SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 21)

Preparing for changes

I soon identified a number of things missing from my life.
One of those ‘things’ was another child but it simply had never happened. I had never used contraception since I had tried the coil inserted into my womb, shortly after Dan was born. Tony had complained that he could feel it so I had it removed after only wearing it for a few months. After that I considered the contraceptive pill but another baby was appealing to me, so I just let nature follow its course.
I had never forgotten the words of the Maharajah who had told me, "You will have a very important son and then wait a long time for another". I was beginning to wonder just how long I would have to wait. I consulted my doctor and he told me a crapola of a story about bunnies stopping producing if their warrens get over populated. I decided not to bother that doctor again.

As September of 1978 rolled in, Tony’s behaviour took a massive change for the worse, but in such an unexpected way that I had to take charge and whisk him away for a holiday. It all began with him returning from the Sea Conquest rig unable to stop crying. I was shocked. Tony had never been one to show his emotions, in fact, he only seemed to have one emotion and that was sneering at the world.

Thankfully, I had been secretly saving for a Bang & Olufsen sound system. I was intending to buy one for Tony’s birthday in December and had almost reached the target, a very high price. When Tony was unable to stop crying, I realised that I had to get him away from prying eyes, so I suggested we quickly pack a few things and drive to Durdle Door in Dorset for a break. He agreed immediately and we left very early the following morning.

I knew that it would be easy to rent a caravan in September, on the windswept Jurassic Coast. I had been there many times as a child for family holidays. It is a place I associate with raw nature, clean seawater and much happiness. I hoped it would work its magic on my tearful husband. I think, looking back on it now, that Tony was having a nervous breakdown at that time, but I was never given any explanation about what had triggered it. I was left to work it out for myself, many years later.

On the 7th September 1978 Keith Moon of the Who died suddenly. We spent the whole of that night singing Who songs along with the radio in the caravan, overlooking the wild sea. We were devastated that he had died at only 32 years of age. The following day we walked for many miles, climbing up and down the undulating Jurassic Coast. Tony began to laugh again. We slid down the steepest hills and friction burned huge holes in the bums of our jeans. It was a lovely holiday and I remember that Dan was particularly happy too. Sacrificing my savings was worth it to see them both enjoy the impromptu holiday.

I was not in love with Tony any more, that much was painfully obvious, but that did not mean I didn’t care about him.
In a cold objective analysis, I would say that I was actually using him to provide me with a lifestyle that supported the home and my endless studies. Simultaneously, he was using me as a housekeeper/PA/dogsbody, so I felt the deal was at least equal if somewhat irregular. We never mentioned the emotional episode which triggered our sudden holiday in Dorset. Whatever it was, it was gone, buried under the illusions we maintained around ourselves for our family and friends in Clacton-on-Sea.

My life continued, with a dizzying array of parties and people staying at my home. One brief period saw one of Tony’s sisters occupying our spare room. She was also a big drinker, hiding endless empty vodka bottles in the cupboard under the sink. She filed her fingernails to a vicious point and Tony eventually threw her out of our house after she gouged one of his friends’ back with several deep gashes. I ran after her to give her some money so that she could get the train back to Glasgow. That was a weird episode, because I later discovered that she had told her parents and other family members that it was I who had ejected her from our home. I guessed she did this to cover up the real reason why Tony was so angry with her.

In 1979 Elaine announced in a letter that she was coming back to the UK but intended to go to live in Rainham, Essex with her parents. This struck me as very odd. Elaine's fierce independence seemed to have been curtailed by her experiences in Israel, but I waited to see her with much anticipation because I had missed our girlie chats and sharing of everything. I had no other female friends that I trusted in quite the same way as Elaine.

I was getting uncomfortable about my devotion to Dougie because he did not seem to want to progress beyond the level of non-commitment we currently had. There was never any chance of him and I setting up a home together and then, suddenly, he announced that he was seeing another woman, who was cooking for him and doing his washing and ironing. I tried to act as if this was not touching me in any way but it was. I wanted to be his woman. However I realised that this would never happen. It was an impossible dream.

I started to feel rejected and, as luck would have it, I had a bad fall on the beach one day while I was selling ice cream that summer. I slipped a couple of discs in my spine, putting myself out of action long enough to sulkily reassess my situation.

