It's Not Me, It's You

by Jon Richardson

  We thought you were one of the good ones, but you aren’t. You’ve let us all down by forgetting that calculator. What a pity.

  There were brief moments of escapism from that tension inside me every few hundred yards though, brought on by the thought that one day my mum would look at me and my sister and say: ‘Look, I don’t want to go to work, you don’t want to go to school, so shall we just head off? I’m going to keep on going straight ahead and if you feel like we should take a turn, tell me and we will. We’ll just stop when we get hungry and nobody will ever be able to find us again.’

  I think I could see that urge too, in her eyes, but whatever pressures were on me, a ten-year-old boy, to do what was expected of me, they must have been on her, a college head of department with two children, a hundred times over. How do we build these lives for ourselves? It was right to stay; that’s what people do – they don’t just run away as appealing as it may seem for a brief moment.

  To this day, in the back of my car I keep a sleeping bag beside a shoebox containing a box of cereal bars, a bottle of red wine (with a screw top – you only make that mistake once) and a pot noodle – my own emergency kit should I one day have the courage to drive myself somewhere new, where nobody knows where I am, and start hiding from the world. This is hardly the same as burning all my savings and hitchhiking my way into the Canadian wilderness, but I like to think of myself in some small way as a part of what I call the Boot Generation. All we need is the air in our lungs, the wind in our hair, and the dried noodle snack we can have when we eventually find a kettle and a plug socket. The man can’t keep us down!

  I glance down at the dashboard to check whether I have enough petrol to get me where I need to go, as I do roughly every five minutes or so, but I still have over two-thirds of a tank. I have seen so many films in which drivers glance down and see the needle edging into the red that I live in constant fear of that moment, because as we all know, that is when the murderer appears behind you.

  I remind myself that I am not a Hollywood film star, nor am I a dippy student, driving across the Australian outback in a beaten up old car I bought from a gaptoothed simpleton having completed my final exams. I am driving a silver Ford Fiesta across England and I filled my car up at a local supermarket, gaining reward points in the process. I think this might make the world’s dullest Hollywood movie, but that’s fine with me. At this thought, a car whose driver wants to exit at the upcoming junction, but not enough to pay attention to how close it is, meanders across the motorway without indicating and pulls into the space I had left in front of me. Other people brake and swerve to avoid him but go no further, but I waste no time in slamming on my horn and when I can see his eyes meet mine in his rear-view mirror I proudly extend my middle finger towards him. Only once this has been done do I stop to think about how big he might be, or how many other people might be with him. A mist descends when I am in my car, something to do with being encased in metal I suspect, which makes me feel less like a small, scrawny man and more like Robocop. I doubt Robocop would have had the commercial success he did had his voice been as camp as my car horn, but it is the only gesture I have to make.

  There has been a slow and steady shift away from the traditional Highway Code over recent years, so gradual that most people haven’t even realised it has happened. While the key points remain the same in that we drive on the left and go clockwise around roundabouts, most of the smaller ‘rules’ as they were known back then have changed and been replaced by guidelines. For the uninitiated, here are a few of the main alterations to the things you may have been taught when learning to drive which make up the brand new Mighway Code:

  1. Roundabouts: When approaching a roundabout, be advised that whichever direction you intend to travel in, the correct lane is always the one in which there are the fewest other cars. Once at the front of the queue, note that if you wait every time you see a car coming, you will never get anywhere. The thirty-second rule states that if you have been waiting for thirty seconds or more, you must move out immediately and other road users are legally obliged to make space for you. If, through no fault of your own, you miss your turning on a roundabout, be aware that simply going round once more, though it may only take a few seconds, will pump unwanted noxious gasses into an already suffocated atmosphere. You must do whatever you can to get across the traffic as soon as possible and back on course, reversing if needed.

  2. Signalling: Indicating is a dangerous procedure since it involves removing your hands from the wheel and draws your attention away from driving safely. It should be avoided at all times (for exceptions see rule 3) as not only does it reduce the control that you have over your own car, there may be epileptics in front of or behind you who might be triggered into having a seizure by a sudden burst of flashing orange lights. As we know that speed is a killer, and light travels faster than sound, it is therefore advisable to use your horn instead of your indicators to alert other drivers to your presence.

  3. Parking: Using what used to be known as ‘hazard lights’ makes it legal to park anywhere. Double yellow lines do not apply to anyone whose operation can be preceded by the word ‘just’. For example, it is illegal to stop on double yellow lines to go to the bank, but it is not illegal to ‘just pop into the bank’. Double yellow lines also do not apply to big men with shaved heads driving transit vans. The ‘I-know-you-are-you-said-you-are-but-what-am-I’ rule states that calling a traffic warden a ‘fucking parasite’ renders his ticket useless with no comebacks times infinity. Traffic wardens are absolutely NOT trying to make it easier to park legally by deterring people from parking illegally; they are generating millions of pounds a second which is used to buy weapons for Middle Eastern despots. Fact.

