Essex Boy: My Story (2 page)

But my favourite thing about that bungalow was the pigeons.
Dad had a loft at the end of the garden where he kept the birds, and he used to take them off and race them.
It was a hobby of his,
and I thought it was great.
After he had trained them to use their homing instinct, someone would collect them on a Friday and head off to another part of the country.
Then on the Saturday morning
the birds would be released, and he would have to sit and wait, and hope they reappeared quickly!
I loved the pigeons, and would toddle my way down to the loft and just stare at the birds.

Even now, when I imagine the perfect home that I want for myself, it is a bungalow with a pigeon loft out the back – then I reckon I’d be sorted.
I guess that proves it was generally
a happy time, the first few years of my life, if a house like that is what I link with happiness in my head.

My memories at that age are all jumbled – just fleeting pictures and impressions that don’t always make a lot of sense – but I do know that my dad isn’t
in a lot of them.
I guess he was working so much it was hard for him to be around.
I can’t say whether he wanted to see us more but couldn’t, or if he was happier out of the house.
I do
know he wasn’t involved in bringing us up much, though, partly because now when we talk about being young, Mum will say, ‘I remember the first time I gave you a bath,’ or
‘You would always do this thing when you were a baby and crying,’ or whatever, and Dad never has anything to say like that.

I also know he did have to work hard to keep the money coming in, and even though he was such a grafter, we were always right on the edge of getting by.
Dad even had to steal toilet paper from
work, as he needed to save money any way he could.
It was ridiculous.
He would head off to work on a motorbike – Dad has always been a huge fan of motorbikes, and I don’t think I have
ever known him to be without one – and come back with a couple of toilet rolls in his bag at the end of the day.

Mum and Dad really did start with nothing, and couldn’t make ends meet without skimping a lot, but they wanted to slowly but surely build up a life for themselves.
Not that us kids were
aware of any of this at the time – we just lived in the moment, and that was it.
We had no idea if we were rich, poor, whatever!

One of Dad’s friends, Chris, told me how Dad had always been ambitious, in a business way, even when he didn’t have a penny to his name.
He said that to earn money the first winter
after they had passed their driving tests, he and Dad decided to ride round in a truck they borrowed from a friend, with a chainsaw, looking for any house where a tree had blown down in the garden
or was blocking the driveway.
Then they would knock on the door and start bargaining.

‘We’ll get rid of that fallen tree for you for £20.
You won’t get a better offer than that now!’

‘Oh, I’m sure I can call the council out .
.
.’

‘And how long will that take?
It would make a lot more sense for you to use us, madam.’

And inevitably they would get their way, and make some extra cash carrying out fairly standard work – he was working mad, my Dad!
So was Chris, who was a bit of an uncle to me over the
years.
The two of them always had some new scheme or idea.
They still do!

One of the few times I can remember my dad being at home with us is as clear as anything in my mind.
It’s an amazing memory, but also quite scary – and the fact that I can still see
even the tiniest details in my mind shows just how much of an impression it made on me.

I was about three years old.
Dad came in from work, got changed into a red vest top and gym joggers, lay down on the sofa and pulled Daniel up to sit with him.
I was on the floor in front of the
sofa, and I still have the picture of them in my mind, looking up at them on this blue sofa with white flecks all over it, Dad with his arm protectively around Daniel.
Mum put her head through from
the kitchen where she was cooking, and she had a custard tin in her hand – the yellow and blue one with a bird on it, Bird’s Custard.
Our latest dog, Bella, a short-haired Staffie that
my dad had bought recently, was wandering around.
Although Oscar was still alive, sadly he wouldn’t last much longer, so it was good that we had Bella already around.
She was as soft as
anything and I already loved her to bits.

At that moment it was just a really nice family picture.
That’s how I guess most families are a lot of the time, but it’s one of my very few memories of us like that.

