The Life of Lee (40 page)

I bowed my head in shame. All I could see was my dirty trainers on a filthy tiled floor poking out the end of a second-hand suit. ‘You fool, Lee Evans, you ridiculous, stupid fool.’

I peeked out the corner of my eye at the waitress and chef again.

‘Do you have a phone I could borrow?’ I called a friend and asked if he could go and get Heather for me.

I’m still waiting for Jonathan to come back with the Governor.

I was eighteen at the time. I am forty-seven now, but it’s taken more or less that long, in fact, until quite recently, for her to forgive me for paying that Jonathan bastard bloke – her words, not mine – the last of any money we had in the world.

I say she has forgiven me recently – it was about an hour ago when she finally issued me with a proper pardon, and even then I am under strict instructions from the proper by-laws of our house not to go anywhere near anyone called Jonathan with a posh middle-class accent ever again.

36. Mrs Taylor Was Right

Trying to put the Jonathan humiliation behind me, I got straight back on the bike and was soon back at the Job Centre. But now my mood was changing. I was finding it all so hopeless. There were hardly any jobs on the boards, and when they appeared, they would be snapped up within minutes.

Even my usual confidence-boosting London Road job hunt was a hopeless exercise in rejection and self-doubt. I usually had a bit of a friendly banter with the shopkeepers, but even they recognized a marked change in my demeanour. If Dougal, our old dog, had been around, I might have copied my dad and threatened to boot him in frustration.

So I decided to sign on the dole. That was when I began to lose my self-respect. It had been something I swore I would never do, but there it was. I had to take a hand-out from the government, and so I spent the rest of that demoralizing day filling in forms, being told by people who didn’t seem to care a rat’s arse, sitting behind thick violence-proof glass, that I was either on the wrong floor, at the wrong booth or holding the wrong form. It was a demoralizing business, taking a ticket like you would at the cheese counter and sitting for hours with other depressed and gloomy people just like me waiting for my
name to be called – just so they could tell me what I might be entitled to. I already had a rough idea that it was the princely sum of not much at all.

That night I huddled up with Heather on the couch, desperate not to show how low my spirits had become. She had just regained her strength and was going out the following day herself to look for a job, and so I didn’t want to bring her down. I knew we were in trouble, otherwise she wouldn’t be needing to look for work. But I didn’t ask about any of this. As usual I blotted it out, choosing to live in my own bubble. Inside my head, I was dreaming of a day I would be able to afford some form of heating for our freezing cold flat.

The next morning I did my customary it’s-a-new-day-let’s-get-cracking routine. From very early, I was at the call box dialling up vacancies from the paper, but I quickly found there was nothing out there. I was either too late, or I wasn’t qualified enough, or they just didn’t like the sound of my voice.

I gently replaced the receiver, despondently walked from the call box and stood on the corner of the street. I was staring up at the phone lines above my head that criss-crossed the road, shooting off in all different directions. My eye followed the line to other telegraph poles, then angled off to buildings all the way down the road into the distance. I thought of all the places they could go, even under the sea and to other countries, across towns and cities, offices and factories, hospitals and police stations, everywhere. Then I thought back to where I was standing, right underneath one such line. It held all that potential and yet here I was, jobless and useless. I felt so
insignificant. A nothing. I was throwing in the towel, admitting defeat. Mrs Taylor was right all those years ago. What those other pupils were looking at on that day was a failure.

I was officially a loser, a misfit who fitted in nowhere. Even if I managed to get a job, I couldn’t hold on to it because I kept messing up one way or another. I spent my life trying to conform, going out of my way to meet other people’s wishes. I was a happy-go-lucky bloke, always looking on the positive side, but to whom nothing positive ever happened. I was always friendly to people, but I had no close friends. I liked to be a part of everything, but I was a part of nothing.

I drifted off home, drew the lounge curtains and sat quietly on the floor. I tucked my face into my knees, covering my head with my hands to cut out the world and began to cry.

It might have been hours later – it felt like late afternoon – when I heard the curtains being pulled back violently. Bright light ripped into the room. I blinked my eyes open and standing over me was Heather.

‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘I’m sorry, Heather, but I have let you down. I can’t find a job. I am nothing, a failure. You can throw me out if you like. I would completely understand. That’s how it is.’

‘No, let me tell you how it is. They’re cutting the electric off tomorrow if we don’t pay the bill. We had the last red one yesterday. It’s the same with the gas. We haven’t paid for the flat in months, and we have survived on clocking up money on a credit card which needs paying
off. Plus, the bank that likes to say yes have just told me no. So I want you to get up off your arse, get out that door and find something. Please!’ Suddenly, she cracked. She slumped on to the couch and burst into tears. I gave her a hug. I had known we were in serious trouble, but as usual I had blocked out the full extent of it.

I got to my feet and stormed out of the door with a new sense of determination. Heather was right. What was wrong with me, I thought, giving up like that, after what she had just gone through? I should be ashamed.

I reached the call box, dived in, plunged my hand into my coat pocket and whipped out a torn corner piece of newspaper. I slapped it against the back wall just above the phone and stared at it for a moment. It was the scribbled note I had written a few days earlier from
The Stage
newspaper while Heather slept next to me: ‘Talent Show’. Underneath, I had hurriedly copied out the telephone number in South Woodham.

I hesitantly lifted the receiver, jammed it under one side of my chin and began dialling the number. I was concerned as the competition was to be held that night, so I hoped I wasn’t too late to enter. The man on the other end of the phone informed me there was only one place left and asked what he should enter me as. I hesitated. I didn’t know what I was, so I just blurted out, ‘A singer, aaaaargh? A singer-instrumentalist.’ He sounded quite impressed. I asked if there would be a piano; he said that there would be and that he would mic it up for me ready to play.

I calmly thanked him and gently replaced the receiver. I stumbled out from the call box on to the pavement in a
daze. I bent over, putting my hands on my knees. I felt very light-headed and thought for a moment I was going to throw up. My whole body began to tremble. Thoughts began to whizz around inside my head. What I was doing? Basically, I had just lied to that man. I’m not a singer-instrumentalist, I thought, I’m a nothing. I have never performed in my life. Oh sure, I’d had seen acts all right, lots of them. I had been around performers since I was a sperm. But that didn’t mean I could get up there and do it myself.

I spent the walk home thinking through various scenarios. ‘I will open with perhaps a guitar number. Then maybe I should get on the piano and do a bit of twelve-bar blues to get the place jumping. To finish off, I should get back on the guitar and work up a bit of a sweat.’ I tried convincing myself everything would be all right. ‘I mean, I only have to perform a ten-minute spot – what’s that? Three songs, I could do that easily.’ But then doubt would creep in. ‘Why are you doing this, Lee, you fool?’

I didn’t know what might happen. There would be no time to rehearse. It was a gamble, but at least I felt I was doing something. By now I didn’t even care why, how, what or where. I suppose I had nothing to lose. What did it matter if I was booed off the stage, chased out of town? At least that would be one step up from where I was right now: nowhere.

Even if I never set foot on a stage again, it was a throw of the dice that was worth trying. A little voice in the back of my head kept egging me on. Despite my wavering, somehow it felt perfectly natural to be on the edge, in a situation of uncertainty. I liked the feeling, the buzz, the
risk. I hated the awareness that I might suffer the humiliation of failure, but at the same time that was the whole point. It was like stepping over a border to see what might be on the other side.

This felt like something I knew about, a world I had dwelt in. For the first time in my life, I reckoned there was a minuscule bit of good fortune in my favour. At the same time, I knew I might have to suffer some form of hardship or even humiliation to get it. But I liked the idea of punishment; I had to suffer in order to get something. I felt much more comfortable with the idea that if anything decent should come my way, I must first be afflicted by some kind of sacrifice, otherwise I wouldn’t deserve it. I was used to failure, to being knocked. I was an idiot, a disappointment, a loser. I was so used to that tag, I damn well expected it. If I was to be treated as a fool, I would act like one.

