When You Wake up and Scream

Something had woken Naoise up, and she opened her eyes slowly, groggy with sleep. She sat up when she realised that she was still in Conán's flat, and she looked around to see if she could spot him. She peered into he bedroom but the bed looked as though it hadn't been slept in for several days. Frowning, and now feeling increasingly worried about Conán's mental state as well as his physical state, she turned back to the kitchen and living area, which was also quiet and deserted. She wondered if she had gone out until she spotted movement from where the bathroom door was slightly ajar. She crept over and stood there for a few minutes, realising that Conán was muttering to himself and he sounded angry, and to her horror and surprise he also sounded as though he had been crying, or that he was still crying.

She gently pushed the door open slightly. Conán was kneeling by the bath with his arms resting on the side of it, and Naoise's breath caught in her throat when she realised what he was doing.

"Come on, just do it," he was muttering to himself, and his left arm was straightened over the bath and his right hand was holding a large knife against his wrist. 'Just do it!'

Naoise was frozen for a second, before she realised that if she didn't act quickly, Conán was going to do himself some serious harm. She couldn't let him do that to himself.

She walked softly over to where he was kneeling. He didn't realise that there was somebody behind him. He was rocking backwards and forwards and muttering, seemingly in a world of his own. His hands were trembling violently and the knife was bumping dangerously against his wrist, right over the main veins.

Naoise acted on instinct. She knelt down beside him and calmly reached over to the hand that held the knife. She took the knife out of his grasp, and to her relief he didn't try to keep a hold of it. He let go of it easily, his hand still trembling violently, and Naoise took it away from him and placed it on the floor behind her.

"Come on," she said softly to him, pulling him to his feet and bringing him out of the bathroom. He was trembling and his eyes were glazed, and Naoise knew he was drunk by the way he was swaying. She pushed him down onto the sofa and went to the kitchen, turning the kettle on and making him a strong coffee. All the while she was doing so, Conán sat on the sofa, rigid, unblinking, his fists clenched and resting on his knees. She came back round to him and sat beside him, and she had to help him drink the coffee as he seemed so far away.

"I should have done it," he whispered. "I should have just done it."

"No, Conán. That's not the answer." Naoise told him softly. "Please, Conán, will you let me know what's going on in that head of yours?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Conán muttered, and all of the energy had gone from him. He was trembling still, his face pale and his cheeks tearstained, and his eyes were glazed and unfocused. Naoise felt helpless, utterly helpless.

"Conán, please! I'm so worried about you! I don't want you to hurt yourself; you have to understand that life's worth living, you're just going through a tough patch. If you work through these things will get better. After tonight, they can't get any worse!"

"You don't know what this is like," Conán muttered, and his voice was choked up as though he were in severe physical pain. His eyes didn't move from their spot on the wall, and Naoise wondered if he were seeing anything at all.

"Tell me, Conán. It doesn't have to make sense, just talk about it. You'll feel so much better!"

"It's too hard to speak about, it'll make so little sense that there's no point."

"What's making you so desperate that you don't want to live anymore?"

"Everything." Conán whispered. "I can't take this anymore, I can't take this whole living thing anymore, I'm not worth it, I'm not going anywhere, nothing is good anymore! Eating, sleeping, being with people, being without people, it means nothing, it's just a fog of emptiness and I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of it all."

"Conán, it sounds as though you're depressed, severely. You can get through this, millions of people get depressed!"

"I don't see the point in getting through it. What's the point? So I can feel optimistic about being an unloved bastard who nobody wants?"

"If nobody wants you to carry on living then why am I sitting here with you?" Naoise asked him. "Why, if I didn’t care about you, did I take the knife off you? If I didn't care, I would have stood and let you do it, if you did at all. Do you think you would have done it?"

Conán paused.

"I don't know,' he muttered. 'I wanted to, but I was scared."

"If you truly wanted to die you'd already be dead. If you have to stop and think, then you don't want to die. This was a cry for help, Conán, and you need to get that help."

"There's no point!" Conán suddenly shouted, and it was the first time since before he had been in the hospital that Naoise had heard any ounce of emotion in his voice. However, when he spoke again, his voice was back to its flat monotone. "There's just no point. I don't see the point in anything anymore."

Naoise sighed.

"Conán, I'm not going to rest with you, you know that? You're going to snap out of this and realise that people do care about you. I care about you. Finish this coffee and sit here a minute, I need to do something."

Naoise went into his bedroom and closed the door slightly, leaving it open just enough for her to be able to see him sitting on the sofa, still rigid and staring straight ahead. He was scaring her with how still he was sitting. She took out her mobile and dialled a number, still not taking her eyes off Conán.

"Mummy, it's Naoise," she said, when someone answered on the phone.

"Naoise! Are you all right, dear? I just heard about poor Mary, and I know you and her were close and all …"

"I know, Mummy, but I think I'm doing OK. I'm going to come home again tonight, is that all right?"

"Of course it's all right! You know you can come back whenever you want to."

"I need to ask a favour, though, and will you hear me out before you say yes or no?"

"Oh, Lord, Naoise, what is it?"

"Well, you know my friend I've been telling you about? Conán?"

"The young man who's always drunk?"

"Yes," Naoise squirmed. That didn't sound good. "Well, I want him to come back with me tonight."

"What? Naoise, no –"

"You said that you'd hear me out!"

"Oh, for crying out loud, so I did … all right, let's hear it."

"He's going through a really tough time at the moment, Mummy. Well, I've told you he was abused when he was younger and all that, and recently he's got really depressed about it. He thinks no one cares about him and he doesn't see the point in living anymore, and he tried to kill himself today."

Naoise's mother gasped.

"Naoise, just who are you hanging around with?"

"Mummy, I'm really worried about him. I just want him to come back with me and stay for the night, because I think it would do him good to be around people for the night, and he doesn't look as though he's eaten in days and your cooking is practically heaven."

Naoise's mother laughed.

"Now you're just trying to butter me up."

"I'm not, I swear. It's just I've told him a fair bit about my family and it seems to cheer him up, thinking about a decent family, seems his own childhood left a lot to be desired. Please, can I just bring him round?"

"Well, you can bring him over, but I'm not sure what your father will say. As long as you can persuade him that you're only friends, then I'm sure he won't be too distressed."

"All right, thank you, Mummy! And please, just keep in mind what I've told you in case he's a bit strange."

"All of your friends are strange, Naoise."

"Well, not like this."

"Good Lord, what have I gotten myself into? All right, I'll see you soon."

"OK, thanks, Mummy."