But then Dad put a film on the TV.
It was
Terminator 2
, which had just come out on video.
And, well, I’ve never been so scared in my life.
I watched the whole thing through,
literally sat rooted to the spot, too scared even to cry.
By the time Mum took me to the toilet before bed, I was hysterical.
I was convinced I could see the Terminator next to me, this huge,
muscly half-man, half-machine creature, with bits of flesh missing from his face, and metal shining through the gaps in his skin, with his one piercing red eye staring at me.
I was crying my eyes
out and had nightmares for ages afterwards.
Even now it makes me shudder, and I can hardly watch scary films, so nice one, thanks for that, Dad!

We would all watch
Only Fools and Horses
together as well.
I didn’t really understand the show at the time, but I always associated it with getting milk and Maryland cookies.
Mum
would give them to Daniel and me as the opening theme tune came on, and we’d all sit there together on the sofa laughing at Del Boy and Rodney.
I swear, even now, when I hear that music on
TV, I have to go and get myself a glass of milk!

When I was four I started in the infants’ class at school.
I went to St Thomas of Canterbury, a Catholic primary school on Ward Avenue in Grays.
It was just an ordinary
local state school – I don’t think there was a private school in our area.
No one would have had the money to pay for it, so it would have been pointless.

Dad would drive Daniel and me there in a work van he had by then, most days before he headed off to the docks.
There was no school within walking distance of our house, but St Thomas was only a
short drive away.
Then at the end of the day we would get the bus home with my mum after she’d picked us up.

I was proud of my school uniform when I first got it, especially the stripy blue-and-red tie – it was a good one, that was!
We also had to wear a grey jumper and trousers, a white shirt
and black shoes.
You can see how proud I am in my uniform from the photo of me on my first day at school.
They insisted on us being well presented, even at that young age.
It was a very religious
school – we would have Bible readings and sing from a hymn book before break and at the end of the day.

Daniel and I went to church with Dad most Sundays as well, which I think was a good thing.
I even went to classes to get ready for my Holy Communion.
I got a real grounding in basic moral ideas
and had a religious belief drilled into me from a young age, and I guess that is why I’m still a hundred per cent religious today, although it is not something I talk about much.
The way I
see it, religion might offer false hope to make people feel better – when you die you’ll be fine, you have nothing to worry about and all that – but if someone ends up happier,
then who cares?
I sometimes think I believe in God partly to make myself feel better about things, but I don’t see that as wrong.
So I did start praying when I was a kid, and it is something
I have carried on in my life ever since.

As far as school went, I wasn’t very interested.
I’m not a naturally sociable person, and I wasn’t keen to hang out with all these kids I didn’t know.
Although I try not
to let it show these days, I’m pretty shy, and not someone who likes huge groups of people, so school was the wrong environment for me.
And I wasn’t enthusiastic about the lessons
either – I just thought they were boring.
I didn’t really care about learning to read, or adding numbers together, and besides, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
It seemed to me that
other kids were getting the basics, but mostly I didn’t have a clue what the teacher was on about.
In those early days I just sat there and put up with it.
I was restless, but I stuck it out
because I didn’t think I had a choice.

While I was still in the infants’ class, we moved to a new house.
It was a town house at 12 Borley Court, off Welling Road in Orsett, a pretty ordinary village just a few
miles down the road from Blackshot.
It was a lovely place in a cul-de-sac on a new estate that had just been built – I think we were literally the first to move into the road, which was weird
but cool.

It was a tall, thin, brown brick house over three storeys, with a massive kitchen that had a big table in it where we could eat, a toilet and a hallway on the ground floor, with a door from the
hall through into the garage, so you didn’t even have to go outside to get into your car.
On the first floor there was a huge living room and a bathroom, then on the top floor the bedroom I
shared with Daniel, my parents’ room and a spare box room.

Mum was my whole world, as she was the one who was at home with us.
I don’t remember Dad being around much at this time.
Back then I never questioned how things were, but later on when I
was a teenager and thought about it, I resented it.
It is only now my thinking has gone full circle – I understand that he was under a lot of pressure to bring in money, so I am back to
accepting that is the way it was.

