A Life To Waste (4 page)

Chapter 4

Margaret, Dave’s mum, didn’t
know it at the time, but choosing Dave over her husband would
become the worst decision of her life.

The morning after “that night”
when Dave had come home he had shown remorse, he had been upset and
guilty about what he had done. That didn’t last, it didn’t take
long for Dave to forget about that night and what he had done. It
seemed like he had forgotten about his father as well, or just
didn’t care that he wasn’t there anymore.

Dave had very frequent mood
swings, every month or so he would be so full of anger that he
would storm around the house trashing anything in his path, his mum
was terrified of him, she was so scared that when he threw these
fits of violence she would go and hide in her bedroom.

Years had passed now and it was
still Just Margaret and Dave living together. They didn’t live in
the same house anymore, they no longer had their family home, they
had to move to a far smaller house, in a not so very nice area.
Dave of course blamed his mum for this, it was her fault that they
couldn’t afford to live in their old house. The fact was, she
genuinely couldn’t afford to keep that house anymore, her sole
income wasn’t enough to keep up with all the bills and Dave had
never bothered getting a job, he left it all to his mum.

The house they lived in now was
very small, the living room was always very dark. The reason for
this was that only Dave occupied the living room.

Margaret always felt tense
around him and she couldn’t bare the sight of him. He had ruined
her life. Margaret was miserable every single day, she couldn’t
count the amount of times she had thought about taking her life.
She never had any money left after taking care of all the bills, so
outside work, she never left the house. She had no friends, no one
she could talk to about how her day was or how she was feeling.
Sure Dave was there but it was a waste of time trying to talk to
him, he would either ignore her or start insulting her and shouting
at her for disturbing him. Every day she thought about tying her
bed sheet around the foot of her bed, then at the other end making
a noose and putting it around her neck, every day she thought about
this, then she thought if she just ran and jumped head first out of
the window that the sheet would snap her neck. It would be quick,
hopefully be painless and fast for her and then over. But she
couldn’t do it. Not because she was afraid of death, she wasn’t,
she would welcome death right now with open arms if he came
knocking. But she couldn’t take her own life and leave her son
alone. She hated herself for still loving him, she wished that she
didn’t so she could just end it all and leave him to rot in that
living room. A mothers love is too strong, even now that she wanted
to get rid of it she couldn’t, she knew that somewhere deep down
inside Dave still loved her too.

Maybe that was the hope she was
clinging onto. Maybe one day she would wake up and Dave would love
his mum again, maybe he would be nice to her and caring, maybe he
would be her son again, maybe, just maybe.

Chapter 5

It was Friday night, a night
when most people like to relax, let their hair down, maybe have a
little drink and eat some greasy food that tastes just that little
bit nicer because they know it’s bad for them. Friday night is when
the majority of people know that the weekend has arrived and they
don’t have to face work for another two days. Unless of course
you’re one of the unfortunate people that does have to work
Saturdays, or Sundays, or both!

Well for Dave, Friday night was
just the same as every other night, he treated every night like
Friday, he still eat the greasy food, still drank too much and
well, relaxed, if that’s what you can call it. What do you call it
when someone who does nothing ever, does nothing? I can’t imagine
that you can call it relaxing as they have nothing to relax from.
They just continue to do what they always do. I think we can say
Dave was vegetating as he was little more than a cabbage anyway. He
well and truly lived up to the term “couch potato”.

Dave had given his mum his
orders for tonight. She had already done the shopping for this week
but that didn’t matter, Dave had additional orders and there was no
chance he was going to go
all
the way to the shop and back,
screw that, his mum could pick up his stuff on her way home from
work. He ordered a box of carling, a large pepperoni pizza, a big
bag of peanuts, a big bag of tortilla chips and two big chocolate
bars. This order, added to the stash that Dave already had should
last him the night, hopefully.

It was just gone midnight, Dave
by now was starting to feel a little bit tipsy. He only had one or
two cans left in his box of lager but he
had
to finish the
box before he could go to bed. He had been watching horror films
all night again, tonight had been
Halloween
followed by
Hellraiser
and then to finish off he was watching
Candyman. Candyman
was probably Daves favourite horror film,
all of them were good in his eyes, even the corny ones, but
Candyman
was just that little bit more scary than the
others. He didn’t quite know why, maybe it was
Candyman’s
voice, he loved the scene in the car park when
Candyman
calls out
“Heeelen, Heeelen......Helen.”
Every time that
voice would send chills down his spine, he loved it.

As Dave was enjoying the movie
in his semi conscious drunken state, he started to drift off, his
head started to droop and gradually his eyes started to close. The
can he had in his hand started tilting just slightly, not enough to
spill, but getting nearer every second to falling out of his hand.
Every minute or so he would jolt awake, sit himself upright again
and re position the can in his hand, then try and carry on with the
film.

Once again his eyes would start
to close and the can would start to slip. This continued for quite
a while, suddenly he jolted awake, but this one was different to
the others, this time he had jolted awake to the sound of
screaming. He looked at the TV and when looking at the screen he
remembered he had been watching
Candyman
, that explained the
screams so he could settle down and vegetate again, eyes drooped,
can slipped.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

This one made Dave jump out of
his intoxicated dreams so fast that he was stood up off his chair
before he even had chance to open his eyes. His can had gone flying
out of his hand, he stood in shock looking left and right and
behind him as though what ever it was that screamed would suddenly
appear in front him. He heard shouting again, it was definitely a
woman. This time it definitely wasn’t on the film.

