by David Barry
Down And Out
We found Kevin Clacton sleeping rough in a Carnaby Street shop doorway talking to a dessert spoon which he held in his hand as if it was one of his old club microphones. Usually the down and outs, the druggies and the alcoholics, gravitate towards the mainline stations, Charing Cross being the nearest to Soho, where you’ll always find some poor unfortunate sprawled out in a grubby sleeping bag near the Underground ticket office, a few begged-for coins in a hat or cardboard box. But we’d never seen Kevin at any of the railway stations before; he suddenly appeared at the Carnaby Street doorway, talking gibberish at his spoon, so we guessed he was a recent fall from a more illustrious life.
I’m a social worker, and we do our best to help the homeless - mostly men, though there are quite a few women on the streets. Most of the homeless, when they’re tired and hungry, and they’ve run out of funds for alcohol or drugs, arrive at the Soho church hall where we distribute donated sandwiches, about to reach their sell-by date, and hot beverages. The Carnaby Street shop proprietor telephoned us and asked if we would remove Kevin from their doorway before they opened for business one morning. We brought him in to the church hall and could see by the still reasonable state of his clothes that he hadn’t long been sleeping rough. Unlike many of our service users, he didn’t reek of alcohol, and I thought he probably had mental problems brought about by some tragic event. It was difficult to guess his age; he could have been forty or sixty, it was impossible to tell, as it is with most vagrants sleeping rough.
As soon as he’d been given a breakfast, we had one of our group therapy sessions and Kevin immediately responded positively, although he became impatient having to sit and listen to others, but when it was his turn I could see it was going to be a long drawn out tale. Many of our service users are reluctant to speak about their problems, but not Kevin. I always sit everyone in a circle, but Kevin ignored this protocol and leapt up clutching his spoon like it was wired for sound, standing slightly outside the circle, hogging the limelight. He told us he was a stand-up comedian, and when he saw what he thought was a sneering expression of disbelief on the face of someone in the group, he became aggressively defensive. He had a strong memory of who he used to be, one minute he would lucidly reveal the story of his life, and the next minute he suddenly veered into a ranting caricature of his former self as he attempted to recall the taglines to his endless string of dirty jokes. I could see his desperation and madness as he stood up and began speaking, clutching his spoon like a comfort blanket.
‘Testing, testing, testing. One, two three, four,’ he said to the imaginary microphone. ‘There was this nun feeding pigeons outside the convent.’ Someone in the group whispered something and Kevin glared at them and shouted, ‘So what’s wrong if I start off with a few sure-fire gags? You got a problem with that?’
‘Kevin!’ I said ‘Calm down. Just tell us about what happened to you before we found you in Carnaby Street.’
‘Sorry, Doc,’ he said sheepishly, bowing his head in an exaggerated parody of a penitent. I thought of telling him I wasn’t a doctor, and giving him my name yet again, but didn’t think it would do much good.
‘OK, Kevin. Carry on.’
‘We all know why we’re here,’ he said with a slight smile. ‘I just thought it was time you heard it from someone who was unashamedly successful. Kevin Clacton’s the name! And laughter’s the game!’ He delivered this line to old Margo the wino who stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Sounds corny, you’re thinking. So I wait for one of you to heckle.’
He paused, looking round the group as if he expected someone to oblige. There were ten of them in the group, all men apart from Margo, and they were confused. Apart from Sam, a young drug addict, who giggled as though only he had a secret grasp of Kevin’s act. Encouraged by Sam’s response, Kevin continued his story.
