by Calvin Wade
“OK.”
Nicky and her tear sodden eyes trudged off. I grabbed a box of tissues and went to pay for them at the counter. A funny thing happened whilst I was at the counter, it was an insignificant thing really but when shop workers chat to each other whilst serving you, it always reminds me of this day. There were two tills and I put my tubes of Zeitkila and tissues in the basket by the first till. The woman serving me didn’t acknowledge my presence, she just continued chatting to the woman on the next till about how her husband hadn’t sent her flowers since before they were married and they’d been married more than fifteen years. A funny looking man with a white shirt on and a moustache which was slightly longer on one side of his mouth than the other, who I presumed was the Manager, came up behind the two ladies.
“Sylvia, who is the most important person in this store?”
“You are, Mr.Brazier.”
“No, I’m not. Who is?”
“Me?”
“No, not you either, Sylvia. Want another go?”
“Go of what?”
“Go of guessing who is the most important person in this store?”
“No, I haven’t a clue.”
“I know you haven’t, Sylvia. The customer is the most important person in Penny Pinchers, Sylvia. Now, I’m sure that this young man, buying his Zeitkila and Penny Pinchers own brand tissues would rather be treated in a courteous, professional manner than have to listen to you and Janice talk about your hopeless husbands. Isn’t that right, sir?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Err..yeh.”
“There will be no charge for your items, sir. As the Manager of Penny Pinchers, Chorley, I’d like to apologise to you for the unprofessional manner in which you have been treated today and I guarantee that you will never experience such shoddy service in my store again.”
“What do you have to say, ladies?”
“Sorry, Mr.Brazier.”
“Sorry, Mr.Brazier.”
“I don’t want an apology, our customer does.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“It’s OK.”
“Sylvia, can you just close down your till please, I would like a word with you in my office.”
I left Penny Pinchers with a smile on my face. I was going to have to go to a cashpoint to get some money out for the coffees but didn’t have to now. I waited outside for a couple of minutes until Nicky showed up. My mood had lifted. I had always felt that I was destined to marry Nicky. That she was the only girl in the world for me. Perhaps though, if things had worked out perfectly for her, she wouldn’t have looked twice at me as anything other than a friend. Nicky was a stunner after all and I was a tubby, spotty, window cleaner. With Nicky being pregnant and single at sixteen, it levelled things out a bit. I would still have been punching above my weight, but I now felt I had some hope and perhaps this was the time to grasp the opportunity.
ARTHUR – September 1992
Simon Strong was ruining everything. I had never liked that boy. I had always felt he lacked a certain something, but could never put my finger on what it was. He had always been well mannered, but I just didn’t find anything else about him appealing, perhaps the certain something he was lacking was a brain.
Nicky’s pregnancy had brought us both a lot of tears and heartache, but I was beginning to feel we were overcoming the problems we faced. Mr.&Mrs.McLaren would have performed Nicky’s abortion themselves, given half a chance, but I had worked hard to build up an allegiance with their son, the baby’s father. I made a huge effort to befriend him, make him feel like he had someone else he could turn to as well as Nicky and be someone he could trust. Then, out of nowhere, when Nicky was about twenty weeks pregnant, Jason stopped calling and instead, bloody Simon Strong started to come around every night. I had no idea what had triggered the swop, it was like swopping a Bentley for a Lada 1500. Nicky wouldn’t tell me what had happened, but until we had managed to get beyond the twenty four week abortion deadline, I still felt very uncomfortable about the whole set up.
One night, after Nicky had shown Simon out the door, I let my feelings be known. I was in the lounge. I remember specifically that I had been smoking my Meerschaum pipe that evening, a habit that had increased through the stresses of Nicky’s pregnancy, although I only smoked when I knew Nicky would not be sitting in the room with me. As I heard Nicky say her farewells and close the door behind the annoying one, I called her in.
“What is it, Dad? My God what a stench! I hate you smoking that pipe.”
“Captain Black’s Royal, a wonderful smoke.”
“I don’t know how you can like it, Dad, it stinks.”
“It has a calming influence on me, Nicky, not like your good self.”
“Can I open a window?”
“No, I’ll only keep you a couple of minutes. All I wanted to know was how you would feel if I asked Jason around for a meal tomorrow night?”
“Dad, don’t.”
“Why?”
“I’ve told you, I don’t want him around at the moment.”
“I know that, Nicky love, but you haven’t told me why. Are you sleeping with that ugly one now?”
“Dad! His name’s Simon, you know it is. Simon and I have been friends since we were little.”
“I know and I’ve never liked him.”
“You have no reason not to like him.”
“He’s weird.”
“The Neill family like him.”
“Even good people can make mistakes.”
“Dad, in this instance, you are the good person making a mistake. Simon is a friend of mine and I wish you wouldn’t treat him like something you’ve trodden in, every time he comes around here.”
“I am perfectly civil to him.”
“You don’t treat him like you treat, Jason.”
“He hasn’t fathered my grandchild.”
“Even more reason to be nice to him.”
“I just don’t like him being here, at the moment.”
“Why not?”
