SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 23)

Peak pressure!

I was driving through the outskirts of Aberdeen city and observing, in my rear view mirror, that the driver immediately behind me was struggling with a difficult child in his car. I kept an eye on him because he was so very distracted. As the traffic ahead halted for traffic lights, I braked but the guy dealing with his child did not. His car rammed mine so hard that my hands left the steering wheel and flew upwards. My long fingernails were dug into the ceiling and then ripped off as my vehicle smashed into the taxi in front of me. Thank goodness for seatbelts, otherwise I would have hit the windscreen. All details were exchanged, the child was shocked, the taxi driver furious and my vehicle was crumpled both back and front. Miraculously all my lights were still working and I was able to continue with my journey, after tying down my bonnet and boot. My silver Vauxhall Viva looked like it belonged in a comedy sketch!

I pulled up at the front of Aberdeen’s train station where Roger was waiting at the front foyer. His face was a picture when he saw the state of my car.
”What the hell happened?” he asked as soon as he opened the passenger door. Then he saw my bleeding fingers and the torn ceiling fabric above my head. “Do you want me to drive?” he asked, but I shook my head and he got in.
I was desperate to get home.

The verdict on my car was very poor. It was a write off. However, there was nothing I could do about that, after business hours on a Friday night. I was more interested in finding out why Roger had been sacked by BP.

He explained that his wife, Anne, had sent him a very small flattened lump of cannabis resin taped within his birthday card. Somehow it had been examined on route to him and he had been called into the rig office. Any sniff of drugs on a North Sea oil rig was strictly forbidden and, much to his surprise, he was told to pack his bags. A helicopter arrived to remove him from the rig. He did not want to continue his journey home to his wife without first finding another job and so he asked to stay in Newmachar for a few days, while he scouted the other oil companies. That seemed like a good idea to me and I pointed him at the Yellow Pages book beside the telephone. “Let your fingers do the walking!” was the regular advertisement we heard on the television at the time and I repeated the catch-phrase cheerfully.

Roger was very worried and did not want his wife to take the blame for losing him his job on his birthday, of all things. He did not phone home and asked me not to contact Anne until we had some good news to sweeten the blow. Meanwhile I was developing the effects of whiplash in my neck from the crash and Roger helped me around the house for the whole weekend.

Roger was good company, but I remember that he asked me a very peculiar question. He wanted to know what it would take to make me leave Tony! I answered that I would not and I queried why he was asking that. There was something weird going on, I could feel it, but could not pin down what it might be. Roger made a lame excuse for asking, by referencing rumours about good jobs in Alaska which were on offer at BP. “If he wants to go to Alaska, of course, we will go!” I said without a second thought, but Tony had not mentioned any intention of applying for a transfer, in fact, he had never mentioned Alaska at all. I had seen nothing about Alaska in the BP regular bulletins.

Roger began job-searching in earnest from the following Monday morning. It took him only three days of phoning and interviewing before he secured a fresh start with another company. He was then able to catch the train home to Edinburgh and I was left with the sore neck and fingernails plus a trashed car which urgently needed replacing.

A day later, the shopfitting team pulled into the car park in front of my office and came into the building hooting with laughter at the state of my poor old Viva, parked there. They commented that I should hide it, because it didn’t quite convey the ‘professional image’ that I had insisted was essential for our business. The team boss astonished me by giving me the keys to his beautiful peach Mercedes Benz. “Use my car and go find a replacement right now!” he ordered in his usual no-nonsense way and he headed out to work with the rest of the team in one of the work vans.

I could not believe his generosity and I jumped at the chance to drive that lovely, leather seated luxury car. I went straight to the bank, drew out a thousand pounds and then headed to Beekies Neuk to find Mike, a local mechanic, who always had his lunch break in the pub. As luck would have it, Mike did not have much to do that day and was willing to accompany me to find a suitable car.

We toured the second-hand car lots all around Aberdeen, and there were several nice cars for sale, but nothing was good enough for Mike. It was getting dark before we found a car that he considered was reliable and good value for money. He told me to stay in the Mercedes so that he could pretend that the car was for him. He said that if the used car salesman thought I was the purchaser, the price would go sky high. That was standard practice when dealing with women, apparently!

I watched as Mike examined everything, went for a brief test drive, acted like he was not especially impressed and casually negotiated the deal. He then shook hands with the salesman and paid £800 in cash for the perfect, bright red Lancia saloon which had low mileage, a full service record and only one previous owner, a doctor who had never used the rear seats. It was a terrific steal, Mike said, absolutely delighted with his choice. I had not expected to be able to afford such a smart car! I was thrilled. Mike drove it home for me and I went to the office to leave the peach Mercedes in the car park and collect my sad, battered Vauxhall Viva. I had to keep that car on my drive for quite a while before the insurance company sent a rep out to assess it and authorise my pay out.

Tony and Dan both loved the red Lancia. It was a powerful beast and it purred. When the rest of the interior design team saw it they teased me that I was too classy for this place now! My friends at Beekies Neuk congratulated Mike on his canny skills in finding such a bargain for me. He was proud of himself and I think he gained kudos in the village to say nothing of the extra work that came his way as a result.

We spent the following Christmas and New Year with Roger and Anne in Edinburgh and we entertained friends from Clacton-on-Sea, when the weather began to clear up in spring. Elaine came to stay for a week’s holiday and had a brief love affair with Gus (of all people!) However, his habit of sitting around George’s flat in his underwear, watching porn videos put her off, as it did everyone else! By this time, Elaine was working at an employment agency in Moorgate, London and was taking the bulk of her holidays in far flung places, like India and America where she had an Aunt and cousins, but we always kept in touch with long gossipy phone calls.

