Back in 1984

By Richard Woolley

A keen insight into the emotional world of a young couple caught in the crosscurrents of seventies idealism and eighties realism

Back in 1984 is divided into two parts. Part one, Feeling Time, examines a day-in-the-life of on-off lovers, Joe Travis and Mary Thwaites a day, on which both are confronted by dramatic events that eventually reunite them. As the day progresses, scenes from their pasts bubble up, shedding light on two people in difficulty but still full of the dreams and delusions of 1970s libertarianism as well as love for each other. The story, set in Leeds with flashbacks to seventies Berlin and sixties London, shows Joe and Mary learning to balance self-obsession with the needs of others.

Part two, On the Horizon, continues the story of Joe and Mary, but is told in diary form by Joe alone. A year in the life of a man trying to make films, babies and sense out of life, love, sex and sexuality. In contrast to the literary distance of part one, the reader is thrown into the maelstrom of one mans existence. The miners strike, the nature of male friendship, the delights and disappointments of sex, the pressures of conception, the idyll of a writing holiday in Tuscany all are interwoven in fast moving prose that offers humour and insight amidst glimpses of despair.

Well-written, witty and observant, it gets under the skin of late twentieth century political correctness, reminds us of the universal nature of grief and encourages us to never give up and always be open to change.

SAMUEL MADSON

If you find relationships and co-habitation an uphill struggle, dealing with death difficult and making babies something of a drama, read this!

RACHEL WEST

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781467005418

Richard Woolley

Retired Construction Industry professional advisor.

Book preview

BACK

in

1984

Richard Woolley

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

500 Avebury Boulevard

Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2010 Richard Woolley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 8/27/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4389-7759-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-467-00541-8 (ebk)

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

For J, G, M and T – and, of course, C

Part One

FEELING TIME

Nowhere you can be that’s not where you’re supposed to be

(‘All You Need Is Love’ John Lennon & Paul McCartney)

CHAPTER ONE

Monday 30th January 1984

An hour before dawn, a mother and son leave the house. She is sixty, he is thirty-three. There is ice on the glass, snow on the metal of the car. It is cold and in the moonlight breath visibly indicates life. Behind rise northern hills, dark but not yet ominous. Below – stretching as far as the eye can see – a river of light that mother and son will follow into the darkness. Wrapped up, enclosed inside the steel, the mother waits whilst the son melts down the frost. Then he, too, is inside and the machinery starts and roars, gases of death mixing with the breath of life from a father left behind, waving farewell on the doorstep. Marks and crunching in the snow as they slip away: the son and the mother. Goodbye.

Fifteen miles to the East, in the Chapel Allerton district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, day breaks over an eighteenth century edifice called Cedar House. In the bedroom of Flat Three, music starts to the right, talking above and shouting below: Radio One, Radio Four and life. On a bed in the corner of the room, a duvet is pulled round the head of a huddled figure. Radio Four switches off. Footsteps pound down the partitioned wall behind the covered head. The self-close fire door suctions open and creaks shut. A toilet flushing drowns the demise of Radio One. Heavy coughing and a door slam. Five more minutes of life below and then that too ends with a last piercing scream of childish rage boring upwards through the floor into the cocooned head.

All is quiet.

Joe throws back the duvet, jumps out of bed and draws back two blood-red curtains. The sudden movement and flood of light make him feel faint. He leans against the window and rubs a hole in one of the condensation-covered panes. Perhaps this morning the row of terraced houses opposite will have been replaced by sweeping lawns, a long drive and snow-covered mountains on a distant horizon. They have not, but it has snowed. He turns and bends to ignite the gas fire. His penis, still partially erect, cringes at the flames. He moves to a wardrobe and takes out a red towelling dressing gown, a cast off from someone he lived with in Berlin.

Putting it on, he leaves the bedroom and walks through the hallway to the bathroom. He stands in front of the toilet waiting to pee; the older he gets, the longer it takes. He stares at the patterned wallpaper – there is no window, the bathroom is internal. From below he hears the sound of a child crying followed by the soothing voice of the mother, Rachel. Rachel is an old friend from fringe theatre days, a part time music teacher with a three-year old child whose father vanished soon after conception. It is Rachel who bought the ramshackle building known as Cedar House and it is her energy – combined with council grants, bank loans and the support of people like Joe – that has converted it into five municipally standardized flats. The urine flows. ‘An individual unit within a communal environment’, she had enthused to Joe when persuading him to join the project. ‘Privacy but not isolation, perfect for you!’ But now he feels trapped; surrounded on all sides by nice, like-minded people that he knows by name and sight – who he can hear and who can hear him – but with whom, apart from Rachel, he has nothing concrete in common except walls.

