Oh good grief, I don’t want to start crying outside Aldi. People might think I missed out on the bargain meat, and throw a load of cut-price bacon at my head in pity.
I duck into the multi-storey to get out of the eyeline of those who might pelt me with sympathetic pig products, and trudge over to the stairs.
The car park has a total of six levels, and actually has rather an impressive view from up the top. It might be nice to go have a look at it, given that the late evening sun has broken through the clouds and is lighting up the sky with a very pleasant red glow.
At least, this is the reason I give myself for going up to the top of the car park. I try to ignore the fact that the locals call one corner of the top floor ‘Street Pizza Central’ because in the last ten years a handful of people have ended their lives by jumping off it.
Look, I don’t think I’m actually suicidal. Not really.
Okay, I’m in a dark place right now, and I can’t see a way out, but that doesn’t mean I want to end it all with the sweet embrace of death.
But being in a dark place means you have dark thoughts, and sometimes those dark thoughts lead you to places where those dark thoughts can come to the surface. It’s like probing a rotten tooth with your tongue. You don’t want to do it, but you just can’t help yourself.
Does it make you feel any better if I tell you that this isn’t the first time I’ve been up here in the past two weeks?
I’ve actually made the slow walk up these steps a total of four times now – one visit for every one of my failed adult relationships. And not once on any of these occasions have I jumped off. Not once.
And I see no reason why that should change today.
But I have very dark thoughts, you see.
The top level of the multi-storey is completely empty when I arrive, just a tiny bit out of breath. This is fairly typical. I’ve only seen a maximum of one or two cars up here in the evening before, at the absolute most.
With hands plunged deeply into my pockets, I amble with my head down over to one of the edges of the concrete building, not paying attention to my surroundings until I lean against the wall and look out.
That pink sun really is quite lovely. And in other circumstances it would put something of a smile on my face.
Not today, though. No smiles for Oliver Sweet today.
My brain returns to mull over the question that has dominated my thoughts for the past couple of weeks.
How could she?
How could she?
You know how bad it is when a song gets stuck in your head for days? Well, that’s nothing to having a simple three-word question lodged in there like a cancerous tumour.
At least you get to hum a little tune when you’re stuck with an earworm song.
Repeating the same rancid question over and over in your head is enough to drive anyone mad.
. . . or up to the top of a car park – where they have no intention of jumping, of course. None whatsoever.
How could she?
How could she do it?
How could she throw away everything we had together?
After all of that time?
I thought we had a bond. I thought she loved me as much as I loved her. I thought it was finally right. I thought it was . . . meant to be. I thought she was the one!
The evening’s pink glow is blurred by a sudden flurry of unwanted tears.
Why does this keep happening to me?
I’m a pretty good bloke . . . I think.
I’ve never lied or cheated. I’ve never been anything but respectful. I’ve always tried to be kind. I’m a good man. I really am. I don’t brush up too badly when you stick me in nice clothes. I have a decent chin. Somebody once told me I looked a little like a young Keanu Reeves, and that felt just fine. My penis is perfectly adequate. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it can look quite impressive when it’s nice and warm, and I haven’t masturbated in a while. I’ve never had any complaints in the bedroom. I’ve not been told I’m a sex god either, but we’ll take that one on the chin and move on, safe in the knowledge that performance-wise I’m a good seven or eight at least.
So, why does this keep happening to me?
The pink sunlight has no answers for me. Nor do the people coming out of Aldi laden down with lamb joints and Moreos.
I lean out over the concrete wall, looking straight down at the pavement far below. I’m struck by a momentary wave of vertigo, but force myself to keep looking.
I am not suicidal at all. Not at all.
But I can also feel the weight distribution in my body starting to tip forward a little. If I were to – oh, I don’t know – lift one leg up slightly, it might continue that process even more. I do this, just curious to see if I’m right or not.
Yes. Look at that. My entire body weight has shifted forward, and I’m now leaning quite far out over the wall. Not enough to risk falling, you understand. Not at all. For that to become anywhere near a reality, I’d have to take my hands out of my pockets, and place them on the wall. If I did this and pushed a little, then that would probably start to make this situation quite precarious. Even dangerous, you might say.
