The girl nods. ‘That’s the fifth time.’ She picks up her book and covers her face with it. The Secret. That whole ‘you can be anyone you want to be, have anything you want to have’ reductive crap. Doesn’t it directly contradict the whole concept of twelve-step ‘surrender’ and trusting in a Higher Power’s divine plan? A familiar scratchy contempt builds up as I watch the girl’s impassive face soak it all in.
A gravelly voice pipes up behind me: ‘It’s ten to five. Unlikely at this stage.’
I turn around to see Big J, or Jimmy – who I recognise from the meetings, though I’ve never spoken to him before – with bowls of stolen milk stacked in both hands. This is the man who apparently spent eight years behind bars for no one knows what. I’ve become fascinated with him, his air of danger and, by extension, glamour. He’s small and burly, perhaps in his late sixties, arms covered in tattoos, a Celtic cross and the word ‘SAOIRSE’ above a fist within a star inked on his forearm. He tells the best stories ever, but I never know if he’s lying or simply exaggerating. Impossible to tell with anyone in here. A brain that’s been pickled in booze is a tricksy, slippery thing, prone to bouts of grandiosity and fantasy. Which, I guess, if I’m honest （if I’m capable of being honest）， I can relate to. I think of all the tall tales I spun in school – my stepmother is a swinger, I’m adopted, my sister died of cot death, my mother died giving birth to me, my baby brother died in a house fire – each one contradicting the last; I never could remember who I told what to and inevitably got tangled up and caught out.
Was I, even then, destined for this?
‘Want to come see the kittens?’
I follow, like a child being lured by a stranger with a promise of sweeties. They’re not coming.
The shed where the kittens are housed doubles up as the smoking shed.
‘Alright?’ The men outside, puffing on their Marlboros or Rothmans.
Jimmy goes inside and kneels, croons at the creatures sleeping in a fleece-lined box under a bench. ‘Come on, little fellas, come to Dadda.’ He lifts them gently by the scruff of the neck and places them at the lips of the bowls. ‘Little buggers can hardly see.’
‘Where’s their mum?’
‘She hasn’t taken to the role. Wild, like the women in here.’
He’s pretty funny.
‘So, no visitors?’ he says.
I shake my head.
‘You probably deserve it. We all do. Try to see it as a blessing, a way of getting you “on your knees”。’
Not this false-humility stuff again. What loving God would want a little boy separated from his mother? He watches me struggle with all the conflicting impulses I know are playing out on my face. I’m completely see-through, which may have made me a very fine actress, though not such a fine player at real life.
‘The Man Above has a Higher Plan for you. You don’t know what it is yet, but there’s a reason they didn’t come today.’
I find my head doing a crazed upwards, downwards, side-to-side motion. Yes, no, yes. Higher Plan, Man Above. Yes. I blink and swallow, looking towards the ceiling. And I want so badly to fall to my knees, but don’t want it witnessed, and it isn’t a worshipping, it’s annihilation.
His face and voice soften. ‘They’ll get over it in time. Actions speak louder than words, and action takes time to prove.’ He wipes his eyes with his frayed, yellowed cuffs, then squares his shoulders, checking himself. ‘Ah, would ye look at the cut of this little one?’ A marmalade tabby, tiny, is nuzzling into the palm of his hand. ‘I shouldn’t admit to favourites, but by God…’
For the first time since I arrived, I feel like I’m in the presence of someone like me. I’ve heard him speak in meetings about his flashes of temper, his extreme emotions, and this: his maudlin love for animals. This is real. I sit in silence and watch him stroke the tiny creatures between the eyes with his thick fingers. He kisses the kittens on the same spot on the tops of their tiny heads.
‘Do you treat them for fleas and worms?’ I ask.
‘Contraband,’ he says. ‘First thing on my list these days. Some of the lads say the worming tablets give them a great high. None of them want to try the fleas stuff. Side effects too serious. Like blindness.’
Laughter flies out of my mouth and it’s not caustic or judging, not a front for something else.
‘Can you get me something for the jangles, to help me sleep?’