Kicking Up My Heels...in Heels Read online

  “Something like that.” He leered at me, grabbed his groin with his right hand, shook it up and down, leaving a bulge when he removed his hand. “Come on, it’s round the corner.”

  I licked my lips, lit a cigarette, and followed him. To what, I had no idea, but at the time, based on the bulge in his overall, it seemed like a good idea, so I went with it.

  And then we were standing behind a white van reminding me very much of Rocky’s. Soon we were inside the back of the van with the door closed. There, he took off his overalls and T-shirt and stood in his underpants, slightly shabby-blue, fitted boxer shorts. From there I could see the full bulge he’d grasped earlier in the pub. I was soon on my knees, as he thrust in and out of my mouth. I enjoyed the sensation as he thrust harder and faster and held my hair to move my head in rhythm with him. I removed my trousers and underwear so I could be free from straining. This was what I needed after the day I’d had. This was what I deserved in life after all the crap I’d been through. This was fabulous, and I didn’t want it to ever end.

  He pulled me to my feet and crouched before me, reciprocating what I’d just done to him, expertly, perfectly, joyously, so well I thought I’d never felt such pleasure. I stood with my eyes closed, leaning against the wall of the van as he pulled me forward and backwards into his mouth. Everything was right with the world. All the worries and problems didn’t exist, all that mattered was the pleasure I felt building in waves through my body. He used one of his hands to grasp me tight as I went in and out of his mouth, and another finger was pushing into my bum, gently pressing, applying more and more pressure until I thought I was going to burst.

  And then he stopped, turned me round so I faced the side of the van, put my hands on the wall, pushed my legs apart and whispered into my ear, “Do you want what I think you want?”

  I nodded. At that moment, that was exactly what I wanted, what my whole body was crying out for. Who said no boyfriends meant no sex? Not me! I smiled at my and Tony’s resolve from a few months before. This was so much better than a boyfriend and all the complications that usually entailed.

  He was behind me now, a cold slickness around my bum. Then he was pushing up into me as he kissed and bit my neck.

  “Have you got?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have one in my wallet.

  He stopped kissing my neck and said, “No. I’m fine. I’ll take care of it.”

  He’ll take care of it. Whatever that meant. For an instant, I knew what I should have done given the circumstances. Somehow the combination of the alcohol, his promise to take care of it—whatever that meant—and the fact that I really was well beyond disastrously pissed and now at the point of hardly being able to stand, I closed my eyes, felt him behind me, a push, another push, and then the fullness, the pain, the pleasure, and then we were one together. He was kissing my neck as he thrust into me, and I’d pushed aside the thought of him taking care of it and enjoyed the animalistic pleasure of the moment.

  AFTERWARDS, HE HANDED me a cloth covered in paint from the floor of his van, and I cleaned myself up, dressed, shivering slightly, and left the van, with a half-hearted wave, a bye, and a thanks. He jumped into the front of the van and drove off in a cloud of black fumes. And I was left on the uneven pavement slabs just outside the Duke, wobbling from side to side with a sore, damp arse and a heavy bowling ball in my stomach.

  In a daze, I walked back to my car, realised not being able to get the key in the door after a few attempts was a sign I shouldn’t drive. I walked back out of town towards home, hoping the walk would sober me up along with the litre of water I’d bought from the shop near the car.

  Chapter Four

  THE NEXT MORNING my alarm went off. I leant out of bed, fell onto the floor as the room spun, and I threw up onto the floor. I lay on the floor covered in my own sick, my head and arse as sore as one another, knowing I had to leave shortly to avoid being late for work. How had my life gone to this now, from the fabulousness, laughing at everything, amazing sex where I’d been before? What had happened?

  I swallowed some painkillers with the last few drops of water from the bottle I’d bought the day before. In the shower I scrubbed my body and washed my hair, eyes closed under the stream of hot water as I remembered the night before. I got as far as the van and then it got really hazy. I remembered a conversation about, no that can’t have been right.

