Suck It Up

Fred nurses his pint as though it’s the final part of his death row meal. He stares down into the amber depths contemplating all the answers that reside there. Answers reduced in size so that he can no longer see them. The fact of the matter is that he’s suffered that reduction. He is deflated and no longer has awe for the infinite. His part in this charade was written out long ago.

He finishes his pint, then looks around him. He doesn’t look lost exactly, more perturbed that this is where he’s been washed up. A useless piece of flotsam having found his way to a place dedicated to the dregs. The pub itself is decent enough, or rather it was. The sturdy wood fittings have stood the test of time. Everything else is marking time. Marked and scarred by its abrasive movement. 

He wanders into the loos. This is where you can discern the character and nature of a pub. Fred doubts this room has ever seen better days. The original budget ran low before they ever fitted the toilets out. There’s also no money to get a decent cleaner. A potent aroma lingers below him. He tries not to make any sudden moves that may waft it upwards. His eyes water all the same. His eyes have a habit of watering of late.

As he opens the door to the outside world, bright light assails his diluted pupils and he reels from the revelation that the day is still young. Daytime drinking brings with it many hazards, and this is one that he has never gotten used to. The anticipation of darkness is no mistake. Fred’s life is dark right now. The light was taken from it through no fault of his own. 

Coming to terms with his changed circumstances has always been a thankless task. He knows he tempted providence. Made a poor bargain as he asked it; can it get any worse? And of course it could. And so it did.

There is a moment in many men’s lives when they take stock. Some call it a mid-life crisis. What it really is, is grief. The timing of this grief is around the time when a man has used up as much or more of his life than he has ahead of him. He will not be present to mourn the end of his life, so he attends to that sombre church service in a state of confused loneliness. Only fools and braggards avoid this crossroads of pain. Few are immune to the weighing of a life against the dreams that once were. Once measured, a life is always found lacking. 

There are those who suffer silently and in time, reconcile themselves to what lays ahead. A subdued perspective that promises little and delivers those small portions with neither fuss or nonsense. The lack of drama is a small mercy.

Fred made the mistake of articulating the headlines of his woe. His words were a cruel betrayal. He saw the betrayal play out around him as he stood in the eye of a storm of his own making. Chanted a self-fulfilling prophesy which was driven by his realising that he was worth more dead than he’d ever been worth alive.

The life insurance renewal had dropped on the threadbare mat that had once said welcome in the vain hope someone would visit. The greeting had been worn away by Fred and Janet’s feet. They’d ground it down until it was very clear that no one was welcome in this building, not even them.

The white envelope was accompanied by two other bills and four colourfully adorned leaflets. Two were for retirement homes, one for double glazed conservatories and the final one was for yet another takeaway pizza place. The latter would be slipped into the Menu Drawer, but it was doubtful it would ever be referred to, let alone ordered from.

Fred had dutifully filed the menu, binned the three other leaflets and then opened the three bills, discarding the violated envelopes as he went. He always felt guilty tearing the envelopes open like that. Their brief lives ended once they had served that single purpose.

He sighed as he saw that the broadband and TV package had gone up again. The way this was presented pained him; Good News! Three new channels to more than make up for the annual robbery these companies indulged themselves in. The thieves and pickpockets had gone legit, using inflation as the means to take from the poor. There was seldom corresponding inflation when it came to wages, and Fred was feeling the pinch more and more these days. He noticed the credit on the gas bill and knew he should claim it back, adjusting the direct debit to the level it always should have been at. The prospect of an hour long call in an attempt to get his money back made him nauseous. He’d gotten to a stage in life where calling a takeaway for food was traumatic enough.

It was as he scanned through the life insurance renewal that the subject of his worth in this life was raised. His eyes fixed on the figure he was insured for and he looked around the empty house that had become a millstone around his neck. In the event of his demise, the mortgage would be paid and Janet and little Tommy would have a lump sum that would set them up for the rest of Janet’s life and Tommy would eventually inherit the house he stood in, just as long as Janet didn’t linger in a care home. Some of the thieves and pickpockets ran old people’s homes and they took property in payment for putting the elderly up in end-of-life hotels.

The weight of Fred’s existence became apparent to him. The wall of his past threatened to crash down upon him as he looked toward the path of his future. Somewhere along the way, he’d made a bad mistake. He’d sold himself out. Gone for the easy option, managing to kid himself it wasn’t easy due to the hard work he’d had to put in in order to keep his head above water. And somehow, with the effort of survival, he’d progressed in his career. 

