Born Free

by Laura Hird

  The telephonist, obviously used to such incoherent arseholes, gives me a spiel that sounds like it’s being read off a bit paper – send you a leaflet, send it back with a tenner deposit, someone’ll be in touch about an appointment. That’s no fucking good. If I don’t arrange something definite now, I’ll crap out of it. I try to explain this to her in as quivering and desperate a voice as possible. Remarkably, it seems to work. The earliest appointment’s a fortnight away, but there’s two unconfirmed (i.e., not sent the dosh) later in the afternoon. She tells me to call back or come in and wait if I don’t live too far away from Dundas Street, then starts hassling me for my name and address.

  ‘No, please, do I need to give details just now? We’ll be there, definitely. Thank you.’

  I hang up, breathless at what I’ve just done. In a sad way I feel sort of excited about it. It’s not as if I’ll have to tell them the absolute truth. It’s more like a damage-limitation exercise. Making Vic out to be a bastard can only put me in better stead if we do get divorced. What bullshit, though, really. As if talking to some lonely, old lesbian for an hour can make you miraculously fancy someone you can’t stand. Surely they’d get stalkers taking their victims there if that was the case. Tell you what, if I ever see Raymond again, he’s getting fucking dragged in by the hair.

  Going through to switch the kettle on, I try not the think about the third drink, the one that always makes it better. His nibs won’t go near the counselling if I’m pissed when he gets back.

  Forcing myself to have another coffee instead, I lick my finger, and write an imaginary point to myself, in the air. One five-minute phone-call has put me back in control, you see, Vic won’t be able to refuse. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he knocked back the chance to give our relationship one last go. Christ, go on like this and I might even end up feeling better about myself, you know, I’m trying. At least I’m fucking trying.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  JONI

  TWO CARDS! TWO fucking cards! I know we’re all preoccupied with our lives going down the dumper at the moment but surely they could’ve stretched to a CD or some knickers. Even if they’d wrapped them in newspaper, like last year, when Dad was going through his Swampy-is-God eco-warrior phase. Jake got a computer for his 14th. It’s not even a proper birthday. Plus, he gets to swan off to England for a week with his pal. Two cards! Thank you so much. When I got thrush off those bath salts, last Christmas, I didn’t realise how lucky I was.

  The first one’s supposedly from Jake but I can spot Dad’s baby writing a mile off. Dad’s own card has another two tenners in it. Big deal. It’s not even enough to get pissed up town with Rosie, if I could stand seeing her in the first place, which I can’t.

  The phone starts ringing. Please, let it be someone good. Mum tries to muscle past in the hall, but I beat her to it. The line goes dead before I’ve finished saying hello.

  ‘Who was it? Was it a phone box?’

  She’s shaking like some old thing with Parkinson’s, as she 1471s. What a state for a grown woman to get into. And I thought I was bad.

  ‘0181… 0181, that’s London, eh?’ she puffs, leaving it off the hook as she searches for something to write with. Finding a bookie’s pen down the side of the settee, she runs back over. Slashing Nick Berry’s face on the cover of TV Quick, she then starts clicking her fingers at me, to get her one that works. As if. Grabbing the phone off her, I slam it back down.

  ‘Get your own fucking pen.’

  As she scrambles over to the unit, it rings again. This time I let her get it. If it is her man, I don’t want to hear his desperate alkie voice.

  ‘Oh, Stewart, right. He just left… look, I have to go, I’m waiting on a call,’ she snaps. That’s right, take it out on Granda. As if it’s his fault you’re a drunken slapper. At least the waterworks have started. Watching her cry is one of the few pleasures I have left.

  ‘Aw … why did you do that, Jo? How could you no just give me a pen like I asked … was it really too much to ask … waaah!’

  What’s she getting so Diana’s funeral about? As if any man would get back in touch with that, once he’d already managed to leg it. It was probably just someone trying to sell double glazing anyway.

  Going to make a sandwich, I put Chris Evans on loud to drown her out. The kitchen’s like something out of one of these repossessed council houses you see in the papers. Dirty dishes from the quiche-that-nobody-would-eat are all over the bunker. Smelly eggy bits are floating on cold, oily water in the basin, beneath a tidemark of fat. Wiping a cheesy knife on a cheesier dish towel, I slice some corned beef from the opened tin in the fridge. Mum’s standing behind me, watching in a cringey way.

