Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  * ** *

  It had been about a fortnight before I'd gone in Leeds, one miserable rainy Tuesday morning when I'd gone looking for Pauline, in the Cortina Mother lent me. She lived on Portobello estate at the other side of the city, a place I'd not been before. It wasn't a big estate and I'd thought if I cruised around for a while I'd be bound to see a clue to her whereabouts. Failing that I felt sure somebody would know her and I'd only to ask. After touring the narrow maze of council houses for an hour, all the roads exactly alike, I went to the probation office to make enquiries.

  The estate was a desert of misery where a man could tramp its narrow streets without meeting a soul, lost and alone, and never find his

  way out. The whole place had an air of rejection, as if the council had forgotten about it. It was good enough for her.

  The probation officer had been to see me twice while I'd been in Durham, both times after she'd had the baby, to judge from my reac-tions whether I'd any intention of harming her. Nine months earlier she'd been put on probation for working and drawing social security and I'd bet her excuse had been she was only trying to get some money so she could leave town before I was discharged and then played on my reputation even more once she was pregnant. I'd told Norm I'd forgive her when I was released and when I'd gained her confidence we'd go on a day trip to Bridlington and throw her off the cliffs at Flamborough. He didn't try to dissuade me but told me something a pal of his had done in similar circumstances which made far more sense. The moral appealed to me.

  The probation officer, a tall, skinny feller with a Fair Isle pullover and a wispy beard was surprised to see me and, after he'd listened, had Pauline and my boy in his office in less than a hour. After a coffee in town I arranged to take her out the following Sunday evening.

  She came from the house dressed like the cover of a lames Hadley Chase novel, all blonde hair and a two-piece suit, a cheap one from the secondhand market. She had no guilt or shame and was currently living with a young kid who was working for slaves' wages at Rawsons mill. He wasn't the father of her latest kid either. After two hours in a Barnsley pub with her on guard and me at my most charming, she asked if I'd take her to Heppy's but I wouldn't and offered to take her home instead.

  'You can't,' she protested, 'I'm living with somebody.'

  'Oh yes I can,' I pointed out. 'I'm you're husband.'

  She had me wait in the street while she kicked him out. It was

  11.30 Sunday night so what chance did I have in the nick?

  He went over the back fence where I was waiting and wailing fit to wake the neighbours about how much he loved her. Big wet sloppy tears rolling down his cheeks.

  'I love her, I do, I love her. It's been the 'appiest nine months of me life. I love her, I do.'

  He was skint, didn't have a carrot but was confident he'd be able to thumb a lift back to Bolton.

  After I'd pointed out she was a bastard and given him a fiver to make Pauline appear worse I returned to claim my wife. Completely naked I adjusted the curtains with her watching wide-eyed from the bed to let her see I hadn't altered, still had the same old body that used to turn her on. After I'd fucked her she told me she loved me, had always loved me and she wished she'd waited. Being very careful to hide my true feelings I tried to give the impression I still loved her and if we worked at it maybe we could get back together. Breakfast, a plateful of eggs, sausages, tomatoes and beans which she'd bought deliberately with the hope I'd be stopping, I told her to pack her bags and leave town or I'd break her legs. She yelled about me being a cruel bastard and how I hadn't looked once at the baby in the cot but all I said was, 'You've been told,' as I went through the door.

  Paul was a grand little lad, lively, quick, just like Kay had said, and he had the looks of a little angel. Ripe blond hair and skin so flawless it glowed. If she didn't move I'd never be away from him. I'd become involved and I didn't trust myself not to carry out the threat. He was only a baby yet and little lads want mothers not dads at his age. There was plenty of time to get to know him.

  She might have gone or she might still be there, I didn't know when I pulled up in a back street just off the front in Great Yarrmouth, and I wasn't interested either, selling the jewellery was far more important. If it was something I could do then waiting for the new season wouldn't be a problem at all.

