Tuesday 29th July 2008
Saturday night Tanimbah had his stroke. I stayed up with him all night and didn’t close my eyes once. I was up with him all day Sunday and most of the night until he died. I worked eleven hours on Monday and was so grateful to get into bed at about midnight after coming home and having to work with the animals for three hours.
At three o’clock in the morning the phone rang… and rang and rang.
I answered it reluctantly. “Hello.”
“Hello, is this Miss Doe.”
“Speaking,” he sounded official. I was awake now. I glanced at the clock it was three fifteen, my mum-dar went into overdrive, something bad had happened.
“This is PC whatever-my-name-is, we have Marty here with us.”
“Oh, my God, what is it? What has he done? He’s supposed to be at work until eight in the morning. Is he all right?”
“Well he’s been a bit of a silly lad and caused some damage. It seems he’s had an argument with a girl that he’s had a bit of a shine on and when she’s knocked him back he’s driven his bike into a car.”
“Oh, Jesus, is he okay?”
“Yes, yes, he’s fine, he’s not hurt and luckily he hasn’t done a huge amount of criminal damage we’re a bit worried about his mental state, but we’ve got cameras on him and he’s fast asleep now.”
“Has he been drinking?”
“No, he’s been breathalysed and there was no alcohol in his blood.”
“Well thank God for that. What are you saying to me, that he’s tried to commit suicide over some stupid girl? I don’t understand.”
“Well we don’t know the facts yet. We’ll let him sleep tonight and interview him in the morning when he’s feeling a bit better about things.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
“No, don’t come down. He’s fast sleep and you won’t be allowed to see him. There’s absolutely no point in coming down tonight. We’ll give him some breakfast in the morning and call you when we’re ready to interview him.”
I went downstairs and made a coffee. I pulled the duvet that Tanimbah had died under around me and wondered what the hell was going on. My sixteen-year-old son was locked up in a police cell after trying to kill himself. What had happened to work? Who was this girl? He’d seemed perfectly okay when I’d last seen him. Marty has his entire life ahead of him and the stupid little fool would drive his bike into a car because some girl had knocked him back. It didn’t make sense. He drove his bike into a car. He could have been killed. I might have been going to identify my son in the morgue. Russ was away in Manchester at one of his concerts and once again I was lying on the sofa alone with my crisis.
They rang at nine thirty and asked me to be there by ten. I just wanted to see Marty but I was taken into a room to have a talk with a policeman and a policewoman. They instantly put my mind at rest.
Marty had not tried to kill himself at all.
Thank God for that.
To be honest I didn’t care about anything else at that moment. He could have caused a fifteen-car pile-up and I wouldn’t care. All that mattered to me was that my son hadn’t tried to kill himself.
The story went that he’d been trying to get this girl to go out with him. From what I can gather he’d been leading him on a bit but fancied one of the other lads in the taxi office. It seems she’s been hanging around there at night when Marty is supposed to be working. Marty was sacked last night for having this girl and her cronies in the office at night. He went around to her house already in a mood about his job. When she wouldn’t agree to go out with him and said that she fancied his mate. He took his bike, revved it up and in sheer destructive temper he rammed it into a parked car. He’s scratched the paint a little bit and dented the bumper. He asked the girl again to come out of her house and talk to him and when she refused he moved onto another car on the other side of the road and did the same to that. He screamed that he was going to ram every car in the street until she came out and talked to him. By this time the girl’s brother called the police. They arrived at the scene, threw Marty to the floor and handcuffed him before arresting him and dragging him off to the cells for the night. He was lucky that some angry car owner didn’t batter him. If I’d been woken at three in the morning by some malignant little punk intent of damaging my car I’d have made him eat his moped sideways.
How could he be so bloody stupid?
But his stupidity wasn’t to end there and he was going to make things a whole hell of a lot worse for himself.
Already he was facing responsibility for damaging two cars. Luckily the damage was minimal but, looking at two re-sprays and two new bumpers could amount to a hefty sum. He wouldn’t be covered on his insurance because it was an act of wilful damage. His bike had been impounded and was being held as evidence in a garage eight miles away at the cost of twenty-five pounds a day. He’d lost his job… and he still had charges to answer and me to face. The lad was in one whole mess of trouble.
