The bastards. They could have just tiptoed out of the room and left me to wake up on my own and clean up and sneak away. At least then I might have been able to fool myself it hadn’t happened in public. Come to think about it, I wonder how often they did do that? There was this time…no. No. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I just tried to shut off about it, but you can’t help imagining it all…them sitting around thinking, The poor old sod’s dozed off again, sad, isn’t it? Then the smell, the looking around, the realisation as someone sees the drips coming off the edge of the chair on to the carpet. The embarrassment rushing round the table. Then watching me rise, just in order to show everyone the great wet patch spreading over the front of my trousers. I can’t even remember what they were, but I have been known to pray that they weren’t the pale moleskins. Please God!
I’ll think of it on my deathbed, I know I will. Maybe it’ll be my last thought on earth.
The news spreading round the staffroom. Mr. Lawson wet his pants at a staff meeting.
David Hollins, the Head, was very nice about it. I’d been at the school twenty years. “We can’t go on like this, Charles.” Phrases like that. “I’m putting you on indefinite leave.” And, “Not fair on the kids…”
Wife, son, job, bang. And what’s left, you ask? Ah. A corny answer to that one, but the truth. God’s left.
Sorry. I’m not one of your evangelical types. I’m not out to convert anyone. I was always a believer, I don’t want anyone to think that God is a replacement for the bottle. I always prayed. I pray more these days. I go to church. I think to myself, At least I have my faith. Now, David, he really has nothing. Not that he ever had a job to lose. But he’s lost his wife, or the equivalent, and his daughter. At nineteen that’s a slightly different proposition. He has his daughter to gain. Maybe I have my son to gain.
I did try to convert him. I said, “What else is there that’s outside yourself and big enough and strong enough to help you with addiction if it isn’t God?”
“Faith, hope and charity,” he said with a smirk. I think he was being sarcastic.
The thing about me and David is, we have so much in common. There’s so much we could talk about. But he isn’t really interested. I think he’d despise any insights I could give him. All he really wants to talk about is me being a bastard…hitting her, hitting him.
I suppose he’s outraged that I should even try. The thing is, I have a point of view. Murderers, psychopaths, angels—everyone has a point of view. You don’t have to agree with it but if you’re going to have some sort of a relationship with them, you have to understand it. But perhaps he doesn’t want a relationship with me.
We saw quite a bit of each other when he first came back. I was living in a bedsit down the road, a reformed character, so he must have thought he ought to give me a chance. He used to come round and let me hold my granddaughter. I was very grateful. I still see her…Oona comes round from time to time. I take her for walks in the park and feed the ducks and push her on the swing…
“Hello, clouds!” I shout.
“Hewo, cwouds,” she yodels.
“Hello, sky!”
“…skwy…”
“Hello, birds!”
“Hewo…”
“Hello, God!”
I wonder if her father would approve?
He didn’t talk to me very much about his own private life, only mine, so I had to piece together what happened later on. Basically, it didn’t work. He came out of prison and she didn’t want to know. That’s why I say it wasn’t a love story. Jane and I met each other and fell in love without the aid of any artificial stimulants…and we stayed in love. I think we still are despite the anger and the failures and the violence and the booze. It’s not possible for us to live together, of course, that’s the tragedy of it. But we loved…we love. I do anyway. But David and Gemma were on drugs the day they met. The beach crowd. Not heroin, I daresay. But drugs are drugs, aren’t they?
I accused him of that and he rolled his eyes and said, “Just a bit of smoke—that’s nothing.”
“Is it?”
“It’s better for you than fags,” he said, and we said it together:
“I couldn’t do without my smokes…” I say that often enough. We had a laugh about it.
Anyway, it didn’t work, that’s the point. He wanted it, she didn’t. I don’t like Gemma very much. I blame her. I blame myself—but I blame her too. Apparently, it went on for months. She asked him to go; he wouldn’t go…it was his child too, why should he go, that sort of thing. In the end she moved back into her parents’ house and told him she wasn’t coming back. He hung on for a week, then he gave in and moved out of the flat so she could come back. Obviously he couldn’t sit there leaving her and the child stranded with those awful parents.
