You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]

by Andrew Hankinson

Well, how are you supposed to tell if it’s wearing a balaclava?

  Ha ha ha

  And there’s this other one, about a Pakistani who arrives in England, and as he’s going through customs a guard comes over and gives him a hundred grand to welcome him to the country.

  There you go, there’s a hundred grand.

  In the next queue someone from the housing department comes over and gives him a house,

  There you go, there’s a house.

  In the next queue someone from the job centre comes over and says,

  There you go, there’s a job.

  At the final desk the Pakistani gets a stamp in his passport saying he’s officially an English citizen now, so all the departments come over and take it all back, saying,

  Nah, you get fuck all.

  Ha

  …

  …

  You haven’t slept for weeks. You couldn’t sleep more than an hour a night in prison. It was harder than you expected, harder than the public thinks, surrounded by junkies and scum, locked in a tiny cell for twenty-three hours a day with people dropping like flies around you. In a single week one slit his throat, one cut his wrists and another hanged himself, because they couldn’t hack the consequences of one mistake [the Ministry of Justice recorded one apparent self-inflicted death and forty-six incidents of self-harm at Durham Prison while you were there]. You kept busy, weight training, helping other kids train, and you got a job, cleaning, because nobody can say you’re not a grafter, but you couldn’t cope with being away from Sam, so you phoned her and wrote her every day, but an hour is like a week without her, and you started to sink, which is why you popped on the wing a few times, and they gave you medication [20mg of a fluoxetine anti-depressant]. That’s probably not helping with the sleeplessness. You’re still gnashing your teeth from it now, like you’re on pills [that’s your diagnosis, but the gnashing could be caused by stress]. Anyway, you talked to someone [on June 22] and told them about all of this, but they said they couldn’t comment on the legal side of things and you should take it up with your solicitor, so you got frustrated and raised your voice, fair enough, saying you had no life to look forward to, because once you got out everything was gone, and you ended up reading the Bible and talking to the chaplain, because you’ve always been a bit religious. True, you lost your faith over a lot of years, but it’s back now, and you definitely believe in the afterlife and God and Jesus, because when you were suffering as a kid you prayed to be massive and all that came true, and while you were inside you prayed to God, and he did give you signs. When people say things like that, about getting signs from God, it’s easy to think they’re nuts, but it’s true. What it was is, since getting this charge, for hitting a kid, everyone had been making you jump through hoops, and you’d been having to go over to the council offices, sitting in these tiny rooms that smelled of curry and farts, like an Indian family had been in there, not being racist or anything, and there were little beasties in the carpet biting everyone, and some little Hitler writing down what you were saying, distorting the truth and turning their paper away if you looked over, like you were copying off the swotty kid at school, and they kept complaining about you being late or missing appointments, even though they knew you were working all over the country, making sure there was something for the future, like, this one time you had to go down south to pick up a car, which is what you do with your vehicle recovery business, so you left Newcastle early in the morning when the weather was terrible, and you assumed the afternoon session would be cancelled, so you didn’t show up, but they complained about that and said you should call them next time to check if it’s cancelled, but whenever you tried to call, someone else picked up this woman’s phone and they’d monkey you around, saying she’s on the phone or she’s going to ring you back or she can’t come to the phone, and you know fine well they were just doing it because they recognised your voice and wanted to mug you off, yet they had no problem with scumbags, people with TVs as big as caravans, gold around their necks, nothing in the cupboards but sausages and beans, no carpets on the floor, they had no problem with them. They just let people like that do as they please, in fact they’d probably rather you were a junkie or a bum, that’s the way it seems to work these days, rather than someone like you, who’s got none of these flaws, but all you hear is how much of a bad man you are, and they started coming out with tales only a retarded kid could think of, saying you’d threatened them, acting like witches around the coven, treating you like some kind of evil Willie Wonka, and you got shafted and shafted and shafted, and it was all about how Raoul Moat’s just a loudmouth arsehole, because you are big, to be fair, and you do get animated, but anyone can be made out to be a monster, the whole tabloid thing. They see how you are in public and think you must be worse when they’re not watching you, but that’s just you being honest, and what happened is, you started thinking about just leaving the country once you got out, just getting out of jail and going abroad, taking the kids with you, but God sent you this sign. It wasn’t a burning bush or walking on water or anything like that, it was just this desperately unhappy little girl. She was in the paper because her dad had taken her abroad and her mum had murdered her. She looked exactly like one of your daughters, and it made you realise that if you took them to live in France they’d be unhappy, just like the little girl in the paper. God was saying it was a bad idea. The next thing that happened, the second sign, came quickly after the first. It was Derrick Bird whacking all those people in Cumbria. He killed twelve of them and disgraced himself really, shooting old ladies with bobble hats and people like that, randomly killing, rather than picking targets, and all he achieved was make people hate him. That was a sign from God that you shouldn’t go about blasting random targets. Though something must have pushed him to do it, for this supposedly normal guy to go mad like that, but we don’t know what it was, and what you do know is there’s nothing wrong with you. You know that for a fact, because when you were seeing the psychiatrist at the Collingwood a few years ago you asked them to check you were on the same page as everyone else, just in case something down the line wasn’t right, and they thought you might be paranoid and delusional [a mental health worker referred you to a psychiatrist and suggested you be assessed for psychosis and paranoia], but when they looked into it they discovered you were right, the police do harass you, and it’s gone on for years [the psychiatrist said it appeared you were experiencing significant trouble with the police], but there was nothing they could do [you were referred for psychotherapy, but didn’t show up], even though it was making you stressed and depressed. They suggested drugs, but you didn’t want to start with that, because once you put your hand in the fire it might get burned, and being honest, you are a bit emotionally unstable, you do get over-the-top happy. You have your bad times as well. Like, when someone mocks you or accuses you of something you haven’t done you do overreact, which is why this charge and conviction was hard to take. It was all part of the conspiracy, a set-up. It was a ridiculous charge. You were being done for something you didn’t do, because if you’d really hit a little kid it would have killed them, which is why you started recording everything, so you could go to the Chronicle or on TV, and hit them with everything you had, like you did last time [in 2003 you told the council your daughter fell from your second-floor window and you asked them to put locks on the windows, but you thought it took them too long so you visited their offices], which is when the council accused you of being aggressive and threatening, and you had to tell the reporter it was just anger, but not out of control anger, and all that went in the media, but you didn’t go to the media this time. Even so, your whole body language should have told them you never hit a little kid. You were tried, convicted and crucified before you even got to court. Your solicitor said to get your head around the fact that people get booked for things they didn’t do, but how can an innocent man accept being hanged? That’s why you wanted to do a lie de
tector test, but your solicitor said no judge would look at it, and the police wouldn’t look at it, so you wrote to Jeremy Kyle and asked to go on there and do a lie detector test on TV, because how would they have all felt then? How would they have felt if you’d gone on Jeremy Kyle to do a lie detector, and when he asked if you hit that little kid you turned around and said, NO, I DIDN’T HIT THAT LITTLE KID, and the lie detector showed you were telling the truth? How would they have felt then? Because you didn’t do any of this. You’re the most innocent bloke around, but your best wasn’t good enough for them or Sam or the children or yourself. You spent your whole life wanting a family after all these years being alone, and now you’ve had to watch them slide further and further into the Devil’s belly, and you’ve got nobody to cuddle into, and you miss them so much.

