Drowning in the Shallow End

by Charlie Mellor

  Eventually after an interminable one hundred and eighteen (and a half) seconds and only a quantum particle away from my promised release, Langham’s low-life mate looked up at me with his dead eyes and smiled. Without a flicker of hesitation he then applied all his force, snapping the wooden handles together. With my soft little pinky caught firmly between the two folding blades, I yelled out in pain. For a second I honestly thought my finger had been severed. Although the shears weren’t razor sharp, their rusty blades still managed to gouge deeply into my soft skin. It was agony, unable to stop myself shrieking, panic quickly spread around the room as other converts to the scream-fest joined in. Watching fresh blood dripping down my hand onto the grubby carpet, made me feel nauseous and my legs buckled. Only Annie had had the strength of character to detach herself from the chorus of wailing, which had by now seized hold of our friends’ faculties, in the same way an infectious Abba song hijacks the mind. My girlfriend, without a moment’s thought, whipped her bra away from under her shirt and wrapped the 34B undergarment around the cut to slow the bleeding. Her emergency care must have been quite a spectacle, since the only concrete recollection I have of the end of the night was I’d that never seen her remove her bra for me quite so quickly before.

  I’m not sure what happened afterwards, precisely how we got out of there or if we ever saw the volatile punk rocker again. I did vow to never touch another hallucinogenic drug again and I’ve remained true to this promise. If I had my way, this entire incident would’ve faded long ago from my memory. Unfortunately one notable guest who was present on the night, would continue to take great pleasure in reminding me about it for years to come. They would be able to recount every little detail, the programme being watched on the black and while telly, the music we listened to and even the type of shears which were so brutally snapped together in an attempt to dismember my finger.

  Following the mushroom tea incident Pennie disappeared from view for a couple of weeks. She was good at that. Sometimes I thought it was a deliberate ploy to appear even more unfathomable. On her next visitation she brushed aside references to my recovering finger and skilfully deflected any suggestions she may have contributed to what had taken place. I’d promised myself I was going to keep my distance from her until the end of the season, but as usual on hearing she’d returned I was at least as keen as the rest of the staff house to find out what demented scheme she would get us involved in next.

  Instead of dragging us off to another dodgy bar with Langham, she managed to convince us all to attend an exhibition of tarot reading at a local gym. There we were introduced to a young woman who offered to read our cards. The girl wanted no payment for the reading, following a commitment she’d made to herself never to profit from her psychic abilities. I was expecting a Blackpool fortune teller dressed in a shawl, charging me forty pounds for some generic messages which sounded more like a horoscope; but instead I discovered an engaging and warm young woman who seemed to be very balanced. With my scepticism abetted, I became quite intrigued about the possibility of a glimpse into the future. I can’t recall much of what she said, except for her insistence that my future wasn’t in Ilfracombe and would probably be ‘in print’. I didn’t read too much into this, thinking she must be suggesting I look at job advertisements published at the back of newspapers. True to her word, she didn’t accept any payment for the card reading which for me made her soothsaying seem even more credible.

  It was immediately after this card reading Pennie and I started to talk freely again. She was absolutely fascinated by what had taken place and wanted to know what the young woman was like. What did the cards say to me? What events were foretold? Most importantly, did any of the predictions ring true? While I wasn’t ready to admit quite how impressed I’d been by the reading, I was extremely grateful for all the attention I was now receiving from Pennie. In some ways it was worthwhile visiting the tarot reader just to get back in her good books. Pennie’s obvious excitement about my dabble with divination elevated the significance of the reading to me. My increased interest, in turn, appeared to stimulate Pennie’s interest in me. A win-win situation. Reconnected by my first taste of the occult, we also found room to reminisce about mutual friends and our time together back in Yorkshire. This was what I’d been waiting for ever since I heard she was with Langham.

  Back on good terms with Pennie, I became more tolerant of the spineless Langham and openly supported opportunities for the two of them to mix more freely with everyone as we approached our final months together. With the communication floodgates prised open, Pennie took full advantage of her eleventh hour acceptance. She was adept at influencing people and so it wasn’t long before most of us had fallen under her spell, including Annie and the majority of the Staff House. The only person immune to her charms was Stuart. While I always valued his opinion and usually acted on his advice, we simply agreed to differ when it came to Pennie. Not that this was a major problem. We’d already spent a lot of time together this summer and I knew he was somewhat distracted by his quest to date a popular local girl called Faye Rainton. Other than Langham and a gay lad from Manchester, Stuart and I were the only males living in the Staff House. If I wasn’t sure of something I’d go to Annie first, then if I was still undecided I’d ask him. If we all three of us agreed on something, we could usually talk the rest of the gang into doing what we wanted to do. This was how things were. Conscious that she was less able to manipulate Stuart, the astonishingly shrewd Pennie would invariably sweet-talk me first, knowing that if I liked the sound of it, I would act as her emissary and try to convince Stuart.

