‘Oh, Cee-Cee. It wasn’t your fault that my parents are terrible! Or that I ran off and got pregnant.’
‘Maybe not. But I did push you into a breakdown. So, it is partly my fault you’ve been unwell ever since. It’s only right that I would do everything I could to help.’
‘If you were in any way to blame for any of it, I forgive you. We all made a lot of mistakes. I’m sorry for running off instead of talking to you about it, and ruining your career.’
She nodded, and I tried and failed to stop crying the rest of the way home.
‘I love you both, very much,’ she said, as we pulled up outside my house.
The thing with someone like Cee-Cee, when she says those words, she means them. I would have said them back, but before I could find my voice, Cee-Cee had moved on.
‘It’s nearly two. Would eight be a good time to pick you up?’
‘Great,’ I managed to croak. Great that she asked instead of telling me a time, too. ‘Joey will be thrilled to see you.’
‘It’s family only.’
‘I know.’
58
Stop Being a Loser Programme
Day One Hundred and Ninety-Two (On Hold)
Over the next week, I had the triple crown of excuses to put the Programme on hold and stay inside. Joey came home after another day in hospital, but he was still prone to getting woozy and clumsy and suffering from headaches. With strict instructions to keep screen time to a minimum, in between frequent naps, he was bored and irritable. I was grateful for his friends calling in after school, for Cee-Cee who popped in on her days off to play cards (yes, she had a new job, in Sporting Warehouse of all places) and even for Sean, who was hanging around semi-permanently in a state of awkwardness. At the same time, I wanted to sit beside my boy on the sofa, hold his hand and monitor his every movement. It would be easy to take ‘make sure he avoids any exertion or physical activity’ to extremes (does sitting up and eating count as physical activity? How about a shower?), but I knew all too well about the line between helping and smothering, and while I didn’t always agree with Joey’s assessment of where that line lay, I did try to meet him somewhere in the middle.
The aftermath of the article was another reason to hole up inside. Just until things blew over, I pretended to myself, while aware that when it came to small villages that would take at least another couple of generations, and there was no blowing over, only facing up to it, tackling it head on and riding it out.
And, thirdly, I did have a Senior Bid Writer’s project deadline whizzing towards me. It wasn’t easy to focus on virtual reality systems when our reality had been tipped over, the contents kicked about the gutter. Somehow writing about immersive environment simulators seemed a bit less important. But paying my bills and not being evicted was also important, so I moved my office into the living room and knuckled down as best I could, one eye firmly fixed over the top of my laptop on Joey.
59
Stop Being a Loser Programme
Day One Hundred and Ninety-Five (Still On Hold)
Cee-Cee’s ex-colleague from the Gladiators called in, conveniently at a time when Cee-Cee was there. He asked how Joey was feeling, expressed his complete understanding at how the combined circumstances of the trial plus his mother’s ‘spot of bother with the press’ could have led to a momentary slip in concentration.
He believed in second chances, was confident Joey would have learnt from what happened, and would be delighted if Joey joined the club. Once he’d made a full recovery, obviously. Bearing in mind that he was turning fourteen soon, and there wasn’t much time to spare.
But the invitation, coming at such a late age, was indication of how impressed he and the other Gladiators coaches were. He genuinely thought that, with dedication and the right attitude, Joey stood a chance.
Joey nodded, smiled politely, shook the man’s hand and said how much he appreciated it, and that he would be in touch as soon as he was back to full strength.
The instant the front door shut, a victory dance exploded out, in blatant disregard of all instructions concerning physical exertion.
I watched, smiled, let him spin me around the living room and tried very hard to grapple with my anxiety monster until I’d crammed it back inside the cage where it belonged.
Life hurts, sometimes. Following your dreams costs, maybe everything we’ve got. Trying and the risk of failure and disappointment come as a two-for-one offer. Joey might not make it, whatever ‘it’ was. He might sacrifice his teenagehood pursuing a goal that he’d never reach. He would encounter deeper and longer-lasting pain than a mild concussion if he joined the Gladiators.
But he would know the pain of regret if he didn’t.
Who was I to tell him which hurt more?
And any pain I might feel had nothing to do with it.
60
