Copyright © 2016 by Ian Ayris
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Digital Formatting by Craig Douglas
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintended.
Ian Ayris
As well as being the author of One Day in the Life of Jason Dean, Ian has forty short stories published online and in print. His debut novel — Abide With Me — was published in 2012 by Caffeine Nights Publishing, and its sequel — April Skies — is to be published in April 2016.
Ian is a qualified counsellor, a creative writing tutor and runs his own editing business.
At weekends he works in a care home for adults with learning difficulties and mental health issues, whilst also indulging in his lifelong passion for the Mighty Dagenham and Redbridge Football Club.
Ian lives in Harold Hill, Essex, with his girlfriend, Karen, his three children, Mollie, Charlie, and Summer, and two guinea pigs by the name of Sanchez and Bob.
Chapter One
Sometimes a Great Notion – what a book that is. Ken Kesey. Everyone knows Kesey from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – those what’ve read it, that is. And if you ain’t read it, I fully advise you to do so. It’s a fuckin cracker. R.P. McMurphy – Jack Nicholson in the film – he’s some character, he is. Switched on, but sort of sad. Empty. Like there’s a whole world of pain he ain’t got words for. He’s fuckin funny, but complex with it, you know. And that bit in the book where the Indian lifts up that sink, that big old fuckin sink and… Shit. I’ve gone and spoiled it for you now, ain’t I? The Indian liftin up the sink bit. Still, hard fuckin luck. You should have read it in the first place.
My name is Jason Dean. And I’m lyin in bed. Beth, that’s the missus, she’s lyin next to me, far away as she can get, snorin gentle like a baby. Love watchin her sleep, I do. Even though she hates me fuckin guts.
I can’t stand this time of the mornin, just before the sun comes up. Fuckin hate it. It’s like the end of an endless night, you know, that tension where you know everything what you’ve known all your life is gonna change in a heartbeat, and you’ll never get it back. When the sun comes up, it’s a whole new fuckin world.
Me, I’d rather live in the dark.
Best get the kettle on, I’m fuckin parched. Always am when I get up. Sleepin with your mouth open does that to a fella. Beth has a go at me all the time about it. Used to, anyway. Like I says, she don’t have nothing to do with me no more.
I climb out my side of the bed, knowin it’s gonna creak. Can’t help that. Geezer like me with fifteen stone on him’s gonna creak a bed when he gets out. Just can’t be helped. Beth snuffles round a bit, but she’s back breathin heavy right away.
I get me dressin gown off the hook behind the door and slip it round me. Never thought I’d be a dressin gown geezer, but there ain’t nothing like it of a mornin to keep the chill off. Bit of luxury, you know. Again, I know the door’s gonna creak when I open it – been meanin to sort it for ages, but what with one thing and another, it ain’t really been on me mind. I open it slow like that’ll stop the creak.
But it don’t. Just makes it louder.
A draft comes off the landin like the wind off the ocean. Beth always leaves the doors and windows open wide at night, other than our bedroom. I won’t have that. I poke me head round into Sophie’s room, then head downstairs.
Hate goin downstairs on me own in the dark. But I do it every mornin. Force meself, you know. Goin down each step, not even seein me hand in front of me face, it’s like I’ve jumped into the inside of meself. Mind you, I been droppin blind into that particular darkness for fuckin ages. Least goin down the stairs I got the stair rail and the wall to hang onto.
Inside, I ain’t got nothing.
I can half see the light off the street lamp comin through the glass in the top of the front door when I get to the bottom, but I keep me eyes closed to that. And I keep em closed, feelin along the walls and through the passage till I get to the kitchen.
When I’m in the kitchen I open me eyes and look out onto the garden. The garden’s shit. Just a jungle of weeds and grass a foot high. I open me eyes to breathe in the last of the moonlight seepin through the kitchen window, and I turn the cold tap on and splash me face all over. And I stay there, leanin over the sink, water drippin off me face, starin at me face in the window. Fuck me. I look awful in the mornin. I know I’ve let meself go. But in me head, it ain’t easy keepin things straight. I got me job to take care of, and there’s Beth, and Sophie – me darlin little Sophie. She ain’t never out me head.