I offered to put him up. He could have stayed with his mother, there was enough space there. But no, he went and stayed with friends. And apparently—I never heard about this for ages afterwards—apparently he got very angry about it all, very bitter. He started going round there late at night and shouting outside the door until she let him in. Shouting. Drunk. Disturbing the child. Making a nuisance of himself.
How very familiar.
And one day, to cut a long story short, he went round there pissed up, and he did the dirty. Oh yes. He knocked her down and kicked her around the room. She wasn’t that hurt, not black eyes or fat lips. But that’s not the point. The point is, he hit her.
He didn’t tell me about that, of course. Gemma came round after he’d left Minely and I got most of it off her then. I’d hardly seen anything of him for ages; I didn’t even know he’d gone.
I waited a long time for him to get in touch with me. I wanted to talk to him about it; I mean, I wanted him to talk to me. I thought, O-ho, what have you got to say for yourself now, mister? I hoped he might turn to me then, at last. Not for advice as such. But I thought by that time our similarities would have been too strong for him to ignore. It would have been nice to share a common weakness. Actually, I did gloat. He’d spent so much time telling me what a bastard I was and now…ho ho ho.
Well, I know I’m not being fair. It’s different, it was just once. He went round and apologised the next day. Maybe I make too much of it—anyone can lose their temper, especially after all he’d been through. I bet it gave him a fright. I bet he thought he was turning into the old man—the bogeyman!
But we’ve both lost our relationships, we’ve both lost our children. We’ve both been addicted to something or other. I know the shapes of our lives were different. I was a respectable teacher with a mortgage and a family living inside the law and he was a junkie living in a squat outside the law. But still, you’d have thought—certainly hoped—that there was something in me he might relate to. But he went away and never got in touch. There was a postcard from Hereford some time later. Apparently he had friends there; he was going to do his A-levels at college. Had a girlfriend. Sounded happy enough. Gemma says so. They’re friends these days. More than me and Jane are.
“He’s really well, he’s got a lovely girlfriend. No, he’s great, he’s clean, we get on really well,” she says. He comes to see her and Oona from time to time. He takes Oona away on holiday so Gemma has some time off. It sounds all very worked out. He never comes to see me even though he’s in Minely from time to time. I’m patient. One day I hope there’ll be a phone call or a knock at the door. He’s a good boy, a good person. It’s his instinct to help. I believe he’s capable of great love and affection. I know I’ll never receive these things from him but I like to think I was instrumental—when he was little, before things went wrong—in nurturing them in him.
One day, my boy, all this will be yours. As they say. All my goods and shackles, such as they are. There’s no one else. The other thing you leave your children is your life—the example of it. One day, my boy…
And so, in your absence, David, I raise my glass to you—a cup of tea, actually—and I s
ay, Here’s to you. Good luck! Make the most of it.
And don’t end up like me.
Tar
Ever fallen in love with someone
Ever fallen in love
In love with someone
Ever fallen in love
With someone you shouldn’t fall in love
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith?
THE BUZZCOCKS
It was a love story. Me, Gemma and junk. I thought it was going to last forever. It was the biggest adventure of my life, you know. Gemma’s something special, isn’t she? And so’s junk.
I liked being in love. It’s like giving part of yourself away. Love is forever! Yeah, well, I don’t believe that any more. It’s something that happens to you, like anything else. It starts and then it stops. Being an addict…now that lasts for ever. Like they said in the detox centre, once an addict, always an addict. You don’t dare to take the stuff again no matter how safe you feel. Which is a pity really, because heroin is instant love. To love another person you have to feel safe, you have to be ready for it; it’s not easy. But with heroin all you have to do is push down the plunger—and hey presto! And it’s so real.
But I don’t want to talk about the old stuff. You’ve got to keep positive. The future’s looking pretty good to me. I’m moving on, I’ve got a new girlfriend now. She’s called Carol and she’s a lot better for me than Gemma was. She’s got both feet on the ground. Gemma was all over the place, wasn’t she? I thought she knew it all. When you’re in the state I was in, even someone like Gemma looks sorted.