At the front door to the flat, I slammed the key into the lock. Before entering, I paused for a moment. ‘Right, I shall go inside, have a quick wash, grab my amp and guitar, then head off to South Woodham.’ I gave a little careless shrug of my shoulders. The only thing I was doing was gambling the bus fare to get there. In the end, I thought, if it all goes wrong and is a huge embarrassment, so what?

I didn’t care any more. I was fed up with being kicked in the teeth. I’d had enough indignity, shame and struggle to last me a lifetime. I stamped my foot on the front step and looked briefly up to the sky. ‘Enough, enough now.’

I turned the key and entered the flat.

37. What Was This Strange Feeling I Was Experiencing?

Everyone was there, the managing director of the brewery, the local newspaper and an audience of several hundred packing the venue to the rafters. Then I noticed the pub door opening and Heather enter and search the room for me. She needn’t have bothered looking; she was about to see me – everyone was.

‘He says he’s a singer-instrumentalist – let’s see if he’s right! Let’s hear it, ladies and gentlemen, for the last act in tonight’s competition … Mr Lee Evans!’ the compere announced. As I lurked nervously offstage at the back of the venue, I heard it booming out, vibrating, shifting the hot, heavy, thick air around me. The sound was resonating from two huge speakers pitched on stands either side of the stage like sentries that marked the gateway to another world.

‘About time, too,’ I thought, ‘thank God.’ I was relieved, just wanting to get on with it and over with. I was on the verge of exploding after having to mill around at the back of the jam-packed, lively room the whole night. The fact that it had dragged on so long had only added to the tense, rowdy atmosphere in the venue. The extra time had given the rammed pub more opportunity to get cheap promotional beer down as many necks as possible.

My ears were attuned to every shriek, shout and heckle
that the last performer had had to battle through. Every fibre in my body now racked with nerves, I held my hand up just to confirm to myself that it was shaking. I had waited for my turn, half-watching all the other acts as they had done their ten minutes. Mostly, though, my head had been dipped and my eyes had been fixed upon the floor at my feet, not really able to face what would eventually be my fate.

Instead, it felt more comfortable just to listen, assessing my own chances as, one by one, the acts got better and better. This only fed the growing voice of doubt which was now so easily drowning out what had been the whisper of such certainty and hope on the bus on the way there. I remembered when I was a kid, standing, waiting, watching by the side of the stage, and thinking it was all so magical. But not now, not from where I was standing – this was a different story.

I used to wonder why almost all performers looked so solemn and their eyes seemed so fixed and concentrated while either waiting to go on or just coming off the stage. Now I knew. That’s when they began to doubt themselves. I hadn’t known that was how they felt.

When I was a boy spending months travelling theatres and working men’s clubs with Mum and Dad, I only felt the excitement, the wonder, skill and brilliance of all those comedians, singers, dancers and musicians. If I wasn’t there watching from the wings, I would be tucked away back in some seedy dressing room, listening to the muffled sounds of what I imagined was going on out in the club, and which always sounded so intoxicating. Now I was experiencing the reality.

After announcing my name, the compere pointed to where I was standing at the back of the room, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea to allow me a passageway through to the stage. They began their exuberant beer-fuelled whooping and clapping. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter as I stood trembling, still pinned against the back wall, hair ruffled up like a hairdresser had just finished drying and lifted the towel off.

The image was not helped by my faithful but rancid Oxfam suit, which was now showing signs of real wear, with one leg shorter than the other, one arm hanging off, a torn pocket and a gaping hole on the underside of the trousers bigger than the bomb-bay doors of the Enola Gay. It would have been more humane to have taken the damn thing outside and given it a fatal injection of dry-cleaning fluid. I gripped my old cumbersome Vox amp in one hand and held on for dear life to my electric guitar in the other.

This was it. I couldn’t even think of how badly we needed that money – the only reason I was there. No, I would have gladly swapped any amount of cash not to be where I was at that moment. I wouldn’t have even cared if we had been thrown out of the wretched flat and made to sleep under Southend Pier for the rest of our lives as two mumbling hobos.