Filling the void

Numb. It’s a nothing kind of word, but then all words are if you repeat them enough. I’m tired of being numb, hence this attempt to marshal my thoughts by trapping them here, but there was a time, not so long ago, when it was all I wanted to be. The desire for the cessation of feeling was a reaction against pain, the child in me wanting to hide rather than face the truth. I realise that now. I also realise Alex had known he was dying. He had lain quietly, horribly still on the tarmac, his eyes sporadically opening and closing, no more than half listening to my murmured mantra of pleading reassurances. Afterwards, I used to sit and think in circles, and the point I kept coming back to use the wish to simply switch off. To be nothing, to feel nothing. Well, that numbness came with time. Boredom became a luxury to indulge in, a companion to replace the one I had lost.

I felt claustrophobic at his funeral, barely managing even the most perfunctory condolences for his parents and his widow, Emma. Selfishly, I could not believe that they had loved him as much as I had, that they could not guess of the depth of my pain. I had already begun to cut myself off. As far as funerals go, it wasn’t a bad one; nice sermon from the vicar, plenty of floral tributes from the many well to do well wishers, but on the whole, it wasn’t a fitting end to such a vibrant life. This left me with a curious feeling that at any minute the phone would ring and it would be Alex, as loud and sure himself as he had always been, suggesting some mad scheme for world domination, or a dead cert in the 3:30 at Chepstow that would be criminal (“and I mean absolutely criminal, Sammy boy!“) not to put money on, giving his own unique commentary on world events, sport or simply suggesting a night down the local. But, as I constantly had to remind myself, Alex is dead. So, like many weak, stupid people who don’t realise they’re weak and stupid, I started drinking. Drinking to remember, drinking to forget, I don’t know, but drinking. The days became indistinct from one another, passing lethargically in a whiskey tinted haze.

The liquor dulled my mind, it was the only way I could function, but function I did. I continued to go to work, I even saw friends when I couldn’t think of an excuse not to quickly enough, but throughout the period where I was in company, I was only half there. I drifted, unwilling to exert myself, the very definition of someone going through the motions. The only thing I expended effort on was avoiding personal questions and solicitous enquiries about my well-being. All the normal day-to-day considerations – “will Susan at the office fancy me more if I wear the blue shirt with a black tie? Am I overdrawn? Am I eating enough fresh vegetables? Do I need a haircut? – faded into obscurity. For the first time, I did not care what other people thought of me.

One day, safely secluded in the toilets at work, I laughed myself to tears at the irony. Alex, who never gave a damn about such trivial things, and therefore accepted me exactly as I was, was gone, and as a direct consequence, my interest in making the right impression on people had gone too. I thought perhaps some part of me died with Alex, a part that somehow connected me to other people. Outwardly, I displayed the signs of one recovered from trauma. I even made a passable stab at being cheerful. This facade though, was like white wash covering dry rot – I was crumbling, and I didn’t care.

One death did all this to me. It seems faintly absurd that something so natural, that must happen to every living thing, should have such an effect on a grown man, but people are weak creatures, cursed with advance knowledge of death, but powerless to mitigate its impact. I suppose the first time I encountered death was with Alex, when he was 11, and I was nearly 10. I had never lost a relative that I have known, and had never had pets. Then, one day during the long summer holidays, we found a dead cat lying in the gutter. It had been run over, and bore the imprint of the tire pattern through its mangled midriff. Its eyes were open, but glazed, staring piteously at something neither of us could see. The two of us had stood there, rooted to the spot, torn between fascination and horror, not speaking, until Alex bent down and tenderly picked up the wretched animal. As he did so, the cat’s head lolled obscenely. It startled me more than anything else I can remember.

****

“What are you doing?!”

“Well, we can’t just leave it here, can we? We’ve got to bury it. That’s what my dad did when my hamster died.”

“Where are we going to bury it?”

“We’ll do it in my back garden. My dad won’t be back for ages, and it wouldn’t be right to just leave it lying there.”

The two boys walked along the sunny suburban street carrying their burden in a silence punctuated only by the birdsong that seemed to them far away and strangely muted, as if the birds themselves recognised the gravity of the task. The funeral procession reached Alex’s house, and together, the boys sombrely dug a shallow grave, sweating in the late afternoon sun.

“Do you think that’s deep enough?”

