Standards

Did you know there are hardly any female serial killers? It’s true, I’ve read it. Nobody ever thinks it could be a woman which means I’m completely off the radar. Especially given that I’m middle-aged, law abiding with no connections to the police at all. Except for those times I complained but they don’t really count because the useless young idiots who turned up didn’t even bother to write anything down.

That’s how I knew they weren’t going to do anything. They were just humouring a fussy old woman, I could see it in the way they didn’t even have the common courtesy to make eye contact when I was telling them about the goings on. They could barely contain their impatience to get gone. Probably chomping at the bit to be off fighting ‘real crime’, no doubt tasering someone or giving them a good kicking. Oh I read the newspapers and these two weren’t fooling me. I don’t know who these louts think pay their wages, I pay my council tax and the rates on my shop are astronomical.

That’s what gets my goat the most - here I am a small business woman trying to bring something to the area and all I get for my trouble is disgusting drunken men urinating down my door, students who should know better vomiting everywhere and worst of all I once found a used condom on my doorstep. I swear to all that’s holy this country has gone to hell. I’m just glad my dear old mum’s not here to see it. She always used to say, if you haven’t got standards then you are nothing.

Nothing! These people are nothing, they don’t count, and they’ve brought everything on themselves. I watch them walking past, young women with all their flesh hanging out – big fat things most of them. I don’t know what it is about young people and food. Emily, the girl who works for me, is no better. Lovely girl, even though she’s a bit dim. She’s a university student as well although it’s not like it used to be, they’ll let anybody in these days. I’ve tried to talk to her about standards but she’s too busy eating cake. She’s obsessed with cake! It’s like mum used to say, one thousand calories is all the body needs. These young ones though they don’t listen, they just let it all hang out. Disgusting creatures most of them if you ask me.

That’s the trouble though they never ask me. I could sort this country out in no time at all. In fact, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve had to be, what do they call it – pro-active? I knew the police weren’t going to help, total waste of time they were so I took matters into my own hands. It all started with a young hoodlum, you know the type I mean – trousers practically around his knees and all his under garments on show. I’ve lost all hope for this country, I really have. Anyway I was sorting though my stock so the shop was closed and I watched him relieve himself against my door, bold as brass he was.

How could I let that go? Absolutely no standards at all. I don’t really know what came over me but without realising it I slipped the knife I’d been using for slitting the boxes into my pocket and quietly stepped out into the darkness. I followed him for ages and he never even noticed it was like I was invisible. I didn’t plan anything, not that time, but when he veered off down a shortcut between two shops I quickened my pace and stuck the knife in his back. Right between his shoulder blades.

He screamed so loudly I felt sure everyone must have heard and I admit I did panic. I pulled the knife out and plunged it into his throat, mainly just to shut him up. I think it was a bit of a shock to both of us how much blood sprayed out. I was covered in it. I had to take my cardi off and carry it back to the shop. It was completely ruined. Nobody noticed though and that’s when I realised how easy it was.

I don’t bother with the police now, I sort out my own problems and it’s much quicker and more effective. There’s no warnings, no second chances. My mum always used to say, give people an inch and they’ll take a mile and she was right. In fact sometimes I’m doing these people a favour. Take the homeless man for instance who had the cheek to bed down in my doorway. What life has he got? I did feel some compassion, I mean I’m not heartless and they do say these things can befall any of us. I might even have looked the other way if he hadn’t left all his dirty litter behind like an animal. No, he had zero standards, no good to himself or anyone else; it was like putting a dog out of its misery.

It took a while for the police to start to notice, I told you they’re a waste of time, total dimwits the lot of them. They’re warning people now though not to be out at night by themselves. I just hope people listen and start behaving like decent human beings. It’s not like I enjoy doing all this extra work on top of running a business. Some days I’m exhausted from it all but somebody's got to have standards or we might as well be savages. 

How Real is Your Mid-Life Crisis?

Does the term mid-life crisis strike you as a bit of a cliché? You know the perfect excuse for men old enough to know better to shoehorn their beer guts into tight jeans and race around in flash cars. Or what about the middle-aged women who suddenly take up with the neighbour’s son? We’ve all heard the stories and, up until fairly recently, I might have been inclined to scoff along with you.