  The fellers I'd come to see had been the same fellers whose interests I'd minded 4 years earlier in Blackpool after the lifeguard job. Although the mock auction act had been introduced back in '74 (now it carried 6 months and a £2,000 fine) the police in Gt Yarmouth didn't know a mock-auction shop from a rock stall. The lads had moved lock, stock and barrel across country and carried on where they'd left off. There were new faces and old who greeted me that night in a disco on the sea front and I had no trouble at all in selling rings and bracelets. Vinnie, the first feller who'd employed me told me to get myself across to Rhyl as quick as I could and see Christmas Tree, Pete Shepherd's nickname, and I was certain to earn a nice few quid. He wouldn't tell me lies or give me shit, we'd been friends donkey's years so I promised I'd go and then told him about the boxing licence I'd been promised.

  'Listen, when you have your first fight I'll be there, but if you're anything like the fuckin' lumps I've been watching I won't come again. I don't want boring to death. If you give me something to cheer I'll be there every time, OK.'

  Vinnie never beat about the bush, a smart-looking Jewish feller from Leeds, ten years older then me. He had to earn £500 a week just to pay his drinks bill. He was entitled to value for money a feller who could earn money like him.

  The hotel where Norm and I were staying, a big one on the promenade, with a marvellous view of a oil -rig out in the bay, had ac-cepted a gent's ID in lieu of cash when we'd first arrived.

  The story I'd given was we'd brought a consignment of jewellery but had a breakdown on the way and by the time we arrived the shops we had to deliver to had closed. Repairing the car had taken all our spare cash. They accepted a bracelet as a deposit for two rooms and full board until the shops opened and I could settle up. While I'd been telling the owner, a youngish Greek-Cypriot feller, Norm had been on the front step dying of embarrassment. When I came downstairs the morning we were leaving and hoping to sneak away leaving him with the bracelet he was waiting with a huge smile on his dark features at the bottom of the stairs.

  'Good morning.' He greeted me, and instantly I had visions of hoards of police waiting to arrest me for deception or fraud or both. It didn't matter, I could easily settle the bill. He wanted a quiet word in private at the back of the dining room. I couldn't believe my ears. The bill was no problem, he said, and asked if we could come to some arrangement about buying the bracelet and another for his chef. Obviously to keep my story plausible I had to hum and har, and go on about stock checks and putting my job in jeopardy, but I managed to accommodate him and take the risk.

  'Tha's got more front than Blackpool,' Norm said in the car going home.

  'Nowt wrong wi' that Norm. Yer can't get locked up for havin' front,' I pointed out lapsing into his broad dialect.

  * * * *

  Elaine was alone in the house when I arrived back, the little girl was with her Dad and Wilma had gone too. Elaine had booted her out

  in a fit of jealousy although she didn't say so directly. She blamed Wilma for holding out on her dole money. Elaine was obsessed with jealousy and I'd watched it grow since I'd moved in. With all my formative years spent boxing and in the nick I'd be a real dummy if I couldn't read people without them having to open their mouth; I'd been doing it all my life, but anybody could have read the signs Elaine left.

  She'd been flippant about my comings and goings the first week or so and then she began asking questions about where I'd been and whom I'd seen. She began coming in to watch me bath and offering to wash my hair and back and sitting opposite while I had breakfast, and touching me all the time. It had been the idea to get her jealous but not like this. She wouldn't
leave me alone. Many would call it love, 'She's falling in love,' they'd say, but I'd say she was crackers with jealousy.

  At first I'd been really happy and thought she was a great girl after visiting Leeds nick every day and selling most of her jewellery to buy health foods for me. Half a dozen silver rings she'd worn like knuckle-dusters and she hadn't done anything to make me feel any differently until she'd started asking her questions. She wasn't pretty and she didn't have a figure but she satisfied my needs perfectly. Anita, Patsy, and Co. had made up for all the girls I'd missed and Elaine didn't take the edge off my fitness. The house had plenty of room, there were miles of leafy lanes to keep the edge on my fitness and Elaine let me alone. To show how much I appreciated her I'd paid five months of the mortgage and bought all the food. I kissed her now and then and took her out, bought her little presents and she'd battered Wilma with a shoe heel and thrown her out for holding back with her dole. Elaine was jealous I'd fuck somebody else and Wilma had carried the can. She'd got it bad because I'd never looked at Wilma apart from getting her two good paying customers. Elaine had been very pleased when Wilma had given her half.