I met Carol round at a mate’s place and we got on just like that. I moved into her place a few months later. It’s a big house; we share it with a few other people. It’s good. I’m clean, I’ve got a great girlfriend. I’m working…me with a job! Yeah, in a warehouse. You know, stacking shelves, that sort of thing. I’m not doing college this year. I got my O-levels in Minely. I got good grades. I enrolled at the Tech here in Hereford, but I’m going to leave the A-levels for this year. College is waiting for me, I know I’ll go there one day, when I’m ready for it. Me and Carol live a nice quiet life and that’s just what I need for now.
I see Gemma every few months…because of Oona. Me and Gems, I expect we’d have stayed in touch anyway. Although it’s a bit like the past when I see her…you know; there’s some bad memories. Splitting up. I don’t really want to talk about that, it’s over now. Oona—she’s the future. She’s a reason to stay clean—and Carol, of course. And me. But Oona’s lovely. I bring her here for the holidays. It gives Gemma a break. It makes me and Carol ever so broody, having her here.
I said to Carol, “Doesn’t it make you want to have one?”
And she said, “No.”
That’s Carol! She’s knows me. She’s got her head screwed on. She knows better than to have babies with me. She makes me laugh, Carol.
I don’t spend much time with Gemma when I go to Minely. It’s all right talking to her on the telephone or seeing her down the pub, but when I see her with Oona it does hurt. That’s my place. I want to be in on it but Gemma won’t let me. That makes me angry and I don’t want to be angry with Gemma. What for?
It’s over, that’s the point. Me and Gemma. All that’s left is these tiny little pills—five mil of methadone, the tail end of everything. Carol knows all about the past. I told her everything. She’s knows I’m on a script. Five mil is nothing. I can’t even feel it. I don’t need it, not in the sense of being addicted. It’s nice to know it’s there, that’s all, and it’s coming down a little bit every week.
I know myself a lot better now. I know I can’t make it on my own, I need help. There’s a lot of junk in Hereford. Well, there is everywhere, but there are some familiar faces round here. Quite a few people from Bristol end up here for some reason. I could go and score now if I wanted. You can’t avoid it.
It’s amazing how the stuff seeks you out. About three months after I came here, I’d just been with Carol for a few weeks, I got talking to this bloke at a party and he said, “Do you want some?” Funny thing was, I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me but he just seemed to know. I shook my head and said no, and he went upstairs with someone else.
That was it for me—the thought that they were up there with junk and I was down here without it…
I went and got Carol and I said, “We’ve got to go.”
“What for?”
“I’ve just got to go.”
She could see I was in a mess. She got her coat and we went, even though it was a good party. We walked round the block and she said, “Okay, what is it?” So I told her.
She already knew about the smack, about Gemma and everything. She said, “You’re not as clean as you said you were, are you? You’ve been ambushed.”
Carol’s really good. I don’t know how I’d have coped if it wasn’t for her. I’d have been back on junk for sure. After getting offered some at that party I started getting these terrible cravings, like I hadn’t had for over a year. It was knowing it was there, see? It was the first time since before I was inside that I knew I could walk out of the door, walk down the road and score. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I went to see the doctor and told him about it, but he wouldn’t give me any methadone because I hadn’t done any junk. So I went away and had a think about it. I knew I wasn’t going to make it without help. The next day I went back and told him I’d lied, I had done some. Which was true, actually, although that was another time. It was on a visit to Bristol. It wasn’t important, it was like a holiday romance, you know? You forget it all when you get back home. I didn’t worry about it because I was in control. So I used that, told a few fibs, told him it was just the other week when in fact it was over two months back. But it worked. I got my script. All in a good cause, getting me clean again.
I’m coming off really slowly. A little bit at a time. I wanted to come off it really fast, get it over with. I was impatient to get on with it, but the doc said that’s not a good way to do it. You have to do it real slow, so that you barely notice.
