Misadventures (11 page)

B
arbara and I got on very well together. We arrived home from work at the same time every evening so we would chat to each other as we cooked our dinners. She would tell me of her life in Italy.

Barbara said, ‘When my youngest child, Silvia,
was two years old we were living in the mountains of Italy and my in-laws had come up to see us. It was a nice summer's evening and we were walking up the road with the children when Silvia started playing with the bars of the iron fence at the edge of the mountain. She had about six adults looking after her and the next thing I knew she fell straight through the bars and rolled about forty feet down the mountainside to the lower road. I thought she'd bloody killed herself! Adrian and me rushed down the path. I picked her up and we ran to the car and Adrian drove like crazy for about ten miles to the nearest doctor. I was shaking like a leaf but when the doctor examined Silvia he said there was nothing wrong with her at all – but he gave me a supply of tranquillisers.'

Once Barbara's young family were of school age she found herself a part-time job teaching Italian children to speak English in a classroom set in the mountains. On a winter's evening at ‘home time' one of Barbara's eleven-year-old boy pupils asked her if she would like a lift on his toboggan on the twenty-minute journey down to the village. Barbara told me, ‘I must have been mad but I got on to the back of his toboggan. It was pitch-black, no street lights anywhere, and we went down the mountain road in all the snow and ice and he went faster and faster until we were bombing along. When he wanted to go left
he stuck out his left foot and when he wanted to go right he stuck out his right foot, I held on tight to him and tried not to panic. There was a steady stream of cars coming up the road so I said to him, “What about all this traffic?” He said, “It's alright. You can see everyone's lights before they come round the bends.” I was absolutely petrified and by the time we got to the bottom of the mountain I was a nervous wreck. I staggered off his bloody toboggan and he said to me, “I bet you won't want another lift from me, Miss.”'

Whilst Barbara was in Italy she had to have an operation for gallstones. She told me, ‘The orderly came to collect me from the ward and put me on a trolley to take me into the operating theatre. He was running through the corridors with me when he took a corner too fast and I shot off the trolley and went crunch on the floor. He tried to get me back on it but I was too frightened and told him “No,” so he jumped up and down shaking his hands saying, “Mamma mia, Mamma mia,” and he had to get me a wheelchair, and that was how I went into the operating theatre.'

Barbara finally returned to London with her Italian boyfriend, Luciano. One weekend she decided to take him to Brighton. They were sitting on the crowded train chatting in Italian when
Luciano's thoughts turned to sex. He rubbed his left foot slowly up and down Barbara's right leg and this aroused Barbara. She looked at him and asked, ‘Where?' Luciano replied, ‘In the lavatory.' They quietly walked across the compartment to the toilet adjoining their carriage and squeezed into the tiny room. Barbara took off her jeans as Luciano dropped his trousers. In his haste he squashed her between the door and the washbasin. Barbara's foot wedged on the water release button on the floor and the small sink filled and overflowed. This did not deter them and they had sex in their cramped position. As Barbara was jammed against the door it banged every time Luciano plunged into her. Soon, passion overtook them and their rhythm echoed throughout that section of the train. With lust sated they refreshed themselves, attended to their clothing and stepped out of the closet, returning to their original seats through the still crowded compartment, speaking in Italian without a thought to the other passengers.

A
s I returned from lunch I passed Reception and saw Paula leafing through a large clothing catalogue. I went over to her and said, ‘Hello. Can I have a look too?' She replied, ‘Yes, of course. The book belongs to Irene upstairs and she's running it as an agency so if you want anything just tell her.'

Paula and I turned the pages exchanging our opinions on the various clothing until she asked, ‘What colour suits you, Sylvia?' I replied, ‘As I have dark hair practically every colour suits me except nigger-brown.' I suddenly realised what I'd said and in my embarrassment I quickly carried on talking about anything I could think of, while Paula nodded and smiled at me pretending she hadn't heard anything untoward. After rabbitting away about nothing for a further five minutes, I beat a hasty retreat to my office.

