A week later, Christmas is over, and the children are back in school, I have been in business for two years. Now that I have a credit rating, I decide to look into buying my council house. I am self-employed and discover that the only place that will consider me for a mortgage is the Halifax. They have a good interest rate at the moment. The mortgage adviser explains how it works. He tells me that all the mortgage company is concerned about is being able to recoup their investment if I cannot make the repayments and the property has to be repossessed. Because I am buying a council property and qualify for a twelve-year rental discount, I will be approved. He adds that there is an offer on at the moment, and the Halifax will cover the buying costs on the house. I get the house valued, and with my discount I can buy it for £20,600. The mortgage adviser tells me that I can borrow extra money for improvements, so I borrow £25,000. The repayments are £210 a month. It is cheaper than renting. I am now a home owner. I explain it all to Gemma when we next meet, and she looks into buying her home. The offer I had is gone, so she has to pay the costs, but she buys hers too.
I have £4,400 left for improvements, I have to spend it carefully and get as much done as possible. The first job is to take out the Parkray heating system. In the winter months, the house is always freezing, and it hasn’t worked properly for years. I get a price to install gas central heating. It will be £2,300, and the plumber needs to change five radiators as well. We have agreed on a towel rail in the bathroom. He tells me he will agree to that price if someone will dig out the Parkray, because he doesn’t want to do that job. I tell him the price includes the messy work, and I explain I have no one to do it. He reluctantly agrees to do the job. A week later, I have gas, the house is warm throughout, and it is much safer. The combi boiler is fitted, and I have hot water on tap!
Next, my dad and I visit a local DIY store and price the tiles. I am having a new bathroom fitted. The tiler is a friend’s husband and offers to tile the walls and floor for two hundred pounds. I get the shell bathroom suite with a corner bath in champagne. The tiles are country cottage colour, with a plain but very effective boarder. The plumber has fitted a combi shower for me within the cost of the central heating. Two weeks later, I have a new bathroom, the blinds and accessories are terracotta, and it looks lovely.
I have enough money left to plaster the landing and stairs, including the ceiling, getting rid of the Artex fan design. Anything I can do myself is completed in the evenings when the children are in bed. I save hard and manage to get wooden flooring throughout the downstairs, as well as new carpet on the stairs and upstairs landing. Between work, looking after the children, and the DIY, I am shattered. I clean the house every Monday from top to bottom, and I am really proud. I turfed the back garden when I got divorced and added a fence around the side of the house, to keep the children safe. Except for the kitchen – I cannot afford to change this yet – the house and garden are looking great. I am pleased with myself and proud of my home.
It is summer. Jonah and Eligh are old enough to have a key and go into the house for an hour before I arrive home. This makes life easier all around. It is a hot, sticky summer’s evening. I have finished work and can’t wait to get in. Once I wash and dry the towels for the morning, I can have a nice bath and relax. It has been a long week. As I pull up to the house with the little ones, I see Jonah and one of Gemma’s sons hanging out of Polly’s bedroom window; it opens outwards. They are shouting and screaming, I see a water balloon hit the ground, and I am furious! As I approach the house, Eligh and Gemma’s youngest nearly knock me to the ground as they run around the corner of the house. They are armed with water bomb ammunition. I take Frankie and Polly into the room, tell them to put the telly on, and shut the door. Then I scream at Jonah, Eligh, and their friends to get here right now and put down the water balloons.
I screech to Gemma’s children, “Would you behave like this in your own home?” They shake their heads. I tell them to go home. Jonah tries to explain, but I scream, “Shut up! I have been breaking my back to get this house like it is.” Gemma would not put up with it. There is water everywhere. I tell them that if the wooden floor is ruined, they will have to pay to replace it out of their Christmas money. They are gutted, and Eligh starts to moan that it was Jonah’s idea. Jonah nudges him, telling him to shut up. I scream at them that they can start by getting the shop towels out of the car and use them to mop up the mess. I don’t care if they don’t love me, but they will respect me and this house. I also add that the telly is going out of the bedroom for one week.
