholics Anonymous, my dead grandmother could outdrink him. She’d probably outfuck him, too. I wonder whether he goes there to pick up needy women. He could be married. His wife has called him a needle dick or she no longer puts out and he has found that drunk women give him a more favourable critique.
I’m not sure.
But I know he doesn’t belong at AA with that fake thirst, and he’s never going to cut it as a sex addict.
‘My name is Audrey, by the way.’ I figure this might get him to open up.
‘I’m Jack.’ He stares at me and I can see he is trying to hold back a grin.
‘You are full of shit. You are not cool enough for Jack.’
‘And there’s no way you’re an Audrey, so let’s leave it at that.’
I sit up, the covers are sticking to my stomach where he left his mark. I take down more of the cheap whisky. This guy is a piece of shit.
‘You’re married, right?’
Drink. I see how much he has left in his bottle. What a wimp.
‘What do you want me to say? Look, it doesn’t matter. You don’t know her. You don’t know what it’s like. I know what I’m doing. It’s not your fault. Don’t feel bad. She cheated first.’ He sits up now, to add some kind of gravity to his sentiment.
‘I don’t feel bad. I can’t. It doesn’t bother me if you’re a philanderer. I guess I’m just … disappointed that you’re not an alcoholic.’ I’m guessing that he’s too stupid to understand the word ‘philanderer’, so definitely won’t get how I undercut him with the rest of the comment.
I want to tell him that he actually doesn’t know what he’s doing. That the clitoris is about another inch higher up the boat than he thinks.
There’s always more damage through suggestion.
‘Like you, you fucking drunk bitch.’ Obviously he lashes out. Instant aggression.
Men throw punches while women throw nuance.
I get out of the bed, bottle still in my hand, and move towards the bathroom door.
‘I may be drunk but I’m not a fucking fraud. So please leave your bottle on the side. I’m taking mine in here to shower the poison off my body and finish myself off.’ I turn my back on him, but it’s only for a moment before I’m in the bathroom and have locked the door. It’s flimsy but I feel safe.
I think about smashing the bottle over his head and throwing a match at him. The fucker probably wouldn’t burn, there’s so little flammable liquid in him.
I do exactly what I told him I would do and, when I emerge from the steam-filled bathroom – wrapped in a towel, the cheap whisky is half an inch lower in the bottle – and the dick with no name has gone.
He left his drink on the side table, of course, and opened the curtains. Weirdly, he also made the bed. With military precision, Not Jack made the bed we fucked in and he came over.
Clearly the behaviour of a psychopath.
The hotel isn’t one of those charge-by-the-hour places but it’s cheap enough that I don’t feel the need to stay there overnight. I put my clothes back on – I’m surprised No Name didn’t fold them into a neat pile and place them delicately at the bottom of the bed for me. I’d have been less shocked if he’d cut them up or stolen them. Or I’d come back into the room and he’d been wearing my underwear.
I take his bottle and put it into my bag, keeping my own in my hand to swig as I make my way home in the cold dark of the London streets. It’s past the time when pubs and clubs kick out but there are still signs of life. Others, like me, taking that early walk of shame home after some one-night stand. The lucky ones, who don’t fall asleep afterwards and have to wake up to that early-morning awkwardness the next day.
I see a couple who haven’t even made it to a bedroom yet. He pushes her against some railings by the side of the road and reaches a cold hand down the front of her skirt. Anyone can see. But it’s mostly homeless people hunkering down in shop doorways, cardboard boxes for mattresses, swathed in filthy, bare quilts to protect them from the cold and their limited possessions from being seen or stolen.
It’s too late in the day to be asking for money, they’re just hoping to make it to the morning.
But there’s always one that doesn’t adhere to these unwritten rules.
I take a right between two buildings. On one side is a shop that sells camping equipment and the other side used to be a cinema but is empty now. There’s a guy sitting on the floor next to some rubbish left outside the shop. He mumbles something at me and I hesitate because I want to make out what he just said.
As I pause for that moment, I take him in. He’s drunk and filthy and it looks as though he’s pissed himself. I can smell it. Urine and booze and the cinnamon aroma I always associate with Christmastime.
It’s not. Surely. The man opened up and stated in front of a bunch of strangers that he was at his lowest point. He was going to get help.