M
artina and I went out together occasionally despite our age gap and we kept in touch after our bookings ended.

In the summer Martina returned to Ireland for a two-week holiday. As she had recently passed her driving test she persuaded a friend to allow her to borrow her car, enabling her to travel across the country visiting her scattered family.

Martina was driving at speed as she passed a shopping arcade. She looked in the window of a clothing store but turned round too late to stop at a red traffic light. She slammed the brakes on
but this did not prevent her from crashing into the stationary Austin Metro ahead. Both drivers surveyed the damage. The other vehicle suffered a pushed-in boot and buckled bodywork. Steam was hissing out of the front of Martina's Ford and the bumper lay in the road. She was asked for details of her insurance but unfortunately she had not bought any.

On her return to London Martina received an invoice from the injured party's garage totalling one thousand five hundred pounds. She also had to pay five hundred pounds for the repair of her friend's car. As she had no savings she arranged a bank loan. Her brother tried to help and gave her three hundred pounds towards the bill. Martina worked overtime each evening and at weekends for the following eighteen months until she had cleared her debt.

H
earing a commotion outside all the patients in the waiting room peered through the windows into the street to see a black child lying unconscious at the wheels of a car. The receptionist poked her head through her hatch then swiftly entered Dr Birrell's adjoining surgery. She telephoned for an ambulance as he hurried into the street.

Dr Birrell examined the child where he lay. Soon the little boy began to recover. Dr Birrell lifted him into his arms and carried him inside saying to his anxious patients as he passed them, ‘There's no serious damage done to him.' He
settled the boy on his couch and returned to the woman driver who had followed him into the surgery. He asked ‘And how are you?' She replied, ‘I'm perfectly alright, thank you.' He said, ‘If you leave your name and address with my receptionist I see no reason why you should not go home as I'm quite sure the child has not come to any harm.'

Shortly, an ambulance arrived and the little boy was transported to hospital for the necessary check up.

The general opinion in the surgery was, ‘What an ideal place to have an accident.'

An article appeared in the local newspaper the following Thursday detailing the incident. The hospital comment was, ‘The child was badly shaken but had no injuries other than a few bruises and it was not necessary to detain him.'

S
haunagh always had a carefree attitude to life and very little upset her. Despite horrendous events happening to her she usually landed on her feet. On the rare occasion when she didn't she was quick to come to terms with the situation and once again happiness would rule her world.

Shaunagh loved to do her shopping in Sainsbury's. If the load was too heavy to carry she simply wheeled the trolley out of the store and all the way home. On one of my visits I saw two Sainsbury's shopping trolleys in her back garden.

Shaunagh loved loud music and a blaring
TV and didn't pay too much attention to the neighbours who preferred her to be quieter. She received an official letter of complaint from the local Council over the volume of noise in her home. Her reaction was to laugh, show the letter to all her friends, then dump it in the dustbin, still continuing with her boisterous lifestyle.

Our difference in accents was sometimes a problem to me, although Shaunagh understood every word I said to her. She came to my flatlet for dinner one evening and as usual we had a long chat. I told her of my black admirer across the street. ‘I quite like him,' I said. ‘I like the way he rides down the road on his bike with his straw hat on.' I thought Shaunagh asked me, ‘Is it a posh bike?' I replied, ‘Well, I don't know about that, it looks like any ordinary bike to me.' She replied, ‘Well, you must know whether it's a push-bike or a motorbike.'

Shaunagh and I went to the cinema to see a Richard Gere movie as we found him to be quite attractive. Halfway through the film she was bursting to go to the loo. She delayed her visit some twenty minutes as we realised the plot was heading for a heavy sex scene and she was determined not to miss it. As the actors bared themselves Shaunagh's eyes were glued to the screen. Once they put their clothes on she dashed to the toilet at top speed.