But that was before I was blindsided by my own existential angst. These days all those middle-aged twits don’t seem quite so funny. If someone had told me before I turned 50 that I would spend the subsequent three years feeling like an alien had taken up residence in my body, I would have laughed in their face. Nowadays I don’t have the energy as I’m too busy being battered by menopausal hormones and held to ransom by the tag team of insomnia and anxiety.

Believe me, I have plenty of time to dwell on this issue and let me tell you the mid-life crisis is alive and well. If it hasn’t seized hold of you yet then batten down the hatches and hope like hell that this particular hurricane passes you by. So what is it that actually triggers this abomination? Well, in my completely non-expert opinion, it’s a combination of a few things.

For women, the most obvious catalyst is the monster that is the menopause. Before I was a woman of a ‘certain age’, I envisaged the worst that could happen was a few hot flushes and how bad could that be, right? What a poor naive fool I was! Nobody told me that these hot flushes make you feel like you’re going to spontaneously combust and leave you feeling nauseas and dizzy whilst the night time sweats keep you awake night after night. Come to think of it they never mentioned the more or less permanent headaches either. Now before I’m accused of being a scaremonger, it is alleged that 80% of women slide through the menopause with nary a ladylike glow but for a significant number of us the menopause is hell.

I don’t think this is the full story however or where would that leave men in this not so pretty picture? After all mid-life crises like to distribute the madness equally amongst the sexes. My own preoccupation has become health and I find the more I talk about it the more prevalent this – okay let’s just call it what it is - hypochondria is. Friends who, as far as I know, never gave a second thought to their health are suddenly paranoid wrecks. Where once these people might have been knocking back G&Ts and dancing the night away, they are now googling symptoms both real and imagined and coming up with more lethal diseases than you could ever imagine were out there. Just this week for instance, I’ve self diagnosed a brain tumour, skin cancer, lupus and thrombosis.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this army of middle-aged neurotics were never away from the doctors and poster people for healthy living. Sadly that’s not how it works. Despite seeing my doctor two weeks ago I never mentioned any of my ailments – primarily because I didn’t want to look like a nutcase which I suppose suggests on a rational level I know that I’m being ridiculous. Likewise, I have friends who have self diagnosed heart problems, lung cancer, kidney failure, diabetes – you name it and it seems my friends have got it. However, not one of them has consulted a doctor, choosing instead to employ the ruse of eating and drinking to excess whilst behaving like geriatric teenagers in the hope of finding some respite from the fears circling their middle-aged brains like vultures.

The crux of the situation is that there comes a point in everyone’s life when the realisation hits that you’ve got less years in front of you than you’ve already had. The harsh truth is I can remember the 80s like they were yesterday and the intervening years seem to have passed in the blink of an eye and yet fast forward the same 30+ years and I’ll probably be dead. It’s not exactly a settling thought is it?

I’m sure there are some of you out there shaking your head Dali Lama style ready to meet your maker whenever she or he sees fit. I wish I had your courage, I really do. But instead I find myself taking some consolation in the fact that almost everyone I know of that ‘certain age’ is clinging onto life with a desperation that’s unseemly.

Although I wasn’t around during my mother’s midlife, I do remember laughing heartily at my grandma’s favourite past time of reading aloud from the obituaries. My sister and I would mimic her scanning the list of names, none of whom she knew, pausing only to offer a fitting, “74, that’s no age.” They all seemed ancient to us. In fact, I clearly remember aged 18 regarding the fuss surrounding John Lennon’s demise with wonder – 40 seemed like a ripe old age to me. What I don’t remember, however, is any generation before my own being so self-indulgently obsessed with ageing and mortality. It seems to me, my grandmother and mother’s generations just got on with it. So what’s changed?