There was a con trick here though. He’d earnt his qualifications and he’d moved up to management level, but not once had his life become easier. Not for him the new executive motor, two holidays in sunny resorts and a ski-break after Christmas. The house itself needed an update. He’d thrown the conservatory leaflet away because they didn’t have one and neither could they afford it.

He'd moved here because this was where the work was. He’d had an idea that the increase in salary would both improve his life and also his standing. Something had been lost in translation. The property around here was far more expensive and in order for him to service the mortgage, he had to take a train into the city. To get to the train station he needed a car, and once he arrived in the city there was another hour of tube travel, buses and walking. He’d been working nearly two hours before he got to work. Those were unpaid hours though and the monetary cost of his travel was pain inducing. But that was not the only cost. He was packed into public transport in ways that were outlawed for animals, and the only way to board carriages and survive the melee was to become desensitised to the whole barbaric process. 

The mistake he’d made wasn’t a single, pivotal mistake. He’d compounded an initial bad decision by making it again and again. He’d told himself that he could never go back. He didn’t have a sense of where back was, he couldn’t define it. Every time he visited friends and family he saw the movement of their lives in stark relief to his own apparent stagnation. Even those who’d clowned around at school, and had no interest in what the future held, had found a good life for themselves. Whereas Fred had moved away in search of bigger and better dreams, discarding his own dreams by the wayside as he escaped the confines and restrictions of his home town.

When he met Janet, he thought he’d found the missing piece in his puzzle. He’d made friends in his chosen home, but now he had found a local lass. His expectation was that she would ground him and help him become more attuned to his surroundings. That may have been the case for a while, but by the time Tommy came along, he understood that Janet would dig her heels into that very ground were Fred to suggest that they upped sticks and moved somewhere quieter and cheaper.

The numbers made sense to Fred, but Janet could make no sense of them. The numbers she saw were the long hours he worked and she was left cold at the prospect of moving away from her family and friends only to be isolated. Never mind the allure of a coastal property. What was the point if she knew no one there?

Eventually, Fred had opened up and admitted that he was feeling the pressure and he couldn’t do it anymore. That the daily grind was now grinding him down. There had to be more to life than this, he’d told Janet. Still her eyes bore no comprehension and he resented her for that. She had her family down the road and so she thought she would be OK, come what may. When he listed off the friends of hers who had seen how much more bang for their bucks they got when they moved from the city, she eyed him with hostile suspicion, making a liar out of him. It was then that he knew he was living that lie, and it was then that he told her that he'd be better off dead.  

She’d laughed when he’d said this. Mocking him. Making him feel insignificant. Her contempt for him was apparent in that mirthless laughter. Fred knew that a good woman could make a man feel ten feet tall. That having that woman’s belief was a power that made a man into a hero. He’d seen it in action, mistaken it for self-belief when all it was, was currency.

Relationships were transactions, and Fred felt short-changed. Janet had reneged on their contract and he could see no way forward. The fight left him and from that moment on, they led separate lives.

The divorce was inevitable. The process of the divorce itself was about as painful as it got for Fred. He could see that Janet was upset and angry, but her pain was absent. He suspected that she was numbing herself to the reality of what was happening, but when they put their home up for sale she corrected his assumption that it was a home. It had only ever been a house as far as she was concerned.

Extracting himself from Janet should have gifted Fred a growing sense of freedom, but reality didn’t afford him that. He’d left it far too late to make a bid for freedom, if he’d ever had any freedom in the first place. The way he’d approached the dissolution of his marriage was the same as every other big choice he’d made in his life. He pointed, closed his eyes and fired. It was a matter of hit and hope, only he didn’t always hit his mark. 

This time it was different. This time there was Tommy to consider. He’d thought he had taken Tommy into consideration. That Tommy deserved more. But as events unfolded, he realised that he’d painted Tommy in his own colours and made calls that instantly became ridiculous in the real world. This was a leap of faith that he wasn’t going to get up from any time soon.

They went to mediation. Janet didn’t trust Fred to draw up the necessary papers. She’d talked to her friends and as soon as they knew her marriage was potentially on the rocks, they bore her aloft and carried her away to their perceived safe haven. As far as they were concerned, Janet didn’t need Fred. Never had.