I take my hands out of my pockets and put them on the wall. Gently, I push away, in the direction of the pink sunlight.
Oh my.
Oh my, oh my . . .
Now my heart is racing. The one leg still on the ground is trembling.
How could she?
How could she?
HOW. COULD. SHE?
Now I’m in real danger of falling forward. The only thing stopping me is the clear and certain knowledge that I did not come up here to commit suicide. I have never come up here to commit suicide, and I will never come up here to commit suicide. Not at all.
A little more . . .
A little more . . .
A little less . . .
A little more . . .
‘Fuck about, chief. If you’re going to do it, do it, otherwise move over, will you?’
An involuntary scream bursts from my lips and, just for a split second, I am falling.
This is it. This is where it all ends.
And then my subconscious mind decides that it’s had quite enough of this bullshit and takes over. It makes my hands grasp the concrete wall as tightly as possible, and thrusts both of my legs backwards. This arrests the tipping motion enough to pull me away from the brink, and I stumble back from the wall, all the blood draining from my face.
‘Oh my God!’ I wail.
‘Pfft. He’s got nothing to do with it, mate.’
I look over to my right to see that sat on the wall about ten feet away from me is a tall, skinny man dressed in a white vest, with the England football team logo embroidered on it, and a pair of what look like women’s shorts, so garishly patterned with brightly coloured flowers that it hurts my eyes to look at them. He’s also wearing a rather worn pair of black flip-flops.
The man is incredibly pale, and has a haunted look in his eyes that makes his entire face seem somehow sunken in on itself.
‘Who—’ I start to say, still feeling incredibly discombobulated.
The man sniffs, wipes his nose with one long, almost emaciated forearm and rolls his eyes. ‘Someone who’s bloody fed up of watching you dry hump that wall, pal.’
‘I wasn’t going to jump!’ I spit out. For some reason I feel the intense need to convince this complete stranger of that. Just in case he’s reaching for his phone to have the men with white coats come over and take me somewhere padded.
He rolls his eyes again. Given how sunken his face is, this gesture is amplified almost to the point of caricature. ‘No. You weren’t,’ he agrees. ‘You looked like you were doing the bloody hokey-cokey, chief. Somebody who looks like they’re doing the hokey-cokey is not someone who is one hundred per cent committed to the idea of ending their life – if you don’t mind me saying.’
I don’t quite know what to reply to that. The idea of a suicidal hokey-cokey is somethin
g I can’t get my head around at all. How would it go?
You put your whole soul in, your whole soul out . . .
‘Who are you?’ I ask the man, feeling my body and mind starting to calm down a little from their brush with the infinite.
The man sticks out a hand. ‘Derek Wimslow. Though my mates call me Wimsy.’ His face darkens. ‘The pricks. You might as well call me it too, though. Everybody has for years, no matter how much I ask them not to. Why should the last person I ever speak to break the habit?’
‘The last person you ever speak to?’
He nods. ‘Oh yes. Unlike you, buddy, I’m definitely going to kill myself this evening. I was just waiting for you to stop shagging the wall first.’
I blink a couple of times. For the first time, I really acknowledge the fact that Wimsy here is sat on the wall I was leaning against (and not shagging), with his legs dangling out over the drop. My stomach lurches.
‘Don’t do it!’ I say, moving towards him slightly.
He holds up the hand that he’d proffered for me to shake. ‘Don’t come any closer, mate! I’m quite happy to wait for you to piss off, but if you force me to do it, I will with you watching!’
‘No! No! Don’t do that!’ I cry.
He gives me a disbelieving look. ‘Why not? You were obviously thinking the same bloody thing!’
‘No, I wasn’t!’
‘Oh . . . you usually spend your evenings rubbing your goolies up and down against a car park wall, do you?’
Again, I have no answer to this. Possibly because this is the first time I’ve heard someone use the term ‘goolies’ in reference to testicles for about twenty years.
‘Why are you going to jump?’ I ask Wimsy. For some reason it’s very important to keep this man talking. If I can do that, maybe I can persuade him not to go through with it.
Dabbling with the sweet embrace of non-existence is something I seem to have no problem doing myself, but I’ll be buggered if I’m going to stand by and watch somebody else top themselves.
‘Why do you care?’ Wimsy asks with a sneer.
‘Because . . . Because . . .’
Why do I care?
‘Because . . . if someone’s going to do something that drastic, I want to know why!’
Wimsy squints at me. ‘You really want to know why I’m here?’
I don’t. Not really. I have a whole heap of my own problems, without wanting to hear about – and possibly take on – anybody else’s . . . but I can’t just let this man join the other inhabitants of Street Pizza Central, can I?
‘Yes, I do.’
He sniffs. ‘Why should I tell a total bloody stranger about myself?’
I think for a second. ‘You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine?’ I venture, hoping this will be a good enough deal for him.
Wimsy thinks for a moment, and then swings his legs around so he’s sitting towards me, instead of with his legs dangling over the edge. This makes my heart rate slow considerably. If I can keep him talking, I might be able to get through this without watching him hit the concrete at terminal velocity.
All thoughts of initiating my own demise have fled from my head at this point. My sorry, sorry situation has been temporarily forgotten as I try to stop this man from doing something I’d most definitely regret.
‘Alright,’ he says, scratching his chin. ‘But don’t you come any closer than where you are, pal.’
I hold up my hands. ‘No, no. I won’t.’
Wimsy nods and then thinks for a second before speaking. ‘My dog died,’ he says matter-of-factly.
I don’t actually come out and say, Is that it?, but you can see from the expression on his face that he knows I’m thinking it.
‘No, that’s not it,’ Wimsy says, rolling his eyes. ‘Though some people love their dogs enough to kill themselves, you know. Don’t be so judgemental.’
Oh great. Now I’m getting lectures about morality from a man about to break the ultimate taboo.
‘My dog died, because I had to move into a rental flat. He fell off the balcony.’ Wimsy’s lip trembles. ‘One minute I can see the little fella barking happily away at a passing pigeon. The next, he’s leaping into the air to catch it, and . . .’ He trails off for a moment. When he looks at me, that haunted look in his eyes has grown even darker. ‘I never knew a bichon frise could fucking jump like that, did I? What with them stubby little legs of his. But up he went, like a bloody kangaroo, and over that balcony with a last little yelp.’ Wimsy wipes a tear from one eye. ‘He was nowhere near that fucking pigeon either, the silly little sod.’
Don’t laugh, Oliver.
If you laugh, Wimsy will tip himself backwards over that wall before you know it.
‘It was seeing him do that earlier that gave me the idea to come up here tonight. If it’s good enough for Mr Sparkles, then it’s good enough for me!’
Seriously. Do. Not. Laugh.
‘I was only in the flat because I had to move out of the house I’d been paying the mortgage on for fifteen years,’ Wimsy carries on. ‘My wife, Penny, cheated on me, you see. With our accountant.’ He looks utterly dismayed. ‘Have you ever heard of someone having an affair with their bloody accountant?’ Wimsy wipes another tear away. ‘His name is Reginald. He’s fifty-four. He’s balding, for fuck’s sake!’ He grits his teeth momentarily. ‘But there he was, pumping up and down on my Penny in our bed.’ Wimsy then gives me an amazed look. ‘He had a tattoo on his arse. It said, I got the long one in Phuket, 1997. What do you reckon the long one is, chief?’
I shake my head slowly back and forth. ‘I have truly no idea,’ I say in a hushed tone.
‘No, me neither.’ Wimsy trails off again, as if marshalling his thoughts. There can’t be more to this, can there? ‘She cheated on me with him because I lost my business. I was a graphic designer. One of the best.’ Wimsy actually looks proud as he says this. It’s a marked change of expression from what I’m used to. ‘Everything was going fine until that bloody mistake.’
‘Mistake?’
