Kicking Up My Heels...in Heels

by Liam Livings

  “He did, Peg.”

  “And if not, I’m sure my place would have some hours if you didn’t mind getting your hands dirty, putting on some Marigolds, rolling up your sleeves. There’s plenty of work about if you’re not fussy. Like I said, we’ll manage, love.” She looked at Tony. “Do you think he’s doing the right thing?”

  “It’s easy, they made the decision for him. Saying no was the best thing they could’ve done.”

  “How come?”

  “He couldn’t stay as it is, so he had to leave. Simple. Sometimes people complicate things, but often life’s quite simple really, if you let it be.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments, letting that thought settle in, then Mum said, “Who’s for Christmas pudding or mince pies? Homemade of course.”

  Tony said, “We had some vegan alcohol free one. Who knows what they used for the fat in the pastry, but it was like cardboard. Didn’t have the heart to tell Mum. I put one in my pocket and chucked it from my car on the way here.”

  “Suet, brandy, and plenty of it, in mine, love. How’s it sound?” Mum held a plate of mince pies and a pudding bowl wrapped in muslin in the other hand.

  “Yes please.” Tony winked at me, licking his lips.

  We’ll manage, she’d said. I had a feeling somehow, we would manage, mum and me, we’d manage just fine.

  Chapter Seven

  7 JANUARY 2000

  The first day of my life post-TK Maxx. I think I thought it would feel more different than it actually did. I think I thought it would feel like the dawn of a new era. I think I thought I’d feel so very different. Apart from not having to wear those hideously plain black trousers and white shirts and the pinned on ‘hello my name is Kev Harrison how can I help you’ badge, it didn’t really feel much different from 6 January, my last day there.

  New Year’s Eve had been a very quiet affair. I’d been invited to London by Kieran to spend it with him and Jo. But as I was working both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, I’d have had less than twelve hours to get to London, party myself into the new century, get back and be ready for slaving over a hot till the next day. So instead, I opted for the Duke, where else? With Tony, who else? And it was all right. In a “these are the options we have” and “this is where we live” sort of way. No, seriously, it was a good New Year’s Eve, as far as they go.

  A few people at the Duke had got wind of me leaving work and amid wishes for a good year 2000 and sloppy kisses on my cheeks and hugs, they asked me if I was nervous about it. Tony, sensing I’d been asked this a few times too many by this point, in perfect Tony style, flicked his hair back, moistened his eyebrows and said, “He’s doing what he had to do, so what is there to be nervous about?” Just as he’d told Mum and me on Christmas day.

  I said to a few people I was jumping into the unknown and having confidence something would catch me. Which wasn’t strictly speaking true, as I had a few options of work from Mum and Tony tucked away, but to the wide world, to the Duke, to everyone but Mum and Tony, that was the façade I was showing, and so that was the one I stuck to, publicly.

  One more week at work. We had a quiet leaving-do after my last shift—drinks in the pub over the road from work. People drifted in from five o’clock, most drifting off by six, me refusing too many drinks as people who’d missed my leaving present offered to buy me a drink, a bit of money behind the bar from Brian that ran out very quickly, I noted. During the night were lots of “Stay in touch” and “You must come round and tell us how you’re getting on” from people I knew I had no desire to see again and really had no desire to see me again, but we all smiled and chinked glasses in the polite way we do.

  Brian made his excuses at twenty to six, forty minutes in, shook my hand, wished me luck, and left, his blue folder poking from his leather satchel. And so, by seven o’clock, I found myself pretty drunk, almost alone, in the pub over the road from work, wishing I could blink my eyes and be magicked home instantly. Tony couldn’t make it, which I thought would have made it a bit more worth it, and others had got quite excited about him returning, like the prodigal son, from his journey to Southampton and to another retail establishment. But no, it wasn’t to be.

  Someone put me in a taxi with a twenty-pound note slipped to the driver and I was ferried home, my head lolling about slightly, my eyes watering a bit—about what I wasn’t quite sure, maybe it was a significant end of an era. Maybe I would miss the people more than I thought, or maybe I was actually shit scared. Straight to bed and then nothing.