  [FRIDAY JULY 2, 2010]

  YOU WILL DIE IN SEVEN DAYS

  You wake up. You get dressed. You have a shower. It’s a bright day again, really summery. You feel strange. Your hair’s falling out. You walk across the road to buy milk. You get back and open the laptop. You look at your Facebook status,

  Just got out of jail, I’ve lost everything, my business, my property and to top it all off my lass of six years has gone off with the copper that sent me down. I’m not 21 and I can’t rebuild my life. Watch and see what happens.

  It’s 10.30am. You call Sam. She doesn’t answer. You text her. She texts back saying she doesn’t have credit to waste. This is what it was like the whole time you were inside, her never answering her phone, her crying whenever she did answer, you trying to make things better by saying you’d be out soon and everything would be okay, but she only came to visit, what, once? That was it, one visit in two months [you were sentenced to four months and served two]. And when she did come you tried to kiss her, but she wouldn’t let you, so there was this big shouting match and a scene in the visiting room, and you knew then, because she wasn’t being the Sam you knew. Obviously something was going on, while you were stuck inside, in jail, helpless and alone, and finally she did come on the phone, a few weeks before you got out this was, and goes,

  It’s over, Raoul.

  What?

  It’s over.

  What about?

  Us.

  What for?

  Because it is.

  Over what?

  You know what.

  I don’t know what.

  Without speaking over the phone, you know exactly what, Raoul. I’ve had enough.

  I cannot hear a word you’re saying.

  I’ve had enough, Raoul.

  Of what?

  Everything.

  We need to have this conversation later on, because this, this is no good. This is no good at all.

  No.

  We’ve had a talk the other day, and you’ve just started being all micey with me.

  No, I haven’t.

  You have.

  You mean we had two arguments the other day?

  We had one argument the other day. We had one argument the other day. Let’s not get all silly about it, right.

  Well no, Raoul, I’m sick.

  Well I—

  Because I don’t want to be with you anymore.

  Listen, don’t do this when I’m in jail, right.

  Well no, I wasn’t going to do it in jail, but the, fucking, I don’t see why I should wait until you get out, and pretend that everything’s fine.

  Well no, I know nothing’s fine, right, but let’s not have this conversation when I’m in jail, right. When I get out I want to talk to you, right.

  No, I don’t want to talk to you, Raoul. I don’t want to see you.

  Well what’s the problem?

  You, you’re the problem.

  Right, well what’s the problem then?

  Raoul, you know exactly what the problem is.

  I don’t know what the problem is.

  Oh, what, because we’ve had such a great relationship, and we’ve been happy since you went down, have we? Since before you went down, we were happy, were we?

