by Lee Evans
To make matters worse, my job as a painter and decorator had not gone well.
‘Let there be light!’ I shouted. It was six in the morning, and I was eager to get started on painting my first ever window. Not that Gary’s dad knew that it was the first window I’d ever painted in my entire life, but I thought naively, ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you.’
Gary’s Dad, Kevin, believed that I was a professional painter. Oh, there was no doubt I was experienced in the classics, all right. Rembrandt, Monet, Constable – I suppose I could boast that I sat right alongside those great painters myself, as none of us four would know one end of a tin of emulsion from the other, let alone where to get a decent cup of tea and a bap in the fag break.
‘What you going on about, you idiot?’ Kevin sighed to me. ‘Right, bollock chops, all those windows have to be painted in pronto. The stuff you need is in that lock-up over there. And don’t muck about. Get it done, yeah?’ Slapping a key in my hand, he got into his white van and sped off.
I looked around – still no other painters, just me. I held the rusting key in my hand. It was starting to get light, so at least I could just about see what I was doing, even though I had no idea what that was meant to be. I strolled over to the lock-up, shrugged my shoulders and said to myself, ‘I’ll just blag it. I mean, how hard can it be?’
When Kevin ordered me to ‘Paint the windows in’, that’s what I did. I painted in the actual glass windows and not the frames. But the moment he saw my handiwork, Kevin erupted in fury.
As a sort of defence mechanism, I threw the roller-brush to the floor like some great artist having a strop that his precious work had been insulted. ‘Well, I didn’t know, did I? I’m not a painter, am I?’ I slumped to the corner of the room and crossed my arms like a school kid with the right hump. But it was too late. Kevin had found out I wasn’t actually a painter at all.
He sacked me on the spot, and informed me to go away immediately – well, in fact, his words were a bit stronger than that, if I’m honest. He then said that if he ever saw me again, he would stick the roller-brush and tray so far up somewhere that they would be surgically impossible to remove and I would suffer distemper for the rest of my life. That was just the start of it. Kevin went on to give me a really good blasting of some serious bile. He delivered it directly into my face, until my flattened features looked like they were experiencing high forces of acceleration.
But after Kevin had calmed down and I had cleaned all the windows back to how they were, I told him that I was still desperate for the work as I had a baby on the way. Kevin said he understood that – and he also understood that I was quite well known at school as an imbecile. So he found it in his heart to offer me a couple of days’ work cleaning public toilets in Southend, readying them for his boys to decorate.
This time, Gary came down and showed me what to do. He was very helpful, demonstrating exactly how to prepare for the redecoration of these horribly dilapidated toilets. They were in desperate need of restoration – even the sign outside had been sprayed with a new title: ‘Wank Central’.
Gary told me I had to clean them from top to bottom with hot soapy water. I also had to fill in and rub down all the woodwork and doors, including what I was told by Gary were glory holes in the cubicle walls. I thought they sounded quite exciting; I even tried explaining what a glory hole was to Heather later that night. If we ever get any money, I said, lying back on the couch, I wouldn’t mind a few of those glory holes myself. She did not, it has to be said, look very impressed by my plan.
Then I had to chip out any cracked or broken tiles, so new ones could be fitted. I also had to dig out any old discoloured mastic, so it could be renewed. I didn’t relish that job as mostly that was around the bottom of the toilet pan, and one could tell that there were whole new species living down there.
Making sure I was completely OK with what I was doing, Gary left me to get on with it. I got to work straight away and, making up for the window debacle, never stopped until Gary reappeared at seven o’clock that evening. We closed up the toilets and he took me home. Dropping me off, he told me he would pick me up in the morning. Then, before driving away, he told me I had done a really good job. He added that he was getting plenty of work in at the moment doing jobs for Southend Council and would soon need to take people on, which I took as a hint.
I was so happy. I was doing OK at last. I reckoned if I worked hard – and there was no doubt I was getting on really well with Gary and was making him laugh a lot – I thought that he might even take me on permanently. Things just might be looking up for us at last.
Do you ever have those dreams where everything is so vivid that you awake with a start, gasping with fear and dread and believing that the events actually happened? Well, I had one of those dreams that night. Heather had suddenly from nowhere entered my dream and screamed – something was wrong with her! I cracked open my eyes and – relief, thank God – I was just dreaming. Here was the bedroom, our bedroom. I turned over to check that Heather was next to me, but she was already up. Was it her turn to make the tea perhaps? I couldn’t remember.
I lifted my head and checked the time. Four o’clock? I thought, wait a minute, that’s too early, we never get up until at least 6.30. There it was again, a scream. It was muffled this time, but it was clear who was in distress: Heather!
I jumped out of bed, not even thinking about how cold it was. I didn’t care, there was obviously something wrong. We have that connection, Heather and I. If she was on the other side of the world and something happened to her, I would know about it.
Seriously concerned, I ran from the bedroom and began shouting urgently. ‘Heath? Heather?’
‘Lee.’ It was her, in the bathroom. ‘Lee.’ The way she said it made my stomach twist into a tight knot. I crashed through the door to find Heather sitting scrunched up in a little ball on the floor in a giant pool of blood. She looked up at me, her exhausted face begging for help. My entire body sank, my legs instantly turning to lead. Wait, I told myself, snap out of it, Lee. Come on, come on!
