Mam and Sam had met through a dating agency. It’d been advertised in the local Guardian free paper and we’d had a laugh about it. My nana was the one who made my mam fill out the form, because she reckoned that my mam needed a man about the house. My mam had been to see Mrs Curtis from Number 20 for a tarot reading, she was holding out for a ginger bloke, on a horse in a field full of pumpkins. My nana told mam that she was holding out for a pile of crap and that she had to make her own future, that no one got anything by sitting on their arse waiting for the world to come to them. So Mam got the form and, although we took the piss out of her, she filled it out and sent it back with a postal order for £15 (meet your ideal man within six months or get another six months free).

Sam was Mam’s first date. He had no kids and was divorced, because his first wife had shagged his best mate. Sam’s a decent bloke. He’s a teacher at the local college, earns pretty good money and treats my mam like a princess. Nana likes him and I do too. I can’t really fault him as a person, but his dress sense is shit.

We moved in with him three months after Mam met him. He lives on the new estate, in a canny posh detached house with three proper big bedrooms. Mam was a bit stressed about leaving Disraeli Avenue. It was more to do with her independence than anything else and I think that my dad leaving all those years ago made it difficult for her to let go. My nana helped out and gave her a good talking to and then we moved in with Sam. We’d been here just over five weeks when my dad turned up.

Legend has it that my dad left us when I was a toddler. I can’t remember much about him. The story goes that he’d been on jury service when he’d met a lass called Sky Thursday. Two weeks after the end of the jury service, after he’d eaten a plate of egg and chips, my dad had packed his bags, taken a pint of milk and pissed off.

That was the last we heard from him.

My dad didn’t bother with us and I’m not too sure how that’s supposed to make me feel. He was too busy shagging Sky fucking Thursday, selling crystals from a stall in Coastend indoor market and being a dad to the three kids that he’d had with Sky fucking Thursday. He didn’t give my mam any money for me and he never bothered with my birthdays or with Christmas.

I used to care.

Of course I fucking used to care. My dad abandoned me and then went on to be a dad to three other kids. I’d see Karen Johnson with her dad and Jude Williams with hers and I’d feel like shit. I didn’t know what I’d done to make my dad hate me, but he must have. My mam’s been great and my nana made sure that I had as much as she could afford. She’s canny kind. And next week I’m starting university, studying law. How the fuck did that happen? I’m going to Newcastle, so I’ll still live at home with Mam and Sam.

But Dad turned up.

I answered the door and of course I didn’t recognise him. He looked a state in a knitted cardigan covered in wolves and a moon. His hair was long, grey, thin, scraggy and he was wearing flip-flops with trackie bottoms. I thought he was collecting for something. Anyway he started talking and it turns out that he’d heard about my mam and Sam and thought that seeing as my mam had come into money, that we’d all be able to be one big happy fucking family. Apparently my three brothers were waiting around the corner to meet me too. I don’t know why him having three more lads pissed me off quite so much, but I seriously needed to deck the bloke.

It was then that my mam came to the door.

I was standing with my fist clenched leaning forward, my mam was in front of me pushing me back with her huge arse and she was staying canny cool. She looked my dad up and down, then she did her fake laughing thing that she does when she’s actually scared shitless. She told my dad that we’d managed sixteen years without him and that really he should just fuck off. Then she closed the door in my dad’s face.

I used to make up a story for the kids in my primary school class. I’d tell them the legend of hundreds and thousands of small green men with orange hair living in the lighthouse in Lymouth Bay. I even told them that I’d met one when I was buying a quarter of Toasted Teacakes from Brian’s newsagents. Jude Williams and Karen Johnson believed me.

Now for the real legend.

Legend has it that I once had a dad who went on jury service and pissed off with some woman who he’d known for all of three weeks. He left me and his wife of ten years for a fucking weird tart who changed her name from Wendy Jackson to Sky Thursday and made my dad want to live in a council flat and play the didgeridoo. Legend has it, that my dad ate his egg and chips, then packed his bags, took a pint of milk from the fridge and then pissed off. It took him nearly sixteen years to remember me.

Number 3

Mr and Mrs Drake

Red car matches red front door

Red car matches red garage door

EVS 343V

A tarot reading

() indicates the length of pause, in seconds

(.) indicates a pause of less than one second

‘What question would you like to ask of the cards?’

I’m only allowed one question?

(.)

My thoughts are all over the place

(5.0)

I’m sort of thinking that everyone needs a partner.

(.)

For some I guess it’s sexual, for others convenience.

For some I guess that it’s a chance to be eternally mothered, for others something else. I wish I knew what that something else was.

(3.2)

No that’s not my question. That’s not even a question.

(.)

