Wednesday 20th August 2008. Disgusting

Wednesday 20th August 2008.

I got home from work tonight and Russ came with me for a drive around. Sally had arrived and we all had a meal together we left her kindly chopping the lizard salad for us and told her we’d only be an hour. It was well turned nine o’clock by the time we set off. There was nowhere new to drive. I’d been everywhere and I think I’ve spoken to every kid between the ages of fourteen and twenty in Btown so all we could do was re-tread old ground.

Finally we had a breakthrough. A group of kids said that they knew a V.J who lives on the Voltan estate. “Has he got teeth?” I asked in my best attempt at a description.

“No, `es as ugly as fuck innit. Ya wouldn’t wanna snog `im, hey Chealsea,” he said turning to a girl with them, “you’d give V.J Eddison one wouldn’t ya?”

“Yeeeeew no,” replied the girl doing a balking impression, “He’s a dirty minger from the Voltan.” It sounded like my laddo’s pit. The kids couldn’t give me an exact address but gave me vague directions. The Voltan is the worst estate in Btown. It’s the place where all the dross of society is put so that it doesn’t contaminate the rest of town with its crime and filth most towns have one. I know that sounds snobbish and judgemental but it isn’t an opinion, it’s a statement of fact. I’m sure some good clean, wholesome people live there but I wouldn’t fancy my chances at finding one.

We hit gold first time, if you could call it that. I pulled into a cul-de-sac with a horseshoe of houses at the top end. A man was outside working on a motorbike and Russ asked him if he knew a young lad called V.J. He pointed to a corner house across the street.

I know before I start that I’m going to be accused of making this up, or at the very least exaggerating it to make a better story. If anything I could only underemphasize how bad it was because I was so overwhelmed and dazed that I didn’t take as much in as Russ. He was telling me things when we came away that I hadn’t noticed. I swear this is word for word what I saw.

There was no gate only the attachments to hold one. We walked up a path barely discernable from the knee-high grass to either side of it. The thing that I can’t get out of my head was the broken window. The large front room window to the side of the front door had obviously had a brick put through it. I don’t know if this had happened ten minutes before we arrived or six months earlier. Either way nothing had been done to cover it. There was obviously nothing worth stealing in that house because the gaping hole was an invitation to any passing thief. They hadn’t even cleared the glass from the window and jagged triangles of broken glass still held by their putty in the frame. I just hoped they didn’t have any pets or young children living there. The front door had the word ‘twat’ scrawled into the paintwork in capital letters. Beneath this was a square that had been gouged into the wood by running a knife repeatedly into the grain. There was an old television lying on it’s front in the garden along with various bits of bike and scrap metal. A black net curtain that was too short and finished six inches above the bottom of the sill covered the broken window. Loud music boomed out of the house. It was typical Marty type music. I knocked on the door not knowing what to expect. The music stopped and I was quite surprised when Marty himself answered the door. He reached in and pulled an inner door closed.

He didn’t seem surprised to see us.

I didn’t greet him in any way. “Get in that car now, you’re coming home with us.”

“What, you’re off your head.”

“I’m not going to argue with you Marty, get in the car.”

“I’m not coming home. I’m staying here. Oh and Cathleen wants you to sign my family allowance over to her.”

“Who the hell’s Cathleen?”

“V.J’s mum.” I couldn’t believe that an adult lived in this midden.

Russ spoke for the first time, “Do we get to met her?”

“No,” Marty said this insolently.

“Well, we’d like you to invite us in to meet this woman and talk to her about your welfare,” said Russ. “We just want to know that you’re being looked after, Marty, that’s all.” My Russ, ever the peacekeeper: I didn’t want to know about his welfare I wanted to rip her head off. I could feel my temper rising and was ready for pushing past Marty and barging into the house.

“No, leave it Russ, it’s all right, we’re leaving. We’ll come back with the police because if I walk in that house now there’s going to be trouble,” I said. It was an empty threat; the police had already told me they weren’t prepared to do anything to uphold the law in this matter. “I tell you what Marty, you’d rather live in this, than at home with us, the people who love you? Shame on you.” I started to walk away but then remembered the contract phone that he was supposed to be paying me for and isn’t. He was three weeks behind on his payment so I asked him to get it and the charger for me. I gave him my phone and took the contract phone that I didn’t want but have to pay for for the next eighteen months. I was so distressed and wound up that I thought I was going to vomit. I had to get way from there because I could barely see I was so mad. My temper felt as though it was going to go ballistic and take me out of control. I knew that I’d start by hitting Marty and then punch anybody else who came into range. I wasn’t in the mood to reason.

So what did I do?

I walked away without doing anything. I hadn’t asked him any questions about food or work or how he was managing. I hadn’t asked him if he was happy or if he needed anything. I’d just demanded that he come home and walked away from him when he refused.

