How to save your own life

I’ve been dropped by my agent, nice while it lasted. She wasn’t sure she could guide me as to how the Cannabis Diaries should look as a book.  Hmm, okay. Over the past three years I’ve written two books which I know are urgently needed in the world, and they sit there looking at me from out of their WH Smith file covers, waiting to be published. Then there are these Diaries which may or may not constitute a book, but what seems to have happened is that I now I seem to be ‘just’ writing for this web-site and ‘just’ setting up an Action Group. I say ‘just’, I have so little time for anything else right now. My vision for myself was not this, but I’m prepared to trust that I’m on the right pathway, needing merely to adjust my lenses to allow me to view this new life that seems to have appeared, one where we have lost one of our kids. We did what? When I allow myself to think about what has happened to our family, I get this pain deep in the centre of my stomach, it doesn’t seem possible. How did it get like this? No answers though, only questions which colour the air in front of me as I verbalise them, making me more aware each time that I’m doing work that urgently needs doing. I’m convinced that we can help stop the next generation of children from becoming dope smokers, and put an end to the trauma and misery that affects families.

I know that Guy, too, is confused and disappointed with the way life has turned out. He says that he is grieving for the family he once had. We were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast as he began speaking, both of us looking out at the Bank Holiday rain. He was sighing saying that when he sees William he feels intense irritation, and doesn’t know how to communicate with him, because of the endless lies, but when he’s not in contact with Will he’s worried about him. It’s almost as though, he says, looking down at Lily, that we’ve replaced William with a puppy.

Before Lily arrived we all made jokes about how we could put her in Will’s old room, and send her to William’s old school, where Alex goes now. We were laughing and saying that it wouldn’t be possible because it is a boys’ school. Yeah, right, not the only problem with the plan, Jack was saying. Alex was playing with Lily when he got back from school yesterday, and put his school tie around her neck. She was running around with that on for a while until Guy, with a frown, told him to take it off her – maybe he was reminded of that conversation then, I know I was.

As I said last time, having a puppy has helped us all, including William by default. She is hard work, although I spend less time on hands and knees cleaning now. It’s much easier when the sun is shining and I can open the back door to let her out and in. It must be obvious to Will that we are moving on with our lives, without him, and getting attention from us is more difficult now. Last week he rang me, sounding on the verge of rage as he began asking how I was. I knew he was feeling sidelined and ignored, and he said so.

‘You don’t ring me anymore – what sort of a mother are you? I got beaten up last weekend, and you just didn’t seem to care.  How am I supposed to cope on my own, I’m a teenager. I can’t do it alone I don’t know what to do.  I know I’ve made mistakes, but you’re up there in your big house looking down on me – casting me aside as if I was a piece of dirt you throw to one side. Oh, my god you’ve got to admit it was your parenting that landed me here, I know I’m to blame too, but it’s 60:40 here, you must admit.’

I wasn’t sure which amount of the equation was supposed to be mine – the 60 or the 40. I told him that I’d lived alone in the past; I knew how difficult it was and that was with no family at all.  He knows my history and how my parents died when I was a child.

‘Yeah, well what’s the difference then – apart from choice? I have no family, and I’m on my own.’

‘You do have a choice’ I said. ‘You chose to abuse your family, and we’re not going to let you do that, so now you have to do it on your own. I can’t believe anything you say. We’re getting on with our lives, I have two other children to think about so you’re going to have to move on too. Don’t come to the house uninvited, do you hear me? I’ve told you this before and you still turn up – that is not allowed – do you understand?’

William had come to the house the day before, when Alex was here alone and Guy and I were out. We has also received another summons for Will after he was caught travelling on the railways without a ticket. He gives our address out every time. Guy was furious that Will had been in the house – that he may have taken something, but Alex had locked the upstairs doors where most of our valuables are kept. How did we get here? Don’t ask questions, there are no answers.  It’s exhausting and goes nowhere. I asked Guy to phone William and reiterate that he must not come to the house, but Guy seemed reluctant to do it. He has a job whereby he is fighting in court every day, and doesn’t want to come to home to more fighting and confrontation. He’s told me this before, and I do understand.

I am feeling angry with Guy, though, and I know he’s angry with me although he doesn’t say so, but I can feel it. He so easily gets angry with Will’s behaviour which is also understandable, but seems to be observing me and my every move – to make sure I don’t ‘move over’ into Will’s camp. I feel I’m in the middle of both of them, and have been for years. It’s so tiring. When I’m firmly at Guy’s side, turning my back on William, Guy is happier and secure with that. But he is always looking out for my change of heart and my impending betrayal of him. The whole thing is like a Greek myth being played out.