He flushes the toilet and moves to the washbasin. He turns on the tap, waiting for the water to run hot. He looks in the mirror. His baby-fine brown hair is thinning, but his face is still lively and interested in life. Only the eyes have something disconcerting about them: tired but sharp; hard but vulnerable; open little boy, defensive old man – all rolled into one. Today is his thirty-fifth birthday. He is a scriptwriter working on a drama for Channel More – an autobiographical piece. An honest piece, he hopes, but it is draining him. An attempt to reconstitute satisfactorily a part of his life that had been far from satisfactory, a narcissistic review or a therapeutic quest – he has not decided which.

The phone rings. Joe wonders whether to leave it, but curiosity gets the better of him. He runs into the bedroom and picks up the receiver, only to hear his own voice telling him he is out. He listens, wondering whether the madness inherent on his father’s side is emerging, and then remembers that the Telecom engineer came the day before and fitted his answering machine.

Joe? Joe? Is that you?

A voice tries to break through the pre-recorded message. Joe locates the stop button and presses it.

Hello? This is Joe.

You’ve said that already.

Sorry. I’ve had this answering machine fitted.

What for? You’re never out.

I go for the papers.

Happy birthday.

Thanks.

Get many cards?

Haven’t looked yet.

Joe. About tonight…

Eight o’clock at the Stag’s Head, right?

Well, no. That’s what I was ringing about. Sarah’s not well.

Oh.

So, I’ll have to call it off. Maybe next week?

Fine. I could do with a night in.

I am sorry, Joe. I know it’s your birthday and everything…

It’s alright.

Are you fed up with me?

No, of course not. Bye, Charlie.

He puts the phone down. He is glad he answered. In such cases, phone-sitting machines offer date cancellers, appointment postponers and purveyors of bad news an easy way out.

He takes off his dressing gown and tries a push up. Too painful so he turns over and goes for a total relaxation pose – flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. He is annoyed with Charlie. Charlie is an old friend, his oldest in fact. They have known each other since boarding school and developed along similar lines. They are both leftwing; both affected by the advent of feminism; both critical of male power and privilege whilst remaining proponents of it. When Charlie stayed on in Leeds after University, it became the logical place for Joe to move to after Berlin. Charlie is home to Joe, family. So now he is annoyed because Sarah, Charlie’s lover of the last two years, is getting in the way. Surely she can survive one evening without her boyfriend? He needs to talk to Charlie, to get a little drunk, to be admonished by Charlie’s reassuring voice; to go upstairs and sleep in Charlie’s dark stained spare bed, whilst Charlie snores in the room next door; to be woken in the morning with a cup of tea, before Charlie goes off to the safe-as-houses lecturing job he’s had for the last ten years; to get up and revel in the warmth of somebody else’s space. You shit, Charlie, you’ve stood me up on my birthday and you’re my best friend.

Joe is now dressed. He has an appointment with the doctor for non-specific pains in his head. Something to look forward to as a diversion from the endless task of trying to write about himself. A confirmation that he exists in fact, as well as on the page.

He opens the door to the landing outside his flat. The door closes behind him and he is trapped in an airlock between his door and the first of two fire doors leading to the stairs. A space for acclimatisation going out and debriefing coming in. He hears the phone ring and then stop. He imagines Joe the phone-sitter addressing the caller. He runs down the stairs and grabs a pile of letters resting on the twirl at the bottom of the banisters. Only two are for him. No surprises. He recognises the handwriting on both: Charlie’s retentive italic and his mother’s forward sloping, just-dashing-off-a-line-darling script.

He pockets the envelopes, removes Rachel’s pushchair and opens the front door. He is outside.

CHAPTER TWO

A little to the south west in the Harehills district of Leeds, where the back to backs still climb up in close knit rows from Roundhay Road, a woman is woken by a Radio Four announcer. He enters her dreams and talks about war and some man who has murdered his wife – and then the weather. She tries to stay in the world of her dream where she and three of her best friends have all been pregnant, living together in a cottage on the moors. But the snow report wins and she is forced to abandon her friends and the cottage.

She opens her eyes, stares at the clock face and registers that she can stay five more minutes in bed. She puts her thumb in her mouth and sucks on it. There is a knock on the door. Her flatmate Lynn enters with a cup of coffee. She sits up, takes the cup and as she sips the liquid lets her brain move round the dial of life until it fixes on an optimistic wavelength.

She is alive, she has just started a job as organiser for the city’s Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the disruption of her boy friend’s departure seems to have retreated to an acceptable intermittent rumble in her stomach. Four weeks ago, he had ended a relationship that was in its third year. She had felt devastated, but didn’t let him know, and, in the end, was compelled to push him out of the door because he just kept repeating: ‘Will you be alright?’ – refusing to leave until she said, ‘Yes’, which she wouldn’t. But this morning he has faded to background interference. Life is coming through again loud and clear.

The phone rings. Lynn answers it. Perkins the cat emerges from under the duvet, makes his routine attempt to share her cup of coffee and burns his nose in the process.