‘It don’t matter a toss what you shout out, ‘cos I always top it. I’ve got hundreds of heckler put-downs. None of ‘em new, I’m the first to admit, but every one a winner. You’ve got to bear in mind, it’s what made me a success. Yes! A success!’ He glowered at the group as if someone had contradicted him, but no one had said a word. Young Sam nodded as if he understood, and this seemed to pacify Kevin. ‘It was mostly stag nights and sweaty, smoky, dirty little clubs. And I know I’ve never been on the telly but listen to this.’ Holding the spoon in his left hand, he counted off points with the fingers of his right. ‘I had a six bedroom house near Westcliff-on-Sea; heated swimming pool in the garden, a beautiful blonde wife called Tina - an ex-Country and Western singer; a nine-year-old girl, Billie Jo, and a seven-year-old boy - Kevin Junior. We had three cars between us. A Merc, a Shogun and a little Renault run-around. So that’s not bad is it, for someone what could walk down the road without being recognised? Everything I owned was pure gold. I couldn’t stand nothing cheap and nasty. I’ve always said you get what you pay for in life. It was the same with Tina. Now there was a woman with looks and taste. And she could sing like Billie Jo Spears. I’ll never forget our fifth anniversary. Know what she done?
She took me out on to the patio and played my favourite song on the stereo, ‘Blanket On The Ground’. And when I looked out over the garden towards the pool, there in the shadows and dying embers of the barbecue, there was a blanket on the ground. Well, call me an old softie if you like, but I almost cried I was so moved.’
He stopped and his eyes became distant as he remembered, and then as if to erase the painful memories, he relapsed into his routine. ‘There was this scoutmaster walking along the street, right. An’ he sees this tart wiv enormous knockers.’
Sam laughed loudly and it was Kevin’s turn to look confused.
‘I ain’t got to the tag yet, you moron.’
I raised my hand. ‘Kevin, what do you say we take a little break here and continue this another time?’
He glared at me, and I saw how cornered and frightened he was. ‘Sorry, Doc. Got carried away. You got to hear the rest of the story. The one about the comedian who couldn’t get it up. Good joke that.’
I thought we were getting close to the truth now, and letting him tell his story might help him. So I nodded and he continued.
‘There was this comedian and he knew enough dirty jokes to cover the karzy walls from ‘ere to Land’s End. And shall I let you into a secret? He never found them funny. And the less funny he found them, the more the punters laughed. And the more the punters laughed, the more he hated them. Life was just one big unfunny joke. But the worst joke of all was the one about the impotent comedian who came home to find his wife in bed wiv another bloke. Her hairdresser! I thought all them ladies’ hairdressers batted for the other side. Not this one though. Right little Warren Beatty. Know what I mean? Like that film Shampoo. To look at this geezer you’d have sworn he was bent. There was something a bit feminine about him. The way he moved. I’d seen him once, when Billie Jo, Kevin Junior, Tina and me was out walking our pooch. He comes up and greets Tina gaily - if you know what I mean - like women do when they meet each other. But I reckon it was all part of his act, making out he was... when all the time he was... ’
Kevin paused as if he’d lost his train of thought, or maybe it was a reluctance to face the rest of his wretched history. And whenever he got close to the painful truth, I noticed, he spoke in the third person, like some comedic alter ego was telling the story. Suddenly, he realised he might have paused for too long and he felt the group becoming restless.
‘Sorry, Doc,’ he said. ‘The story gets better now. What you’ve all been waiting for. The bedroom scene. The comedian has a gig cancelled and comes home early. They might have heard his car pull up if it hadn’t been for one of the neighbours mowing the lawn. Normally, whenever he got home, the comedian would call out to say he was back. But for some reason he didn’t that day. He goes into the lounge to get himself a vodka and tonic. Opening the cocktail cabinet might have spooked them o
ut upstairs. A bespoke cabinet. Plays a medley of the country greats. But he didn’t open it that day. I’ve no idea why. Oh yes, I do. Maybe he decided to go into the kitchen to get some ice. So he just stopped - stood there listening. And that was when he heard this sound from upstairs, like someone was in pain. He knew exactly what that was about and his blood ran cold.’
‘Just a minute! Just a minute!’ Sam interrupted the narrative. ‘You said you had children - Billie Jean and... ’
‘Jo!’ Kevin snapped.
I could see him becoming flustered.
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Sam said. ‘So where was your kiddies when this was going on?’
‘I can’t fucking remember.’ Kevin studied his distorted reflection on the back of the spoon as he thought about this. ‘Yes, I can. It was a Friday afternoon. I think. My gig was up north, and I wasn’t many miles away from home when I got a call on my mobile to tell me it was off. The kids I remembered were at a birthday party.’
