“I saw you both.”
Those words were like a sharp knife piercing me, right down to the bone. I would have continued to lie, but Jacqui had caught me out. I slammed down the phone.
After a couple of weeks in the sun, nothing had been resolved. Increasingly, death looked like the way out. It was either that or killing someone else and losing my liberty.
“Arthur, stop!”
I was bent over my victim, pinning him to the tarmac with my knee. My left hand was wrapped around his head, as he lay immobilized on his left side. In my right hand I held my knife. Murder was not in my mind, but teaching him a lesson was. I began to saw behind his ear lobe. My intention was to cut off his ear.
The guy that was soon to become “earless” was a stranger to me. It was through Donna that this guy was now at my mercy. My relationship with Donna was in decline. We had barely been seeing each other. Even our telephone conversations were a thing of the past. The only reason I missed Donna was because I was a lonely man at the time. I would have been happy if a smelly, old tramp had come and kept me company. I really did miss my wife Jacqui, though. It was painful to say her name, let alone think about her: that would have been torture. The flat at Leyton was never truly home to me. It was somewhere for me to rest my aching body, wash and change my clothing.
One night I was having forty winks, when the buzzer for the front door sounded.
“Arthur, it’s me Donna, I need to see you.”
“All right, I’ll let you in.”
The tone in her voice let me know that something was very wrong. How right I was. Tearfully she recounted to me the events that led her to seek me out.
“Please Arthur, please could you sort him out? No way do I want him to get away with it. He needs to be taught a lesson.”
The gist of her problem was that she had had an altercation with a guy. It was drug-related. Her main concern was that she had come off worse: she couldn’t live with that. That’s why she had turned to me for help.
I was dressed in my jogging bottoms and a singlet. The diver’s knife was strapped to my arm, as normal, on view for all the world to see! The cold February night air chilled my exposed skin. I shook myself and made my way to my car. Donna was up ahead, leading the way back to the nightclub in north London where her troubles had started. I parked my car in Tottenham High Road and we walked round the corner to the club. It was now about 1 a.m. The club’s doors opened and people spilled out like sewage.
In full view of the club punters, I stood with legs apart, arms by my side and fists balled, ready for action. Rambo had nothing on me. Donna was standing just behind me. A man appeared at the door amidst a crowd of people. “That’s ’im,” shouted Donna.
The crowd froze. Then the guy who had had the run-in with Donna must have recognized her. He broke free from his mates and legged it. I was in hot pursuit. I hadn’t taken any gear recently, but it was still in my system from the last hit. This guy was not going to get away. Adrenaline was pulsing through my body. For that moment in time, its effect was better than cocaine. I was buzzing.
The club was situated at the top of a dead-end street. At the far end of the street was a wall. The guy that I was pursuing hadn’t done himself any favours by running down that street. There was no escape; he was trapped. He ran around a parked van. I had to stop him, so I grabbed the roof rack with one hand and vaulted over the top of the van, landing in front of him. The guy turned to flee. I stabbed him once in the back. He continued to run, so I stabbed him again. He stumbled and fell. I pounced on him like a tiger. In shock, the guy feebly tried to resist me. I was in my element. To keep him still I gave him a couple of punches to his body and his head. That stopped him. His right ear stood out to me, like a flashing neon light. That’s when the idea of cutting it off came to me. I would have completed the job had it not been for the body-less voice.
“Arthur, stop.”
I froze.
Looking around me, I was a bit spooked. There was no one there. Yet, I had clearly heard someone call my name.
The voice had broken my concentration. Not bothering to complete the job, I put my knife back into its sheath and stood up. As I turned round, I was shocked to the core. Silently, in front of me was a crowd of about two hundred people. Whilst I had been busy, doing a butcher’s job on the guy, the night revellers had congregated in a mass behind me. I knew that somewhere among the crowd, would be my victim’s mates. I shrugged back my shoulders. Knowing that this guy had friends in the mob ahead I guessed that I was in for a hiding. Being kicked about is no fun and I was worried that someone might have a knife.