It’s your dad, Mary.

Dad at 8.30 in the morning? What on earth could he want?

He sounds a bit upset.

Mary guesses: he’s had a row with Mum, she’s gone off on holiday and he’s feeling guilty. She places Perkins on the floor and gives him the required three strokes and a tail pull to activate him for the day. She climbs out of bed, puts on her dressing gown – an old hand-me-down from her mother – and shivers her way out of the room. Halfway down the narrow enclosed staircase she is startled by a scream – then a thump and a man’s voice shouting in anger. A baby cries. A door slams. Mary pauses.

Lynn? They’re at it again next door. Go and see if Cath needs a hand.

Why doesn’t she leave the bastard? Lynn yells back, her mouth full of toast.

Because he’s all she’s got. Go on.

Mary is glad to have the excuse of the telephone call. Strictly speaking it is her turn to play Good Samaritan. Lynn appears from the cupboard of a kitchen at the bottom of the stairs and slams her way out of the front door, which – as in all back-to-back houses – gives directly from the front room on to the street.

The blast of cold air makes Mary shiver; her mother’s dressing gown is wearing thin. She pulls it tight round her body and grabbing Lynn’s piece of toast from the kitchen goes into the front room. The gas fire is on and hissing, a smell of coffee in the air. Perkins, already deactivated after his journey downstairs, is asleep on the hearth. Mary feels an intense sensation of home, a prickling over her skin, a glowing. A sensation she feels most mornings when going to work – something to do with things being more intense at the moment you leave them. The memory of her boyfriend rumbles. She picks up the phone.

Hello, dad. How’s the big man?

There is silence at the other end.

Hello? Good morning? Anybody there?

Mary uses her bright voice. Her father speaks, but the line is bad and his voice faint.

Mary, darling…

A tone of voice she’s not heard before.

Dad?

Mary, darling, I’ve some rather bad news…

Not a reproach, not a wheedle – just a thin reed of emotion, wavering and unsure.

Mary, darling, your mother and George have been killed in a car crash.

There is a pause. Even the static on the line goes silent.

They left at six this morning, but the police phoned half an hour ago to say there’d been a terrible pile-up on the M62 and that…

The voice disappears. The reed breaks. Mary clutches the receiver to her ear.

It’s alright, dad. I’ll look after you…

She falters.

Oh, dad, I’m so sorry. It’ll be alright

But it’s not and her own grief bursts through – tears of a daughter connecting with the sobs of a father.

I told them to catch the train, but George insisted on driving.

It’s not your fault, dad. Don’t blame yourself.

Her hand shakes as she lights a cigarette. She lets her father cry as her own tears dry and numbness sets in.

I’ll come over, she says. Sit tight and have a whisky. Is anyone with you?

Yes. Mrs Betts is here. The voice swallows. Come as soon as you can, darling.

Of course, big man. Hold on.

She replaces the receiver – worried her father might also be removed by doing so. Knowing that someone has a telephone is no longer a guarantee of existence. Two evenings ago, she had talked to her mother. Now, no ringing can reach her.

Without thinking, she picks up the receiver again and dials her old boyfriend’s number. It rings twice and is answered. He’s still alive. Her eyes prick with tears.

Hello, this is Joe…

Joe, it’s me…

I’m not here at the moment...

Joe, stop playing around.

But it is a machine. Even his existence is in doubt. It drones on and delivers its beep perfunctorily. She leaves a message for him to ring back and replaces the receiver.

Joe coughs. The woman behind the counter looks up. Joe takes a copy of the Daily Mirror from a pile. ‘Only paper that supports the Labour Party,’ he tells women who, he suspects, suspect him of buying it for the pin-ups. ‘Guardian wastes too much time.’

Is that all, love? says the woman, following his gaze to a stand of adult magazines.

Yes.

The woman takes his money. Joe folds the newspaper, his eye on the stand.

Sure there’s nowt else, love?

No. No, thank you. Bye.

Tara, love.

Outside, cold air from the Pennines bites into Joe’s face. He looks at his watch. Two minutes to get to the doctor. He starts to run, measuring the landing of each foot on the icy pavement. He passes Chapeltown police station. A constable emerging from the door slips and falls flat on his back. Joe glances over his shoulder and sees two youths staring at the fallen copper. He turns back.

A concrete lamppost approaches at speed.

He flinches, but too late.

Contact.

He is falling. Falling, but not frightened – floating downwards beneath a black sky that is split in two by a static lightening bolt. Somewhere a voice cries out in pain – or is it a gull? Either way he is unmoved. Every now and then a door opens upwards and he passes through, floating in free fall – out of control, but not fighting to regain it. Then, as suddenly as it began, the fall stops. The sky descends. The cry of pain grows louder. Joe struggles to escape, reaching out for the bright horizon that is receding at speed around him. But there is no escape.

