next time I saw her was in Glasgow, about five years later. I was in George Square. And I was fucking steaming.
I was waiting for the late-night bus on a Saturday night. The place was busy with people trying to get home after being in the pubs and clubs and student unions, and I was by myself, drunk, and probably being all bitter. Then I saw her in the distance. She was with pals, pointing to a bus or taxi, smiling. She looked nice. She looked like a nice person, just like she did before. She was too far away for me to run over and say hello to, but I knew anyway what state I was in. Even in that state, I knew what state I was in. I’d be a slurring, slabbering monster. Remember me? Remember they three cans of Bud? Look at me now. Ta-da!
About five years after that, I was sitting in work with a hangover, the worst hangover of my life. A hangover that lasted the whole week. And it just so happened to be caused by a weekend trip to Millport.
I’d went fucking daft. I was steaming on the Friday, I was drinking all day Saturday, all day Sunday, I had the Monday off work so I drank all day Monday as well. Tequilas, the lot. Wrecked.
I was still drunk when I went in on the Tuesday, happy as Larry, in my golden hour. But by midday I was a mess. I had ‘the horrors’, as my dad called it. I was sitting in the office toilet, paranoid, thinking everybody was talking about me while I was in there. I had to get out of the toilet in a hurry, because I was starting to get the urge to just stay in there all day.
There was a new guy that had started, over from Belfast. He was about my age, and he was into a drink and going to clubs. He was a chilled-out sort of guy. I could tell he was one of the good guys. And I asked him to accompany me to the pub, because I needed a fucking drink. So he came along, and I told him all about my weekend. He told me I’d be alright.
That night when I got home, I don’t know what was happening to my body, but I thought I was going to die. Genuinely. One of my arms went all numb, for no reason. I wasn’t lying on it or anything. The eyesight in one of my eyes conked out for a few seconds. My insides were making all these sounds that I hadn’t heard before. It was like my body was saying, ‘Nope. Fuck this. Bye.’
The next morning, I didn’t feel that much better. I was ironing my clothes before work, and I felt a tickly feeling go down the back of my leg. I pulled down my joggies and had a look, and there was a light brown bead of liquid running down from my arse. I’d shat myself, and I didn’t even know it.
I went into work, with my scalp crawling and a feeling that I just wanted to vanish. So I asked that Belfast guy if he’d come to the pub with me again. He came along, and made everything alright once again. Like I said, one of the good guys. And he was like that all week until I got better.
It was a nightmare.
And to think it all started with three cans of Bud, because of that nice lassie.
But wait till you hear this.
See that Belfast guy? I looked him up on Facebook recently, to see what he’d been up to. I saw that he’d recently become a dad. I had a wee look through his pictures, and there was him and his wife holding their baby.
When I saw his wife, I nearly fell off my seat.
Because guess who it was.
It was her. That lassie. The cousin.
I kid you fucking not.
Slashing My Wrist
Millport was brilliant, but it was also where I slashed my wrist.
My mum and dad weren’t there this time, they reckoned that at 15 I was old enough to look after the place myself. So I invited my pals down from Glasgow. I had an empty! For weeks!
There were about six of us, staying in the caravan and the wee extension bit. It was fucking magic having them down. We’d all get ready and splash on the aftershave, then go and get a carry-out, and drink it with all the folk I knew. My mates were asking who was who, especially who the lassies were.
I wasn’t on the pull myself. There was this lassie from Greenock that I’d met. I really liked her, but she’d went home, and I was lovesick. And what maybe made it worse was that all my mates were pulling. There was all this joy around me involving lassies and guys, and I was in a world of my own, lovesick. Maybe I was jealous, fuck knows, but I think it was something else, something that wasn’t even about the lassie or my mates, something going way back.
And what made things worst of all was that I was drunk.
I was drunk, and I wanted to see her. I wanted to speak to her. So I phoned her. I’d phone her and hear her voice and everything would be alright.
I went to a phone box, and gave her a phone. I can’t remember much of the conversation, but I remember one thing.
I said to her, ‘I love you.’
This was a lassie I hardly knew. I mean, how long had I known her for? A week? A few fucking days? And we hadn’t even shagged or anything like that. We got off with each other a few times. We talked, though, we got on. I liked chatting with her, so I just latched on. I latched right on. And I told her I loved her.
I wanted to hear it back. I wanted to hear her say that she loved me as well.
But she just said, ‘Right.’
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
I said, ‘Do you love me?’
She said, ‘Em … I like you. I don’t love you. We haven’t known each other for that long.’
I was like, ‘But I love you.’
I started crying. My voice went all high. I was like that for the rest of the conversation, with me telling her how much I loved her and how much I wanted to see her. And there she was having to deal with this drunken fucking loony, having to let him down gently.
When we finished chatting I stayed in the phone box for a while, crying. When I left I bumped into my mates, and told them I couldn’t take it any more, and I was going to go back to the caravan and get a knife and kill myself. They said I was overreacting, but they followed me back. I went into the kitchen drawer, but I couldn’t find a sharp enough knife, so I took a fork.
That’s right, a fork. A blunt one at that.
I ran away, with them chasing me. One of them started crying, telling me that he loved me. I said I was sorry, but I needed to do it, I hated my life, I hated myself, I was a fucking joke. I probably spilled out all sorts of reasons why I hated my life, stuff going back to primary school.
I managed to get away from them, but I could hear them shouting for me. I liked it, in a way, but not in the way that put a smile on my face. I liked that I was making them aware of how I was feeling.
When I couldn’t hear them any more, when it was all quiet and dark, I just thought about myself. Just bad feelings. Bad feelings. All bad.
I took out the fork, and tried to do my wrist in with it. I pushed it and jabbed it against my wrist, hoping to break the skin, but it was like trying to slash your wrist with a chopstick. It was fucking laughable, really.
But then I found something better, an empty bottle of Merrydown cider. I smashed the bottle against the wall, and slashed my wrist with the broken bottle. I took a few swings at it, but I didn’t hit a vein. I couldn’t see or feel any blood spurting. But I could see that there was a big, dark gash. I’d slashed my wrist. Veins or not, I’d done it. I’d finally done something about it all.
I couldn’t really have wanted to die, though, because instead of having another few goes I walked down to a shelter at the beach, one where I knew people would be coming and going. Nobody was there at the time, so I lay on one of the benches inside and waited.
Eventually, somebody came along, some guy I knew. He didn’t see the wrist at first, so he was just asking how tricks were. Then he saw it and started going, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ He shouted