I squared my jaw and began to walk slowly towards them. I was preparing myself for a fight. No way was I going to go down hedging for mercy. I would take it as it came and give as good as I got. Strength seemed to come from the air. As I continued to walk forward I tried to catch people’s eyes, as the distance between us shortened. At the edge of the crowd, just as I was bracing myself for the first blow, something strange happened. The crowd parted and formed two sides, with a path down the middle. I hesitated. Was this a trick? Would I get half-way, only for them to close ranks – and that’s the last of me? But no. As I walked through, they continued to part, until I reached the other side and safety.
My car was still in the same place. Revving the engine, it suddenly dawned on me that Donna had disappeared. I didn’t worry about that for long. What was the point? Within a short time, I was home, dressed and off to work. I put the whole incident out of my mind.
My drug habit was costing me an arm and a leg. As soon as I earned a few quid, it would slip through my fingers and down my throat, or up my nose. The flat was proving too expensive to keep on so I decided to give it up. But where could I go? Jacqui didn’t want me at home any more. At that point, I had left her and the children six times. She wasn’t keen to take me back again and I didn’t blame her. Donna had turned into a right fly-by-night, and to be honest the level of trust between us was zilch, so to stay with her wasn’t an option either.
The only home in which I would be welcomed with open arms was my mum’s.
“No problem son, any time.”
I wondered what my mother would have thought if she had had an inkling of what I was up to. My mother was of a different era and the drugs culture was far removed from her way of life. She would have had a fit if she had known what was taking place under her roof.
The depressive, suicidal mood that I had drifted into was permanently a part of my sad life. There just didn’t seem any point to anything. I took as much cocaine as I could get into my body, but I had noticed that it wasn’t having the same mind-blowing effects that it used to. So, I took more and more to achieve that high.
About four o’clock one morning, after leaving work, I had snorted some coke to pep myself up for some debt-collecting. I was working alone now, which wasn’t a bad way to work, though if I needed to call on Lenny, I could. Cruising along Eastway in Leyton, a car behind me tooted and flashed. Initially, I ignored the driver, but he did it a second time. Anger sprang up like a volcano erupting. I pulled over to let him overtake me. Then, I gunned the engine and tore after him. He began to drive more quickly. I flashed and tooted him. He kept looking at me in his rear-view mirror: I could sense his fear. He wanted to get far, far away from me. I wanted to pulverize him. He drove his car into a cul-de-sac. Without parking his car or turning the engine off, the guy leapt out of his vehicle like Batman and took off. He disappeared into a block of flats. I walked up to his car and shut the engine down. Taking his car keys out, I flung them down the nearest drain hole. I scanned the dark flats for any sign of life – nothing. “C’mon, show yer face. C’mon let’s see how brave yer are now?” I screamed at the top of my voice. No response.
My anger spilled over into the night air, as I filled the emptiness with profane expletives. I had psyched myself up for a good fight. Now, I could only plug up the hole with more drugs.
I was trying to make a
mends with Jacqui. I had come to terms with the fact that my relationship with Donna was past history. I would romanticize to myself that a younger woman had an interest in me and everything was hunky-dory. But it wasn’t true: I didn’t want her any more. In an ideal world, Jacqui and I and the children would be reconciled and living together as one big happy family.
Real life had me still kipping at my mum’s. My mother wasn’t happy with my situation, but there wasn’t a lot she could do. I know that she was hoping that Jacqui and I would get back together, if only for the children’s sake. My mum had old-fashioned views about family life. Jacqui and I, by now, were on speaking terms. Maybe, just maybe, she might forgive me and take me back. I didn’t want to push her too far, too soon. So I kept my feelings under wraps.