I know he’s feeling betrayed by his own family and has done for some time. His mother has always appeared to prefer Will to anyone else in the entire family – make that her entire world - and I know that has hurt Guy, especially when Will has done some appalling things which have not been recognised by his mother. Guy and his sister are no longer in touch. His sister told Guy at Christmas that it was wrong to have excluded William from the house, and that Guy needed to make more of an effort with his son.  She became unable to speak without screaming, and handed the phone over to her husband to complete the conversation. They haven’t spoken since. The day after that particular conversation we found stolen goods in William’s bag, but that has never been spoken about with his sister. His mother knew about it, of course, because there was a mirror that William had stolen from her among the things we found. Unfortunately, she saw fit to put a large money into William’s account the next day, without reference to Guy or myself.

I know all of this is the cause of huge sadness to my husband, added to which I know that he feels he must have been an inadequate role model for his eldest son for him to have turned out this way. I have spent a lot of time convincing him otherwise, and he is able to run with this and always talks about his other boys, saying that his family don’t mention how well they have turned out, that it is always ‘poor William’. I can’t do a great deal about any of this, and when I’m tired I can do even less.  I wish I could make it alright for Guy, but I can’t. I’ve always tried to play the role of peacemaker, most of my life I’ve chosen that part in whichever play I was in at the time, but I can’t effect a change here. It’s up to other players to write their own lines now, I give up on that.

Meanwhile, William has been asked to leave his house by the landlord. He says it is because of a mix-up over money, but who knows what the reasons are. I could guess – smoking weed in his room, leaving the tv on all night, not cleaning up, general anti-social behaviour incompatible with communal living.

He texted me late on Saturday night, saying that he wanted to say goodbye forever, and was sorry he couldn’t do so in person. He signed off saying he loved me so much and was sorry he was such a disappointment to me.

Oh, right. So what do I do here? Nothing, I thought, switching off my phone and going to bed. I’m too tired, what’s happening is that he’s trying  a different way to suck me in, and I won’t be pulled into the madness any longer. Guy became angry that he’d sent such a text, and hardly slept that night.

Whilst I was in the shower the next morning, wondering what to do about the text, Jack rang William, and Guy spoke to him too. He was alive and with a friend on the other side of town. Guy told him that we were going to a pub in Greenwich if he wanted to join us for lunch. William didn’t come, but did phone later and ask to speak to us privately, not in a public place. I agreed that he could come to the house, at which point Guy began saying that everyone dances to his tune and that it was ‘here we go again’.

What do I do? I thought. This seemed right, asking him to come over if he needed to talk, but Guy sees me as a betrayer if I do. I asked Guy to sit with us, when William arrived and he did. Will held his head in his hands and cried, saying that he needed to give up cannabis and that it was ruining his life.

‘Not having a family is killing me, he said, I can’t do it any longer.  I’ve got no friends and no prospects. My landlord wants me out in two weeks, I can’t go on like this anymore’.

We both talked to him about going into rehab, that he should go and see his counsellor and ask for her help. Guy went inside later to start preparing for the next day’s case, and I stayed in the garden with Will talking. I brought out pens and paper so he could make a list of what he needed to do. I asked him to draw a map on large pieces of art paper, of where he would like to go with his life, encouraging him to use coloured pens. He did this, and seemed calmer afterwards. He says he won’t go into rehab, he can’t bear the thought of that again. But he says that he’ll never do cannabis again. He’s been using it as a painkiller, he says, and that’s the hard part – when you’re in pain what do you substitute it with?

I don’t know whether he can make the changes without going into rehab for a long time. We’re certainly not paying for anything else. We’ve stopped giving him cash at all.

He came to the house yesterday, and used the internet to search for jobs, achieving an interview for that afternoon. I had to stand over him, almost, so that he wouldn’t go checking in drawers for cheques or account numbers. Oh, god, I wish I knew how all of this was going to turn out, but I don’t. Just stay in the present - one step at a time. We had a good day yesterday though. Jack was off school and we went for lunch before William had to go to his interview. He rang me later, he sounded up-beat.

‘Yeah, it went well’ he said. ‘But, I’m the first one they’ve seen, and they’re going to let me know. I know how to work behind a bar now, though, they gave me a two hour trial, so that’s good experience for me’.

I haven’t mentioned to Guy that William came to the house, I don’t want to create a bad atmosphere. If he asks me I’ll tell him, but for now I think I’ll just leave things as they are.

© Debra Bell 2007