I’m in my sixties
now and I started drinking when I was 15, which was in the early 1970’s.
I always
looked older than my age, though not old enough to pass for 18 when I was three
years younger, but it was the seventies and landlords pretty much turned a
blind eye to 15 and 16-year olds drinking as long as they didn’t look out of
place.
My first ever
pint was in a pub called The Green Man and it cost me 17 pence, and the first
sip of that foaming brew set me on the road that led to oblivion.
It was a
long road, and quite a meandering thoroughfare, because I didn’t drink every
day, but when I drank I didn’t hold back and I didn’t know when to stop.
On one
occasion, a Friday, I left work at 5.30pm and went straight to the pub, with
that week’s pay packet in hand, in those days we got paid weekly in cash, and I
woke up the next morning in a bus shelter with 3 pence in my pocket, not even
enough to catch a bus, I had managed to piss away a whole week’s wages in one
hazy booze fueled night.
Also, on a
works beano one year, we went on a day trip to France and the more serious
drinkers among our party drank nonstop for 26 hours, from the moment the ferry
left British waters until its timely return, and we very nearly drank ourselves
sober, one or two of the group had to be carried, but the hardened drinkers
walked back to the ferry under our own steam.
On another
occasion after a friend’s house party I woke up on my bedroom floor, wearing
only my trousers and one sock, having no idea how I got there.
It was only
later when I spoke to my friends that I found out the whole story of what I had
done and that they had carried/dragged me home.
They were
good friends, who through my behavior, I gradually alienated, one by one, until
there was no one left to get me home.
So, I woke
up in gardens, subways and gutters, I even woke up once in a skip with a kebab
stuck to my face.
In the end
I was disowned by my family and my only friends were fellow drunks.
Despite my
drunken binges I still managed to hold down a decent job so when I was in my
late twenties I moved to Abbottsford to take up a very well-paid job which
served to fund my benders very well indeed.
On one
particular weekend in September I had been drinking since breakfast, and kept
it up all day, however by midnight all the pubs were shut, but a serious drunk
always knows where to find a drink, so I took a cab to Seb’s, a members only an
all-night drinker.
It was
there that I met Angela who would, in a roundabout way, and quite
unintentionally, become my salvation.
She was a good-looking
woman, around about my own age, who was also a drunk, although the drink hadn’t
yet diminished her looks.
The next morning,
I woke up in the passenger seat of a car on the sea front in Sharpington with
Angela sleeping next to me, slumped over the steering wheel.
I had
absolutely no recollection of where we were, or how we got there.
I got out
of the car to stretch my legs and the bracing sea breeze almost knocked me off
my feet, so I walked along the sea front, trying desperately to clear my head,
but things were no clearer 20 minutes later when I returned to the car, which
by some miracle was parallel parked to perfection, and I marveled at how we had
got from Abbottsford to Sharpington and lived to tell the tale, but then a
sense of doom came over me as I looked at the bright blue Chrysler in front of
me, because although we had got to Sharpington unscathed, the car had not, as the
front of the car carried all the hallmarks of a serious front end collision.
I roused
Angela from her drunken slumber and got her out of the car and walked her up
and down for a while until the sea breeze had blown the cobwebs away.
“How the
hell did we get here?” I asked
“Get
where?” she mumbled
“Sharpington”
I replied
“Why are we
in Sharpington?” Angela asked so I walked her further along the seafront until
we reached a café that was actually open at 6.00am on a Sunday and several
coffees later I got some sense out of her
“The last
thing I remember, we were in Seb’s and you said, “I haven’t been to the coast for
ages”” She said slowly “so we finished our drinks and got in my car”
“And?” I
pressed
“And then
you woke me up” she said, with her head in her hands
“Do you
remember hitting anything?” I whispered
“No, like
what?” Angela queried
“I don’t
know” I replied “but whatever it was, you hit it hard”
It was
after nine when we stood up to leave, and a small group of fishermen were
coming in as we were going out.
“So how
come you were so late?” one of them asked
“An
accident in the Dulcets” was the reply
“Why what
happened?” asked another
“All I know
is what the Police told me, that an old man was out walking his dog when he got
hit” he said
“And he’s
dead?” asked one of the fishermen
“Yes, and
the driver didn’t stop” the first one replied
What little
colour had returned to Angela’s face while we were in the café instantly
drained away as the realization of what she had done dawned on her as well.
We returned
to the car, but Angela was too distraught to drive, on hearing what we had done
I was suddenly stone cold sober, so I got behind the wheel and chose a route
that took us back to Abbottsford via a very circuitous route.
After that
September Sunday all those years ago when some poor Dulcet resident lost his
life at our hands I completely lost my taste for the booze, and I’ve been
teetotal ever since.
I still see Angela from time to time, she still lives in Abbottsford but she
never came to terms with what we had done that day and surrendered completely
to the demon in the bottle.
I still see her around about the town with the other down and outs and winos
and I believe she sleeps in Cathedral Park, I often wonder if she sleeps any
sounder than I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment