Eric Bristow (30 page)

What began as a simple reunion became much more
than
that when, eighteen months after we met, Mum’s illness manifested itself in the worst possible way. She had cancer, and worse than that she had a rare form of cancer that quickly spread. It started with pains in her back when she was still living in London. I discovered this after she died when I was sorting her things out and found a letter that she had never shown me. Maybe that was why she sold up and came to live in Leek for the last couple of years of her life.

When it hit she became seriously ill and was admitted to Christie’s Hospital in Manchester where she lasted just over two months.

She had never actually told me she had cancer, I just guessed when she started seeing her doctor more often and began going to Christie’s which specialises in cancer cases. I went with her on one of her hospital visits and got a doctor in a side room and made him tell me everything. He told me, but not in a brutal fashion, that she had no chance. My head was just spinning. It didn’t feel real. There was nothing I could do. You try and protect your family from everything but you can’t protect against cancer; it hits every family.

Devastation cannot adequately describe how I felt, but I felt sorrier for Kevin. He had already lost one mother, his stepmum, and now he was faced with the prospect of losing a second. That’s when we really bonded as brothers. When she was facing her final weeks in Christie’s he drove up the two hundred miles to the
hospital
and spent the weekend with her. We knew she was never coming out and we both wanted to make sure that in her final weeks she was never alone.

When I went I’d occasionally pop outside for a cigarette and join other smokers who were all waiting for their loved ones to die inside. All of us were there puffing away, but all of us were suffering, and we were all hoping the end would come quickly. I met an old bloke outside there. He was brilliant. I don’t know his name and barring a miracle he’ll be dead now, but I’ll never forget him as long as I live. He was puffing away, but he was hoarse and could hardly speak. While I was stood there, contemplating all the horrible thoughts that take over your mind in these situations, he came up to me and said in a rattling voice, ‘How are you, Eric?’

‘I’m fine, mate,’ I replied.

‘You were a great darts player. I used to watch you all the time when you won all those World Championships.’

‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked him.

‘I came in here for chemotherapy on my throat. I’ve had two hours of it, but I told them to stop so I could come out here for a fag.’

It was probably the only time I smiled while I was there, and I just shook his hand, gave him a cuddle and said, ‘Can’t fault you, mate.’

He was a star, a real star who wasn’t prepared to compromise for anybody – he could’ve been a Bristow. I loved him for that.

That aside, the weeks I spent in there visiting Mum were weird. When you see people go into hospital they go in to be fixed and then go home. But here, in most cases, there was nothing to fix. The only way they were going to come out was in a coffin. Cancer is a horribly undignified way to go, and Mum’s final few weeks were no exception. The only money my mum ever spent in her life was on her hair. Going down to the hairdresser’s to get glammed up used to be her big thing, it was her treat. When she was in London Steve Davis used the same hairdresser’s and occasionally he’d be in at the same time as her. He always made a point of acknowledging her and asking how she was and she loved that. The times when he was in she’d always ring me afterwards and say, ‘I saw Steve today. He was really nice. We had a really good chat.’

I’d say to her, ‘Yeah, great Mum, fantastic,’ and be thinking: So what!

But then, when she began treatment for cancer, one of the first things was that she lost her hair, which was heartbreaking to see – but she couldn’t have cared less. All she wanted was to be out of Christie’s, hair or no hair. That was her only wish.

On one visit near Christmas she said, ‘If only I could get out of this place …’

There was nothing wrong with the hospital. The doctors and nurses were fantastic in the way they went about their job and the patience and consideration
they
showed at all times. Mum just wanted her old life back.

‘I’ll get you out. I’ll take you out,’ I said, and I took her downstairs from her ward in a wheelchair and we went for a walk outside – but it was winter and a bit cold and after about ten minutes she asked to go back in.

She never went out again after that.

