Was he ever going to get up, ever again. No, not now, not ever. Duncan pulled the sheets closer around him in the bed, forming a tight crumpled cocoon in the middle of it. God, his life was shite. He turned fitfully and anxious, as the doorbell rang. Thinking -
Visitors! Today! At this hour! I don't have friends anymore, no job, no boyfriend, no bloody life. So just fuck off to the lot of you, whoever you are. I'm not receiving visitors today
True, he'd not taken to being sacked from his job and dumped by Zak on the same day, at all well. But it was now the middle of the day, a week later. Exactly what day, in truth he didn't care anymore. The door bell rang again. Internally he fumed :-
Ah, just fuck off and leave me alone, this is harassment.
The bell ringing became more persistent, then it progressed to rapping knocks on the door, and a male voice shouting through the letter box.
' Could you come to the door Mr Preston. This is Bernard Collins, I'm here as a representative of the council housing department. I need to talk to you, quite urgently, about your rent arrears, You were sent a notice of our intention to visit ten days ago. I'm here because we've had no response to our previous written communications with you'
After a long long pause, then a briefly muffled conversation, a brighter female voice spoke through the letter box, one he thought he recognised.
'Duncan. its Moira, Moria Donnelly, from social services. We want to see what we can do to help you, but we can't do that if we can't talk to you in person. Would you be willing to come to the door, please?'
Upstairs, Duncan held himself rigid as a stick, not a sound, any movement or a creak. Otherwise they'd never go away. Far too long a period of time for pretending to be physically paralysed. He held this pose until he heard the recognisable grumble of voices, the shuffling of feet, the letter box rattling, then the sound of group chatter fading as they walked away. And then. Relax. Move the legs. Crack your neck muscles and breath. Say with relief:-
Would I be willing, gaah!
He sat up, perched on the edge of the bed, dishabille in a grubby white cotton sheet. He wheezed, reached for his inhaler, blew his nose, struggling to wriggle his fluorescent pink Crocs onto his boney feet. Stood upright for the first time that day. The sheet falling to the floor, unveiled to no one, the pale white nakedness of a chronically unfit and much abused scrawny body. A body he would have once very proudly declared to lovers past, had never been sun kissed, but was open to being kissed in any other way they thought imaginable. But there wasn't a present boyfriend anymore, was there? Zak, the git, had popped off, gone permanently AWOL - Bastard.
The relationship with Zak, well, he'd never found that easy. Rationalising that they were not compatible right from the start. Held little in common. He could never have been that lifetime compadre he eternally wished for. Zak was really into obscure, often quite gross, comic books, enthusing at great length about them. How they were artistic masterpieces, visually ground breaking, and should be read in the same way as great works of literature. Duncan kept quiet about what he thought about them. Not because the sex was too good to miss. But because sex with Zak, was better than none at all. And the void that opened up when there was no physical intimacy, wasn't worth considering. With only desultory masturbation viewed in his long mirror. Alone, but in his imagination in the divine company of Dermot O'Leary. Well, this was where he currently was, with just one - two - three -Oh! Leary!!
To him Zak's comics were for prepubescent teen enthusiasm only, and a sign of Zak's Peter Pan like immaturity. I mean. still reading comics when your twenty five, three years the senior male in their relationship too. If reading was required at all. Really, they were just adult picture books, with speech bubbles for the semi illiterate. Zak had never asked what Duncan thought about them, but he never asked what Duncan thought about anything. He just talked incessantly, with a high degree of condescension, hardly a break for breath, let alone analysis or comment.
However, the most annoying thing, was when they'd arrange to meet for a night out together. Somewhere they could be on their own in a pub or restaurant. Only to find when he got there, Zak had invited, without checking with him first it was OK, another gaggle of his numerous female acolytes along. Worse was when it was some of his empty headed beer mates, former college 'friends' he said. Could he not just have one night, just one single night alone with the man? One where they could talk, deepen their connection, get to know each other better.