“Yeah. Do you want to put it in, or shall I?” Sam found that he couldn’t bring himself to touch the animal.

“You do it,” he said. Alex lifted the cat gently, and lowered it into the ground. He stood up slowly, and the two of them stood, silent and still for a moment. Alex sighed, picked the spade up, and started to fill in the hole. After a moment, Sam joined in, using his hands to rake the earth from the small mound into the hole. When the earth had been filled in and patted down, Alex said quietly:

“Where do you think it’s gone, Sam?” Sam looked at his friend quizzically, so Alex ventured; “I mean… Do you think it’s gone to heaven?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I believe in heaven.”

“No, neither do I. I wonder what happens when we die?”

“Alex!”

“No, I’m serious. If we don’t go to heaven, where do we go?”

“I don’t know.”

“No. Neither do I.”

****

I wouldn’t say it played on my mind in the days immediately afterwards, but through the years my mind kept going back to that day, and still does. If I close my eyes, I can still see that cat’s head lolling on its broken neck as Alex picked it up. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that this memory retains its power in part because it is the first time I can remember Alex being affected adversely by something. I just wasn’t used to him being serious. At that age, playing in the street together, Alex had been a constant source of entertainment and amusement, always thinking up new games and ways to pass the time, never boring or depressing. That day though, I glimpsed something else. Something that reminded me of my father, by which I suppose I mean there was some adult quality about this boy who was only a year or so older than myself. Maybe through him I realised that the cat’s fate ultimately awaited us all; Alex, my mum and dad, me. Maybe that’s just my memory playing tricks on me though. Hindsight is terrible for that. All I can be certain of is the memory of burying the cat and a vague feeling after of discomfort. Did the memory affect Alex as deeply? That I don’t know, we never spoke of it afterwards. If it did, he didn’t show it in any way that I could see.

I suppose you could say we had a stereotypical ‘idyllic childhood’ together – football in the street, bike rides, attending the same schools, and living within a couple of houses of each other – all very twee sounding to someone who wasn’t there, I daresay. It wasn’t all roses though. There were some older kids in our neighbourhood, kids who wanted to prove their elevated maturity by showing how childish they were, and tried (with some success) to make the lives of younger kids miserable. I remember once they threw Alex and me into a thorn bush. It may not sound like much, but the pain of 20 or 30 minor cuts at that age, coupled with the humiliation of it being witnessed by several kids we went to school with, lingers in the memory. At the time, Alex and I agreed to go home and tell our respective parents that we had been larking around and had fallen into the bush, and if either set of parents had doubts, they never articulated them in front of us, so I guess they bought it. These older kids picked on us (and others) for what seemed like ages, but looking back, could only have been a couple of months. I do remember though, and with perfect clarity, the day they stopped picking on us.

****

“GOAL!! And Eliot sends the keeper the wrong way to put England into the World Cup final! The crowd are going wild!”

Sam set about retrieving the ball from underneath a parked car, while Alex continued to celebrate.

“Oh, leave it out. Anyway I said I was England.”

“Don’t care. You had no chance with that one, Sammy, and you’re lying if you say you did.”

“I could’ve got it on grass!”

“We’re not on grass though. Besides, you wouldn’t’ve.”

As the two boys bickered, Sam, still reaching for the ball under the car, saw three pairs of legs saunter past. In the confines of his head, he thought; don’t be them. Please don’t let it be them. But he knew it was them.

“Oi Smelly-ot,” said David Jenks, to sniggers from his two companions, “where’s your worm today?“ Sam stood up, clutching the ball to his chest. “Oh, there he is. What you’ve got there then, wormy? Is that my ball?”

“No, Dave, it’s mine.”

“Was I asking you, Smelly-ot? No, I was asking Worm boy. Well?” This last addressed to Sam, who was aware of a growing need for the toilet.

“ ‘S Alex’s ball.”

“What?”

“ ‘S Alex’s ball.”

Jenks turned to Jason Smith, and theatrically cocked his ear.

“Am I going deaf, Jase? Because I asked him a question, and I haven’t heard him answer it yet.“

“ ‘S Alex’s ball,” said Sam for the third time, his cheeks by now reddening with embarrassment, and his eyes burning with approaching moisture.

“Well it looks like my ball. Tell you what. I’ll take it, and if I find mine later, you can have this one back.”

