Misadventures (7 page)
Authors: Sylvia Smith
I was thirty-two.
I
t was a beautiful summer's day so my friend Linda and I decided to go to the funfair. It was very crowded and noisy with the different music and sounds of the fair. Linda and I played on the various stalls and slowly walked around the fairground looking at all the amusements. We stood near the swinging chairs and watched the people get into them. Once they were full the music started up and they gradually swung out higher and wider. Underneath them stood a middle-aged man with his suit jacket over his arm. He looked up at the chairs now swinging directly over his head. At the same time somebody above him vomited. The vomit landed on the man's face and trickled down his shirt-front and on to the jacket he was holding. Linda and I grimaced as we watched him wipe himself with his handkerchief.
Hilary and I met through a social club. She was twenty-six. I was thirty-two. We went out together until her marriage to Mike and the births of her two children, a boy called Elliott and, two years later, a girl called Francesca. We are still friends today but only see each other occasionally.
I
n her single days Hilary owned a car that the garages appeared to be unable to repair. She would drive for twenty minutes and then the engine would cut out and she would slowly come to a halt. Hilary tried several garages but still this fault was not rectified so she decided to sell the vehicle privately for the large sum of eight hundred pounds without telling the prospective owner of this defect. She provided a test run and luckily this went without a hitch. The buyer was delighted with his purchase and paid Hilary the requested amount. The negotiations completed, Hilary watched from her front gate, heaving
a sigh of relief as her car disappeared in the distance. She heard nothing further of her sale.
Hilary and Mike decided that Elliott should have a first birthday party. They invited close friends and family, and several mothers and babies Hilary had met at the Welfare Clinic, accompanied by the fathers.
Halfway through the party Elliott's grandmother picked him up from the carpet where he had been playing with his little friends, sat him on her knee, and spoon-fed him a strawberry yoghurt. Elliott very contentedly sat on her lap eating the yoghurt. As he finished one spoonful he opened his mouth wide waiting for the next one. All was well until he had emptied the tub. His open expectant mouth turned into a pucker and he sat on his grandmother's knee sobbing his heart out.
On one of my rare visits to see Hilary she told me, âI took Elliott and Francesca swimming when Francesca was four years old and she shit herself in the pool. I don't think anyone noticed because most of it was in her swimsuit but I got her out of the water as quickly as possible and took her to the loo.'
John was forty, I was thirty-two. We both belonged to the same large social club. He frequently organised weekend trips in Europe for other club members. I met him when I joined his party on a trip to Belgium. He was tall dark and handsome. He loved women, and they were attracted to him. I heard rumours that on every trip he organised he always found a lady to share his bed.
J
ohn was a very good tour organiser although he charged everyone a few pounds extra so that he had a free holiday. Our trip that weekend was to Brussels and we were a party of twelve.
On our last night we dined in an Indonesian restaurant and the food was excellent. I noticed John continually glancing around the room. He finished his dinner and left our table to join two unknown foreign girls seated in another part of the restaurant. At the end of the evening he returned to pay his bill and left with the
girls, taking them to our hotel. He persuaded his room-mate to squeeze into another room with two other men from our party and John spent the night having sex with both women. On our return to London the following morning he slept the entire journey on the coach, only waking when we reached the ferry.
Ten years passed before I saw John again. This time he was organising a club disco. He was still a very attractive man but unfortunately he was almost bald and this did not suit him. His baldness obviously embarrassed him as he had grown long locks of hair on the left side of his head and had brushed them over his crown in an attempt to disguise his lack of hair.
I felt very sorry for him because he was very much a ladies' man and his bald head showed the beginning of his decline.
Lorraine was my ex-boyfriend's sister. She emigrated to Canada at the age of nineteen and lived with her Canadian father's relations. We met when she was twenty-six and on holiday in London for two weeks, staying in her parents' house. In Canada she ran a second-hand clothing store with one of her Canadian uncles. I was thirty-two.
L
orraine began life in Canada living with her uncle, his wife and their two sons. Her relations showed her the sights and one Sunday her cousins took her to a lake for a picnic and swim.
They laid their picnic on the grass at the water's edge and soon all three of them went into the lake. Lorraine didn't know how to swim so she decided she would just have a paddle, but unfortunately she slowly waded out of her depth. By this time her cousins had returned to the shore and their picnic. As Lorraine was unable to rejoin them she frantically shouted
and waved at them whilst she jumped up and down desperately trying to keep her head above water. Her cousins smiled and waved back at her until they suddenly realised her predicament and swam out to rescue her.
Thankful to be on dry land again, Lorraine sat on the grass getting her breath back. Her relief at being saved from near-drowning was marred when one of her cousins said to her, âYour bikini top is around your waist.'
Lorraine attended a family gathering at her Uncle Haddie's house in the country. After a couple of hours had passed she paid a visit to the bathroom and discovered a huge stool floating in the toilet. She used the toilet brush and flushed the system several times to clear the stool but to no avail. Her visit to the bathroom was immediately followed by her Uncle Haddie and Lorraine told me, âI didn't feel comfortable all afternoon.'
Nasrin was Indian and the divorced mother of two teenage girls. We met through a social club. She was thirty-eight. I was thirty-two.
N
asrin and I sat beside each other at a pub event. We were soon in conversation and she told me of an unpleasant episode in her life.
Nasrin had a bad marriage for many years and eventually divorced her husband. The court decided she should have the family home and custody of her daughters. Her ex-husband was very bitter because he had lost everything; his wife, his house, to a certain extent his children, and his money, as he was forced to live in a furnished room because he still had to support his family.