  ‘See when you fall in love, Jo, you’ll understand. Dinnae hate me just for loving someone, for Christ’s sake.’

  What does she know about love? The mere idea of her getting shagged is the most horrendous thing imaginable. Someone give her a drink, quick.

  ‘D’you no have packing to do?’

  She does one of her amateur-dramatics hurt faces.

  ‘Is that really what you want?’

  Do we need to get t-shirts printed and petition the neighbours? I just do a Roger Moore with my eyebrows.

  ‘… so why grab the phone? It might’ve been your big chance to get shot of me?’

  Is it my fault her boyfriend’s such a dickhead he didn’t even speak? As she stalks me through with my sandwich, I know I should lock myself in Jake’s room, like Dad said, but this might be my last chance ever to wind her up.

  ‘So that’s where you’re running off to, is it? London?’

  ‘Running off? You’re the one hell-bent on making me homeless. My own daughter. I’d never do that to you, Jo, whatever you’d done, never. We can work this out, really. It’s just a hiccup.’

  Hiccup? More like the world’s longest belch. Yeah, sure, it’s doing us all the world of good – getting battered, having our pals threatened, dodging flying bottles. Don’t wish me happy birthday, whatever you do.

  Then, out of nowhere, she drops a fucking bombshell.

  ‘If you’re sure that’s what you want, though, I’ll go. I’ll take the bill money from the bedroom and disappear. Will I do that?’

  I know immediately that she knows. She’s looking me right in the eye for some signal of guilt. Her face is daring me to say ‘yes’. Oh fuck, she knows. She fucking knows. My cheeks are burning up. There’s a sudden moustache of perspiration on my upper lip.

  ‘What money?’ I croak, the slight movement of my mouth causing my eyelids to go into nervous spasms.

  ‘Ben the room. D’you want me to show you? Just let me stay, Jo, eh? Both try and start again?’

  What is this? Is she offering me some sort of deal? Tell Dad not to chuck her out and she’ll say nothing about the hundreds of pounds I’ve been chorying? Fuck, please don’t let her come out with it. I’ll crack up if she confronts me. She’s still pleading away in the background but disbelief at the chance she’s offering me has scrambled my brain. It feels like everything’s going in slow motion till she suddenly lets out a wail and starts stomping towards the bedroom.

  ‘No, Mum, dinnae, please,’ I scream, pulling her back up the hall. ‘You mean it? I winnae get into trouble if I tell Dad I want you to stay? Honestly?’

  Back in the living room, she starts sobbing.

  ‘Honest, no trouble. No more trouble. He’ll listen to you, Jo. You’re the reason he’s throwing me out. We want to work it out. I’ve made an appointment for us to see someone. Please, Jo, one last chance.’

  I can’t believe this. Yesterday she thought we were all cunts from hell. Now she’s willing to let me get away with all that ’cause she can’t bear to live without us. What’s changed? How long has she known? Just thinking about how much I must have nicked altogether makes me feel sick. I never even thought about what would happen if I got caught. If she tells them, though, they’ll all hate me. Even Dad. I’d probably end
up getting chucked out instead. I don’t really have an option.

  ‘OK, Mum. I’ll tell him I want you to stay but that has to be it. We never mention it again.’

  I half expect her to kiss my feet but instead she looks completely stunned, like she can’t make sense of what she’s just heard. I leave her to it. The moment of terror is lifting and I just want to go to my room and try to take it all in. I know it means we’re probably going to be stuck with her now but I still can’t believe my luck.

  Locking my door, I get the old radio from under the bed and unscrew the back. There’s eight tenners inside. If I can just get another 50 quid to keep me going, then that’ll be it. It has to be. If I’m being offered a way out, I have to take it. I’m gutted and elated at the same time. It’s like the end of an era. Oh well, Blockbuster Video here I come.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  VIC

  IT’S FIVE TO three on a Friday afternoon. I’m standing in the reception of the Marriage Counselling Service with a woman, who, two hours ago, I hoped I’d never see again. I left the house this morning, a single-parent-to-be. When I returned, Joni and Angie were fawning over each other like a pair of luvvies and the pair of us were going to see a head-shrinker. I’m not being sexist or anything but all women are insane. As I’d chickened out of evicting her again on the way up to the hospital, though, I’m just playing along with it. Besides, if those two have joined forces, I don’t stand a chance.

