I am flying to Canada on Friday. It’s the World Congress on Brain Injury. I’m presenting a poster. That’s not what wakes me up this morning. Science meetings and presentations don’t faze me but they do remind me of the old days, when I was a medic.
The thing is, Friday is a long flight—via Dubai to Montreal, a chilly and unfamiliar city. At the conference, there will be hordes of new people to engage with, hours of lectures about topics that matter to me, and long evenings trying to be sociable before finding my way back to my hotel alone.
I think I’m scared.
Yesterday, Sunday reminds me of my frailty. It’s intense.
I spend the day wrestling with building issues and budgets. I’m going to the theatre in the evening, but that will be fine. I’ll relax once the lights go down.
Brain fatigue doesn’t work like that.
My friend Ann picks me up at 4 pm. She is a good person. She tells others that I am her “cultural partner”—which sounds dodgy, I know. No hanky-panky, she’s 82. I regularly accompany her to theatre and musical events when she can’t find a more broadly educated escort.
I know I’m in trouble as we drive into town.
“Oh yes, Dexy’s Midnight Runners! Turn it up, Ann! Drive faster, let’s go!”
“Bruce, please.”
“Come on, grandad, get out the way! Fuck sake.”
Scary for Ann. She won’t understand what’s happening. Control, for me, is a delicate illusion that shatters under pressure. How would Ann know? She’s never seen this before.
There’s a scrummage in the theatre car park, cars crawling in all directions, no one giving space, everyone staring straight ahead, muscling in and out of spots. Ann’s window is down. Big mistake.
“IS THERE A FIRE?” I shout across Ann at the lady in the Porsche Cayman that’s an inch from our wing mirror.
The lady’s window winds down. “What did you say?” Porsche-woman wants a fight. And in this state, I’m hungry for conflict—emboldened, invigorated. The adrenaline rush of confrontation is the only thing keeping me upright.
“BRUCE, stop it.” Ann is mortified.
I laugh and for a moment, I get a grip. But not really.
“I’m being overcome by the stink of piss,” I yell as we take the stairwell down to the ground floor.
“Bruce, please.”
Next, the euphoria leaves and my anxiety grows.
ALCOHOL. That’s the answer. Not really, though.
The bar queue is long, and my mouth is unhinged. I moan to my fellow queuers about staffing levels. I even tell them I’m brain injured. I have never done that before. When the tannoy announces that the play is about to start, I lose it.
“Sir, you must go in now, otherwise we will lock you out.”
The drinks line disappears empty-handed into the dark.
I can’t bear my own internal turmoil. I’m not leaving without my therapy.
“Three beers, please. NOW.”
The bar lady looks worried. I just stare straight ahead. She tries to apologise.
“I’m not interested,” I snap.
I’m rude to the usher too, but she lets me passed as the lights dim.
Auto-pilot. Sit down. Drink. Drink.
Two bottles straight down. Takes the edge off my terror but I’m in free fall.
Ann has made sandwiches that she slips to me in the gloom. I eat eight quarters of chicken and mayo in the dark. One greedy mouthful each time; fairly sure I eat some of the clingfilm too.
The usher catches Ann take a nibble of her ham and mustard and comes over to tell her off. God only knows what I would have done if the usher had shone the torch in my stuffed face.
There’s a voice that only appears in my head when I am truly unhinged.
Unpeel the sandwich and slap her cheeks with the mayonnaise.
That’s him—that’s my inner voice. Now I’m really worried.
“I’m not OK,” I tell Ann in the first interval.
“Why don’t you catch a cab home?”
“I don’t think I know how. Will you look after me if I stay?”
I did and she does.
I was planning to review the play.
Osage something it’s called.
Feuding families. Jealous daughters. Fighting.
But I cannot. I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember. I lost the time.
One minute, the family gathers for a funeral—Dad’s suicide, I think.
The next, there is a woman in a dressing gown lying on the floor at the front of the stage, bawling something unintelligible as the lights dim.
The lights go down, then up.
I applaud but I cannot stand up. Not yet. The cast will have to forgive me for sitting with my head in my hands.
I am already afraid for the exit. The stairs are steep, and the crowds will be eager to get back to the killing fields of the car park. I might fall. I might take Ann with me. Crush her skull and her ham sandwiches.
This is how fatigue is for me. I should have planned the day better. It’s not fair on others.
I am my own responsibility. Montreal mustn’t go this way. I’m on my own there.
No “F**k Trump” T-shirt or risqué banter with immigration staff or police officers.
Stay in control. Rest well. Listen to my brain.
I’m going back to bed now
Born Voyage.