“AHHHH GET OFF ME YA BASTARD
AHHH YOU FUCKIN MMMPPHHH”

Dave then realised who it was
shouting, it was Lisa from next door. He sighed, shook his head,
walked to the kitchen to grab another beer then plonked himself
back down in front of the TV, “Friday night eh” he said to himself,
then chugged his beer.

The screaming from next door was
not a rare occurrence, Lisa, the woman who lived there, had what
you could call, complicated relationships. You couldn’t really say
that she fought with her boyfriend a lot, because the man she was
fighting with changed every time.

To Dave’s recollection he had
never seen the same man at her house twice. Lisa was not exactly a
stunner, she looked a bit like a heroin addict if truth be told.
She was extremely thin, her face was gaunt, he body was emaciated
and her hair was long and brown, but it was greasy, it looked like
it had never been washed. Dave assumed that based on her looks, the
only reason she was able to get so many men was that either she was
ridiculously easy game, as in would not say no to
anyone
, no
matter how they looked. Or she was a prostitute. What amazed Dave
even more than Lisa’s unbelievable pulling power, was that she was
able to pull equally violent men every time.

This wasn’t once or twice that
she would bring a guy home and he ended up fighting with her,
physically. It seemed to be literally every single time. Maybe she
was attracted to men who looked like wife beaters, maybe she liked
it, maybe she knew which men had a reputation for fighting with
women. Maybe she started these fights herself every time.

Maybe she would invite a bloke
back, perhaps go to bed with him or perhaps not, then at some point
decide to give him a good old right hook and see what his reaction
was. Maybe it was nothing like this and she was just desperately
trying to find love and failing miserably every time. Maybe she was
just genuinely unlucky in love. Dave didn’t know exactly what is
was, he had many theories, but what he did know. That woman had
more fights in her house than Mohammed Ali had in the ring.

Knowing what he did about Lisa's
love life, Dave wrote off the screaming and shouting as being
another Friday night fight for her.

Dave didn’t feel sorry for Lisa,
yeah she might be getting a beating every Friday night, but that
was her choice, he thought. She could just stop going home with
crazy blokes. Given that he knew just how easy she was, he had been
tempted a few times to pop next door and try his chances. He knew
she was sure game so it would have been an easy lay. Also he would
probably enjoy going a few round in post sex boxing with her. Yeah
she may have looked like the freakish offspring of Snoop Dog and a
Twiglet but still, a lay is a lay isn’t it and other than his mum,
Lisa was pretty much the only female that Dave ever saw, seeing as
he never left his house.

The problem was, Dave had no
confidence at all, he had been overly confident when he was younger
but that was years ago, all that had faded away now and left a shy
middle aged loner. By the time Dave was drunk enough to build up
enough confidence to even think about going to give Lisa a knock it
was too late, fight night had already begun. Oh well eh, good for
Lisa, at least she was going out and actually getting some action,
it was a hell of a lot more than he was getting.

Truth be told, Dave was jealous
of Lisa. Sounds stupid doesn’t it, how could he possibly be jealous
of the smack head next door who got a kicking from every bloke she
took home on a Friday night. Well even violence and rage was some
sort of emotion, it was something to feel. Yes it might have
appeared horrible to outsiders but there was no questioning that
Lisa felt in any given moment, far more alive than Dave ever did,
that was down to violence and rage, the most raw of feelings. Dave
could give those out, but he was never given them, he was actually
given more hate than any person should ever receive from his mum
every day, but he didn’t know about that. Dave felt nothing from
the outside world, it was just him on his own all the time. No
emotions, no violence, no anger, no sadness, no love. It wasn’t
always like that, a long time ago Dave had something really
good.

He had the love of a good woman,
he had someone who would give her life for him at any given moment.
He had all the feelings and emotions that he longed for now, he had
had them poured upon him every day. It was all gone now though, he
had let it all slip away. Some people go through life trying to
find love and never succeeding, like Lisa next door. Some people
are tormented to go from one person to the next and never feeling
that warm feeling inside, never knowing that they are special to a
certain someone. Some people are never lucky enough to have any of
that. Dave was lucky enough, he had it all, he didn’t know it or
appreciate it at the time, but now approaching middle age he often
looked back at those times, he had it all, he had Claire.

Chapter 6

Claire worshipped Dave, ever
since the night they met in the pub she had wanted to be with him
all the time. He didn’t know it at the time, but Dave loved Claire,
he knew that he liked her, he knew he liked her a lot, he just
wasn’t sure quite how much he liked her.

Dave and Claire went out
together all the time, she was a student and Dave didn’t work so
they had a lot of spare time. Dave would be quite happy to just sit
and drink all day, which is exactly what he did on the days that
Claire had her lectures. Claire wasn’t a huge fan of drinking
though, sure she liked the odd drink. What student doesn’t? But she
didn’t like just sitting and drinking all the time, she liked to be
out and about doing things, she never wanted to be sat around just
waiting for time to pass by.

As a result of this Claire
always had different days out planned. Claire was quite athletic so
she didn’t have any limitations to what those days would be. Dave
wasn’t quite as fit as his running days but was still in good
enough shape to keep up with her. Besides, he loved to watch her
during any strenuous activity. She was a fair bit shorter than
Dave, she always seemed to be tanned, Dave assumed she used the sun
beds, this was wrong she just had naturally dark skin, maybe she
had Spanish or Greek heritage somewhere down the line, she didn’t
know but she liked the fact that she always looked tanned, so did
Dave. She had short brown hair, almost that of a mans hair cut but
her pretty facial features helped her pull it off, this short hair
was chosen Dave assumed so that she never had to worry about her
hair getting in her way for any of her crazy activities.