The policeman said that he’d already been in to talk to Marty unofficially. He explained that he’d gone in to him sympathetically. He remembered what it was like to be young and ‘in love’ and how hormones could dominate common sense. He told Marty that if he came clean and accepted what he’d done he might be lucky enough to walk away from this with a caution.
Marty had done himself no favours. He’d been abusive and cocky denying everything. The man had come out a lot less sympathetic towards him than when he went in. He told me he could face charges of criminal damage, resisting arrest, harassment, threatening behaviour, dangerous driving and disrupting the peace. That was just off the top of his head but he said that he could probably list the same amount of offences again if he really tried. He said that he’d give me five minutes with him before they interviewed him on tape to try and talk some sense into him.
I was led into a room and was so annoyed when I saw him. He didn’t look ashamed or sorry. He tilted his head and said, “Go on then, yell at me.”
I asked him if he realised that I’d just been up all night, worried sick about him because I thought he’d deliberately tried to kill himself. He found that funny and laughed. He told me not to be so ridiculous and that he’d just had a small accident and shouldn’t have been arrested.
I told him what the policeman had said and that if he came clean he would only get a caution and that they had statements from several witnesses to say what had really happened. It would do him no good to lie. I asked him to tell me his story.
“Well Mam, it was like this see. I had my moped up on its stand. I revved it a bit too much and when I kicked it off the stand the back wheel was going round too fast and it just shunted into the car accidentally.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“So you went down the road a bit and it happened again then?”
“Eh, what are you talking about?”
“What about the other car?”
“What other car? I only hit one?”
“Liar.”
“Whatever.”
“So that’s your story?”
“That’s my story.”
“And you’re sticking to it?”
“Yup.”
I wanted to knock his cocky head off his shoulders. I turned my head away from him and we never said another word until the police came in and began the taped interview.
He was read his rights and we all had to speak our names for the tape. I was asked if we wanted a solicitor to be present. I declined. Marty then went on to tell his cock and bull story in an official police interview and the policeman listened patiently. Then he blew a million holes in Marty’s fairy tail. He told him that he’d owned the exact model of moped that Marty does. He said that what Marty was saying was impossible and taking a moped from its stand causes the back wheel to stop spinning. He would have to deliberately rev it ‘off’ the stand to make it plough into the car. All the witnesses said that he was actually riding the bike at the time and not, as Marty said, standing beside it. The policeman said that there were three other people in the room apart form Marty and not one of us, his own mother included, believed his story so what chance did he stand in a court of law. He was very good and asked Marty three times if he’d like to change his account of events.
As I knew he would Marty held fast and refused to change a word. Marty has never backed down on anything in his life.
To conclude the policeman asked Marty if he’d like to say anything else. Marty said, no.
He asked me if I’d like to say anything and I answered with a surly, “What’s the point? He’s a fool on self destruct.”
The interview was concluded. The police looked at everything on Marty’s phone. This girl was claiming that Marty was stalking her. Luckily for him she was over eighteen. There were fifteen calls to the girl in less than ten minutes from his phone to hers and countless unsavoury text messages throughout the night. He was told that if he made any contact with this girl or her family at all he’d be immediately re-arrested. Then he was bailed until tomorrow when we have to go back to the station at two to find out what they are going to do with him.
I am still working sixty-six hour weeks and I’m fed up with it. Maybe if I was home with my son more he wouldn’t be getting into trouble with the police. And now he’s gone and lost a damned good job.
Luckily I had several copies of my ‘position available’ posters printed because lo and behold, last night they were ripped from the windows. I have no proof of course, it could have been anybody passing the shop but I strongly suspect that Daz took the posters down.
Jess’ friend brought her C.V in today. After being dead against the idea of hiring Sally and only really going through the motions, I liked her on sight. She’s only twenty-two and not what I want at all, but she’s really pleasant and personable. She’s bright, keen and willing and I think she’d be good for the shop. I was tempted to tell her there and then that the job is hers, but I’ve decided to be a sensible old boot and hang off awhile. I’m going to give it a few days just to see if anybody else with half a brain walks through the door. But she is far and away the best applicant so far. I’m going to give it until Saturday and then I’ll let her know. I don’t want to leave it too long because she’s just moved here and is desperate for work, if I don’t take her on somebody else will and it may well be my loss. I have a strong feeling that I may have found my new member of staff.