I suppose some would say that we are the generation who, on the one hand never had it so good but have also been forced to cope with pressures unknown by our predecessors the so called baby boomers. We’re the first generation not born in the shadow of the war. One of the reasons my grandma probably didn’t have time for a mid-life crisis was the fact that in 1944 aged 45 she gave birth to her fourth child. This was during the war when as part of the war effort she drove a crane. Add to that the fact that she was widowed aged 50 and left to support four children single-handedly. My mother (the fourth child born in 1944) has no recollection of the war but her entire childhood was defined by it. There was post-war destruction and poverty, not to mention the gaping hole left by the loss of loved ones. In comparison, fretting about whether becoming an organic vegan will extend your life or if that mole really does look bigger seems ugly and superficial.

This life of Riley me and my 50-something friends have enjoyed has been offset by stressors not faced by our parents and grandparents. We have seen our lives transformed by technology and the workplaces we entered are unrecognisable now. We are ruled by data and targets unheard of in bygone days. We’re all accountable to the nth degree, competing with youngsters who seemingly came out of the womb IT savvy. There are no jobs for life anymore and the idea of the workplace as a community is likely to elicit derisive laughter from all those 30-somethings who wield the whip.

Add to this the reality that we are going to have to work longer and longer and the stress is likely to tip anyone over the edge. We all went into our working lives with the idea that we could retire, like our parents and grandparents before us, at sixty. As it stands now I will be working until I’m 68 but as we all know the goalposts are constantly changing. I pity the ones born after me who will no doubt be working until they drop – that is if they can secure a job in the first place.

The world then has become a much more confusing place than it was for previous generations and confusion breeds fear. As we struggle to make sense of the world around us maybe we cling more desperately to the familiar. And what’s more familiar than ourselves? Except, as we face the natural physical changes that come with middle age, even that familiarity is stripped away. Or maybe I’m over analysing this and we are all a bunch of self obsessed, whiney hypochondriacs. Go on, you decide.

The Slide

“Come on Danny, be a good boy and take your meds. You know you always feel better when you do.” I spit something unintelligible at the matronly woman holding out a plastic pill dispenser. Turning towards the wall I feign resistance but we both know it’s a game.

She silently stands firm next to my bed. A few of my fellow inmates are watching, their blank faces making it hard to judge whether it’s out of curiosity or simply a reaction to her sympathetic but unyielding voice. A voice I’ve come to crave as it makes me feel safe, even though I know it’s all just a pathetic illusion. A 32-year-old man desperate to be called a boy so that he can feel like a boy; this solid, practical woman’s boy.

Rolling over I avoid her gaze, my eyes fixing instead on the navy blue uniform. Baby bird style I open my mouth, too ashamed to meet the kind eyes as she places the dispenser next to my lips, tipping the pills into my mouth. I swallow obediently, reaching for the water she offers me. “That’s a good boy,” she soothes before returning to the nurses’ station where the other one, the young one, watches our familiar dance with disinterest.

I’m not mad, I swear I’m not. Not like some of the others in here. Some of them are so far gone it’s hard to see anything human left. Maybe it was never there to begin with; maybe they’ve always been that way. Others, like me, are damaged maybe beyond repair but there are still remnants of what we once were. Not many and some days hardly anything at all but somewhere at the edges a ghost like flicker of what could have been.

I close my eyes, grateful for the dull calm that washes over me. I’m safe here without the questions and sharp edges. Somewhere far away I can hear Maxine’s low growl. It’s a deep guttural sound, part growl, part hum that comes from deep within her. Maxine is one of the ones who used to pass for normal. I’ve never heard her utter a sound other than the growl but her mother’s the type who thinks it’s okay to tell everyone her daughter’s story.

The mother comes every week but spends most of the time she’s here re-telling Maxine’s story to other visitors or the nurses. She’s the kind of woman who, even when she’s telling someone else’s story, it’s all about her. She doesn’t out and out say how Maxine’s decline into madness has become an unbearable burden but that’s the subtext. And Maxine stares into space, growling that low tuneless rumble as her mother sits centre stage.

You wouldn’t think it to look at her but Maxine used to be a looker. She’s obese now in that puffy, marshmallowy kind of way that’s part medication part junk food. Her hair is cropped short with bald patches that remind me of a badly kept lawn. She has lots of not so great habits like ripping out her own eyelashes and slashing her skin with anything that’s not safely locked away.