  I felt my arse and it was pretty sore. A good shag, that’s all that was from surely. I pushed that thought aside, dressed, and walked outside to where my car was normally parked, then realised it would still be in Salisbury. I ran to the bus stop, pausing twice to throw up in the bushes. I sat on the bus, catching my reflection in the window. I looked like death with a passing relationship with a very dim candle. I ignored the stares from passengers as I looked like a ghost with food poisoning.

  AT WORK, BRIAN asked me how my mum was.

  I almost said, “Fine, why you asking?” Then in the depths of my damaged, pounding pain, remembered why he was asking. I smiled and said, “On the mend. I’ll be out the back if you need me.” Then disappeared to the far depths of the stock room, where, between moving boxes from one side of the room to the other, I sat on crates, sipped water, and prayed for this feeling to be over.

  Where was Tony when I needed him? Where was someone I could trust and tell about what happened? I didn’t know how good the good old days had been when I’d been living them. Now they were just that, the good old days, and instead, I was lumbered with the not so good present days. With Brian. And no Tony.

  At lunchtime, still struggling to piece together the exact chain of events in the van, I called Tony and explained my worries about what I thought may have happened.

  “You sure?” Tony said.

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know, Kev?”

  “I mentioned the bit about the gin and tonics, didn’t I?”

  There was a pause as Tony considered my options. “Family planning clinic, GUM clinic, whatever it’s called. The one in town behind the library. Kieran went there to find out about Out!”

  “I know where it is. I don’t know if I can face walking in and telling some middle-aged woman what’s happened and be given a ticket like I’m at the deli counter at Sainsbury’s.”

  “Go to your doctor then.”

  “I don’t want Mum told. She’d kill me. After she cried herself to death, she’d kill me. It’s what she said would happen. And I promised her. I said I’d always be good.”

  “Best grab your ticket and get to the clinic then.”

  I WENT STRAIGHT from work—another excuse about Mum being in hospital to get me out on time; these big, black lies came easier once I’d done one, I found—to a thirty-minute, old show tunes from musicals set in Portsmouth. I was getting quite a name for myself in Portsmouth. The manager at Martha’s knew the manager at Hampshire Boulevard, and they wanted a bit of the KEV magic too. With travel expenses and my new I’m worth it, now I’m a professional fee, it was more than the day at TK Maxx. And for the first time since going for a drink with Kieran and Jo, I felt alive, had a smile on my face, and had that buzz I got when I’d done something right, rather than fucking something up.

  I pushed thoughts about the recent fuck-ups to the back of my mind, thinking I’d resolve them later, thinking how neither of them could be too bad. Feeling sure I’d feel different if I’d caught anything from the sex in the back of the van, feeling surely there would be some sort of cosmic sign from the universe about what to do in response to Brian’s unmoveable response to my request. Neither feeling nor sign came to me. I felt no different than before the mistake in the van I still wasn’t sure if I had or hadn’t made, so it was very easy to forget about the ticket I meant to take from the family planning clinic, because really, I had nothing to worry about, didn’t I?

  Chapter Five

  DECEMBER 1999

  Mum walked into my room. “Come on, wh
at’s up? You’ve been quiet, and you don’t do quiet. What’s happened? It’s not another boyfriend, is it? You’ve not fallen out with Tony or Kieran or someone else, have you? You should count yourself lucky to have friends like them, and make sure you don’t lose them.”

  “I’m fine. Just tired.” My standard response when I didn’t want to talk about what was really wrong. I snuggled further under the duvet.

  She sat at end of the bed. Now there would be no escaping; she’d set up camp and wouldn’t take tired for an answer. “I’m your mother, I know when something’s wrong. And I can see you’re not right. Out with it. Come on.”

  I told her about what Brian had said about the hours at work, the options he’d given me, and made it clear I didn’t know what to do.

  “Do you enjoy the performing, the shows, the singing, all that?”