I had to do something, but I had no idea what I could do that wouldn’t just make the situation worse. My son is living in unimaginable filth and squalor and I’ve only seen it from the outside. The hall and stairs had no carpet and wasn’t decorated. Russ noticed foul language written on the walls on the way upstairs and that it had been stripped and just left. He was standing to the left of me and had a better view into the house he said that there was a huge hole in the ceiling at the top of the stairs and you could see rafters through the hole.

As we walked away somebody from inside the house shouted, “ Aye, fuck off bitch.” It could have been man, woman or demon from the pits of hell.

I drove off the estate, was reminded by Russ of upcoming speed cameras and checked my speed accordingly and then pulled into a lay-by to calm down. I was shaking with temper.

“What are we going to do?” asked Russ. “We can’t just leave him there.”

“I don’t know Russ. Tell me, please tell me what to do?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure that we can do anything.”

“I need to talk to Col.”

When we got home Sally said that Marty had phoned and was ringing back in five minutes. I didn’t have the chance to speak to Col before he rang.

“Can we come up and see you mum, Cathleen wants to talk to you.”

“Why, because she wants your family allowance?”

I steeled myself for what was going to walk through the door but wasn’t prepared for what did.

A woman who looked to be in her late seventies came in with V.J and Marty. I’ve since found out that she’s actually fifty-eight, but he looks nearer eighty.

“Come in. Please … sit down. Can I get you a drink, tea, coffee?” Even in times of stress and head-ripping temper I’m the perfect hostess.

She plonked herself down on the sofa and lit a cigarette without asking. “I `aven’t come `ere fer a tea-party.” I took that as a refusal on the drink. “What `ave you bin saying about me?”

I recognised the phlegmy voice as the owner of the ‘Fuck off, bitch,’ from earlier.

“I haven’t said a word about you, until half an hour ago I didn’t even know of your existence I didn’t know where Marty was living or who he was living with. I’ve literally just got in and haven’t had the chance to fill anybody in on his living conditions, as to you, well if we’re going on first impressions I’m far from impressed.” If the old witch wanted a fight then I was going to let her have it.

“Mam,” said Marty warningly.

“Mam what? I’m not happy Marty. I’m not a bit happy with any of this. You need to get yourself home where you belong, boy.”

The woman sounded like a man, “Alls I know is that he said he was un`appy at `ome, so I let him live with us. I have a houseful of teenagers. It’s a mad house. Wherever V.J goes, trouble follows so I let them all come and stay at mine so I can keep an eye on them.” That’s encouraging.

How dare he go around telling his ‘woe is me’ stories about me to strangers? “Unhappy? Unhappy? What the hell have you got to be unhappy about Marty?”

“All you ever do is have a go at me,” he wined.

Russ spoke up, “Marty your mum only has a go at you when you leave your mess all over the house. You don’t do anything at all to keep the place tidy.”

“Oh,” she said, jumping in and trying to get one up on me. “He’s as good as gold for me. He’s polite and he does anything I ask him.”

“Of course he does. It’s the honeymoon period. I can tell you now luv, it won’t last.”

“Oi, we’re not sleeping together you know, what do you take me for?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Marty actually burst out laughing. What the hell was this filthy monstrosity who was sitting on my sofa? She flicked ash onto her shrunken knee length woollen jog pants and rubbed it in before I could pass her the ashtray. Her fingernails were long talons with black lines of dirt under them. She didn’t look like a well woman.

I said something about all I ask Marty to do is bring his washing down and keep his own room tidy. I had to admire the woman’s honesty despite my opinion of her. “Well my entire house is a pig-sty, you can’t have a nice `ouse with a load of teenagers. V.j’s friends are always welcome at mine.”

I decided that she wasn’t worth talking to and her son hadn’t spoken a single word. “I want you back here where you belong Marty. What’s so bad about your home life? You have a clean house, clothes, food, your own room and a decent standard of living. These people don’t care about you. We love you and we want you to come home. I tell you now son, Col’s about ready for punching your lights out so it’s not just me. Col loves you to bits and would do anything to get you home. It’s not us Marty, or the way you make us feel, that’s not important. It’s what you’re doing to yourself. You’re living like an old dosser and throwing your life away. Honestly son, and both Col and I firmly believe this, you’re going to start stealing and robbing until you spend all your time in and out of jail and on and off smack until you die in five years time. That’s the way you’re going.”

The woman sounded as though she was going to say something in protest but I don’t think she could quite decide if there was any insult or slur against her in that little speech.

Marty actually looked as though I’d got to him. For the first time he looked uncomfortable. “Oh this is getting us nowhere. Look Mam I’m not coming home, I’m happy where I am. I’ll come and talk to you in a few days when you’ve clamed down a bit.”

They trooped out without saying goodbye and I let him go a second time.

I went to bed.