Forever Is Over

by Wade, Calvin

  I heard my Dad say through the bedroom wall that divided us.

  “It’s my lift to the match, Dad!”

  I shouted back through, as I gathered my scarf and headed out my door and down the stairs, grabbing my jacket off the peg in the hallway, although I guessed I wouldn’t need it, as there was every indication that it was going to be a beautiful day. The sun had appeared from the horizon with a smile on his face and a steely determination to stick around.

  “See you later!”

  I shouted up the stairs.

  “Tell that lad he’s not a taxi driver and he can get up off his fat arse next time and come to the front door, like a normal person!”

  “OK, Dad! See you later!”

  “Hope they win, son!”

  I would love to tell you I climbed into that car and over the course of the next two hours, my opinion of Ray totally changed, that Kelly and I had got him all wrong, that the journey was thrilling and I had never laughed as much in my entire life and from that day forth, Ray became a close friend. I would love to tell you that but I can’t. I can manage the odd white lie on occasion, but not out and out lies. Kelly had Ray down to a tee. Ray Walker was a wazzock. A bigger tit than either of Sam Fox’s! He was a complete and utter banker!

  At the end of that two hour journey, if Magnus Magnusson had stopped Ray’s car, taken both of us out, whisked us both across to the Mastermind studio and insisted our specialist subjects had to be each other (Ray answering questions about me and me answering questions about Ray), Ray would know nothing at all about me, not one thing, other than my name and the fact that I was dating Kelly, which he already knew before the journey, yet I had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Ray! Every conversation was geared around Ray and if it threatened not to be, Ray was quick to ensure he steered it right back.

  For example,

  “Have you ever been to America, Richie?”

  “Yeh, once. I went to Florida when I was ten.”

  “Right. I’ve been about a dozen times now. When I was four, we went with my parents to Vegas, then when I was seven, my parents bought a holiday home in Fort Lauderdale. North East 22nd Way, number 5950 it was. It was fantastic! Most years we would fly over to Miami, head over to the house, stay there for a week or so, just watching TV or swimming in our pool, then, after a week, we’d head off in the car and make our way up to Orlando and do the whole Disney thing. I remember going to the Epcot Centre when it had just opened. Fantastic!

  Sea World was amazing too! My parents sold that house when I was seventeen and bought one in L.A….”

  He then went on and on about L.A and his time spent in California, before finishing with,

  “Yes, it’s a great place the USA, pity you’ve never been! You really should go!”

  Ray had managed to forget at some point in his fifteen minute monologue that I had actually told him that I’d been to Florida! He probably didn’t even register the information in the first place, he was just teeing himself up with the initial question. Every conversation was the same.

  “How are things going with Kelly?”

  Was followed by ten minutes talking about his relationship with Jemma. How they met in the bank, how he was concerned about how his bosses would view the relationship so he had kept it from them, how Jemma hated her mother and referred to her as “Vomit Breath”. Every possible piece of information I could possibly be told about Ray, he managed to squeeze into that two hour trip. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me how many strips of toilet paper he used when he had a crap. He was happy to bore me with everything else. When we finally parked up, about a mile from Villa Park, it felt like I had endured three days verbal torture. If he’d been around, the Viet Cong could have used him during the Vietnam war to torture US soldiers.

  Ray is officially the most boring man I have ever had the misfortune to meet. As well as being the most boring, he also wins prizes for being the world’s best talker about himself and the world’s worst listener. I’m surprised he ever managed to open an account for anyone in the bank, because I imagine he would just start telling each and every customer about his own three hundred accounts and how half the world’s money was stored in them. My only consolation was that I didn’t much like Jemma and there was some sort of perverse justice that she had been lumbered with this idiot!

  On the walk to the stadium, Ray must have sensed his capacity to irritate had not quite peaked so he managed to annoy me even further by showing a complete lack of footballing knowledge.

  “Hope Kendall puts a good team out, today!”

  Was irritating statement number one.

  “Howard Kendall’s not here any more, Colin Harvey’s the manager!”