Some people don’t enquire. They accept what they’re given. They say ‘thank you very much’ to the first man or woman who happens upon them. They panic, they grab, they accept. They can relax then. They can mate.

(2.0)

And I’m kind of sure that most people can go through life feeling content. They accept, they embrace; they make do with whoever it was who happened to stumble onto them, into them, beside them.

(.)

I’m beginning to sound cynical.

Really this isn’t a bad thing.

I’m just saying.

(1.2)

I’ve been thinking too much about life and death. It comes from living on this bloody street. The bed hopping, the suicide, the abandoning, the repression. It’s all getting to me a bit, but we can’t move. We’ve got too much debt, we’re trapped.

(3.0)

I’m looking at him and wondering if I’ve made a big mistake. I didn’t know who else to turn to and so I thought I’d try you. I thought you’d understand. I thought you’d be able to see into my lives and give me an answer.

(.)

But I’m only allowed one question.

I’ll have to formulate all my ramblings into one, all of these floating thoughts into one question.

(.)

You see I’ve got to thinking that maybe life is continual.

I know that this goes against what you, what some people believe in. Well it sort of does. Doesn’t it?

(2.3)

That’s not my question.

(.)

I just think that life is one big series of livings and deaths. And the more that I think about it, the more I get to worrying that there may be one true soul mate for each of us.

(1.5)

I’m rambling on. I’m trying not to sound too manic. Too confused. But I guess that I am.

(.)

You see, I’m wondering if there is just one special person for each of us. And then I’m wondering if life is really simply about bumping into them. If that one special person keeps coming in and out of our lives. And if only true believers, I mean believers in true love, could ever realise.

(.)

Does that make any sense?

(4.1)

That’s not my question.

(.)

I’m getting to wonder if life is one big game of Russian Roulette, but without the gun. It’s like holding your nerve until the time is right. Until you get a feeling that there is no next one. Really no next one. That this one person, this one connection is true.

(1.8)

I met a lad called Simon when I was five and he was six. I clicked with him instantly. We met at a family wedding. He was on the groom’s side, being a pageboy. I was on the bride’s side, being a bridesmaid. I remember dancing with him during the do. We held hands and loads of people snapped photos. I remember it being late, dark and I remember him leaving the party.

(.)

My mam used to have a photo of the two of us on the sideboard. She’d polish it and tell the same story.

(.)

The story went that when Simon left, I started crying. Apparently I was inconsolable. I sobbed and sobbed.

(.)

‘When will I see my boyfriend again?’ I asked my mam. ‘Maybe when there’s another party,’ she’d answered.

(2.7)

I never did see him again. Well I don’t think that I did. Maybe we brushed into each other. There must have been other family parties. But maybe that one meeting was our only scheduled hit for this life.

(.)

Am I making any sense at all? I know that you’ll be thinking that my question is about Simon, but it isn’t really. Not at all, really.

(1.3)

You see, I think that I must have loved Simon. Truly loved Simon.

(.)

Apparently I cried all the way home from the party. Apparently I fell asleep, releasing tiny sobs. Mam says that the next morning I woke up and told her not to laugh at me. She’d been shocked by how mature, how adult like I’d sounded when I was only five years old. Mam reckons that I grew up during that night.

(1.1)

What if Simon was the one? What if he was my one true love?

(.)

No they’re not really questions for this reading. Not really. I’m rambling again.

(2.9)

Simon and me never met again. The connection that I had with him was instant. I still remember him. Or is it the photograph that prompts the memory? You see that’s where I get stuck.

(2.2)

I think that I came here for you to tell me about life and death. I think that I wanted an answer to my wondering about if I kill myself, if I die tomorrow, will I simply start a new life?

(.)

Because I’m kind of thinking that this life is shit and if I try the next one, then I might meet Simon and I might actually manage to live.

(5.0)

You see me and Len have money problems. It’s no big secret. I’m not coping. We married young. I was eighteen and Len was nineteen. We lived beyond Len’s wages. We spent, we lived and soon the debts started to pile up. We tackled the bills by getting into more debt and then it all spiralled. We’ve had bailiffs knocking on our door. I’ve got nothing. They’ve had everything.

(2.2)

I’ve got zero, zilch, nothing left to give anyone. You’re my last option. I guess that I came here, hoping that you’d see into my future and tell me what to do.

(.)

You know that I work in Woolworths in Coastend. But what you probably don’t know is that I’m only thirty-two years old. I know you’re shocked, I can see it in your eyes. I look twice my age.

(3.1)

And Len, well he doesn’t work. He spends his days in the bookies in North Shields, he says that it’s work. He has bad days and good days. Mainly he has bad days.