There’s a fox screeches somewhere in the dark. Then another one. Talkin, probably. If foxes talk. Sounds like they’re havin a right old barney cos it don’t come across too fuckin pleasant. You pick them sort of things up, them sort of dulcet fuckin tones of the female kind, when you been on the wrong end of em all these years like I have.
I dry me face with a tea–towel, and fold it back up nice in the drawer so Beth don’t notice. Hates me dryin me face on the tea–towels, Beth does.
I get a couple of mugs out and fill the kettle up. Beth ain’t gonna be up before I’m gone, and she wouldn’t take a drink off me anyway cos, like I said, she hates me fuckin guts, but just seein two mugs sittin there side by side, sort of steadies me a bit. Takes me back to better times when it was just me and Beth. Every mornin we’d have a cuppa in bed, cuddle up, talk about the world, talk about each other, sometimes just lay there sippin tea and thinkin how fuckin beautiful everything is. Then Sophie come along and it was like we both found something we loved more than each other.
Maybe that’s why I leave that empty mug sittin on the side every mornin – makes sense of the hurtin, you know.
Kettle’s whistlin and that bloody fox out there starts screechin again, sets a moggie off, and the sound of a proverbial fuckin dustbin lid comes crashin out of nowhere. It’s like the whole fuckin word’s tellin me to keep the fuckin noise down. I pour the hot water out the kettle and into the mug, but me hand is shakin from the fox screechin and the moggie squealin and the dustbin lid crashin, and I’m pourin scaldin hot water all out the top of the mug and all over the counter. Bollocks. Beth’s gonna go mental if she sees this.
I chuck the tea down the sink, dig the teabag out with a spoon and flop it in the bin. I need to get out of here. Onto the streets while there’s some dark left. I grab some clothes off the radiator and stick em on. They’re still a bit damp, but that don’t matter. Boots and jacket on, and I’m shuttin the front door behind me and lettin whatever dark there is left of another long night fold right round me and keep me safe from the day.
***
There’s early mornin Old Bill sirens comin out the estate round the corner. Grew up there, I did. Monksfield House, fourteenth floor. Mum and Dad lived and died on the estate. Never set foot out of it their whole lives. Neither one of em done a day’s work, far as I remember, and we never had no holidays. I got out when I met Beth. Give me something, she did. A reason, you know. A reason to believe I was worth more than I ever fuckin dreamed.
A milk float crawls past. Don’t see em round much nowadays, milk floats. Was alw
ays about when I was a kid. Was the only way you got your milk. Mum used to send me out runnin after em if the birds had got into the gold top. Bastards for doin that, birds. I’d peg it down the stairs cos the lifts was always broke, and I’d be so fucked by the time I reached the bottom I never had the legs to chase the one–legged Irish geezer from across the hall, let alone a fuckin milk float goin two miles an hour. So I’d nab a pint off one of the other doorsteps. Never told Mum that’s where I got the milk. She’d have done her fuckin pieces.
Had Mrs Corrigan, the old biddy from downstairs, bangin on our door one Saturday, sayin I nicked her milk. Mum told her to fuck off, and that her son wouldn’t do no such thing. Truth is, I was more scared of the back of me dad’s hand not to do a bit of thievin here and there to feel too bad about Mrs Corrigan and her fuckin bleatin.
Fuck me, it’s cold. Fancy a bacon sarnie and a decent cuppa. Pete’s all nighter down by the old brewery, best place in the world for both. Does his sarnies all thin white bread and loads of butter so the hot bacon melts it to grease and the grease gets all over your fingers and round your mouth. Fuckin lovely. The brewery, where Pete’s got his gaff, was the heart and soul of round here when I was a kid. I’d wake up every Tuesday and the whole world would be smellin of Weetabix and hot milk where they’d be brewin the hops. Been shut down years though, it has, the brewery. Now it’s just like the fuckin rest of us – a million empty shells, crumblin on the inside, waitin for the fuckin walls to cave in.