  “That’s what I said,” Ray responded, “Colin Harvey.”

  Followed by,

  “We were great that year we won the League when Gary Lineker was here.”

  “Ray, we didn’t win a thing the season Gary Lineker was here! It was the year before and the year after.”

  “That’s what I said, Richie! The year before Lineker came, it was great when we won the League! Bloody hell, mate, are you deaf or what? I reckon you might need your ears syringing! A few years ago, I had problems hearing and when I went to the Doctor’s, he syringed my ears. It was wonderful! You know when you go swimming and you get water in your ears and then eventually it pops and hot water gushes out and all of a sudden, you can hear, well that’s what it was like. Are you a decent swimmer, Richie?”

  “No.”

  No point me elaborating, he wasn’t interested. He was off again.

  “When I was a child, I used to swim for the county. I used to go swimming seven days a week. Every day before school and after school, I used to swim. I used to start at six o’clock, every day for seven years, I did a couple of miles before school and a couple of miles after.”

  Ray was really, really winding me up now. I should have just let him go on, but I found myself displaying my annoyance.

  “Ray, that doesn’t make sense!”

  “Of course it makes sense! What are you on about?”

  “You said on the way down, when you asked if I played badminton, that you represented England at badminton and you used to have badminton coaching every day before and after School.”

  Ray was temporarily taken aback, but soon managed to wriggle his way out of this awkward spot. He was adept, probably from experience, at piling new lies on top of old ones.

  “Why doesn’t that make sense, Richie? I did swimming six until seven every day, then badminton seven until eight. Then after school, swimming four until five and badminton five until six. It was hard work, but I did it, I was dedicated.”

  I was going to ask Ray whether he swam in his badminton kit with his racket in his hand and played badminton dripping wet, but didn’t bother as he would no doubt have said he did, as a handicap, as he was so much better than everyone else. “Did you do any sports at school, Richie?”

  “Just rugby.”

  “Right. I played for the school at football. Centre midfield. I played for the school, Town Green Boys, Craven Minor Representative side and Lancashire. Scored fifty goals from midfield one season. Liverpool and Everton were both after me.”

  They probably didn’t sign him as the first team would have been embarrassed that they were nowhere near his level. It would have knocked Kenny Dalglish’s confidence if Ray Walker had arrived at Anfield in his speedos, badminton kit and football boots and run rings around him!

  I was relieved to finally get into the ground as at least the cheering and the singing managed to drown the arsehole out!

  Kelly

  My feelings towards my mother, all things considered, were pretty neutral. Other than the fact that she brought me into the world and somehow kept me alive until I was old enough to fend for myself (or at least old enough for my older sister, Jemma, to care for me). My mother was not an easy mother for a daughter to have a fondness for. I appreciate that for a lot of mother’s and daughter’s,
there is a special bond, but in our family that bond was between Jemma and I, not Mum and I and most certainly not Jemma and Mum. On the whole, Mum was just not a likeable person, unless of course your raison d’etre was partying hard. Mum lived for her Friday and Saturday nights out and if there wasn’t booze, fags and sex involved, the night was deemed a disaster. There is apparently an Asian saying which translates as,

  “If your head’s at the top of the bed or at the bottom, your bellybutton is still in the middle”, which pretty much means “things balance out in the end”.

  Jemma had learnt this from a friend at school, taught me it and then developed a similar phrase which she felt suited Mum. Jemma’s phrase was, “Whether her head is at the top of the bed or at the bottom, there’s always an arsehole in the middle,” which I took to mean that whether Mum was up on a high or down on a low, in Jemma’s eyes, she was always an arsehole!

  Jemma hated Mum. I remember someone once said to me that you should not hate anyone as that means you wish them dead. Hate was therefore a good description of Jemma’s feeling towards Mum. She wished her dead, absolutely despised her and she had every right to. Jemma had virtually brought me up single handedly, certainly from the age of eight or nine, but she was never a beneficiary of Mum’s kindness, just a victim of her selfishness. She learnt to live with that, as did I. Even before we were teenagers, most of our weekend mornings were spent unblocking our sinks or toilets of Mum’s vomit, whilst she lay comatose in bed. Due to being comatose, we lived in a house that stank like wet nappies and changing urine soaked bed sheets was also a weekly chore. Heartfelt gratitude or embarrassment were never expressed.