  4. Motorway driving: The only reason that driving into the back of someone causes damage is because of the gap between the cars which allowed sufficient speed to be built up – ergo gaps cause crashes. The safest thing to do on the motorway is to drive with your front bumper touching the rear bumper of the car in front, so that when they brake, your car will respond instantly. The middle lane of the motorway is known as ‘the driving lane’ and all cars should gravitate towards this lane. The inside lane is a spare hard shoulder, for use by truck drivers and pussies. The outside lane or ‘stud lane’ is for businessmen who have important meetings to go to, or back home from. If you see any car other than an Audi, BMW or Mercedes in the stud lane then you must pull over and use the emergency phone to contact the emergency services.

  5. The speed limit: It is a common misconception that the number shown in circular signs with a red border is the speed limit. The real speed limit is whatever is in the red circle plus ten percent, plus five mph, plus your age. Anyone driving below that should be encroached and, if necessary, pushed along at the appropriate speed. The slower you drive, the longer you will be on the road and the more likely it is that you might have an accident or ‘be accidented on’ by someone else. Cut your journey times – put your foot down.

  6. The most important rule of the Mighway Code is this: Accidents only ever happen to, or because of, other people. You are a great driver; it’s all these other pricks that ruin things for everyone else. That Jeremy Clarkson drives fast and he’s still cool, right? Damn right. Vroom vrooms. Neeeeooowwwm. Maybe I could get a turret fitted to the front of my car then I could shoot baddies? (Make gun noise for an hour.)

  Calming myself down and enjoying the sense of relief as the car in front veers off the motorway and onto the slip road without further incident or retaliation, I glance in my rear-view mirror, just to double-check that there isn’t an ominous looking figure in a jet-black HGV ‘riding my tail’.

  But it’s not a jet-black HGV. It’s a pinkish-red car – maybe a Renault Clio. My brain once more decides to rush off into fantasy, rather than confront the tedious reality. Could it be Gemma at the wheel of the car behind, or perhaps the one behind that, trying to catch up with me before she and Papa discover that both of them are on illicit da
tes, he with his mistress, and Gemma with me, her mystery man? We are in Paris, city of lovers, and tonight we will be strolling along the Left Bank in the moonlight. In spite of all my previous fears and misgivings I now know that we are destined to be together. I am her nemesis and she is mine.

  My heart misses a beat.

  Maybe Gemma is my nemesis. How does she know where I am heading and when I left? She could be stalking me. Perhaps she even knows where I live. They say that in cities you’re never more than a few feet away from a rat. Maybe Gemma is my rat, lurking and skulking in holes and corridors and behind doorways while I have been blithely ignorant of her presence? Perhaps even our meeting was not the chance encounter it seemed, but more chess play on her part.

  How long has this been going on? It could be months! She probably has a secret cellar wallpapered with my photos and press cuttings and stained with my blood or even sperm that she stole from my GP when I last went for a medical. Of course she keeps a diary and logs my movements from hour to hour. She will no doubt think she knows me better than I do, and she’s probably right.

  Is she going to kill me? If she can’t be with me, surely she will make sure nobody else will either. She may even be planning to eat me.

  I cast another nervous glance into my rear-view mirror and let out a laugh as I see the face staring back at me. The woman behind is in fact a tiny, Sue Pollard-like woman with short brown hair and an overbite, fighting to control a red Nissan Micra. Her eyes are squinting through her huge glasses and she is hunched forward, holding on so tightly to the steering wheel that it looks as though she expects it will fly off out of the window if she loosens her grip for even a split-second.

  I laugh because despite all the tension in her eyes and shoulders, she is mouthing the words to whatever song is playing on her stereo, her head moving sharply and with no rhythm whatsoever from side to side. It looks to me more like she is whispering some incantation to her spirit guide, or perhaps giving herself a stern talking to. Perhaps she is running out of petrol and the murderer is gaining on her …

  There is a different feeling about this drive, about why I am checking the distance between myself and Sue Pollard, and why I thought it might be Gemma, and why I got angry at the man who cut me up; a better feeling than usual. I am no longer simply getting angry for the sake of it, hating other people for making mistakes – I am trying to protect myself because I am actually looking forward to the future.

  This might seem a perfectly normal emotion, but it isn’t for me, or at least it hasn’t been for the last few years. I am no longer just trying to avoid having an accident because of the inconvenience it might cause in terms of delayed journey time and forms to fill in, or my fear of pain, I am trying to stay alive for living’s sake! I smile at the thought and feel my shoulders loosen and drop by at least an inch.

  When I arrive I will check into my accommodation and text Gemma. Definitely.

  And then another thought strikes me: I’d better text my agent as well about our meeting on Monday at the same time – just to make sure nothing goes wrong. He says big things are about to happen for me.

  17.11

  BE AND BE JUDGED

  ‘I have a room booked in the name of Richardson.’ I confirm to the well-presented, heavily perfumed landlady stood in the doorway in front of me. I saw her watching me park in her driveway through her living-room window, but she still made me ring the bell before she would come to the door. A pointless piece of posturing on her part which she feels puts her in charge, I suppose.

