Chapter 3 - Once in a Lifetime
By the time my fortieth birthday somehow got into the past, observable human life was long gone. No one came near me unless they were desperate or there was a pound note in it. There were no hearts on offer, not on any menu I’d seen, not even on special.
So at forty eight years old, it was way past last orders and I hadn’t even got a starter in. Meeting anyone wasn’t a factor in the equation. There were no ‘x’s or ‘y’s anywhere above or below any line. Nothing inside or outside any brackets. I had long given up. What happened to me then was one hundred percent impossible.
Chapter 4 - Hello Dolly
I’m used to my island, it’s pretty much all I know. Always has been. I’ve done the whole shebang on my jack jones. It’s been a ball, proper knees up. Never having no one there to wind me up. Or wind me down neither. Or lend an ear. Or just chill out with. Share a joke. Get to know each other.
I had this chance though. There’s only one of them you get in a lifetime. The real McCoy moment. Where there’s no option of screwing it up. I was stuck on this forensic ward in Wales and it was about the time that Amy Winehouse snuffed it and joined the twenty-seven club. I know that coz we used to have this social club on Wednesday evenings, for the bods with ground leave and winey Wendy kept sticking that ‘Rehab’ song on the juke box all the time.
So one Wednesday night we were playing killer pool. I’d had two crappy turns, potted nothing and was sat on the sofa in front of the big screen waiting for my next shot. That’s when it happened. There was this moment. It was like static electricity all round me. And that’s how those moments stay with you. I sensed something behind me. I knew it was Dolly. And then she starts whispering in my ear. She had to stoop. She was tall anyhow. And that’s how her hand was resting on my shoulder. And you could easily frame it so it was the loud music, forcing her to get that close. Or you could make out she just didn’t want the others hearing nothing. But it’s irrelevant really. Coz I knew. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my whole shit-faced life.
It’s not what I do. I don’t vacate my island. That’s not on the table. But there was a proper powerful wave headed my way and next minute I was a fish in the sea. And so was Dolly. I weren’t looking for it though. No way. I’d given up on that, centuries before mate. But there she was, splashing about, and being a mug, I reached out. And that’s it. There’s this flash. An it’s like, you know, flippin Moses parting the waters.
It was a tiny bit dodgy at first. Getting in sync. But once we got it, it was blinding. Diving under, swimming together. Like two dolphins, nudging and chasing each other, leaping, splashing, flipping ‘n frolicking. Every single moment was quality. And it was real and unreal at the same time. It didn’t matter about my body. I was a geezer as far as she was concerned. It was like I’d spent my whole life in verse and now, at long last, I was hitting chorus. I was just waiting for that bit where you know it’s about to drive home. When you’re touching the tonic and all the harmonics melt into a single point in time.
If I had a photo it would be one of those stupidly perfect days. Clear blue sky. Rippling water stretching and distorting the sun, way out in front of us. Forever.
Technically speaking, it weren’t totally like that. Not one hundred percent. There were times when there was this closeness in the air and the sky would switch to murderous. You could smell it coming. A touch of rumbling, then bang. Thunder, lightning, the works. It would bucket it down for days. Infect the whole ward. Bugger up the atmosphere. It was hard work too. Falling in love on a nutjob ward is a big NO-NO. Strictly against the rules. Chemistry, biology and anything else that applies to normal human beings, must be conquered and laid to rest before you get mentally ill in the first place. It’s the ‘Just Say No’ approach. So easy when you’ve got a raging habit. Dolly and I struggled with the ‘no’ bit. Mad about each other but told not to be. Warned not to fall prey to that mortal sin. Don’t look. Don’t touch. Separated like naughty school kids. Housed down different corridors. No chance of me getting anywhere near her bedroom, or her mine. The staff were trying to snuff out a fire by piling kindling on top of it. They might as well have launched a can of paraffin on the flames.
It was torturous for two years. Then it got harder. I got discharged back to Plymouth and she was still incarcerated in Wales. All we had then was the phone. But we hung on in there. For that day that was gonna come. The morning I had imagined a billion times. When we were gonna wake up together. Have a hug and a kiss and tug of war over the bed clothes, like any self-respecting couple would. It was gonna be heaven on earth.
Except heaven never comes to Earth.
Nothing lasts forever. Any halfwit knows life’s not fair. But there’s limits. Relationships should start before they end, not the other way around. Unless you’re Casey Wheeler. I blew it didn’t I. I was always going to. It was one screw up too much though. A one way one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pro when it comes to going it alone. But this was off the scale. I’d reached the summit of not okay, even in my book. Proper professional kind of cock up ‘look no hands’ I’ve managed prize-winning, permanent bye bye people on tap. No interruptions now. Just a future feast of super isolation with double helpings of whipped cream and plenty of sprinkles on top.
My face is rising up on one side, like an inverse stroke. my eyes are stuck on fast blink, mid focus.
“Are you for real? What the fuck were you thinking? No one could be that much of a muppet!”
There’s revolutions going on with my head. Slow, side to side ones, so I look like one of them pedestal fans, on slowest gear. No dickhead, not even the most redundant waster out there, ever cocked up like me.
There was this programme on telly when I was a kid with this loser called Frank Spencer who screwed up every single thing he ever did. It was funny, at least it was back then, in the seventies. Harmless shit. It was called ‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ and Frank was the kind of halfwit who was always crashing down the stairs on top of wardrobes and stuff. People liked him coz he was such a pillock. Dumb as hell but stupidly sweet and innocent. And he had this weird as hell camp voice but the BBC couldn’t probably give him a boyfriend then, so he got this long-suffering wife called Betty. And you fell for it. You saw true love. Even though she was full-time wet nurse and had to spend her days wiping his ass, she never swore. Not once. The worst that came out of her mouth, while he’s standing there like a wimp, after his hourly cock-up, crying out some lame excuse, was two words.
‘Oh Frank!’
The background noise in the pub is monotone echoing. Like studio laughter. It’s coming at me in waves.
I cease being a pedestal fan and drop my head down on my knees. I’ve exceeded myself this time. Upped my game. I’ve cooked up the kind of crap that makes the daily shit smell like roses. I can’t fix it. I don’t know the man who can neither. There isn’t one. No one can fix crap like this. Not even poxy self-help gurus. And their bullshit books. Full of unworkable nonsense.
Something snaps. My hand is smacking my head. Again.
Agggh!! It’s thudding in one ear and out the other one. Then there’s the stinging pain, increasing with each slap. The muscles are jerking in my neck.
‘Fuck you, ye fucking wanking moron. You fucking wank, fuck you moron!!’ My arm’s shaking coz there’s a wrestling match going on. Me against my nervous system. My hand is trying its best to hand out another, harder, whack. A proper lesson. It wins and I feel the familiar thud followed by the soreness which is now returning in waves, spreading round the right side of my head. My neck is aching. The laughter behind me has stopped. I can sense all eyes on me.
I’ve escaped the walls. Full screaming scarlet. I know exactly what they’re all thinking. Look at that piece of scum. Slapping herself in public. Hanging on to life when she should be six feet under. They should throw away the key.
I’m not bothered about the wrong use of pronoun. He, she, it , waster, really doesn’t matter when you’ve go no right to be here.
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