  Now, the following morning of 7 January of the year 2000, I didn’t have to get up for work. I didn’t have to get up and do anything. The whole day was my own—once I’d got rid of a hangover the size of Gloucestershire and stopped my mouth feeling like I’d been chewing on a hedgehog all night. Later that afternoon, when I finally rose from my pit, I realised I had the whole week to myself, except Saturday night when I was playing for an hour in Southampton, down by the docks at a cabaret bar I’d played many times before. A whole week to myself. How wonderful, I thought.

  The first day was pretty much a write-off, between the hangover and enjoying being in bed. The next day I was up by ten o’clock, and once I’d established Mum was at work, I settled myself on the sofa and got quite into daytime TV: a few morning magazine shows with a smiley couple on a sofa welcoming a variety of guests to talk about everything from bowel cancer to the seasons must-have dresses; and then a few repeated dramas from the seventies, which I found were the televisual equivalent of warm milk and cocoa. Who knew you could watch three episodes of The Waltons and not even notice the time passing? One day, Mum came home, and I thought I’d moved to Walton Mountain and expected her to have a long cotton dress and start churning butter in a wooden churn bucket thingy. Of course, she didn’t, and I was so disappointed.

  Next day, Mum wasn’t working and although I was safely ensconced at Walton’s mountain with a vat of tea and a mountain of hot buttered toast, Mum walked in and said, “What are you doing?”

  I gestured to the TV and toast, with a slight rolling of my eyes.

  “This is all you’ve done all week, isn’t it?” She started puffing up the cushions behind me, checking for dust on the horizontal surfaces, and generally bustling about.

  “I’ve got a show Saturday night. I got dressed yesterday. I might get dressed later today. I might not get dressed at all.” I turned back to the TV to reacquaint myself with the happenings at Walton Mountain.

  Mum pulled the duvet off me. “I said we’d manage. I said we’d cope. What I didn’t say was I’d let you sit around like some out of work student on his bloody summer bloody holidays. You’re doing this performing. So, do it.” She hit me gently with a cushion. “Get upstairs and get dressed.”

  I pointed to the TV. “But, what about… I’ve watched the last few and I need to know what happens with the little lost goat they’ve found.”

  Hand on hip, she pointed upstairs. “NOW!”

  Chapter Eight

  I REAPPEARED WASHED and dressed and told her I was going to Southampton to the fabric shop I liked, see if there was anything I could use for costumes, then have a look around the music shops for any inspiration for new songs to learn.

  She stood by the door as I walked out. “Well done, love. Can’t have you sat around here all day, cluttering the place up, making it a mess. Get out, get some air, see some life.”

  I spent a pleasant enough day in Southampton doing what I’d told Mum I would. Grabbed a few bits of fabric. Bought a few singles of songs in the top twenty I’d heard on the radio so I could learn the words properly. I had a late lunch at a cafe in Debenhams, did some people watching, wondering why all the other young people weren’t working either. Eavesdropped on some old people’s conversation about the price of the tea and bun deal and it wasn’t as good as they’d thought and next time they’d go to the cafe round the corner. Ogled one of the cafe staff who was on jacket potato duty—he was all dark beard and long dark
hair in a net, muscles straining out of his faux chef’s uniform, and pectoral muscles highlighted by his name badge and Debenhams logo. I lingered long enough to catch him bending forward to pick up a few trays from the tables and noted his impressively muscled tight bum under the blue and white checked trousers.

  By the time I’d dropped my purchases off at my car it was five o’clock and getting dark. I didn’t want to rush home to face the wrath of Mum and an interview about how productive my day had been, so I locked the car and sauntered over to a nearby pub I’d performed in a few times before. Only for a lime and soda water, of course.

  As soon as I walked in, the manager behind the bar recognised me, shouting my name—Daniel, or David, or Doug he was called.

  I smiled, asked for a lime and soda and took a seat at the bar on a high bar stool.

  Daniel handed my drink over and said he’d put vodka in it, knowing what I was like. “On the house. When you coming back? They loved you last time. I’ve had people asking me if we can get you back.”