According to the mother, things went bad for Maxine when her dad was diagnosed with cancer. Seven years spent waiting for him to die with false hope after false hope pushed her over the edge along with him. Of course the mother finds it hard to understand how, at such crucial time when it should have been all hands on deck, Maxine crumpled in such a catastrophic way. Maybe, her mother wonders aloud every Saturday, she was always weak.

I like Maxine, even though I’ve never spoken to her. In fact I’ve never even been up close to her. The closest we’ve come is me watching her from my own bed as she sits on hers staring off into space. It’s a mixed ward you see, all us nutters lumped in together. I know the government have made noises about these old hospitals not being fit for purpose but, the truth is there’s no money, no beds and more people losing their marbles every day.

So how did I lose mine? Nothing as dramatic as Maxine’s story I’m embarrassed to confess. It was just a sort of relentless slide into the abyss. Then one day everything quickened up until the descent took my breath away. I’d been doing normal for 30 years before the trap door sprang open and these days no amount of trying will keep the damn thing shut. All the stuff that had been locked away came flooding out and now there’s no room left. My head is full and yet more stuff keeps on coming.

They’ll patch me up and send me home, like they do with all of us. We’re like pin balls though and we all bounce back here before too long. Most times it’s via Accident and Emergency after a suicide attempt. It feels like coming home for awhile; Nurse Brenda, she’s always here to greet us with her pill dispenser and calm, accepting face. Then they convince us we’re doing better and off we go. Round and round and round.

I Don't Like Birthdays!

I don't like birthdays. I don't like the fuss that they generate, it makes me anxious. I much prefer run of the mill, ordinary days, where surprises are less likely to arrive out of the blue and expectations are generally low. Before you accuse me of being a total misery-guts let me just say that I’m quite happy to celebrate other people's birthdays. It’s just that where my own are concerned I have a history of things not running smoothly. In fact, some might say I’m jinxed.  

Casting my mind back over the years, I don't even know where to start. Maybe the time I fell down the stairs as I was heading out to celebrate and didn't realise until the next morning that I’d broken my arm. Or there was the one where I visited my sister in London and arrived home late Saturday night only for the cash machine to swallow my card. I consequently had a forty minute walk home and not a penny to my name until the banks reopened on the Monday. Still not convinced? How about the time I ended up in A&E when a rambunctious sailor inexplicably rubbed vinegar into my friend's eyes (don't even ask!)?

The jewel in the crown though, the one which is unsurpassable in its jinxedness, happened just a few years ago. I knew it wasn't going to be a good day from the get go. After all, my dad had only just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and so it was understandable that my family would forget, reeling as they were under the weight of something far more important. However, little did I know that every single other person in my life, except for one, would also forget. And in the end I’d wish that the lone well wisher had forgotten as well.

This particular person called me a couple of days before the 'big day' and informed me that she’d booked a spa day for the two of us and another friend. Predictably, given my previous birthday form, the day came around and the friend who’d arranged the 'treat' called early to say she was ill and couldn't make it. All was not lost, however, as I was still meeting the remaining member of our celebrating trio at the spa. This though was when the day really began to descend into surrealism and I started to suspect that I was trapped in some bleak European art house film. The said friend quickly informed me that she couldn't stay long as she’d managed to book herself an appointment with the much in demand spa hair stylist. She then thrust a card and gift at me but, before I could get excited, said that they were for another friend with an upcoming birthday for which she wouldn't be around. 

Worse than being forgotten was the creeping sense of dread that she might at any moment remember and there would follow the indignity of all the embarrassment and fuss that would bring. I was literally counting the minutes until her hair appointment and then it was just me. I spent my birthday alone with a bunch of strangers, flitting from a boiling hot sauna to a freezing cold ice room, pretending that I gave a hoot about the natural exfoliating effects. And worse was yet to come as, one by one over the following week, people remembered and I had to relive the whole tawdry experience.

So who could blame me for saying that birthdays are really not my cup of tea? And if you’re still not convinced, I do have more evidence filed away in my back catalogue of birthdays from hell.

How Anti-Social Are You?

I am in the main a fairly calm person but I suffer from two forms of rage. Air rage and cinema rage. When I find myself in the confines of an airplane or in a cinema, I become something akin to the Incredible Hulk and fear it's only a matter of time before I’m led away in handcuffs. 