Mediation was a joke. The punchline was that there was no mediation. Divorce law was all about teaching Fred a lesson and a painful one at that. He staggered out of each of the three mediation sessions, drunk from the beating that had been administered. The female lawyer had seen him coming a mile off, landing haymaker after haymaker; I have some good news and some bad news. The good news was her fee. She was rewarded handsomely for the bare knuckle mediation she subjected men to.

Janet played her part well. The wronged woman. Hurt and broken beyond repair. The provision of a house and an income was small recompense for two lives ruined. Bad enough to ruin distraught Janet’s life, but there was poor Tommy to consider. What of him?

Somewhere between these horrific beatings, Fred woke up to his plight. But by then it was far too late. All battles were not there to be won, but the trick was to pick your battles. Fred was deprived of that choice. He had slept-walked into the meat grinder and now it was a case of coming out the other side. 

The loss of the money he’d singlehandedly accumulated was not the issue. He had a notion of doing the necessary before, and so he could do it again. When he saw the landscape before him though, he knew it was never a case of doing it again. First time around he’d been blindly ambitious. Thought it was all about hard graft. Now, with the stuffing knocked out of him, he didn’t have any reason to go again.

Truth was that he couldn’t afford to live near the city anymore, and the prospect of continuing on this particular hamster’s wheel appalled him. The final nail in the coffin was snarled at him over a small wooden table as he let his coffee go cold, even in the blast of the fires of Janet’s rage. 

You’ll not see him any more than your weekends. 

Lucky to have half the school holidays. 

If anything ever happens to Tommy, so much as a mark…

Fred had somehow managed to prevent his mouth falling open in a silent questioning of that last one. Despite Janet wrapping him in cotton wool, Tommy had been hurt several times in Janet’s care, losing a front tooth on one occasion. On Fred’s watch there was never any more than a bump or scrape, and yet Fred was deemed the risk-ladened parent. He was the inept Dad. A joker. Daddy Day Care.

He sucked this up, along with the threats. He saw it clearly now. There was no bargaining here. The cards were stacked in Janet’s favour and she was merely doing that which everyone else did. She’d taken advice from family and friends. It was Fred’s fault, and he’d have to wear it. He saw she meant it. Resented him remaining in Tommy’s life even on a part time basis. Remain he would though. That was only fair. On him and his boy.

He'd moved away, meaning a long drive every other weekend to pick up Tommy from school. His employers were never happy with that arrangement. Finishing early every other Friday to honour a promise he’d made to his son from the very beginning. Sometimes, the Sunday traffic misbehaved, Janet’s reaction to his being late for drop off was absurd and comical. Fred had laughed when he’d got that Janet hadn’t had it all her way. She’d tried to derisk her life. Wanted rid of all the risk Fred posed. But that could never happen. Not even if Fred were to disappear from the face of the Earth. Tommy was too like his Dad for that.

“Alright Dad?”

Fred turns towards the familiar voice to find himself looking at the most familiar sight in the world. He sees his son and the light comes flooding back into his world. This is a dual effort, it spills from the smiling Tommy and erupts from his old man. It isn’t that he lives for these moments, that would be wrong. He’s lived his life as best he can. Provided an example to his boy. This is where it all makes sense. Father and son together.

They embrace.

“Fancy a pint?” asks Tommy.

Fred grins and nods, “not here though, eh?”

Tommy looks at the pub, “I dunno, it’s got some character about it.”

Fred shrugs and shakes his head, “we’ll sit outside though, right?”

Tommy readily capitulates, sees that this is important to his old man, senses the reason behind it. Inside is a different world to the one he wants for his lad.

“I’ve been thinking,” says Tommy after several minutes of quiet communion between them.

“Oh dear,” says Fred, “don’t make a habit of that. Could be dangerous.”

Tommy eyes the older version of himself. Fred sees the seriousness of what is about to be imparted. Calms himself as best he can, but he’s shaking all the same.

“Could I come and live with you for a while?” asks his son.

Fred has never encouraged this. Wanted to do it right. For Tommy to be his own person. To be his own man. To be a man. If it were ever to happen, it had to come from him and be his own idea. His choice.

That was all part of the bargain.

Fred doesn’t have the words. This has been a long time coming. He looks into his son’s eyes and nods furiously before the image of the smiling boy disappears behind a cascade of tears. A release of a hope he never dared hold in his heart.