Fall From Grace

by Menon, David

  Useless bitch, thought Paul. Lorraine’s daughters were turning into extensions of herself whilst her son clearly had the potential to be something different and that’s what Lorraine couldn’t cope with. So she had to demonise him, isolating him within the family and pushing his behaviour into proving her point. It wasn’t the first time Paul had seen this kind of abuse. Kids on estates like the Tatton aren’t allowed to be bright. There was too much peer pressure to hold them back.

  ‘Dr. Keene says that Sam doesn’t need drugs,’ said Paul.

  ‘But what about my human rights?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well him getting the drugs is about me getting my human rights.’

  Paul could’ve read the riot act with her on that one but knew it would be no good. People like Lorraine attached herself to the idea of human rights like a heat seeking missile but she had no idea what it was really all about. It was just the latest avoidance of responsibility excuse and it made his blood boil.

  ‘This is not about you or your human rights, Lorraine.’

  ‘Well what is it about then?’

  ‘It’s about your son.’

  ‘My pain in the bloody arse, you mean.’

  Paul took a deep breath, ‘Look, don’t you ever talk to Sam?’

  Lorraine screwed up her face, ‘Talk to him? What do you mean?’

  Give me strength, thought Paul, ‘I mean talk instead of shouting, yelling and chastising? Do you never just sit down and talk to him? Do you ever show any delight in something he’s done? He’s been fine whilst I’ve been here talking to him and more importantly, listening to him. He’s calm and he’s happy.’

  ‘He is when he’s got his head in some stupid book.’

  ‘You should be proud of his reading ability, Lorraine. Have you read his school reports?’

  ‘I’ve got better stuff to do with my time.’

  ‘Well if you did you’d see that his reading ability is about three years ahead of his age. Aren’t you proud of that?’

  She shrugged, ‘No, means nothing to me, to be honest.’

  ‘Don’t you even take an interest in what he’s reading?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you don’t even know if what he’s reading might be inappropriate for an eight-year old?'

  ‘Look, what is it you’re saying exactly because you are so doing my head in. I asked you here to help me and my family.’

  ‘I am trying to help you Lorraine, if you’d only see it.’

  ‘You could’ve fooled me.’

  Paul knew he was heading down the road to trouble with this one but he didn’t care. Lorraine was holding her family back. She hadn’t achieved anything in life and she didn’t want them to either. It was classic. He’d seen it so many times.

  ‘I don’t think Sam is the problem, Lorraine.’

  ‘So what, you’re saying I am?’

  ‘He’s a bright lad, Lorraine and he’ll make something of himself if you, his mother, encourage him.’

  ‘Make something of himself?’ she scoffed, putting down her mug on the carpet by her feet and pointing her finger again. ‘I’ll tell you this now, I’m not having him getting fancy ideas. You’re just wasting my bloody time coming in here and telling me to sit down and talk to him. Well I tell you, I’ll go to any bloody doctor until I get them drugs!’

  ‘Lorraine, he doesn’t need drugs. I’m going to put you down for parenting skills classes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you’ll get a lot out of it and that’ll make Sam happier,’ said Paul. ‘We all need help from time to time. The classes will be at the centre and you attend the first three on your own then the rest together with Sam.’

  ‘Do I get any extra benefit for going?’

  Paul was exasperated. ‘No, Lorraine, you don’t. You just get to be a better mother to your son.’ He noticed that Sam looked like he was about to start crying. ‘What’s wrong, Sam? What’s up, mate?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Lorraine, ‘he’s a flaming nuisance!’

  ‘He is if that’s what you want to make him, Lorraine, but a change of attitude from you could make it all so different,’ said Paul who then turned back to Sam. ‘I’m going to see your head teacher, Sam. I want to see if she can organise some extra reading classes for you because I know that makes you happy, doesn’t it?’

  Sam nodded, ‘So you’ll come back and see me?’

  ‘Of course I will. We’re mates now.’

  Lorraine still hadn’t said anything.

  ‘Lorraine? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that if I’d wanted Jeremy Kyle, I’d have gone on the bloody telly!’

  TWO

  Lady Eleanor Harding knew that her time on this earth was running out. She’d already done well to last as long as she had given the excessive lifestyle she’d spent years enjoying. She’d just turned ninety and the will was still as strong even though the body yelled out at her to be more sensible. She still held her parties, although she tended to sit them out these days and watch everyone else having a good time with all the merchandise she’d provided. She still drew up the guest list. Charles and Camilla came up regularly for shooting parties and they always brought an entourage with them each time. Charles was so fortunate to be with his paramour at last after that other stupid slip of a girl had tried to disrupt their obvious happiness with something as ridiculous as love. How fortunate it was for all concerned that her interference in the royal tradition of duty had been curtailed in a Paris tunnel.

  ‘Dinner will be in an hour, your ladyship.’

