Chapter 1
It was much later than was allowed for a fashionable entrance. Sully regressed to his childhood, as he stood there in the bleakness of the drizzle, to a time when late meant entering the classroom, mid lesson, being the scruffiest kid in school, from the poorest family in the neighbourhood, and the unpleasant warm flush of embarrassment when being constantly reminded so.
Being late then came without a choice but now it was much easier. Either feel the stares of all the eyes that don’t really want him there but won’t say so, or stay out in the autumn English evening. Sully became that scruffy little kid again.
Inside was dim and loud, a karaoke singer shouting out some old 70s song that the family joined in, some even got the words right, which meant Sully didn’t have to listen to the ex-wife whispers, he could just autopilot to the bar and focus only on finding a quiet corner to sit and enjoy a pint.
The usual, typical town pub but a not so typical Sunday evening. After the lunchtime rush that saw the drinkers go home for that after lunch nap in front of the fire, this evening was met with the family get-together and farewell party of Sully’s son, who was leaving the next day for a life in the army.
But it beggars belief why this event was more celebrated that D Day, when the army barracks he was leaving to was on the outskirts of the same town and he’d be home every weekend if he so chose.
And he would, growing up in a single parent family had turned him into a mommy’s boy and maybe the army life was his way of dispelling that un-spoken theory, or just following in the footsteps of his mom’s new boyfriend and those of his cousin, who were both squaddies.
The unchanged wooden tables strategically situated around the room, and well etched with the carvings of initials and names of who sat here and when, held cliques of people and members of the public, who all, well, most of all, contributed to the thick clouds and stench of smoke. Since the room wasn’t booked but more, turned up to.
Two tables away there was a face, a side-on view that couldn’t possibly be but it might have been. One of those that was not enough like for him to go and ask but enough like for him to keep wondering. Maybe the mother of who he thought it was. She was certainly haggard with, let’s say, life-lines.
Sully junior got up with two of his mates to sing Firestarter, which gave perfect opportunity for Sully’s ex to come over and beg the question of how Sully had the nerve to show up.
" I left you, not him, ”
“Nobody wants you here.”
Came a bitter reply.
“The Landlord does.”
Replied Sully.
Which was all that was needed to send her back to the whisper set.
Truth be told, after a major fall out seven months previously, Peter Sullivan didn’t particularly want him there either. As he felt the gaze of Sully while he screamed out his song, he purposely and disrespectfully refused to return the look.
Jane Claire was a twin from his days in the senior school. They weren’t identical but both Jane and Carol were identically leered at by all the fifteen-year-old pubescent lads, especially on Wednesday afternoons during Classical Music studies. That was when they would be fighting for a desk at the window because it was the day the girls had netball for a double lesson and the view of their kickers in their miniskirts was the only contact most of them had ever had with the opposite sex.
It was difficult to describe the bodies of Jane and Carol Claire.
" I’d love to fuck them ” wasn’t really a description but at 15 that was all that ran through the mind of Mickey Sullivan and his classmates.
They had tits. And it was hard to believe that he hadn’t noticed that they were young adults. No one ever notices the transition from child to man, or woman, in their case.
Sully had never known the time when the twins had no breasts, he knew they didn’t just sprout there over night but they appeared to have.
It was quite easy to distinguish each of them by the colour of their hair, which always started the usual debate on which of them preferred the blonde Carol or the Auburn Jane. Sully always saw blondes as being as thick as Gorilla snot and opted for darker haired, enigmatic girls.
It was, thankfully, the days before the sports bra and their running attracted leers from all guys, and teachers alike, albeit secretively.
Their white, untanned muscular thighs effortlessly elevating their bodies above the ground giving onlookers a reason to daydream and their shots at goal adding the flash of their knickers to the wanderlust.
The only sense being used here was eyesight and their attention was unashamedly unparalleled, punctuated only by the occasional teacher outburst that dragged them back to the reality of the classroom, temporarily.
It was never long before Smithy turned his back to the blackboard again and the male eyes of the room with the ring-side view, turned to watch the Claire’s tits bounce up and down as they ran. They loved our classical music studies. Well, we loved attending.
