‘I’ll do it.’ I’d do anything to burn off some more calories. ‘What’s your name? Mine's Jeff, by the way.’
We sat in silence, but my mind couldn’t stay still, or my legs. I paced up and down, dismissing the healthy advice posters around the waiting room. ‘You wouldn’t have change for a fiver?’ I asked, ‘Pound coins.’
Geordie lifted his stomach, leaning a little to the left to locate his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he said, presenting five coins on a sweaty palm.
We exchanged the money, and I excused myself to visit the toilets. Bonus points if I'm seen entering. Every ounce counts, and pound coins, hidden from the prying eyes of the nurse, increase my chance to break free from the Establishment. I didn't think about where those coins had been, or where I was shoving them. I needed to gain a pound. When I returned, the others – the fat, the thin, the dregs of society – sat waiting, each fed up, or in need of a good feed. Geordie rocked back and forth, nervous, guilty, and afraid of the well-meaning advice served with the garnish of attitude awaiting him. You need to lose; you need to gain - a feast of humiliation and damnation that leaves you wanting to eat more, or throw up. I do the latter with a belly filled with stewed onions.
Geordie’s beige chino-clad arse spread over to the accompanying chairs and no one wanted to, or could, sit beside him. I did. I had to; the nurse would be calling my name soon, and I needed to look relaxed. They watch me all the time, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers. I bother them. I tell them I don’t care. It's the only time I tell the truth.
‘So how much weight do you have to gain?’ I asked. This is my humour, the way I cope, but most people don’t like it. Geordie laughed.
‘I doubt they'll work it out. I can break scales with one step.’ He looked at the floor. The fat ones always do. The thin ones look for exits.
‘Sure they do.’ I said. ‘They have a special elephant scale in room two, but watch out if the nurse has peanuts on her desk, and don’t bend down.’ His belly wobbled.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked, looking at me. ‘Have you almost met your target?’
His eyes had a fleck of blue like the promise of sunshine on a cloudy day, the sort you have when you believe you can do anything. I should have worn my shades.
‘Yeah. I lose another stone, and I’m there.’ My envisioned, self-afflicted suicide didn’t shock him. I liked that about him. He knew I didn’t want to be part of the do-good, rat-infested world.
‘So, it’s just you against the world, huh? I can understand that.’
Geordie looked up this time. I do that too when emotion tries to break through, or when the onion is too strong. We fell silent, raising our eyes when the perfectionists called out a name. I gained an ounce, grimaced at the pleasure it gave the angelic-faced nurse, but delighted that I'd reached my own target - once I shed the metal shit, of course. Next, I suffered the bald doctor who looked uninterested but continued with his routine questions. I enjoy pain, especially other's. Once the interrogation was over, prescription for protein powder in hand, I headed for freedom. Geordie was waiting for me. He had a prescription too.
‘Xenical’ I said, pointing to the paper in his hand.
He grinned. ‘Yeah, but it’s not much good for wiping the arse when you can’t reach.’
We went for a coffee, black, no sugar for me and full-fat latte for him. We had a lot in common: no friends, no interest in the living, and a cynical outlook on the scabby world which Carl Sandberg calls an onion. “Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
I found that once I started talking to Geordie I couldn’t stop. I told him about my room in the hostel where the social workers visited me. People aren’t interested in your life until you want to die. Geordie suggested his spare room could do with a clean. He didn’t invite me to stay. I respected him for that.
Keeping active is good. It burns more calories. I took up his offer. His mother died in that room. It took three days to clear the wardrobe of musty, moth-eaten clothes. Geordie stayed in the kitchen.
‘Do you want a coffee,’ shouted Geordie, from downstairs.
I don’t like kitchens, but Geordie couldn’t climb the stairs and with the room clear of junk, I needed more challenges to keep burning calories. He was eating chocolate biscuits when I entered his domain.
‘That’s my boy. Keep stuffing yourself,’ I said, standing in the doorway.
‘Do you eat salad?’ he asked, shaking out the last biscuit from the packet.
‘Only the celery and any leaves.’
‘The nurse said I had to prepare salads, but I don’t know how.’
Teaching people to starve, I could do, but first I needed to clean the kitchen. It wasn’t a big kitchen, more a narrow galley. The biggest problems were the clutter and the stench. There was no room to prepare food. The view from the back window didn’t help lift the oppressive feel of the house. It faced a gated wall leading to the graveyard. You could see the tips of marbled wings between two bushy trees. I scooped up the packaging, the fungus-filled cans, and cleared the worktop to find the hob of the stove. ‘When was the last time you cooked, Geordie?’
