Love Is Usually Where You Left It

by Gary Locke

  “Oh, not tonight!” said Clive, feeling that he didn’t have the energy for another argument.

  “I think we need some help.” said Gayle. “Will you think about us seeing that councillor that Tina recommended?”

  “I thought we agreed that it would be a waste of time and money? These people are only interested in making you think that things are wrong so they can drag things on, have you going time and time again, so they can make as much money as possible.”

  Clive couldn’t help but think that if Gayle was really serious about working things out then she would stop mithering him all the time. Instead of going on and on about things like little jobs around the house that didn’t really need doing, it wouldn’t harm her to focus on more important things. Not only had she burnt his chips tonight, but he’d also had better tasting pies as well.

  Gayle sighed again as she focussed on Clive’s words: “we agreed”; because we hadn’t agreed about anything for a long time. More and more often Clive wasn’t discussing things anymore and was just “agreeing” things by himself; this certainly didn’t feel like a team anymore. Life was just drifting away, and they were letting it happen – separately.

  And then Gayle just said something.

  She hadn’t really planned it, but it must have been lurking somewhere inside her.

  “Sometimes I think that the only reason that we’re here, together, is for Jack. Like we stick together because we both want to be sure that he doesn’t have to grow up in broken homes … like we did. Maybe if he wasn’t here, we wouldn’t be together anymore?”

  Wow, it felt like a bolt from the blue but somehow came as a relief, like the words had been eating away at her and needed to be released.

  Clive was taken by surprise.

  He knew things weren’t great, but was Gayle really thinking about breaking up? He knew that this was the moment to say something really important; to find the right words so that she knew that everything was going to be ok.

  But he couldn’t find them.

  He just felt tired.

  And maybe she was right?

  They had both wanted a lot more out of life than what they were getting right now and so it was hard to come up with anything that contradicted what she had just said. Taking him by surprise also, words of his own came rushing out.

  “I think you’re right. If it wasn’t for Jack then I don’t think we would carry on like this.”

  Suddenly the moment had changed from the everyday routine of one man watching football while eating rock-hard chips and smearing dog shit on the sofa while one woman watched on in disgust, to something that felt like it would be pivotal in their lives.

  “Like I said” said Gayle, her voice trembling a little, and not quite believing she was going to say the words that she was about to. “I want Jack to have the safe, loving upbringing that comes from having both parents that love him, there with him every day.”

  Clive nodded his head.

  “So let’s make a pact.” she continued. “We stick together and remain good friends for the sake of Jack. But when he is old enough to leave home..... we will go our separate ways. We will get on with our lives in different directions.”

  Clive could feel some tears forming in his eyes, but couldn’t think of anything to say except for four words that just confirmed everything that Gayle had just said.

  “Ok. It’s a deal!”

  Gayle left the room and headed upstairs towards their bedroom, tears flooding from her eyes and her heart beating probably faster than it ever had as a mixture of adrenalin, sadness, excitement, regret, fear and hope rushed around her body.

  Clive remained on the sofa, staring at the TV through wet eyes, completely in a state of shock.

  They had made the pact. An agreement that was never really spoken about again; but was always in their minds as morally binding and something that they accepted would happen one day.

  And “one day” always arrives.

  Usually sooner rather than later.....

  Chapter Twenty Five: A New Path To Walk.

  Clive psyched himself up and jerked the heavy bag back onto his back after finding the small parcel that he remembered he had for number 3 Atherton Lane. He placed it with the couple of items of mail they also had, before knocking on the door and waiting with the kind of pessimism that comes early on a Saturday morning. There were two cars on the drive and the likelihood was that somebody was in, but the front window curtains were closed and that meant: awkwardness. Yep, when part of your job was to knock on peoples doors fairly early on a Saturday morning, it often led to uncomfortable encounters. Clive took three steps back* away from the door and waited for the outcome of the four most likely scenarios.

  1. He would have to wait for an excessively long and frustrating time (each new waiting process at each new house added to the frustration) before having to consider knocking again (louder this time). Then he would have to contemplate filling in a card to let the habitants know that their parcel delivery had failed - which usually results in someone answering the door just as the lengthy card-filling process is complete. Finally Clive could attempt to deliver the parcel to a neighbours’ house. (Which is encouraged by Royal Mail – but is increasingly annoying neighbours, who were probably also sleeping in. This is now slowly turning whole streets of neighbours, all around the country, against each other.)

  2. He would see the curtains of the bedroom twitching before hearing some hasty putting-clothes-on attempt and loud and rapid stair decent before an effort to open the door without unlocking it leads to someone shouting “I can’t find the keys”. This can then turn into several minutes of key searching during which, in Clive’s mind, sofa seats are thrown onto the floor and contents of drawers are emptied onto tables, before someone eventually opens the door (often half naked – great if it’s women, not so good if it’s Mr Dennis-esque men) or, if the key search has proved unsuccessful, a small window is then opened through which you have to attempt to squeeze the parcel.