  We’re standing opposite a cabinet of books with titles like, Domestic Violence, Jealousy, Arguing, Alcohol, Sexual Abuse and other staples of modern marriage. I wonder which one they’ll start us on. We were meant to be taking over an unconfirmed appointment at three but the real couple turn up at a minute to. He’s gaunt and fidgety, like he’s just stepped off a big dipper. She’s a little red ball of anger with painful-looking, tightly permed hair. She snarls something at the receptionist and we get turfed out and told to come back at five.

  It’s starting to piss with rain. Fear of being dragged round shops leads me to reluctantly suggest sheltering in the nearest P-U-B. This, aptly, turns out to be the Jekyll and Hyde. I’m suspicious when Angie submits without her customary gnashing of teeth and expect her to demand double vodkas as a reward. Instead, she asks for Diet Coke and goes to sit by the TV.

  For the next two hours, aside from a brief interlude where she promises that her man and her are history, says it was the biggest mistake of her life and begs me not to bring it up in front of the counsellor, we barely speak. Up until her plea, I’d not even contemplated mentioning it. I’d be far too embarrassed. In fact, I wasn’t anticipating having to say anything. I’d just sort of assumed Angie would spin them some yarn and they’d either offer a solution or laugh in our faces. I get so anxious about it, I start popping Rennie’s like Maltesers.

  Some joker keeps putting ‘Je t’aime’ on the jukebox. The fourth time it comes on, I have to take to the Gents’, I’m finding listening to it and lookingat her, so excruciating. At four o’clock, I use Fifteen to One as an excuse to get them to turn the telly up, but still the insatiable Ms Birkin puffs and grunts away in the background. It’s the same when Countdown comes on. In fact, it’s worse because, Jesus, are the letters cruel today. Two sevens – ‘TRICKED’ and ‘USELESS’, one eight – ‘IMPOTENT’. But it’s the conundrum that really takes the biscuit – ‘ULTIMATUM’, I ask you. By the end, Mrs Helen Marsh of Lichfield may be glowing from her 12-point victory, but I’m in bits. Shuffling back to the toilet, I have explosive diarrhoea. Christ, I’m not a well man. I’m not up to being cross-examined.

  As we make our wordless way back down there, I pray that the next couple have appeared and we can go home. I’m on the verge of telling Angie she can stay, just so we don’t have to go back in there. I spend so long trying to work out how to say this, though, that we’re back at the reception desk and my chance is lost. Even worse, the other couple have already phoned to cancel and the counsellor’s waiting when we get in. It feels like some horrific skeleton is about to be yanked from my closet. I can’t remember leaving one there but you know what these folk are like. They subliminally plant stuff in your subconscious then charge you a fortune to get rid of it.

  A plummy-voiced, red-haired woman with unfeasibly large hips introduces herself and leads us up the staircase. I’ve forgotten her name by the time we reach the first landing. There are five doors with engaged/free signs on them, which seems a little inappropriate. Two rooms lie open. One has toys and children’s books strewn all over the carpet. The other is lined with chairs, like a village dance is about to take place. They must do polygamous marriages as well.

  The venue for our inquisition is rather more sedate. An astronomically high ceiling makes the already stark room about as welcoming as a condemned cell. The dingy windows, looking out at a dreich, drizzly garden, don’t exactly ooze hope, either. A lavish, cast-iron fireplace, straddling a puny electric fire with only one bar on, help to make the place look even more out of perspective. Aside from that, there’s only three upright chairs and a small teak table with a box of tissues on it. Still, the less there is to throw around the better, I suppose.

  From behind her clipboard, the woman explains in a tiny, petrified voice, that the counselling won’t actually start today. This session’s just to decide what sort of help would be best for us. As I weigh up the odds between a cyanide capsule and a hired assassin, Angie trembles and stammers her way through a jumbled synopsis of the past 17 years. Rather her than me. I know our marriage hasn’t exactly bubbled with incident, but summarising the plot of Coronation Street since it started would probably be easier. There wouldn’t be so many blank spots. The characters would be more consistent. Dr Ruth tries to stare me into adding something but a few affirmative grunts is all I’m capable of.