“No.” Sam was now fighting back the tears, but maintained his hold on the ball.

“Give him the ball Sam, it’s not worth it.“ Sam gave to Alex, and nodded. “Go on.“ Sam dropped the ball, which rolled to Jenks.

“Take the ball,“ said Alex, “and leave him alone.“

Jenks screamed with laughter. “What is he, your girlfriend?”

“Just take the ball and go.”

“And if I don’t?” said Jenks, squaring up.

“Then I will take the ball…“ Alex took a deep breath. “… I will shove it up your big, fat ARSE!!” And the world stopped. And then restarted.

“Come ‘ere, you little…” Jenks lunged, but Alex was quicker. He dodged Jenk’s punch and counted with a crude, but vicious, blow of his own, which caught Jenks squarely on the chin. It seemed to Sam, watching with his mouth hanging open, that Jenks was actually lifted off his feet, before falling back into his companions, tears in his eyes and blood streaming from his lip.

****

Jenks pretty much left us alone after that, but it was not, of course, a watershed in his life. He continued to harass kids that would not, or could not stand up to him, but with me, and especially with Alex, he became almost deferential. (Years later, Jenks actually invited Alex to a party he was hosting while his parents were on holiday. Alex, at the age of 16, turned him down, in front of witnesses, with the words; “if I come up with anything I’d like to do less than come to your party, I’ll let you know.”) So Alex and I moved into adolescence, following that well worn path of drinking cheap, nasty cider, and lusting pathetically after girls. Actually, the lusting was mainly done by me. If Alex fancied someone, he’d just go and tell them, and then ask them out. Usually, they accepted, but when they didn’t, Alex shrugged it off without any rancour. (“She said no. Shows good taste. If I was her, I wouldn’t fancy me.”) I found it much harder to deal with rejection, or the possibility of it. As it became a problem for me, it became Alex‘s problem as well, one he sought to solve through a mixture of information gathering, persuasion and downright bullying.

****

“Don’t be so lame, Sam!”

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one who’s going to look like a pillock.“

“You won’t look like a pillock, I promise. Tony Davies was talking to Jo in his geography class and she says that Amanda really likes you!“

“What?! He said she said she actually said that?”

“Don’t take the piss, Sam. I’ve just got this feeling that she does. Anyway, what have you got to lose? Don’t look at me like that. It’s not life or death, you know. Either she says yes and everything is cool or she says no and so what?”

“You really think I should do this?”

“I really do.”

I bit the bullet in the end, and Alex was right. Amanda Phillips did like me. For the last two years of secondary school, she played almost as large a part in my life as Alex. I felt like I had gone from peasant to gentry overnight, that I belonged to an exclusive club, membership reserved for people that had partners, that hitherto I had stood outside of, my nose jealously pressed against the window. I loved her, I think. I say I think, because it’s so easy to look back on teenage relationships and tell yourself you didn’t understand what love was then.

Amanda and I broke up, by which I mean she dumped me, just before I was due to sit my exams, which consequently, I ballsed up. I remember sitting in a maths exam, staring at a geometry question and thinking about her. The next thing I knew I had the moderator say “five minutes, everybody.” I looked down at the still unattempted question. I had completed less than half the paper. Through those difficult weeks, Alex did his best to console, but it was probably the first time in my life I had to do something completely on my own. It was Alex, though, who administered the acid test of my recovery, and it was Alex that help me deal with my comprehensive failure of this test.

“I’ve got something to tell you.“ Alex and Sam were sat in a fast food joint, a few weeks after Sams break up. “I went down the Royal last night.”

“Yeah? So?”

Alex paused and steeled himself.

“I saw Amanda. She was with Chris Summers.”

“What do you mean with?”

“I mean with, Sam.”

“So why tell me? Do you think I want to hear this?

“No, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I also know that sooner or later you would hear it, and it’s better you hear it here now from me, so you’ve got time to deal with it before you see them together. Look at me, Sam. Would you rather I kept quiet and risked you finding out by seeing them together? No. You’ll have to face them sooner or later, and when you do, if you make a scene, you will come off worse.”

“Make a scene? What do you take me for? A girl?”

“Don’t be stupid, Sam. You feel like shit now, but you have choices. Be an adult about it, and you might feel a lot better. Act like a kid, and you’ll definitely feel worse.”