‘Yeah. I took a contract from a water-bottling company, who had just signed a deal with a Chinese distributor to sell their water over there. They wanted a new logo that would appeal to Chinese people, so I did one that had a lot of Chinese lettering on it.’ Wimsy suddenly looks absolutely horrified. ‘How was I supposed to know what those letters meant?? I asked a fella on the internet to send me the Chinese for the water of life. That sounds good, doesn’t it?? That sounds about right?’
‘Yes!’ I nod my head up and down vigorously. It seems incredibly important to agree with Wimsy right now.
‘How was I supposed to know the bastard was having me on?’ Wimsy balls his fists. ‘But out the proofs went . . . to all the people in the water company, and their Chinese partners. And you know what the Chinese letters actually said?’
‘No,’ I reply, knowing that something truly horrendous is coming.
‘You have big piss in your mouth. That’s what it said.’ Wimsy looks so utterly crestfallen, I want to give him a nice long hug, but I know if I step forward, he’ll be gone. ‘They all saw it. The Chinese were mortally offended, of course. The water company lost the contract, and they made sure that everyone knew what I’d done to them. Work dried up almost immediately. I was bankrupt in six months. I only hired the bloody accountant to help me out of the mire, and he ends up sticking the long one to my Penny!’
This is the saddest story I’ve ever heard. I’m on the verge of crying for this poor, poor man.
Also, trying not to laugh is taking every ounce of my willpower. It’s very confusing.
‘Aren’t you going to ask about the shorts?’ Wimsy says, pointing at his knee. I’d temporarily forgotten about the garish shorts he’s wearing in all the excitement about pigeon-chasing dogs and Phuketian long ones.
‘What about them?’
‘They’re Penny’s. Somehow, I accidentally took them when she kicked me out of the house with all my other clothes. So . .
. ask me why I’m wearing them. Go on!’
‘Why are you wearing them?’
‘These are the only sodding clothes I’ve got left. The rental flat I’m in got burgled last week. They took everything. The TV, my iPad. And for some reason, all of my sodding clothes, except this stupid vest and these bloody flowery shorts!’ He grasps at them in sheer frustration. ‘The only reason Mr Sparkles went for that pigeon was because he was so hungry!’ Wimsy gives me one final look of suffering that is bordering on insanity. ‘They stole his fucking dog food! What kind of burglar steals dog food?’
‘One who owns a dog?’ It’s out before I can stop it. Damn my treacherous mouth.
‘That’s what the copper said. I didn’t think he was funny, either.’ Wimsy looks down. I’ve never seen a more dejected-looking individual in my life. And with good reason. Have you ever heard such a tale of disaster in your life?
When he looks up again, I can see the unfairness and bad luck of it all etched into the very pores of his skin.
‘So, that’s my story. That’s why I’m up here. What about you, then? What reason have you got to contemplate jumping? It must be bad. Look at all the stuff I’ve been through. It takes all of that to force a man to end it all, doesn’t it? So . . . come on, chief. Spill the beans like you agreed. Why are you up here, ready to jump?’
‘I . . . I . . . I got dumped.’
Wimsy’s eyes narrow. ‘You what?’
‘I . . . got dumped. My girlfriend dumped me.’
He blinks rapidly a few times. ‘You . . . got dumped.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s it, is it?’
‘Er . . . yes.’
‘That’s the reason you’re going to kill yourself?’
‘It was in front of a Bavarian oompah band,’ I add, trying to justify myself a little.
‘A what?’
‘You know . . . Bavarian oompah.’ I mime a trombone. ‘Oompah, oompah, oompah-pah . . . like that.’
One corner of Wimsy’s mouth curls up. ‘How does that go again?’
I mime the trombone once more, putting a little more effort into it. ‘Oompah, oompah, oompah-pah,’ I repeat, this time adding the little bobbing motion in my knees.
For a few moments, Wimsy just stares at me as I continue to bob up and down. And then, with absolutely no warning, he lets out the loudest and heartiest laugh imaginable, throwing his head back as he does so. I stop bobbing up and down instantly. A man chuckling that uncontrollably is in danger of losing his balance.
Dumped, Actually Page 4