February, 5th

Daniel:

I haven't heard from John since the day after that ugly scene at the gym's parking lot, about ten days ago. He told me he had paid her a visit the following afternoon to see how she was doing and to thank her, but things didn't go very well. She took his presence pretty much as an insult and he realized that her disgust was deeply rooted, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. He tried to laugh when he add that he hadn't noticed that he was such a disgusting brute, and then he shrugged the whole thing off.

I know my friend had admired her for some time and he obviously thought that her actions meant that it was a good time to make a move but apparently that was a wrong assumption. I don't blame him for that - I would have thought the same myself. He's always busy but I guess he's pretty much laying low these days so I call him for some beers tonight to coax him out of his lair.

John is not just laying low; he is simply devastated. Even when things with Chloe soured, even when his father died and everything in his life turned upside down, he always seemed to have reserves of energy and focus; but not now. I had never seen him in such state of brokenness. This woman took my friend's heart and stomped on it while she laughed. I cannot believe so much cruelty directed at someone so deeply and inherently good as John Thornton, who, in turn, won't have a bad word spoken about her. Life is so unfair.

So I do what mates do. We get drunk and we discuss every possible subject but the real problems we have. I try to make him laugh with things from my job at the Metropolitan Police: the hot new intern, watercooler gossip and the stupidity of the new generation of villains (you'd never believe how many cases are solved these days because of idiots checking Facebook in the homes they break and enter), of sports, politics and the chemistry of beer, all of this while we shovel deep fried food into our mouths. Judging by the amount of alcohol we're taking it'll probably come out the same way before night's over.

The third and fourth beers go by and he doesn't say a word about the girl and that's fine with me. A bald man in his fifties on his way out nods our way. John nods back.

- "That man, Robert Watson, he's dating my sister," he says.

-"Really?", I say. My tongue gets a little loose with liquor but John rarely minds.

-"Yep. They're getting quite serious, I hear," he adds

-"Your sister likes'em ripe. Fanny a merry widow wannabe?" There you go. Ethyl fueled sincerity.

-"Yo, Dan. It's my sister we're talking about here," he calls me to order. "You don't need a shrink to know why Fanny always dates older men", he says and lets out a breath while shaking his head. I'm clueless and it shows in my face, or it doesn't, but he goes on. "She never got over our father's death, Daniel. People say I took the worst of it when he died, but at least I made choices. Hard choices, but they were mine. Fanny didn't... she lost it all in the blink of an eye."

John has discussed his father's death with me only once before, more than fifteen years ago, and his words are still clear in my memory. He knew his father suffered from depression and he didn't blame him for ending his own life. That his father's soul-eating disease (in his own words) had caused his demise and that he had learned to love and appreciate life more because of it.

-"I am more like our mother, more focused and quite boring apparently, but Fanny and our father were like two leaves of the same tree. Fun loving, always laughing and joking with each other. My father was my sister's hero, and she was the light of his eyes. They had a special bond... well, a little like my mother and I have" Mrs. Thornton is a force to be reckoned, and she and John don't have a regular mother and son relationship. It's more... it's halfway siblings and business partners and man are they tough with each other.

"Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me if she had been the one who died", he muses aloud. "But thing is, one Thursday morning our father wrote a suicide note, left it in the car and jumped off a building's roof. Fanny was only five years old and all at once she lost a parent, her best buddy, her home, her school friends and everything else that was her world. We had to move to a cheap and awful place, and mother and I were working all the time so she spent most of the day with strangers. When we were home we were exhausted and could never paid her the attention she deserved. The attention she needed," his voice breaks and he pauses to swallow, "I can only imagine how lonely and miserable she must have felt. I tried to fill my father's shoes but I failed horribly."

He takes his empty glass in his hands and rolls it against the table edge, fixing his eyes in the froth marks moving right and left. "When I started making serious money my mother and I tried to make it up to her. We've given her everything we could, we've tried so hard to make her happy... but I don't think we've done a good job of it. You know, Daniel? I really hope this Watson guy loves her and makes her happy. I don't mind he's old enough to be her father, I only hope she's happy."

I stay silent, aware that I'm too drunk to say anything really helpful or coherent. It hovers over my head the thought that my friend barely tolerates his sister, which I keep to myself because it's only another source of guilt. But letting him taking things off his chest seems good enough for now; and it's mostly all I can do.

-"I used to think that ultimately Chloe had been right, you know? She wanted babies and I didn't, that's what that big fight was about, that's why she left me. Not that I refused to be a father forever, I only wanted to wait a few years. But a while ago I started to think that it must be nice to have a kid... even if we had divorced I could be somebody's father. The outcome has to be positive, and there's nothing I'd like more than receiving presents on Father's day. Now, seeing how tough things have been with Fanny, it's good I didn't subject anybody else to my lack of parental abilities, don't you think?"