Suddenly all my instincts burst into action. It was as if I had just been hit with a full charge. I thought, I mustn’t let Heather know I’m afraid – because I was so, so afraid. I knew what was happening and so did she. Women know as soon as it starts. Poor thing, she would have known hours ago, but had probably hoped it wasn’t true. Perhaps she didn’t want to worry me or tempt fate.
The most frustrating thing in situations like this is that you can do nothing to ease the pain of the person you love so dearly. Even though you have sworn you will gladly throw yourself from a mountain for them, the only thing you can do is try to comfort them. I dropped to my knees, grabbed her, held her as tightly as I could and told her I loved her more than anything else in the world. Heather began to cry.
‘We’ve lost it, Lee. It’s gone. I’m so sorry.’
‘Come on, H, you don’t know that, do you? Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right, I swear. You just wait and see.’
‘I already know, Lee,’ she cried. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She began to bawl uncontrollably.
When all is said and done, you’re all alone. There is no one else, it’s just you. That’s what I concluded as we sat there, just us, huddled in a pool of Heather’s blood on the hard floor of our shitty bathroom-cum-crap-kitchen, or whatever the bloody room was meant to be.
I looked up to the sky for something, anything. ‘Come on, mate,’ I pleaded. ‘Help us out a little bit ’ere, will you? We’re in a bit of a jam.’ I’m not sure who I was talking to, but I was hoping someone was listening.
It was freezing, and I was worried Heather was getting cold. I lifted her up, cradling her in my arms. The blood was still pouring down – I could feel it as it got colder and began running down my legs. I carried her, her head on my shoulder, into the bedroom. I bent over and was just about to lay her down when she started worrying about the
stains on the bed. It’s funny, she seemed more concerned about that than what was happening to her. ‘No! The bed! We’ll ruin it, Lee.’
‘Listen, I’ve got to put you down, love. You’re ruining my back at the moment.’ That made her laugh a little.
I laid Heather gently on the bed, pulling the covers over her. She instantly doubled up into a tiny ball. She was in obvious pain. I whispered in her ear that I was going to call her an ambulance. I told her I wouldn’t leave her alone for long and would be straight back with the cavalry. I didn’t want to leave her, but I had to.
As fast as I could, I whipped some clothes on, bolted down the stairs and out the door into the dark, wet, freezing early hours of the morning. My arms pumping like a steam train, I ran flat out along the middle of the deserted road, the white lines zipping under my feet. The dull yellow street lights, the unlit houses, everything whizzed past until I knew I was halfway between our flat, where Heather lay waiting for me to return, and the red call box that would get help.
But the phone box seemed to be getting further away with every determined stride. It was at that point that the weight of what was happening all of a sudden flashed into my mind. It was like I’d hit a wall. I burst into uncontrollable tears. My head was spinning, my whole body racked with grief. I was losing my stride, finding it difficult to run as my breathing was irregular. I put my head down and cut through the biting frost.
I felt such anger and resentment, but who do you direct it at? There’s nobody. As I ran, I punched out at the air in front of me as if it were the god of fate that had just dealt us this devastating hand. I was so furious, furious at everything. ‘Why us, why choose us?’ I wailed. ‘We have nothing, we’re nobody. Why pick on us, why Heather? She’s never done anything to anybody. She’s a lovely girl. Why?’
I was even cross with Heather for being so brave and taking it without herself getting angry. She always does that. If there’s one thing that irritates me about Heather, it’s that whenever anything bad happens, she hardly expresses any anger at all. What’s that? ‘I’m not very happy with you now.’ That’s crap! She never seeks revenge. She’s always of a mind that you are innocent until proven guilty. She just takes it and gets on with it.
In Bristol, the rules were that you went over to see the bloke who had done you wrong, knocked on his door and sorted him out. Dad always said that if someone hits you, hit them back, but harder. Ever since I’d run from that one fight, I swore I would never run from anything ever again. But then you find out that’s all bullshit because it doesn’t work in the real world, not here, not now. There is no one to fight in a situation like this. There’s just you, running along this empty street trying to help your best friend, the person you love most in the world.
Suddenly I lost my footing. I flew forward and, unable to get my hands out in time – crunch! – my face cracked into the tarmac. I lay there for a moment, face down, spread across the wet road, waiting to see what bits would start hurting first. My hands began to sting where they had slapped hard on to the unforgiving surface. Then I could feel one side of my face start to throb. I lifted my head up and examined the road where my face had hit it – no blood, good – but I’d definitely given it a good scraping. Now I was really annoyed with everything: the road, the wet, myself, the whole situation.
I gradually got to my feet, and began talking to God knows who. ‘Well, then, if that’s how it is, then fuck you, because we ain’t beat yet!’ I raised myself up and rolled back my shoulders. ‘If that’s what your little plan is, then you’ve got to do better than that.’
