The gap under the door

The Gap Under The Door

I’ve been trapped in this loo for ages. Surely someone has to come looking for me soon. The Putrid Trash are on their second song and the Duck and Dolphin is crammed with the usual regulars hovering around the bar. Sundays attract an older crowd with no kids to rush home for or dogs to walk. It’s a chill-out zone for the over thirties. Everyone knows everyone, but there are secrets hidden in the shadows.

Take The Putrid Trash for example. Good mates held together by a love of alcohol and music from the last century. By that I mean anything from “London Calling” to “Anarchy in the U.K.” They bump along well enough until a band member forms a relationship with some unfortunate who rattles the cage of this fragile collective. The girlfriends don’t last long; the lure of the band and another game of spoof remain too strong.

The drummer, Damian, is ex-army, or so he likes to remind us. Once he was on the top of the hit list for the IRA. Tall and good-looking, he holds his beer well, though can flip at any second if his buttons are pushed too hard. I once saw him headbutt a lad who looked at his girlfriend the wrong way. Luckily it was not in the Duck and Dolphin or else he would have been banned.

Ken, the lead singer, thinks of himself as a bit of a biker and has flashed the odd photo of him dressed in leather in his younger days. He looked like he’d fallen off the page of some gay magazine. It was the kind of look we all went for in those days: big moustache and tight jeans with keys dangling at the side. Ken says he had lots of admirers but preferred the ladies. I guess we’ll never know.

Greg is the baby of the group. When he’s not bashing away at his Yamaha he works as a nurse at the local hospital, his charming smile and warm eyes a hit with the patients. Often exhausted, he comes straight from the hospital to the pub. He says the first few pints dull the images of the confused and incontinent.

Damian named the group The Putrid Trash because they’re a bit rubbish. They even dressed in bin bags for a few gigs. It made my partner Brendan and I smile. Where was Brendan? He must have noticed that I’ve been gone ages by now. Probably sat out on the kerb enjoying the last rays of the sun.

All the locals at the pub know where to find the musty old cushions hidden by the door. The cushions get moved along the kerb as the shadows deepen over the pub’s roof and force the sun worshippers to scuttle along until they’re yards down the street.

Brendan’s probably telling another of his not-so-short stories to Zena, the French teacher. I’ve heard them all before and amuse myself by trying to guess which comes next.

If he’s told the one about the wide-eyed frog then, odds are, the one about the tiger that winks comes next. He’s got a bit of the Irish in him, so loves to tell tales. Nearly seventy years old now, he revels in the fact that nobody ever guesses his age. He’s handsome with sparkling blue eyes and his thick bushy moustache from the eighties is now replaced by a neatly trimmed goatee. At parties, friends often ask if we’ve rowed, as we hardly speak to each other. But we don’t need to. He’s always there at the end of the night, so where the hell is he now?

Damian thanks the crowd for their enthusiastic applause and says that Zena will be coming around with the bucket for the collection. They always do a collection for charity. Last week it was for prostate cancer, as a friend of ours, Clive, recently died from it. His brother had developed cancer years before but Clive did nothing about it until it was too late. He used to nag the guys in the pub to go to have a blood test. It’s just a blood test; just a small prick, he’d say, waggling his little finger in front of his groin. A few of us did go and have a check-up after his funeral. That’s when they found my tumour.

To be honest, I don’t remember if it was actually called a tumour – I’m not sure anyone used that word – but with unfortunate timing I was told I might have cancer a few days before Christmas. In fact New Year was a bit of a disaster as I got blood poisoning after the biopsy. The form I’d filled in did point out that it was one of the risks, and I guess if they’re cutting lumps out of you through your bum it’s not the cleanest of operations.

We were taking down the Christmas decorations. As we’d placed the glass baubles back in their tatty tissue paper, I’d mentioned I was feeling a bit off. The thermometer revealed a temperature of forty degrees. The little bit of paper in the box said to seek immediate assistance. Brendan assured me it was probably a duff reading and took his own temperature – then mine again – and in fifteen minutes we were talking to the receptionist in A & E.

“You couldn’t have a temperature of over forty and still be walking. Take a seat.”