Dad was such a grafter partly because, as I said, he was traditional in his thinking, and took on all the responsibility for keeping the family in money.
But then he put himself under extra
pressure too.
Dad is not the kind of man to just get by in life, or accept a mediocre standard of living for the rest of his years.
He wanted our lives to keep improving – which is why we had
managed to move from the bungalow to the town house.
His attitude was paying off.

I only really have one memory of him in that house.
He had ordered a table to be delivered and it had arrived with a scratch on it, and he was arguing with the delivery man, saying,
‘I’ve paid for it, so if it doesn’t arrive in perfect condition, of course you’re going to take it back and bring me a new one, or I want a refund.’

It’s a strange thing to remember, but it pretty much sums up his attitude to money and business, so it makes sense!

What really sticks in my mind from that time is his smell – of the docks, of metal work, and of the warehouse.
It’s not a dirty smell .
.
.
it’s hard to describe, but I guess
it is like a grafting man’s smell.
What you can imagine someone who had spent a hard day welding down at the docks would smell like.

Even these days, if a car mechanic, or someone who works in that kind of job, is near me, the smell from their overalls instantly takes me back to being four-year-old Kirk living in Orsett,
running to see my dad when he got in from the docks, before he had had a chance to shower and change, and then head out for his evening’s work.

A Family Divided

After we had been in the house for about six months, and I had just turned five, my mum and dad had a proper massive row in the kitchen.
And I don’t mean the usual kind
of argument that Daniel and I were used to hearing, where they would dig at each other, shout a bit, then one of them would walk off.
This was a blood-curdling, screaming fight that made us stop
playing out in the corridor and listen in shock.
It seemed to go on and on and on and on .
.
.
We didn’t know what to do, so in the end I think we both started crying!

I don’t think Dad ever hit her – he was too much of a gentleman to do that – and she would never have gone for him either, but this argument really was something else.
Later I
found out that she had finally confronted him about a woman called Stacie who worked at the club, who Mum thought Dad had been seeing.
Apparently she had suspected there was something between them
for some time, but had turned a blind eye.
Mum told me later that when she had questioned Dad on Stacie in the past, his attitude had been dismissive, along the lines of, ‘Go on then, if you
think it’s true, prove it!’
And Mum would just let it go.
I don’t think she really wanted to know the truth.
If she ignored it, she could think that the affair would run its
course and Dad would see sense and turn his attention back to her.
But this time .
.
.
well, it turned out her brother had spotted Dad and Stacie in a car together, and I guess they were kissing or
whatever, and then he had told my mum.
So she had to face reality now, and this was the showdown.

The problem was, she gave him an ultimatum – her or the other woman.
Maybe she always thought he would choose her, but he didn’t.
He chose the other woman, so that was it.

‘How could you do this to me, you fucking shit!
Just get out!
I hate you!’
she yelled.
There was all sorts coming from the kitchen.
And it seemed to go on for hours.
Then Mum stormed
out into the corridor with tears streaming down her face, and said to us, ‘You need to go and say goodbye to your dad, boys.
He is leaving.’

And somehow, even at five years old, I knew this was serious and we were saying goodbye to him for good.
Daniel and I looked at each other and ran into the kitchen, where our dad sat us
down.

‘Boys,’ he said, ‘I’m leaving.
But don’t think you won’t see me again – you will.
I just have to get myself sorted and then I will come back and see
you.
Without me here, though, you are the men of the house.
It’s up to you to behave like grown-up men and look after your mum.
Do you promise to do that?’

I stared at him, and nodded, thinking of all the things he did as the man of the house, and wondering how I was going to be able to do all that.
I felt a bit proud as well, though, and
determined that I would do a good job, and I stood up a little bit straighter.
But then I thought about the fact that he was leaving us, and suddenly it was all just too much.

Daniel was obviously feeling the same.
He grabbed Dad’s car keys, and we both ran out the front, and my brother threw them down into the drain.
I suppose we thought if we could stop him
driving he wouldn’t be able to leave us.
That would be the end of this stupid row, and he would stay, and we could carry on as we were.