  “I’m open for bookings,” I said with a smile and a sip of drink. Just the one, and I’ll be fine to drive. I explained I was performing full-time and got my diary from my bag to see when I was free.

  He booked me for a few nights over the next month or so, said that called for a celebration, and did I want another drink.

  “Best not.” I made the steering wheel mime people always do to show they’re driving. “Driving.”

  “Fair enough. How about I put one here, and if you’re here long enough, and have something to eat, you can have it with your food.”

  I liked the sound of that. I liked how sensible it sounded. That’s the sort of thing Kieran would have suggested if he’d been there. This is the new organised, business-focused Kev person I need to be.

  Chicken and chips washed down with a double vodka and lemonade, and another few I’d bought myself later and I was well away. I was so well away in fact, I was on the stage doing samples of the songs I was thinking of performing next time I was back. After the food and the drink he’d left on the bar just in case, I knew I couldn’t drive, only it had taken me the whole drink to work that out.

  Daniel mentioned something about a spare bed upstairs and a nominal charge, which I thought clearly solved that problem. So by then I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound, so added another few drinks, because no good story ever started with I was drinking lime and soda. I was having fun, and who doesn’t want more alcohol when you’re having fun, and also, I didn’t have to be up in the morning. The novelty of this new fact had yet to wear off for me. It was, very much, at that stage a new and welcome novelty.

  I swayed at the urinal, concentrating hard not to miss and get my shoes instead. I was aware of a large shape to my side but kept looking straight ahead, as per the men at urinals code.

  “All right?” the large shape to my side said.

  I finished my business, packed myself away, and using all the concentration I could muster, walked to the sink to wash my hands.

  “Impressive your singing. I like it,” the same voice continued.

  I flicked my hands partly dry, wiped them on my trousers, and turned to face the noise.

  Well, fuck me, if it wasn’t the jacket potato man from Debenhams. He stood before me in jeans and a white polo neck jumper. It didn’t show off his assets quite as well as his work uniform had, but he was still beardy, long-haired, stocky, and butch, so not all was very far from lost.

  I walked back to my bar stool and sipped my drink, enjoying the bitterness of the vodka and pulling a cigarette from my bag. As I brought it to my lips, someone appeared and lit it with a metal lighter with a skull on it.

  Jacket potato man brought his skull lighter to a cigarette in his mouth.

  We both inhaled deeply, breathing out a large plume of smoke around our heads.

  I enjoyed the feeling of drunkenness and quenching my desire for a cigarette. It felt, at that moment, all was well with the world, all was in its place. I had some of my drink left, an almost new packet of cigarettes in my bag, and now this nice beardy man was next to me, telling me how much he liked my singing. I nodded as he commented about which song was his favourite, and how he’d seen me in Debenhams, and thought he recognised me from this pub the last time I’d performed.

  Chapter Nine

  BACK AT HIS flat, not far from the pub in a grey tower block the other side of the dual carriageway in deepest darkest St. Mary’s red-light district of Southampton, he took his clothes off and naked, he looked like he was still wearing a brown jumper. One thing led to another, and we were bouncing about on his bed, sweaty and panting. When he came, he shouted “Yes! Yes! Yes!” at the top of his voice, which I thought was odd, but nothing to worry about. Straight after, he jumped out of bed and into the shower, and reappeared a few minutes later, drying the hair on his head and on his body as his impressive manhood jangled from side to side as he walked around the room.

  I smiled at myself, I can pick them, can’t I? I remembered seeing it at much closer quarters and asking him what he liked to do with it and was it any good. He’d nodded, so I carried on with what I was doing with it at the time.

  Now, he jumped back in bed with me, slightly damp. As we lay spooning together, he said, “Nice and clean now.” He took a breath. “That was my first time.”

  I thought he was joking as he was a good five years older than me, and really, twenty-five and still a virgin, I don’t think so. I laughed quietly, trying to get to sleep.

  “Really. Glad it was with you. Since I first saw you performing, I knew I loved you. I knew we would be together.” He cuddled up closer to me, his arms around my waist.