  Sadly, silence does not remain an option for long. Soon, she’s quizzing us about previous relationships. It’s horrible being forced to resurrect my broken engagement with Jan. It immediately starts me pining for her. She got accepted to do music at St Andrews the same time as me. After our break-up, though, she had a bit of a breakdown and ended up working in Asda. The last I heard, she’d moved to Livingston with a Jordanian cabbie. I have a sudden urge to seek her out and rescue her. We could rescue each other. It could only do me more good than this hog’s pish.

  Oh Christ, she’s got Angie started on that squaddie arsehole, Rab, now. They were only together for about five minutes, two decades ago, but in her head it’s taken on Wuthering Heights proportions. I’ve had my ear bent about it so much over the years I feel like I’ve shagged him myself. Thankfully, snake-hips seems to notice my sucking-lemons expression and changes the subject. Oh God, here we go. What do we both see as being the problem? Is she not supposed to tell us that?

  As my mind’s now being bombarded with pornographic images of Jan and me up the canal, in the spare room at her granny’s, up Arthur’s Seat in the back of Dad’s old Cavalier, I let Angie do the honours again. Anticipating confessions and repentance, I nearly choke when the beans start spilling.

  ‘He just doesn’t fancy me. There’s no other way to put it. I feel like some big, useless ugh!’ Clocking my stunned expression, she starts on me. ‘Ocht, but y’know, Vic. We dinnae have sex. You can’t bear to share a bed with me. You’re so bloody critical all the time, I’ve no confidence left.’

  The tissues are offered round. Angie sniffles into one, then blows her nose flamboyantly.

  ‘But … the drink. What about the drink …’ I whisper, cringeing at having to discuss such things in front of this complete stranger.

  ‘Aye, Vic, I drink, or I did drink, but I was just trying to block out the fact that you’d stopped loving me. Why d’you think I drank? I thought it was obvious. I didn’t mean for it to get like this. Honestly, love.’

  What is this? Isn’t this the woman who finds me so physically repulsive she wouldn’t shag me if I had a gun at her head? Did she screw someone in our bed in the hope
the stray pheromones might turn me on? Thing is, though, she really is crying. It’s not like her usual hammy acting. She actually seems genuinely upset. The counsellor’s after my response but my mind’s seized up on Angie’s revelations.

  ‘I didn’t know… I didn’t think, y’know… I didn’t know…’

  Jesus Christ. Other than her snoring, I suddenly can’t think why we don’t sleep together. It’s making me feel like I’m somehow to blame for everything. Is that possible? Have I pushed her off the wagon into the arms of some alkie because I can’t bear to listen to her sleep? Because I can’t get it up, or I’m too lazy to try? My paranoia isn’t helped when the counsellor suggests referring us to a sex therapist once we’ve ironed out our other difficulties. I feel like some kind of eunuch ogre.

  ‘Really? You honestly think we can get this sorted?’ I ask, sounding more surprised than I’d intended. She’s already thumbing through her diary for suitable dates for our next appointment.

  ‘I’m not saying we can perform miracles, Victor, but you both seem committed to making it work. We’re just here to help you decide the best way to do that.’

  I give Angie a hopeful smile but she’s too busy gouching out at the rain to notice me. Tracing her gaze to a window opposite, we watch a grey-haired man in a suit mauling a young lassie as she tries to fill a kettle. When we come to again, the counsellor’s coughing and touching her watch. She wants to arrange a date for our next appointment before the clock strikes six and her Mondeo turns back into a pumpkin. I wonder if she’s in a relationship herself and, if so, how long she’s managed to slog it for. Does working here put her right off sex or give her a permanent wide-on? To be honest, she looks like a dyke.

  We arrange to come back a week on Wednesday, my early-shift week. Hoping the promise of the £25 fee will be enough to secure our liberation, I put my jacket on. No such luck. There’s a minute left and she wants to know what we’re hoping to get out of counselling before she’s letting us go anywhere. Since Angie’s done most of the talking, anyway, I let her have the last word.