But Dad did manage to leave somehow – I can’t remember if he got the drain up, or found a spare set of keys – and suddenly that was it.
Mum was telling him, ‘Go on,
go!’, and he was getting in the car and going, just these two black plastic bin bags full of his stuff with him – all he was taking away from his life with us.
Then he was driving off
down the road, and Daniel and I just stood there, staring after him until the car became a dot in the distance and turned out of sight.

Then the crying began.
I swear Mum didn’t stop crying for about a year after Dad left.
It was non-stop, all the time, and Daniel and I just didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t
help it.
I think she had proper depression, and I can’t blame her – her world had been torn apart.
She was still only twenty-five and now found herself all on her own with two kids, no
job and no husband.
All her future dreams had been shattered.
She was allowed to be upset.
Fuck, I’d be a total wreck if that happened to me, and I’m a bloke!
Mum got married when she
was just eighteen, so she was going to be a housewife, grow old with my dad and bring us two boys up – that’s all she had in her head.
Now she had to find a whole new plan, get a job
and make decisions all by herself, but she just wasn’t strong enough to cope at that time.

That night I slept in her bed.
I don’t know if I needed comfort, or if in my new role as one of the men of the house I’d decided it was my job, but I think it reassured both of us.
So much so that it became a habit that would continue for the next ten years of my life.
I’d go to my mum’s bed with her to check she was all right, and then later in the evening when
she had stopped crying and gone to sleep, and I was sure she was safe, I would go back to my own bed to sleep.
I’ve never told anyone that – a boy sleeping in his mum’s bed until
he is a teenager somehow sounds wrong, but from the day my dad left, Mum took on an even more protective role towards us, and I felt like I now had that kind of role for her too.
Making sure she
slept safely was just one small part of that.

Once I was back in my own bed I wasn’t alone either.
Bella the Staffie would come and climb in with me, get under the duvet and literally put a paw around me.
It was as though she knew
something was up and things were changing, and she wanted to reassure me.
I swear that dog was like part of the family.
I loved her about as much as a sister – if I’d had one!

For me, the first obvious effect of Dad leaving was the way I was with Mum.
I’d always been a proper mummy’s boy, but as soon as Dad left I got even more clingy
around her.
I didn’t like going to school because it meant leaving her, and I would have all sorts of tantrums to try not to go.
I was so dependent on her it was ridiculous.
It was like I was
still a baby, clinging on to her and wanting her to carry me around with her everywhere.
I don’t know if it was because I was afraid to lose another parent.
I don’t know how she put up
with it, though!

This was probably one of the reasons why I didn’t have a good time at school in those days – Mum couldn’t be there with me, so I resented it.
Why would I want to be in a
building with a load of strangers, when I could be at home with her instead?
I also remember that kids in school were always talking about their families and their parents, and it all sounded so
lovely and complete.
‘Oh, Mummy and Daddy did this with me at the weekend,’ ‘Mummy and Daddy took me there last night,’ – all the kind of stories that just showed me
what I was missing.
It almost felt like everyone was trying to rub in my face that I didn’t have what they had.
One time we even had to draw a picture of our families at home, and I
didn’t know what to do – should I put Dad in the house or not?
Mine wasn’t this nice complete family like everyone else seemed to have.
Mine had just been torn apart.

We didn’t see my dad for a bit after he left.
He must have been crashing at a friend’s or something.
But then one day he pulled up alongside the car park near our
house where Daniel and I were playing out front, and we ran over.
I didn’t know what to say to him.
Deep down I’ve always loved him, as he’s my dad, but I also felt so much hate
for him at that time.
Looking back, it scares me how much hatred I had for the man who created me, but all I could think at the time was that he had left me, and, more importantly, he was making
Mum feel so much pain.

‘How’s it going, boys?’
he asked.
‘I’m going to get myself a place sorted soon, and then you can come over and stay with me for weekends.
Would you like
that?’