I’ve heard of people who suffer from supermarket rage and find themselves scuffling in queues or grappling in the aisles, but not even being rammed from behind by a trolley can induce me to want to kill. Likewise in the gym, despite hearing tales of fisticuffs over hogging the treadmill or leaving machines soaked in sweat, none of that can rile me up. 

However, as soon as a plane leaves the ground, I could quite literally massacre everyone on board. There’s something about being crammed in, especially when the person in front decides to recline their seat that makes me hyper-sensitive to every sight, sound and movement. The person several rows behind talking too loudly, the person next to me wafting their newspaper a little bit too close to my space or, God forbid, the person who tries to engage me in conversation. There’s something about not having much space that makes me want to cling onto what little I have like a mad woman. 

Even more intense, is the rage I feel on a regular basis when I visit the cinema. I sometimes wonder why I even bother to go when every trip is like playing Russian roulette with a stroke. There are so many things that can trigger my descent into full blown serial killer mode. In no particular order: people sitting on my row when practically every other row is free, people using mobile phones and lighting up the entire cinema with their texts, people eating food noisily, people talking and laughing and generally enjoying themselves. In fact, if I'm honest people even existing, given that my best experiences are the ones when there is nobody else in the cinema. 

I realise that my rages say more about me than anybody else and that, sooner or later, I’m probably going to have to become a recluse. Either that or risk being arrested for taking down an entire plane or running amuck in my local cinema.

The Serpent (Short Story)

It’s there; I can smell it beneath the expensive aftershave and Hollywood smile. It’s lurking under the surface, waiting. Oh so still, poised to strike like a serpent hiding out in a baby’s crib. Who would ever suspect it was there?

Certainly not the girls from his office, crowding around him geisha-style, laughing at his jokes and basking in that perfect gentleman charm. A little wink, some harmless flirting and he’s got them all eating out of the palm of his hand. Now and again, I catch one of them casting a quick glance in my direction. They can’t help it, it’s a mystery to the entire office – how did good old Gav end up with me?

The frumpy dress and lack of anything that even remotely resembles a hair style would be enough to keep them wondering and gossiping but it’s worse than that. I can see it all over their faces and hear it in their polite questions – how did a pinched up, miserable old cow like me manage to bag myself a man like Gavin?

It’s not as if I see them very often and I suppose that’s part of the problem. I don’t like these work dos, I never have. I go to the Christmas one because I can’t get out of it but the others – I usually have a migraine or a stomach upset. Gavin never makes a fuss about me not going out; he says I cramp his style anyway. This one though sneaked up on me. A celebration paid for by management, some sort of reward for meeting targets. “All the big wigs are going to be there,” he said. “And their wives.” So that was that. It wouldn’t do for Gavin to be the odd one out.

I can hear him laughing; that big false laugh, the one he saves for outside and my stomach tightens. Lucy is talking to me, her curls bouncing around her face in time to her words as she moves her head up and down. He’s back. I can smell the serpent even before he drops down into the seat next to me. Alcohol, aftershave and the serpent, brushing up against me as he leans in conspiratorially, “What are you girls nattering on about?”

“I’m just telling Steph how she needs to come out with us more often. We have a right laugh, don’t we? Remember the bowling...” Lucy’s words are lost in bawdy laughter and Gavin joins in.

“Oh Steph’s too serious for the likes of us,” he winks. “She’d rather stay in reading or watching something intellectual on the telly box. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

I think back to the bowling night, it wasn’t much of a laugh for me. At least I don’t remember laughing all that much when he dished out what was coming to me on the kitchen floor. All that charm and bonhomie used up in the bowling alley. Good old Gav, by the time he got home he had nothing left. His mood had turned sour and I just reminded him of how much he hated his life.

I’m not an idiot; I know where it comes from, all that violence and rage. I get it, I really do. I mean it’s not like I’m living the life I wanted for myself. I keep it in though, I have to. What else is there? I have to keep the family together, for the kids’ sake. My sister can’t even look me in the face anymore, I sicken her with my excuses and empty promises but what can I do? My kids need me and they love their dad.