They are gutted.
This is the worst punishment they could have. Eligh sulks in bed, and Jonah starts to howl like a strangled animal, saying, “But Mam! South Park is on tonight. The new song is on this episode – it’s about salty plums!”
I think, What? as I carry the heavy portable out of the bedroom.
Jonah is hanging off my right leg, shouting, “No! Please, Mam!” I drag him along the landing as well, telling him to let go. He replies, “I’m sorry! Not the telly. Please!” I manage to get into my bedroom, which is next door. Exhausted I sit on the bed and tell him if he doesn’t calm down, it will be two weeks. He is thirteen, for goodness’ sake!
Two hours later, I am downstairs folding the towels in living room and watching Coronation Street. There is a tap on the door. I look down, and there is a coloured-in cutout heart. Jonah has written, “Sorry, Mam. I love you.” I can hear he is still behind the door. I tell him to get to bed but add, “I love you too.”
The next day, Frankie shows me his loose tooth before school; he has lost three in the last two weeks. I am a bit pissed at Mam because she increased the exchange rate for a pound a tooth. It was ten pence when I was a kid!
The house repairs and decoration have left me with no savings. The shop has hit its quiet spell; the takings are seasonal in my line of business. I hope Frankie’s tooth lasts until tomorrow; I get paid my tax credits then, and I can pay out. Alas, Frankie loves money and is saving up. He proudly runs out of school smiling, minus the bottom tooth. I look down, and it is in his hand. I pick up Polly, and we head to the local shop. Money is tight, but I have managed to scrap together a pound and twenty-three pence in a moneybag; it is in one- and two-pence pieces. I enter the shop and work out that a loaf of bread and a pint of milk comes to a pound and nine pence exactly. I have enough left to get the little ones a five-pence Chupa lolly. My change will be four pence. I remove four pennies from the bag before giving it to the cashier. An Indian family owns the shop. I tell him he can check it, but it is correct. He stares at the bag of coppers and tells me that he cannot accept this. I remind him that its legal tender and it’s the law – he has to! I pack up my goods and leave the shop. I do not care what they think. I have enough food to last us until the morning, and I cannot afford pride. Shit! I have forgotten the bloody tooth fairy!
The children have gone to bed, and Frankie has placed his tooth under the pillow. For the last hour and a half, I have scoured the house for a stray pound coin. Eventually I place the remaining four pennies under Frankie’s pillow, including an IOU from the tooth fairy for ninety-six pence, explaining that she has been very busy tonight and ran out of money. She has taken the tooth and will exchange the note for a pound coin on the following night.
Frankie is the first to awake, and I hear an “Argh!” sound from his room, I get up and see him looking at the letter, the pennies in his hand.
I read it to him and explain that she is only little, so she cannot carry much money at any one time. I read the instructions on the note. He accepts this and is happy again. I tell Lorna, and she can’t believe he fell for it. The following morning, Frankie is happy. He runs to his sock draw, pulls out his Spiderman wallet, opens it, and pops in the pound, telling me with a gummy smile that he has thirty-six pounds now. I laugh because he has more money than I do!
Jonah is a film fanatic and knows the names of the directors of all h
is favourite films. He knows exactly what he wants to do when he leaves school: be a film director. He has attended the local college’s media department and become a regular visitor there. He also creates cartoon strips, has a vivid imagination, and is bright with a good sense of humour. Eligh is achieving great results in school, and he has a dry sense of humour. They bounce off each other and draw comic strip characters resembling themselves, emphasizing their worst features. Jonah always draws Eligh with a big nose; he has his dad’s! Eligh draws Jonah with square knees; he follows the poison dwarf for those! Jonah also draws Polly with a big chin to wind her up, and Frankie is super hairy because he has loads of hair. Polly cries, “I do not have a large chin!”