  We grew accustomed to strange men watching TV with us on Saturday and Sunday mornings, making themselves a cup of tea and a piece of toast (or sometimes cereal) before heading off. Rarely did we see the same face twice and if we did, she tended to allow them to move in, and sometimes even marry them, so for short periods, stepbrothers and sisters would arrive. Looking back, it was all very strange but for Jemma and I, at the time, it was normality. It was only when we became young adults that Mum changed from being a drunken idiot to an aggressive, drunken idiot. That was when the problems really started.

  My “GCSE” results probably spawned the aggression. I took nine GCSEs and to Mum’s horror, passed nine. This meant that as far as the school, Jemma and I were concerned, Sixth Form and subsequently University, were options. This was not an option Mum entertained though, as all Sixth Form meant to her was that less money would come into the house and more money would go out.

  Jemma only ever wanted the best for me. She knew I was intelligent enough to go to University, to get a degree and for her, this was my ticket out of there. An escape route. Jemma wanted me to pursue this dream. Perhaps it was not an altogether unselfish strategy. Perhaps Jemma thought if I left Ormskirk, went to University, got a degree and a good job then created a home elsewhere, at some point in the future she could follow. I think Jemma’s dreams were dependent on my success.

  At sixteen, Jemma had started working in a bank in Ormskirk, which kept Mum happy as it meant that Jemma contributed to the household expenditure. Jemma viewed it that the State paid the bills and she paid for Mum’s piss ups! As a financial contributor, Jemma felt this gave her a say in matters in the house, which in effect meant she felt she had the right to question Mum’s authority. Mum was a strong minded woman who did not like to be challenged, so when Jemma, at eighteen years old, stated that she thought Mum was completely ridiculous for not allowing me to stay on at Sixth Form, a heated row ensued which culminated in Mum punching, kicking and spitting on Jemma. It was hideous. Mum scared me when she went off on one and I went into self-preservation mode, keeping out the way and doing anything she asked. I was disgusted with myself for being such a coward. Jemma would do anything for me, but I was so intimidated by Mum, I didn’t have the strength of character to help her. Mum had often related tales of her fist fights on the streets of Ormskirk and Southport. Women only had to look at her the wrong way and a full-on hair pulling, rolling along the ground, fist fight, would often ensue, but prior to this attack on Jemma, she had never used her clenched fists on her own offspring. This, by no means, is meant to cast her as a fairytale mother, as we grew up she had often administered a severe smacking on any occasion we were deemed to be a nuisance, but this kicking and punching incident was the first of its kind, but unfortunately not the last.

  The incident seemed to offer Mum, a woman of limited intelligence, an opportunity of clinging on to some control over her eldest daughter, who had long since become her intellectual superior. On a weekly basis, once the beatings started, Jemma took one beating after another and every time, I am ashamed to admit, I just looked on and did nothing.

  The single most horrific beating was one that was delivered on a Saturday morning at 4am. It transpired that this was the final beating Mum ever delivered, although we were obviously oblivious to this statistic at the time. That night, Mum must have staggered in from whichever watering hole she had tarnished, probably feeling frustrated that she had been unable to snare a man, she stumbled into Jemma’s room, clambered onto her bed, straddled her and whilst she was still sleeping, Mum punched her square on the nose. Jemma shot up like a tortured Jack-In-The-Box and as she did so, Mum smashed into her again with a second right hook, knocking her straight back down. I was woken by Mum drunkenly slurring,

  “My fucking knuckles are killing me!”

  Did I go to Jemma’s aid? No, I buried my head in my pillow and cried myself back to sleep. Jemma arrived in my bedroom the following morning looking like a Formula One racing team had borrowed her face to use as a crash test dummy. It was the final straw.

