Seasoned hands rub his sore head. Whisky seemed like a good idea at the time. A hangover in the morning, he considered, no big deal. Live for the moment, I’ll be fine in the morning, he justified.
I never am, though, so why did I do it? Today of all days, he needs his head. Have a word with yourself next time, will you? he reprimands. A glance at the kitchen clock informs him he has precisely thirty-two minutes before he has to leave. Needing to be at the appointment, waiting ten minutes before he’s to be seen. Otherwise, he won’t be able to go ahead with it. The scorching coffee sears its way down his throat onto an edgy stomach. It will be the shorter bathroom sequence this morning. Being late is not an option.
Fifty-three minutes later, he counts his way up the few steps to the front door of the small building, apologetically standing between the grander Edwardian neighbours. This is it, the beginning of some form of closure, finally.
With a deep breath in, he absorbs the air of the tired reception area; musty and old but kind of comforting.
‘Mr Austin?’ a middle-aged lady with a nose piercing and numerous jangly bangles enquires.
‘Yep, that’s me.’ He squints at the insufficient ticking clock. ‘I’m a little early.’
‘That’s fine, love, no problem. Please take a seat. Susie will come and get you in a minute.’ She indicates to the hard, school-resembling chairs positioned along the wall.
He shakes his legs out as if to indicate a problem with them; if only it were that simple. ‘Thanks. If you don’t mind, I prefer to stand.’ He isn’t allowed to sit in the waiting room is the truth, another order from above. Not before an appointment anyway. Today is not the day to break rules. He casually regards Susie’s details on the ‘Who Are We?’ board: a person-centred counsellor, whatever this means. So long as it doesn’t involve the maniac Freudian-type shit, he thinks, who knows? Maybe she’ll be able to help him. Despite the monumental gap in time.
A few minutes later, Susie and he sit in the small angled room, rescued from the direct sunlight beaming through. Susie is, much to his amusement, all he’d envisaged. She rests upright but relaxed into her low-level chair without arms, a calm hand with a pen hovering over a lined notebook. She has a soft yet commanding voice; he feels himself drawn into her monotonous tone. It was suggested he saw someone so many times before; he could never see the point. But now, everything has built to a crescendo and his emotions overwhelm his ability to think straight. If he is to finally put everything to bed, maybe now is the time. He taps his right, then left foot on the floor alternately, twice.
‘Where would you like to start, Gregg? How do you think I may be able to help you?’
‘Now, there’s a question. To be fair, sitting here now, I haven’t got a clue. I’m not even sure why I’m here. I hope I’m not wasting your time.’
She nods at him, allowing him space to continue, reassuring him subliminally he can take his time. When he doesn’t respond, she prompts, ‘You’re not wasting my time, Gregg; I can assure you. You begin whenever you feel ready.’
‘I guess it’s because I’ve things in my past, stuff I’ve never come to terms with, and I’ve now reached a point in my life when I really need to be able to… draw a line, I think they say. The thing is, it’s been a stupid amount of time. Since when this all started, I mean.’
She nods at him. ‘So, there’ve been issues in your past that you’ve not been able to talk to anyone about, and now you feel the time is right for you to talk?’
He takes a few moments, a little perplexed. Didn’t I just say that? Resounded through his mind. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it,’ he adds, a little unsure about her reaction hanging in the air.
‘Good, Gregg, go on. You’re doing so well.’
He waits for her to offer more but clearly the onus is on him alone. Again. He thinks how strange it is to be sitting in the unfamiliar room with a complete stranger about to discuss things he has never been able to talk about, even with those he loved the most. He has left it all too late.
‘Where do you want me to start?’ he asks, hoping for a prompt.
‘Wherever you wish to start, Gregg; take your time and begin once you’re ready.’
He looks down at his tightly clasped hands on his lap. Counting, then begins to unravel at ten. He breathes in deeply, then exhales. ‘I can still smell the air. It was the end of summer, you know, when you can feel autumn poking its head around the door.’ She nods at him to continue, pen poised.
‘The ground was firm underfoot, start of the school autumn term, end of the summer holidays. I remember feeling really miffed because we’d had such abysmal weather during the holidays, with it raining for most of it. It seemed that way anyway. But that day, there was a brilliant blue sky.’ He laughs through his nose. ‘I was so self-conscious about the regulation long grey socks I was forced to wear, being fourteen, it wasn’t at all cool.’ She smiles at him, without articulating. ‘It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to school, I was kind of… if it wasn’t for him, school was okay.’
‘Him?’ she urges.
‘I’ll get to it. The thing is, I enjoyed school. We lived in the middle of the Cotswolds, in the sticks, as my grandmother called it. Most of my friends lived a distance away, so I’d get fed up, lonely even at times.’
‘It was not a local school, then, where you attended?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘A grammar school, Walesby Grammar, about fifteen miles from where we lived. I used to walk a mile or so to the bus stop each morning, then pick up the yellow school bus.’
‘You must have been clever, to get into the grammar school,’ she encourages him.
‘I guess, just not clever enough. I can remember the morning clearly, you know, when the letter came, advising me I’d been offered a place.’ He lifts his head to glance out of the window, discouraging his wretched eyes from filling with tears. Where have they come from? Not now, he warns. He turns back to address her. ‘Sorry, it’s just, I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to think about those times, not without pushing the thoughts away again, never mind talk about them.’
‘You’re fine, Gregg, take your time. You were saying, you remember the morning clearly…’
‘Yes, you know, waiting for the letter, am I in? Am I out? The look on my grandmother’s face – it meant so much to her, I knew it, that’s the problem. My grandfather too, it meant so much to him. He didn’t always say how he felt, but I knew anyway. Over the summer, we spent a lot of time together, me and my grandfather, I helped him dig over his allotment, in the rain mostly. That’s when he’d talk to me, explain things; whilst he dug away, I’d learn how he felt about things. He, and my grandmother, hoped the opportunity of going to the renowned grammar school would change my life prospects, open doors, allow me to fulfil my true potential.’ He smiles, then abruptly removes it. ‘Huh, it certainly changed my life!’
‘I can understand how proud they must have been. It isn’t easy getting a place in a grammar school, especially as they’re so few and far between.’
‘Especially as they’re abused by those they were not intended for, you mean.’
‘Sorry; what do you mean by that?’
‘No matter, ignore me. It’s a personal issue I have with the system.’ He shrugs. ‘Obviously some students are there by their own merits. Some are only there because the family have enough money to tutor them to death before they sit the entrance exams. It defeats the whole point of grammar schools, doesn’t it?’
‘I understand what you’re saying.’ Susie appropriately sits on the fence.