The children still visit my former in-laws twice a week. Knobhead’s mother hates me and the fact that I am doing well. They constantly interrogate the children, asking them for details about me and everything I do. She slags me off to anyone who will listen. The school term has just started, and I have to pick them up from the in-laws’ house after work. I only speak to Knobhead’s stepdad; he genuinely loves the kids, and we communicate for their sake. However, he is a coward and a childish man. He never goes out, and he times his wife when she goes to the shop or town. I can see how Knobhead has ended up the way he is, a prat and a bully.
I pull up outside to pick up the children. I have just changed my car for a Fiesta Sport, the new model. It is silver, and I love it. I know they are green with envy. I have it on monthly payments, and it will take four years to pay for it. As I pull up, I notice the glare of the binoculars in the window. I have been spotted. The children’s grandfather comes up to the gate and asks me if he can have a quiet word. I tell the children to get into the car.
He then proceeds to inform me that when he was down at the shop earlier – I think, What? You walked to the shop? – a woman came up to him. He comments that he is not naming any names, but she commented on how scruffy the children were in school. I am furious and remind him that his stepson hasn’t as much as bought his children a pair of socks since the divorce, and I have just kitted them all out in new uniform. I add they are always clean and tidy upon going to school, and I remind him that they are kids, so at the end of the school day, they may look scruffy. Frankie is so small that his uniform never fits him properly. I ask him to tell me who said it, but he refuses. I reply, “Well, if someone was talking about my grandchildren like that, I would have something to say about it.” I ask him again who said it and tell him that when I find out, the person will have a piece of my mind. He is such a gutless bastard.
When I get in the car, Jonah tells me that the neighbour was asking him where he went for his birthday. When he told her he wanted money and we just went for a film and McDonald’s, she laughed and said, “McDonald’s? I go there all the time!” I am furious and tell him next time he sees that cheeky bitch, he has my permission to reply, “I can see that, lard-arse.”
He replies, “No way! She is huge and might hit me!”
I tell him, “If she touches you, I will knock her out!” I am so angry. Jonah tells me to calm down. He makes me a cup of tea, and ten minutes later I tell him he is right; I can see that they are trying to wind me up. It’s what they do: they want a reaction so that they can tell everyone, and probably even Social Services, what a psycho I am and that they were right all along. I decide to do what will hurt them the most: I rise above it and ignore them, because I am not that person.
Later that evening, I ring my mother and recall the evening’s events, I tell her how angry I was and how I realised that it will kill them if I don’t respond; they thrive on arguments. Mam agrees that I did the right thing and reassures me that no one thinks that about the kids. She reminds me that I have gained a lot of respect from my friends and neighbours over the years. I end the conversation, telling her I will see her in the morning. Tomorrow is Saturday, so she will be over as usual for me to go to work. As I leave that day, I notice scratches on my car, over the driver’s door. I know it is them, but I think, Fuck them. I am not reacting. A month later, I get the door resprayed. It is simply not worth it.
Summer is nearly here, and that means holidays! I book us for a week away in Salou. My eldest two are now teenagers. Jonah has turned into Kevin, and Eligh is Perry! I need a break from work to recharge my batteries. I started dating a man from the neighbouring village about a month ago; his name is also Roger. I tell the girls, and we nickname my ex Roger One and my current guy Roger Two! My friends inform me that Roger One’s relationship with Slinky Tits is over; she was two-timing him. They also inform me that he is expecting a baby. Apparently she was a one-night stand and has six children already. I tell the girls I am pleased for him, and I mean it. I know he will make a great dad.
Roger Two has just ended a six-year marriage and is gutted and on the rebound. I feel sorry for him and am like his counsellor. He isn’t handsome, however he is a charmer. What impresses me most about him is the fact that he has two of his three children living with him. This means he is a good dad, and this is his best asset. I am feeling lonely and don’t know if I can cope on my own any longer. I have loads of friends and a supportive family, and I love the kids, but I want someone for me. I daydream about cuddling up on the sofa watching a film, or going out for a meal with someone. Things that couples take for granted, I crave. I am going to make this work. I want to be in a relationship. I have been single for seven years.