‘So you went upstairs and caught them at it,’ Sam said with undisguised glee.
‘Who’s telling this?’
‘You are, Kevin,’ I said. ‘Go on with your story. Get it off your chest.’
Kevin paused briefly as he tried to recall that fateful day. ‘Anyway, I takes the stairs three at a time. Quietly, so I could surprise them. They thought I was two hundred miles away so they’d left the bedroom door open. So I walks in, bracing myself for the worst. And, sure enough, what I saw was the hairy arse of the hairdresser pounding away on top of my missus, well into the final furlong, and all that disgusting moaning and groaning as they reach the short strokes.’
I could see Kevin becoming agitated, the way he perspired with veins standing out on the side of his head. It was then I guessed that telling his story in the third person may have been a safety valve. Now it was in the first person he was forced to face his demons and I wondered how he would cope. Certainly the rest of the service users were all attentive, enjoying the narrative like a television programme.
Kevin wiped the flat of his hand over his face before continuing. ‘At first they didn’t see me in the doorway, so I coughs. Should have seen them jump. Broke apart like two startled dogs. So what did I do? I kept my cool. Walked over to the dressing table, picked up a pair of scissors, grabbed my wife by the hair and started snipping away. “What are you doing?” she screams. “Well,” I says, “your boyfriend’s performing my function, so I thought I’d perform his.” I waited for the laugh, but it never came. Instead, my missus screams, “Get him off me, Jason.” And when the bastard tries to pull me off, I let him have it in the guts with the scissors. “Does it hurt?” I asked, while the hairdresser sinks to the floor, blood flowing like claret. “You’re supposed to say only when I laugh!” But he didn’t appreciate the joke. He weren’t injured that bad. Not as much as I was, cos Tina ends up marrying him. And I end up in the funny farm.’
The end of his sad tale was followed by a smattering of applause, started by Sam. My assistant Jan, sitting next to him, stopped him with a hand on his, and the applause trickled out. But Kevin appeared not to notice as he addressed me, his face tense and tormented..
‘You know, they say guns or knives don’t kill people. It’s husbands who come home early who kill people. And looking back on it, that’s what I should’ve done. I should’ve topped the bastard. Just for my own piece of mind. But I get confused, and the only way I can stop myself feeling anything is to numb the pain with jokes I never found funny. So what’s it all about, Doc, eh? Just one great big bowl of cherries or shit? Take your pick. You’re lookin’ at a man who likes to make ‘em laugh. But sometimes my head’s so crowded it hurts. Crammed full of jokes it is. And there’s no room for anything else. All my life I’ve told jokes on stage, in pubs and clubs and bars, for money and for free. People laugh, but all my life I’ve never found them funny. But I need to tell ‘em, cos without them I’m nothing. I don’t exist.’
‘Thank you, Kevin,’ I began. ‘That was a very brave... ’ I stopped as he suddenly moved towards me. At first I thought he was going to flip and I braced myself, preparing for a violent outburst, but he stopped in the centre of the circle and looked me in the eye.
‘Sorry, doctor, but you might have to chalk this up as one of your failures.’ He spun round and addressed the group in general. ‘If you enjoyed my little spot, please tell your friends. If you haven’t, keep your mouths shut!’ He turned back to me. ‘And now I’ll let you introduce the next failure. See you around.’
Still clutching his spoon, he marched quickly towards the exit. I nodded to Jan, getting her to take over the group, while I chased after Kevin, worried about his mental state.
‘Kevin! Hang on, mate!’ I called, but he was already out the door. I followed and I saw him crossing the green and heading towards Wardour Street. After his cogent description of his failed marriage, I could see he had reverted to the shield of his madness as he stepped into the street, speaking loudly to his imaginary microphone.
‘Testing, testing, testing. One, two, three, four.’
I saw people staring at him and moving hastily out of his way. I tried to catch up with him but he had already disappeared into an alley. And then I lost him, so I returned to the church hall.
