Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (20 page)

     “Looks like the holiday is off,” I heard Bernie say to Michelle on the phone, “Moll can’t get her shit together to sort out her passport. Sorry about that pet, I know you were looking forward to it.” I was pleased with this result

    
On Friday we were in the pub after training, I sipped on my Strongbow in a corner when my brother, Alex, walked in. I wanted to duck under the table but I was frozen to the spot. He gave Bernie an evil look and came to sit next to me.

     “How are you sis?”he asked as he gave me a hug, quite out of character, “everybody is missing you at home.”

     “Are they?” I asked, trying to disguise the lump in my throat. I wanted to tell Alex about Bernie, how he’d been mistreating me, how he’d stabbed me with a screwdriver, and how I desperately wanted to go back but didn’t think I’d be welcome.

He leaned over and sang part of a Westlife song in my ear.

     “How does that sound?” He asked, “Does it sound okay? Me and my friends are performing here tonight and I don’t want to make an idiot of myself.”

He explained how he was now part of a
boy band. I looked around the room, it was normally quite deserted in there but this evening, there were considerably more people than usual. Mainly flushed middle aged women.

Then his friends arrived and they took to their microphones to sing cover songs. The place filled up very quickly and soon it was packed wall to wall with screaming women, the band wasn’t half bad.

     “That’s my brother.” I said proudly to the students from the club. We fought our way to the bar and my brother winked at me during one of his solos.

I looked towards the corner of the room through the thin mist of dry ice that came from the smoke machine. It changed colour from the disco lights and through it, I could see
Bernie sat on his own. He glared at me but I wasn’t afraid of him this time, my family apparently missed me which gave me a glimmer of hope; and the upper hand over Bernie.

     Alex disappeared before I had the chance to say goodbye properly, I had so many questions to ask but he waved awkwardly to me whilst a lady dressed way younger than her actual age tried to pull the shirt from his back.

     “So what did Alex have to say for himself then?” scoffed Bernie as we drove back to Peterborough. “I notice he completely ignored me, how rude, especially after all the quality training I gave him. He’s turned into a real
big head Moll.” He stuck his nose in the air.

     “He said they all missed me.” I said.

     “I bet he did, they’re poisoning him against us Moll, can’t you see it? You’re lucky you got out when you did. It’ll just be another game, I’m sorry to tell you this but they don’t give a fuck about you. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow and I’d be the only person at your funeral. I’m the only one who cares about you. I’m the one who put a roof over your head when you had nowhere to go.”

I just wanted to tell him to shut his fat fucking mouth, I couldn’t understand why I wanted to defend my family after the way they’d treated me in the past. Maybe they’d learned from their mistakes. I was certainly learning from mine.

I said nothing in response but inside I was smiling.

     As Friday soon came around again, I’d done little other than think about seeing Alex in the pub again. I’d hoped he’d visit and answer my questions.

I’d been toying with the idea of going home all week, fantasizing how I’d just pack my things and tell Bernie to stick his squalid caravan up his arse and never having to look at his ugly face again. My parents would welcome me with open arms and the past would be erased.

     Bernie’s sister, Anne, wanted to come to Leicester with us to see what her little brother Bernie had achieved. She had a long history of drug abuse but was incredibly pleasant to me. We shared a mutual hate for her and Bernie’s father. Unfortunately, she was almost always half cut and crazy.

I could cope with her coming along to the class, she was of no threat to me and she always made fun of Bernie which made me smile.

     At the end of the class, he took a call on his new mobile phone; it was one of his friends from Leicester.

     “Yes of course Mike, we’d love to. See you soon.”

     “Who was that?” I asked.

     “Mind your own business you nosey cow,” he snapped.

     “Don’t talk to her like that you jumped up little prick,” said Anne, “who do you think you are?”

She put her arm around me and Bernie glared. In any other situation, I might have felt protected, but Anne was Bernie’s sister. The smell of her body
odour and the alcohol that seeped from her pores made me feel quite nauseous.

     “Whose coming pub then?” asked one of the students in a way that Bernie would normally ask.

     “Not tonight I’m afraid,” said Bernie, “You’ll have to go on without us, we’ve got somewhere to be.”

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach, slowly eroding away.

     “But why not?” I asked.

What about Alex? What if he was to come looking for me and assumed I didn’t hang out there anymore?

     “Mind your own.” Said Bernie.

I walked into the toilets and sobbed gently. I remembered those toilets from years ago when I attended St. Johns Ambulance. The toilet paper was a dull pink back then; I wanted to go back to the times of the pink toilet paper, a time before Bernie.

I could hear him talking to Anne in the hallway.

     “They’re really nice people once you get to know them Anne. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t show me up. They’ve got free beer too...”

This was the deal maker for her, she was an alcoholic and Bernie knew it.

I quickly realised that my night in the pub had been sacrificed for a house party with Bernie’s drug taking friends. The friends with the filthy matted dreadlocks, the friends who smelled so bad because they likely hadn’t changed their underwear for weeks. They were the ones who rode manically around the town on their quad bikes, high on whatever was flavour of the week.

I crept out of the toilets and stood behind Bernie, waiting for him to finish his conversation with Anne.

     “Can I just go to the pub and you pick me up from there in a bit?” I asked.

He smirked at me and screwed up his nose.