He suspected Zak used these 'friends' as a form of human shield, by creating contexts where self-disclosure might be deterred. So was he really in hiding, fearful of revelation in closer intimacy? Avoiding what?Anyone discovering there was no one really at home behind that strikingly cute face. Duncan smirked vengefully.
So, he had been finding both these recurring scenarios increasingly irritating, enough to broach the subject with Zak. Only to be dumped by text, at dawn, the very next morning. Perhaps his feedback had got a little stroppy, but if you can't be frank and honest in a relationship, then what was the point? The word cretin had been raised, the size of his man hood and comic collection ridiculed. So, Yes, frank and honest just about covered it.
His mind was then momentarily distracted from mental self justification about the end of that particular relationship, by something he couldn't cover up. At twenty two he was already approaching the slippery slopes of baldness. The bedroom mirror could not lie, Propped at an angle from the laminate flooring to the deep turquoise emulsioned wall behind it, he kneeled down to look in it. His hair was getting noticibly thinner.
The issue of the various patterns that pattern balding came in, had become his latest anxious obsession. A justifiable concern over what form would his be taking. His maternal grandfather had become bald by his mid twenties, and his dear long departed mother's hair, if one were being kind, could only have been called wispy. One thing was certain, he'd not inherited his Father's thick, steely mop of hair. In his teens he'd really wanted to have the long flowing hair style of a Franz List, or Robert Plant, but would now settle for an all over buzz cut, done on 0, if the worst came to the worst.
Judging by what the mirror showed, Duncan's baldness pattern was not just showing early signs of receding at the temples but thinning on the back of the pate. What he currently feared the most, was not the loss of his thatch, nor the seemingly inevitable baldness, but the nature and length of the retreating period in between. He'd recently spotted a man in town whose pattern of baldness profoundly alarmed him. He had the common residual band of hair left around from ear to ear, but with this lush and vibrantly bushy island popping up right on the top of his head, surrounded by a halo of pale skin. A last stand. Looking for all the world as though a map of Jersey were drawn out in hair follicles. He'd thought:
Please God, let mine not be like that.
He pulled himself quickly away from the mirror at the ghastly thought of it. Got quickly showered, dressed and went into the hallway to see what missive the council had left him this time. There were two things on the matt. One a standard, neutrally worded, card from the council, sorry to have missed you, could you call us on this number, with squiggled barely readable signatures, that sort of thing. He threw that carelessly aside on the telephone table, as if he had no intention of dealing with it later. This was him, yet again, closing his mind to the actual situation he was in.
Eviction could be months away yet, he reassured himself. Should he play the system right. The housing department would trip over their own red tape, bound by their own tightly self regulated procedures and protocols, for quite a while yet. He knew the form well enough. Be out of touch and unable to be directly communicated with, works effectively for quite some time as a delaying tactic.
Actually sorting out the mess he'd got himself into, felt far too massive, quite overwhelming. Particularly when faced with how Duncan currently felt about himself. His present inability to be confidently anything, let alone resourceful. He looked at the other piece of post, a promotional leaflet. Advertising an event at the masonic institute. A Night of Clairvoyance, guidance and healing. Hosted by the MAM Spiritualist Group, with a guest medium, supposedly world renowned, called Malcolm Ritchie. Never heard of him. He felt drawn to the idea of going though. It was tomorrow night, at 7.30. Was this too soon ? Spiritualism. Never tried that before. It might be an adventure.
In that moment, he recognised how much he needed to feel he was doing something, anything remotely positive. Any way forward. To get him out of this flat and its restrictions. Where getting out of bed had become the only radical change in his life. Nothing else, until now, had felt remotely feasible. This, for some reason was doable. He was going to go out.
Maybe a night out might help. This medium guy might take him under his wing, and give him some life pointers. Maybe a new direction, away from the current existential impasse, would appear through a message from the beyond. For the first time in weeks he opened his sliding windows, lent on his miniscule juliet balcony and gazed down with kinder eyes on the grubby run down estate below. Yep, he was going to go out - to A Night of Clairvoyance.
NEXT EPISODE - Duncan's Night Out ( 2 / 12 )
Will be posted on Friday 9th September 2022
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