Like I said, Pete’s got a diamond of a place for a sarnie and a cuppa, but it’s an absolute shit–hole. The Environmental Health have shut him down twice already. But Pete, he don’t give a fuck. He ain’t into all the regulations and shit you gotta comply with nowadays. He reckons if he gets wind of em comin again, he’ll burn the place down when they’re rootin through his cupboards and claim on the insurance. Mad bastard, he is. And when he tells me this, about burnin the environmental health people, there’s this sort of uncontrolled smirk on his face tells me he ain’t fuckin jokin neither.
***
Lookin through the window, Pete’s place is half empty. Always is. At this time of the mornin, the darkness before the dawn, as it were, there’s only ever Pete havin a fag by the tea urn behind the counter and half a dozen vagrants of varyin degrees of filth, all sittin at separate tables foldin their broken hands round steamin mugs of cha to keep the frostbite out.
I open the door. The little bell tinkles. Pete looks up, and some ash from his ever diminishin fag drops on the counter. He nods at me, Pete, and as he does so, more ash crumbles away.
“Tea and a bacon sarnie, please Pete,” I says, takin a seat at an empty table.
As I sit down, the life suddenly drops out of me and I want to lean forward and bury me head into the table and fall asleep for ever. Mind you, lookin at the state of it, all sticky mug rings and grease stains, I reckon it’d rip half me face off just tryin to unstick meself again.
Yep, Pete’s place is a shit–hole. Fair play, though. He’s a busy man.
None of these poor bastards at these other tables here ain’t goin nowhere for ages. They stick it out long as they can, gettin all the heat there is from Pete’s tea. Pete never throws em out, they just go of their own accord. It’s like they can’t keep from the outdoors too long, like bein indoors does something to em, reminds em of where they once was. They was all kids once, see, all babies, probably loved and cuddled and talked about by those what loved em with glistenin eyes. But that was a long time ago. Gets till the good stuff becomes painful and you surround yourself with cold and dark and pain so as you can pretend it’s always been that way.
Easier, you know.
Pete comes over with me sarnie on a little white plate and a steamin mug of tea. Puts it down, lights another fag and sits down opposite.
Asks me if I’m all right. Says I look like shit. I tell him I’m okay, just got a busy day ahead and a lot on me mind, that’s all. Then I tell him I feel so tired, that sort of inside tired what makes the world all blurry. Pete nods, like he knows, and I wonder where all his pain is.
I get a picture of Sophie in me head, of me and her playin with her little bricks, makin things, buildin towers, knockin em over, both of us gigglin like the pair of us know life don’t get no better than this.
I take a slurp of tea and a bite of me bacon sarnie.
I really have got a busy day. Two collections this mornin on the estate for Micky Archer and then, after me lunch has gone down, I gotta go kill a geezer.
I finish off me tea. Best get on.
Chapter Two
I’m thinkin I better pop home and put meself on a new set of clothes, but I can’t face Beth. Not today. And the way things are, I reckon if she don’t never see me ever again, it won’t be too fuckin soon. These clothes I got on are stickin to me like a bastard — sweat and fear, mainly. That, and Pete’s gaff — what with all the bacon, fags, and broken fuckin souls. Seein as I got to meet Micky later to sort the details of the jobs he wants me doin, reckon a new set of clobber is sort of indispensable.
The clock on the church in the market bongs eight. When the last one goes, I’m waitin for something to happen — the ground to open up or the sky to fall down or something. And that moment of waitin, that transient fuckin stillness. It’s fuckin awful.
I wait. Nothing happens.
It never does.