This point seems lower than earlier.
He murmurs another sentence, which I work out is a question that contains the word ‘drink’. I lean down to look closer at him. I didn’t really see his face properly at the meeting because he would not take his eyes off the floor.
He takes a swipe at my bottle but it’s laboured and I manage to move it out the way.
Then he’s pawing at one of my legs with his gnarled fingers and taking a second shot at the bottle. I pull it away again and feel that both his hands are high up my thigh. I know this isn’t a sexual attack, he just wants the whisky.
But so do I.
And I don’t want his fucking hands on me.
So I grip the top of the bottle and hammer it down into his forehead. It’s not a swing, I’m not trying to break it over his face or anything, I want to preserve it. I chop into his right eye with the thick base of the bottle and he lets go.
He’s defeated.
But I’m not done.
You piece of shit.
I hit him with it again and again, cracking into the front of his skull. He drops to the floor and I kick him. And I hit him twice more in the face, crunching down on his nose, the same way he did just that once-was-enough time on his wife.
If it is him.
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
Does it even matter?
He stops moving and I can’t tell if he’s unconscious or dead but I know it makes no difference to the world either way. It certainly doesn’t make a difference to me. Another homeless scrounger left in the shadow of a building they darkened, first, with their presence.
It’s not that I spit on them as I walk past or that I wouldn’t drop a couple of pounds in their cup to put towards their next fix, it’s not that I spend time thinking about how disgusting I find them. I don’t care enough. But nobody has the right to touch me.
That’s the mistake he made.
And the ones before him.
I shouldn’t need to explain. And I’ll never apologise.
There’s blood on the bottom of my whisky bottle. Red on red. I unscrew the cap, knock back a mouthful, screw it back on and get walking.
I am not powerless over alcohol. Nor am I powerless over men.
I’m managing. I’m in control.
Still, I think I’d like to go to another meeting.
STEP TWO
‘Come to believe that a power greater than yourself could restore you to sanity.’
Where the mind is rational and intelligent, there is no place for God. We don’t even have to hit double figures before we start questioning how one man gets around every child’s house to deliver a present on Christmas Eve. We know early on that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real, we just keep our mouths shut for the money. And the whole Easter Bunny idea is absurd. As absurd as a man dying and coming back to life two days later.
Yet people still talk about God as though the concept is any different to these fantastical fables.
Successful writers, singers, actors, sportspersons, will receive an award and the first thing they do is thank God.
They thank God.
There is a belief that whatever talent they have been gifted is from Him. They may not even have a talent but have worked hard to get into the fortunate position in which they find themselves. Instead of taking the moment to reflect on their own worth and determination, they attribute it to God, which, to a sane person is the same as thanking Jack Frost for the snow.
Perhaps the marketing department in Heaven is a little avant-garde, they’re thinking outside the box. They’ve realised that God isn’t cool any more. That society is becoming increasingly secular. And the best way to get His message out would be through a song called ‘Bootylicious’. Or a last-minute goal against Barcelona.
The Lord may work in mysterious ways, but none are as batshit crazy as His PR team.
God is for the desperate. The people who have nothing, who have lost everything, including who they are. God is not for the rich and successful, they just say that they have Him because they want everything.
Father Christmas is for the innocent, the ones still with hope. But God, He is reserved for the hopeless. The miserable. The suicidal. He feeds on despair and anguish and is undoubtedly the reason that He finds Himself to be so prevalent with those who struggle with addiction.
God doesn’t see everything. He is not everywhere.
He’s at an AA meeting.
Hell, He’s at all of them.
And I’m at one. It’s in Highgate. I said that I’d never attend this type of thing but intrigue got the better of me and I’m paying for that now. It’s called Footprints In The Sand. Or FITS, if you work in the events team at Heaven HQ. They are going to make sure that we all get through this tough time in our lives. They want us clean and sober, and when that happens, they want us to stand up in front of everyone and thank God.
Christina Rossetti is buried in the cemetery nearby and I’m thinking about visiting her grave afterwards to explain to her what a truly bleak midwinter looks like.
There are three types of addict:
The ones who won’t believe in God.
The ones who can’t believe in God.
And the ones who do believe but have lost any faith that God will help them.