  3. Most awkward of all – someone opens the door, clearly unimpressed with having to get out of bed and wearing a look that thunders: “Why are you knocking on my fucking door at this time on a Saturday morning?” In preparation for this scenario Clive always readied his counter look that said: “It was you, not me, that ordered the fucking parcel!” Very often he could also prepare a second look that added: “It is me, not you, standing out here in the fucking rain!”

  4. Someone would open the door fairly quickly because they were already up but had not yet opened the curtains. This could actually turn out to be the worst scenario of them all because it often meant that they were having breakfast which, nine times out of ten on a Saturday morning, meant that you were likely, once the front door was opened, to be struck by the smell of cooking bacon. And when you are standing out in the cold and the rain, usually tummy rumbling with hunger, that scent of bacon is tantamount to torture.

  *The taking of “three steps back” from the door was a precaution because, in any of these scenarios, the just-out-of-bed-and-dozy home owner can easily “forget” to shut an angry (and, most probably, in desperate need of a piss) dog away in a separate room leading to it charging out of the house right at you – endangering you to a potentially nasty bite and/or being urinated on.

  Thankfully this morning, on this occasion anyway, the door was opened fairly quickly and Clive was confronted by a man who (judging by his Ken Dodd-esque hairstyle) had got out of bed fairly hastily, but had been successful putting on his (thankfully non-wind affected) dressing gown and was fairly polite and thankful about receiving his parcel and, most importantly, did not appear to have a dog and had not attempted to cook any bacon as yet.

  After the fairly pleasant exchange of parcel and polite words, Clive carried on and flicked through his bundle of mail again as he walked. Next up was a brown envelope, that looked like a gas bill (no-one was sure why but the utility companies had now started to favour sending out their payment demands
on a Saturday morning – nothing like good news for people to start the weekend, eh?) for number 5 Atherton Lane.

  His heart skipped a little as he read the name on the letter: “Stacey Wellington”. He remembered the little rhyme that he and a few of his mates had made up about her back at school.

  Stacey Wellington – she is so cute.

  Stacey Wellington – she’s no old boot.

  Why hadn’t he gone after a career as a poet?

  Before he really knew it his legs had brought him right to Stacey’s front door. He couldn’t help but think about what Dave at work had just been telling him about her boyfriend moving out and the implied chemistry between her and Clive, followed by that, juvenile office-wide singing.

  The whole office now thought that Clive was regularly going into the house and delivering more than what was just in his postal sack. But he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The likelihood was that, even despite this planned Love Is… weekend, he and Gayle were splitting up and, well, he had always got on well with Stacey, and she was very attractive – you don’t come up with lines like “she’s no old boot” for any average looking girl. The thought of being with another woman was scary and yet maybe a little exciting at the same time.

  Clive was startled and his mind was brought back to reality by the front door opening. Stacey was standing there wearing a very sexy looking white silk dressing gown, her blonde hair hanging down on her shoulders and, damn it, there was that blast of bacon smell; what was she doing to him?

  “Sorry, Clive!” said Stacey when she realised that he had jumped a little. “I thought maybe you had a parcel for me or something – you have been standing there a while.”

  Clive felt his cheeks getting a little hot.

  “No, no.....” he said, thinking fast for an excuse for loitering outside her house “I, errr..... was just wondering why gas bills are now sent out on Saturdays – not a great way to start the weekend, is it?” he said whilst waving the brown envelope at Stacey.

  What the hell was that?

  If and when he and Gayle did split up was this the kind of fast thinking, smooth chat up lines he had to look forward to?

  “Great!” said Stacey taking the gas bill off him “Just what I wanted!”

  Ok, thought Clive, now was the time to deliver something a bit more interesting than facts about the timing of utility bill delivery.

  “ .....have a nice weekend!” he said, turning away from the front door. His impending singleton status need not be alarming for the lothario’s of the land.

  “Wait!” said Stacey.

  Clive turned around and noticed Stacey’s face becoming a little red; she was anxious too.

  “Do you fancy coming in for some breakfast? A bacon sandwich, maybe?”

  Clive tried to ignore the screams coming from his stomach: yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, because, even if he wanted to go inside and have something to eat, which he still wasn’t sure about, he had to get on so he could go back and meet Larry.

  “Erm, thanks, but I’ll have to say no.” he said, before watching her expression fall a little.

  “Some other time..... maybe?” he added without really knowing what he meant by it.

  “Wait!” said Stacey, taking a deep breath and composing herself. “Sod it – I’m going to go out on a ledge here.”

  Clive stopped and watched her prepare to say something that obviously looked like a struggle for her.

  “As you probably know, Phil moved out a few weeks ago..... we haven’t had any kind of relationship for a long, long time.”

  She paused, as if trying to choose her words carefully.

  “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it, but my cousin, Jenny, works with your wife Gayle, and, she’s a bit of a gossip, bless her, but she says that you and Gayle are splitting up..... and have been for a while. Please tell me to mind my own business if you want but I was wondering if..... you might like to come out for a drink sometime with me? No strings attached. Just two old friends going out for a drink? You always used to be able to make me laugh..... I could do with a bit of cheering up?”

  Clive took a deep breath.