I’d visit and walk into her ward to see a family, some of whom I’d been having a fag with outside, in tears and think: Oh Christ, there’s another one gone – but part of me would be pleased the person had died because they were never going to recover. The pity for these poor families was more out of relief than loss, relief that someone they loved had been spared any more agony. When you see these sorts of situations you realise there’s something to be said for euthanasia. Those who are really suffering, who have lost all their dignity and have no quality of life whatsoever should be given that option. Cats and dogs are put down when they suffer, and some people love their pets more than they love their own children, so why can’t humans have that option? I’ve told my son that if I ever end up that way, and on a life-support machine, to flick the switch and end it all. I don’t want to live like that, there’s nothing worse.

But Mum hung on and hung on; she didn’t really want to go. That’s when Kevin and I really felt we were
brothers
. He’d come in as I was leaving and we’d have a little chat and try to console each other. In the final few weeks I just wanted Mum to let go, but she wanted to hang on in there. Life meant too much to her to simply throw it all away.

Then they moved her into what I can only describe as a final room. Once people went in there it generally meant they had days to live, but Mum hung on for a couple of weeks, she was so stubborn. When the end came there were nine of us there. All the people who really loved her sat round her bed as she drifted away.

The cancer that killed her was so rare that the hospital asked if they could perform an autopsy. I put it to a vote, because I know some people don’t like their loved ones to be messed with, but everyone was unanimous – if an autopsy went some way to helping others, then they should perform one. I know Mum would have wanted that.

As I left hospital the other families were still there, waiting for their loved ones to die. Some of them came up to me and we had a hug and they said, ‘Well, at least it’s over.’

There’s nothing else you can say really. We’d all been wishing our loved ones dead to get them out of their pain and everyone had kind of bonded in a way. We all became very, very close for the short period of time we were there because we all had this horrible affinity that ended in the worst possible way. Now I can’t put a face
to
any of them because at that time of deep personal grief and stress I’d entered a different world. My head, for the time I was visiting Mum, felt as if it was in a dream-like other world. It was unreal, everything became totally unreal. I didn’t want to be there, Mum didn’t want to be there, and yet there was nothing we could do about it.

At the funeral I was standing with my dad when he spotted Kevin and said to me, ‘Who’s he?’ He didn’t have a clue. I said, ‘I’ll tell you later, Dad.’

It turned out that he knew all about Mum’s illegitimate son and he’d never told me, the sod. He could’ve easily told me when him and Mum were having all their arguments prior to the split, but he kept schtum because he knew deep down that it wouldn’t have been right. It would’ve caused even more conflict. To keep a secret like that and keep your mouth shut takes some doing, especially when things go bad.

After the funeral we all went to a nearby pub and that’s when I told him. He was stunned. ‘When did you find out about that, then?’ he said.

So I had to retell Kevin’s life story to Dad because all he knew was that Mum had put him up for adoption. I recounted how he had lovely foster parents who brought him up well and treated him like their real son, how they lived in a respectable neighbourhood, how he had a nice job and a decent house, and how he was totally unlike me in that he was quiet, was not a huge drinker and
shared
the occasional bottle of wine with his wife at weekends. As Dad listened open-mouthed, I began to question myself whether we really were related because we are so, so different. But we are related, and the one thing I can look back on with pleasure is the fact that after so many years Mum and Kevin finally met, albeit for only a very short time. At least she put that void in her life right. It must have been a terrible, terrible thing for her to have a child and have to give him away. It must have preyed on her mind right up until the point she met him, so I was glad they finally reunited.

I will never know to my dying day if she knew there was something seriously wrong with her and that that was the last chance she had to meet her long lost son. I suspect she knew something because why else would she suddenly buy a house within walking distance of me and her grandkids? She came round all the time. I’d be sitting watching the football on telly and see Mum walk past the front window and knock on the door. I’d think: For Christ’s sake, she’s bloody well here again, as you do. All I wanted was to watch the match, but she’d come round for a couple of hours and when she went the game was over. Now, all of a sudden, I’d give anything to see her walk past my window again, football or no football.

