by Sylvia Smith
A large white envelope arrived whilst Shaunagh was on holiday. Sharon, realising what it contained, opened it, and had the most terrible shock. There were many detailed sheets showing quite clearly that Tom had phoned people all over the UK. His calls amounted to five hundred pounds. Also, British Telecom asked for a large deposit immediately or the line would be cut off. When Tom came home from work Sharon showed him the bill. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I didn’t realise the calls would be that much. I’ll just have to pay Shaunagh so much a month.’
Sharon returned from work the following evening and as time went by, she began to wonder where Tom was. Around 9 p.m. she became very suspicious and went upstairs into his room. She looked around her and noticed all the surface tops were clear and there were no possessions lying on the floor. She opened the wardrobe door to find Tom’s clothes missing. She looked through all the drawers and these too were empty. He had quite obviously moved out. As he had left no note or cheque she decided he was not going to pay his share of the bill. Sharon was unable to pay the large deposit British Telecom wanted and the phone was cut off a few days later. She told me of the situation but there was nothing I could do either.
I spoke to Shaunagh in her office the Monday after her return from holiday. I asked, ‘How are you, and what’s happening with the telephone?’ She replied, ‘I had just got my suitcase inside the street door when Sharon pounced on me and told me Tom had gone and she showed me the telephone bill. I couldn’t believe it. I felt so ill I went up the pub with Sharon and got myself drunk.’ ‘How are you now?’ I asked. She replied, ‘I’ve phoned British Telecom and I’ve arranged to pay them eighty pounds a month for the next six months and I’ll have to pay them for putting the phone back on, but this time I’m having incoming calls only so no one will be able to dial out. I’m pissed off.’
As I was concerned about the situation I phoned Shaunagh in her office two days later. This time it was the old Shaunagh. When I asked how she was feeling she said, ‘I’m grand now. It’s only money after all.’ I said, ‘If that had happened to me I’d be as miserable as sin for about a fortnight.’
A few weeks later Shaunagh saw Tom in a pub. She went over to him and said, ‘Thanks for leaving me a five hundred pound telephone bill. Can I have some money off you?’ Tom replied, ‘I’ll come to the house next Friday and I’ll give you all I can.’ This he did, and gave Shaunagh two hundred pounds. After his visit no more was seen of Tom until Shaunagh went home to Derry for Christmas. She was walking down a street one evening and Tom drove past her in a car. He stopped and offered her a lift, which she accepted. On her return to London she told me of their meeting. I asked, ‘Didn’t you have a good old go at him and try to get your three hundred pounds back? If that had been me I’d have told him to give me fifty pounds out of his wallet. What did you do?’ She replied, ‘I’d completely forgotten all about the telephone bill and we just talked about our families and friends and that was all that was said.’
Shaunagh had to pay the remainder of the bill and a further eighty pounds for the re-connection.
Shaunagh knew I was writing this book. I said to her, ‘I read in the paper the other day that a new author got a sixty thousand pound advance from her publisher. If that happens to me I’ll take you out to dinner.’ She replied, ‘You are going to get all that money and that’s all you’re going to give me?’
1990
JUNE
June was forty years old. I was forty-five. We met through a social club. We also met a lady called Maureen, aged forty-six, through the same social club and we would go out in a threesome most weekends. June lived in a large bedsit in Swiss Cottage and was unemployed but had a wealthy mother who gave her a generous weekly allowance. June had an American boyfriend called John who was aged thirty-five.
June had a long-standing friendship with an American called John. Every two years John would come to London and visit June and on his return home they would correspond. During his last visit John asked June to marry him. She took her time considering his proposal and finally agreed just before he returned to the States.
One evening at dinner June told me she was sorting out her affairs and would be leaving for the US within a few weeks. She said she was going to marry John in the United States and they would make their home there.
June spoke glowingly of her fiance and told me he had a limp because he had tried to commit suicide but had failed. She said he put a loaded rifle barrel in to his mouth and pulled the trigger but missed his target and had been rushed to hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. The surgery saved his life but he was left paralysed down his left side.
June told me how unfair life had been to John. His father was trying to have him committed to a mental institution and the US authorities had stopped him from his studies at university where he had been hoping to qualify as a doctor. June said they wouldn’t even allow him to be a pharmacist.
I didn’t share June’s optimism with this relationship and told her so but she had made up her mind and had bought an expensive lilac suit as her wedding outfit. Unable to dissuade her I advised, ‘Don’t have any guns in the house, June, because the last time he flipped his lid he missed at very close range and if he does it again, you never know, he might hit you.’
I spoke to June on the telephone a few days before she left for the States and John, but she didn’t write to me as she had promised and to date I have heard nothing more from her.
1990
MAUREEN
Maureen was a forty-six-year-old divorcee who didn’t look her years. We met through a social club. We also met a lady called June, aged forty, through the same club and we would go out in a threesome most weekends. I was forty-five.
Maureen was in her twenties when she took advantage of the ten pound assisted boat passage to Australia which was available in the Sixties if you agreed to settle there for at least two years.