One Saturday morning in February all of my nice family thoughts went into oblivion. Donna would periodically call me at my mum’s. We didn’t have much to say to each other; it was more a case of passing the time of day. Unfortunately, this time Jacqui had chosen to pop in and see me and she overheard my conversation with Donna. It wasn’t the content that troubled her; it was the fact that Donna and I were still in contact with each other. As soon as I put the phone down, Jacqui erupted. It wasn’t long before we were shouting and screaming at each other. The air was thick with my lies and deception, and Jacqui was hurt.
“That’s it. Never again. We are FINISHED.”
She stormed out of the front door without a backward glance. It was then that it really hit me that I was alone. I suppose I should have thought about how badly I had treated Jacqui. But selfishly I was only thinking about myself. I knew then, in my heart of hearts, that this was the end of the long and turbulent road with my wife.
“No man is an island”, so the saying goes, but I felt adrift from the rest of the human race. That night I went out and got hammered. I consumed so much coke and alcohol that it was amazing that I remained standing. From that point on, I went on a bender. I would try to consume as much as I could. I really wanted to kill myself but the next best thing, as far as I was concerned, was to be so out-of-it that I was only half aware of the real world.
I decided to meet up with a friend one night over the other side of the River Thames. We drank ourselves under the table and afterwards I bade him goodnight and set off in a terrible state for home. Blackheath was a distance from where my mum lived. Driving along the lonely road I noticed a road sign for Crystal Palace. I was going the wrong way. I spun the car around in one manoeuvre and headed back the way I had come.
I have no idea what happened after that – I had a complete blackout.
A cold breeze ruffled my thin silk shirt. Stirring from my “bed”, I sat up. Even in my muddled state of mind, I could see that I had fallen asleep out in the open. To be more precise, I had taken refuge on a bench on Tower Bridge. The water swished beneath me. The early birds were flying up above me. How did I get there?
Dazed I looked around me. Where was my car? My tongue was like sandpaper and my head was spinning. Staggering to my feet, I wasn’t sure in which direction I should head. My feet seemed to know where they were going, so I followed them.
I ended up on Westminster Bridge. The thirty-minute walk woke me up. My car was parked on the bridge, with the keys still in the ignition. I climbed in and drove home. The whole event was worrying.
Up until now, I had been able to handle whatever had happened to me. Having blackouts was another thing altogether. Where had that time gone? I realized that I needed help, and I needed it now.
In 1990, when she was thirteen years old, my daughter Emma joined a youth group at Epping Forest Community Church. She had been invited by a school friend. As the months went by, Emma became a Christian and later that year was baptized. She encouraged my wife and my son James that it would be the best thing for them, too! Neither Jacqui nor I had ever had the inclination to go to church. It had never dawned on us that we should go to church, or even send our children. Christian living was not something that we had thought about much, although if anyone had asked whether we were Christians or not, the answer would have been “yes”. (That was before I went off the rails!) We, along with many others, thought that being born in England automatically gave us the right to label ourselves “Christian”: after all, this is a Christian country. I didn’t know much about this Christian business. In fact I didn’t want to know. Christianity was for wimps, I thought. What good was it for a 270-pound heavyweight world champion power-lifter?
Vincent Wiffin was an elder of the church that my daughter Emma attended. Jacqui had recommended him to me. It was Jacqui who told me what I already knew – that I was in desperate need of professional help. I felt I had no option but to contact this Vincent guy.
When I first met Vin in 1993 I was a bit taken aback. Here, clearly, was no wimp. I was expecting him to be a bearded, longhaired, pebbly-spectacled, sandal-wearing freak. Vin was none of those. Meeting up with Vincent changed my life. It sounds a bit of a cliché, but for me it is absolutely true. Vin was no fool. He was a big guy and could clearly handle himself. I had strapped my knife to my leg: I didn’t figure he would be too much trouble for me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. He knew more about me than I did about him. That was a disadvantage in my book, but I kept cool and listened to what he had to say to me.
