The Perfect Life

Chapter Five - Have you met my friends?: Pity and Self Loathing

Finding the group’s usual meeting place, Divney entered the abandoned pub. The desolate drinking hole, which used to be brimming with customers in its glory days, was now just a home for the PL support group to express their inner turmoils.

The speaker paused as he waited for the detective to sit. Divney found the nearest chair and dragged it closer to the circle of “Soppy sods”, as he liked to call them, and plonked his buttocks firmly on its bumpy surface.

The chairman of the group gave him a stern look, “Glad you could finally join us,” he said in a voice swaddled with sarcastic undertones, which Divney decided to ignore.

As the disturbance subsided, the speaker continued.

“And that’s when I ‘eard she would ne’er move or talk again. I found it hard to deal with. Sometimes… I find myself empty a bottle a night, and I wakes up to find I’d pissed my pants.”

A few people nodded to show their understanding; they had been there before.

“And to top it off my eight year old son has to cook, clean, and change me. I should be the one taking care of ‘im, I know I should. But when it comes down to it, I ain’t got the stones to yank myself outta this.” The dishevelled speaker sat down tried to roll a cigarette despite his shaking hands.

Another shot upwards and ready to dish out their sorrows. A curly haired brunette who had a plethora of food stains on her dull grey blouse. She kept her arms around her chest in attempt to hide the embarrassing marks - to little effect.

“Hi everyone, for anyone that doesn't know me yet, I’m Karen and my husband was a victim of the Beta test. He stupidly volunteered as a test rat to help improve PL when it started out. Well, now he’s as mentally active as a coma patient and what do I get? A shitty note with ‘Sorry to hear about your loss’ from the Genesis Group, there's no ‘Perfect Life’ for me.”

The group suddenly perked up and applauded her uncapped honesty. A truth which touched each and every one of them. Karen felt a brief instance of happiness, it was the first time, she had felt truly accepted. She belonged here, they were her people.

The chairman signalled to listeners to calm down by patting the air in front with his hands. When the silence finally prevailed over the noise, it was broken by Karen as she resumed her speech.

“I think my son’s using behind my back. He comes home late from school and never tells me where he’s been,” she said as tears flowed heavily from her eyes, “I just don't want to lose another to PL.”

She collapsed down on her seat immediately afterwards and received a tender touch on her shoulder from a sympathetic neighbour.

Divney could feel his turn fast approaching, some days he was not sure why he chose to come here. Airing his problems felt like he was exposing his nether regions for everyone to see. It wouldn’t help, he was sure of that. All the participants who had shared their feelings only seemed to enrich their doubt, pity, and self loathing. Feeling the eyes of the chairman boring through his skin, he took to the floor.

“Yeah, I’m detective Divney and I see death every day. It only serves to remind me that my wife is only a fraction away from that condition. Instead of hearing her hum songs in the kitchen, all I listen to now is that monotonous beep from that blessed machine. Many a time, I have looked at it and wanted to switch it off,” he announced in an almost robotic tone before returning to his seat.

The room went silent as a morgue. The seated crowd exchanged unknowing glances until a few uncoordinated claps emerged, cutting through the dead air.

A familiar hand patted his shoulder. Divney turned and embraced its source: his old friend John.

“Divney, its been a long time old boy,” he said with a slight air to his voice.

“Yeah it’s bin a while”

It was true, it had been some time since Divney had seen John’s face. Not through lack of trying. Divney had made several attempts to call him to no avail, when his PL support attendance withered to nothing.

Before John could ask Divney another question, the chairman coughed.

“May we continue chaps?” he said in his stern disapproving voice.

A few more participated in the spilling of their guts, until the meeting adjourned and the group dispersed, leaving only Divney and John to continue their discussion. Reaching from behind the bar, John produced two unopened beers.

“For old time's sake?” he said as he handed one to Divney.

“To old times,” they both announced as they clinked their bottles together.

“How have you been Divney? Still working the PL case?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?

“Don’t you read the tabloids? It’s the only news worth reading. How’s you wife?

“Stable, yours?”

“The same, I wonder if she will ever wake up. I hope one day, I’ll open the door and she will welcome me at the door.”

“Damn, be nice wouldn’t it, I’m fed up of doing all the cooking,” he said in an attempt to make light of the situation.

“She was pregnant, you know, my wife.”

“What? I didn’t know Jeane was pregnant.”

“I just couldn’t tell you before Divney, I’ve only just come to terms with it myself. I had to have it terminated, my own son, so she could live. Her body and mind wouldn’t have handled the birth they said. Extra duress under her critical condition would have ended her life. I keep seeing the unborn baby’s face in my dreams. Did I do the right thing, choosing her life over his?”

Divney leant forward and squeezed John’s shoulder.

“You did what was necessary. You don’t know how the boy would’ve turned out, damaged in some way. You made the right choice. I’d have done the same.”

Looking to change the subject, Divney’s eyes glanced around his surroundings.

“You remember what it was like before PL?” asked Divney.

“Yeah the disease, that was horrific, killed almost half the population.”

The detective shook his head, “No, before then.”

“Yeah they were good times.We took it for granted though. Nobody saw that disease coming, especially at that scale. A bloody miracle we survived that. Maybe we’re God’s chosen ones.”

“If that's the case, the world is well and truly buggered,” Divney piped in.

They both laughed, forgetting their troubles and worries, enjoying each other’s company for that moment. A moment which came to a halt as quickly as it began. The laughter was broken by the sound of Divney’s phone. Flicking the the screen towards him, he saw who was calling. Ryan.

“Sorry John, I gotta take this. It’s important,” he said as he got up and moved to the other side of the room.