Most of our service users we see from time to time. We know most of them by name. They are our regulars. Occasionally some of them are found dead unable to survive a harsh winter, while others disappear temporarily then resurface after having moved to another district in a haze. But not Kevin the stand-up comedian. We never saw him again, and I often wondered what became of him. To vanish so completely is unusual. But it’s not unknown. We often get sent circulars asking if we have seen such and such a missing person, with a name and photograph. But never anything about Kevin, as if he had never existed.
I like to think he saw the funny side of his own history, took it to the Edinburgh Festival, and found a new lease of life as an alternative comedian. But I realise that’s just a fantasy of mine.
Home To Roost
I
Mavis froze when she saw the arrival of the latest resident. She thought she recognized him, but it was nearly forty years ago and she could have been mistaken.
If it was him, he had put on an excessive amount of weight, and it took three of them - Mavis, the matron and another carer - to shift him from the van into one of the home’s wheelchairs. The matron asked her what was wrong and she made a feeble excuse - said she was tired and feeling the strain.
As they manoeuvred him into the wheelchair, Mavis stared intently into his face to see if there was a trace of recognition. But there was nothing, and she wondered if she might be imagining it, haunted as she was by her past. Whenever she confronted her reflection in the mirror she often wondered what had become of the beauty of those early years, and she was aware that four decades can not only change a person physically but sometimes beyond recognition. So there was no telling if it was him or not. Yet there was something about the man, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Just a feeling she had. He looked nothing like him, but she fancied she saw arrogance in his eyes, undimmed by the years and unchanged by senility.
As they wheeled him into the care home, she knew she would soon find out if her first instinct had been right, because after wheeling him into reception, matron would take him to her office to make the registration, and that’s when she would find out his name. But what if the name he’d used all those years ago was an alias? She had no way of knowing. After all, he’d been the one to insist on her working under another name. Mavis was unglamorous, he said, so he renamed her and she became Jade. He told her it sounded more exotic. Not that she minded changing her name, it made what she did feel less real, as if it was something that happened to another person.
They left him parked in the wheelchair outside the office, and Mavis held the door open for the matro
n to deal with the registration, while the other carer dashed off to deal with a problem in the lounge where one of the many residents was showing signs of distress. Mavis looked down at the pathetic elderly sufferer in the wheelchair while she waited at the open door, examining every detail of his puffed, wrinkled and bloated face. Surely this couldn’t be the same man, could it? Jake Jackman had been dark-haired and slim, with neat sideburns like Elvis, whereas this overweight lump of flesh was bald, with just a few wisps of grey hair clinging to the sides of his head like curling strands of cotton. She’d been told he was the victim of a massive stroke and stared into his eyes to see if there was a flicker of recognition. He made a loud spluttering noise and she jumped. She couldn’t recognise it as speech, it was like the noise deaf people sometimes make, incoherent and loud. But the fact he had attempted some sort of communication meant there was something going on inside his head. She wondered if he had recognised her. If he had, what was it he was trying to say? Remorse for what he had done to her? She doubted that very much. Jake’s only consideration had been for Jake and Jake alone.
The matron put away her notes in a desk drawer and said it was all done. She came and stood at the door and gave the man in the wheelchair the sort of smile reserved for children and pets. Mavis held her breath, waiting for the matron to speak to him, and reveal his name.
‘We’ll take you to your own room now, Graham,’ Matron said. ‘And after that we’ll get you some nice tea.’
Graham! Perhaps it wasn’t him. Perhaps she’d been mistaken. The anti-climax was overwhelming. For years she’d thought about revenge, wondering what she would do if she ever met him again. And it was a fantasy up until this moment. An occasional indulgence. Back then she was a vulnerable eighteen-year-old and he was in his late thirties. She was now in her late-fifties, and much healthier than she’d ever been. Hard work kept her occupied and in good shape. So that would make him seventy-something. Almost eighty. So she knew that if ever their paths crossed again she had nothing to fear. The man in the wheelchair certainly looked the right age. But his name was Graham. Not that it meant anything. After all, Mavis became Jade in an instant. So why couldn’t Graham become Jake? But was this man in a near vegetative state him? Perhaps she had jumped to a faulty conclusion. Yet her first instinct had warned her that here was the cause of her misery. There was only one way she could find out for sure.