Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (8 page)

I’m sure to many children that would have meant going home to open
arms; I knew it wouldn’t be the case for me though. When you were ‘wanted home’ in my house, it usually meant there would be trouble. He hadn’t even shown any compassion on the phone to Bernie. I wanted to ask him if my dad sounded mad, to gauge what mood he was in but I didn’t, it would probably raise questions and I knew better than to go there.

     My dad opened the living room door as we walked into the house. Beth made herself scarce in the back room, probably not wanting to be in the thick of it all.

I wondered what he’d throw at me this time. My friend had died, surely that offered me some kind of morbid immunity.

     “Why didn’t you come straight home from school?” he asked me with an aloof tone, “it’s just, I’m sure if it was that much of a problem for you then the school would have rung us to pick you up.”

I sat in silence as usual not knowing what to say. How was I supposed to know why the school didn’t ring? They didn’t ring anyone else’s parents.

     “I just wanted a bit of time to myself I suppose,” was all I could offer him as an explanation. I did want to be by myself, it wasn’t a lie. It probably wasn’t the best answer I realised as he gave me one of his confused looks.

     “But if you wanted to be by yourself, surely you’d have gone for a walk instead? It was your
sisters’ turn to stay out for a bit after school and you took it upon yourself to go with her, in her time. That’s a bit selfish don’t you think?”

I shrugged my shoulders as my dry throat tightened again. I wouldn’t let that man see me cry. I was glad the school hadn’t rang, I couldn’t bear
to have to spend the day with him.

     “Well?”

My words absconded again; did he want me to admit that I was selfish?

My brain was overloaded; I had this to think abo
ut on top of everything else. I wondered what would happen if my brain actually did overload like a computer, would smoke shoot from my ears until I shut down? It was an appealing thought at the time. If I could only shut down for a while, and reboot myself later when my mum got home - she’d understand.

I think he enjoyed watching me sq
uirm, watching as I searched for any answer that might appease him.

He leaned back into his chair, I’d seen it enough times to know that it meant he was being less threatening or that he’d be rejecting me soon.

     “You know, your sister lost her friend when she was a bit younger than you. She managed to get over it and so will you. Your mum will tell you exactly the same.” His voice was soft and I accepted it as the truth.

I wished I hadn’t gone home now; I should have gone for that walk instead and avoided him. I’d be in massive trouble but it would have meant less time spent in the living room with him, staring up at that nicotine stained ceiling.

     I sat in my room for the rest of the
day; I didn’t want to eat dinner though my dad said I was probably on some kind of hunger strike now or attention seeking.

My youngest sister Fiona came upstairs and rifled through the cardboard toy box.

     “Are you okay?” she squeaked with a look of concern on her face. She couldn’t have known the circumstances.

     “Go away,” I shouted at her, “just go back downstairs.”

I knew I’d be in trouble as I heard her run crying to my dad.

Then
came the creaking on the stairs under the heavy footsteps of my dad. I’d spent so many years being afraid of him that my ears could tell exactly when he was on his way to tell me off. I often evaluated the heaviness and pace of his footsteps to know whether it would be a physical or emotional punishment.

     “Just because you’re upset, that’s no excuse to talk to your sister like that,” shouted my Dad as he flew through the bedroom door. “She’s only seven, you’re twelve years old. You like bul
lying kids younger than you do you? Well why don’t you just stay up here and be miserable, when you’re ready to be part of this family again you can come downstairs.”

     I hadn’t meant to upset my sister and I should have seen the consequences coming. I just needed to vent a little of my anger and she was the only one there. I wasn’t taught how to deal with my emotions properly.

Apologising wouldn’t make
any difference either; there were no means for redemption in our house. An apology was never acceptable; it always seemed too small an offering according to my dad.

Punishment instead would
be the slipper, a smack, the belt or an interrogation by my dad; the amateur psychologist late into the night. This would normally be followed by days of being shunned by everybody.

Nothing was ever black and white to my
dad; everything had a hidden meaning or conspiracy lying in wait.

I lay on my bed and waited for my mum to come home from work but I must have fallen asleep as I woke up still in my clothes the next morning.

     With the same heaviness in my heart as the night before, I crept along the landing and heard my dad snoring from behind his bedroom door. I crept down the stairs and stood in the doorway and watched my mum as she sat in an armchair drinking a cup of coffee. The clothes horse was in front of the electric fire and she was trying to dry our school clothes. I was going to go back upstairs and leave her in peace but she spotted me and called me through to sit beside her.

I cried as she put her arms around me and told me everything was going to be okay.

     “These things happen sometimes, I can’t explain why somebody would do something like that, sometimes they’re just so unhappy and desperate that they feel there’s no other way out.” Her words chilled me and I couldn’t understand why, perhaps because I knew she was unhappy herself.

     “The deputy head said I could go to Darren’s funeral if it’s okay with you.” I said through sobs.

     “I don’t know about that. I think you might be too young to experience something like that. Funerals aren’t really a place for children.”

     “But I want to go,” I sobbed, “there will be people going from year nine that hardly knew Darren; I don’t think it’s fair. They’re going to sort me out with a lift there and I’ll come home straight away afterwards.”