This was Alex offering me a chance to confront my problems head on, but then, as now, I was not strong enough. Instead of using it to try and move on, I let the knowledge that Alex had given me fester in my mind, and when I eventually saw Amanda with her new squeeze… I shudder to recall. They were in a park, on a beautiful summer day, with a group of mutual friends, many of whom I knew myself. To cut a long story short, I exploded. I acted like the selfish, petulant, childish idiot that I was, fuelled by bitterness, pain and jealousy. I remember screaming abuse at her, remember her crying. I remember Chris trying to drag me away, and I remember swinging wildly at him, as hard as I could. The blow merely clipped his arm, but it served to convince his friends that enough was enough, and they piled in on me. I took a beating which I now realise was both fully deserved and thoroughly self inflicted. When they left, I crawled over to the nearest tree, sat against it and cried and cried, out of pain, frustration and embarrassment. I lost a lot of friends that day, and earned myself a reputation for mental instability that took longer to recover from than my bruises. Of course, Alex stood by me, but not before giving me a piece of his mind regarding my conduct. I listened, watching him pace angrily up and down in front of me through a swollen eye, as he berated my stupidity and my arrogance. I wondered briefly at the time how Alex would have coped in my situation, but Alex would never have got in my situation.

Through an unspoken agreement, Alex and I never spoke of that day again. I felt like I wanted to put the whole sorry mess behind me, as far as was possible, and I think Alex was wise to that. Gradually, it became less and less important, in a way that I would not, could not have predicted at the time. I never forgot it, certainly, but I tried to avoid thinking about it too much. I view it now as an example of me disgracing myself when I was too young to know any better, although I accept that I am letting myself off rather lightly. Maybe stating the facts in this narrative, accepting the blame for my actions is the final step in my rehabilitation. Given that those events took place twenty years ago, it doesn’t bode well for my chances of a quick recovery now.

It is something of an old chestnut that growing up is hard to do. I don’t think I managed it till well into my twenties, although if anyone had asked me at 18, I would have insisted I was mature and fully grown. It’s difficult not to laugh bitterly at that arrogant teenager now. What did he know? Not enough to consider the advice or opinions of others, that’s for sure. Not enough to face up to his own shortcomings, or even admit to them. Certainly not enough to admit how dependant on one person he was. That changed when Alex announced that he was getting married. It had been on the cards for a while, of course. Alex loved Emma with all his heart - it was obvious to everyone who saw them - and of course, very few women had ever been resistant to Alex’s charms, so when he told me, I wasn’t surprised. I was sincerely happy for him, and set about fulfilling my role as best man organising his stag do with officious industriousness. I think I did a good job. At any rate, on the afternoon of the wedding, a large portion of the guests were nursing extreme hangovers, myself included, so presumably I did something right. I performed the rest of my duties as best man without a hitch (though writing the speech kept me up many a night, as did the thought of delivering it at the reception) and regarded the whole wedding, including my part in it, as a job thoroughly well done. It was a week into their honeymoon when I realised what it meant. Alex was married. That meant he now had other commitments, and therefore, I would not play as large a part in his life, nor he in mine. I became rather melancholy for a little, but to my credit, I think, I came to terms with it very quickly. I realised that I was being melodramatic, and managed to snap myself out of it before the feeling became too deeply entrenched. After all, I was still his best friend, the person he had known longer in the world than anyone save his parents. I felt a lot better after this epiphany. I knew in my heart that only one thing could separate Alex and I, and now it has, finally and irrevocably.

They say the process of collecting your thoughts and memories of someone, committing them to a permanent record is cathartic. I tried it on the basis that it couldn’t fail worse than ignoring the issue or retreating into a bottle. The trouble with any method of dealing with bereavement is knowing that however well or badly you cope with it, you cannot fill the void that has been left. In the aftermath of Alex‘s death, I can see the melancholy in everything. Maybe the only way is to get through each day as honestly as I can and hope that eventually, time will dull the keenness of my memories. Maybe one day I will learn to celebrate the years we had, rather than mourn the years that have been taken from us. Maybe soon there will be a night’s sleep where I don’t relive the car tearing round the bend, far too fast, taking my friend from me like a bowling ball takes a skittle. Maybe I will even forget the moment Alex stopped breathing, and died, in my arms, in the middle of the road. But I doubt it.