They didn’t particularly care about Lieutenant Cockatoo, or whether Leonidas was combing his hair. As far as they were concerned, they had sports, and they were in the audience. As the others, mainly girls and the guys that sat in the mid-section of the class, Sang out;
No no said the Captain’
This won’t do,
When he first set eyes
On Lieutenant Cockatoo….
Sully and his mates were setting eyes on something that stirred them in different places that was expected by the rendition of a passionately sung Gilbert and Sullivan operatic tune.
There’s a part of one’s life that goes missing. Missing without the knowledge that anything’s gone. It’s called adolescence. As children, as we become aware, not just self-aware, but aware, we appear to have everything that we want and need. A lot of the things we don’t have, we either don’t want or need, or simply just not aware that we want or need them.
Ask any former child how much money they had to take to junior school and they’ll tell you none. But likewise, they didn’t spend any money. So they grew up in that bliss that we cannot return to today because everything we want, or want to do, requires money.
As adults we can determine what it is we want and make plans to move towards obtaining it.
But there’s that important piece of growing, in between childhood and adulthood that sees us all searching for something without knowing what it is and without even the knowledge that we are ever searching at all.
It’s us. Primarily, adolescence is such a transition that what we are really searching for, without knowing it, is us. We are searching for the person that we are going to be as adults. We are shedding the skin of puberty like a snake and donning that harsh reality of a grown-up whereby the music that we avoided as teenagers, to look through the windows at white fleshy thighs and bouncing tits, would, as adults, be the music we must face, however hard.
As the songs grew worse and the lesser confident found the Dutch courage to get up and sing, much to the dismay of the listeners that were sober enough to have all their hearing faculties, it was obvious by the amount of glasses collected from tables, that everyone was well tanked.
Sully allowed his curiosity to get the better of him and walked towards the girl with whom he only previously had a side view. As he neared, his eyes caught a wheelchair in the same booth and a table full of empty glasses, bar the one she was drinking from.
One thing Sully couldn’t stand was a woman that drank from pint glasses. It was a preference that he either couldn’t explain and much less justify. We were at a time when equal rights had started to rear its head and though women weren’t fully fledged accepted members, they certainly didn’t appreciate being told how to live.
Before he had chance to say anything he was greeted with the pleasant surprise that, not only did she know him, but she remembered him.
“Micky Sullivan “
She said, turning a full head before him.
There’s something very unnerving about meeting with people that haven’t seen for years. If you are going to do it, you have to do it full blooded, no matter what. Sometimes, and more often than not, these old acquaintances have changed to a degree that we cannot comprehend or maybe condone. Many is the time that we have seen old friends from days of yore and, when in conversation, we learn from them that they are doing or are being something that we either despise, or envy. And the last thing we want to do is to get into a long drawn out conversation with anyone that offers opposite views to our own, be it political, religious or sexual. But even worse is that change in them that brings about that awkward silence. That conversation killer that leaves you with no exit strategy.
But it was far too late for Sully now. He had made his move and made himself known. He sat next to this wrinkly, dry skinned girl who was, unbelievably, not only his own age, but so idolised as a teenager that Sully found himself, unashamedly examining each and every one of the lines on a face that was framed by equally dry and lank auburn hair.
The shrill, eardrum offending music forcing him to move closer to her in order to be heard. He remembered a time when he would have sacrificed a testicle to be this close to either one of them, and the other testicle to have been in bed with both.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you since school”
She said.
“Is that your Pete there”
She added.
“Yeah, he’s off tomorrow to Whittington Barracks, so far away that his mother hasn’t a clue when she will ever see him again”
He laughed.
“Still a silly fucker then?”
They laughed and joked about the peripheral things about their lives before Sully begged the question.
“So, who’s the lad then?”
He enquired, nodding discreetly towards the wheelchair.
“It’s my youngest”
Came the reply.
“I have four. He was knocked down two years ago by a hit n’ run driver and his bastard of a dad couldn’t cope so he went off fucking some other bitch.”
As much as Sully despised the act of betrayal, he couldn’t help wonder that these very words, or something attuned to them, were probably spoken by other women that had been left for younger models. Sully would have loved to have said that no one gets dumped for nothing, but on this occasion decided that discretion was the better part of whatever that old saying was.
