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| Hurricane Katrina “Crisis Care, can I help you? My name is Katrina.” “What are you wearing?” “We’re not here for that — we’re here to talk about feelings.” “I have some feelings. I’m feeling horny and I’m feeling my dick. What are you wearing?” “Would you say that you feel suicidal?” The phone line goes dead. That question usually does it — the double-edged, all or nothing, suicide poser. The ‘have you got the balls or are you wasting my time?’ challenge. I scribble out the time that I wrote on the notepad barely a minute earlier, lean back in the brown recliner and sigh. I stretch until my neck clicks. The night is young. Back in the communal area I flop onto a huge spotted cushion. Mismatched sofas form an awkward rectangle and magazines older than most of the volunteers clutter the Formica coffee table. A pathetic tree, barely a twig, is adorned with pink 1970’s lights that sizzle and threaten to die every hour. The batteries died weeks ago in the Singing Santa — he used to chant Jingle Bells while thrusting his pelvis like a pornographic Elvis. The walls are magnolia. It’s supposed to calm the mind. I once thought it odd that they’d chosen serenity when the callers couldn’t see it. Now I know that it’s for our benefit. Us, the Crisis Line volunteers. Sam, the token male who’s here to protect us from the horrors of the night, is reading What Car? magazine and picking his nose. Alyson comes back from making tea in the kitchen we share with Shopaholics Anonymous and grimaces as most who’ve left the damp smelling room do when they return. We’ve been taking turns with the calls, fallen easily into a polite, marriage-like, give and take routine. It was quiet until midnight and now the insane are up. The artificial cheeriness of the season motivates them every year. “Another pervy call, Katrina?” asks Alyson handing me a chipped mug of apathetic tea. My name isn’t Katrina. When I began training, Martin, the then-leader, explained that no two volunteers can have the same name as it gets complicated. Apparently too many Janes or Jennys might push a would-be suicidal completely over the edge. There was already a Clare. I glanced at the newspaper on the side with a coffee stain bleeding into Paris Hilton’s crotch, and the main headline was "Hurricane Katrina Hits". Martin, who’s since left to be an estate agent, said the name was a nice choice, memorable. He was looking at Ms. Hilton’s underwear when he said it. “Just a lonely guy with a hard-on.” I sip my tea and study Alyson. “Is it still forbidden for me to give out my home phone number do you think?” She shows no appreciation of my attempt at humour and Sam is still engrossed in the four-year-old car magazine and the contents of his snout. I should have better things to do than be here at 1:30 AM on a Saturday night, listening to the collective misery of the nation, and I do. My friend Lisa is out on a date with two police officers called Leon. Yes, both of them. One was to have been my date. I had my outfit and underwear picked and then I saw the calendar and my forgotten commitment to the committed. She texted me an hour ago to inform me, with relish I thought, that both were now warmly ensconced in her king-size bed. I long to be warmly ensconced anywhere but here, and yet — by my own free will — I came to this building, while my friend is the one handcuffed to a bed. “I just spoke to a guy who said he wrote his life before he was even born.” Alyson sits opposite me, crosses her legs, and picks up a Horse and Hound magazine. “He goes out dogging with his wife all weekend and sells double glazing during the week.” “Not a very good writer then was he,” I say. “Kind of the Dan Brown of life-writing.” I’m Clare in the communal area and Katrina in the telephone cubicle. Katrina is a master of empathy — Clare’s a master of nothing really, except sarcasm. “I need my back door sorting out,” says Sam. “Pardon?” I bite my lip, sealing the smile that threatens. “The guy, you know, selling double glazing...it reminded me. I need a new back door, at home. I like those ones with the tulips in the glass.” “Ah.” Sam’s name really is Sam. Alyson is known in the real world as Jane, and she is a Jane that would push you over the edge. She’s one of those very dangerous women—opinionated but completely stupid. “I’d never breastfeed a man,” she says. “Would you?” I guess she’s asking me. “Depends how hungry he was, I suppose. Why? I thought your Sean was dairy intolerant.” “He is. I was speaking to this woman earlier who said her husband liked it and now he’s got the neighbour involved and she feels like a cow with a great udder.” “In Tesco’s?” “No, here,” says Alyson. “Anyone for cards?” I ask, shaking my head. This is the only room on the planet where I have a hope of winning. The telephone trills in cubicle one, a sound that I often hear in my sleep, in the shrieking of car tyres on a wet road, on a speeding train. There are only two booths, each shrouded by glass and plywood, painted pink inside, a cold womb. None of us move. Our marital routine is forgotten. Outside another police car speeds past, no doubt late for a warm bed somewhere. There’s a flashing plastic Santa climbing the wall of the Chemist across the road, his sack bulging with empty presents. The telephone rings. “I got the last one,” I say. “He only lasted twenty seconds,” says Sam and I’m tempted to add that he was a typical man then but the phone is waiting. “I’m still wrung out from the weekend dogger,” says Alyson without even looking up. I stand, annoyed. “If this is that guy who can’t shit, you owe me a drink at the Christmas party — both of you.” *** “Crisis Care, can I help you? My name is Katrina.” I write down the time and free my mind of judgement and mockery and mainly Alyson. “I...I...Is this confidential?” He sounds like a first-timer. I hate the ‘Is this confidential?’ question because I know the call will be demanding. Only those who have broken the law or done what is considered by society to be morally reprehensible ask it. It should be what I want — I came here for it. Came here to confirm that humanity has hope, but still I dread that it hasn’t. “Yes. Whatever you say goes no further than me.” I’m not lying. The only thing we can report to the police without permission from a caller is a bomb threat. If a man confesses he has raped his own mother we cannot trace the call. If a woman is going to jump off a bridge we respect her right to die and can only ring for help if she requests it. That’s confidentiality. “I...don’t know where to begin.” “Take as long as you need,” I say. “Might it help to begin with telling me how you feel, how you feel right now?” “I feel...sorry.” I pause. It’s not an answer I’ve heard. I’ve had the depressed, the lonely, the sad, the boastful, the angry, the guilty and the horny. The sorry rarely call. “Can you tell me more about that?” He doesn’t speak. We have prompts on the wall in our cubicle — questions we might need, reminders of rules. There’s a pen to record info we can refer to if the call stretches into an hour, two, even three. Someone has tacked a plastic baby Jesus to the board and he hangs perilously by his foot. “I think I should go,” he says. His accent is familiar but not local. The line crackles. “We’re here twenty-four hours,” I say for the quillionth time in two years. “If you can’t talk now, you can ring back when you feel you’re more able.” He’s quiet. No matter how many times I’ve been here, in this squeaky worn chair, it’s hard to predict the ones who will stay, the ones who hang up. I try and ascertain his age. Mid-fifties or maybe younger but a smoker. Probably alone. Most of them are — lonely people in forgotten flats down dead-end streets. “I’m sorry about what I did,” he says. I hear the theme tune to "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in the background. The suicidal often find time in their death schedule to turn on the TV. “I’m alone now and all I can do is think about it. I hate Christmas.” “I’m sorry that you’re alone. Can you tell me what it is that you think about?” “I can’t. You’d judge me.” “I’m not here to judge, I’m just here to listen.” “You would judge. You would.” “No, we are simply here to explore your feelings.” Sometimes it is hard to find the next question, one this isn’t imposing or threatening, one that will help the caller face his or her demons. I glance at the prompts. Alyson knocks on the glass window and motions a T sign with her hands. I nod. The phone rings in the other cubicle and Sam goes to answer it. I turn the light down. I don’t like the dark at home but it helps me find my way when I’m here. It’s 2:32 AM. “Are you still there?” he asks. “I’m still here,” I say softly. Though we offer silence, as much as the words, most callers don’t like it. If we answer the phone and the line is quiet we do not hang up for at least ten minutes. Some need time to begin. What has been bottled up for years will not easily be released in two minutes. “I’ll wait as long as you need,” I say. “I did something I never should have,” he says. “A long time ago.” “Why are you thinking about it now?” “I’ve been thinking about it for years. I think about it every night. I can’t turn out the lights.” “Would you describe yourself as suicidal?” I have jumped in too early with the suicide question. It’s never easy to bring it up. Like a virgin playing Guess How at foreplay I’ve learnt with time when to push, when to withhold, but I do get it wrong. His silence tells me I’ve pushed. I wait, anticipating a click and the dial tone. “Do you think I should feel suicidal?” he demands. “Is that how bad you think it is? Maybe I should just end it all. Maybe you’re right, maybe I deserve to die.” “No, I...I..." Have to get back on track. “Can you describe the feelings surrounding what you did? What do you feel when you think about it now, apart from sorry.” “I feel like I’m being crushed by the guilt.” “That must be difficult.” “Some days I can barely breathe. I’m not suicidal but I feel like the life is being squeezed out of me, that there is no room for this guilt. It’ll kill me.” “Does it help to talk about it?” I ask. “Maybe. I never have. I hate Christmas.” “I’m glad you were able to talk tonight.” I am glad. These are the moments you hope for. The moment when you realise that listening, in the dark, to the anonymous agony of another human is helping them release the pain. “She was only ten,” he says. I move the receiver away from my ear. It feels heavy in my hand, alien. The Santa in the lounge has a burst of energy and sings the first line of Jingle Bells before falling over with one last thrust, and dying. Alyson brings in tea and places it on the notepad. She mouths, “Are you okay?” and I nod. I’m not but I nod anyway because she’d rather I did. I close my eyes. I sip the tea. I am Katrina, not Clare. Katrina can cope with all that the callers tell her. Katrina has talked to teenage girls until the pills finally dissolve, to grown men who cry and cut chunks out of their arms because no one else believes what they say, to women who cry and can’t remember why. “You still there?” “Who was ten?” I ask and I can’t remember if that’s one of the right questions and I focus on remembering in case I know the answer already. “It was Christmas. I’d gone with presents. First time I’d been in ages. I turned off the light...she didn’t like that...” I stop making