I refused to answer, staring the other way while Daniel chatted happily.
He was mature about the whole situation from a young age, and just accepted that our dad wasn’t living with us.
He
didn’t feel the anger that I did.
Daniel knew that Dad loved him, and was happy to see him, and that was all that mattered.
But all I wanted was to make my mum happy – fuck everyone
else.
I loved her and she was everything to me, so it killed me to see her upset, and I always blamed my dad.

At the end of that first visit he tried to give us some money.
He had five pounds for each of us, a note for Daniel and coins for me.
When he passed me my share I threw it back at him and
yelled, ‘I don’t want your fucking money!’
Even at that age I swore at him – I was so angry.
I had heard my parents swearing when they argued, and knew it added an extra
force to what I was saying.

He looked shocked but he didn’t tell me off.
He just said, ‘Bye, boys, I’ll be back soon, I promise,’ and drove off, the money still lying on the ground.
Of course once
he was out of sight I started picking it up – only to look up and see he had turned the car round the roundabout at the end of the road, and was driving back past, watching me do it.
Gutted!

He has since told me that he would do that turn around the roundabout every visit, just so he could see us one more time.
But back then I didn’t realize that – I just thought he had
caught me out, and I wasn’t happy about it!

After that he would pop round now and then, never calling at the house, instead pulling up next to the car park if we were there, to say ‘hello’.
I’d always go over, but
I’d do it moodily, and make it clear I resented him – although I didn’t want to miss a chance to see him either, because he was my dad, and I loved him!
It was a real mixed-up
load of strong emotions for a young kid to deal with.

After a couple of months my dad did get a place, and he came to pick us up one Saturday so we could spend the day with him.
Part of me was excited, but another bit of me felt I
was letting my mum down.
She was crying so much when we left that I felt like a traitor, and nearly didn’t go.

This was also when we learned for sure that Dad had left Mum for another woman – we hadn’t been told about Stacie at this point.
Before we left with Dad, Mum said, ‘There might
be a woman at Dad’s house, the woman he cheated on me with, who I think he is in a relationship with now.
Watch out for her, and tell me what she is like, but don’t be nice to her
– remember what she did to our family!’

And we nodded, confused by the idea that someone could have done that.
We could feel the hatred pouring out of Mum as she talked about her.
But on that first visit when we pulled up, there was
no sign of this other mystery woman, so I stopped thinking about her.

Dad’s new place was a one-bedroom flat in a shithole of a place, a real slum of an area in Grays.
It was just opposite Seabrooke Rise, which was known as one of the worst estates in Essex.
The flat underneath my dad’s had all its windows boarded up, as the previous tenant had killed his wife and kids before committing suicide in there.
Understandably no one had wanted to live
there since.

I was shocked my dad was living in such a horrible place, but I guess he had put all his money into the house we were living in, and he was having to start again with very little.
Looking back,
I wonder if he had known he was going to split up with Mum one day, so moved us all into a better house before he did it.
I like to think he wanted to see us all sorted and settled before he left,
which I guess is something I have to give him credit for.
Then again, maybe it was as much of a shock to him as to me when he moved out.
Maybe he thought he would have been able to see Stacie and
stay with Mum and us.
I don’t know, and really that is Dad’s business, not mine.

I don’t remember what we did that first visit – I don’t think we stayed overnight – but what always sticks in my mind is that as we were leaving, pulling out into the
road in the car, a woman with brown hair came walking up and Dad gave her the house keys.

‘Dad, who is that?’
Daniel asked.

‘Just the cleaner, so she needs my keys,’ he replied casually, looking straight ahead out the front of the car, and we thought nothing more of it.

But after a few more visits we found out differently.
‘The cleaner’ was in the house, and Dad introduced her as Stacie, his new girlfriend.
I don’t know if he thought we
wouldn’t remember her from that first visit, but we did.
I was so angry.
I didn’t say anything, but in my head I was shouting at him, ‘You liar, that wasn’t the cleaner!
Mum’s right, you really did leave us for another woman.
You’ve just split from Mum, and you’re already living with this woman Stacie.
I hate you and her!’
But I kept it all
inside my head and just stood, staring at them all angrily.