He looked at the brain damaged boy, drooling spit uncontrollably down his chin, all of thirteen years old and wondered how old the eldest was but before asking, he got his answer.
As he heard that her eldest was twenty-two years old, he tried his hardest to look interested, or at the very least, to hide the mathematical equating going on in his head. She must have got pregnant at seventeen years old. What he wouldn’t have given to be that guy. He was now aware of a sense of disgust that flowed through his body as he heard her recalling of her life.
Had she have noticed him they would still be together. He would never have dreamed of leaving this goddess for anyone-except, maybe, her sister.
Sully came back to reality and accepted that he very likely had a lucky escape. Had it have been him, he would now be saddled with a mentally handicapped child and a wife that looks older than his mother.
She sat there in a brown imitation fur coat that was so fake that it should have been labelled Polyester. It did little to hide the rolls of fat that had developed over a long period of drinking, around the midriff of this once gorgeous girl. The cigarettes she chain-smoked contributing generously to the dry arid skin and the early eye bags.
“I don’t get out much now. I used to love dancing. Me and Carol used to go out regularly to disco nights at any bars around town. Nobody takes me out now. It’s been ages since anyone asked me to go dancing with them.
Jane said.
“What are you up to now”
She asked.
Sully went into his life story obviously leaving out the fact that he had left his wife for another woman. She wouldn’t appreciate that but it went without saying. Nothing was ever not known on the little council estate where Sully spent his married life. Everyone knew everyone and everyone knew everyone’s business. It wouldn’t have been long before Sully’s split was the highlight of the gossip club, especially after a ten-year marriage.
Sully had moved to the next city, which, ironically was the same size, if not smaller than the town he’d left. He had gone through a very lucrative all work no play phase and settled in a dingy little bedsit that was a one room affair with the sharing of bathroom and toilet with eight other people. There was no kitchen but a small Calor gas cooker in the corner and a hand basin to wash up any of the plates and cutlery, that had been long stolen by the previous tenant.
As his conversation got to the point of embarrassment to him or Jane he broke off by asking a question that he had tried not to earlier. The twins were always very competitive. They knew that Jane’s auburn hair was no match for Carol’s blonde. But Jane also knew that she was slightly the better looking. Carol had sharper eyes. Not exactly Chinaman slits but slightly less rounded. How she wished they were. She had a bright blue pair of eyes that would have attracted Hollywood, if only they were more prominent. Sully broke first.
“How’s Carol?”
“She’s OK. She married Spence and they’re living in Birmingham now.”
She replied.
“See her much?”
“Nah, she rarely comes over now since Danny’s death, but they’re not getting on much now so I expect she’ll be moving back in with mum soon.”
“Danny’s dead?”
Sully asked.
“Fucking hell, what happened?”
“Car crash. On his way back from a tournament in Manchester and decided to have a drink up there before coming down the M6. Police said he was twice the limit.”
Danny was the only person on the planet that stopped any teenager or other guy from fulfilling his sexual desires with his rape meat sisters. He was a black belt third Dan at Judo and a very vicious man indeed due to the life-long teasing over his hair lip. By the time he’d grown up enough to hide it with a moustache it was too late. His temper was damaged, further more so by having a girls last name. But a great guy. Sully was about five years younger than Danny so they never bonded in an adult way by means of becoming drinking partners, so a quick chat and hello’s were shared as they met but nothing deep.
It was his bad temper that got him the admiration of the town when he was chosen for some Olympic games, that Sully never remembered but Danny reminded him of many times, where he actually met the world champion in an early bout and actually scored points by throwing him. Though, the mental high was short lived when the world champion made Danny a special project in the ensuing rounds and beat him irreverently. Danny had lots of pictures around the family home that he shared with his sisters and his mum. Frames of him in his white suit and black belt, all around the mantelpiece and on every available space that could accommodate them.
They hung on the walls. Cheap wooden frames with the picture of this blonde short cropped haired bulky guy holding up belts and trophies and shaking hands with famous people that you only knew if you were in that circle. Any pictures of Jane and Carol were relegated to their bedrooms and were mostly of school class shots, not many single shots. And those that were, were in little cardboard frames with a cut-out piece at the back to help it stand. But what guys wouldn’t give to get one, or both, or one with the both girls on. And at fifteen years old, they knew exactly what they would be used for.