It was 1980, I was 28 years old and enjoying my life, but I often felt homesick for Clacton-on-Sea. One of our old Clacton friends was going on holiday and needed someone to stay at his house to look after his breeding pair of Irish Wolf Hounds and their recently birthed puppies. Tony and I volunteered to do that and we drove down to Essex during the summer. They were big soppy lumps, those dogs! I really enjoyed looking after them and their pups.

Dan made friends with a boy called Richard who lived in the same street, so he was happy enough. One day he came back to our friend’s house a bit distressed saying that Richard’s mother was cruel and drunk. I remember calling at that house to take Dan and his new friend to the beach for the day. Richard’s mother was unpleasant, even hostile. I didn’t like Dan going there after that. I thought nothing much about it at the time but years later, Richard came into our lives again…. I will write about him in future chapters.

While we were visiting Clacton friends, I phoned my father to arrange a visit with him. He and my step-mother, Mary lived with my three younger brothers in Chelmsford. My Dad asked me if our new car had a tow bar. It was an odd question and I answered in the affirmative. “Oh good!” said my Dad but refused to elaborate. When we arrived at my Dad’s house there was a box shaped trailer parked on his drive.

He came out to greet us and gestured to the trailer. “That is a trailer tent!” he said, “and its yours!” We were amazed! It was a huge, two bedroomed tent complete with foam beds, a cooker, dining table, chairs and sundry camping equipment. It even had curtains at plastic windows and was ideal for festivals or holidays! We were absolutely thrilled with it when he showed us how easy it was to unfold and set up.

We towed it back to Scotland and the first time we used it was in early September of that year, when we went to watch the Highland Games at Balmoral. We parked on wild land alongside the riverbank and set up our chairs to watch the event taking place on the other side of the river. The Queen and her family attended as usual.

Tony was strangely insular again. He was often already drunk when I picked him up at the airport after his regular shifts. He worked on the Magnus oil field in the Arctic circle and frequently had frostbite in his beard, preventing him from shaving. The journey home involved a helicopter to the Shetland Islands and then a small plane from there to Aberdeen. His flight would arrive around 4am and I would be waiting, dressed and made up, often having to drive in treacherous conditions on slippery icy roads to get to the airport on time.

On one occasion, the weather was stormy and Tony’s flight was delayed so I hung about in the airport and got chatting to the girls who worked there. They were so bored with their job that they had lists of arrivals with ‘ratings’ beside the names. Each man was rated on his attractiveness! Some had zeros, others a rating between one and ten, but a few had ER beside the names. When I inquired about my husband’s flight, the bubbly pretty girls giggled. “He is an ER!” they said. I burst out laughing when they explained that an ER signified “erogenous rippler”!
When he finally appeared in the reception, they watched like I had a lolly and they wanted a lick! I could not help but laugh. Yeah, he was very attractive to look at, but didn’t they notice he was always drunk and often grumpy with it? Obviously not!

Tony had taken to drinking pints of Guinness followed by Drambuie chasers. He would insist on having a drink on the flight home and I was, once again, only ever seeing him drunk. I would drop him at home and go to the office to start my day by 9am. Tony would be in the pub by 11am and drinking with George. Sometimes he did not come home until George phoned for me to collect him, legless, at the end of the evening session.

Meanwhile, my job was exhausting me. I would get home at the end of the day and have to cook, clean and care for Dan too. There just weren’t enough hours in a day!

A very pretty young girl, no more than 18 or so, appeared in the bar at Beekies Neuk one evening asking Lyndia for a job at the pub. She said she needed to live-in because she was homeless. We were shocked. Homeless in Aberdeenshire is too harsh, people die in that weather! I offered her a temporary room at my house in exchange for help with the housework. This idea appealed to Amber. She jumped at the chance.

The house would be spotless and dinner served as soon as I got home from work each evening! Amber made herself very useful indeed. She told me a harrowing story about her sexually abusive father, stating that this was why she had chosen to run away from home. She had alabaster skin and long dark red curly hair framing a pixie face with blue eyes. It was only a matter of weeks before she found herself a boyfriend among the customers at Beekies Neuk. Amber loved to ride horses and we came home on one occasion to see her waiting on the drive, perched on a huge stallion which she had brought to show to Dan. I really warmed to Amber and paid her a small wage because she insisted upon taking over all the household chores including caring for Dan, if I wanted to go out during the evenings.

Then, as suddenly as she arrived, she left. I couldn’t understand it. I found out from Lyndia that Amber had moved in with her boyfriend’s family. Gossip would travel quickly around Newmachar via the pub and it was usually accurate. I didn’t understand why she had not let me know or left me a note.
She had simply cleared out of her room and scarpered.

Around that time, Lyndia was having problems with her ex-husband and she came back to our house after closing the pub one night. She decided to stay overnight because she had been drinking and did not want to drive. I was exhausted and, making my excuses went to bed, leaving her with Tony in the lounge, listening to music and smoking.

The following day Lyndia told me that Tony had attempted to have sex with her. She was very angry about it, but there was more….. she had discovered why Amber had left so abruptly. Tony had almost raped Amber while I was out at work. She had only escaped his assault by feigning a need to use the bathroom and locking herself inside until he had gone out!

I was devastated and frankly, embarrassed.
As 1980 came to a close people in the village were looking at me in sympathy.
It was unbearable.