  “If Vomit Breath lays her fingers on me one more time,” she promised, “I’m going to fucking kill her!”

  That Saturday afternoon, Jemma’s boyfriend Ray, having witnessed the mess that Jemma previously called her face, came round to our house to remonstrate with Mum, threatening to get the police involved. To be fair to Ray, despite being charmless and probably hiding a tattoo of a penis somewhere underneath his hairline, he loved Jemma and it was honourable that he was trying to help her in her battle with Mum. It made me feel even guiltier that even an arse like Ray was doing right by Jemma when I was failing her.

  As far as defining moments in my life go, whatever happens in the rest of my life between now and my dying day, nothing will ever cause such a seismic shift in my life, as the moments in the early hours of Sunday 16th April 1989. The day before had witnessed an afternoon of unparalleled tragedy for supporters of Liverpool Football Club. There was no final figure on the death toll, but by Saturday evening, it was widely known that many, many people had died at a football match at Hillsborough, Sheffield. The dead were all Liverpool fans. Men, boys, women and girls. All just football fans enjoying a day out, following their team.

  Mum didn’t understand tragedies that didn’t directly effect her. If she didn’t get a shag on a Saturday night or had no money left to go out, that was a tragedy in Mum’s selfish world, people who she did not know dying, that was someone else’s tragedy. Mum went out that night into Southport, there was probably a sombre mood around the town, understandably given the massive tragedy that had taken place that afternoon, but Mum would not have empathised so she arrived back, earlier than normal, aggressively drunk. Jemma and I were both still awake, we had spent the evening together, as our boyfriends, Ray and Richie, had gone to the other FA Cup Semi-Final, involving Everton. I was in Jemma’s room, just chatting, when we heard the door slam.

  “What a fucking shit night!” Mum muttered to herself, the words drifting up the stairs like a putrid odour.

  Jemma looked at me, her face displayed a mixture of fear and a determination not to allow herself to be Mum’s punch bag any longer.

  “I’m telling you, Kelly, if she lays a finger on me, I’m going to kill her, I mean it, Kel, I’ll kill her!”

  As if to prove her point,
Jemma put her hand under the mattress and pulled out a bread knife.

  “I’m ready for her this time, Kelly.”

  This was crazy. I could hear Mum banging around downstairs, no doubt fixing herself a drink. If recent history was anything to go by, the drink would not take long to down and pretty soon she’d be heading up to take her aggression out on Jemma.

  “Jemma!” I whispered to avoid detection by Mum. “Put the knife away! I’d like Mum out of our lives, just as much as you, but you can’t just stab her to death! Where do you think you’ll be spending the next fifteen years if you kill Mum?”

  Jemma gave me a look of disgust, the likes of which she had never diverted my way before. Still clasping hold of the knife, she spat out her words, in a barely audible diatribe,

  “You want Mum out of your life as much as I do, Kelly? Do not make me laugh! Can I just remind you only one of us has the balls to confront her, only one of us pays her rent, only one of us gets introduced to her fists, EVERY FUCKING WEEK! What are you doing whilst all this shit is happening to me? I tell you what you’re doing, little sister. NOTHING. You are just keeping your nose clean, agreeing with every request that witch sends your way, sitting back, saving your skin whilst I take all the crap.”

  Jemma’s eyes were welling up with tears but her grip on that knife did not loosen.

  She continued,

  “I do everything for you, Kelly, everything. Always have. You would have gone to school with a shitty little backside at primary school if it wasn’t for me, because that bitch wouldn’t wipe it. Now, despite everything, when all I want is a little help back, you don’t deliver. I used to think you were the most beautiful person that walked this earth, Kelly, but not any more. Now I’m just thinking I’ve got you all wrong. You’re not the girl I thought you were. These last few weeks, Kelly, I’ve needed you, really needed you, to be strong for me and you haven’t been. You’ve been weak. So don’t you dare start lecturing me on what to do and what not to do. I’ll sort this out MY way.”