  Colin Bradley, her head of household staff, popped his head round the door and left again after making his announcement. She liked Bradley. He’d been with her for years and he was a good sort; obedient, loyal and she could tell him any old bollocks and he swallowed it whole like a whore desperate for cash. Except that lately he’d been getting rather moody. Ever since she’d told him he couldn’t have a pay rise he’d been acting like he’d just failed his exams. Oh, he’d get over it. Even without a pay rise he knew how much his bread was buttered working for her and at least he wasn’t one of the homosexuals. She had no objection to that sort in principle but these days they demanded to be treated as equal which she found exceptionally disturbing. Even her own late husband Ronald, a rampant homosexual who’d paid off more blackmailing threats than he could keep a count of, even he would never have approved of such open defiance of the acceptable order that’s everywhere today.

  She picked up her copy of the Manchester Evening News that Bradley had left for her on the small table beside her chair. She gasped as she read the front page article. Poor Dieter was in trouble. His house in Glossop had been besieged by vultures from the press. The poor man wasn’t even able to open his front door and all because some stupid Polish bitch who should’ve kept her mouth shut had decided to use these modern times to exact her revenge. How dare she do such a thing! Couldn’t she have left the past where it should be? Eleanor felt the tears begin to moisten her cheeks. It was typical of Dieter that he hadn’t called her to ask for help. He’d always been too proud. Well she was going to help him. He wasn’t going to face this on his own.

  She called Dieter on the phone and then she pressed her call button on the small console set she carried with her at all times. Bradley appeared moments later wearing his best appeasing smile. She gave him his instructions, said she’d already spoken to Dr. Edwards who’d given her directions to a narrow road behind his house where he would wait for Colin. She told him to go straight away.

  *

  ‘Eleanor!’ called Dieter a couple of hours later as he was led down the hall by Colin who then made his escape. Watching these two coffin dodgers act like Mills and fucking Boon was just too sickening for words.

  ‘Dieter! Forgive me for the clandestine nature of my provision of sanctuary but there seemed to be no other way of rescuing you from the reality of being Gerald Edwards.’

  ‘My dear lady, I
left Gerald Edwards behind in Glossop. To be called Dieter again and never have to go back to Gerald Edwards … well God in Himmel it feels so good!’

  They embraced and held on tightly to each other. Although they’d been lovers for seventy years they hadn’t lived together since the end of the war. Despite the reality of their marriages to other people, they’d met up once a month all the way through the decades to celebrate their spiritual and romantic union. Dieter was no stranger in her house. But now as she looked at him her heart skipped like it had done on that day back in 1940 when she’d first met him. He was the love of her life and she was overwhelmed that now they could enjoy a proper reunion.

  ‘I can’t let you go to prison, Dieter,’ said Eleanor, ‘that would be too awful to even contemplate especially as it would all be because of that vile Pole. You must stay here until the dust settles and you become yesterday’s news.’

  Dieter held Eleanor’s hands, ‘It will be like the old days.’

  Eleanor smiled the way a woman does when she’s looking into the eyes of her one true love, ‘It most certainly will.’

  ‘My dear lady, I shall never be able to repay you. My children, they… well they have disowned me. They wondered why this… this woman was so insistent. They’re professional people. They’re not stupid. I couldn’t lie to them anymore’.

  ‘Do they know you’re here?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m afraid that made it worse.’

  Eleanor caressed Dieter’s face with her hand. ‘Oh my poor, poor Dieter. We shall explain everything to them once this is all over. You’re their father. They’ll understand in time.’

  ‘They’ve always believed that their mother was my only true love.’

  ‘It will be hard for them to take, but then again, the truth often is.’

  Dieter stroked the side of her face. ‘I can’t believe I’m back here with you after all these years. I knew that our love would draw the circle one day.’

  ‘These are dark circumstances that have brought us back together but I’m glad nevertheless. But losing you twice in one lifetime…’ her voice faltered as she fought back the tears. He always did have such a gentle touch, ‘… well that would be the end of me’.

  ‘And we can’t have that. I am here now and we shall never be parted again’.

  *

  Paul Foster picked his parents up from the bungalow at South Shore in Blackpool that they’d retired to five years earlier. As he drove them up the promenade he was amazed that some owners still advertise their ‘select’ holiday flats. What was that all about? Did people have to sit an exam before staying there or something? Then there were the hotels offering their ‘world famous English breakfasts.’ World famous English breakfasts? He shook his head and smiled.

  ‘We’ve had many a happy holiday in this town,’ said Paul’s father, Ed, sat alongside him at the front, ‘don’t you remember, our Paul?’

  Paul’s memories of his childhood family holidays in Blackpool weren’t as happy as his father thought they were but he’d never told his father about it and now he never would.

  ‘Yeah, Dad,’ said Paul, smiling. ‘They were good times.’ He looked in the rear view mirror at his mother who was sitting on the back seat. She said nothing.

  They carried on up the Fylde coast along Blackpool’s North Shore and by the time they got up to the town of Fleetwood at the top end of the coastal peninsula, the sky had completely cleared and the sun was high. Paul parked in one of the nose-in spaces on the esplanade from where they could see right across the vast open space of Morecambe Bay to Barrow, on the edge of Cumbria, fifty miles or so to the northwest.

  ‘You’ll still need the blanket over your legs despite the sun, Dad,’ said Paul, ‘there’s quite a breeze blowing out there.’