  Maybe something had been said in cross-examination; Elaine interrogated Wilma regularly and she had said I was nice or something.

  I don't know but I knew Elaine was jealous. It was what I'd wanted,

  to have a lever to turn the house into a she been and the next part of

  the plan would be the final step. I wanted her so jealous she'd let me

  do what I wanted and give me her full backing.

  For weeks she had been going on about seeing her brother in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight and I had to get over to Rhyl. I had a few quid, plenty of jewellery and the trip to Norfolk had given me the idea that I could combine the lot, throw in Norman and Kath and have a nice holiday seeing all the places I had never been. If Elaine wouldn't let me do what I'd wanted I'd pack my bag and go home when we got back. It was all arranged for next week because I couldn't go straight away and miss a superstars contest Tommy had entered me for to be held in a Halifax park in aid of handicapped kids. He'd asked me weeks ago, gave me the list of events and I'd trained every day like Daley Thompson. I wouldn't miss it for anything.

  There were far more people than I'd expected, hundreds and hundreds following each event around the park. I'd wasted my time training for specific events because on the day they were all changed through lack of equipment and shortage of time. It gave me the needle on account of it being luck more than fitness and skill and luck shouldn't decide the winner. Tennis was the first to reach 4 points and swop the serve each time which didn't give me the chance to pick up the game as I went along. Never in my life had I played tennis and I lost in minutes to an actor/weight-lifter who'd played plenty of tennis. Basketball, where I'd rattled 100 out of 100 plenty of times in prison gyms, was swopped for a netball post and no backboard. Three times I hit the hoop. Putting the shot was throwing the welly and parallel-bar dips were press-ups on the grass. The 800-metre steeplechase was reduced to a 400-metre sprint, likewise the 800-metre cycle race was reduced to 100 metres and if you had a mate it was acceptable to have a push start.

  In every event I tried my best and lost my temper a couple of times at the pompous officials who didn't know a press-up from a dip and gave the impression they were doing me a favour by letting me enter. All I won was the squat-thrusts; I was the only one still going at the end and got 2nd and 3rds in the others, well most of them. How I wanted to show what all round fitness was all about but I didn't have the chance. It didn't matter though, I made my point with Tommy even if the whole event was reduced to a farce, another Blackpool side-show. The crowd had been behind me all the way even if they didn't know me from Adam. They knew 100% effort when they saw

  it and would remember me longer than cricketers from the heavy woollen league, rugby players and golfers. And the actor/weight-lifter who won. Tommy would get me a licence. I'd no need to worry.

  Mother lent me the Cortina again: Norm and Frankie Leach, his mate, and a feller I'd been in Hull with had borrowed mine, smashed and abandoned it in Manchester, and then came back to tell me it wasn't worth repairing so I'd asked Mother. She didn't mind in the least providing I didn't ruin it. It was a terrific motor even though it did look as if it was falling to bits and perfect for four adults with suitcases. With an oil change and everything checked we set off for the Isle of Wight the same day the Queen visited Wakefield for a look round the market and a night in Heppy's on her Jubilee tour.

  We called at Elaine' s younger sister's in Brixton to pick up the visiting order and were on the IOW the same night before it got dark. Elaine went to bed, saying the long trip had upset her stomach and we spent the evening in the public bar of the hotel. It was one of the most entertaining evenings of my life. Old Norm laughed; he had a laugh that could be heard on the mainland, a real old haw, haw, haw, belly laugh that made people smile just to hear him, and Kath captivated the local fellers with her blonde buxom good looks and occasional sarky comments. I was beginning to like her more by the hour. We all visited Parkhurst the following day to see Elaine's brother, a feller Norm knew socially, and the following day Elaine went on her own while we had a look round. We didn't like the place at all, too much dog shit, which was the reason, Kath said, why everybody had their noses in the air.