It does not matter which one you are, by the time you start this twelve-step journey, your thoughts will be turned around.
You will believe.
You can believe.
And you will regain your faith.
It works. It absolutely works. And the perfectly constructed get-out is that if it doesn’t work and you go back to the booze or stuff your face with six glazed donuts or suck a few cocks for rocks, it’s not God’s fault. It’s yours.
Here’s how they get you:
If you’re one of the first two types of addict, the won’t believes and the can’t believes, you are not made to feel lesser than the person who embraces the idea of a higher power. Far from it. You are already at your lowest. You have made an admission and there is no need to try to knock you down further.
It’s all cotton wool and kid gloves and empathy. You do not have to jump through hoops to get to a better place of sobriety and control; there is but one hoop and it is wide. The sponsors can help you through the experience.
They tell you that the steps are suggestions rather than commands, and step two does not have to be swallowed immediately. It’s a wide hoop, so just keep an open mind. That’s all they’re asking. If you can stop debating God then it opens up the opportunity for you to feel. In fact, forget about all the God chat, AA itself can be your higher power.
It’s manipulative and it works. Because once you believe that there is a higher power at work – whether that is fate or community – you can put your faith in something you cannot see, that isn’t there. And you will be more open to believing that the higher power is God.
You’ll come around eventually.
But what if you are that other kind of addict? You believed. You got to that point of desperation where you asked your God to help and He did nothing. He failed to come to your aid and fulfil your demands. You’ve tried faith and you’ve tried no faith and found both to be deficient.
This third type of addict is not treated to the delicacy of the kid gloves. They are told that defiance is the stance of many alcoholics.
‘Belief means reliance, not defiance.’ That’s what the sponsor keeps saying. Quoting the plan like he’s regurgitating scripture.
You are told that you asked God for help, to fix you, maybe, but at what time did you ask what His will is? Your faith was superficial. You were not serious about God.
That’s on you.
Not on him.
Get yourself back to step one and take stock of yourselves.
He is not a genie, ready to grant your wishes, but He can restore your lost sanity if only you can relate yourself fully to Him.
They’re rallying. You’ve been hooked and now you are being slowly reeled in.
And, if you are sound of mind and still have the ability to reason, you are probably pissed off with how easy it is for the big man in the sky to get away with everything. Still drinking? Not His fault, you should have believed better. He didn’t help you in your time of need? Your fault, pal, you were too busy asking Him to solve your problems rather than checking that it wasn’t His will for you to have these problems in the first place, so that you could then fix them and become stronger in your conviction and devout belief.
Nobody is questioning this great plan of His, which seems to involve war and pestilence and famine and suffering everywhere you look. If this is God’s will, God is a dick.
Of course, nobody at Footprints In The Sand is sound of mind and nobody is really questioning the holy algorithm. They’re a bunch of drunks and they’re going along with it all.
‘…grant me my wishes rather than thy will be done…’
A shake of the head or slap on the wrist. And, for the non-believers, a hug and a smile and a little more encouragement.
I haven’t realised but I’m staring at the sponsor. He might think that I’m listening to his drivel intently or that I am attracted to him but the truth is that I’m gazing through him, into the future. A future where I take him back to mine or to a hotel room and tie him to a bed. Where I take his dick in my mouth and bite down hard before asking him how that is part of the great plan. Where I drink wine in front of him before smashing the top off the glass and using the jagged end to cut bloody shapes in his torso while saying, ‘It’s God’s will, motherfucker.’
I’m going to enjoy killing you.
I smile at the thought and it catches his eye.
He smiles back.
And to think I was never going to come to another FITS session again. Now I have a job to do.
A normal evening for me looks like this: I pull into my drive and the sound of the gravel beneath the tyres is like a bell ringing in the ear of Pavlov’s dog. I want to get inside and not think about how to market a soft drink or sports shoe or debut novel. I want to kick my shoes off across the floor of the entrance and feel the cold tiles of the kitchen on the soles of my feet as I saunter towards the fridge. I want to yank that door open and pull out the remains of some white wine bottle, pour it into a glass and take an emphatic gulp.
But it never quite goes that way because I always finish every bottle that I open.
Still, there’s something about the ceremony of popping a cork for the first time or hearing that click as you unscrew the lid of an untouched bottle.