Six weeks laid flat on the lounge floor in agony was no fun. This time I had no helpful Elaine to pick up the household reins, so my home quickly became a mess. People would still visit, but it never seemed to dawn on any one of them to actually clean up after themselves at all. Tony came and went to his oil rig and pretty much left me to it.
Dan was typically absorbed with his experiments or out on his bike with his friends. I had a lot of time alone, so I thought hard about my circumstances and how to fill the gaping hole I seemed to have in my heart.

To say that I was becoming embittered, maybe even depressed, would be an understatement.

There came a Friday night when Tony went out for his usual weekend binge and I was steaming angry that the house was in such a dreadful state. I painfully crawled from the lounge to the kitchen, which was really cold and piled high with dirty dishes and washing. I dragged myself up by the kitchen sink and stood up as straight as I could for the first time in weeks.
The world went pink, red and then abruptly black.
I regained consciousness lying awkwardly on the stone cold floor but there was something strange. There was no pain. I picked myself up to discover that I must have fainted with the pain of standing and then I must have fallen in such a way as to knock the two discs back into their allotted places. I was pain free, but very weak.
It doesn't take long for muscles to go soft with lack of use.
I set about cleaning up the kitchen and by the time Tony reappeared home from his night out I was vacuuming the lounge and he thought nothing of it, as if he had not noticed that I had miraculously recovered from my spine injury.

I practically ignored his existence after that. During the very next day, I applied to work at a large local supermarket, stacking shelves. There was a very good logical reason for this. I wanted to strengthen the muscles in my back so that they were like cords of twisted steel and my fragile discs would be supported. In this way I would prevent a relapse.

Every evening from 5pm until 9pm I treated shelf stacking as a training session.
It did not take long before I was able to feel the difference in all my muscles.
I was back on physical form!

One of my favourite friends had been away for years, working as a roadie with various bands and celebrities. John had a few contracts under his belt and was very experienced at mounting and dismounting musical equipment. He got a contract working for a famous band as they toured America. At the end of that tour, he suddenly returned to Clacton to visit his family. He popped in to visit during the early afternoon of one Saturday and offered me some cocaine which he had smuggled from Los Angeles.

I had never tried cocaine before. I thought it would make a nice change from the uninspired dullness I was feeling at that time. He gave me one small line just before I left to go to work at the supermarket. I remember that I was wearing my uniform and I remember that I came up on a headrush like no other I had ever experienced just as I passed through the supermarket back doors.
I raced through my work and finished the shift helping others. I was so energised that I ran all the way home and flew up to the bathroom to bath and wash my hair. Within less than an hour I was running down to our favourite local pub, Reg Brown's, dressed in an Indian muslin, multi-coloured dress and not a lot else.
I remember being unusually thirsty and I gulped down about a pint of cider before someone mentioned that Babs was having a party at her new home in the old nurse's bungalows at the back of the hospital.
"Cool!" I said and decided that it would be a great idea to run there next! I ran out of the pub and set off towards Babs' when I noticed pounding feet following me. I stopped and turned to see Jai chasing me at full speed. When he caught up he said breathlessly, "Why are you running? Chill out!"
I replied, "Why are you following me?" and felt a little irritable that I could never go anywhere without someone trying to tell me what to do or not to do.

There was only a few hundred yards left to go and so we walked along together chatting. Jai tried to pretend that he was going to Babs' party too, but I realised that he was just keeping the vow to keep an eye on me all the time. The vow that the boys had made about never leaving me alone for a single night again. Since the rape that vow had been noticeably and rigorously honoured, yet the rape had been 3 years ago by that time.

Thanks to one solitary line of Los Angeles cocaine, I spent the whole of that night running. I ran to the beach, I ran along the beach. I ran to the airfield and I completed a circular route back to my house by running through the streets, barefoot in the middle of the night. I was exhilarated by the running and when I finally got home, with Jai still hot on my heels, I was in a terrific mood. This effect was all the more unusual for the fact that, previously in my life and ever since, I have hated running!