He laughs and it's all so sad that I order a new round of drinks. We drink until shit faced and in our way home, we predictably barf it out on the curbside. Him under a flowery bush, me in the green trash can of recyclables, and I'd rather hammer myself in the balls than letting him go to his home alone. He's crashed at my place before so I give him the intelligence code and he accepts.

He sleeps on my couch and the next day get up hungover, have a coffee and go on our lives. We'll never mention this conversation again.

Note: One of my favorite parts of the original is Mr. Thornton's reaction to Margaret's rejection, and I urge you to read it if you haven't. Ch. 26 "Mother and son".

"Soul-eating disease" are words by Heather Armstrong (dooce): "Drama".

February, 9th

Bessy:

Pete, Mary's boyfriend, got me a job as a janitor in the cinema he works at. It's only a few times a week and the pay is modest, but it's something.

The good thing about this job is that I get free tickets to see any movie they play. The bad things is that I seldom like to see the movies they play. Blockbusters, romance, car chases or aliens seem like the original sin, and instead they insist on very strange Danish stuff. Only intellectuals come.

This strange stuff, however, sometimes is funny. A few days ago they had this one about a reformed neo nazi man who has to bake an apple pie, and Mary and I almost peed on our seats once we got the hang of the humor. There have been a couple of good ones for kids and Phil liked them so I think I could invite Margaret.

I phone her and after a few false starts we set on one from Canada, in French unfortunately, but I don't mind reading captions. This one even won an Oscar so I guess I'll like it too.

Thirty minutes into the thing I regret bringing my friend, and by the time it's over Margaret is sobbing incontrolably over my shoulder. I didn't know it was about a man dying of cancer, my God, it was hard even for me, ten years later.

I take Margaret to a late night cafeteria for pankaces a hot cocoa (I've noticed she doesn't drink alcohol), and try to comfort her. She said the similes between the story and her home were unnerving... her mother's painkillers are less effective every day, and doctors don't seem to take her mother's pleas seriously.

For the first time ever someone wants to hear about the most horrible days of my life, the last days of my mother. She asks me about medicine and I see an idea taking shape in her mind.

-"It's a bad idea", I tell her. "Don't get yourself into that, you'll be dealing with dangerous people and your mother's pain is not your fault".

-"I know it's risky... but she's suffering so much. Do you...?"

Her eyes finish her question. And my answer is yes, I know how to get that. Dingers. Weed. Snow. Junk. Things to blow your mind, ease your pain and free you from the problems of your life for a little while. I've never been into them, probably one of the best thing about having Phil in my life, but I know how and where to get them.

But the thing with drugs is that once they found you they'll follow you everywhere. They'll squat your thoughts, your time and your purse, and then your body and your whole life. You'll work for them, you'll live for them, even if you never touch them. I don't want that for Margaret.

February, 10th

Margaret calls me at 11 AM, her mind made up. She knows the risks but after hearing her mother crying in pain and desolation she says it's the best course of action. She argues that if her mother gets hooked it won't be a problem, either; the disease is too extended and she doesn't have much to live.

I hate doing this. I really don't want to. I'm heading for work and then I'll go see this man, nicknamed "Mickey Mouse" because of his squealing voice after I'm out, at 5 o'clock. But Margaret doesn't want me to be involved and asks me if there is any way she can do it herself.

A mule is easier to handle. I simply cannot change her mind, so I give her a phone number and I hope for the best.

The best does not happen.

Notes: the films referenced by Bessy are "Adam's apples" and "The barbarian invasions". The drugs she mentions are: dingers = ecstasy, weed = marijuana, snow = cocaine and junk = heroin. I found the terms in the Urban Dictionary, I don't know if they're all in use or if some are old.

Getting Frederick involved in a mutiny, hiding from the law in Spain and coming back under a disguise is pretty hard these days, with Interpol and all the human tracking that goes on with (and without) our express consent. Besides, it would imply that Frederick is indeed guilty and mostly the original bases itself on the premises that his involvement in the mutiny wasn't his fault, so this is the best thing I could come up with. A reader pointed out that the National Health System covers terminal patients in home care and this situation is not realistic. I am sorry.

I took this idea right from the film "The barbarian invasions", in which a man with terminal cancer gathers his friends (all seen before in the older film "Le declin de l'empire americain") and their children for a goodbye. The man's son gets him cocaine to alleviate his pain. I must say that I've never seen doctors being indifferent to terminal patients' pain, and just like Bessy does, I think this is a monumentally bad idea.