  ‘Oh … Right,’ she almost questions, looking down at me in the way a nightclub bouncer might look down on a pleading sixteen-year-old boy who has drawn a biro-beard on his chin and worn his dad’s best shirt, not noticing how poorly it hangs from his much smaller adolescent frame.

  Against her will, she seems to concede that there is indeed a reservation made in this name, but there is something else in her eyes, or rather in her now furrowed brow … a problem lurking underneath the surface. Back on my office desk, four and a quarter hours of motorway driving away, a tea-stained mug that I had forgotten about until Nottingham sits defiantly on an otherwise clean and uncluttered surface. I am not in the mood for any complications. An awkward few seconds pass.

  Such is the glamour of life as a middle-of-the-range touring stand-up comedian in the current era, I find myself checking into a homely but very average B&B somewhere in Yorkshire, a place chosen by my agent. I have to confess I don’t know exactly where I am, since my satnav directed me here, which I suppose all contributes to the feeling I have of somehow being here against my will.

  Where possible I stay in large, faceless chain hotels where all the rooms look the same and I could describe in clear detail the layout and furnishings of the room before I even step inside. In places like these no one will notice if I don’t turn up for breakfast or if I use more toilet roll than an average guest. For my part I don’t care if there aren’t any paintings of dogs in my room or doilies on the coffee table. I don’t even care if the receptionist doesn’t wish me ‘a pleasant stay’; I just want to get upstairs and lock the door behind me (placing the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the outside first) and hide from the world until I need to go out for my gig. Small, rural villages however tend not to house large hotels and so I am forced to stay in a B&B and have tortured conversations with someone who I am paying money to in return for a service, but seems to want to assume the role of surrogate auntie and tell me all the things I can’t do while I’m under her roof without apologising for any inconvenience or lack of tolerance.

  ‘Richardson, yes. Is it just you?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘You’ve booked a double?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another few seconds pass in silence and then her eyebrows are raised up an inch, taking the corners of her mouth up with them as hostages, forming a crude half-smile. ‘Ah! I understand. Is someone meeting you later?’

  By this she means to ascertain whether I am here as part of some sex cult or else a lonely businessman awaiting a visit from some sort of call girl. The tone has a kind of accusatory ‘I’ve seen your sort before’ ring to it and I am certain that this woman is, as we speak, incorrectly piecing together my entire life back story. Married too young when my girlfriend got pregnant due to my carelessness and sense of invulnerability, now she is at home looking after our child and crying silently into her breast pump while I travel the country with my job, bedding budget prostitutes in good, clean, family-run guest houses for kicks. People who live in small, prim villages such as this should not be allowed to watch crime dramas set in East London unless they have passed an intelligence exam which proves that they will not assume that everyone who travels alone and comes from the south is a dangerous scumbag.

  On more vulnerable days I have been known to invent a story at this stage to avoid suspicion – a wife who is unable to travel with me due to illness or because she is attending the local church service where she sings at the end and hands around a saucer. One day this bluff will be called by someone asking to see a photo or ask for a contact number for her in case of emergency, and I will get myself into serious trouble, the likes of which are only ever seen in poorly scripted sitcoms. On this occasion I am not in the mood to be judged, however, and am angry at her insinuation, so I play it out straight-faced.

  ‘No,’ I say curtly, ‘it’s just going to be me. On my own.’

  ‘Oh. Why did you book a double then? Why didn’t you book a single?’

  In my mind she goes on … What on earth do you need two sides of the bed for? To masturbate in one half and cry yourself to sleep in the other? Why don’t you just leave people like me alone to get on with our lives instead of flaunting your immorality all over my clean, white sheets?

  I don’t show any anger, because the bed and breakfast set-up is one that gives all the power to her. My status is no higher than that of visiting cousin, a pest but one that she is obliged to tolerate. ‘
I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Call it a moment of reckless extravagance if you like.’

  And then she laughs, almost. Though in truth it is more of a light-hearted exhalation than a genuine chuckle. ‘Fair enough.’ And with that she begrudgingly checks me in, tells me that breakfast will be served between 4.00 and 4.30 a.m. sharp, gives me a key for my room and one for the front door and asks me not to eat takeaway food within four hundred yards of the premises. She stops just short of telling me that Jesus is watching me and will punish me if I touch my nether regions in her en-suite shower room, but I know she is tempted. Trudging my suitcase up the stairs I reflect on how my life is littered with these kinds of conversation.

  ‘Table for one is it, sir? Would you like this shitty one over in the corner by the toilets so everyone can stare at you at least once while you pretend to read your book for something to do other than confront your failure to find a mate?’

  ‘Just one ticket for the show? Really? Shall I book you one at the back so you can sneak in quietly at the end and not feel embarrassed by yourself?’

  Or the worst of all, ‘No, I don’t need the two-for-one offer thanks, I couldn’t possibly manage two pizzas and would just end up throwing the other one away … No I don’t have anyone to give the other one to, I don’t know anyone in this area. No, no one.’ These are the times when it feels that everyone in the world is in a relationship but me, and that is why my text to Gemma is of such paramount importance.