On her arrival in Sydney, Maureen lived in an immigrants’ hostel but soon found herself furnished accommodation where she had her own room and shared a kitchen/diner, bathroom and garden with three other tenants. Each tenant had their own small electric cooker in the kitchen/diner.
One Saturday afternoon Maureen decided to have dinner. She switched on her cooker, put a pie in the oven and placed a saucepan ofpotatoes on the sole electric burner. As soon as the water began to simmer she returned to her room. Ten minutes later she checked to see how her food was progressing. To her annoyance she found her potatoes had been replaced by a large pot of stew. Maureen removed the offending vessel and returned her saucepan to the burner. On her next visit to the kitchen Maureen again found the stewpot sitting on her oven ring. This time she lost her temper. She grabbed both handles of the stewpot and threw it up the back garden, once more placing her saucepan of potatoes on to her cooker.
Later that afternoon Maureen heard a knock on her door. She opened it to see a blond young man winking and smiling at her with the girl from upstairs standing behind him. He gave Maureen a good telling-off about the stewpot but all the time smiling at her and winking furiously. Maureen stood in the doorway quietly listening to this odd tirade and simply closed the door when he’d finished.
There were no further incidents in the kitchen.
Maureen lived in Australia for six years before returning to the UK.
1990
THE CAR CRASH
It was an icy winter’s day and I was returning home after shopping in St James’ Street, Walthamstow. I saw a black man driving a blue car turn right into the main road at the bottom of the High Street, attempting to squeeze in to the oncoming traffic. He drove into a huge patch of ice and lost control of his vehicle, spinning around and around in ever-widening circles. A red car, also driven by a black man but with a slightly paler complexion, was travelling towards the blue car but stopped when the driver saw the other’s difficulties. The blue car eventually hit the red one, creating a large dent in its right wing. As I had experienced a car
crash myself I knew the problems you could encounter with insurance policies. I crossed the road and said to the driver of the red car, ‘I saw exactly what happened here and if you need a witness I’ll back you.’ He thanked me and made a note of my name and address.
I returned to the pavement and stood beside a black woman as we watched the two men separate the cars. She said to me, ‘Why did you pick on the black man?’ I replied, ‘Well, he hit the red car. The other feller didn’t do anything wrong.’ She said, ‘Yes, okay, but it wasn’t the black man’s fault, it was an accident.’ I didn’t reply further but as I walked away I thought, ‘Both those men were black. The one I helped obviously had some white in him so surely the black woman was being racist? And as for the comment, “It was an accident,” if it hadn’t been we should have called the police and reported a case of damage by criminal intent.’
1990
OLD BILL
Bill was a widower aged seventy-six. He had developed gangrene in his right leg and it had been amputated. He was confined to a wheelchair and lived in an old people’s home as he was unable to look after himself. I was forty-five.
The first time I saw Bill he was sitting in a wheelchair in the lounge window of an old people’s home. I felt very sorry for him. As I passed him daily I eventually smiled and waved at him, and he waved back at me. We progressed to talking to each other in mime. One day he mouthed, ‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’ I nodded in reply. I walked up the pathway to the main entrance and rang the doorbell. The matron answered. I said, ‘I’d like to see the old man who sits in the window but I don’t know which flat he lives in.’ She replied, ‘That’s Bill. Come in and I’ll take you to him.’ I followed her and she continued, ‘He says every time you smile and wave at him you make his day.’ Bill and I became very good friends and I would frequently stop for tea and a chat.
Soon other passers-by did the same. Bill said to me, ‘When I sit in that window everyone waves to me and they all come in to see me. I’ve put this place on the map. Nobody else has the visitors I have.’
A year later I moved to another town and only passed the Home occasionally. Several times I noticed Bill was missing from the window and I couldn’t find him in his flat either. Eventually I rang the main doorbell. I spoke to the matron again. I asked, ‘Is everything alright with Bill? I haven’t seen him for ages.’ She replied, ‘I’m very sorry, but Bill passed away a few months ago. He developed gangrene in his left leg and the doctors said if he didn’t have it amputated he would die. Bill wouldn’t have the leg off because he thought he’d be too much trouble for people.’
1992
CHERYL
I met Cheryl through a social club for single women. The club supplied names, telephone numbers and the ages of unattached females seeking friends. I contacted Cheryl and we decided to meet in a pub central to both of us. We exchanged descriptions. She was forty. I was forty-seven.
Cheryl and I sat at a table in the pub of our choice one Friday evening. For the first hour I kept the conversation going with Cheryl just replying, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. She downed her second glass of wine and began to unwind. She told me, ‘I’m divorced from my husband and I have a teenage daughter at school. I had a very bad marriage. My husband was always violent towards me. He pushed me down the stairs when I was expecting Joanne. Then he had an affair with my sister and ran off with her. I divorced him soon after that and now he’s married to my sister and they also have a daughter. They live across the road from me so I see them every day but we never speak. I’m not sure what the relationship is with the children. I suppose Joanne is a cousin and also a stepsister.‘
She sipped her third drink and continued, ‘I’ve been very unlucky with my health. I had to have a mastectomy a few years ago and now I only have one breast. I haven’t got very much money either. I have rent to pay and Joanne to support.’