The triage nurse took it again a few minutes later and before long I was lying on a trolley in A & E with a very stressed Brendan holding my hand. He was fine until I started having the shakes. I thought if this is it then I’ve had a good life. I honestly felt quite calm. Where better to have a meltdown than in hospital? Before long I was pumped full of antibiotics in a private ward. Thank goodness for BUPA.

I’d wondered why they’d kept a close eye on me over the next five days, waking me up through the night to take my blood pressure and check the drips. It was only later that I read a third of patients die of sepsis. Perhaps I should have said a few prayers after all. As a lapsed Catholic my last confession would have taken quite a while. Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been about fifty years since my last confession. Now where do you want me to start?

I definitely broke a few commandments in the eighties. I didn’t kill anyone or anything like that, but there was a lot of lusting and coveting going on. The gay scene in London was vibrant and exciting. There were still only a few bars where everyone

gathered to cruise. No Grindr or mobile phones to swipe in those days.

My favourite bar was Bromptons in Earls Court. Usually full of clones, all wearing identical white T-shirts, jeans and with neatly trimmed moustaches. Another of Brendan’s stories is of when he met someone he fancied and arranged to meet them back at the bar the following Saturday; he couldn’t pick him out from the hundred other clones cruising the bar.

The band has stopped for a breather. I bet everyone has dashed outside to get some air. I’ve tried shouting but nobody has heard me over the music.

I shout again. Surely someone has to come in for a pee soon. I’d bang on the walls if I wasn’t slumped on the floor. I’ve somehow managed to end up with my head down by the gap under the door with my feet twisted to the side of the toilet pan. It stinks down here, a mixture of stale vomit and Dettol. There are also the inevitable loose pieces of toilet paper that get shoved into the corners. I’m not sure some of them haven’t been used.

God knows how I ended up in this position.

The last thing I remember is Zena going to the bar, and me saying I’d give her a hand after pointing Percy at the porcelain. Being half-French, I’m not sure she understood.

The next thing I remember is staring through the gap of the door at Ken’s Timberland boots as he stood at the urinal. At least I assume they were Ken’s. He was whistling a Beatles number as he briefly swilled his hands under the tap and then the door banged shut.

Zena must have taken the drinks out by now. My pint of cider will be sitting there on the kerb getting warm. I’m parched. The thought of the cold, golden bubbles tickling my throat calms me for a moment. I hear drunken roars of approval from the other room as

Ken reminds everyone to dump any change in the charity bucket as they’ll be starting their second set soon.

The loo door bursts open and Brendan lines up with Greg and Damian at the urinals. My throat is so dry. What I mean as an ear-piercing cry for help comes out as a croaky moan.

“You’re bloody brilliant tonight,” says Brendan to Damian, who thanks him by peeing on his shoe.

“Oi watch it, mate, these are Paul Smith, you know.”

“Well, he won’t want them now,” says Greg, followed by a smoker’s chuckle. There’s near silence for a minute with just the sound of bladders being emptied.

“Malcolm would have loved tonight, you know. He was always a big fan...” says Brendan, zipping up his fly and washing his hands in the sink. I can hear he’s a bit choked; the end of his sentence stolen away by his emotions.

Greg moves over towards the sink and they stand very close together. Then a few splashes of water stain the suede of Greg’s summer shoes.

“Hey, come here,” he says with his best bedside manner, “it’s okay to cry. You need to let it out.” Damian’s heavy army boots move over to join them. All three of them are now stood tightly together as if they’re standing on the edge of a cliff.

I call out again but nobody moves. Brendan is in floods of tears and I realise that the splashes are not from the cold tap but from the sobs wracking his body. What the hell is wrong with him? He’s the one that’s always in control. He didn’t even cry watching Philadelphia. Well, maybe the odd sniffle.

I feel so helpless. I want to go and hug him but my useless legs won’t move.

“It’s the first time I’ve been in here since they found him, you know,” says Brendan. His voice is so quiet I can hardly hear him. “They said it was a heart attack, and we thought it was the bloody prostate cancer that was going to kill him off.”

“We’ve already collected three hundred pounds for the British Heart Foundation,” says Damian in a caring, softly spoken voice I hardly recognise. “Come on let’s get out there. He wouldn’t want you to miss his favourite song.”

The boots shuffle off. I hear the band burst into “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” to an ecstatic cheer from the crowd, and I know it’s time for me to move on. They say your hearing is the last to go, but I could murder a pint of cider.