(1.7)

He’s the one that I married. It was sexual; it was me saying ‘thank you very much’ to the first man who showed me any interest.

(.)

He was good looking, came from a nice family, was an apprentice. It was all good to start with, for a couple of years.

(2.0)

But now it’s shit.

(1.5)

Now I don’t think that I can go on.

(.)

I don’t think that I can take any more.

(1.1)

Sorry.

(1.2)

You asked me what my question was. What question I’d like answered with this reading.

(1.9)

Well I’d like it to go no further.

(.)

I don’t want it being spread around the street.

(.)

You see my question is this. Should I kill myself?

(.)

I’m supposed to focus on my question aren’t I? Would you like me to shuffle the cards whilst thinking about it?

(2.7)

Number 4

Mr and Mrs Black

Black car matches their name

Red front door

Red garage door

POK 776T

The banana and milk diet

Fat.

Monday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Tuesday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Wednesday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Thursday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Friday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Saturday.

Drank – 3 pints of milk.

Ate – 8 bananas.

Fat.

Total pints of milk – 18 pints

Total number of bananas – 48

Weight Sunday – 13 stone 9

Weight Sunday – 13 stone 4

Total loss – 5 pounds.

Fat.

Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat.

Fat.

Number 5

Mrs Grant

Red front door

Red garage door

No car

Stamps for Crystal

Crystal from Number 9 came and knocked on my door. She’s a sweet kid.

‘I’m starting a stamp collection. Have you got any spare ones?’ She had her eyes pointing to the floor and she was fidgeting, moving from foot to foot.

‘Are your mum and your dad with you?’ I asked, looking over her shoulder.

‘No. Mam’s in bed and Dad’s at work.’

‘I’ll have a good look around and I’ll pop what I’ve got through your door, in an envelope. I’ll put your name on the envelope. Is that okay Crystal?’

‘Thank you Mrs Curtis.’ She smiled, she turned and she walked away.

I started searching for stamps, looking in the bin and on the kitchen side, searching for used envelopes. I looked in cupboards and then in drawers. I had found quite a few before I found the postcard. It was picture down, his handwriting looping up at me.

19 August 1972.

My dearest Loulou,

Weather hot, fishing without a shirt on. Not seen the Monster yet.

Had a dodgy stomach last night. Perfecting my Scottish tongue.

Miss you. Back soon.

Love Bob xxx

I turned the postcard over, the picture was a cartoon. Nessie was coming out from the loch, wearing a tartan beret and looking rather grumpy. She was breathing fire onto a man fishing in a boat. The man’s fishing line was attached to Nessie’s nostril. I know that Bob would have smiled when he found that card. I know that he would have felt it to be perfect.

Holding the card that Bob had sent to me, seeing the handwritten words that he had chosen for me. I could hear his voice. I could hear him reading the words, emphasising ‘yet’, laughing after the word ‘tongue’.

Bob and I had met at school. He was my first and only boyfriend. He was my sweetheart, my soul mate. We married at eighteen, they said we’d never last, but we did. From the day we married, we only ever spent four nights apart. This was the only postcard, the only letter that he ever wrote to me. He’d gone fishing with his brothers, I’d begged him not to go but Bob had promised. Bob was a man of his word. I remember crying myself to sleep that first night. I missed his warmth, I missed how we’d sleep with our legs brushing.

When he came home, he was dirty and shattered. We spent two full days in bed.

My love for Bob goes beyond words and clichés. There is no comparison. Even after all these years he still covers me, he tightens my stomach and causes me to gasp in pain.

But Bob died.

His heart was faulty. It was sudden, his death was quick. The doctor said painless, I shuddered at the word. Bob died when we were twenty-eight, before we’d started a family, before we were ready.

But I still talk to him.

I tell him about my teaching, I tell him about the people in the street and the stories that they try to gossip at me. I shout at him for leaving me with nothing, I laugh at him for making such a mess of our lives.

I feel him near to me.

I feel him hovering behind me, breathing on my neck. I turn expecting to hold him, to touch him. I know that I’m going insane. Grief does that, I guess.

I live a normal life outside of my home. I teach a class of thirty-two children. I smile, I control, I engage. Then, within my house I become Bob’s wife again. I cook for us both; I set the table for us both. I talk during the meals. I laugh, I cry.

I miss him.

I can’t find enough words. I have an ache that turns my stomach, that won’t go. I have a constant taste of nausea, I panic when I remember. I can still see him collapsing, crumpling to my feet. I am helpless.

I long for his touch.

I’ve closed the envelope, I’ve written Crystal’s name onto it. The scrawl is looped, slowly written. I thought about taking Bob’s stamp, about cutting around the perforated edge. But I couldn’t.

Finding Bob’s postcard is a sign, for something.

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