Shaunagh shared a furnished house with a Scottish girl aged twenty-six called Sharon. They usually got on very well together, partly because Shaunagh did all the housework and turned a blind eye to the fact that Sharon didn't do any.

They did fall out one weekend when Shaunagh arrived home minus her street door key at one thirty on a Sunday morning. Sharon was with her boyfriend. Shaunagh walked to the nearest telephone box and told her of her predicament. Sharon replied, ‘I can't come over to you with the key, Shaunagh, because I'm with John and we haven't got any clothes on.' Shaunagh tried to persuade her to get John to drive the ten-minute journey to their home but Sharon simply said they were too busy. This meant that Shaunagh had to spend the night in the porch of the house. She settled herself on the concrete as best she could and fell asleep in her huddled position. At 7 a.m. her next door neighbour looked out of his front room window and saw Shaunagh's legs laying down the pathway. He decided to investigate. After some discussion he said, ‘I'll climb over the back fence and see if I can get into your kitchen.' He was successful and Shaunagh was at last able to get into the house. She went straight to bed and rested her aching bones.

Sharon's refusal to bring the street door key annoyed Shaunagh. She said to me, ‘She was
too busy having sex to come and give me the key.‘

Another Saturday night ended in disaster in the small hours for Shaunagh. Once again she had forgotten her street door key and had to sleep outside. This time she didn't know Sharon's whereabouts.

Unfortunately Shaunagh had spent the previous evening drinking and eating to excess and she was desperate to go to the toilet from both front and back outlets. There were no public lavatories close to her and she felt she couldn't wake next door at three o'clock in the morning so she decided she had no alternative but to urinate and excrete on the pathway. Sharon returned home at about 4.30 a.m. and Shaunagh once again got into the house. She told Sharon how she had relieved herself, proudly pointing to the mound of excretion. Shaunagh was not embarrassed in any way and related the incident to all her friends, leaving the rain to slowly wash away her waste.

Shaunagh and Sharon went to the Irish pub in Leytonstone, a regular haunt of theirs one Saturday night. At closing time they invited various friends and acquaintances back to their home for a party. The stereo was played very loudly and the thirty guests were drinking heavily. Shaunagh was not concerned when a fight broke out in the
dining room, resulting in the landlord's antique coffee table being broken and the front gate coming off its hinges as the violence spilled over into the street Vince, the landlord, was very easygoing. When he arrived at the house later that day for the rents, he was not bothered about the table and found a screwdriver to help him put the gate back into the wall, without making too much comment.

Both Shaunagh and Sharon found Vince to be a nuisance. He was in his forties and in his second marriage, which was very turbulent. Every few weeks he and his wife would have a terrible row and Vince would move out of the matrimonial home and into the spare bedroom in Shaunagh and Sharon's home, which infuriated both girls. He would stay a few days then he would make it up with his wife and return to her. Two months later they would have another battle and he would move in with Shaunagh and Sharon again. His temporary residence at the house stopped when Shaunagh found him a third paying lodger.

Shaunagh's habit of a good drink on a Saturday night frequently landed her in trouble. She told me of her latest escapade. ‘I went out with my boss and some of the staff where I work and we all finished up in the Irish pub and after that I didn't remember any more until I woke up on
the Sunday morning. Straight ahead of me were the curtains and the window and I could feel somebody beside me in bed. I lay there thinking to myself, “I'm in bed with somebody and I don't recognise those curtains. Please God don't let me be in bed with my boss.” I slowly turned my head to see who I was sleeping with and it was my ex-boyfriend, Booker. I woke him up and asked him what had happened and he said I was so drunk the night before I couldn't tell the minicab driver where I lived so to be on the safe side he took me back with him.'

Booker became famous overnight. He was an Irishman called Richard Berry who appeared on the TV news in the UK after he killed a pit bull terrier and assaulted its owner. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, spending his time in Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons before finishing his punishment in a Kent jail where he enjoyed himself feeding the pigs.