‘I use the takeaway at the corner,’ he answered, checking a pizza box I’d throw in a bin bag.
As I cleaned, I realised Geordie and I weren’t too different. Each of us suppressed by family values - one loved too much, one not loved at all. Our bodies adult, our minds still reined, locked in childhood, and searching for rules that could free us. I don’t understand love, but the more I spent time with Geordie the closer I felt to discovering it.
I taught Geordie to cook. I watched him eat, but something happened as we talked. The more he slowed his munching to speak to me, the more I wanted to hurry him. I would steal a slice of carrot, or a morsel of cheese to force his attention back to his plate. Soon I was preparing two meals, one for me, one for him. A race, I suppose and I always won. I like to win. By the end of the month, I gained a pound without additional coinage, and Geordie lost a stone. Geordie learned to have a tuna sandwich for lunch instead of fast food. I preferred crabmeat, but it made Geordie ill.
Around Geordie my skinny frame started to bother me as he lost more weight. We had a partnership. When Geordie felt like eating chocolate I’d buy a bar, give him three squares, and I polished off the rest. Six months later, flesh padded my bones. Geordie’s eyes seemed larger, his chubby face thinner, a handsome countenance emerged. Girls looked at him, but he didn’t know how to cope.
‘Why don’t you ask Lisa out on a date, Geordie,’ I said, one night after the clinic. We'd had a short chat with her and she seemed interested in Geordie. She was perfect for him; she’d lost weight too. He declined at first. I tried to define love with him - a word that choked us both to say, so we called it ‘onion’ instead. The onion is good company for some foods, it has layers, and it makes you cry. In the end, Geordie realised some things have to be tried. I tried sex once. Can’t say I enjoyed it.
Geordie didn’t need me once Lisa agreed to date him. I moved back to the hostel. I don’t need to be needed, but it irked me not to see him. Some days I would visit him. He’d be out, but I had a key. From what I could see, Geordie had discovered sex, and a cleaner. I was happy for him in a way, but I wanted him to see me. The new me, the person who ate three regular meals, learned to relax, and no longer concerned himself with the Establishment.
I returned to stewing onions, green ones, and my original plan to disappear. My heart protested. The Establishment returned and shoved me in a psychiatric ward to peel back more layers.
Geordie visited me. After he said hello, he looked at the space between my twitching feet. We sat in silence for a few minutes, but I didn’t want to sit still for long. I needed to burn off the protein milk shake served under the watchful eyes of the nurses.
‘I heard you had a heart attack,’ said Geordie, at last. He held a package on his lap. ‘Is everything okay now?’
‘I suppose,’ I said. A standard reply served to the experts.
‘I got you a book.’ He offered the package. ‘It’s called the Secret Life of Food. The author says, they created the spelling of onion by placing an o, to represent the shape of the onion, in front of union…’ Geordie grinned at me. ‘They dropped the u later.’
‘Guess you know more about onions than me,’ I said. I refused to accept his gift and walked to the window. I could see the graveyard near his house.
‘I better get back.’ He waited, then mumbled, 'I’ll be seeing you.’
Pressing my head against the barred glass, I watched him walk down the street. ‘No, Geordie, I’ll be seeing you, and sooner than you think. Union is something indivisible and if taken apart is, like the onion, destroyed.’ The book gave me the idea. It was time to slice and dice the onion.
Back at the hostel, two stone heavier, I took walks to the graveyard. I sat on the bench and looked down on the angel behind Geordie’s house. Sometimes people said hello, or made me a lurid offer. The lonely are easy targets, but the angel protected me. At least, that’s what I told myself. After a week of anticipation, I saw Geordie walk through the garden gate. I held a sandwich, and waited.
‘Jeff!’ he called out, walking up the slight slope. ‘What are you doing here?’
My sandwich was my ticket. I held it up for him to see. ‘Lunch.’
I wanted music and bluebirds, and Geordie running to me with his arms outstretched. Instead, he strolled with his hands in his pocket, kicking at stones en route. Geordie sat down beside me, as a tout, nodding knowingly, walked past.
‘You haven’t you been answering my calls.’
‘No credit on my phone. I’m back at the hostel.’ I offered him my lunch. He took a sandwich. I knew he would.
‘It’s great seeing you, mate,’ he said, taking a bite. ‘But why here?’
‘The therapist says doing normal things in places like graveyards is an affirmation of life.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I said. Geordie was quite gullible.
He took another bite. ‘Bit heavy with onion, isn’t it?’