One weekday when the family home was empty he let himself in with his key. He entered the lounge and removed two photographs from their frames and then went upstairs into the
double bedroom he used to share with Nasrin. He opened the wardrobe door and picked out all Nasrin's photograph albums and loose photographs which she kept in a box at the bottom of the wardrobe. He sat down on the bed and tore each photograph into fragments and cut through all the negatives with scissors. His task completed, he left the house.
Nasrin came home and saw the remains of her photographs on her bedroom carpet. She told me, âIf my husband had wanted to hurt me then he found the perfect way of doing it. He destroyed all my photographs and negatives and now I have no photographs whatsoever to show my past life. I used to have waist length hair but I have no photograph to remind me, and I have no photographs of me as a child, or of my daughters as babies, or of my wedding, or of my relations. He completely ruined every single photograph I possessed.'
Betty and I belonged to the same large social club. We met when we joined a club party travelling to Yorkshire for a weekend break. She was forty. I was thirty-three. She had recently returned to the UK from the US to attend her mother's funeral. She had emigrated to the US six years earlier with a girlfriend. They had made their home together until the friend married, leaving Betty to live alone in their apartment. Although Betty considered life in the UK to be dull in comparison, she did not return to the States as she had found it increasingly violent and felt she was too old to start again.
O
n Betty's return to the UK she moved in with her father, sharing his council house in Dagenham. She told me, âMy father had six children and apart from me they've all married and had families and he's done everything for them. He's helped all his children out whenever they've needed it and he's made Wendy houses, cots and toys for
all the grandchildren and apart from my sister Anne who does his shopping once a week, none of them phone him up to see how he is or to invite him over for the weekend. They don't bother with him at all. At Christmas he goes to Anne for the day and she gives him a present but all he gets from the others is a Christmas card and that's about their only contact.'
Betty put her name down for a council flat. She said to me, âThere's no way I'm living with my father until he's too old to look after himself and I'll be the one who has to nurse him.'
A few weeks later Betty was offered accommodation in Barking and promptly left her father's home.
Glyn was a forty-year-old Jamaican who was self-employed as a car mechanic. He lived in the next street to me and occasionally worked for me. He was married with two young sons. I was thirty-four.
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G
lyn continually asked me to go out with him but I always refused. He would frequently complain about his marriage, telling me that his wife only allowed him sex once a month, how frustrated he was and that he was looking for a discreet girlfriend but had been unable to find one.
I moved away from the area and heard no more of him until I met one of the neighbours who told me that Glyn and his wife had divorced after he had poured a can of petrol over her and had tried to ignite it. Their house had been sold and his wife had custody of the children but Glyn did not go to prison.
Sam was a fifty-five-year-old sales rep. We were both employees of the same clothing company. I was thirty-four and private secretary to the Managing Director.
A
s I entered the showroom I heard Sam talking to the Sales Director. He was explaining why he'd been late for an appointment with a client the previous evening. He said, âI broke down in my car last night.' I interrupted and asked, âDidn't you have a hankie?' which brought some humour to the situation.
Malcolm was thirty-eight. I was thirty-four. We met at a social club event and dated for two months but there was no romance between us. We became
â
good friends'.
O
n our third evening out together Malcolm took me to the cinema to see the latest film. He bought our tickets and said to me, âI must go to the loo. I won't be a minute.' I waited in the foyer and looked at my watch as the time went by. Twenty minutes passed before he came out of the gents' toilet. He was not at all embarrassed and simply said, âI'm sorry,' as he led me in to see the film, which fortunately had not started.
On the way home from the cinema Malcolm and I were discussing our various romances. I told him I had dated over one hundred men before the age of twenty-five and that they had all been platonic relationships. Malcolm could not believe this at
all and said, âYou should have had sex with them all!' I replied, âYou must be joking! If I'd had sex with all of that lot I'd have a face full of spots by now. I prefer to have serious relationships.' Malcolm said, âThe next time you go out with a man just relax, lay back and let him do it.'
Brian, Phyllis and I were members of the same social club. He was a divorcee aged forty-two and had been engaged to and living with Phyllis for some time. She was ten years younger than him. I was thirty-four.
B
rian and I attended a ramble event in Epping Forest one Sunday morning in summer. I noticed he arrived in a bright, shiny new car and without Phyllis.
The ramble was very well attended, making a group of twelve people. After struggling through the undergrowth and muddy footpaths we eventually stopped at a country pub to quench our thirst, choosing to sit on the wooden benches outside. I sought out Brian and settled beside him. I said to him, âThat was a nice car you were driving.' He replied, âIt was. I only bought it about a month ago but some nut smashed into it, so the novelty has worn off.' I said, âOh, that was bad luck.' He continued, âThat car is the first
car I've ever bought brand new. I literally spent weeks looking through catalogues to find myself exactly what I wanted. I was really pleased with it. Then this idiot crashes in to me at the traffic lights. I was stationary and waiting for the lights to change and he comes along not looking where he was going and drives straight into the back of me. He made a huge dent in the boot. Alright, the garage did a good repair job but that car now seems to me to be second-hand and I've lost all pride in it.' I sympathised and said, âWell, it's still a beautiful car.'
I changed the subject and asked, âNo Phyllis today?' He looked down at his drink and replied, âNo, she's busy.' I asked, âIs she cooking your dinner?' He replied, âThat's right.'
We spoke to the other club members and I overheard Brian saying, âI'm living with my father at the moment.'