  Bang went any chance of doing a runner. “When did you first see me?”

  “A year ago, you were at another pub in Bristol. I found out where else you were appearing. When you came back here, I was so pleased.”

  Wonderful. Lovely. Exactly what I need, my own personal stalker. “I’m pretty tired, ’night.” I shut my eyes tightly, willing myself away from the situation.

  After twenty minutes more about how he’d followed me around the pubs and clubs I’d played at, and how he’d been saving himself for me, his arms still tightly around me, I felt a cold chill grasping my heart. Dennis Nilsen, I’ve just shagged the Dennis Nilsen of Hampshire—the “British Jeffrey Dahmer”—and I wasn’t leaving this flat alive.

  He kissed my shoulder gently. “Night, night.”

  And my body, too pissed and tired to resist, finally, after running on empty for far too long, finally shut down.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke to a familiar noise, but thinking it was in my dream, I rolled about a bit more and hoped it would go away. After a brief respite of silence, the noise resumed. It was my mobile phone, ringing until it went to voicemail, then ringing again. I opened my eyes, shading them from the light streaming through the slatted blinds at the window. A double bed, a bedside cabinet on one side, a cheap fake wooden wardrobe on the wall opposite the window, some leather clothes and a motorcycle helmet on top of the clothes. I’d deflowered a Hell’s Angel. A British, gay, Hell’s Angel. Snaps to me. And he was a stalker. Not so much snaps to me.

  Then that noise started again. My mobile phone. I crawled out of bed, following the noise to a pile of my clothes in the far corner of the room, where he’d undressed me while kissing and rubbing me with his beard. Now, I shuddered. At the time it had seemed really sexy. Funny the difference a few hours can make isn’t it? I grabbed my phone from my trousers pocket and before it stopped ringing, answered it.

  “Thank goodness you’re alive. Is this you? Who’s got my son’s phone? If you’ve done anything to him, I’ll make sure the police get you. Who is this? This is Mrs. Harrison, and if you’ve done anything…”

  “It’s me. I’m all right.” Shit, I’d forgotten to let her know I was staying out the night. A quick call was all it would have taken, but amid the vodka, the dancing, the tickly beard, the muscles, and eve
rything else, it had somehow slipped my mind. Shit, work, I’m gonna be late! I checked my watch. I was well late, it was nine now. Then I remembered, no work. Not until Saturday night. That was why I’d gone to the pub on a Wednesday night in the first place.

  “Where the bloody hell are you? I’ve been ringing since I got up, worried out my mind I was, thinking you could be chopped up in bits, somewhere, down someone’s drains, goodness only knows what else.”

  “I’m in Southampton. Be home later. I’m fine, honest. Sorry.” Was it bad form to tell her I’d accidentally slept with the Dennis Nilsen of Southampton, or would that worry her unnecessarily? Unnecessary worry, definitely. Besides, I didn’t know he was really a stalker psycho, did I?

  She started to berate me again, and the door opened with the gay Hell’s Angels man standing with a tray of food and a wide smile on his face.

  “Can I call you back?” I put the phone down and concentrated on the task in hand—getting out the flat away from this stalker I’d accidentally deflowered and getting home in one piece.

  Walking back, he then put the tray on the bed, climbing in next to me. “Just a few things, I wasn’t sure what you liked. Couldn’t get much info about that. So, I guessed.” He talked through the various options of cooked breakfast, toast, marmalade, jams, butter and spread, crumpets, and finished with “I wanted to show how much I love you,” before digging in and encouraging me to do the same.

  I slowly buttered a crumpet, holding my arm to my chest to stop it shaking. How much I love you? What sort of police crime reconstruction had I accidentally stumbled into?

  We ate in silence for a short while, then he said, “What is your address? I remember you said last night when we got in the taxi it was a village outside Salisbury, but which one is it? I’m sure you mentioned it before, but I must have missed it? You see, I’d love to meet your Mum. I know your dad’s not around anymore—a few people told me when I asked at one of your other performances…”