  Although he had organised the whole Love is … events and hoped that, more than anything, they could conjure some kind of miraculous recovery for his and Gayle’s marriage, as things stood that marriage appeared very much over. Was this some kind of sign? Was this fates way of opening up a new opportunity for him; somehow like Dave had predicted back at the office? The possibility of a new path to walk? Clive reluctantly accepted that it may just be that.

  “Erm, ok then..... yes!” he said a little tentatively.

  Stacey smiled at him, but said nothing, and Clive wondered whether her saying that he used to make her laugh meant that she was expecting some kind of a joke now. Would the one he heard at work on Thursday about the girl and the darts team be appropriate? Probably not.

  “How about tomorrow night?” asked Stacey. “It doesn’t have to be a date or anything, we could just meet somewhere?”

  “Ok..... yes!” said Clive, accepting that the joke he knew about the Pope and Father Christmas also probably wouldn’t be fitting to the occasion.

  “Shall we say..... The Farmers Arms in the village at around eight o’clock? It’s just been refurbed – I think they’ve even got the blood stains out of the carpets!”

  Clive smiled.

  Did he know an appropriate joke about blood-stained carpets?

  No.

  “That sounds good” he said. “I best crack on..... I’ll see you there!”

  “Great!” said Stacey. “I best go and check up on my bacon, see you tomorrow.”

  Clive wondered whether asking for a bacon sandwich to go would be appropriate but Stacey had already closed the door.

  Damn it!

  He walked slowly back onto the street slightly in a daze about what had happened. He certainly wasn’t expecting something like that to happen this morning.

  Before he could think about it too much his “postman sixth sense” kicked in. Yes, his subliminal postman super-power alerted him about a hooded man (sorry, somewhere wearing a hoodie; I don’t mean Robin Hood) who had just turned onto the street ahead of him. Clive sniggered. Hoodies! This generation’s new breed of young yobs. They didn’t scare Clive though. He had grown up when hooligans were real hooligans: the skin heads. These new pretenders didn’t fool him for one minute. How tough and dangerous can they really be, compared to those thugs from the past, when they are even worried about their heads getting a bit cold?

  The man was dressed in a red hooded top but was so big there was no chance of him being mistaken for Little Red Riding Hood. He also had a fairly large and aggressive looking dog with him and so Clive’s subconscious sensation was actually doubled. Clive stared at them and he quickly noticed that the dog wasn’t actually on a lead and could potentially make a dash for him at any second. His training kicked in and he quickly surveyed the area for potential escape routes, coming to the swift conclusion that his only realistic chance of avoiding any possible attack would be to leap over the hedge of number nine Atherton Lane and into the front garden. Fortunately for Clive, especially as the hedge was over six feet high and would have taken a leap Dick Fosbury would have been proud of, it appeared that this was actually a fairly lazy dog. Even though it, too, had obviously received its own sixth sense message alerting it that there was a postman near by, after looking up and seeing Clive, it decided not to charge at him. Not as fortunately for Clive, the dog decided to “strike” him in a different way – by vigorously urinating up against the post box, on the street corner, that Clive had to empty in a few seconds time. Even though many animal behaviour experts would have you believe that dogs cannot articulate through facial expressions, Clive disagreed with this completely. He had lost count of the number of times that dogs had “smiled” at him – usually right before they bit him. And this was not to mention the number
of winks and raised eyebrows he had received from his canine adversaries. There was a cockapoodle, who lived on Birch Avenue, whose extensive facial expression repertoire made Jim Carrey look like he’d over done it on the Botox. And this dog now, who was urinating all over Clive’s post box, was definitely smiling at him; in fact he was practically laughing at him.

  Clive felt an anger bubbling up inside him. Surely the hoodie the dog was with must have also seen Clive and realised there was a good chance that he may have to empty, and therefore touch, the box that he was allowing his dog to piss all over? Would it not have been good manners, or even expected manners, for him to try to stop his dog or, at least, offer something in the way of an apology? But, oh no, like many of the youth today this hoodie was either oblivious to, or just unbothered by, what was actually happening. Clive had a good mind to tell the hoodie exactly what he thought of him but decided to say nothing – it may turn out that this large hoodie wasn’t actually as soft as his “scared-of-getting-his-head-cold” image made him out to be.

  Instead, Clive let his mind focus back onto the encounter he’d just had with Stacey. He certainly hadn’t planned it, and he wasn’t sure how he felt but, wow, he had a date; or at least a “it-doesn’t-have-to-be-a-date, date”, whatever that was.

  Chapter Twenty Six: Number Five, Percival Road.

  Jeremy finished writing down Gayle’s latest answer and had a flick through his notepad to see what Clive had answered when presented with the same question.

  CLIVE

  Do you have a special day that you remember?

  I think it might have been the day that we moved into our house. It was mid-December, and it felt like an early Christmas present. The best Christmas present ever.

  Gayle was eight and a half months pregnant and had become an expert at it. You know, she would walk around looking like she’d stuffed a football up her top while at the same time being able to reach back with one hand, place it on her lower bag and say “oooohhh!”