That’s how it goes.
I have developed a wonderfully fluid technique where I can kill the ignition, pull out the key, unhook my seatbelt, grab my bag from the passenger seat, open the driver’s door and get out all at the same time. One swift motion.
I lock the car with the fob as I’m switching to the house key. I let myself in and have already kicked off one shoe before I’ve pulled the key out of the open door. The other shoe is liberated, the bag is dropped on the floor and the door is shut behind me.
Within a minute, I am poking holes into the plastic film that covers whatever microwaveable meal I’m having that night and I’m walking into the lounge with an oversized wine glass filled with something cold that was once a bunch of grapes.
I go straight to the news. I love it. Most of my working day is spent making stuff up. I’m good at it, too. But nothing is as exciting as real life. Nothing is more interesting than the truth.
It’s not about the events or the glory projects, it’s the mundanities. It’s the everyday things that people can relate to. If you’re going to make a reality television show, you need to film real people. You need to put twelve accountants in a house with cameras on them twenty-four hours a day. Putting a feminist with a male chauvinist, a sex worker, a gay person, a wannabe socialite, a black rapper and a Conservative politician is entertaining but it is forced. And it is not reality, despite the cultural hotpot that is our all-embracing country.
There is so much reality, so much truth, in misery. That is why I love the news.
It’s devastating.
More so than soap operas, which people only watch because it makes them feel better about their own shitty lives for half an hour each day. If you really want to feel good then you need to know that some innocent women and children were bombed in a village you’ve never even heard of as a result of a skirmish you think is too far away to ever affect you.
If you want a pick-me-up of some kind then you don’t want to catch the end of the programme. You don’t want to hear about a dog calling the police and saving its elderly owner. You don’t want to know who won a race chasing a round of cheese down a Gloucestershire hill in the rain. The warmth you get from a fluff piece like this is fleeting.
Good news does not make you feel good.
It doesn’t work.
Throw out a global epidemic. Every day, the news is reporting death tolls and lockdowns and parliamentary incompetence. If there’s a report about some food innovator who has found a way of feeding the hungriest people of the world, it does not scratch your itch. Who cares if some volunteers have been helping refugees. What do you really get from clapping the National Health Service once a week?
It’s patronising, not unifying.
You need some people in Syria blowing each other up or slaves being beaten on ships near China or another school shooting in the United States. Because you don’t really care about the ones on the front line trying to save lives or protect the elderly until it affects you.
The good news is too far away to make you feel good and the bad news is too far to make you feel bad. You’re connected to everything now, but the distance from reality is growing.
You want to lose weight, looking at some size-zero model on a catwalk is not inspiring, you need to witness cases of morbid obesity. You want to get fit, seeing a six-pack on anybody is supposed to be good news, that what you seek is possible.
It doesn’t work.
Neither do those motivational posters dotted around the office.
And those quotes that get thrown around social media, something that has been said in history by a person who has achieved something and thought hard about what message they were putting out into the world, one of those pithy sentences that is regurgitated by some nobody who takes pictures of their dinner every day, it doesn’t help anybody.
It doesn’t make a reader change their outlook and it certainly does not help the person who posted that drivel.
I watch the news because I need reality. And I’m not stupid enough to believe that these different news organisations do not have their own agendas. I know that sometimes we are shown a story to detract the national interest away from something else that is happening. The reality I crave is that the world is fucking awful.
You will hear those who bitch and moan about it but don’t really do anything to change it. And there are those who think that half-baked, insincerity or positive thinking will have an effect. The real power comes from acceptance. Knowing that most of us won’t make a difference to our immediate environment, let alone on a national scale.
It’s apathy through lack of empathy.
I love the news.
I get home, kick off my shoes, pour a drink, start the microwave dinner, switch on the television, eat the microwave dinner, pour another drink, then another and another.
And I say to the group, ‘I don’t really know how society got to this place but, to be honest, I’m not sure that I really care.’ I often lie at these things but figured, if I’m going to waffle on about truth and mundanity, I may as well do something mundane myself, like tell the truth.
And that fucker leading the session behaves like some exploited Indian call-centre employee and reverts straight to the script.
Do I believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity?
Do I fuck.
I don’t even believe I’m an alcoholic.
