Stranded

Travelling. It was the bare bones of everything Mark hated. He hated having to pack. He hated having to leave the comfortable, carefully furnished, realm of his home. He hated the timetables, tickets, rushing, waiting, queueing, cramped seats and overpriced under-flavoured food of the entire affair.

Sitting in the lavish hotel room he hadn’t paid for, Mark was left wondering what it had all been for. What it had all been about.

His family had been on him to come and visit for years. Every birthday card and text he had exchanged with any member of the brood still deigning to talk to him had been filled to the brim with barely disguised coercion to come and visit.

Finally, after years of ignoring the mounting pressure, Mark had done the unthinkable. He had paid money he did not have to travel half the country to see the people who for some reason never thought to come and see him. Sitting in the hotel room paid for by his well-to-do and rather obnoxious brother, Mark could not help but feel utterly betrayed.

In his cosy home. Locked away from the world. Mark not only felt safe. He felt happy.

Something few friends and certainly not any of his family understood about Mark was that he was content in his own company. Happy even, when he was not only in his own company but surrounded by the things he loved. From the movies he would watch on repeat like comfort food, to the bed pillows which, through years of pillow buying trial and error, were exactly right for the way he liked to sleep.

He knew the sounds of his house. The habits of his immediate neighbours. He knew the day the bins went out and when the traffic was at it’s worst, despite the fact that he neither drove nor owned a car. He was friendly with the family who ran the corner shop; the only place Mark dared to buy things in person. The post man always spared a few extra minutes to talk to Mark, ticking off his social engagement for the day.

The stresses and pressures of the outside world did not exist within the warm confines of Marks beloved home. He was responsible for nothing but himself.

Marks doctor liked these nuances of Mark’s life about as much as Marks family understood them. Which was to say not at all.

“You should spend more time with your friends, maybe start taking a daily walk.” His doctor would say every time they talked on the phone. Phone call appointments were a blissful delight to Mark. A gift of the modern, under pressure, breaking at the seams NHS which allowed Mark to avoid social interaction even more than he already did and removed the sickening anxiety, well most of it, from the sporadic check-ups.

Despite all of this. Despite the fact that outside of his home Mark felt bone-shakingly unsafe. Despite the fact that his lack of employment and life on benefits left him little to no money, Mark had made the voyage after all this time to come and see his family.

He was not sure what he had expected. The usual grilling to be sure. Was he better yet? Was he looking for a job yet? Had he met a girl yet? Had he grown up yet? Was he planning on having a straight jacket married desk job despairing life like his brother yet? But he had also been, in the deepest realms of his heavily guarded heart, hoping for some excitement. For jubilation. For appreciation.

Sadly Mark had found himself with neither. It seemed that all his family had truly wanted was to see him. Not to talk to him. Not to get to know him or understand him or be with him even. Just to see him. He felt confident he could have sent an awkwardly smiling card-board cut-out of himself to the event and it would have gotten as much appreciation and acknowledgment as he had received throughout the bitterly depressing day.

Nora was the only one who had seemed actually happy to have him around, and Nora wasn’t even part of the family.

“Mark!” Nora grinned up at Mark, her smoke stained teeth surprisingly white against the heavy fake tan of her skin, “I can’t believe you’re actually here. You know Jasper,” Jasper was Mark’s apparently successful brother. Aside from his wealth Mark saw nothing successful about Jasper. He suspected in fact that Jasper with his deplorable, bossy, wife and horribly spoilt children, was just as depressed as Mark himself was. Money and a busy day life however masked the obvious signs far better than Mark’s binge watching and binge eating habits did. “told me you were coming and I am so glad you did.” Nora continued, looping an arm through Mark’s arm and drawing him away from the family scramble and towards the doors.

Outside, encased in the solitude of the early evening, Nora pulled a cigarette from her purse and placed it between her lips, lighting it, inhaling deeply and then plucking it between her fingers before saying on a smoke clouded exhale, “So I want to know everything that’s been going on with you. None of the boring stuff of course, I want to know what projects you’ve been up to.” Nora’s eyes glittered with true interest and Mark remembered why he liked her so much.

Despite his lack of job, ambition and self-imposed solitude, Mark loved a project. He loved to learn, fair be it on his own and via YouTube videos, and he liked to try. Recently he had fallen head over heels for painting. He had started with the basic water colours and now was confidently sweeping oils across genuine canvasses. As he stood there with Nora in the rain, his mind travelled 600 miles away to the beautiful canvas painting of the night sky which stood proudly drying in his living room.

Mark felt a rush of excitement to tell Nora all about his painting adventure of the past few years, but anxiety grasped his tongue, so instead he had said, “I’m dabbling with painting I guess. Not very well.” While looking at his feet.

“Painting is it? And how long have you been dabbling with painting Mark?” Nora asked coyly, another cloud of smoke carrying her words.

“A year or two.” Mark shrugged one shoulder, meeting Nora’s bright eyes carefully, fearful for any judgment he would find in them.

Nora grinned, “That’s my boy. I bet you’re brilliant at it too. You’ve always had a knack Mark for picking things up. A smart young man like you could never be tied down like Jasper. You were born to explore everything.” Mark felt warmed by her words and shocked by them equally. He already knew he would go over them a thousand times. Digging out the hidden insult. Creating one if his mood became particularly dark. Equally he knew those exact same words, and this exact moment, would come rushing back to him when he needed it most, lifting him back from whatever brink he was walking at the time. Those were save your life kind of words. He wondered if Nora knew they were. “Will you paint me one Mark?” Nora continued, taking another long drag of her cigarette while holding his eyes.

“Paint you what?” Mark asked, a bit confused. He had never been asked to make something for someone before. He had of course, over the years and through the various stages of his interests made many things for people, as gifts, but he had never been asked for one.

“Anything you think is beautiful.” Nora shrugged. Dropping the butt of her still smoking cigarette and crushing the flame out of it under the toe tip of her pointed shoe. “If you think it’s beautiful I bet it’s astounding.” Nora finished, her eyes dancing, and Mark realised again that she had given him a gift with those words. One that would draw him out of the dark. Rare gifts like the ones Nora gave so freely were golden to Mark, so he wrapped them up in the memory of the scent of her smoke and tucked them safely away.

“OK Nora. I’ll paint you something beautiful.”

Sadly the moment with Nora had been fleeting. Too soon were they dragged back to the fray. Separated by the thriving mass of his family. Though polite as always none of his family asked the right questions that would have led to them learning that he painted. None of them seemed to care enough for him to try to tell them either.

Sitting in the overpriced hotel room now Mark could feel himself itching to get home. Desire kicking in to paint something beautiful for Nora before he lost the ambition, confidence and drive. His family had seen him, and that was enough for them, to see him well fed, clothed and alive, but Nora. Nora wanted a piece of what made him, him, right now. What he thought was beautiful. Nora wanted a piece of his soul.

In a few moments, tucked amongst the pain that was travelling, being away from home, stranded in the sea of a family who hardly cared, Nora had made Mark feel like he was worth more, and that was a gift he could only repay with a piece of his heart.