     “No, you can’t just go to the pub and have me pick you up later. Anne doesn’t know anybody around here; I need you to keep an eye on her.”

     “But I don’t want to go to Mike’s house,”
I whined, “I want to go to the pub instead.”

     “And I want you to stop being a stupid bitch but it won’t happen will it?”

He pushed past me and said farewell to his students, I watched enviously with a heavy heart as they left the building to walk into town together.

The three of us were left to lock up and suddenly I began to hate my life again.

     The house party was in full swing by the time we arrived. It was a medium sized council house with an overgrown garden. The smell of dog shit hit me as I walked up the path.

‘It’ll only be for an hour or so. Two at the most and I can live with that because it will end eventually’. I told myself.

The music was incredibly loud and echoed around the street, the neighbours knew better than to complain though.

     We’d been there less than half an hour and the caring Anne had turned into nasty drunken Anne, falling about the place and making a show of herself. I had no idea how much she’d drank but I feared the night wouldn’t end well.

The house was in a squalid state with people being sick on the floor and urinating freely.

     Bernie ignored me and sat in the living room smoking weed and talking about how spiritually enlightened he was. People listened to him over the music as they drank and injected themselves with drugs I knew nothing about.

I’d drank a fair bit myself to wash away the pain of not seeing my brother that evening, the more I drank, the further away the memory became, almost like that little blip on the television screen after you turn it off.

I staggered upstairs to find Anne. People were laying half conscious on the landing, slumped up against the wall with saliva gathering on their chins like rabid dogs.

I slumped on the top step and held my head in my hands. Anne emerged from one of the bedrooms and flopped beside me.

     “What’s up chicken?” she asked as she put one of her huge smelly arms around me. I could feel her sweat against my skin.

     “I was supposed to meet my brother at the pub tonight but Bernie wouldn’t let me go.” I confessed, knowing too well that she’d have no recollection of the conversation in the morning.

     “You’ve got all the family you need here chicken. I know what’ll cheer you up, come and have a dance.”

     “No I’m okay thanks, I’ve got a headache. I’ll just sit here for a bit.”

     “I’ll be back in a minute Moll, you just wait here.”

She patted me on the arm and disappeared back into the bedroom. The sound of jungle music and manic laughter filled the whole of the upstairs.

‘Welcome to hell Moll.” I said underneath my breath.

One of the girls that were half conscious opened her eyes and looked at me.

     “I want my mum.” She slurred as her eyes slowly closed again. I was terrified.

     “I’ve got something for your headache,” said Anne as she leaned over me.

She gave me a white tablet and I had no reason to suspect she’d given me anything other than a paracetamol. It looked rather like one.

     After a short while, I began to load my body with shots of vodka. I was being sick anywhere there was a surface and I didn’t care. I was completely uninhibited.

I jumped up and down on the beds upstairs as the music repeated over and over in my head. I was practically bouncing off the walls. Everybody thought it was hilarious. I assumed they were laughing with me.

I found myself downstairs in the kitchen, searching for more alcohol. As I tried to take the cap off a bottle of beer, I realised that my hands wouldn’t function. It was the strangest thing.

My mind was sharp and crystal clear and I was well aware of the things going on around me, the conversations people were having. I just couldn’t control my body, and it scared me.

I’d been drinking for hours and I still felt perfectly sober.

I wanted to find Anne to explain how I was feeling but my legs wouldn’t hold me up as I got to the foot of the stairs. I had to crawl.

‘What the hell am I doing?’ I asked myself as I fell against the stairs. ‘What the hell is wrong with me? Am I dying?’

I put my hands out in front of me and dug my nails into the piss soaked carpet, my legs were trailing behind. It was mainly a job for my arms to pull my weight up to the next few steps. I could feel the urine contaminating the area beneath my fingernails as they picked up all the damp dirt on the way.

I looked through the shit smeared slatted banister and heard a dog yelping as it was held down and kicked repeatedly in the head by Bernie’s ‘lovely’ friends.

I’d returned to the top step again and the semi-conscious girl was being carried into a room by somebody I didn’t recognize.

I cradled my head in my hands again and begged for the music to stop. My brain felt as though it was convulsing each time the music kicked in.

I lost complete control of my bladder but I was more concerned about my heart that was kicking me from inside my chest as if to say, ‘What have you done to me?’

     Through the confusion, I heard Bernie’s voice yelling at Anne.

     “What the hell have you given her? She’s fucking paralytic.”

     “I gave her a Dexy’s Bernie, she was being a right miserable, stuck up cow and I didn’t like it okay?”

     “Look at her,” he shouted, “she’s underage and shouldn’t be drinking or taking drugs; they could kill her. She’s only seventeen”

     “For god sake lighten up, I only gave her one. She’ll be coming down from it soon.”

I had faith in my body, as alien as it felt to me, I trusted it not to give up on me.

     “Get your coat Anne, now; I’m taking you both back.”

I thought I’d tried to stand up, but I must have rocked forwards instead because I crashed down the stairs. My body just went with the fall like a piece of putty. I think this was the reason I didn’t sustain any injuries besides a couple of bruises. It jolted me into consciousness though.

     “Moll darling, are you okay? You’ve just fallen down the stairs.”
Mike's haggard wife came to my assistance with a cigarette hanging from her poisonous gob.

     “I’m seventeen,” I smiled, “just seventeen.”

Bernie scooped me up in his arms and carried me out the front door.