  Elaine still hadn't recovered from the trip and went to bed early again which the landlord found quite disturbing. He was a consumptive-looking feller who could easily be a ex-miner who'd taken the hotel/pub for health reasons. He listened with a sympathetic expression while I explained she was suffering from cancer and wasn't expected to see the end of the year, how she was really enjoying herself and how she would like to stay a while longer but unfortunately I hadn't the money with me to extend the holiday. He agreed to lend me £125 on the surety of my ID bracelet and said he would return it the day he received the money. He didn't normally lend money because people were always taking him for a ride. He gave me a tenner too much and I thought my luck had changed at last. He was standing

  on the hotel step the next morning scratching his head and watching the car as we drove away knowing something wasn't quite right but not sure what. Norm pointed out we were on holiday and having a blow, and he would be grateful if I would stop taking liberties. He didn't mention the two sets of sheets he had in his case, or the pillow cases.

  From the IOW we went to Stonehenge, Bath, and stayed the night in a luxury hotel in Newport, South Wales. Elaine didn't recover from her mysterious stomach complaint but hinted she might be pregnant when we'd stopped to inspect the stones of Stonehenge. She stayed in the car enjoying the comfort of her misery while Norm spotted two rabbits and fancied he'd spied an adder slithering through the grass. Kath said the small posse of coppers lounging against the fence supposedly there to catch litter louts and vandals were about as much use as the silly bloody stones and cost more.

  Norm didn't agree when I suggested the stones might have been the bottom tier of a building that had been abandoned for some reason. He said it was obvious what they were, they were goalposts, anybody could see that. Nobody but me wanted to stop in the ancient city of Bath, it was more important we find somewhere to stay and get some snap Norm said. I argued about Romans, hot mineral springs, historical buildings but it made no difference. For all the noise Elaine made she might as well have been a suitcase in the back of the car, she didn't open her mouth.

  Before we set off the following morning we plotted the route to take in the most picturesque scenery. We didn't want daft sheep and slag heaps dominating the view. Abergavenny, Builth Wells, Rhayader. Depending on the time we would plot up again once we reached Rhayader. We stopped at a cluster of houses and a small pub for dinner and a mile farther up the road I demanded to swim in the river Wye. Elaine came out of her shell when she realised I'd have to strip off. She stood between me and the others while I did. It was icy cold, exhilarating, wonderful, and I'd not felt as free and untro
ubled in a long time. It reminded me of a film I'd seen in the nick years ago, 'The Trap', starring Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham. A film made in the backwoods of Canada.

  A short while later we stopped at the highest point in all of Wales, a place called Aran Fawddny. They waited while I climbed to the top

  and back. It took me ages and ages. When I'd reached the summit my thighs were pumped and I was breathing deeply and feeling like a proper mountaineer until I saw sheep grazing. I felt cheated and I hadn't climbed a mountain at all. Sheep didn't graze on the tops of proper mountains, not on Everest they didn't and my climb had been in vain. Just as we were setting off a Transit van pulled up and 6 fellers slid out of the back all roped together and set off climbing. Elaine laughed, and Norm said they had to be either coppers or screws doing a course on survival, wasting taxpayers' money and wasting time. They wore parkas and climbing boots. I wore a T-shirt, Green Flash pumps and a pair of shorts. If Norm was right, and he very probably was, they had to be training to survive in the Himalayas, not a sheep-infested hill in the middle of Wales. It cheered me watching them head for first base. We stopped at Lake Bala, the biggest lake in Wales, a short while later for something to eat and a look round. When Norm spotted a flock of geese he said, 'Can yer remember me askin' abart turkeys when we were in Liverpool?'

  'Yes Norm, of course I can.'

  'The l4lb apiece tha knows, the not little uns.'

  On the way from Lake Bala to Rhyl he told me how he would arrange to bring 50 to see what I could do with them, but I knew they wouldn't be a problem because Kay's new boyfriend was a butcher with his own shop, a big one in Ossett town centre. He would have them without any problems.