Outside the room, there’s a huge pinboard. Janet teaches Zumba on a Wednesday evening at 19:30 but, from the looks of the picture, which I assume is Janet twisting her hips in front of twenty other women, Janet needs to think about her nutrition because the Zumba isn’t working.
Yoga with Debbie twice a week doesn’t seem like a good option, either. Nobody wants to see a fitness instructor who is all legs, six-pack and perfectly pert tits but you want to know that they are at least fitter and healthier than the people they are teaching. I’m sure Debbie and Janet are both flexible and coordinated but they’re not aspirational.
The people who attend these classes are not there for fitness or to push themselves in any way, they are there to belong, to be a member of something, to be able to say that they did yoga last night when they get into that first morning chat in the office.
There’s a metal-detector club that meets every other week and the local weavers bring their spinning wheels and boxes of yarn on the third Saturday of each month. If you need a babysitter, there are six or seven to choose from. Someone will even walk your dog if you can’t be bothered and have more money than sense or your legs are still aching from Janet’s Zumba session.
If you would prefer to socialise with other dog lovers, then there’s a meeting spot at 6:30 every morning, much like the gathering I can see through the windows near the entrance where the running club are assembling in their high-visibility Lycra.
And there are choirs and tap dancing and karate clubs for all ages, and badminton or youth club or Teddy’s sing-a-long for parents with new babies – though the poster only mentions the mothers. The amateur dramatic society is currently rehearsing a performance of something called Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis.
It’s a veritable smorgasbord of Hampstead boredom but that is the kind of snapshot I find interesting. Yet it’s the piece of paper pinned to the top-right corner of the board that excites me the most:
For information on hiring any of the rooms in the centre, please call or email Calvin…
I take a picture with my phone to make note of the contact details. Apparently, he is here on weekday mornings until lunchtime because they run a preschool in the second, smaller hall.
Directly opposite the room where I just attended Footprints In The Sand – it’s Steps To Christ every other week (The same fucking thing) – there is another space of a similar size but it’s empty, the lights are off.
It would be perfect for what I have in mind.
The sponsor sees me outside, looking at the notice board. Everyone else has left and he has stayed behind to stack the chairs together and place them in the corner out of the way so Janet and friends can wobble out a slow-paced merengue later in the evening.
‘Oh, hello,’ he says, as though I’m a five-pound note he has found in the street.
‘Hello again,’ I say back.
He takes a look at the board then back at me before asking, ‘This club is a bit heavy, right? If you’re looking for something a little lighter, I can recommend the Classics Book Group.’ He lowers his voice and leans in closer to me. ‘But avoid the needlework club,’ he looks around over his shoulder as if somebody might be listening, ‘A real fucking bitch fest.’
And we both laugh.
‘You did really well in there. I know that the second step can be tough and there’s always some resistance to it in the beginning. I was exactly the same.’
‘Should we really be discussing it outside of the meeting?’
‘I’m not your therapist or your priest. Though I am here to listen. You’re me, ten steps ago and I am you, ten steps from now. I’m not trying to push you, I’m not asking for atonement, I’m just letting you know that I understand and that I’m here.’
Kid gloves?
Is this how cults are started?
‘Well, that’s very kind of you but I’m not sure why I’m getting special attention, there were lots of people in there.’
It feels like he might be flirting with me but I keep my distance because it still feels like it could be a recruitment technique.
‘Of course. And I can tell almost right away who is willing to put in the work and who will need more help. I also know that the ones who find a way to hang around at the end often still want to talk a little more.’
He smiles a smile of a someone who thinks they have me pegged and I go along with it, I try to look coy. But not too much.
Then he asks me if I have a sponsor yet by telling me that I don’t have a sponsor yet. And he offers his services.
Before I know it, we are exchanging phone numbers so that I can contact him – anytime, apparently – if I feel that I am veering off course at any point.
He thinks he knows me, he’s seen my type a million times before. That I was hanging around for him at the end of the session.
He doesn’t know a thing.
He doesn’t know that I am going to book that empty room opposite his and start a club for people just like me.
He doesn’t know that I think Footprints In The Sand is horse shit, that I’d rather take a fist than go to FITS.
And he has no idea that I’m going to kill him at some point.
I’m going to fuck him. And then I’m going to kill him.