  We were having problems, like we’re always having problems.

  Yes, we were having problems, Raoul, uh-huh.

  Because everybody’s getting on our case, right, everybody’s getting on our case, right, I just want things sorted out in every way, but I can’t, I’m struggling, I’m getting fucking sent down, I’m getting harassed, I’m getting picked on, I’m getting all kinds of problems and I cannot do nothing about it.

  Raoul, do you know what it is? How do you think I feel? I haven’t wanted to be with you since before you got sent down. I’m still sorting fucking loads of shit out for you. I’m still taking fucking dogs to the vets for you, because they’re not well. I’m still doing all this shit for you, and I don’t want to be with you, Raoul.

  Well what’s brought this on?

  Nothing. This is how I’ve felt for a long, long time and you know that.

  Well no, I haven’t known that, because we’ve never discussed it.

  Yeah, and why don’t we discuss it? What always happens when I try to leave you? What always happens?

  Well no, hang on, you haven’t, though, you haven’t, though, and I tell you, I tell you what, right, you know while I’ve been in here, right, this is, this is, it hasn’t really come as a bit of a shock, right, but while I’ve been here and this is something I was wanting to discuss on the way out, there’s a lot of kids from your estate, right, I’ve been getting told a few things, right, so kind of, I have been kind of expecting it because you—

  So come on then, what have you been getting told, come on then.

  Well I’ve been told, they’ve been telling me you’ve been mucking about.

  [She hadn’t.]

  Oh yeah?

  Well no, I have been told that, you know what I mean.

  Off who?

  And I wanted to see you first, you know, which is exactly why I’ve just got a letter back today from the GUM clinic saying that everything’s okay, which came as a bit of a surprise and I was thinking, right, okay, I’ll—

  Right, well you know what it is, Raoul, if that’s what you fucking think, right, go and fuck yourself. Don’t bother ringing my mum, and don’t bother ringing me.

  Listen, listen, hold on.

  Fuck off, no, fuck off.

  And she hung up, so obviously you needed a private detective for this kind of operation, someone who could follow her and find out exactly what was going on, which was your dream job when you were a kid to be honest, so you got Karl looking into it, finding a private detective from the phonebook, but when you spoke to Karl on the phone [you made one hundred and eighty-eight phone calls while in prison] he said they were all too expensive, so you told him to just do it and keep an eye on her himself, go through her bins, things like that, but he was useless. Like, she’d tell him how she was at Lightwater Valley or stuck in the house with the puppies, obviously lying [you thought], up to something, but he’d believe it, and he didn’t know how to stake her place out either. Like, this one night he parked up to see who was coming and going, and you called him while he was there to make sure he was in the right spot, and even from jail you knew he couldn’t see all the exit points, but it’s hard to get Karl to understand things like that sometimes, so you told him, if the guy showed up, just do what he needs to do to the guy’s car, and Karl asked,

  Do you want me to go and get a fiver of petrol or something?

  No, no, just key every panel. Don’t do nothing like that. Just key every panel. Okay, right, cheers mate. Once she goes to bed I think it’s knocking-off time.

  The next thing that happens is, a few days before you get out, you call her and say you might be getting released on Thursday, and she says you can’t go round there. You were like, what? Why not? And you told her, look, you’re not going to
cause problems, but she says how she’s got an injunction out, so you tell her, look, if she gets all micey then it will go pear-shaped, because

  I’m not going to be bullied, Sam. I’m not going to be bullied, right.

  And she said,

  Raoul, I’m not bullying you. We’ve split up. We’ve finished. I don’t want you at my house. How is that being bullied?

  It was ridiculous. It was hard enough getting your head around it being over, never mind fighting with her as well. Then she says how she’s got a new boyfriend, so you told her about knowing that already, and she goes, how could you know, because she’s only been seeing him for two days [which was true], and she starts saying how she’s not slept with him, and you said, look, hands up, you don’t want to fight with her about it, you’re not going to bash anyone, but she starts going on about how hard he is. Then she says she doesn’t want you to fight him or ruin it, but how could you ruin it, without going AWOL or crackers, which you told her you would if she kept going on like this, but aside from that, how could you possibly ruin it for her? All you wanted was to be able to see her still, not get pushed out, just be able to go round and see her at her house, but she didn’t understand why you had to see her if she’s got someone new, so you said,

  It’s not a case of that man, it’s just, you know, it hurts not seeing you. You’re the only person I’ve ever cared about like this since the day my gran bloody died, you know what I mean, I cannot have you out of my life, and if you take us, if you take yourself, if you take yourself out of my life, I’m going to go crazy.

  Raoul, it’s not my fault.

  No injunction in the world’s going to stop me if you make me go crazy.

  And you just kept telling her how you wanted to be able to keep seeing her, and you wouldn’t give them problems, but she’s saying that you couldn’t go to her house or anything, and you said,

  Well I can, I can.

  And to be honest with you, Raoul, he’s a handy fucking bloke anyway, and he isn’t going to put up with any shit.