I lowered my head and faced into the wind. I bent over nearly double and was much more aerodynamic now. I thought of Heather lying back there on the bed, waiting. So I picked up my feet and hammered them hard into the wet black tarmac and, bang, I sliced through the sharp freezing air once more. I was flying down the street so fast, the wind couldn’t even keep up. I rallied, shouting at the top of my lungs. Up from the pit of my stomach it came and roared out of my mouth.
‘I’m coming, Heather. You hold on, my friend, cos we ain’t beat yet. Now come on, Lee. Run, you bastard, run!’
34. Opportunity Knocks
‘Sorry, it’s gone. You lost it.’
That’s what the tired, dishevelled-looking bloke in the white coat said, just like that, all casual. He never even batted an eyelid, nothing; it was as if he’d just put the rubbish out. He then turned, flipped the lid of a giant pedal-bin, threw in a paper towel he’d been wiping his hands with and began walking away up the long, grey, empty corridor.
It took me a moment to process what he had just told me. Lost it? What did he mean? I needed more than that. So I shouted, ‘Doctor? Sorry.’ I chased after him, grabbing his arm to stop him. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. What?’
He looked a little irked that I’d pulled at his coat. ‘She lost the baby,’ he snapped. ‘We’re keeping her in for observation. She’s asleep now. It was an ectopic, so she has lost a lot of blood. It was a good job we caught it when we did – it could have been fatal, you know. So go home now. You can come and see her tomorrow.’
He said it with such disregard that I thought he couldn’t possibly be talking about that beautiful woman, my Heather. My mind was now all topsy-turvy, confused. I needed more information. I know I’m an idiot, I thought, perhaps it’s me. What was he going on about, ectopic? What’s that? I was only eighteen, for crying out loud!
The doctor went to walk away, but I suddenly found I’d grabbed hold of him and stared into his blood-shot eyes. Heather deserved more than that. Why was he so rude? He just stared back at me with hardly any emotion at all. There didn’t seem to be anyone home – did he even care?
Wait a minute, why should he? I understood. We were just a couple of scruffbags from God knows where, brought in and dumped with him in the early hours of the morning after a long night shift. It wasn’t his fault; we were just one of many he’d had to tell the same to, some even worse than us. I must also have looked like some wino with my dirty clothes and half my face swollen up.
I loosened my grip on his white coat. Letting go, I apologized. He raised an eyebrow, looked down at me with real disdain, nodded, straightened his coat and walked away down the corridor, which looked just as cold as he was. I watched him go all the way until he disappeared, flapping through some doors at the end.
I turned around, exhausted. The line of five dog-eared plastic chairs bolted to the tiled floor in front of me suddenly looked a very inviting prospect, even though they seemed to be saying they were more tired and yellow-eyed than I was. But, by then, I didn’t care. I bedded down for a couple of hours, accepting that the grumpy chair in the middle was going to poke me in the back the whole time.
Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, I was gone, but not before the thought had flashed across my mind – or was it the hope? – that perhaps this time when I awoke, all this might turn out to have been just a dream.
Of course, when I didn’t show up for work the next day, my job with Gary went straight down the toilet – probably one of the ones I was meant to be cleaning – faster than a bag of the white stuff at Scarface’s gaff when there was a knock on the door from the drugs squad.
Later, Gary explained that he’d lost lots of work with Southend Council to a competitor and he hoped to employ me when things picked up again. But Gary was a nice guy and did pay me for the days I’d worked for him – which, considering I only ever did infinitesimally more than an imbecile might have done, was very generous of him.
So there it was. I couldn’t even manage another day cleaning a toilet. I mean, how bad had I become? I imagined Gary having a chat with his dad in some wood-panelled men’s club, both of them sat in leather-backed chairs, puffing cigars and sipping cognac.
‘Do you think he could actually have lasted another day cleaning toilets, Gary?’
‘No, I just think he’s not ready for that kind of pressure.’
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I was gradually coming to the conclusion that I was one of life’s losers. But, on the positive side, I was good at it.
After a few days, Heather and I returned to our flat, and I set her up with a hot-water bottle and a blanket on the couch in the lounge. She was next to the knackered old telly which, with its feeble inner illuminated tubes and dodgy wiring, would emit about as much heat as a friction burn from a gnat’s wing flap. But I felt it would be even colder for her in the bedroom. It was the middle of winter now, and that bedroom was so cold, every time you opened the door, a light came on.
Heather was desperate to get well again. She wanted to find work or she knew we would now definitely go under. It was nearing Christmas, and the only good tidings we got through our letter box were a tidal wave of reminders that managed to hide the dirty great hole in the shitty carpet next to the front door.
I got straight back to looking for work again down at the Job Centre and along the London Road, proffering my services. Then, before returning home gloomily without any kind of hopeful news for Heather on the job front, I went into W. H. Smith to buy the Southend Evening Echo. That paper always had a decent job section in the back, which would keep me busy the next morning down at the call box ringing some of the vacancies.
I searched the news and magazine stand inside the shop for the Echo. Then, as I bent down to pick it up, I spotted a copy of The Stage and Television Today. It’s a monthly newspaper aimed at all aspects of the entertainment business, a sort of trade publication. It caught my eye because I remembered when I was a kid Dad used to look in it for gigs singing in the clubs.