We spent the remainder of the evening politely talking about life in general but I was relieved when it was closing time as I found her life story far too bizarre to contemplate. We parted on friendly terms but we did not make any arrangements to see each other again.
1992
IDE
Ide was a twenty-three-year-old Irish nurse who shared a furnished house for a short time with my friend Shaunagh, also aged twenty-three. Both girls frequented the Irish pub in Leytonstone where they had many friends. There was a lodging house next door to the pub known as ‘The Maze’. Several Irishmen lived there. I was forty-seven.
Ide liked to have a good drink of a weekend and would often go to the Irish pub in Leytonstone with Shaunagh.
One Saturday Ide spent the evening supping pint after pint of beer until she was drunk. At closing time she was in no fit condition to travel so her friends arranged for her to share a bed with one of their drinking partners, an Irishman called Terry, who lived in the house next door. He was also the worse for wear and it was clear they would only sleep together.
Unfortunately Ide must have downed some twenty pints, which resulted in Terry waking on the Sunday morning to discover she had wet the bed. He left the still sleeping Ide and had a hot shower in the communal bathroom but he was unable to keep his experience secret and soon half the regulars of the pub knew of Ide’s mishap. Shaunagh eventually heard the story and told me on the understanding that I wouldn’t repeat it.
1992
ALI
Ali was thirty-four. I was forty-eight when we met. He was a political refugee living in London because he refused to speak Turkish and attend a mosque in his native Turkey as he was Kurdish and a Christian. The Turkish government imprisoned him for one year for this crime. He worked as a presser in a London factory. We dated for three years. Our age gap did not worry either one of us.
Ali and I met on Boxing Day 1992 as I walked to a Pakistani supermarket at the top of Walthamstow High Street. He was standing idly at the traffic lights as I passed by and he spoke to me. He asked, ‘Me and you go for coffee?’ I looked round at him and replied, ‘No, thank you. I’m going shopping.’ He asked, ‘Me help you?’ As it would soon be the New Year and I was out to have some fun I took a good look at him. I saw he was smartly dressed in a heavy tracksuit and quite handsome, so I said, ‘Okay.’ I continued walking and Ali followed me. I picked up one of the wire baskets outside the store and he took it from me. We walked slowly through the aisles as I filled the basket he was carrying.
My shopping complete I said to Ali, ‘I’m going home now.’ He asked, ‘Me come with you?’ I replied, ‘There are no buses today and it’s a twenty minute walk to where I live. You can only come in for a quick coffee anyway, so do you still want to come with me?’ He replied, ‘Okay, no problem.’ We walked towards my home with Ali now carrying my large blue shopping bag. We chatted as we walked, exchanging names and telling each other our circumstances. Ali’s spoken English was very poor. I discovered he knew a lot of words but he was unable to form sentences.
I let him into the empty furnished house I lived in and unlocked my flatlet door. He sat down on my two-seater settee and I made him a coffee. When he had finished I said, ‘Will you go now please?’ He replied, ‘Okay. Give me telephone number,’ which I did, and he left the house.
Ali phoned me a few days later and it was the start of a long relationship. We found we both had the same sense of humour and this made up for our lack of verbal communication. As time went by his English improved. In the beginning he would phone and say, ‘This me come?’ and I would understand him to mean ‘Shall I come round tonight?’ He slowly progressed to saying, ‘Me see you eight o’clock today?’
Ali had a lot of Turkish and Kurdish friends in London and he would spend hours drinking Turkish coffee and talking, drinking whisky and talking, or playing cards and gambling all night. After one of his whisky and talking sessions he decided to spend the rest of the night with me. He came to my flatlet by minicab at one thirty in the morning and told the driver to wait. He tapped on my downstairs front room window, whic
h was my lounge/bedroom, but unfortunately I was fast asleep and didn’t hear him. He continued tapping but I didn’t wake up. He pressed the various doorbells in the porch but no one answered him and he was forced to return to the minicab and have the driver take him home.
Fifteen months into our relationship it was early March and cold with dark evenings. As I sat in my flatlet I began to think to myself, ‘Where is Ali? I haven’t heard from him for over a week and that’s very unusual.’ A few days passed with still no contact from Ali. On the Friday evening at approximately seven thirty the upstairs communal telephone rang. I ran up the stairs and answered it. A foreign voice said, ‘Sylvia?’ I replied, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘Ali’. I said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘Ali. Car crash. Whipps Cross Hospital. Understand?’ My heart was pounding as I replied, ‘Yes, okay, understand.’ The stranger was only able to repeat the same few words so I finished the call. I ran down the stairs with my thoughts racing. I tried not to panic. I thought, ‘Find out where he is and how he is and get to Whipps Cross Hospital at top speed.’ I put my shoes on and ran up the stairs with some coins and called Directory Enquiries for the hospital telephone number.