  It was Pennie who successfully planted the idea for Stuart and me to gather every article of girls’ underwear from around the staff house, pile it into the communal bath and then dye each garment an unpleasant shade of orangey-brown. She provided us with the motivation to dangle one of the kitchen staff upside-down by their ankles from a fifth floor window. The same Pennie provided the reason why we were both stupid enough to climb up onto the apex of the staff house’s hideously high and unstable slate roof in the dead of night, just to prove that it was possible. When the hotel’s pot-wash kindly invited us all to the opening of his parents new guest house, it was Pennie who implied that Stuart and I would have more fun at what promised to be a rather dignified gathering, by ignoring the recommended formal dress code. Impressed by this peculiar proposal, we both invested a week’s wages hiring identical gorilla costumes for the event. We then spent the entire evening roaming around inside them refusing to reveal who we were to any of the suited and booted guests. What cheeky little monkeys we were.

  The following month all the waiting staff sashayed as usual into the dining room to begin breakfast service, only to be met with the news Mr Kingston wanted to see us all. What on earth could it be? He never spoke to us unless it was serious and had never in three years asked to see everyone at the same time. On arrival, he came storming into the dining room, absolutely livid. I’d never seen him so angry – even with a paying customer. His sleeves were rolled up as if he’d been in a fight and appeared unusually shaken.

  “If you bloody casual staff in that bloody Staff House of mine expect to be treated like bloody adults, then you’d better start behaving like bloody adults – do you hear?” he shouted at us, in a boiling rage.

  We all wondered what on earth was going on.

  “I had the decency to take you all in, feed and clothe you, give you jobs, only to discover one of you has betrayed my trust in the worst possible way. In doing so they have compromised not only their own employment, but also the employment of everyone in this room”

  Christ this was serious. We all looked at each other in a way designed to let the boss know we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. What had happened and who was the culprit?

  “Someone in that there Staff House has been harbouring an unauthorised guest in their room. No, harbouring in MY room. This is completely unacceptable and as a result the individual in que
stion has been identified, spoken to and evicted. They will not be returning.”

  The normally controlled Mr K was still decidedly rattled by this whole experience, as he arched forwards and bellowed his way through each word of the unambiguous message he was here to share with us all.

  “I – want – nothing - and - no-one - in - that bloody - house - but - the - people – who - are - here – in front - of - me - now - is - this – understood…?“ You’ve never seen twelve people nodding so fast or so furiously to a closed question.

  The boss left and for what seemed like hours we all stood frozen, waiting for someone to break the silence. We were all taken aback by the ferocity of his rage. Blindsided by the sheer force of delivery it took a while for us to even realise he must have been talking about Langham, the only person not down for service. Shit – he’d found out about Pennie. Game over.

  Next came the realisation they were both gone, no warning, no notice, just booted unceremoniously out of the house and out of Ilfracombe. Boy, the boss didn’t mess around. Gradually it began to sink in: Langham must have been fired for allowing Pennie to crash in his room for a few nights. At first I thought, what a dipstick, then, when it seemed likely the boss wasn’t going to return to the dining room, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that his response may have been a trifle steep. The punishment felt disproportionate to the crime. Moreover this harsh decision probably meant that I was never going to see Pennie again.

  It was Annie who was first to speak.

  “D-d-do you think that’s it? Has he finished? I really h-h ate it when people bark at you. I know Gav did wrong, but I still can’t help feeling so sorry for him. How do you think the boss found out what he’d been up to? I hope everyone else is going be all right. What if the boss decides to g-g-get rid of us all? Maybe he’s heading over to the staff house at this moment to check out all of our rooms…” she said

  “Annie, relax, don’t give it a second thought. Langham is probably on his way back to Harrogate along with Pennie. If the boss wanted to fire anyone else, we’d know about it,” I said, trying to be as dispassionate as Mr Kingston had been.

  It was obvious my easy going girlfriend, was still troubled. The last time she had stuttered had been in the early days of Nene College. It turned out she was frightened she too would meet the same fate as Langham. Just one month earlier, Annie had invited her fiend Claire from Scunthorpe over to stay in the Staff House. She was concerned because it was public knowledge what a disaster this visit had been. Her own unauthorised guest had arrived, hoping for reconciliation with Stuart under the warm Ilfracombe sun, but had instead discovered her former beau was now besotted by his new West Country girlfriend. Stuart and Claire therefore argued throughout the entire weekend break - mainly up and down the echoing Staff House stairs, before Claire finally accepted the finality of the situation, bid farewell to her neighbour and headed back alone to Scunthorpe.

  Annie wasn’t the only one who was rather worried. Fear swept around the room like a raging fire in an overstocked solvents factory, as many other staff confessed they had let friends stay. In this climate of chicken-heartedness, I began to wonder if I too should pack my bags and go, since it was me who’d originally introduced Langham to the boss and may therefore be deemed guilty by association.