One of Shaunagh's Irish friends phoned her and asked, ‘Have you got a room spare in your house for a friend of mine? He's twenty and just over from Derry and he hasn't found himself any digs yet.' Shaunagh replied, ‘Someone has just moved out so we have got a vacancy and I should think my landlord would like the extra money, so send him over and we'll see.'

The formalities sorted out, Tom moved in. He
got on well with both girls. They cooked his dinner of an evening and supplied detergent for the washing machine but Tom would rarely pay them.

Shortly before Shaunagh went on a package holiday to Greece Sharon said to her, ‘Tom is always on that telephone. What he's doing is phoning up people from a radio show chatline and sometimes he's on the phone for about half an hour at a time.' As the telephone was in Shaunagh's name she was quite concerned and replied, ‘I'll speak to British Telecom tomorrow and get them to send the itemised bill in earlier just in case he decides to leave.'

A large white envelope arrived whilst Shaunagh was on holiday. Sharon, realising what it contained, opened it, and had the most terrible shock. There were many detailed sheets showing quite clearly that Tom had phoned people all over the UK. His calls amounted to five hundred pounds. Also, British Telecom asked for a large deposit immediately or the line would be cut off. When Tom came home from work Sharon showed him the bill. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I didn't realise the calls would be that much. I'll just have to pay Shaunagh so much a month.'

Sharon returned from work the following evening and as time went by, she began to wonder where Tom was. Around 9 p.m. she became very suspicious and went upstairs into
his room. She looked around her and noticed all the surface tops were clear and there were no possessions lying on the floor. She opened the wardrobe door to find Tom's clothes missing. She looked through all the drawers and these too were empty. He had quite obviously moved out. As he had left no note or cheque she decided he was not going to pay his share of the bill. Sharon was unable to pay the large deposit British Telecom wanted and the phone was cut off a few days later. She told me of the situation but there was nothing I could do either.

I spoke to Shaunagh in her office the Monday after her return from holiday. I asked, ‘How are you, and what's happening with the telephone?' She replied, ‘I had just got my suitcase inside the street door when Sharon pounced on me and told me Tom had gone and she showed me the telephone bill. I couldn't believe it. I felt so ill I went up the pub with Sharon and got myself drunk.' ‘How are you now?' I asked. She replied, ‘I've phoned British Telecom and I've arranged to pay them eighty pounds a month for the next six months and I'll have to pay them for putting the phone back on, but this time I'm having incoming calls only so no one will be able to dial out. I'm pissed off.'

As I was concerned about the situation I phoned Shaunagh in her office two days later. This time it was the old Shaunagh. When I asked how she was feeling she said, ‘I'm grand now.
It's only money after all.' I said, ‘If that had happened to me I'd be as miserable as sin for about a fortnight.'

A few weeks later Shaunagh saw Tom in a pub. She went over to him and said, ‘Thanks for leaving me a five hundred pound telephone bill. Can I have some money off you?' Tom replied, ‘I'll come to the house next Friday and I'll give you all I can.' This he did, and gave Shaunagh two hundred pounds. After his visit no more was seen of Tom until Shaunagh went home to Derry for Christmas. She was walking down a street one evening and Tom drove past her in a car. He stopped and offered her a lift, which she accepted. On her return to London she told me of their meeting. I asked, ‘Didn't you have a good old go at him and try to get your three hundred pounds back? If that had been me I'd have told him to give me fifty pounds out of his wallet. What did you do?' She replied, ‘I'd completely forgotten all about the telephone bill and we just talked about our families and friends and that was all that was said.'

Shaunagh had to pay the remainder of the bill and a further eighty pounds for the re-connection.

Shaunagh knew I was writing this book. I said to her, ‘I read in the paper the other day that a new author got a sixty thousand pound advance from her publisher. If that happens to
me I'll take you out to dinner.' She replied, ‘You are going to get all that money and that's all you're going to give me?'