  “You know I do. I’ve always wanted to do it since I was small. Now I can do it and someone pays me for it. It’s great.”

  “When you talk about it, you come alive. I can see it in your eyes. Whenever you’ve talked about work lately, it’s been different. It’s not been the same since Tony left has it?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not just him though. It’s…everything… I don’t know. I should be glad to have a job. Plenty haven’t.”

  “You have got a job. You’ve got two jobs, haven’t you, love?” She reached to hold my hand.

  “Suppose. Hadn’t thought of it like that.”

  “They paying you for it now?”

  “I told you. Plus, travel expenses.”

  “Oh yes, I remember that—travel expenses. It’s another world.” She paused, staring into my eyes, still holding my hand. “You have a talent. You’ve been given this talent, so you’ve got to use it. I wish I had it like you have.”

  “You’ve brought up a child. You’ve kept a home and a family.”

  “Yeah and look at how that turned out.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m still here. If you’d not brought me up how you did, I’d never have given this a go. That’s you that is.”

  “It’s your talent, love. I’m nothing to do with that.” She stood and walked to the door. “You do what you think. Whatever you decide, we’ll manage. Me and you, we always do. We’ll manage.”

  Chapter Six

  TONY HELPED ME with the letter giving my notice of four weeks. “Are you sure?” he asked, as he read it over before printing it at his place a few nights later.

  “If I don’t do it now, I never will. We’ll manage, she said.”

  “And will you?”

  “I’ll make sure we do. And I know she will too. So yes, we’ll manage.”

  Tony nodded, clicked print, and we sat in silence as the printer whirred away doing its thing as we’d done our thing writing the letter.

  Four weeks’ notice took me to the end of the first week of January 2000. Brian didn’t say a word when I gave him the letter. I had a note from him in my pigeonhole the next day asking if I wanted any overtime during the festive season. I sent him one back saying yes, I did (I needed all the savings I could get if mum and I were indeed going to manage).

  CHRISTMAS DAY 1999

  This was the only day I properly saw Mum since I’d handed in my notice at work. Between overtime and performances—Christmas was, as predicted, busy for both my jobs—the only day with no work was Christmas day. The shop had queues running out the front door and we stayed open late three more evenings a week on top of the usual Thursday night late shopping. I’d done a few performances at places I knew and who knew me; mainly some camping about to Christmas pop songs in a reindeer outfit or Christmas elf costume. And Mum and I wanted Christmas day to be special, only us two, no distractions or interruptions, our oasis of calm among the sea of stress of Christmas that year.

  She opened the luxury hand cream I’d bought her, saying it was far too much and I shouldn’t have bothered. She put a dollop on the back of her hand, rubbed it in and smelt her hands afterwards.

  “So you don’t get dry hands from the cleaning products. And you won’t always smell of bleach.”

  “Very kind. Thank you, love.” She handed me a card from under the small Christmas tree in the corner of the living room.

  She’d bought me a variety of vouchers from clothes shops with a card, wishing me all the luck in my next adventure.

  “So you can still get clothes and outfits, even if you’ve not got any money. I know how you like to buy clothes. Hope they’re the right shops, love.”

  I handed her my final present to her.

  She opened the CD player then the CDs I’d bought her. “Too much. I can’t have all this.”

  “You can’t have that old music centre of your parents, forever. People don’t buy records now, it’s all CDs. And it’ll take up less room.” She’d been struggling along with the long slab of a music centre from the early eighties: a record player, tape deck, and turn-the-dial radio since she got it from her parents’ house years before.

  “Show me how to work it later, will you love?” She folded the wrapping paper neatly and left it in a pile next to her chair to be added to her collection she stored in the attic every year for unknown reasons. “Not long now, you sit back and I’ll call you when it’s ready.” She left for the kitchen to finish the small chicken she’d bought for us two, cocktail sausages, and mountains of vegetables we never even thought about, never mind cooked, for the rest of the year.