Jai and I spent the remaining hours until dawn rolling each other around the lounge floor and Jai proved that he could still make love like a bunny on long life batteries!
At dawn (12 hours after John had given me the line) the cocaine was finally wearing off and I lay listening to the bird’s chorus, thinking out loud.
"Blimey," I said to Jai, "I don't think I had better have any more of THAT stuff!" He agreed, exhausted and glad to hear that he would not have to run all around town again!

Luckily I did not work on Sundays, because the next day I was so emotionally messed up that I was crying at television soap opera rubbish which never usually touched me.
I was definitely not going to have cocaine again! It was too fierce a high, closely followed by too deep a low.

I was still looking for what else was missing from my life. I figured that, whatever it was, it was not going to be available from drug dealers, but I still did not have any idea how I was going to find it…. whatever ‘it’ was.

On the following Monday morning, a large brown paper package dropped heavily through the letter box and onto the front door mat. I blearily went to collect it. It was from BP and, as Tony never read any documentation, I opened it to see if it was important.
He was offshore, so I was expecting just more reports and company spin about how blooming marvellous BP was. However, this package was entirely a different kettle of fish and it smelled very good. It was ‘an offer we could not refuse’. The paperwork spelled out quite clearly that for Tony to be promoted any higher within his profession he would need to move to the Aberdeen area.
The offer was stupendous.
All moving costs were generously covered, even pre-visits with hotel stays to find suitable permanent accommodation was factored into the deal. There was also a large cash incentive to cover incidental expenses.

I sat in my kitchen and spent hours reading the minutiae and fine print. The deal was indeed one of the most tempting offers I had ever seen and not only that, as I considered the idea of living 600 miles away from Clacton and all that it represented in my life, it looked like it held a potential to begin again, to even heal the hole I was sensing in my heart.

When Tony returned home at the end of his regular 14-day shift, I was buzzing with the idea. He, of course, was doubtful and reluctant. I could see that this would take some persuasion and I set about explaining all the details of the deal and that BP had conveyed it in such a way that should he refuse it, he was unlikely to be offered further promotion with the company.

I asked him to think about it.

Out of the blue, a few days later, Tony suddenly agreed to check out properties to buy around Aberdeen by going back to the rig a day early and returning a day late. He stated that he did not want all the work of another big restoration project, so he intended to look for new builds. He had very exacting standards, having worked on enough shoddily built new housing estates to see that builders frequently cut corners. He insisted on visiting all sites in person to see if the workmanship matched the plans he was shown by the slick salesmen who plied him with brochures.

Finally, after several months of searching, I was beginning to suspect that he was simply having a fine time drinking in Aberdeen with his rig buddies, rather than actually looking for a new home for us. But he surprised me suddenly with a gorgeous brochure and announced that he had finally found a top class builder who was planning one exclusive cul-de-sac on the outskirts of a village called Newmachar, about 15 miles north of Aberdeen city but only 6 miles from the airport and BP’s extensive Head Offices.

We had a choice of 12 similar detached houses with good sized gardens and the only one that I liked was the one that was to be built broadside on to the proposed roadway directly at the end of the proposed banjo shaped plot.
Tony grinned, "Yep, best views from there too!" He pointed out that the one I had selected was the only house on the plot which had a clear view from the rear, all the way across the lowlands, over the airport and as far as the North Sea 15 miles away.
The front aspect faced the high Grampian Hills which he said glowed with purple and yellow heather in spring and throughout the summer. It was the house he preferred too.

I waited with intense anxiety as Tony phoned the agents. He offered a deposit on No.12 Blackbraes Way which was just a muddy field at that time. He came off the phone triumphant! We set about putting our newly completed, restored home at the back of the Town Hall, Clacton-on-Sea up for sale. We were getting out of the Den of Iniquity and it would not be a day too soon, I hoped.

"This will make or break us!" I said to him solemnly and he looked a little quizzical.
I did not elaborate on my statement in any way. Tony was concerned that my love of beach life and hot summers would be sacrificed. Aberdeenshire is windy, cold and harsh in winter, he told me.
At that point I did not care. I just wanted to get Tony away from drinking like a fish, shagging Lorraine and maybe, just maybe, he could stay sober long enough for his personality to return to normal. Maybe, just maybe, we could revive our marriage.

It was a very long shot. I wanted to take it.