CHAPTER 5
Work was a new beginning for a time, as the three weeks or so of local slog kept me occupied, while the longer runs down West gave my mind the space and solitude to put things into a more sensible order than they had fallen into after the funeral. I played my music, I drove my wagon and I planned my days off, whether weekend or midweek.

The new house was also settling into its own personality, as my belongings established their own places and I spotted, one-by-one, the little niggle that would need sorting, such as a cupboard that tended to creep open each time I opened the back door. In short, I was finding my own space, as well as my own life, and the need to be forever slapping my brain into inebriation and numbness seemed to have passed.

Rosie called me out every so often, to make sure I was getting to grips with the little Honda, but that was so obviously an excuse for the demands of friendship, of love, that even a thick-skinned young curmudgeon like me could spot it.

I found time to test-drive the new bird book down by the Bay, to examine all my old camping kit for the warmer days yet to come, and to linger in record shops, eager for new sounds, either from people I already knew or from the occasional bright spark that surfaced from the relentless flood of shit that was pop and disco.

The latter had been roundly spanked by punk, but it fought back, reappearing in a number of different guises that all managed to maintain the same level of being utterly shit. Some of the punk was OK, though, and I did end up with the Stranglers record Marlene had quoted.

Frank was a persistent sod all that time, and I noticed that he was altering his game depending on time of day. If I was on an early turn, he would have a mug of coffee for me, ‘to wake me up’. A couple of times, he tried a hot chocolate, which was nice, but too heavy for a working day, so he switched back to tea. I did get to look forward to his grin, though. He may have been a straight, and therefore officially someone I should have been looking to Outrage and Disgust, but he wasn’t a bad-looking one, and…

The first time I thought that, it stopped my thought processes completely for a few minutes. All sorts of images piled up in my head, like some motorway smash in fog where cars, or rather their idiot drivers, just keep tearing in at speed to add to the mess.

There was Dad and his belt, closely followed by Charlie fucking Cooper and that smelly bastard Don, and of course the simple fact of my existence, brought home to me each time I lay on a heap of towels pushing a slippery piece of plastic into my crotch. Most of all, there were the memories of one night of love and failure, one small, bright segment of my life that I could never hope to recapture.

Fuck you all the way to hell, Cooper.

I did my best to let those nuggets of shit go while at work, and the rest of the drivers helped immensely, as did Bert Fratelli himself. He was a great example of someone who had a clear vision of the culture he wanted on his turf, and equally clear ideas as to how to deliver such a work environment. Mr Mossman had clearly known his own stuff. Mostly, though, it was Frank who made me smile. What on Earth was he after, apart from a shag, of course? I mean, that was something I was by then equipped to deliver, but anything beyond that was not an option. At least I was now over 21, I thought one evening, remembering Knight’s warning while, rather appropriately, mid-dilation, and I found myself frozen in place. I knew what a cock was, as I had felt two of them so regularly.

I also knew what I had been feeling when… Carl. Carl had been different, and his erection had been something I had wanted so, so badly, but Charlie’s had been there, and don’s, and I really didn’t know if I could ever bring myself to do anything further with that part of me than I was already doing with Mr Hemmings’ little post-surgical present. I lay still for a while, as my skin chilled, trying to get my head and its car-crash contents cleared, and then decided to do something I had read about but never, ever done.

Into the bathroom and a quick shower of myself and my plastic friend, to get rid of the mess, then everything dried and cleaned properly, boxed away, an outsize T-shirt and dressing gown on, and into the kitchen for a mug of hot chocolate to sit cooling beside me as I myself sat with a pen and a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle; label the two sides ‘for’ and ‘against’. I gave myself one last instruction: be honest, girl, at least this time.

I carried the paper wrapped up in my work bag for a few weeks, adding to and subtracting from the columns as my mood dictated, and then, after another week of Swansea and Haverford West runs, I was back on the fridges, and Frank was waiting for me, smile in place.

“Hiya, Debbie! Can I ask a question? Apart from ‘tea or coffee’, of course”

“Depends on what it is, mate. Ask away, and see how I react, cause a smack in the mouth only hurts for a short while”

He laughed, shaking his head and muttering something in what I realised must be Welsh.

“Na, simple one, isn’t it? You are here day in, day out for a couple of weeks, then it’s one or two weeks you’re never coming in. Holidays or part-time?”

“Do I look like I’m always on holiday? Just work patterns, aye? We deliver some long-distance stuff, right out into Pembrokeshire sometimes. Bit more relaxing than this sort of thing, so the boss rotates the jobs, keeps us relaxed, keeps things fair”

“You not get bored on the long runs?”

I lifted up my little camera bag, showing him my selection of cassettes.

“Music is the answer to that one! Handy things, these”

“Oh. What are you into?”

“Would it surprise you if I said I’m a biker?”

He chuckled.

“It would surprise me if you said you weren’t. Anyway, a couple of the other drivers say that you ride a bike”

“Why would they say something like that?”

“Um, I sort of asked a couple when you were next on, and they said ‘What, Debbie the biker girl?’, so, well. Anyway, what are you into, music-wise?”

“Music? Well, proper rock, rhythm and blues, bit of prog, usual stuff. Proper blues, aye, not that Eric Clapton shit”

“Chester Burnett and McKinley Morganfield, that sort of thing?”

“Who?”

“Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, girl!”

I found myself laughing properly, happily, and for the first time in ages I could speak about Mam without a catch hitting my voice.

“Fuck, yeah! Sorry. Mam always played those two, and always said they had real names she could never remember. Smokestack Lightning was the first one I ever heard from the Wolf. Thought he was going to break the cassette player when he started singing”

My mouth ran on automatically.

“Mam and Dad were into folk music as well, and a lot of the folk-rock thing. Steeleye, Fairport, that sort of thing”

“Sandy Denny?2

“Fuck, yeah! Wonderful voice. Dad loved Maddy, though, Maddy Prior, and…”

No. That song was for Mam and Dad, and always would be.

“And I listened to the Kinks when I was a little girl, so it’s Kinks and Stones, Zep and Sabbath, Floyd and Hawkwind”

I prayed he had missed the little hiccup I had felt as I said ‘little girl’, and he just smiled.

“Quite a mix there. I’m a bit softer in my tastes, isn’t it? More folk, things like Pentangle, Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy”

I nodded in recognition.

“Mam played me Pentangle. I like the rockier stuff to dance to, though”

“Yeah. Carthy’s not really a dancing master. Suppose it splits for me. If I’m just listening, I want music and lyrics, instruments played well and words that make sense, that I can settle back into, yeah? Not done any dancing for a while, but yup, R&B works for me. Can’t stand the chart shit”

He started to laugh, so I raised my eyebrows in that way, and he shook his head.

“A cartoon, girl. Someone saying that those shit electronic drum things, all ‘pyoom, pyoom, pyoom’, must give you piles cause all the floppy-haired tossers who play them are standing up”

That one was so spot on target it set me laughing properly, and he simply grinned, taking back my empty mug.

“Your wagon’s ready to go back, Debbie. You off next weekend?”

I was. I could see where he was going, as well, and I wasn’t wrong.

“Folk singer I like is on in town. I can get tickets, if you’d like”

My three seconds of argument with myself felt like three years, but sod it.

“Yeah, why not? Go on, then”