“Nicky, he’s in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“In the way of you and Jason patching things up.”
“No, he isn’t! I am in the way of me and Jason patching things up!”
“Well, you’re bloody stupid then! Do you want to be a sixteen year old single mother?”
“Not particularly.”
“What if Jason’s Mum and Dad start insisting that he should push ahead with their abortion plans?”
“Dad, no-one can force me to have an abortion!”
“Well, I hope not.”
“Oh my God, Dad, can you hear yourself? Do you know how ridiculous you sound? What are you saying? That I should patch things up with Jason, no matter what he has done, so his Mum and Dad don’t kidnap me and take me for a back street abortion?”
“I don’t know what those people are capable of. They sat on this settee and called your child ‘a thing’.”
“That doesn’t mean they would force me into aborting it! I think you are being a bit melodramatic, Dad.”
“I’d just be more comfortable if you and Jason were on good terms. Anyway, a child needs a father figure. He is definitely the father, isn’t he? There’s no way it could be that Steven’s?”
“Simon’s. You are doing this deliberately now! What exactly have you been putting in that pipe, Dad? No, it could not be Simon’s child or anyone else’s child for that matter, other than Jason’s.”
“Good, it’s just strange that one minute Jason was here all the time, then the next minute Jason disappears and Simon keeps calling.”
“It’s not strange, Dad. Jason and I have split up and I need some company. Simon is good company.”
“You’ve seen ‘When Harry Met Sally’, Nicky, haven’t you?”
“It’s my favourite film.”
“Well, just remember what Harry said to Sally about male-female friendships. Simon isn’t coming here j
ust to listen to Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan, love. He wants a piece of the action.”
“Get lost, Dad! I’m five months pregnant for goodness sake!”
“Mark my words. He wants a piece of the action!”
SIMON – October 1992
This was a first. For the first time in my life, I had been invited on to Nicky Moyes bed. Nicky had invited me into her bedroom many times over the years and several times since our friendship had re-kindled in recent weeks since we met up in Penny Pinchers, but I had always sat, rather uncomfortably, on an old, wooden dining room chair. Not now though, now our friendship had developed on to another level and Nicky felt comfortable enough in my presence to invite me on to her bed.
“Simon, you look so awkward sitting there on your hands, come and lie on the bed with me, there’s loads of room.”
I wasn’t going to decline the invitation, it was a dream request, but once I was there, lying back horizontally with my head propped up by two feather pillows, I immediately tried to deduce what this invitation meant to our relationship. Were we still just good friends or had things now evolved beyond that? Was I being ridiculous to expect anything more than friendship from a girl seven months pregnant with someone else’s child?
“Bloody hell!” Nicky giggled, “You don’t look any more comfortable on the bed than you did on that chair! You don’t have to lie like you are in a coffin! Tuck your legs in and face towards me!”
This was, with hindsight, a simple request to make me relax, but I remember my heart pounding vigorously and my brain telling it,
‘She wants to kiss me! She wants to kiss me!’
I shifted my body over on the bed so I was lying on my side, facing Nicky,
“Is that better?” Nicky asked with toothpaste breath into my face.
“Much.”
“Good!”
Over the previous two months, I had seen Nicky every single day. We had always had a special bond, back from our very first meeting in Joey Neill’s tent, but the last few months had moved our friendship closer. I felt I understood her inside and out and understood that Nicky was bringing about a change in me. I was more at ease with Nicky than I had ever been with anyone. I opened up to her about Colin and about my own lack of self-worth. Nicky countered my self-deprecation and made me feel wonderful. I developed a love for her as a friend, which overwhelmed me. I wanted to share every waking second with her and longed to become the father to her child that I knew Jason McLaren had not been and would never be.
Nicky brought her head closer to mine so we were almost touching foreheads. The baby growing inside her was now evident to everyone that knew her, but her face hadn’t fattened and older ladies would be constantly commenting on her ‘neat bump’. I had never previously understood before how anyone could find a pregnant woman radiant. I did now.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Nicky observed randomly.
“What is?”
“Here I am, bringing a new life into the world, but I still think about death a lot. Does that make me weird?”
“It makes you a nutter!”
Nicky gave me a playful push.
“Seriously, Simon? Do you not think that’s a bit weird?”
“No, I think it is perfectly natural.”
“How come?”
“Pregnancy makes you think about death. In the early stages, you worry about miscarrying or in your circumstances, you wonder whether you should have your baby or not. Then, when you’ve progressed past the miscarriage and abortion stage, you want constant re-assurance that everything is OK in there. Has the baby been kicking or moving? Are things developing how they should be? Is the baby the right size? Then, as you get nearer to the birth, you wonder whether the baby will get out OK and whether you both will survive the expanded vagina experience. I think the fear of death surrounds you when you are pregnant.”
“Wow! When did you become so deep?”
“Probably when Colin died,” I answered honestly.
“You still miss him, don’t you?”
“Nicky, I’ll always miss him.”
“Do you know what I think is sad?”
“What?”
“How quickly you’re forgotten.”
I was a little unsure where Nicky was going with this. I had just confessed that I would always miss Colin, so Nicky’s statement seemed illogical.
“What do you mean?” I asked puzzled.
“I mean, when you die, you’re only missed by those closest to you and as time passes, those people die too. In a thousand years time, we’ll be gone and no-one alive will know anything about us. They won’t know what we loved or hated, who we loved or how we felt. We’ll just be forgotten, forever, as if we didn’t exist at all.”
“It won’t take a thousand years for that to happen. Do you know anything about your family from a hundred years ago?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. I guess because there are camcorders and more photographs and stuff now, there’s more chance that people will be aware of us in a hundred years time, but if they didn’t know us, will they be bothered about keeping our videos and photographs?”
“Do you not think that’s really sad? That we only matter for a fleeting moment in the world’s history?”
“I guess it just makes me want to enjoy every moment I’m here.”
“That’s a good way to look at it, Simon. You’ve always been like a wise old man, even when we were young.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that.
“Is that a compliment or a criticism?”
“It’s a compliment. You’re a lovely person, Simon. I don’t know what I would have done without you through my childhood and especially during the last couple of months.”
“Thanks, Nicky.”
I could feel myself blushing. We looked at each other for longer than friends normally look at each other. Nicky had, still has, the most beguiling eyes. You see pictures of her as a baby and they almost cover her face, but even now, they are full, wide, brown eyes. The whole physical beauty of her face is incredible. Her nose turns up a little at the base, but that’s cute, she has defined cheekbones, tiny ears and full lips. Being around this earthly goddess, especially feeling the way I did about her, made me feel angered by my ugliness. During that exchange of looks though, I felt impulsively, for a moment, that Nicky wanted to kiss me, but then convinced myself that that would be impossible. I vowed mentally, for possibly the thousandth time, that I needed to start eating properly and working out.
Perfect moments always have an ending. My perfect moment had lasted two months, but I wasn’t anticipating it finishing as abruptly as it did. There was a knock at the bedroom door. Instantly, I sat up on the bed. Nicky’s father, Arthur, was always walking into her room after a brief knock. I knew he didn’t like me, he had always deliberately made me feel uncomfortable, so I knew I would be even lower in the popularity stakes if I was caught lying back on Nicky’s bed. For once, Arthur Moyes would have been a welcome arrival. Jason McLaren walked through the door looking like a young James Dean, which is hard to compete with when you look like a fat George Formby. Despite his superior looks, he didn’t look too pleased to find Nicky and me on her bed.
“What’s going on, Nicky?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s going on’?”
“What are you, my unborn child and him doing on the bed?”
“Talking, Jason, that’s what we are doing, talking.”
“I hope that’s all you were doing.”
“Jason!” Nicky exclaimed, “Simon is just a friend, an old friend. He is welcome to lie on my bed any time he wants. I just wish you and I had only been talking on the bed, we wouldn’t be in this situation now, would we?”
Jason’s face was stern and serious. He looked a lot older than sixteen.
“I need to talk to you, Nicky,” he stated.
Nicky looked irritated by his presence which I would have taken as a positive if I didn’t have my doubts that it wa
s all an act. Not an act to fool me, more an act to try to fool herself that she did not want Jason back in her life. I shuffled my bottom off the bed, I wasn’t happy to continue sitting there with Jason in the room.
“Nicky,” I said as I stood up, “I think I’ll get going. The porcupine needs plucking.”
“What?”
“Sorry, I couldn’t think of a good excuse to go now Jason is here, so I just said the first thing that came into my head.”
“You don’t need to go, Simon. Jason does. How the hell did you get into my house, anyway, Jason?”
“Your Dad let me in.”
“Well, there’s a surprise!” Nicky said with a genuine sigh.
“We really need to get this sorted out,” Jason pleaded, “In ten weeks time, you are having our baby.”
“You cheated on us.”
“I know. I was drunk and confused and scared. I love you, Nicky and I need to be a father to our child.”
“I’m not sure we need you, Jason. How can I ever trust you after what you did?”
“I promise it was a one-off, it’ll never happen again. I swear on my mother’s life.”
Nicky said on the phone the next day, the one benefit she would reap from him cheating on her again would be the death of his mother.
As much as I would have loved to stay and help Nicky bad mouth Jason McLaren, I knew I should not be watching this scene play out. She was a pregnant, frightened, teenage girl, despite her protests to the contrary, I could not see any way that she would not give Jason another chance. She owed it to her baby to do so.
“Nicky,” I said softly, “I’m going. I hope everything gets sorted out in the way that you want it to, but I need to leave the two of you alone to sort it through.”
“Simon, there isn’t anything to sort through.”
I gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Nicky, we all know there is. I’ll phone you tomorrow to check that you’re OK.”
“Thanks, Simon.”
I left Nicky’s bedroom that day knowing my daily visits to her house were over. If Jason came back on the scene, which I knew he inevitably would, then he wouldn’t be encouraging Nicky’s friendship with me to continue. Despite being far superior to me in the looks stakes, Jason was still only sixteen years old and I knew he would feel threatened by Nicky having a nineteen year old male friend, even one as unattractive as me. It was probably pretty obvious that I fancied her too.