The market place used to be fuckin teemin with stalls — from fruit and veg merchants to the toy and meat auctions and hundreds of snide clothes stalls. Couldn’t never move for people. Used to come from all over, they did. And before that, hundreds of years before that, it was a cattle market. I still remember the cattle grids as a kid, dotted between the cobbles. The council paved over the cobbles ten years back so they could use the place as a car park when the market weren’t on. Bastards ripped the character and the history right out the place. Used to have a life, this town. But it sort of faded away without any of us knowin.
Round the market, half the shops have shut down an all. Whole place is half bleedin empty, and it breaks my heart to see it. The church what’s just bonged, it’s all what’s left. Four hundred years old, it is. And all that time it’s seen the green fields and the cobbles, the traders and the punters, die right in front of it.
I sit on the bench outside the church and wonder how long it’s gonna be here. Or this church for that fuckin matter. We all gotta go some time.
I grab another bacon sarnie off a burger van, and sit and wait for Top Man to open. And while I’m sittin here, contemplatin the life and death of, well, life and death, I’m put in mind of that poem by Sylvia Plath — the one where she talks about toppin herself. What was it fuckin called? Escapes me for now, but basically it’s about her sayin how every ten years of her life she tries to kill herself. Lady Lazarus — that’s it. Clever, that, cos you know, it’s after that bloke in the Bible what come back to life, other than she’s a woman so she calls herself a Lady.
And there’s this really famous line in that poem about dyin bein an art like everything else. Says how she does it ’exceedingly well’. And she did in the end. Topped herself just past thirty. Fuckin tragic. Mind you, it was her third go so I reckon it’s a bit of a stretch to say she was any fuckin good at it.
Love a bit of Plath, me. I mean, it ain’t something to cheer you up or nothing, but she’s got a fuckin edge to her that don’t give a shit. All that dark, she just lets it out. Got to admire her for that.
I been sittin here so long, on this bench, me back’s got this dent in it from a plaque on the back. Always fancied that — a plaque on a bench somewhere with me name on it. In some park, or out by the cliffs. Bit like when we were kids and I used to write Jason Dean woz ere on the shit–houses in the school or on the wall behind the bakery. I get up and turn round to see whose bench it is.
Reg and Ellie Tubbs — parishioners of this Parish.
Friends to one and all
Never fuckin heard of em. I think I’ll s
tick with ‘Jason Dean woz ere’. Least it’s fuckin true.
Amazin how the time flies when you’re doin a bit of ruminatin. Nine bongs, and the shops open like fuckin clockwork. Time for Top Man. I been goin Top Man ever since I was in me teenage years. Fuckin lifetime ago. Always get the same. Black three–piece, skinny tie to match, and a white grandad shirt. Beth always said I looked like I was forever waitin for a funeral to happen. We’d both laugh when she said it, but it sort of narked me an all. I mean, I thought I looked fuckin smart.
***
It’s been a year now since I been in here. Don’t recognise the young geezer behind the counter. But like I said, everything goes in the end, don’t it. I go through the racks tryin to find a grandad to fit me neck. There’s only one left, so I pick it up, grab a three piece from the suit racks and a tie from the pedestal by the door and lump the whole lot on the counter. Then I go to the back of the shop for a pair of black socks and some black boxers.
Sets me back a few nicker, all this clobber, but there ain’t a price you can put on feelin good. I ask the lad behind the counter if I can change into all me gear in the changin rooms. I think he’s took back a bit by me askin. I might look like a rough bastard, but sometimes it’s like it’s only me knows it’s all front.
I walk out the changin room ten minutes later feelin a million fuckin dollars. I thank the geezer on the way out, then dump all me clothes I got from home in a bin on me way past the station.
Me mobile goes, and me heart’s beatin like a bastard. It’s Micky.
“Hello, Micky. All right?” I says.
But Micky don’t do niceties. Tells me he wants to see me pronto. His gaff. I tell him I’ll be right round, and the phone goes dead.
One Day In The Life Of Jason Dean - Ian Ayris Page 1