  Luckily, no other eviction did take place, we all kept a low profile for a few days until the boss came in again one breakfast and, attempting to put our minds at rest, told us, “There’s no need to be like bloody mice in that there house, you lot, you may as well enjoy the last few weeks.” Which was exactly what we did.

  Those remaining few days were terrific, everyone pulled together both in work and out of it. We helped each other through service and socialised as one big group. No one missed Langham and no one dared to mention Pennie. As summer season drew to an end, Annie and I reluctantly booked our coach tickets back to South Humberside along with Stuart and his new girlfriend Faye. Sitting on the overcrowded bus, I looked back on our summer break and reminded myself (expressed in a slightly embittered tone) to never forget : A seven year interval in terms of catching up with Pennie Fenton, isn’t such a bad thing. Although I didn’t anticipate seeing her ever again; the one uncharitable wish I clung onto was that she’d eventually come to her senses and develop the same level of loathing for Langham the rest of us now shared.

  9. The Bosom of Suburbia

  Still almost young, we arrived back in Scunthorpe energised and full of life. We were struck by just how flat and emotionless everyone appeared to be back in The Ashby Star, as we droned on to them in true Gav Langham fashion about our fabulous summer by the sea. Stuart and I tried to replicate our cheeky chap personas from Ilfracombe, but were quickly brought back to down to earth by the more hardened, sometimes life-weary drinkers of the industrial garden town.

  Notwithstanding Pennie’s appearance, Ilfracombe had been a fantastic odyssey, but one we knew couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later Annie and I would have to stop postponing the inevitable and find long-term employment. Years of boozing in Northampton and Devon had not only been tiring, but had also used up all of our cash reserves. Now in our mid-twenties, we’d reached the point in our lives where we both acknowledged we would have to adopt a slightly more mature outlook and begin to apply ourselves. Conscious that the few college mates we’d remained in touch with were already one or two years ahead of us in the work-stakes; we recognised it was time to catch up.

  Permanent employment did follow. In 1987 Annie got a job working for a local computer manufacturer in quality control and at the end of the same year I started working for a regional newspaper group designing advertising. We worked hard in our new roles, saving enough money for a deposit on a family sized semi-detached house in a decent part of town. Evenings were filled at home together, either playing board games or practising ways to populate each of the vacant bedrooms. At least once a week we’d link up with Stuart and Faye, venture into town for a few drinks, reminisce about Ilfracombe and after a little Dutch courage make fools of ourselves on the karaoke.

  The advertising job was originally based at a local Scunthorpe office, but as the role developed to include staff training, I was required to visit a number of sister-publications across the Humberside region. A few months spent at the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, back to the Scunthorpe offices, over to the Hull Daily Mail for the winter, then back across to Scunny. The work itself was rewarding, but the volume of driving combined with a very poor salary constantly frustrated me.

  Three years commitment to the job, brought about the offer of a managerial position with an established publishing group based in Lincoln. It was a city I’d always liked and this new role at a successful newspaper group offered greater responsibility, my own team of reps to look after, and for the first time, a fully financed company car. Stuart, a real petrol-head, was forever swapping motors for higher performing alternatives - with a particular penchant for German engineering. I was still very wary of all motorised vehicles; I didn’t enjoy driving or understand their appeal beyond the obvious functional advantage of getting you somewhere. However, I began to sense a trace of excitement about the thought of being provided with my own brand new car. It would after all, send out a message to others, providing them with evidence I was doing well at work and on a practical level, offer a more comfortable forty minute commute each day. On top of this, I discovered the cost of the fuel, the servicing and the insurance were all to be met by my new employer. Hearing all the advantages of having this company vehicle was the closest I’d ever been to being mentally-erect about cars. Things were looking up.

  I therefore accepted the role without hesitation and was invited over to the Lincolnshire Echo a week before the start date to meet the team, have lunch with the advertising manager and collect the keys to my swish new motor. My new boss seemed like a great bloke who had a really laid back style about him. The only thing I could imagine ever getting on my nerves was his assumption I’d be impres
sed by his former-professional football player status – an irrelevancy which he shared with me at every friggin’ opportunity. I’d never caught the footballing bug and was always disappointed at school whenever any potential friends had effectively deselected themselves because of their allegiance to the sport. After chatting to him, I was shown my desk and then given a tour of the print room. Meeting thirty new faces is always rather bewildering, but I felt I coped well and presented a ‘warm but professional’ impression. By late morning, all I really wanted was to inspect my company car, but was reluctant to ask about it outright, in case I came across as someone motivated by the benefits I was keen to secure. At noon, we left the office to join the editorial staff for a liquid lunch in a local pub at the back of the imposing newspaper production buildings. Walking through the rear car park, presented the perfect opportunity to ask about transport.

  “Is my car in this car park?” I enquired in a casual tone. “Would it be possible to see it?”