84. The new online fast-track system

I'm sitting under the desk in the disused office on the third floor, drinking whisky. It is 11.30am and I'm supposed to be in a meeting about the roll-out of the new online fast-track system.

It's quite possible I am having a breakdown, I speculate, as I swirl the whisky around the glass and breathe in its clean disinfectant smell. Oh well. It's been coming for a while. Just one thing: if I am to be insane, I don't want to be dirty or badly dressed, please. If I end up standing in the middle of roundabouts “directing traffic” with a vibrator, or some similar activity, I fully intend to continue to look and smell as fabulous as is possible under whatever my current financial circumstances are at the time.

Being smelly and unhygenic, and wearing ripped or dirty clothes, is something I find deeply distressing. It upsets me in myself, and it disturbs and scares me in other people. It's some kind of deep fundamental association with lack of control, it's like people are actually choosing the ugly side of life.

I'm also distressed by rooms where the furniture is all over the place and doesn't flow properly, and by ugly ornaments and pictures, and by cluttered environments. It's not just dislike, it is actual, physical distress and I can't stay in places like that or around people who don't take care of themselves for very long. One of the reasons this office has become one of my safe spaces is because it has nothing in it except a desk, which is in its right place. Calming.

I think of the picture of two owls which was doing the rounds on the internet a while ago. One owl is saying to the other owl: “I have CDO. It's like OCD, but all the letters are in alphabetical order, AS THEY SHOULD BE.”

I think I probably have some kind of mild OCD, but then I also probably have post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, and the treatment for all of these things is the same and involves a lot of pills and it doesn't get fucking fixed unless you do it yourself anyway because the doctor's surgeries are full of people with mental health problems and there are just too many of us to get the concentrated attention and tailor-made medication required to fix us. You do it yourself, or you stay ill. Lie down and die, or get up and start fighting. Up to you.

At that point, Chris walks around the front of the desk and squats down in front of me. He is half-smiling.

“I've been wondering where you and your boyfriend disappear to,” he says.

I stare at him. I am under a desk, clutching a glass of whisky. I didn't hear him come in. How did I not hear him come in? Although, to be honest, in this situation I was fucked the moment he opened the door.

“Martin's not my boyfriend,” I say.

He takes out his phone and takes a picture of me.

“You know I'm with Jena now?” he says. He is still disturbingly hot. It sickens me that I am fucked up enough to feel turned on by him in this situation. It's also strange that we are communicating better – seeing each other better – than we did when we were actually dating.

I realise I haven't seen Jena for a while. I need to get in touch with her. If this is the guy she's with, she needs me.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asks.

“About what?” I say.

He waves a hand. “This,” he says. “All of this.” His lips twist into a sneer.

Amanda would have a comeback – or a roundhouse - that would send him reeling. Gin would smile, make a joke, charm him till he'd do anything for her. Sally would play the submissive, oh how he would love that.

I am Alice. I say nothing. I realise my skirt is rucked up to my thighs and my hair is greasy. I say nothing. It's my gift to myself, I will never say another unnecessary word to this man.

“I'm going to get your geek boyfriend fired, you know,” he said. “The hearing's next week.”

I see how much he's enjoying this. I also see that I have done exactly what I set out to do to him. I've cracked his facade. This is the man behind the mystery. He is having an emotional response to me, just like I had one to him. He might be having sex with Jena, but his emotions are with me. 

Christ, this is actually a love affair. We are tied to each other and, because he doesn't know how to do anything but hurt and I don't know how to do anything but get hurt, there is some horrific way in which we are absolutely perfect for each other.

Oh, fuck that train of thought. I replace the cap on the whisky and put the glass down next to it and stand up.

“Where are you going?” Chris asks. “Where do you think you're going?”

I walk out of the room without answering.