He’s going for more drinks, I mean why wouldn’t he, it’s a free bar? I can’t help but notice the way his mouth tightens in displeasure as his eyes flick over my bitter lemon, sitting still half full on the table. It’s just a millisecond but I see it. I can feel Lucy’s eyes on me as she drains her Prosecco in readiness for the next.

“Don’t you ever drink?” she asks in that way people have. As if she can’t think of anything more tragic.

“Oh Steph thinks drinking is beneath her. Turns people into idiots. Isn’t that what you said, babe?” Gavin’s back from the bar handing out drinks with his big grin. He pushes his face into mine, his beery breath making me want to turn away. But I don’t. “Look what I’ve got,” he winks, thrusting a cherry speared on a cocktail stick towards my lips. “Come on Steph, loosen up it’s a party.”

I hear Lucy laughing nervously as Gavin mischievously pops the cherry into his own mouth. His lips, cold and wet, smash into mine, “See what I mean, Luce?” His eyes offer up a secret to Lucy, who looks uncomfortable despite her Prosecco fuelled giggles. “My wife’s frigid. It’s like being married to a nun – not even a little kiss.” It’s starting already – the serpent’s moving, getting stirred up as if someone’s poking at it with a stick. It won’t be long and good old Gav will hardly be able to keep it contained.

He’ll fight it though, keep it subdued. At least until the party’s over. Once we’re in the taxi it will all become too much for him and we’ll ride home in a charged, heavy silence. The three of us, me, good old Gav and the serpent. He’ll rally, one last time, as he pays the baby sitter and waves her off with his signature wink and then there’ll be no more good old Gav.

He’ll punch and kick until the poison’s been bled and then the serpent will slither away, back to its hiding place. He’ll go to bed and sleep like a baby and I can get on with sorting out the girls’ things. They’re going to a party tomorrow and Amelia’s counting on me getting all the sequins sewn onto her princess costume.

Recurrent Fictional Characters

I read a really interesting blog post the other day, which suggested that writers tend to recreate different versions of the same character. (If I was really good at this and organised, I would have noted the relevant source so that you could read it yourself. Unfortunately, I'm not and I didn't). Anyway, it got me thinking and I have to confess that I’m guilty as charged. 

The character that appears recurrently in my writing, albeit in different forms, is the feckless mother. When my friend's husband read one of my novels, he offered the observation that the mother in it was her mother. I don't know her mother but my friend assumed that we must have mothers who are very similar. Sadly I had to disappoint her. 

I think I subconsciously created the wild and feckless mother as the one I always wanted but certainly didn't get. My own mother is a very serious woman, who doesn't drink alcohol, eat to excess, or do anything that could point to a lack of control. We have a very complex relationship. Even as an adult, I find it impossible to acknowledge any failings in her presence and I keep so much of myself hidden from her. 

It's a shame because I have a great deal to thank her for. My mother is the reason that both my sister and I are independent, successful women. She valued independence above all and it was at the core of everything she taught us. It's not hard to understand why; my mother married very young and submerged all of her own hopes and dreams into being a wife and mother. She always claimed that it was the only thing she ever wanted out of life but we all knew that she was living a lie. She loved my dad and us kids more than anything but she resented having subjugated her own life for us

A very intelligent and creative woman, my mother can turn her hand to anything. She is a talented artist and dressmaker with a real flair for design. However, she had to make do with a lifetime of hobbies and, no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, it wasn't enough. My mother, like so many of her generation, was a woman out of time. Had she been born a decade or so later, I have no doubt that she would have been amazing. 

She’s in her late sixties now and finally achieving some of the things I’m sure she always secretly dreamed of. She teaches literacy and numeracy to adults, who for whatever reason missed out on an education. She runs a women's group, offering a wide range of activities designed to help women feel empowered and in control of their own lives. She’s also the most well read woman I know. All this has been bitter sweet for her, as it was the death of my dad, her childhood sweetheart and the love of her life which propelled her out of the home. 

She always says that she would give up everything she has since achieved in a heartbeat to have my dad back and I believe her. She’s a strong, courageous woman and I’m really proud of her but she is not the recurrent mother figure that I write about. Maybe she should be.