“When did this happen?”
Asked Sully.
“Four years ago now.”
There should have been a swear box fitted that would have, on that night, made a fortune for charity with all of Sully’s “Fucking hells “. Sully offered a drink and went to the bar before returning through the smoky crowd to see that, as she lifted her pint glass to her cracked lips, she still wore her wedding ring. Surely not to ward off any unwanted attention, or any attention at all Sully thought. The lad in the wheelchair done that remarkably well for her.
A welcome break in what people called singing was caused by the unwelcome voice of Peter Sullivan, who took the mic and began his announcement.
“I just want to say thanks, a big thanks, and I really mean that, to all the people that have turned out tonight, my last night of freedom. I know that a lot of you were invited and you had other things to do but you gave them up to be here and I really appreciate it. I know some of you weren’t invited”
Sully felt that warm rush of blood flow through his body again. The one that he felt when arriving late for class as a kid. Was he talking about anyone, namely him, in particular? Peter’s eyes still never met Sully’s. He looked around at the members of public that happened to be there. But this was just an alibi, thought Sully.
“But even though you weren’t invited, I hope you have enjoyed yourselves. Once again, thank you all very very much.”
He gestured to the DJ to start the cats wailing again and the room was once more filled with conversations that couldn’t be heard.
As the room dwindled and the smoke cleared, a barman started collecting glasses and emptying ashtrays in a bucket making positively sure not to make eye contact with anyone. Getting into conversation was always more about getting more drinking time and the law had just been past that anyone found on licensed premises thirty minutes after the closing time, would result in a heavy fine for the landlord.
Most bars now had an immediate cessation of music closely followed by a town crier of a pub manager that would bellow TIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE, at the top of his voice. Equal rights hadn’t quite crept in this far yet but everyone knew what was meant.
This bar had all of that and the blaring of high beamHalogen spotlights cleverly positioned around the room to kill any sense of ambiance. So any couples that had steered themselves towards a darkened corner for a jellied eel, was quickly spotted groping each other when the spotlights came on. A jellied eel was rhyming Cockney slang for a feel. Most pubs had little nooks and crannies that were secluded partly from the rest of the room, even if it was just by a column that was erected to separate an extension of the building. Most gropes were unnoticed, with the exceptions of those that were done, unknowingly, by the light of their cigarettes.
Sully made his gentlemanly goodbyes and reluctantly, but not showing it, kissed Jane on the cheek to say goodbye.
He felt that he left with her thinking that he had turned out to be an OK guy but secretly, he left gentlemanly to avoid having to help her cope with her wheel chaired son. As she stood he saw that the figure that once graced the netball field had no business being there now. And the face that was once the thoughts of unashamed masturbation, could never now encourage an erection. And to think that there was once a time when he would have been the envy of his lecherous friends to have been the first one to kiss one of the Claire’s.
As Sully left he looked back to get one last glimpse of his son but saw that the room in that area was bare. His son had left. Without a word.
Sully drove the few miles towards his grimy little bedsit in the ever present British drizzle. Quite happy in the knowledge that the wailing and non-musical screeching was now replaced by a steady sedate swish of the windscreen wipers and a low soft song from Luther Van Dross eased it’s was through the speakers. The old Rover that he drove was too old to care about but it was extremely well kept. No scratches or dents on the outside and the genuine plastic dashboard with it’s weekly spray of furniture polish shone its deep black sheen against the orange street lamps. The ashtrays were kept clean and ash was flicked out of the window. No stale smells allowed on the inside with the exception of the smell of ale that may have been consumed at a local pub and left in the car until the next cleaning day, along with the ever present smell of work dust and sweat that he carried home from site every day.
“Gimme the reason to want you back”, sang Luther. Sully thought of his ex-wife and quickly dismissed this thought. He thought of Jane Claire and thought that, maybe, a few years ago but, definitely not now. Reaching his humble shithole, as he referred to it, with the car hardly travelled far enough for the warmth of the engine to get transferred to the heater, Sully pulled over and parked before going into another pub that was in walking distance, where he could down another few pints and wake up whenever he liked on the Sunday morning that followed.