  I folded my wrapping paper, adding it to Mum’s pile, turned Top of The Pops Christmas special up, and sang along with the old festive favourites.

  WE PULLED CRACKERS, wore paper hats, read out the awful jokes from the crackers, and ate most of the food with the TV on in the background, blaring out festive music. Since Dad had left, it had always been us two for Christmas, so we always made a big effort. It would have been so easy to say for two people it was a lot of fuss, and let’s not bother, but she never did that. She did it all, the same as if we were three of us, or a family of twelve with uncles, aunts, cousins, and neighbours around the table.

  I ushered her into the living room away from the crockery, said I’d be in later for my After Eight, and gave her the box as she sat in the living room.

  I tidied the kitchen, checking the clock for how long until Tony was due. He was allowed into our little family Christmas, as Mum regarded him as family anyway.

  The kitchen clean and tidy, I found Mum snoring loudly in her chair, the box of After Eight mints resting on her lap with wrappers neatly folded and piled on the table next to her chair.

  I grabbed a few mints and sat on the sofa eating and watching the musical Oklahoma! she’d left on in the background. My eyes felt heavy, and I thought I’d rest them for a while after eating one more chocolate.

  A BANG ON the door woke me.

  Tony stood at the door in a black Father Christmas outfit trimmed with fake fur, a pair of antlers on his head. “Got any chicken left? I’m starving.”

  We hugged, wished each other merry Christmas and I led him to the kitchen where he sat at the table as I offered him some chicken from the leftovers.

  “Any sausages, bacon?”

  “Didn’t you get lunch?” I reached into the fridge for leftover meat.

  “They’ve gone vegan, didn’t I tell you. The nut loaf I could have coped with, M&S do a nice one, or is it Linda McCartney? Anyway, that was OK, but this year, they both announce it’s vegan from now on, so no eggs, cheese, milk, anything.”

  “What did you have?”

  “A big butternut squash with two parsnips either side, like the legs of a chicken. And mountains of veg. I thought I was going to fart myself inside out on the way here.”

  I put a plate filled with meat, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing and other leftovers from our meal on the kitchen table. “Do you want it heated up?”

  His mouth full, Tony replied, “No time for that, I’m starving. As long as it’s all cooked in animal fat, I’m eating it.”

 
Mum walked into the kitchen. “Hello, Tony love. How was your Christmas?”

  He tried to reply, but his mouth was full.

  I filled Mum in on the full story, butternut squash and parsnips and everything.

  Mum sat next to Tony, his hand in hers. “You poor love. What do they think you’re going to eat, growing lads like you two? You need meat and eggs and milk and fat to build you up. It’s not natural. It’s not right.”

  Tony had polished off his plate by now. He said, “How you feeling about only one more week of TK Maxx?”

  Mum interrupted, “Want some Yorkshire pudding with a bit of golden syrup on it love? Cooked them in dripping, so they’re nice and tasty.”

  Tony and I nodded.

  As Mum heated up three portions in the microwave, retrieved the syrup from her cupboard of foods from the 1950s like the syrup, we sat as I explained how I saw the situation.

  “It’s been three years. And, in fairness, for a summer job, it’s a long time, isn’t it? It’s not the same since you left, Tony. Didn’t realise how much you let me get away with, how much I relied on your little bending of the rules to help me balance it all.”

  Mum handed us the steaming plates of food. “He’s always saying that, love. How much he misses working with you.”

  “Go easy, Mum, he’s got a big enough head anyway.”

  Tony bristled, flicked his hair from his eyes, dived into the pudding, then said, “Thank you very much. Seriously though, I’m sure I could get you something at my place. I’m in charge of temporary resourcing for my section. If not, I can have a word with the HR woman, Siobhan she’s called, get you an application form before it goes out wider. It’s all possible.” He took another mouthful. “This is delish, Mrs. Harrison.”

  “I’ve told you, love, call me Margaret, or Peg, you’re part of this family too. You’re the only one I’ve allowed here today. Did he tell you that one, eh?”