He curls into a ball, ready to be crushed between sky and earth.

CHAPTER THREE

Mary sits by the phone staring into space, unable to take in the deaths. Lynn comes in through the front door and closes it. Mary turns a tear-stained face towards her.

Lynn, my mother and brother have been killed. In a car accident.

No.

Lynn runs across the room and puts her arms around Mary. Mary weeps. She weeps for a long time – each memory of her mother and brother producing a new wave of tears. Lynn rocks her friend backwards and forwards, not sure what to say but knowing that she must not let go until Mary is ready. She has known Mary for ten years but only seen her cry twice. Mary laughs a great deal – and Lynn laughs with Mary – but they’ve never cried together.

Let it out, my love. Let it out.

And Mary does. No rehearsal, no prepared response for an expected demise, no time to understand the nature of her tears. Normally she keeps an eye on the road ahead, avoids difficulties and responds to pain with rationality or runs rings round it to blunt the edge. Now there is neither rhyme nor reason to rescue her and her brain floods – dykes, dams and sluice gates washed aside, body and soul as vulnerable as a newborn babe’s.

No, she sobs. No, no, no!

But she is not a baby. She is an adult skilled in reasserting self-control. She becomes aware of her head on Lynn’s breast, of a hand stroking her hair, of Lynn struggling to say something helpful. She remembers the words of her mother in the night: ‘It was only a dream, dear’ – a simple phrase allowing life to continue without unpleasantness, mother’s magic. But mother is gone, her ability to put things right long gone. Mary must survive and will survive, alone.

She rubs her eyes and sits up, away from Lynn. Lynn releases her arms like ropes on a quay and watches to see if Mary will float.

Would you like me to come with you? To your dad’s?

Later on. That’d be nice. I’d better see the old man alone first.

Coffee?

Whisky, please. There’s some under the sink.

Mary stares at the phone. She hopes Joe will ring – funny old neurotic Joe. Maybe he’s too scared to ring. Worried she’ll make demands. He’s listened to the message and imagines she can’t cope now that he’s gone. Well, she can usually. But death is not usual and Joe is not a usual man. When not obsessed with himself, he is perceptive, understanding, warm and comforting – a real friend.

Mary picks up the phone. She’ll ring Rachel who lives below Joe. She can’t tell an answering machine that her mother and brother have died, but she can tell Rachel. She likes Rachel and Rachel will know how to break the news to Joe.

Joe opens his eyes and turns his head. Gravestones come into focus. He is on his back on a bench. Why? He looks to the right. Two black youths in leather jackets and tight fitting jeans are watching him. The taller of the two is perched on the cracked lid of a half-open tomb, clapping his hands and shaking his head. His tubbier companion is seated at the end of the bench and is smiling at Joe.

You all right? he says.

Joe nods.

Didn’t half hit that lamppost. Somebody after you?

Joe shakes his head. He’s remembered now.

On my way to the doctor’s. Late for an appointment.

You gonna need him.

Joe nods again. He realises where he is. Just inside Chapel Allerton cemetery off the Harrogate Road.

I better get down there.

He attempts to stand, but feels sick and falls into the arms of the tubby youth.

Take it easy, man.

Tubby beckons to his companion.

Hey, Desmond.

No response. Balancing Joe on one arm, he leans across and pulls at the wire of Desmond’s headphones. Desmond jumps up from the tomb ready to thump his mate.

What you doing, Patrick?

Patrick points at Joe.

Take t’other arm

Joe feels himself supported by a second set of hands and smiles. He feels secure, liberated. Ready to set off round the world with these two strangers. He closes his eyes.

Don’t go to sleep, man, says Patrick, giving him a shake. Where’s the doctor?

Medical centre. Chapeltown Road.

By the time they reach the redbrick surgery, Joe is feeling better.

Do you have an appointment? asks the receptionist.

Yes. Dr Simpson. 9.30.

The receptionist looks at her watch.

You’re fifteen minutes late. You’ll have to wait. Take a seat, please.

Patrick and Desmond help Joe across to a chair, hand him a couple of magazines and then stand – unsure whether to stay or go.

I’ll be fine, now, Joe says. Thanks for your help.

That’s alright, says Patrick, heading for the door.

I’ll buy you a drink later, Joe calls.

Just do same for us, grins Patrick.

I will – thanks again.

Yeah. Look after yourself. Come on, Desmond.

Patrick pulls at the arm of his friend who is staring at a Smoking Can Kill poster then waves at Joe with a single movement of the hand and the two men depart.

Joe sinks back into the bentwood chair, closes his eyes and attempts to relocate the bright horizon. But it has gone, the straightjacket of consciousness firmly back in place.

The doctor’s consulting room is small with white walls, uncluttered but cramped. The doctor sits behind a desk, writing –