I took the crumpled letter out of my pocket; I wanted to keep it safe on my person in case my dad found it and threw it away.

     “Okay then.” She said softly and signed the form for me.

I don’t remember much of the next week and a half and it flew past until it came to the day before Darren’s funeral.

     I sat in my room almost every evening, often crying myself to sleep. I wanted to write a poem for the school memorial service so I started to use my time constructively. To be honest, as a twelve year old, the poem was never going to win any awards but it held my thoughts and some feelings.

I was sitting on the top bunk bed reading it over to myself when I heard that all too familiar creak on the stairs. This time they were slow, heavy footsteps followed by a loud sigh.

He pushed the bedroom door open slowly.

I showed the poem to my dad and waited for his seal of approval as I thought he should be near the end. I didn’t get quite the reaction I’d hoped as he carefully folded it up and put it in his pocket.

     “This is too much,” he said with a quiet but stern voice, “you’re making too much of it and to be honest, we’re all getting sick of you wallowing in your self-pity. It’s got to stop. You need to move on and put it behind you now.”

He left the room and I promised myself I wouldn’t let him make me cry. Instead, I tore out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote the whole thing down again word for word. It took me a long time to try and draw the border like I had before but this time it looked better. I put it into my school bag, sliding it between one of my text books in case he came back into my room and went through my things as he often did. I’d poured my heart out and he dismissed it.

     The funeral was the next day and there was a dress code, if we had a T-shirt of Darren’s favourite football team then we were to wear it.

My sister Beryl had the exact
shirt I needed, it was the current seasons strip, she also had the very first version of the shirt which I suppose would only have been described as ‘retro’ today.

I asked her very politely if I could borrow it for a couple of hours until the funeral was over. She flat out refused.

It was only after I waited up late for my mum to come home, that she would convince Beryl to lend me the older T-shirt. She even held a grudge against me for that and was very reluctant.

The
T-shirt had the same badge with the fox’s head on as the new one, however, it was missing the white and yellow stripes around the collar and sleeves. I would be standing out like a sore thumb. Kids could be cruel; funeral or not. I should have known, I hadn’t exactly been pleasant to people at school for their indifferences. If I wasn’t wearing the right shirt - they’d notice.

I told Beryl that I’d just go in my school clothes as a last attempt to pull on her heart strings, I told her I’d be teased if I went in the old shirt. She shrugged her shoulders and told my dad that I was being ungrateful.

I got a lecture again and told I was going to be wearing that dull, colour-drained, over-washed old shirt the next day because I was ungrateful.

     “If you’d have only asked your sister nicely then she might have let you borrow her other one,” said my dad, as Beryl looked pleased with herself.

     The next morning came and Beryl left for her job as trainee pot washer as a posh hotel in Quorn. I found where she’d hidden the t-shirt and slipped it on underneath the old one. I wasn’t going to let anybody in that house ruin Darren’s day.

The teachers took their cars and drove us to the crematorium but we’d pretty much have to fend for ourselves once we got there as they were talking to Darren’s parents and I was relieved to be blending in like everyone else.

The funeral was a very unusual experience, and not what I expected at all. As the Hurst pulled up outside the building, people began to cry. There was an arrangement of flowers that spelled out Darren’s name and a coffin that looked a lot smaller than the ones you see on the television. I could feel the tears running down my face and wanted to blame the emotional people around me. I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone.

One of the teachers stood me next to a boy called John; he was in Darren’s year at school and knew him quite well.

     “John will look after you,” said the teacher, “he’s a nice boy.”

We sang hymns, some I didn’t know and some I knew from school. We sang ‘Morning Has Broken’ the same song that made me cry that day in school when my mum came in. The teacher was right, John was nice and he didn’t mind at all that I cried into his t-shirt as I listened to his voice croak out the words.

As the room was at full capacity, all the children stood at the front and I found myself shielded from Darren’s parent’s grief.

The red velvet curtains closed in front of Darren’s coffin to ‘I Will Always Love You’ by Whitney Houston, and then it was all over.

     We walked quietly out of the crematorium as a line of people stood outside for the next funeral. It seemed so sudden and impersonal, like we were being moved along on a conveyor belt, just like Darren’s coffin had been.

We stood outside
where the flowers lay, and talked quietly amongst ourselves, I’d found a friend for life in John who didn’t leave my side. Some of the children’s parents turned up in their shiny cars to take their children home, as my mum was at work and my dad probably still in bed, I went to visit my granddads grave before making my way slowly back to school. The teachers had business to attend to before they could come back.

     The poem I had written for the memorial received a lot of praise which became apparent when I got back into school.

I’d asked Mr Elliott to read it out. We hadn’t always seen eye to eye in the past but I knew he’d be the right person. He’d told me that lots of tears had been shed amongst staff and pupils and he believed it may have helped some of them with their grieving process.

Friends told me afterwards that it wasn’t so much the words, but the way in which Mr Elliott had read it out. He gave those words meaning and read each one with passion. I’m glad I put my faith in him that day.

I often wished I’d given his parents a copy, but felt it was insignificant at their time of grief.