When you go you go. All these do-gooders saying don’t drink and don’t smoke – it doesn’t do them any favours. You don’t get any bonus points in life, and by
abstaining
from the more pleasurable things what are you trying to achieve? A few more years added on at the end, what’s the point of that if you’re not enjoying life in the here and now? Everyone feels better after a drink, and a smoke is the perfect accompaniment. I feel sorry for teetotallers. If they wake up in the morning and that’s the best they’re going to feel all day, then what’s the point of carrying on? I would’ve been gob-smacked if Kevin was a teetotaller. He’s not, he’s a sensible drinker. I still keep in touch with him and I phone every now and again, though probably not as often as I should.

Life threw me that curveball just when I thought nothing more could surprise me. Then there was Mum’s illness, and just when I was over the shock of that came the biggest crisis of them all, the mother of all shocks – my marriage breakdown. This not only tore the family apart but also threatened to destroy me as a person. If the split from Maureen was amicable, the one from Jane was anything but. It became a living nightmare.

It began a few months after Mum died when Jane went with her friend to Gracelands, the home of Elvis Presley. I stayed in England and looked after the children; Elvis doesn’t do much for me anyway. When they came home we just started rowing and it all seemed to go downhill from there.

We became distant, she began to resent me doing the dart exhibitions and said she deserved a life as
well
. This to a certain extent is understandable because being married to a darts player isn’t easy, especially when they are always on the road. The rows came thick and fast.

It culminated in me facing an assault charge after being accused of hitting Jane at home. We’d had a row upstairs and it ended with me storming down and putting the telly on. Minutes later a police car pulled up outside the house. They came in and said they had reason to believe I’d assaulted my wife. I felt like laughing at them. It was ludicrous. But then, when I went upstairs there were blood smears on the ceiling and on the telephone. Despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything, this didn’t look good at all. My whole career was about to be tarnished by a charge of domestic violence.

The cops took me away and at the station I met my lawyer who told me to put in a plea bargain, but the plea would have to be guilty.

I said, ‘I am not going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do. I’d rather go down than do that. I didn’t do it.’

He looked at my hands and said, ‘You wear those sovereign rings.’

I do have quite a few chunky gold rings on my fingers, I was bling before the term had ever been invented, but I said to him, ‘I wear those rings all the time, but there’s not a mark on her.’ It was true, she didn’t have a mark on her body, not a bruise, not anything, apart from a
tiny
cut by her nose which wasn’t big enough to justify all the blood over the ceiling and telephone.

My lawyer was adamant. ‘You can get a much more lenient sentence if you plead guilty,’ he told me.

‘If I plead guilty I might as well go and hang myself,’ I told him, ‘because if my kids believe that I’m a wife beater then what’s the point in carrying on living?’

So I told him I was going to fight the charge all the way to the courts, but all the time I couldn’t help think that this could be the ultimate payback for all the bad things I did as a teenager.

To her credit, I understand Jane then wanted to drop all charges – I think she realised the whole farcical situation had got way out of hand – but the prosecution team said they were going to go ahead with it anyway.

In court she gave evidence from behind a screen, so she couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see her. Christ almighty! We had been married for fifteen years and the end result was her testifying against me from behind a screen.

My lawyer didn’t help. All he could say was, ‘You’ll probably get done for this.’ And then it was the same old rigmarole again, with me saying, ‘But I didn’t do it,’ and him asking me to plea bargain. But then this was sensible advice from a legal viewpoint. He had my best interests at heart, it was just something I didn’t want to hear.

I said to him again, ‘If I plead guilty everybody I work with, and all my friends and family, will think I’m a wife
beater
and I don’t want that. And anyway, if I get done for it, it’s all over for me. My career will be over, I’ll lose my family, that will be it, the end. Life won’t be worth living any more. There will be no point carrying on. I’m not going to go through life continually being ostracised.’