Free The Cleaner by Mark Dawson Page B

heavy-set, with a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and hair cropped close to his scalp. His arms bulged with muscle and his shirt was tight around his chest and shoulders.
    Milton approached the table.
    “Can I get you a drink?” the man said.
    “Coffee, please.”
    The man smiled, took one of the mugs and added two spoonfuls of coffee granules. “Haven’t seen you before,” he said.
    “My first time.”
    The man poured hot water into the mug. “Your first meeting here or your first ever?”
    “First time here.”
    “Alright then,” the man said. A silence extended but, before it could become uncomfortable, the man filled it. “I’m Rutherford,” he said. “Dennis Rutherford, but everyone just calls me Rutherford.”
    “John.”
    “Nice to meet you, John.” He handed him the mug. “Help yourself to biscuits. The meeting’s about to get started. It’s busy tonight––go in and get a seat it I were you.”
    Milton did. The adjacent room was larger, with a low, sloping ceiling and small windows that were cut into the thick brick walls that served as foundations for the church above. A table had been arranged at one end with two chairs behind it, and the rest of the space was filled with folding chairs. A candle had been lit on the table, and tea-lights had been arranged on windowsills and against the wall. The effect was warm, intimate and atmospheric. Posters had been stuck to the walls. One was designed like a scroll, with twelve separate points set out along it. It was headed THE TWELVE STEPS TO RECOVERY.
    Milton took a seat near the back and sipped the cheap coffee as the chairs around him started to fill.
    A middle-aged man wearing a black polo neck top and jeans sat at one of the chairs behind the table at the front of the room. He banged a spoon against the rim of his mug and the quiet hush of conversation faded away. “Thank you,” the man said. “Good to see so many of you––I’m glad you could come. Let’s get started. My name is Alan, and I’m an alcoholic.”
    Milton sat quietly at the back of the room. Alan was the chairman, and he had invited another speaker to address the group. The second man said that he was a lawyer, from the city, and he told his story. It was the usual thing: a man who appeared to be successful was hiding a barrage of insecurities behind addictions to work and drink, a tactic that had worked for years but now was coming at too high a price: family, relationships, his health. The message was clichéd––Milton had heard it all before, a thousand times before––and yet the passion with which the man spoke was infectious. Milton listened avidly, and, when he looked at his watch at the end of the man’s address, half an hour had passed. The floor was opened after that and the audience contributed with observations of their own. Milton felt the urge to raise his hand and speak but he had no idea how best to start his story. He never did. Even if had been able to tell it, he would not have known where to start. There was so much that he would not have been able to relate. He felt the usual relief to be there, the same sense of peace that he always felt, but it was something else entirely to put those thoughts into words. How would the others feel about his history? The things that he had done? It made him feel secretive, especially compared to the searing honesty of those around him. They talked openly and passionately, several of them struggling through tears of anger and sadness. Despite the sure knowledge that he belonged there with them, his inability to take part made him feel like a fraud.

 
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    13.
    AT THE END of the meeting a group gathered to talk and smoke cigarettes outside. They smiled at Milton as he climbed the steps from the basement. He knew that their smiles were meant as encouragement for him to stop and speak. They meant well, of course they did, but it was pointless; he couldn’t possibly. He smiled back at them but did not stop. He