     A short time after Darren’s funeral, a lot of things happened. I won the ‘Cadet of the Year’ award at The St. Johns Ambulance, mainly through pity I think as I didn’t exactly try hard there. I remember my mum being cross with me because I wore a pair of trainers with no socks to accompany my uniform, when everybody else was wearing smart black polished shoes. I honestly couldn’t have cared less. Things seemed pointless.

     I found myself giving up on school and I’d fallen out with Amy too. One of her new friends, Jane, was from a very rough family indeed, and Jane’s younger sister had been bullying my little sister, Cara.

     Me and Beth had to pick Cara up from an after school club one day, I recall it being Scottish dancing and Jane’s sister went there too.

I told Cara to point her out to me told her to stay awa
y from my sister; nothing more - nothing less.

It w
asn’t until we got home that I found the school had rang my mum, they complained that the little girl was so terrified I’d be waiting outside the school for her, she wouldn’t go home. Apparently a rumour had circulated that I had a knife which was absolutely preposterous, the only knife I’d ever really held (besides a dinner knife) was my dad’s hunting knife that was always locked away. I could hardly believe the accusation when I had it thrown at me but it didn’t surprise me
that
family would make up a story like that.

I got a good telling off from my mum, Dad called me a bully again. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, I was just sticking up for my little sister, I didn’t care who the girls’ family thought they were. Shame my family didn’t feel the same or h
ave a similar set of morals.

     It was a couple of hours later that we had eggs thrown at the living room window. My sisters started screaming hysterically and of course, it was entirely my fault. I offered to clean the windows but my mum said I couldn’t be trusted with something so simple. I was a disgrace to the family again. She took me by the ear and marched me down the road, round the corner to the girls’ house. She barely spoke a word all the way there but insisted I would be apologising.

When Jane’s mum answered the door, my mum pushed me forwards.

     “Go on then, apologise for what you did,” she shouted as though she absolutely wasn’t my mother.

     “Why should I?” I said, “She was picking on Cara.”

     “I don’t deal with these things, Joanne does,” she told my mum as she snubbed me.

Joanne was Jane’s
older sister, she had a reputation for being a bit of a bully but I wasn’t bothered at all. My mum on the other hand, I think, felt intimidated by the large lady that stood in the doorway with her flabby, tattooed arms.

     “Is that the fat one?” I asked the woman.

She gave me a funny look and her eyes swept back to my mum who looked petrified.

     “If she was bullying your daughter then maybe she deserved having the wind put up her.”

     “No,” said Mum, “It doesn’t excuse what Moll did to your daughter. She should know better.” I cringed because I’d almost gotten away with it. She wanted the large woman to see she was completely on her side in case it back fired somehow.

     “Well there’s nothing much I can do now. You said they threw eggs at your windows? Well it’s not likely to go any further than that.”

My mum thanked her and she shut the door.

I got the silent treatment on the way home but I wasn’t bothered. Somewhere underneath her twenty stone frame, that woman had a little respect for me which is more than I had from my own family
. I had a little respect for her too; her family stuck together at least.

     The next day at school, Amy was sitting opposite me. Her and Jane were laughing at me and making stupid comments.

     “I heard you sta
yed in last night,” she laughed. “I hope you had an egg-cellent night?”

I let that comment go and ignored the idiot whil
st I got my books ready for the next class. As I turned to leave, she shouted to Jane.

     “Oh Jane, stop egg-ing me on, I’m b-egging you.”

That’s when I lost my temper.

I dropped
my books on the floor and strode over to Amy’s desk. She looked a little nervous but didn’t want to lose face. She had her new friend to back her up which she thought gave her a degree of immunity. Unfortunately for her, I really didn’t care.

     “And what egg-xactly do you want?” She asked as she got to her feet.

I couldn’t tell you how quickly she dropped to the floor after I smacked her in her smug face. I was in a tunnel of red and everything was moving slowly.

Luckily the teacher wasn’t in the room because I’d have almost certainly been suspended and my parent brought into school.

Amy sat on the floor crying and I couldn’t have cared less at that moment. Our friendship was over. I didn’t need fickle people like her in my life. Perhaps violence wasn’t the best way forward, but those types of problems can quickly escalate if you don’t put an end to them straight away.

     Strangely, Jane started to follow me around that day and wanted to befriend me. I decided it was a safe choice to keep my enemies close, to please my family if anything.

We never did have any more trouble from that family.

      I sought solace at the roller disco on a Saturday
night; I’d go with my brother, Alex, Beryl and my cousin who I got on really well with. She was the same age as Beryl and her best friend. She was nothing like Beryl though.

We’d spend the whole day getting ready, deciding which outfits we were going to wear. When Beryl was in one of her better moods, she’d lend me some of her clothes but it didn’t happen very often.

It was ‘the’ social event at the time for people our age and we rarely missed a week.

On my twelfth birthday, my parents had bought me
a pair of Bauer’s, which were popular skates at the time. I remember that day because I was sick and they took me into Leicester on the train to buy them. I’d pestered and pestered them until I wore them down. Besides the sickness, I remember it being a good day. Beryl even made me a birthday cake (which I threw up because she put walnuts in it.) There were some good times I remember.