‘I like onions,’ I replied.
‘Yeah, I know.’ He laughed and took another bite. ‘What is it with onions and you anyway?’
No one ever asked me that before. If they had, they’d have learned my mother was chopping onions when I told her the games Dad played with me.
‘I dunno.’ I shrugged. Shame is a tough layer. My father fell, knife in his chest, against the worktop. He lay on the floor like the pharaoh Ramesses - onion rings covering his eyes. Mum sent me to bed, intent on her one-way journey.
‘Hey, are you listening?’ said Geordie, nudging me out of my darkness.
‘Sorry, was thinking about onions. How are you getting on?’
‘I’m not. That’s what I was saying. She’s flippin' mental. She accused me of having an affair because she found a pair of boxer shorts in the bed.’ Geordie finished the sandwich, and took another. ‘The thing is... I don’t think they were mine.’
‘They were either your shorts, or not, Geordie. You should know.’
The plan was working. My aftershave on the pillows: two glasses, one empty wine bottle. I thought the best part was holding a bag of potatoes as I weighed in on her computerised programme.
Geordie laughed, spluttering the contents of his sandwich. I brushed them off. ‘Come on Jeff, you know me. If it fits I wear it, and if it doesn’t, I don’t.’ He stuffed his mouth with the last of my special crab sandwich.
‘And leave them on the floor. You’re too lazy to leave your shorts in bed.’ I knew Geordie. Knew he was vulnerable and indolent. I didn’t need Geordie - he needed me.
Geordie’s choking snapped me out of my thoughts. ‘Oh God, Geordie, I forgot you were allergic to crabmeat.’ Even though my heart thumped like a hammer inside my chest, I knew I must appear calm.
‘It’s okay….’ said Geordie, wiping away tears. He coughed before taking a deep breath. ‘I just didn’t chew my food properly.’ He leaned forward. ‘It didn’t taste like crab. Ah heck, it was. My eyes feel gritty. Are they puffy?’
I pushed my hand into my pocket. ‘Yeah, they look a bit red. I have some anti-histamine tablets for hay fever.’
He didn’t have time to take them. As anticipated, he vomited. ‘I feel like crap,’ he said, wiping his mouth with his shirt. I struggled to keep my own lunch down. I handed him the tablets and some water and accompanied him home. He vomited twice more before I got him to his kitchen. ‘Sorry, Jeff, I need to lie down, and sorry I was sick on you.’
‘It’s my fault. I wasn’t thinking when I offered you the sandwiches. Take off your clothes, and I’ll put them in the wash. Think I might need to take an anti-histamine myself. I brushed against some nettles at your back gate.’ I held up my arm. I knew about those nettles. I'd been avoiding them all week.
‘What a pair we make. I have some spare clothes upstairs if you want to change. Might be a bit big, mind.’ Geordie passed me his shirt.
‘Do you want a hand upstairs?’ I asked. Wasn’t part of the plan, but I did feel some guilt.
Geordie declined. I added my own clothes to the wash, before settling down at the foot of stairs. The itch of the nettle stings kept me alert until Geordie’s girlfriend arrived home. She didn’t stay long.
‘You know what,’ said Geordie later. ‘I don’t understand women. It was all a misunderstanding.’
‘Didn’t look good though, did it? I said. ‘What with me in my underwear standing on the stairs, and you in bed.’
‘Why were you on the staircase anyway?’ asked Geordie, opening the fridge door.
‘I was waiting for the wash to finish and fell asleep. Those tablets knock me for six.’
‘They sure do.’ Geordie riffled through the plastic containers on the fridge shelves.
‘Anyway, I woke up, a little cold like, and realised I would have to wait to get my clothes dried, so I thought I would take up your offer and fetch some clothes… then she came in and started screaming at me. I tried to explain, but she wouldn’t listen.’ It was almost true.
‘Fancy some takeaway pizza?’ said Geordie. ‘Listen, don’t let what she said get to you. She’s been paranoid for the last week that I’m gay. I’m glad she’s gone. Think I’ll give women a miss from now on. I had more fun when you lived here. You make me laugh. I still have a spare room if you're interested.’
‘I want extra onion on my pizza,’ I said, smiling. We both knew I would stay.
Love doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s simple. To be near Geordie is enough for me. He’s not gay, but my heart chose him. Sometimes at night, I sneak into his room and watch him sleep. I ache to kiss him. It won’t happen, but I have a reason to live now. I've found love. It’s one-way, but it's enough.
People cry when they cut an onion. Onions don’t cry, and neither should love.
(c) A Cooper 2010