It’s going to be okay. I’m doing all the right things. It would have been pretty surprising for someone with my history if I hadn’t had a couple of setbacks when you think what’s happened lately. The thing to avoid is those ambushes. Sometimes I take a handful of methadone—you know, as a drug. I don’t tell Carol about that, though! Wow, I wouldn’t dare. You have to be careful with Carol: she’s great, she doesn’t take any stick. But she’s never been on it, so she doesn’t really understand. You can’t talk to her about it.
I’m doing my best, that’s what’s important. I try to be positive about it. I’m doing the right things. I’m not pulling the wool over my eyes. It isn’t all easy going, I can admit that. I’ve slipped up a couple of times. I don’t dare tell Carol about that, either. And I certainly don’t tell Gemma. She might stop me seeing Oona if she knows I’m using. She has no right to do that. I’m her dad, I’ve got a right to see her…and she’s got a right to see me.
With my history you can’t rush it. It’s so easy to think, Oh God, here I am, I’m back on methadone, I slipped up again, I’m just a junkie. Once you get a low opinion of yourself, you’ve had it. You have to think, the methadone is going down, I’m seeing the doctor once a week, I’ve not got a junk habit. I’m doing the right things. And I think—it’s a bit like the carrot on a stick, you know?—that maybe if I get off, I’ll get back with Gemma again.
I know, I know. She didn’t chuck me because I was using…I was clean as a whistle at the time, more or less. But you have to hope. Like the doctor says, you have to be positive before you can get anywhere.
A Note on Squatting
Squatting in the UK has had a very different history than in most countries. One reason is that squatting has never been against the law. Trespassing is not a criminal offense, and landlords have always had to go through the civil courts to get an eviction. If they got it—and they usually would if they tried—it was bailiffs rather
than the police who would enforce the order.
Another reason is that public opinion has never been wholeheartedly against squatting. Of course there were many people who felt it was outrageous, but a great many others thought something along the lines of…Well, here we are with thousands of people in poor housing or with no homes at all, and at the same time there are so many houses and flats sitting around vacant because the owners don’t want to do anything with them. Surely it’s better for people with no roof over their heads to use them, rather than let them stand there doing nothing?
Squatting first happened on a large scale in the late sixties and seventies, and it was revived again with the punks in the eighties. Many punks were very political and called themselves anarchists—not in the explosive Continental sense, but in a more benign, let’s-get-in-the-way attitude. For years nearly every blank wall had an anarchist sign daubed on it. In Bristol at the time this book was set, there were a great many “Stop the City” demos, in which people would stop the traffic, picket workplaces, and glue up the locks of businesses in an effort…well, to stop the city. Squatting was more than a way to get a place to live. It became a movement. Property was theft…liberate the food and clothes from the shops…liberate buildings from the landlords!
What’s more, quite a few of the landlords were sympathetic to this, particularly left-wing local authorities, who quite often were prepared to license properties out to the squatters. Certainly they felt it was better than the bad publicity of evicting homeless people from houses they weren’t planning on renting out. You could even find sympathetic judges in the courts. I once squatted a property in central London, owned, if I remember, by the Duchy of Lancaster—and the judge had a fine old time helping us find loopholes. He even invited one of the barristers waiting in court for his own case to help us out. We got booted out in the end, but it cost them two court cases and no end of legal fees.
These days squatting isn’t much heard of. There has been new legislation to make it more difficult. The gaudy punks of the cities have largely disappeared, but the tradition continues particularly with groups who have taken up a traveling lifestyle, squatting on farmland and roadsides and following the rock festivals round the country during the summer. Still political, they concentrate these days on conservation issues, and whenever a new road or runway is being planned in a delicate area, there they are, living in the trees that are going to be felled, camping on the ground which is to be bulldozed, and lately, even tunneling under it. The long-running battles to try to get them out so that work can start often get a very high profile on TV and the national news. How many people are still underground? Will the tunnels collapse on them? Should we really be building this road here? The building of new roads has become a hot political issue over here. Of course, the demonstrators still get evicted in the end. But they’re still getting in the way…