notes. I think of the man writing his life before he was born. I feel I’m writing mine, now, on a lined, yellowing notepad, with drawings of stars and hearts in the corner, and circles of tea around my story. “No...we should...tell me more how you...feel.” Katrina knows the rules. It’s not about the act, the events, it’s about the feelings. Always the feelings. Get them out. Flush them out. “I want to talk about that night.” He’s agitated. “Isn’t that what you’re here for? I can’t keep it in anymore. You have to help me. You have to hear it.” “You want forgiveness?” I ask. Sam looks over at me from his cubicle. I’m not following the script. I know my voice has risen higher than is accepted, that the empathy has gone. I’ve never handed a call over to another volunteer but I wonder if I should. I don’t want to hear about the Christmas of a ten-year-old without the lights. “I’m sorry.” Is he saying sorry to Clare or to Katrina? The tea that I drank only minutes ago rises in my throat, warm, vile. I hold the receiver away from my ear again, move it slowly towards its cradle, but can’t end the connection. I shift it back to my ear. He is weeping. Chris Tarrant is congratulating someone on winning eight thousand pounds. “I can’t forgive you,” I say. “That’s...not what we’re here for.” “You have to.” “I can’t.” The caller sounds like he might be climaxing, and the TV audience cheer him on, but he is sobbing. He is sobbing and it sounds like my own grief, but my tears fall quietly. Then the line dies. I listen for another minute, not quite believing he has gone, and I turn on the light. My head hurts. My throat aches. I wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve. *** “Bad one?” asks Alyson, her tone sympathetic but her manner indifferent. She’s expecting my usual sarcasm. I can’t find any. “My tea not very nice?” She eyes the full cup. Sam concludes his call and joins her, blocking my exit from the now claustrophobic compartment. Wherever I look there are questions. Black, bold, demanding questions. Tell me more about this? How does it make you feel? Do you want to die forever? I can’t think how many times I’ve asked them, or how many different answers I’ve heard in response, but I know that I need to get out. “You were a bit harsh with that caller,” says Sam. “Want to talk about it? Call the shift team leader?” “Don’t use your jargon on me.” I push through their wall. “I’m not one of your fucking callers.” I know they are looking at one another in confusion behind my back as I weave my way into the lounge. I don’t sit, feel too restless. Outside the lights continue their cheerless vigil. Maybe I’m on the wrong side of the phone call — maybe I should be at home ringing the Crisis Line instead of answering to others, in the glass box, surrounded by unresolved questions. “You do realise that it’s pointless, that we can’t really do anything for these people.” I speak to Sam because Alyson is reading Horse and Hound again. “If you thought that was true you wouldn’t be here,” he says. “Whatever that caller just said, you made a difference by listening. By them offloading on you they’ve faced something. Where else can they do that? Where? Family members never give a crap, friends just tell you it’ll all come out in the wash, strangers walk away.” I know he’s right. I came here to try and make a difference, to save a life, if not physically then emotionally. I think about the girl who had cigarette burns all over her back and how it took her two hours to admit that her own mother had done it, while drunk on cheap cider. “Perhaps we need to face our own demons before we take on those of the world.” I pack my apple and book and cards, gather my scarf and coat from the hat-stand adorned with threadbare tinsel. “You’re going?” Alyson looks up. “Must have been a shitty call,” she says. “That’s it, you’re going? Just like that?” I’ve never seen Sam so ruffled. He’s blinking like an insomniac and keeps wiping his hands on his jeans. He looks at Alyson, perhaps for back up, perhaps for explanation. “Next time we ask a caller how they feel… we should just answer it for ourselves first. Have you ever asked yourself Sam? Have you ever answered it honestly? Do you even know?” “Did you take something before you came tonight?” Alyson narrows her eyes at me and resumes the horse advice page. “You should write the call up on the log before you leave,” says Sam. I pick up the well-chewed pen that dangles on string from the huge pad, an account of every call received, separated by date, united by words. We scale the caller on how suicidal they are, one being an active suicide, five being a time-waster. We write their gender, estimate their ages, record the name if given, and outline a general sum-up of the story. I pause, roll the pen between my fingers, and fill in the gaps. “Male, approx 50, scale 3, poss depressed – upset – reliving previous incident – poss abuse – alone – first-timer.” “Did they give a name?” asks Sam, reading over my shoulder. “No,” I say. I write down William. “I thought you said...” I drop the pen and watch it swing like a noose. “Remember to turn the Christmas lights out when you leave,” I say to Sam and close the door behind me. |
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| Louise Beech |
| Louise Beech is a 37 year-old, long time columnist and travel writer, who unscrupulously uses her children and husband for material. Now exploring a passion for fiction she finds that many of her stories are water inspired, either born of her recent flood experiences or her love of the ocean. She's never happier than when she's travelling, with kids in tow, and imagining what she'll write. |
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