The kitchen, I decide, dashing towards it. The kitchen with its big pine table and its picture window and its old-fashioned, well-cared-for pots and pans.
I set the box down on the table, and step back for a moment, staring at it. Imagining that it might come to life, open by itself, pour forth an animation and a song and a set of instructions about what to do next.
I hold my hand against my chest, my heartbeat so strong I can almost feel it knocking against my fingers: let me out, let me out, let me out, I’ve been cooped up in here for too damn long…
I recognise the signs that my mind is messing with me. Everything has started to feel a bit psychedelic, the sounds too loud, the colours too bright, bodily organs talking to me. I close my eyes, and count slowly, breathe deeply, focus on the reality.
Michael is next to me, and I blindly reach out, find his hand, clasp it firmly in mine. Michael is real. He is here, he is flesh and blood, I can hold onto him. I can feel his skin, and his neat nails, and the warmth of his body. He is real. He is here. I am real, and I am here.
I calm myself, enough to open my eyes. Enough to try and speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say simply, looking directly into his eyes to show him I mean it. To show him I’m still in the land of the living, the land of the functioning, the land of the mentally competent. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do this – slow down and prove that I’m OK – and it feels old and achingly familiar.
‘OK, cousin dearest – but please don’t do that to me again. If you go la-la, I’ll have to throw gin in your face, and that would be a waste of the finest quality alcohol Bargain Booze can provide. Now, what the fuck just happened?’
‘You use the F-word a lot more than you used to,’ I reply, gently disengaging my fingers from his, looking around the kitchen to anchor myself to its familiarity and homeliness. Nothing can be too wrong with the world if my mother’s Le Creuset pan set is still hanging from the wall; if the blue-and-white striped biscuit barrel still bears its cargo of Rich Tea and digestives.
‘I think I’m allowed a few F-bombs right now,’ Michael says, gazing at me nervously, as though I’m a fragile object made of glass, hovering an inch above a stone floor. As though he might have to whip out a hand and catch me before I shatter. ‘And I think I need a drink. You stay right there – do NOT move!’
I nod, and fake a smile, and assure him that I’m not a flight risk. In fact I’m not. I’m going nowhere – not until I have opened that box. Not until I have unwrapped the tissue paper that surrounds its contents, and the tissue paper of lies that has surrounded my life.
For more than fifteen years I have believed in a betrayal so painful that it locked me in a closet of fear. For more than fifteen years I have believed in a truth that kept me obedient, and safe, and closed. For more than fifteen years I have lived my life in black and white, when it could have been glorious technicolour.
The contents of this shabby, innocent-looking box, resting quietly on a well-polished table in a well-cleaned kitchen, could change everything – and it is terrifying. It shouldn’t be in a cardboard shoebox. It should be in a locked safe, surrounded by crime scene tape and branded with yellow stickers warning that it’s radioactive.
I barely notice the background noise as Michael sloshes and clinks his way to two brand new pink gins. He passes one to me, his own hands trembling. No flamingo this time, I notice. I sniff it, and feel queasy at the aroma.
‘What I’d really like,’ I say firmly, ‘is a nice cup of tea.’
He looks horrified at the very idea, but dutifully goes to fill the kettle, glancing at me over his shoulder every few seconds as he dumps a teabag into a mug. He immediately wipes up a spill with a cloth, rinses the cloth, and folds it neatly. We have both been raised to do this kind of thing on autopilot – to abhor mess, to be tidy, to worship at the feet of the God of Orderliness.
I sit down at the table, warming my hands on the mug, and he sits opposite me, gulping gin so desperately he could be one of those toothless characters in a Hogarth painting.
‘How much do you know,’ I ask, ‘about me? About my … what would your mother have said … my “dark times”?’
‘You mean the times we all know happened but never talk about?’
‘Exactly.’
He frowns, and sips more gin, and seems to be compiling a mental list of what he’s gleaned over the years, from conversations conducted entirely in subtext and meaningful looks.
‘Well, not exactly all of it,’ he replies. ‘You know how it is – heaven forbid we talk about anything as messy as feelings, or nastiness from the past, or body parts that make squelching noises. My mother doesn’t even admit to using the toilet, never mind talking openly about what happened with you. But from what I’ve pieced together, you were … ill. Mental health ill. You had to be hospitalised, and that’s pretty much it – I don’t know why. I don’t know how long for. I don’t really know anything.’
I nod, as he has confirmed exactly what I thought would be the case.
‘Isn’t it strange,’ I say, staring out at the garden, with its neat hedges and perfectly shaped conifers lined up like child soldiers, ‘that you know so little?’
‘Well, no – not in our family. We all know that if we pretend something isn’t happening for long enough, it will simply cease to exist. Like me being gay, or you having been put in a home for unfortunate women, or my dad banging his secretary.’
‘Really?’ I say, eyes popping wide in surprise. I find that idea hard to digest – Uncle Simon is a serious and thin-lipped man, defined by his work. It’s hard to imagine him banging anyone, even Aunt Rosemary. Especially Aunt Rosemary.
‘Well, I don’t know. I made that last one up to use as an example, and anyway, I think they call them PAs these days … but I do have my suspicions. Working late, coming home with his tie a fraction of an inch out of place, occasionally getting caught out with a genuine smile on his face … you know, all the classic signs. Mum probably knows anyway – she’s just ignoring it because it’s the least disruptive thing to do.’
He’s right. If Simon was having an affair, Rosemary would turn her patented blind eye to it, unless there was any threat of it tumbling out into the public arena and embarrassing her. Then she’d probably hire a hitman and have his body dissolved in a bath of acid.
‘I know that’s what our family’s like, Michael – you’re totally right. But isn’t it weird that me and you have never talked about it? I mean, we’re close, right? Why have you never said, “Hey, cuz, tell me all about that time you went ever-so-slightly doolally … ” or something? Your generation seems so much more aware of mental health issues than mine was – we happily went round calling each other schizos and basket cases for fun. Yours takes it much more seriously – some of the taboos are breaking. So isn’t it weird that we’ve never discussed it?’
He blanches, and frowns, looking very uncomfortable and very young and very much like he’d prefer it if all the taboos stayed firmly intact.
‘I suppose it is,’ he says, eventually, shrugging. ‘But it never seemed like the right thing to do. Partly because it seems like something that might upset you, and partly because … well, I suspect I’ve succumbed to the brainwashing, haven’t I? Drunk the Kool-Aid and bought into the family ethos – subconsciously decided that such matters are best left alone. Do you … do you want to talk about it?’