  ‘There always is up here,’ said Ed.

  Paul took his Dad’s wheelchair out of the boot and set it up for him. He then helped him out of the passenger seat of his car. His father’s face contorted with pain as the cancer inside him fought against his every move and Paul was careful to take his time, holding his father still for a second or two to give him a breather when the pain seemed to overwhelm him. He got him into his wheelchair and carefully folded the blanket over his legs, making sure his feet were resting on the footplates. His father squeezed his hand in appreciation.

  ‘We’re all set then,’ said Paul, ‘shall we eat first or go for a walk?’

  ‘Let’s eat,’ said Ed, ‘I’m a bit peckish to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Well it’s a treat to hear you say that these days, Dad, so eating first it is.’

  Paul’s mother stood there with a face like a wet weekend and Paul knew that she’d only get worse as the day went on, especially after she’d had a couple of glasses of wine. He wished she’d stayed at home.

  There were several little cafes offering the kind of lunch they’d come up for but Paul knew his Dad liked to go into the big hotel that dominated the esplanade on the corner where the tramway to Blackpool turned towards the port. The hotel had once been the terminus for trains that would bring passengers up from London on their way to Scotland. The early days of the railways had lacked the kind of engineering that could excavate the necessary tunnels through the Lake District and so the passengers were transferred to boats to take them across the bay where they’d pick up another train to take them on to their Scottish destination.

  A container ship was loading up in the port that wasn’t enormous but it was big enough to dominate the narrow stretch of water between Fleetwood and Knott End-on-Sea on the other side of the estuary. When he was a child, Paul had wanted to escape to Knott End on the little boat that crossed over the estuary to it, but when he got older he dreamed instead of running onto one of the ships and becoming a stowaway. He thought the high seas would offer him sanctuary from his mother’s hand, her fist, her fingernails breaking his skin and drawing blood, her teeth biting into him like a dog attacking an intruder. But then he learned that the ships only went as far as the Isle of Man or Northern Ireland and neither of those two places seemed far enough away.

  At the front of the ground floor of the hotel was a long bar that served food. Paul wheeled his Dad in and found a table halfway down. He went up to the bar and ordered three lots of fish, chips, and mushy peas, and three glasses of the house white. When they’d finished their food they were ready for more drinks. Paul went back to the bar and ordered two more glasses of wine for his parents and an orange juice for himself.

  ‘What are you doing with that stuff?’ his mother wanted to know.

  ‘Drinking it, Mum.’

  ‘Well why haven’t you had a glass of wine like me and your Dad?’

  ‘Because I’m driving, Mum, and one is enough.’

  ‘Ponce,’ she snarled and then turned back to the couple at the next table with whom she’d been talking.

  ‘Mary,’ said Ed, wearily, ‘please, not today.’

  Paul started talking to his Dad about the football. His Dad was an avid, lifelong Liverpool supporter but the team hadn’t been doing consistently well this season and his Dad blamed it on the way football seemed to be less about the game these days and more about a celebrity circus for the footballers and their high spending girlfriends.

  ‘I think you’re right, Dad,’ said Paul.

  ‘Your Uncle Doug will be over on Saturday to watch the game against Middlesbrough with me.’

  ‘Middlesbrough are a striker down aren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, so in principle it should be a breeze for Liverpool.’

  Mary turned from the conversation she’d been having with the couple at the next table and snarled once more at Paul. ‘why the hell are you talking about football?’

  Paul took a deep breath. Would she ever stop? ‘Because I like football, Mum. You know that.’

  Mary laughed sardonically, ‘You like footballers more like!’ She turned back to her new friends and pointed her thumb at Paul, ‘he’s a shirt- lifter.’

  �
��Mary!’ Ed warned.

  ‘What? Is he ashamed of himself? He bloody well should be.’

  ‘No, I am not ashamed of myself, Mum, though I know that disappoints you.’

  ‘He’s got some boyfriend in the Army you know,’ said Mary, turning back to her new friends who were now looking very uncomfortable, ‘he’s out in Afghanistan and hasn’t been heard of for weeks on end. But they’re not going to bother about bringing some bent piece home in a body bag, are they? I mean, it stands to reason. The Army’s no place for that sort and the public aren’t going to waste any sympathy.’

  ‘Mary, that is enough!’

  ‘It’s alright, Dad,’ said Paul who didn’t want his Dad getting upset, ‘it’s alright.’

  It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t alright at all. Paul was going out of his mind with worry about Jake who was a Lance Corporal on tour with his unit in Southern Afghanistan. The last time Jake had rung Paul, almost four months ago, he’d told him he wouldn’t be able to ring him for a while and that he’d just have to be patient. But Paul had gone way past the stage of being patient. The worry was like a living hell. He and Jake had been seeing each other for four years and he ached for news that Jake was okay. Almost every night he had nightmares about what might have happened to him, what some evil thugs could be doing to him if they’d got hold of him. He’d been on missions before, but had never been out of contact for anything like this length of time. Paul couldn’t ring anyone, not the Army, not the MoD, because Jake wasn’t ‘out’ to his comrades. He wasn’t out to his family either and they knew nothing about his relationship with Paul.