you haven’t got a sale, I don’t wanna know… Vamoosh!’ He waves me off dismissively like you would a chastised toddler.
‘Damien, please.’ I realise I’m close to tears.
He pauses his game, raises his head slowly. His brow creases as he nods for me to proceed.
‘This man I just called.’ I swallow hard. ‘He said he’s going to kill himself. Like now. He’s going to commit suicide or something.’ I stop talking, unable to provide any further information.
There’s a pause, a fleeting moment where we both stare at one another. Then Damien bursts out laughing.
‘Bleeding hell, Lana. I knew you were bad on the phone, girl, but actually making people wanna top themselves?’ He claps his hands together, leans back on his chair and screeches like a banshee. ‘Hilarious, absolute quality.’
‘I’m being serious,’ I shout, louder than I mean to. Tears of frustration threaten to escape as I inwardly plead with Damien to take me seriously. I can’t just allow that man to die now I know about it. I can’t just turn my back on him.
I did that once before… and I won’t make the same mistake again.
‘Listen, love,’ says Damien, as if reading my mind. ‘I’ve heard some excuses in my time but that’s the best.’ He smiles then, showing a teeny scrap of remorse, his face a mask of sincerity.
‘But…’ I struggle to speak.
‘But nothing,’ he barks, breaking the brief moment of sincerity. ‘Go and chill out, have a ciggie and nip over the road for a pint or something. Take five minutes. Then get back on the phone. Forget it. That man, alive or dead, isn’t going to keep you your job.’
So that’s it, conversation over. I go to respond but he’s already back on Candy Crush. I see he’s on Level 387.
Liam, 2.35 pm
I’m not expecting the girl to ring back, so when she does I get irate and tell her to piss off, not so much because I want her to piss off but because I desperately need to get on with the small matter of killing myself.
Elliott, thankfully, dozed off a few moments ago, so I carried him upstairs and placed him in his dinosaur bed. Actually, it’s just a normal wooden bed held loosely together by those crappy screws and pins, which are probably all in the wrong place. But he has dinosaur bedding, which he absolutely loves. As I tucked him in, and pulled the covers up just underneath his chin, my heart broke all over again. To think of everything he has been subjected to in his short life. That’s why I have to do this now. Without Elliott, my life is nothing, and I’m going to lose him one way or another – that much is a given.
At least my death will give him a shot at life.
Walking past the master bedroom on the way back downstairs was shockingly surreal: the realisation that I’ll never again sleep in my bed, never draw the curtains, never kick off my boots after a hard day’s graft, never snuggle down under the covers on an icy winter’s morning, never wake up ever again…
Through the crack in the door I noticed Jessica’s earplugs, casually tossed on the bedside cabinet. Her side of the bed was unmade, the quilt ruffled up like somebody was hiding underneath. I choked back a sob at this normal, everyday picture of married life. Nobody ever looks a fraction deeper, but soon they will.
I’ve googled how long it takes to die from an overdose but, as always with Google, there’s no straightforward answer. I realise I haven’t got very long. Soon she’ll be home and then I couldn’t possibly go through with it. Will she blame herself? Who knows?
Ignoring the phone as it rings yet again, I subconsciously surmise that this takes nuisance calls to a whole new level. ‘Stop ringing,’ I spit under my breath. Beads of cold sweat are forming on my upper lip. I realise I’m finding it difficult to swallow, my heart hammering against my ribcage like it’s going to smash straight through and kill me in an instant… I guess that’s one way to go.
Marching into the kitchen, I drag open the drawers, frantically grabbing at any medication I can find and tossing it onto the kitchen table, knocking off Elliott’s painting in the process. The A4 paper, stiff with dried-up poster paint, wafts high in the air, then sways rhythmically downwards until it skims the cold, hard floor below. I go over and pick it up, stick it up on the fridge with a palm-tree magnet we bought many moons ago in Tenerife.
When you see people take an overdose on television or in films, they always have the correct ingredients: twenty packets of the same tablets and a bottle of the finest malt. What do I have? Three packets of aspirin, sixteen Valium, four individual Pro-Plus and an unopened packet of laxatives; all washed down with a quarter bottle of vodka, a can of Stella and a WKD Blue. As the foam erupts from the can of Stella, the phone rings yet again.
‘Listen, sweetheart, just leave me alone, all right?’
Lana, 2.40 pm
‘I can’t leave you alone’
I hear him sigh on the other end of the line before taking what sounds like a huge gulp of something, most probably whisky. Isn’t that the drink of choice for suicide? I hear a loud burp down the line, which makes me wrinkle up my nose.
‘Pardon me,’ is all he offers.
There’s suddenly a silence as I try to figure out what to say. How do you convince a stranger to not take their own life? I can’t even convince someone to come on holiday for a measly ninety-nine pounds.
‘Are you all right?’ I know it’s a ridiculous question the second it hits the receiver. No wonder I’m three hours away from unemployment.
I hear the snapping of plastic, followed by more frantic gulping.
‘You’re not?’ My blood turns to ice. ‘Please, tell me they aren’t tablets?’
Another pause… he swallows hard.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’
‘Sorry, darling, but I’m against the clock here.’ The sudden sound of his voice makes me jump.
‘Shit!’
‘Shit, indeed.’ He allows a small, sad laugh. I’d place him in his late thirties, perhaps early forties. His accent, clearly Mancunian, has a certain texture to it: gravelly, like a man dragged down from the moment of his conception.
‘But why?’ I realise I’m stabbing my pen frantically into my pad. I take a quick glance around to see if anybody has noticed. The midday sun, which is shining through the closed window, is burning holes into my head. I scrunch up my eyes tightly, cover them over with the palm of my hand.
‘It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.’ He sniffs up and I think he might be holding back the tears. I bite my bottom lip hard as I contemplate how to proceed. He must have read my mind as he gives me a bail-out. ‘This isn’t your problem, Lana.’
Wow, he remembered my name. Nobody ever remembers my name. Most of the time, they don’t wait around long enough to hear it and if they do they always forget. At best I get the odd, ‘Thanks, Laura,’ or ‘I’ll bear it in mind, Hannah.’
‘That’s nice that you remembered my name.’ I smile despite the situation. I can’t help but warm to this sweet, suicidal stranger.
He laughs again, a bit happier this time, almost a chuckle. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said I liked your name.’
‘And were you lying when you said you were going to kill yourself?’ I hold my breath.
‘No, sorry. I wasn’t lying.’ As he speaks I hear the snapping of foil; it’s quick, like tiny bullets being popped from a gun. Of course he’s not lying.
‘I’ll ring the police, or an ambulance. Both, maybe I’ll ring both.’
I