Two weeks later, it is a Saturday night, and I am going out with Roger. My parents offer to give us a lift to the pub; we are only going out around town, but it is too far to walk. They haven’t met him yet. This gives my mother the chance to interrogate him. She asks him what he does for a living, where he lives (she grew up in his village, so knows it well), who his parents are, how old his children are, and how his marriage broke up – all in the ten-minute trip. He answers all her questions in record time. I jokingly ask her if I can untie him and take the torch out of his eyes as we arrive at the pub. Dad laughs and Mam scowls at me, telling me not to be so cheeky.
My mother’s advice to me the following day is that there are two sides to every story, and that he seems too good to be true. The children and I are at my parents’ house for Sunday lunch; this is routine. Sophie arrives with her two as well. The house is noisy and crowded, and soon the conversation changes to something else.
Over the next month, I continue to date (counsel) Roger Two. He is an emotional wreck and is drinking too much. One night he calls me when he is drunk, telling me he has fallen down the stairs. I drive to his place and bring him back to mine. His children are older than mine and are able to look after themselves; it was OK to leave mine for an hour because Jonah is nearly fifteen, but I would not leave them all night. When I get him home Roger is drunk and sits on my settee. He tells me I should forget about him and that he will two-time me, because no one is ever going to hurt him again. I wonder if I will ever be good enough to fill his ex-wife’s shoes. He moans that he has never been dumped before slipping into an unconscious sleep. I throw a blanket on him and go to bed.
This becomes a weekly event, and sometimes he sings himself to sleep. I decide I have had enough of his self-pity.
The morning after another episode of “poor me”, I tell him enough is enough. I am not his mother and do not intend to keep running around after him. He is taking the piss! He apologises. I am going on holiday in two days with the children, and to be honest, I’m looking forward to a break from him. He offers to pick us up from the airport and suggests a fresh start when I return. He tells me that I have been his rock and that he would not have survived the last two months without me. I agree and tell him I will see him after my holiday. He jokes that I will come back white. I tell him to wait and see!
My parents drop me and children off at the airport. The kids are excited and cannot wait to go on the plane. We arrive in Salou around 10.00 a.m. the following morning. I had requested a ground-floor room with a
sea view. We are taken to the fifth floor and have a view of the opposite hotel. I go onto the balcony and look down. We are so high up that I lock the patio door and tell the children they are not allowed out there. I usually get traveller’s cheques, but this year my mother has managed to convince me to take cash because it is easier. I always take more than enough. We are half board, so we don’t have to worry about running out of money for food.
We go to the welcome meeting to meet the holiday rep. Jonah and Eligh ask if they can play on the pool table in reception, and I agree. Frankie goes to watch, and this keeps them quiet as I decide what trips I am going to book for us. The holiday rep arrives and introduces himself. After a boring start, he tells us about the trips. I look at the Barcelona trip. It is all day and involves visiting an aquarium in the city centre. Polly is excited about that. He talks about the dancing fountains at the royal palace, which is included in the excursion. Polly and I decide to book the Barcelona trip, along with the water park and the Port Adventurer Theme Park trip.
I pay for the excursions and assess how much we have left. We are only there for a week, but Frankie’s birthday is the day before we leave, so I will have to get him a present out here. After the meeting, I collect the boys at reception and purchase a safe key. We go back to the room to discuss what we have booked and what to do first. Everyone agrees on going to the beach. Before we leave, I take some money with me and put the rest of the spending money, along with the passports, insurance, and flight documents, into the safe and lock it, dropping the key in my bag. However, as I leave the room, I have this gut feeling that I should have split up the money and locked some away in one of the cases. I dismiss it, and we head for the beach.
My True Colours Page 9