Quickly, we built up a rapport. He didn’t preach to me, or bash me over the head with his Bible, or shout out “Sinner, sinner get thee hence,” which I was half expecting. It would have given me a good excuse to get up and walk out.
I was a first for Vin. He confessed that he had never met anyone quite like me before and had been somewhat apprehensive about meeting me. His background was very different from mine. Living in a sleepy, middle-class village in Essex he had not been exposed to the likes of me and my lifestyle. Relating my life up until that point to Vin helped me to put my thoughts into perspective. I think it opened up a whole new world for him, too! Standing on his doorstep saying our goodbyes, Vin said a few words to me that have remained with me all my life. He said, “Arthur, you have to choose.” As I walked away, his words gutted me more than anything else he had said to me at that meeting. I had to choose between Jacqui and Donna? I had to choose between my two beautiful children, or starting another family? Ultimately, I had to choose between good and evil. I had gone from a good life, with my family and job and peace of mind, to a life full of evil, drugs, violence and an immoral relationship. At this point in my life there was no peace of mind or heart. As for love: the capacity to love others, to receive their love and to love myself had gone from me. I was full of contempt for myself. Looking at others, I could see my own problems reflected in their faces: many people were selfish and so consumed with themselves that they didn’t even realize that love was missing from their lives. That is a sad, sad place to be. I had thought I had reached rock bottom before but this time it was different: I felt that I was on the road of no return.
It was a cold March morning when, in Spitalfields market car park, I stood, looking up at the sky with my arms outstretched and called out, “Help me God.” I didn’t know if that was how one prayed but it was the best I could do in my desperation. Arrogantly, I asked God to come into my life and sort it out.
“God,” I continued, “if you’re so clever, you come and sort it out.”
There were no angels’ wings flapping, no trumpets blowing, the sky didn’t open up and belch forth any weird and wonderful manifestations. Absolutely nothing. And yet a strange feeling enveloped me, soothing me, and I felt at peace with myself.
I wasted no time in making a new start. I unstrapped my precious diver’s knife and threw it into a skip nearby. Back home at my mum’s I took a drastic step in emptying my cache of drugs on to the kitchen table. My mum gasped in horror at the sight, taking in the fact that her darling youngest son was a drug addict.
I felt the need to share with people the new path that I had now chosen for my life. Vin was over the moon and congratulated me.
He took me under his wing and showed me that following Jesus Christ was the only answer for my life, and that I would never again sink to those depths of depravity as long as I stuck close by Jesus.
I met with Vin over the weeks that followed, for marriage guidance counselling, then for Bible study and prayer. As I continued to meet with him my feelings of self-worth increased. Vin was instrumental in getting Jacqui and I back together again. Although Jacqui wasn’t a Christian yet, she was well-known in the church and some of the members were apprehensive about us getting back together too quickly. They were worried that I could be using God as an excuse to get back with Jacqui. She wasn’t convinced that I could change so quickly anyway.
The going was very slow and I missed my family desperately. I had a picture of them on my bedside, which I would sometimes hold tightly, sobbing my heart out, wanting so much to be back with them. The pain was awful. Jesus had now given me a new ability to love and, because I wasn’t able to fully put it to use, it was causing an aching and emptiness. Out of the depth of my heartache for Jacqui and the children, I cried out: “Lord, if it’s not your will for us to be together, I’ll accept it. But, I will never go back to the life I once lived, and turn away from you.”
I knew I had to pray that prayer: I wanted Jesus to know that I was truly His, and His alone, but I still desperately wanted my family back.
A few days later, Jacqui called me. It was 9.30 in the evening.
“Arthur, would you like to come over for a chat?”
As soon as I had put the phone down, I was up the stairs, two at a time. I showered and shaved and splashed on aftershave in what must have been record time.
We sat and talked until about three o’clock in the morning. Jacqui wanted to take things slowly, to see whether there was any truth in what I was telling her. Time would tell!
As I stood at the front door, I asked her if she still loved me.
The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) Page 36